Author Archives: Tex Tonroy

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About Tex Tonroy

husband, dad, g-dad. love-Jesus youth prisoners strays orphans and widow-women. author teacher preacher counselor and coach about Life.

ALL ABOUT ATTITUDE.051815

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Group of people sitting in a circle. Hugging each otherYesterday we had Sunday School for youth at our church.  The discussion was loosely based on the Lectionary.  We discussed two passages in particular, one was Jesus’ prayer in John 17, where He says, “I pray that they (the disciples) may all be one.  As I am one with You Father, and You are one with Me, they may be one with Us, that the world may know that You sent me.” The other passage was Psalm 1, verses 1-3, where David says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His Law does he meditate both day and night.  He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”

We talked a little about what it means to “be one” with God.  About how if we trust God, His own Spirit comes to live in our own hearts, and in a real sense, we are all one with Jesus and God because we all share the same Spirit.  We even talked a little about how when Jesus’ Spirit comes to live in our hearts, we have a change of the way we look at things, the way we feel about things, so that we are better able to DO what we’re supposed to in a spiritual sense and in a natural sense as well, because God is supernaturally moving in our hearts and our lives. Continue reading →

OUT OF THE DARK, INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT.051615

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[Excerpts from the Kairos Talk, ‘A Christian’]

DIverse People Holding Text Church

After I came to Houston, I spent 10 years living in the dark.  The dark of running away, trying to hide from God.  The dark of being a criminal defense lawyer.  The dark of trying desperately to figure out what to do about my estranged wife.  The dark of finally getting a divorce.  I still wasn’t really looking for God, but I was getting real beat up, and desperately seeking help.  And crazy as it seems, Jesus was still there.

I started going to church; and praying; and reading and studying the Bible.  I got involved in a Sunday School class and met some guys that were involved in Kairos, and after that I just sorta took off.  I got closer and closer to God. I began to realize what it meant to experience the mercy of Jesus. I started to realize what God really wanted me to do with my life.  You want to hear what it is?  He wants me to seek His Face every day; to talk to Jesus; to commune with the Holy Spirit; to listen to what He says and try to do it, on a moment by moment basis. Continue reading →

THE BIG ‘S’ and the little ‘s’. 051505

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[This is an excerpt from the Kairos talk ‘A Christian’]

Off-road on difficult road after rain

I want to tell you a little something about sin.  There’s two kinds of sin; there’s the Big ‘S’, and the little ‘s’.  The little ‘s’ is all the things we usually think of as sins, like lying, cheating and stealing, and sleeping with your neighbor’s wife; even murder, falls under this category.  While murder is a big sin, it’s on a completely different level from the Big “S”.  The Big S is Sin with a capital “S”.

The Big S is the letter that begins the word Self.  Seems like Self is the biggest obstacle standing between us and God.  The Big S is also the first letter of Satan.  I hate to capitalize Satan’s name, but it’s his name.  Let me tell you what happened to Satan.  He was one of God’s favorite angels, he was called Lucifer, the angel of light.  Our Hispanic brothers know La Luz is the light, and that was Satan’s name.  Continue reading →

Kairos-A Christian.051415

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[This is an excerpt from the Kairos talk “A Christian”]

the Good SamaritanLOVE is about mercy and forgiveness; Mercy is being nice to someone (cuttin’ them a little slack) even when they deserve to be punished.  That’s what God does for us.

Forgiveness is what love is in practice.  It’s what happens when we love people enough to forgive them, even when they are wrong and we’re right; even when no one is looking and it won’t help us a bit.  Forgiveness is the evidence of mercy in our individual personal relationships.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4, it says ‘Love is patient.’  In the King James version of the Bible, and in the original Greek the verse says, “Love suffers long.”  That means if you really love someone, you put up with them.  I’m thinking about my kids when they were teenagers.  It means that you put up with them, even though you’ve told them 15 times what you expect, and they’re still doing it wrong, very likely on purpose and not accidentally.  That’s what it means when it says love suffers long. Continue reading →

WHAT? A CHRISTIAN? WHO IS THAT? 051315

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[The following is an excerpt from the Kairos Talk: A Christian]

Silhouette illustration of a man praying under the lightWhen we follow Jesus, we learn to love, because Jesus is in our hearts. We begin to see with Jesus’ eyes, and hear with Jesus’ ears, and feel with Jesus’ heart.  We’re not struggling to love others, to love ourselves and to love God, because Jesus’ Spirit is inside our hearts loving others through us.

So how in the world do we reach the point of having Jesus live His eternal life in us?  We have to give up.  We have to quit trying to do good and do right and never make mistakes.  If you finally get that message, that you can’t do it on your own, you can’t do it in your own power, you cannot possibly be good enough to satisfy God, and you accept the gift of Jesus’ death on the cross, and surrender yourself to Him, THEN you can start the journey of following Jesus.

Here’s the central message of this talk.   We’re all a bunch of pieces of manure.  We stink.  And what’s worse, we’re not getting any better.  It’s not hard to see that without God we’re not going to make it out of here alive.  And I don’t mean this prison.  I mean this life, my life, your life, in this world.  The only way we’re going to make it is if we humble ourselves and accept Jesus as our Savior, and start letting Jesus live His life in us.

A CHRISTIAN: 051215

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concepts of the fruits of the Spirit as from Galatians 5:22

This is the first part of the Kairos talk, A CHRISTIAN: I call it “How to Quit Struggling and Start Walking the Walk and Talking the Talk.” Luke 9:23-24, says, “If anyone would be My disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”  Just so you’ll know; the word disciple means follower.  So if you want to be a follower of Jesus, what do you have to do?  Three things: 1] Deny yourself, 2] Take up your cross daily, and 3] Follow Jesus. Continue reading →

OBSTACLES TO GOD’S GRACE: 051115:

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FARMER WITH CORN.051115‘Obstacles’ is the next to the last talk on the Kairos Weekend Program in the prisons.  “We’ve been talking all weekend about God’s plan for our lives.  Let me tell you what His plan is for us; to surrender ourselves to Him.  To do whatever He wants us to on a minute by minute basis.  To accept the gift of His grace and share it with others.  Pretty simple; but it’s not easy.

What is Grace?  It is unmerited favor.  That means God being nice to us when we didn’t deserve it.  Grace is a lot like mercy, Mercy is God being nice to us when we deserved to be punished. Continue reading →

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD. 051015

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love . wallpaperThis is from a Kairos talk called “Friendship with God”.  I want to start by telling you a Bible verse.  It’s Proverbs 3:5-6.  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”  That’s my verse.  That’s the verse I live by every day.  Trusting in God is the focus of my life.  The part about not leaning on your own understanding is harder, since I’m always trying to figure out why stuff happens; and a lot of times, God doesn’t tell me the why.  So I just have to trust.  Remember, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,  .   .   . and He will direct your path.”

What is a friend? Is it somebody who agrees with me all the time and takes my side on every issue?   Not necessarily. In fact they may disagree, if they see me doing or saying something which might hurt me.  Friendship is about trust. Trust is progressive.  It grows through experience.  When you find someone you can trust, you want to spend time with them; to figure out ways to agree with them most of the time; to do what they suggest, sometimes even when it seems crazy.  When you really get to trusting them, you really don’t lean on your own understanding.  You sorta accept them and what they say at face value, without really thinking about it. Continue reading →

CHOICES. 050815

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Fork roads horizon with grass and blue sky

The introductory talk in the Kairos program for the brothers in white in the prison is called ‘Choices’.  The person chosen to make this talk (in fact all talks in Kairos) is given certain points to make during the talk, but there are two basic guidelines for every talk.  1] Write it and give it in your own words, and 2] give a personal testimony that relates to the subject matter.  While in Kairos we are primarily concerned with talking to the participants about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in the ‘Choices’ talk, we are specifically directed NOT to say anything about God or religion or the Bible in this talk.  We just want to get them to think, to think about themselves and their past, to think about how their past choices have affected their lives.  It’s like parents raising their children.  In order for the child to grow up to be a responsible, productive citizen, on a natural level, they need to understand the principle of cause and effect.  “If you do this, this will happen; if you do that, that will happen.”  If we do good things, good things will result.  If we do bad things, bad things will result.  Continue reading →

WALKING IN GOD’S GRACE.050715

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[The following are excerpts from a Kairos talk called “Walking in God’s Grace”.]                  Religious Words on Grunge BackgroundI wish I could tell you that living the Christian life, after you really commit to God, is going to be easy, that you’re going to feel God’s presence every day, more and more; that you’re going to be obedient, that you’re not going to do anything stupid, that you’re going to trust God all the time, that you’re going to love everybody and they’re going to love you; that there’s going to be a steady shining light in your life all the time and no more darkness.  Sorry, it’s just not going to be all sweetness and light, because we’re all still a bunch of sinners.

Let’s say that because of this Kairos weekend, everybody here has made a commitment to Jesus.  We’ve had good food and good fellowship; we’ve felt God’s unconditional love through the brothers, both those from inside and those from outside the prison; and we’re excited about the prospect of going back out in the world to share Jesus with other people out there in the dark.  How are we going to do that?  We can’t.  Why can’t we?  We’re heard the message; we’ve accepted it; we’ve made a commitment to Jesus; and He’s definitely made a commitment to us (to each one of us).  So what is holding us back? Continue reading →