Home » Posts tagged 'God’s Spirit' (Page 27)
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I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 5, 2019 – I travel a lot. There are a few things that always go with me on my travels, like my hairdryer and my kettle. My hairdryer I use for any number of purposes, such as to heat a cold room or melt cheese on my sandwich or – very occasionally – to dry my hair, but my kettle I just use as a kettle.
Like most of my belongings, my kettle has seen better days. But while it still works, it will be put to work.
This morning, my trusty old kettle stopped working. After five years of nearly daily labor, it just stopped. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but it was still stubbornly still. No gurgle and pop-pop-pop to indicate it was on its way to a boil. No heat. No steam rising.
Nothing. (more…)
URGENCY!
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 5, 2019 – After Jesus launched his ministry, he was filled with a constant sense of urgency in his mission. He even worked on the Sabbath, which was such a big no-no to the Jewish powers-that-be that they got in his face about it. But Jesus pointed out that if an animal belonging to one of them fell into a ditch, surely they’d break the Sabbath to rescue it, and by that same token people who’ve fallen into spiritual ditches and have been suffering there for years also need immediate rescue, even on a Sabbath. The Jewish ptb didn’t have the same sense of urgency to help people that Jesus had and it showed in their superficial application of God’s laws, so when Jesus told them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, they considered it to be heresy rather than God’s truth.
Maybe not you, but most Christians today have lost their sense of urgency when it comes to hauling people up out of spiritual holes. Jesus never took time off other than to eat and sleep. His focus was 100% on his ministry work because he had a sense of urgency that this work was all that mattered. If we as Jesus’ followers are supposed to model him in all ways, why do we not have a sense of urgency to get the message out to repent and believe the gospel? (more…)
ARE YOU LOW LIKE JOHN THE BAPTIST OR HIGH LIKE JESUS?
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 29, 2019 – The relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus goes much deeper than mere blood. They were cousins, but we only hear of them interacting in the womb, at Jesus’ baptism, and then shortly before John’s beheading. We can assume that, as cousins, they spent time together growing up and then later, as young men, probably passionately debated scriptures, with Jesus (the younger by a few months) likely besting his older cousin at every turn. At Jesus’ baptism at the River Jordan, John is obviously in awe of his younger cousin and openly considers himself to be so low as to not even to be worthy to put Jesus’ sandals on his feet. When John tells Jesus that he should be the one getting baptized, Jesus gently chides him to go ahead with the baptism in order to fulfill scripture. We catch there a glimpse of the younger cousin again schooling his older cousin.
Jesus calls John the greatest of those born of women, but then also calls him lowest in the kingdom (that is, born of the Spirit). What did Jesus mean by that? It almost sounds like an insult, just as John sending his disciples to Jesus to ask if he were actually “the one” sounds like an insult. Did the cousins have a falling-out that is not recorded in scripture? (more…)
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT DEATH
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 24, 2019 – Death is a funny old thing.
We all have to face it sooner or later, but most people spend their lives either pretending death doesn’t exist or doing everything in their power to prevent it.
Born-agains, on the other hand, actually look forward to death the way Jesus looked forward to death because death means an end to our labours and a release from our pain-prone body and the anti-Christ world that hates us. (more…)
GRAB YOUR WHIPS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BECAUSE YOU STILL CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 18, 2019 – Have you lost your way?
Christianity has lost its way, just as assuredly as the Jews in Jesus’ day had lost their way.
Most Christians use Old Testament measures to gauge prosperity – wealth, health, and longevity – even though Jesus was poor, famished, and died young.
Most Christians also point to the importance of having strong family ties, even though Jesus told us that our worst enemies will be those under our own roof, and that your real family are those who do the will of God, whether they’re related to you by blood or marriage or not.
There’s a profound disconnect between what is being sold to us as Christianity and what Jesus demonstrated as Christianity.
These disconnects are temptations, and we need to see them as such. (more…)
LOOK BACK WITH LOVE
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, August 22, 2019 – Being born again is a definitive marker in a person’s history. It is that “moment outside of time” when the spirits of the world are cast out and God’s spirit enters in. The entrance of God’s spirit into a soul means that the soul has come to life, as there is no life outside of God.
You literally become a new person not by your own hand but by God’s.
But this new person still lives in the world, with all its decay, filth, and problems. Even worse, the possibility to go back to one’s “old ways” is constantly a temptation not because the old ways are better than God’s ways but because they’re familiar and habitual. Familiarity and habit are strong temptations, if they’re against God. When you become born again, you need to establish new God-centered familiarities and habits, but that takes time. (more…)
BUS STOP VIRGINS
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, October 5, 2018 – I was on a local bus yesterday, heading into Niagara Falls.
After the driver had stopped to pick up some passengers and was pulling away from the curb, four young women (college students, I think) came running towards the bus, waving their arms and yelling for the driver to stop. The driver shook his head, stepped on the gas, and merged into traffic.
The last I saw of the women, they were standing at the stop, shaking their heads in frustration and staring at their phones.
It reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins.
I think it goes something like this: (more…)
JOY IN SERVING GOD
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, October 4, 2018 – Someone asked me today why his life was going so miserably when he had invested everything he had into what he saw as doing God’s will. He attended Bible college, he prayed “three times a day”, he gave to charities, he lived soberly and chastely – and yet, he felt no joy and no connection with God, and now he even feels suicidal and wants to throw it all in.
This strikes at the heart of what it means to be “Christian”. Jesus dealt with this same issue with some of his early followers, as have other prophets over the millennia. Why give everything up for God when all you seem to get back is poverty and abuse? (more…)
TAKE IT
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, August 1, 2017 – There are only two ways: The right way and the wrong way.
There is no third way.
Something cannot be a little bit right or a little bit wrong: it is simply either right or wrong.
If there is any measure of wrong in a thing, then it is wrong.
If there is no measure of wrong in a thing, then it is right.
A REMINDER FROM JESUS (more…)
QUEER
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, July 2, 2017 – That sinking feeling when you realize your time is up. No reprieve. Your bags are packed. Your ride’s at the door. Better not to look around. Better not to savor the view one last time. Better not to let your gaze linger on the cheerful kitchen, the comfy bed. You have to leave. This is not your home. You have to leave… and then it hits you (yet again) that you never really had a home. (more…)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 