Category Archives: HUMILITY

What Do You Mean, PRACTICING Christian? 101715

Sandhill Cranes in Flight at Sunrise Panoramic ViewBack on August 16, 2015, I wrote a post called  “Making Disciples”.  The last  paragraph said, “Did you notice that I haven’t said anything about talking to these ‘friends’ about Jesus.  After you develop a relationship with them, if you’re a practicing Christian, Jesus will just start flowing through you to them, and touching their hearts, whether you are trying to make disciples of them or not.  ‘Course that brings up the question of what does ‘practicing’ mean?  But that’s a question for another day.”

Well today is the day to discuss some of what ‘practicing’ means.  Let’s see, you know practicing, as in ‘practicing’ attorney?  I happen to be an attorney, and that’s a scary thought.  When are they going to finish practicing and start ‘being’ one?  Or practicing medicine.  What’s the time line for rising to the level of actually DOING it? In those cases, sounds like practicing may be a cover for seldom knowing for sure what is exactly the right thing to do.  Try something and see if it works.  If not, try something else.

Practicing Christian shall be deemed to be “one who is a follower of Jesus”.  Follower in the Bible is often translated disciple, or ‘one who is taught’ (student).  Continue reading

Advertisement

THE WORD GOD HAS PLANTED.071615

Mother and daughter planting flowers together.“So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.” NLT

Most of my life, in fact until this very morning, I have read this passage from James 1, verses 21-27, and I’ve focused on 22-25, where it talks about being doers of the Word and not hearers only, about how if you don’t do what the Word says, you’re like a man who looks at himself in the mirror and as soon as he turns away, he forgets what he looked like.  Almost exactly the same guy that Jesus talked about when he said, “A man who hears My Words and does what I say is a wise man, who built his house on a rock, but a man who hears My Words and doesn’t do them is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  He’s a fool!  Matt. 7:24-27.

But today, I really saw and paid attention to verse 21 for the very first time, and God said, “The word God has planted in your hearts” is the real meat of this passage.  Continue reading

REAL FAITH.060515

In Mark 7:26-30: it says,  “The woman was a Greek, [a non-Jew from Phoenicia in Syria] and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” Christ preaching on shores of Lake Galilee. Stained glass. And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”  Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.”

So Jesus says, “It’s just not right to take the blessings that belong to the Jews and indiscriminately throw them to the outsiders.”  And the woman, being a non-Jew, is referred to as a dog, to her face.  It’s almost as if Jesus is trying to rile her; to see if she’s serious about getting the blessing she seeks.  She must be serious; ‘cause she completely ignores the personal attack and says, in effect, “I don’t care what you say about me; I just want you to help my daughter.”  (She knows that her pride and her ego don’t matter, when her daughter’s life is at stake.)

To me that’s the message of this story: When we have enough faith in Jesus, we too will let nothing (even our selfish pride) stand in the way of our trusting Him.  When we do that, He will help us; and He will get a kick out of our faith and our spunk, just as He did with this woman.

THE GOD PRINCIPLE.060415

Boy celebrating mother's day. little child lad giving flowers yellow tulips to his mom mother studio shot on blue

In Psalm 18:25-27, David says, “With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; with the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.  For You will save the humble people, but will bring down haughty looks.”  In Matthew 5:3-12, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed (happy) are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Blessed are the meek (the humble) for they shall inherit the earth.” Continue reading

OUT OF THE DARK, INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT.051615

[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

Kairos-A Christian.051415

[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

[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

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

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD. 051015

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

BE LIKE JESUS. 042815

Teacher talking with students in the clasroomIn Matthew 10:24-25, Jesus said, “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.  It is enough that the student be like his teacher, and a servant be like his master.”  Like it says in Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind (this attitude) be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”  (That’s humble and willing to serve)  I pray these verses for you and me.  I pray we can BE LIKE JESUS.  That will definitely change our lives.