Category Archives: OBEDIENCE

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 →

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 →

FORGIVENESS CEREMONY.050615

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forgive yourselfIn the Kairos program we focus a lot of attention on forgiveness.   We do it for two reasons: 1] because in the Bible Jesus devotes  a lot of attention to it; and 2] because in the prisons, there are a lot of people who really need it.

To bring this subject into focus: in Matthew 6:9-15, the Lord’s Prayer, forgiveness is a major point of the whole prayer.  In verse 12, it says, “Forgive us our trespasses (sins, debts) as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  And we usually think the prayer ends with verse 13, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.  For Yours is the kingdom .  .”

But that’s not really the end, because immediately, without taking a breath, Jesus adds, “If you forgive others their trespasses, then God will forgive you; but if you don’t forgive others, then He won’t forgive you.’  (Isn’t it interesting that He doesn’t make any comments about any other verses in the prayer, only about forgiveness.) Continue reading →

DELIVERANCE TO THE PRISONERS . 050515

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Abandoned Jail in TallinnIn Luke 4:16-20, is the story of when, shortly after Jesus returned from His temptation wilderness, He first appeared in the synagogue at Nazareth to announce His ministry.  It goes like this: ‘And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

In a number of places in the New Testament, Jesus says that those who believe (trust) in Him will receive the Holy Spirit (That’s Jesus’ Spirit), like John 7:39; John 20:22;  and Acts 1:8; I take these verses to mean that because you and I trust Jesus, His Spirit lives in us too, and the passage in Luke quoted above applies to us, just as it applied (applies) to Jesus.  We too are to proclaim deliverance to the prisoners.   Continue reading →