We were at the University of Utah for the eclipse. Really good. In Cincinnati where we were preaching at the second largest Octoberfest in the world. Just amazing ministry. So much suffering. So many lost souls. So many people from all walks of life, young and old, coming up to us. So many stories of pain. So thankful to be there to bridge the gap with reconciliation and touch their pain with His love and hope.

At the Detroit Lions football game, and often in many places, sharing the gospel is just very tough grunt work of standing for hours and sharing with sometimes only a few. Sex, drugs and rock n roll can’t heal the soul. They can’t patch the wounds or fears. No eternal substance. No invisible Messiah. They offer no Father’s hand to hold. No shoulder upon which to lean. All this sounds so obvious but why then do millions from around the country and world flock to a beer festival? No matter how much they drink, no answers are found in this “holy” beverage. Of course, it does cause worse problems. Abraham and Ruth also had an amazing witness in Dayton, Ohio which is the opioid capital of the U.S.

Paul says “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this … that One died for all therefore, all died…so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him…”(2 Cor. 5:14ff). Why is this so hard to “conclude”? Pride. Stinking old smelly pride. We think we are something. The Father loves us enough to break us so we can see that we are nothing. There is not one iota of our flesh that is any different than any wicked man. Christ does not make one cell in our body “better”. But no matter how much He loves us in such ways He always leaves it up to us to choose our response.

Have you ever stopped to realize life on this earth is absolutely meaningless? Have you “concluded”, yet that you are “worthless” (Rm.3.12)? From a doctor, lawyer or president, every walk of life and accomplishment means nothing in light of eternity. The world calls many very wicked men heroes because they do some good act. In light of eternity, no matter how “good” the act, it means nothing. It’s great that people help people but it won’t get anyone to heaven. If good works could get a man to heaven, Jesus would never have had to come to earth and suffer torture. All that matters is the gospel of Jesus because this is eternal.

I have “concluded” that I am nothing. I will never be liked, popular or well known. I fully accept I will never have any friends or home or medical or financial security. Just won’t happen. I have “concluded”, none of it is worth the effort to achieve. I am weak, tired, and frail. But I can talk about Jesus, carry a sign, and walk. I am worthless; because I was born this way.

I fully understand people’s rejection and accusations. I don’t blame them one bit. I love them. I accept that I contradict everything this world says is acceptable. I have, and am, absolutely nothing in this world. I represent nothing people want, because who wants nothing? I will never have a respected “ministry” or be asked to speak somewhere. Everything I do, and everywhere I go, is up to me.

No, this is not some self-pity “Poor me”, rant. Actually, it is my greatest joy. Paul says he boasts only in the cross, and in his weakness (2Cor.12:5/Gal.6:14).  No schedule, no identity, no respect, no life… but eternal life (Jn.12:25). How God longs for a son who would be willing to learn to be led by His Spirit rather than the dictates of this world.  I could never have imagined the living Jesus. All these things, and many, many more, have brought me to “conclude” that the only thing that matters, is “that I might no longer live for myself but for Him”. The only thing I can do that matters, is to bring eternal life to someone else.

You’d think such a confession would be that of some very miserable and depressed dude. Quite the opposite. Having nothing, in Christ, means having everything, because He is all in all. His comfort is immeasurable. In my saddest hours, He is there. In my most lonely times, Jesus loves me. His love has met me, in countless times, and places where I have given up. Where my mind is torn, He holds me in His arms. I love the Lord because He hears my prayers. When the ego is smashed Christ is unleashed. Brokenness is such a treasure. It just makes so much sense, that this is the one thing that God does NOT despise (Psalms 51:17). I am a broken and dead man and I love Him so.

How do we find the Father’s care and love? How do we learn to love complete strangers, when we ourselves are subject, like all men, to a nature of laziness and selfishness? These two issues are the very essence of the two commandments Jesus says to sum up salvation: to love God with everything and to love your neighbor as yourself (Lk.10:27). Wow. But how? This is no little demand. Impossible, in fact.

Ya, I know, it’s so easy to grumble and complain, against the Lord, that He just doesn’t help you. Day after day, then it turns into year after year, “God, where are You. Why don’t you help me?”. I don’t mean to be insensitive, “spiritual” or to put an undo burden on anyone. Please, my friend, don’t read this like it’s just me, beating the same old drum. I’m no “expert” on these things, I just know they work. Don’t you see this is God’s love? This is not one of many.  There is only one answer to all the struggles we face in our sinful nature; loneliness, unbelief, guilt, lust, pride, regret, depression, grief, past sin, etc. One answer; the cross.You must come to realize what it means.

Jesus repeatedly says a man must die (Mt.16:24/Mk.8:34/Lk.9:23/Jn.12:25). Paul writes over and over, continually in his letters (Phil.3:10/Rm.8:17/Col.3:3/2 Tim.2:11) and a whole chapter in Romans 6 to clearly state that death to self is salvation; IF we are united with Him in death we shall know His life. This is the answer guys. This is the resolution to all your struggles and prayers. Just “reckon” all your garbage dead with Christ 2000 years ago.  God’s Solution is right in front of your nose in His Word. Don’t look away (Jn.3:14). Don’t assume you already “did it”. Start with a mustard seed of faith. You have no idea the reward that awaits you.

There is only one thing that makes it “difficult” for you. It is the degree to which pride controls you. You think you know better. You don’t. It’s not like you have to go through a physical crucifixion. Reach deep. Give in. What do you “conclude”?  It doesn’t start out with trying to prove how much you love God, but rather believing how much He loves you, that He won’t leave you stranded (1 Jn.4:10/Rm.5:8). He will meet you where you’re at. Do something different. Find a new response within your heart. Find the stillness of your individual spirit. Nobody will know. It’s between you and the God Whom you will stand alone before. To die to self is not a herculean self-work. Just the opposite.

In a sense, it is doing nothing, because this is all that a dead man can “do”. It is admitting the full scope of your nothingness. It is worthy of death. What does it mean to really believe this like Abraham (Rm.4)?

The lies Satan has to launch against us are far more destructive than the US arsenal of nuclear weapons, and more numerous than the books in the Library of Congress. “Day and night”. He is relentless and peppers our mind with reasons not to trust Jesus (Rev.12:10, 1Pt.5:8). This is why Paul says he takes “every” thought captive (2 Cor.10:3-5). It is not a warfare that ceases or fades. It is full of failure but also faith that Jesus says forgiveness is “70 x 7” (Mt.18:22) . At times the warfare is moment by moment until you grow into a larger scope of resolution. Just think of how you would feel if you could clearly see Satan speaking to you.

I want to walk gently and circumspectly. I know that everything matters, in regards to how I think, because it determines my future. So I must walk absolutely contrite (Micah 6:8, Ps.517). When you hunt a deer, you must use stealth. Every step you take can determine what happens. One foot breaking a branch or crackling leaves will spook the deer. Thus it is with learning to become a son and to master yourself.  The Lord will teach you to discern between soul (self), and the Spirit (Heb.4:12). Our heart is more deceitful than anything in the world (Jer.17:9). Paul says he is aware of every thought that comes into his mind because our very selves, our body of pride and mind of sin, conspire to rob and destroy us.

No matter how much you search for an answer, it always comes down to the degree you know the Father’s love for you.

How do all the particulars (atonement, mercy, forgiveness, faith, grace, understanding, etc.) of His love, wrapped up in the work of Jesus, now come to us today? Surely you already know “God is Love”, and will heartily agree with this concept. But does this practically change your life? Do you realize what an enemy you are of the cross? How do you deal with it? In lawlessness or proud self-righteousness? How about neither? Paul says our goal in life, is to “being rooted and grounded in love to be able to comprehend …the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…” (Eph. 3:17ff). He loves you no matter what, but requires you to be broken to experience His love. Unless your pride (sin)  is broken, you will never how to die with Christ.

Imagine if you could instantly counter Satan’s lies with truth because you were so grounded in knowing the Father’s love. If you are not rooted and grounded in love, you will never be able to build and expand upon an understanding of the Father’s love for you. Imagine being so disciplined as to have your impulses trained, not to react out of the flesh, but to respond in the Spirit.

I have no air valve that I fill with God’s love. No pill. No button. There is no way, other than to choose to initiate dying to self. This is love. Sorry, guys. No little prayer. Obedience. It is tough at times, but the joy from obedience is a fountain of life. The cross is not a matter of abstract theory. It is seen and proven in time and space. It was real. It is real. Paul proved it “I have been crucified….” (Gal.2:20) . There is just no other way to live, than to die.

The disciples were no brain surgeons. The concept of dying to self is as common to all men as breathing. Coaches, athletes, businessmen, politicians all talk of “dying to self”; “I’m dead to you”, “I died to that”. I have heard many football coaches talk of how they had to die to family times, in order to prepare for a game of fame (a bit warped). Rich men get rich because they know well how to deny themselves. They “deny themselves” constantly to ‘make a buck’.

Sorry. No excuses. Everybody understands death. Death is death. It’s the utter end. No more place to live. Denying yourself is denying yourself. In the blink of an eye, you can die. Stop. End. No more. Of course, if you don’t have real access to Christ, it’s pointless. Sure, you’re going to fail and rebel, but you “conclude” and resolve you don’t want to initiate a life for yourself, but for Jesus. It is faith that separates the decision of dying WITH CHRIST from the pagan dying to self to live for self.

We are preparing to go back to work in the prisons in Brazil in two months. The transition of tracts and signs from Spanish to Portuguese is no small work. But the image of those men suffering is etched in our hearts and minds, and propels us on. We are very excited. Seeing the power of God’s love is the other side of dying to self. It is the reward. The things we have seen are just beyond amazing. To actually change lives into eternal life is the greatest joy God offers. Jesus said the same (Jn.4).

We have faced great danger in facing prison gangs, but love is so profound. Sarah did pick up a 3rd world bacteria last time we were there, from which she has been suffering quite seriously for many months. And Ruth also bears a tough time walking due to the steel rod in her leg. I too have been dealing with something weird in my head that causes vertigo and sometimes, I stop breathing in my sleep. Maybe due to a lot of brain trauma over the years.But nothing compared to the multitudes suffering from so many things, all alone.

We are so grateful that God enabled us to continue to minister effectively even while working full-time, most of the time working two or three jobs, by taking time off here and there. We were able to reach throughout Asia on an extended trip to China, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines all for the first time. We reached hundreds of thousands in Seoul’s largest gathering ever, the largest street crossing in the world in Japan and some horrible prisons in Manila and even touched Shanghai. We also reached many events here in the States, including about 5-7 million when the Cubs won the Series, events in Texas and Seattle, many universities across the country as well as the Presidential Inauguration.

If we can be of help to anyone in anyway, please feel free to contact us. We also have a new music CD and a beautiful new track, if anyone would like, just ask, and we will send them to you freely. God bless any person who reads this. He loves you so much.

“Come Lord Jesus. We await. Mount your white horse.”

(Greetings. Before we get started just a side note here, Music is so huge. God can use it to open our spirit to His revelation. If I might suggest to check out the new music CD we just finished writing in Logic. If it doesn’t help you let me know, I’ll send your ten dollars back. Any money helps us reach the lost  (see bottom of blog). Maybe it will help you, like it helps us. This music is fully appreciated, for how I made it, by using headphones. There are microsounds that are hard to hear without them. The new CD is available at: www.itunes.com/theancientboom )

Imagine walking down a shoreline and coming across a familiar boat that has obvious signs it has been abandoned. You call out to a little boy playing nearby and ask him if he might know what happened to the owner. The boy says “Oh, you mean Peter? He left his boat to follow the carpenter”.

You recall an earlier time  on the beach when you saw Peter engaged in an intense conversation with someone. Prior to that Peter was excited and was telling a small crowd how he had finally paid off a boat he cherished. You wonder out loud “Why would he suddenly then sacrifice his boat to follow a carpenter?”. The little boy smiles “Jesus was no ordinary carpenter”.

Many who met Jesus did similar “illogical” things in response to His touch.

He calls us not to conform to a religion or try to emulate a pious lifestyle.  He promises a “magic”called the Holy Spirit, by which He, transforms a man into a life-giving compassionate person. “I will make you a fisher of men” He promised a self-centered Peter. The living Jesus comes to men in the midst of what they like to do and  offers something far greater to do (Mt.12:6,41).

I was consumed with football in college. Peter was fishing. One woman was a prostitute. Matthew was ripping people off. Paul was a self-righteous “somebody”. One soldier was tormented by guilt. A thief on a cross was at his utter end.

I have talked to many older men; coaches, business executives, car salesmen, doctors, etc. They say “I wasted my whole life on a job. If only I had it to do over”.  So common. Nothing new in this world. Just going through the motions. What you did yesterday will be similar to today and what you do today will be similar to tomorrow. The curse of mundane existence dates back to the consequences of a guy named Adam making a wicked choice. It affects all men, causing a fisherman named Peter, and his buddies, to do some crazy stuff.

Imagine yourself setting out in a boat, about two o’clock in the morning with rough seas in a gathering storm. No, you’re not drunk. Just a bit bored and fool hearty. No one else knows what’s shaking your heart and consuming your mind. You’re not really thinking about fishing. 

Suddenly, you see someone appear walking on the water towards you.  Such a man named Peter should have reacted to the sensational nature of the incident. Instead, he revealed his soul was preoccupied with one burning issue; ‘Jesus, will you command me to come to You?’.

This was no allegory or fairy tale folks. Jesus is God. He yearns to show you. People say “You shouldn’t ‘test’ God”. He says “Ask and you shall receive” (Mt.7:7). He will come to you in any way, at any time, anywhere if you desire His reality. Peter did walk on water. But he lost his focus.  Jesus lifted him up and never gave up on him. Contrary to American Christianity, Jesus offers no career or insurance policy. No American Dream, retirement plan or 401K. Not even a title. His purpose is not for you to invest in becoming a successful professional working to make this fallen world a “better place”. His purpose is beyond this world (Eph.1:3-11).

My family and I are working very hard. We are battle warriors fighting on our terms, on so many fronts, for hurting people. We are not provoked by or compelled to respond to false accusations and banter. We do not speak when we should listen or listen when we must speak. We are set with laser focus, in these last days, on communicating true repentance and forgiveness of Jesus to all.

Somewhere in my big bald ugly head,  I know you and I could become good friends, even if you don’t agree with me, or are my most ardent enemy.

There is an adage ‘ The enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Satan is working against you, “day and night”,  behind the world around you. He uses sophisticated ways to manipulate our sin (pride) against us (Rev.12:9-12/Eph.6:12/2 Cor.2:11,10:3,11:3). 

It is amazing how quickly contentions dissipate when gaining an intelligent perspective on fighting this mutual enemy: “love covers a multitude of sin” (1 Pt.4:8).

Today, everyone talks so lightly about repentance and forgiveness. As if, by a whim or prayer, it can be snatched off a tree like an apple. As if Jesus really has nothing to do with getting “IT”. Just pray a “prayer” and get “IT”.

Imagine being given an in-depth code to a hidden multi-million dollar treasure. Everything depends on knowing the code. Would you take it lightly?  Jesus says true repentance and forgiveness is the key to have His message in your life as “GOOD news” (Lk. 24:47). Please, my friend, listen to me. You are not exempt from the influence of this culture of hypocrisy. So-called “Christians” refuse to humbly revisit their “foundation”. This, in and of itself, shows a “commitment” only to being stubborn, proud and lazy. I constantly revisit my foundation with a broken and contrite heart (Ps.51:17). It proves true repentance.

It’s not complicated. Quite the contrary. These things automatically transpire in a heart like Peter’s. If you reflect a similar response then surely there are no issues. The complexity is due to the inoculation of all “Christian” verbiage.  God gives explicit examples of how someone can search for repentance “with tears” but not find it (Heb.12:17). This is terrifying.

Paul warns of two kinds of sorrow (2 Cor.7:10). The first is typical guilt and shame. As a young Christian I would beg God for forgiveness, over and over and over, only to find that, after many years, this cycle of stagnancy never changed. True repentance results in a forgiveness that eliminates this morbid cycle and leads to real change and new life. It resolves your past, once and for all  (/Phil. 3:12-13/Gal.5:20).

Our sinful heart has so much junk going in and out of it, we don’t even realize how regret, over our life, sneaks in and lodges itself deep in our soul. It negatively affects all our thinking.  Out of nowhere weird thoughts and feelings can vex our mind into the sullen madness of sin. It’s like one of those zombie movies. Things you thought were long gone, and dead, come back to haunt you. It’s because you don’t know TR&F (true repentance and forgiveness). Sin was never killed. To die with Christ is repentance (Rm.6). It is the only means to comprehend the depths of supernatural forgiveness.

WHY STRIDE WHEN YOU CAN FREELY RIDE?

True repentance and forgiveness (TR&F) does not involve trying to make yourself a good person. TR&F sets you on the tracks of reality.  So many people think that walking down the tracks means they are on the train of salvation. They simply refuse to look into paying the price  to board The Train (Lk.14:26). They are content to think they can get “there” in their own way; “No thanks. I’m fine”.

The pride hidden behind self-pity is the most successful weapon in the arsenal of Satan. Most people think of self-pity as an innocent comfort zone. Satan fills your mind with an array of lies; ‘God can never forgive me. I know what I did is terrible and what I’ve had to go through is terrible. God does not love me. I deserve to pout. I’m on my own’. As if such thinking gives you a solid negotiating position to manipulate truth. Secret rebellion is as vile as any outward acts of Hitler. It is absolute defiance to faith in what He has revealed. Until you learn to deal with sin, as the evil that it is, it will continue to thwart you from TR&F. God deals with every person on earth in justice and righteousness.

Here’s a fact you probably won’t believe. 20 veterans a day commit suicide. Ever think about them? Never. Why? Everything is about you. Yet they represent everything you are dealing with. How?  I have met veterans who escaped death only to “be killed” in a battle with their mind. They could not withstand the onslaught of guilt, self-pity  and depression over what they did. All their life they feel isolated and alone which breeds self-pity. Repentance is an insult to them and forgiveness is shrugged off as too simplistic a solution. The same is true for everyone dealing with battle scars from the world; divorce, drug addiction, sexual perversion, parental scorn, etc.

Sin is the greatest “mystery” in the world (2 Thes.2:7). It has as many masks as there are people on the earth. No one can understand it. No one even talks about it. No one, but One, can conquer it.  I know this will sound extreme but the Scriptures reveal the root of all sin is our inborn hatred for God. I know you may not realize how everything we do, whether little or big, is an outcome of this motive. Jesus explains “there is no excuse for sin….they (all men) hate Me without reason” (Jn.15:25). We hate God for using His Law to expose us as utterly wicked.

The reason God does not act the way we want is because He is not the God we want. We want ourselves as god. However, He is the God He is; “I AM”. We are the ones who have fallen and must come to know and surrender to His revelation. The things we don’t understand are not an indictment against God but against our own stupidity and resistance to facing the magnitude of evil in us against Him.

When a man commits a crime legal experts search for a motive. Sin has no motive. It is illogical impulse provoked by unreasonable choices. It is the consequence of a THING within us. It is mindless rebellion. The never ending questions behind every sin are “Why or how could I?. It makes no sense.”

Sin is the most puzzling, vexing, avoided and offensive word in the human language.

My friend, listen to me, this can be a pivot point in your life here and now.  If you will expend the heart to understand these things you will repent and find true forgiveness. It is not a one-time act, but a lifetime of wonderful relationship. It is time to shake yourself out of the lethargic conformity to procrastination. Your life is flashing by like a bullet train. You can be different. You can change the world. I’m serious. It’s time to be intelligent, sincere of heart and utilize your will to believe God as a real solution to your personal dilemma. 

There are 7 billion victims of sin strewn across the battlegrounds of this world. Every place you look is overflowing with immense pain, prescription drugs, greed, insanity, and suffering. Do you really think this is the will of our loving Father? 

Jesus accomplished the phenomenal victory of rising from the dead  so we do not have to be subject to the garbage of this wicked world.

The “churches” today are a joke. They offer “lip service” of truth but live a lie (Mk.7:6/Mt.23). Their definition of “power” is sermon-hype. Jesus says the fruit of a tree shows it’s integrity (Mt.7:21). Ignorance of the Word result in sermons that replace the Holy Scriptures (Jesus says it is the “leaven”). Jokes and anecdotes are the “ear-tickling” ploy of wolves in sheep’s clothing. As a result, the “disciples” are as plastic and clueless as a bimbo media correspondent. This is not a bitter attitude but a prophetic warning over life or death end-time deception. This is no game. Today there are countless fools “preaching” about sin and their “holiness”. They have no idea what they are talking about. 

First of all, they define sin, as does the world, by a classification system. It classifies individuals as “evil people” based on outward behavior; killers, bank robbers, drug addicts, drunks, perverts etc. In God’s eyes everyone from the Pope to the child killer is the same. Jesus was killed by something no one classifies as “sin”; self-righteousness. 

People like to classify sin by outward behavior so they can feel self-righteous;  “Oh I could never do that. I’m just not that kind of person”. This is only further proof they are “that”; self-righteous. I talk to countless “Christians” whose self-righteousness is far worse than any prisoner I’ve met; “Oh I know I’m a sinner but I’m not that bad”. At least the prisoners admit the prison in which they are captive.  How many times have you heard on the news some local neighbor or family member of someone they “knew” say; “Oh he was not that kind of person. He could never have done that”?

The Bible defines several all-encompassing definitions of sin. It is “lawlessness”, “foolishness”, “knowing what is right and not doing it”, “anything not done from faith”, “all unrighteousness”, “haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked” and “the sting of death” (1 Jn.3:4/ Pr.24:9/Jam.4:17 /Rm.14:23/1 Jn.5:17/Pr.21:4/1 Cor.15:56).  Such definitions “shut the mouths” to all self-righteousness (Rm.3:19). From the pope to every prisoner all of us are subject to a powerful evil force within us rooted in the very blood of our human nature. We are wicked to the bone. 

My wife and I come from entirely different backgrounds. She was a “nice” beauty and I was, and am, the wicked beast. Yet, in the eyes of a holy God, we are the same. Sin is not in our personality. It is in our human nature. 

LAW MIRRORS SIN

A mirror shows you what you look like.  The Law is exactly the same (Jam.1:23-25).  You may think that you are not “that bad”. In the eyes of God, aside from the 10 commandments, there are ten thousand laws He has written, that specify the precise behavior He demands for companionship (Hosea 8:12). The mirror-effect of the Law works like this: It is written “Thou shalt not lust….” – reflection – you instantly “see” that you lust. Paul says “through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rm.3:10,20). The mirror reflects the wickedness of your wickedness  (Rm.7:13). We don’t have a hope in hell to be good enough for God.

I am constantly trying to prove to God that I’m not as bad as He says. “I CAN do what is right. Watch me God. For just one moment of time, watch, I’m going to do good.  Here it goes. There, I helped someone. I witnessed to someone. I didn’t swear. I didn’t get angry. See. I can do right.”  If only I could extinguish this cursed voice of pride within my soul. I can’t put a spear in it. I can’t tie up in a dog house. But the good part is coming; None of this is ME. God says “sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace”  (Rm.6:14).  Now, stay with me, you got to get this! 

Paul explains “where there is no law there is no violation” (Rm.4:15). So where is this “where”? It is “where”  Y O U are? Where I am, there is no law. Moses is not my Lord. I live, not by doing what he wrote but by what Jesus “wrote” in me (Jer.31:33). Not by trying to do, or be, right by the Law, but through “the magic code” of repentance and forgiveness; in truth and grace (Jn. 1:17).

From childhood, we are directed by what we should and shouldn’t do. This is the law written in our conscience (Rm.2:24). It is has been pulverized from the “nuclear fallout” of Adam’s sin. So it is by no means accurate, but still in tact to lead us to Christ. True repentance requires we yield our conscience to be “washed” so that our entire way of living “dies” and is crucified with Christ (Heb.10:22/Rm.6,8:3). A child of God is born of the Spirit and led by the Spirit, no longer the law of the conscience (Rm.8).

Paul explains that if being “right” comes by  DOING “right” then Jesus died for nothing (Gal.2:21). (Read Romans 8:1-3)

In the most basic description, the Law is letters on pages. They can do nothing for you. There is no power looking at ink. The Law is not caffeine or testosterone. There is no energy but only misery in words that tell you to do what you can’t do; be good. It does nothing. The only thing the Law does is “kill”  (2 Cor.3:3/Heb.7:19). At best it is a tutor (Gal.3:24-25).

As a result of Adam’s sin mankind plunged into ever deepening levels of evil. God created the Law to show anyone, who wanted His companionship, the purity His Character demands.  But man had fallen too far (Rm.7:5). The Law (trying to be good) can not make an evil man acceptable to a holy God.

The Law started 10,000 years ago and also demands complex rituals of animal sacrifice to obtain forgiveness. God says if you insist on trying to be right, in even one small way, you are accountable to obey all ten thousand laws (James 2:10). Have fun. The evil of our sin is only magnified in any attempt to obey the law (1 Cor.15:56).

THE OBJECTIVITY OF SIN- seeing in the puzzle.

The very first thing John said when He saw Jesus was “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn.1:29).

 

 

The prophets foretold of an anticipated forgiveness that would be like “fresh spring rain” from a Messiah. He would not exact from us obedience to the Law but rather freely give to us grace, to cover all our sin, once and for all. Nothing would be required from a man (Hos. 6:3).  . The Law came through Moses…grace…was realized in Jesus (John 1:17). Paul clarifies that the O.T. requirements are now “obsolete” (Heb.8:13). There’s nothing you have to do to repent and be forgiven. The issue is not about procedure but heart and truth (Ps.51:17).

“Behold, days are coming…when I will make a new covenant…not like the old...” (Jer.31:34).  “I will tread down your sin…and cast all your sins into the depth of the sea…” (Mic.7:19). “…I will cast all your sins behind My back.” (Is.38:17). “I have wiped out your sins like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you” (Is.44:22). The heart of God is to give us forgiveness. That’s it. 

So much can be learned from the initial encounter between Jesus and Peter (Lk.5:7). So check it out: God meets a dirty fisherman. Let’s see. What do you think would be their conversation? Peter said “Go away Jesus. I’m a wicked man.” (Lk.5:7). Jesus said “Repent of your sins and ask Me into your heart as your personal Savior”? Not quite. Jesus never said anything like this nonsense of today. No principles, emotional catharsis of contrived tears or promise of “prosperity”.

Jesus told a woman caught in the act of adultery “Go and sin no more” (Jn.8:3). How could He say this?

Something happened in that air that no one but those two knew; TR&F (true repentance and forgiveness). Jesus touched her with His Character as He touched Peter in the in-depth place with the secret code called reality. His tone, His look, His personal love. The words of Jesus were not Law but grace. Extremely Personal.

This is why you can not separate TR&F from the Person of Jesus. He alone is the One Who imparts reality to these terms. There was far more communicated between Jesus and the individuals whom He forgave. Jesus makes every effort to “reason” with us, compelled by His longing desire for us to know His forgiveness. Peter was weighed down with guilt. As a Jew he was well aware of his failure.

I am not driven to stop sinning. I am driven to serve Jesus. I am anchored in my seat and not lured to consider any STOP.  I am in Christ. He is my Lord. In Him there is only grace. I have learned the “reasoning” of a God Whose reason is “hesed“; covenant mercy. In trying to describe TR&F Paul exhausted the human language and described forgiveness as being so emphatic it is backed by two promises of God (Heb.6:16-17 ). God “doubles-down” on what He offers.

THE TRANSACTION – Snow “reckoned” for Scarlet

“Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool” (Is.1:18).

As a catholic I went to confession hundreds of times, driven by my conscience, to be and do “right”. The passing euphoria of that “forgiveness” didn’t even last until I got home. It was a passing emotional impulse. I had no idea what repentance meant. Evangelicals don’t realize it, but they think exactly the same as the Catholics they condemn.

Repentance is the intelligent transaction in which we “reason together” with the Father and hand over our life (scarlet) to Him in exchange for His forgiveness (snow).

We have no clue how to deal with sin by our own reasoning. We feel bad over and over and over.  We become addicted to feelings. But neither penance or a sinner’s prayer will lead to TR&F. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say you’re sorry for your sin. I say it thousands and thousands of times. I so terribly fear presumption. I know my heart is wicked.

It is hard to imagine but Jesus perfectly obeyed every single written Law  (Rm.8:1-3). He is the only One Who was and is acceptable to the Father. Jesus mediated His life to the Father in a vicarious substitution for man. He provided atonement for sin. Thus the holiness of the Father was satisfied and His wrath for sin appeased.

People wrongly think salvation is something in us so we have to be careful to maintain our moral integrity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus says “I came for the sick…” (Mk.2:17). Salvation is not in us. Sin is all that is in us (Rom.7:18). Salvation is only in Jesus (Jn.14:6). Jesus provides the eternal posture of repentance for communion with His holy Father. He is constantly mediating our sanctification before the Father (Jn.14:23). He uses many things to break us into His disposition of humility. Our destiny and power are not within ourselves but in our standing in Christ (Gal.3:16). It is in the mind-set of Jesus that we oversee and overcome sin.

This mindset (the standing of “white as snow”) was depicted long ago in Joshua as a type of Christ: “Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments…and Satan stood accusing him…and the Lord said ‘Remove the filthy garments…and clothe him in festive robes…and put a clean turban on his head” (Zechariah 3).

Seeing The Puzzle

It is impossible to separate ourselves from sin but Biblical revelation says Jesus did exactly this. The Holy Spirit offers a discernment between Jesus and our sin (Heb.4:12). Have you ever seen one of those puzzles in which you try to identify certain things hidden in the design? Once you identify the objects all the distractions are no longer a problem. God does not make sin disappear as the ‘holy rollers’ claim. What He offers is the Spirit to separate and discern sin, so that we can understand victory rather than live in ignorance and defeat. Sin cannot be understood but God offers an understanding of how to deal with it.

Sin was not created. It is the aftermath of Eve’s “nuclear” defiance against God (1 Tim.2:9-15/1Pt.3:off/Eph.5:22/Col.3:18).  You were not there when Adam and Eve sinned. You had nothing to say about IT. It is like a sickness (Jer.17:9). A cold is not you. It is something you did not choose at birth. But now you do have a choice.

Paul could not have made it any clearer:  “…I am no longer the one doing IT, but SIN which dwells in me…” (Rm. 7:20).

It is Satan’s strategy is to convince you are the source of your evil. You are not. Sin is not your personality. It is human nature. It is Adam’s fault. His nature is ours. His arrogance was sin. Now you can agree with him or agree with Jesus.

RECKONING

There is a specific divine ‘mechanism’ God created to regulate TR&F. It is the only trigger to release you from your feelings and thoughts. To release you from sin. The concept is called “reckoned”or “credited”(Rom.4:9). It is like the transaction behind using a credit card. It is like the slogan of the Nike company “JUST DO IT”. No drama. No tears. No guilt or penance. No requirement for moral betterment. The faith to believe God for TF&F is “reckoned” to a man as what He deems “righteous” (Rm.4:3).

For hours and days on end, you can think “I am the only one who thinks like this. How could I do that? How can I think these terribly sinful things?” You feel horrible. You must choose to believe;  “I know all this crap comes out of the sin in me, but Jesus is greater and my forgiveness has long ago been reckoned”. It is joy “unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pt.1:8).

6 billion others think the same Adamic cycle but refuse the Jesus cycle. Even Jesus was tempted in all things (Heb.4:15). In the O.T. the concept of a “scapegoat” was that a man had to lay his hands on a goat, confess his sin, then send it into the wilderness. In the N.T. Jesus chose to be our Scapegoat. Instead of blaming something or someone else, He stands willing to accept your blame because He bore it all.

All sin was cast into the sea.  All of IT was forgiven. IT was “tread down” and is “remembered no more”. Jesus “objectified” sin ( 1 Pt.2:24). IT was put on The Lamb  and killed (2 Cor.5:21).

We have all felt the seismic tremors that shake us to the core of our identity when we yield to something evil. We think “How am I ever going to change?”.  If you think you already repented, at a subconscious level, you will really think  “I have no hope. There are no other answers. I’ve surely exhausted my number of 2nd chances”. Jesus specifically addressed there are no limits or numbers to forgiveness (Mt. 18:21).

The truth is you did not do what you did. Sin did. A war of conscience arises to condemn you. If your conscience has not been “washed” you will ultimately give in to it (Heb.9:14,10:22). Sin comes from hell so we feel like hell. Paul says it makes you feel “death” (Rm.6:23). It causes chaos and confusion.  It draws you further into self-pity and depression. All of it, based on a lie. YOU are not sin. It is going on in you, despite you. If repentance required piety, who determines how much? Are a hundred tears sufficient? How long of time does each sin require “sorrow”? Forgiveness is instant and eternal.

Now, of course, the issue of license is of concern. Paul asks “should we continue to sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!” (Rm.6:1). Without becoming complicated he simply explains everything comes down to true repentance. To die with Christ is a real thing. It’s that simple. Either you believe or you don’t. When the men said “Help us in our unbelief”  Jesus didn’t say “Sure. No problem”. Faith is not about quantity but authenticity (Mk.4:31). If you won’t believe just a little, then you don’t believe at all. A little true faith is faith.

MAKING  WHITE- The finality of the death of sin

The death of sin was made sure; executed by a hammer, nails, a crown of thorns,  a wooden cross and One Man of impeccable Character at one point in time. Sin began in Adam and ended in the Lord Jesus (Rm.5).  There’s no question Jesus was killed. So there’s no question sin is dead.  A ransom transaction of His perfect blood for our sinful blood was completed.  Access to a holy God restored.

It is written “… the death that He died, He died to sin once for all” (Rm.6:10/1 Pt.3:18). New Testament forgiveness is once and for all (Mk.10:45/1 Tim.2:6/Heb9:26).

What’s done is DONE.  No sin can be added. Jesus has already died and risen.

Forgiveness is both an impersonal and personal transaction. It is impersonal in that it invoked a “ransom” of which you had nothing to say (Mk.10:45/1 Tim.2:6).  It was some thing done 2000 yrs. ago because of some thing called sin. It is Personal in that Jesus is the One Who resolved IT. He did so out of His own Personal love for you. Forgiveness cost Him every drop of blood that circulated through His body, down the cross and into the ground. About this, you have everything to say.  It is from Someone offered to someone; you. This experience, Paul describes, as “lavish” (Eph.1:7).

The Father knew your name 2000 yrs. ago. Jesus knew He was dying for you. In the midst of His mental anguish, a vast number of faces flashed in and out of His pain-ridden body. You were one of them if you are one of them.

Predestination is not confusing. Eternity has no time line. Standing in heaven you will realize it is not predestination that is strange but the limitations on earth of days, months and years that are strange. What was shall be and this is only consistent with eternity. Paul says “The Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world” (Eph.1:4). The Father wrote our name in His book “from the foundation of the world” (Rev.13:8).

Sin is not A sin. Thus forgiveness is not for ONE but for ALL sin. Sin is “as scarlet”. Forgiveness is for scarlet. Jesus became scarlet on a cross so all sin, past, present and future was in His scarlet bearing nature (1 Pt.2:24). He Who knew NO SIN became sin (2 Cor. 5:21).

REPENTANCE LEADING TO FORGIVENESS

Sin began in Adam and ended in Christ. It’s that simple. The question is whether you are ever going to truly claim TR&F. Jesus didn’t kind of die. Or kind of kill it (1 Pt.2:24). Or kind of rise again.

Sin is no longer a problem for God. If it’s a problem for you then it’s all you.  The choice to believe is all yours.   In some bizarre way men do not want to be rid of sin because then they can’t consort with their best friend any more; Self-pity. People depict their situation as so dire, either God does what they want, or it proves He doesn’t really care. In other words, men are God and “the man upstairs” is merely their divine Butler.

People talk about veterans who have died in war as having made the “supreme sacrifice”. But they did not choose to die. They were killed by chance. A man who sacrifices his life to Jesus dies a real death. It is not theoretical or poetic. The depth of resolution require to completely die is a completed sacrifice of self. Paul says “I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live…” (Gal.2:20). It is a conscious and deliberate act of sacrificing his life on this earth for Christ.

My family and I die to our lives daily (1 Cor.15:31). We’ve made thousands of calculated sacrifices so others can live. Jesus replaces selfishness. It is the reason Peter left his boat. Catching men is a joy beyond any haul of fish Peter ever made. How could Jesus tell the woman “Go and sin no more“? The adulterous woman had no desire to continue in sin because the new identity in the love of Jesus was far greater than her carnal desires. Zacheus returned everything he stole and far more. He got it. Matthew got it. John got it. Get it?

Repentance is to prioritize your focus on Jesus despite all issues of sin (2 Chronicles 20:12). The kindness of God leads to the praise of His triumph (Rm.2:4). Sin ‘sits there’ insisting it is you, but you insist on being dead with Christ. So we do not promise to do things right from now on because it would never be enough.

Paul was not “extreme” or “radical” when he wrote “united with His death” (Rm.6:6). Death is the only way to strip sin of the power in the law (1 Cor.15:56).

“… for he who has died is freed from sin” (Rm.6:6).

If you are not going to die then you are not going to live. True repentance is true death. If you don’t die to sin then you will die from it. Partial death is no death.

Forgiveness is actually way easier than we want it to be. It is like accessing a credit card that has long been in your name, just waiting for you to personally pick up and use. It was done and ready for you long ago. Credit card fraud is when someone performs a transaction but it is not backed up by his own personal account. Ease of access does not forgo fellowship in Jesus.   

Repentance is “metanoia”; coming to your senses and simply changing your mind.  It is the heart of the prodigal son turning from himself out of the compelling love of the Father (Lk.15). Changing our thinking instantly “reckons” us and brings us into the posture of His thinking (Phil.2:5ff). We die. He lives. God “reckons” us “as white as snow”  (Rm.4:9,22).

A train operator turns a deliberate switch of a lever to alter the direction of the tracks. You must change the direction of your will to believe the forgiveness Jesus wrought is yours. You are never forgotten and always forgiven. It doesn’t depend on a prayer but on the cross.  The train then runs in a different direction. You begin to discover new places. The tracks of forgiveness have long ago been laid. There is nothing you need to do but believe like Peter. You can not change sin but you can switch tracks.

He says “…if we ‘ride’ in the Light (ride the train) as He himself is in the Light …the blood cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn.1:6-7).

Do you think there’s any question to massive power churning the wheels of a train? The TR&F Railroad will take you far beyond all your feeble and tentative considerations of salvation. It will set you on board forever. There are over 12 stories of faith in one chapter (Heb.11). Common ordinary people living extraordinary life. When I got on board, at my rebirth at Notre Dame, was the beginning of ongoing transformation; “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18)

I fully expected something beyond myself to take me beyond myself; into another mode of life. I am not the same person I was 40 yrs. ago…..or 10 years ago….or five months ago….or  last night. His forgiveness has never changed but my comprehension of it has. He has taken me places I could never get to by my own strength.

Old ‘friends’ try to hold me to past sin and immaturity. They say “You used to say this” or “You used to do this”.  I am constantly seeing my scarlet ways and have to choose to live in His new ways (Mt.18:23). My forgiveness does not come from men. It has come from Jesus and keeps me securely on board His revelation.

God warned Able; “sin is after you but you must master it” (Gen.4:7). Paul says “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rm.6:14).  The requirement to “master” sin is not self-purification. It is hearing God swear to you that He forgives you. A man who knows true repentance and forgiveness is a happy man ( Rm. 4). You don’t have to “get right” before you get serious with God. Simply believe Him to “reckon” you right by the only thing right in the world; His righteousness (Rm.4).

FINDING YOUR FREQUENCY

There is no one like you. So why try to be like everyone else? Create your own story. Find your own path. Feed a fire within for the “more” God promises (Eph.3:20). Your Father will lead you to His Son but you are the only one who can begin this journey. It’s not about trying to figure out what or how to do things. Like Peter,  face Jesus and everything will fall into place. The puzzle will be solved. The code will be yours. You will be sitting on the train being taken into a destination beyond this world.

How often have you realized that because you are ‘set in your ways’ no matter how you have tried to change everything remains the same?  There is no merit with God for being stubborn over a past “commitment to Christ” when in day to day life you have no clue to His Frequency. Pretense has no corresponding reality in God’s Word; except “hypocrite”.

If you define God by how, or whether, He enriches your life you contradict the revelation of the Father in the words of His Son; “If anyone wishes to come after Me he must deny himself, take up His cross daily and follow Me (Lk.9:26).

Paul says “I run in such a way as not without aim” (1 Cor.9:24).

Life is a maze of rock crevasses and dimly lit caves. Moab, Utah is full of such places. It is phenomenal.  The tight spots, narrow passages, and sharp edges can bear upon you with fearful imaginations of danger. Then suddenly, you turn a corner and behold a view so magnificent you are angered at yourself for any hesitation you had in pursuing this venture; true change of heart. TR&F solves all the struggles of life by replacing our self-serving life with His focus on love for others.

Forgiveness cost the Father the blood of His Son. Therefore, how quickly, and full-heartedly, must we learn how to forgive ourselves, and each other (Matt.18:21ff )?

A few of us are presently preaching the gospel across the states. If you’d like to meet up contact us through our website.  Some of us are working to save up money. Before we head back to Brazil, Abraham and Ruth will take the gospel with signs and tracks, in three more languages, to Manilla, Tokyo and Seoul this November. They will spy out the land for when we are done with Brazil.

If anyone is interested I would strongly suggest you check out the prison conditions, online, in Manila. There is no zoo or pig farm I have ever seen as bad as these prisons.  We are trying to get in.

As I have previously explained we have no consistent support and rely on our own savings from working jobs. It would be great if anyone could care to help us. It will cost between five and six thousand. Traveling across the states is not free. I am not a fat-cat preacher. We don’t own a home.  Thank God.  I share this, not in a kind of begging spirit, but in joy and faith, as Paul also expressed his needs so he could reach as many as possible with Jesus (1 Cor.9). We proclaim the love of the Father to you and pray the precious Spirit of His Son upon you. Don’t forget to check out our music; search “Ancient Boom” on itunes.

Judgment is near.

UPDATE

Most people stay away from God because they think He demands something they simply cannot see themselves wanting or being able to do.  I appeal to you. Look further. Come closer. Don’t be afraid. If He created you out of divine love then surely His plan for you is beyond anything you can imagine. You can’t allow all the Christian delusion that exists everywhere today to keep you from truth. The systems of men do not reflect the Person of the living Jesus.  Understanding does not come by a comprehension of Christian doctrine.

Like Peter, I too was afraid to face Jesus, one on One, because, as  Peter said “I am a sinful man” (Lk. 5:8). As if Jesus cannot relate to sin. Peter knew he could not give Jesus “a good person”. How can a wicked man go ‘toe to toe’ with a holy God?  A guy named Abraham was the “father” of faith. God chose this 100 yr. old pagan to reveal the ‘grand exploit’ He demands is not moral aptitude.

Rather God made clear through Abe, for all the world to see, that what He desires is something anyone can do (Rm.4:1).  God demands a transparent heart. Abraham said to God “I am but dust and ashes” (Gen.18:27). He felt  himself to be “as good as dead” (Rm.4:19).  He appealed to God out of the only place he knew;  “his innermost being” (Ps.51:6).  In this world of mega-pressure to conform to an image and meet worldly standards such simple reality can be either a distant and vague “someday” adventure or a simple choice that begins right now. 

Peter, like Abraham, knew that his sin had rendered him a complete failure in the eyes of a holy God. Truth was his only hope.  Unlike the standard of hypocrisy today a true relationship with God is not born out of a surface claim. It can only be truly appropriated in the collapse of self-confidence, where a man is laid bare and vulnerable, so as to come to grips with Jesus, on the cross in His, and in his,  innermost being.

Think about it. God has created trillions of people. Each person is completely unique.  So what happened between the point of His creation and the multitudes of the world all united as one in rebellion to God? Simple.  SIN. It severed all of us from God and left us ignorant and stupid to wallow in our pride groping for acceptance by others. They call it peer pressure or political correctness. Are you really willing to spend eternity in hell  for the gratification of this life?

You and I face a choice. It is the same choice trillions face in their time on earth. Don’t take this lightly. This moment will determine your eternity in heaven or in hell.

God demonstrated, through Abraham, that it is not exclusivity that causes a man to choose to believe God while others do not. It is a free individual choice to believe God while others choose not to. Abrahamic faith is not the “faith” of  modern society. It is not to ‘wish upon a star’ or Christian presumption. Abrahamic faith is born out of the deep composition of a man’s will  to surrender to the work of Jesus on the cross.  

The “cross” is not a symbolic reference to Christian sentiment from the past. It is not a cerebral but personal BREAKING with ego. It is the living revelation solely able to expose and shatter the deep-seated rebellion in all us (1 Cor.1:18). Contemplation of the multi-faceted ramifications of the cross brings one to the most important choice of one’s life; death or self-pride. Hidden beneath this monster, we call pretense, are catastrophic consequences that must be confronted. The Bible reveals that Abraham’s recognition of absolute inadequacy was a choice of self-failure and the birth place of the divine substance called faith (Rm.4/Heb.11)

I remember a time in High School when I received a D grade on a subject. To me, it was like an A+ because I was terrified of an F grade. Getting an F meant I flunked and I wouldn’t be eligible to play college football. There’s just something so demeaning about getting an F. I was thrilled that my lame efforts got me a D grade. No other letter grade is equated with a word except for  F ailure.

Our pride refuses to think of ourselves as a complete failure. However, in regards to the truth which God requires to know Him, the worst thing we can do is to pretend to be, or know something, that is based on false pretense (Jn.6:29). It means that we are living a lie. When your test comes right down to totally giving up on the subject called “ME”, at the last minute, you made some half-hearted effort to insist “I’m not “that bad”. I am not a sinful failure.

So many “Christians” of today are like D students fighting against that F. They know they fall short of God’s holy standards but sulk in the lie of self-pity, that they just can’t do what God requires. They fear the stigma of an F. They don’t want to be laid bare and exposed for what they truly are. So they strive to pretend they are something they are not.  If only they realized the beauty of an F. F stands for Failure. F is for Freedom. F is for Faith and the Father.  In truth, the “grand exploit” that God demands is to believe Him despite everything you think.

“Humble yourselves….Casting all your anxiety…upon Him because He cares for you…” (1 Pt.5:6).

 THE SCARED HEART

To find the profound healing from agape love one must start by fully recognizing his complete inability and failure in everything he is, he has done and strives yet to be and do. I tell you the truth. If you can get this, it is the “formula” for ultimate fulfillment. To be laid bare and desperate before God, in your “innermost being”, is both the end and the beginning of true victory.  It is only by the Spirit of the living Jesus, in the moment of here and now, that we find Him and His redemptive purpose.  Recently, my family and I were setting up our equipment in the center of a prison courtyard in southern Brazil. It was full of some three hundred desperate men with looks on their faces like “Who do you people think you are, coming into our prison, assuming we want you here?!”.

Never, throughout my life, could I ever have imagined one day being sent by God into 3rd world prisons. There is no credential that prepares anyone for this. It is not a skill to be learned. None of my 20 years of schooling taught me how to bring compassion to hopeless men.

As I realized the hostility of the prisoners around me, my mind was frozen with thoughts of fear. What words could a nobody Polish ‘kid’ find, from the west side of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who was  arrested the night of his High School graduation, for a bar room brawl? Such a predicament exposes who you are deep inside. Fear, desperation, and inadequacy define me as a failure. I don’t care like I should. I have not the answers they so desperately need. What do you say to  cold-hearted gangs in their world of prison?

Jesus was in prison. He sat with others yet so alone.  He was consumed with excruciating injustice and physical pain. His mouth caught the taste of blood flowing down from the thorns that punctured His skull. He suffered more than any man. It was at this terrifying hour that Jesus revealed the astounding reality of what was inside His true identity.

On the cross, Jesus thought He was a complete failure. He Who knew no sin became sin. He became all our failure and knew failure like no man. Jesus cried out, for all the public to hear, an outrageous question for the Son of God to ask…

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” ( Mt.27:46/Mk.14:36/Lk.23:46).

“Shhhh. Jesus! Don’t you know? Unbelievers will hear Your unbelief?!”

At that moment, Jesus became the ultimate failure. He was crushed by the fear that He had ‘missed God’. What if everything He did was in vain? How could His loving Father allow Him to incur such excruciating suffering? Such were His fears. Not a shred of presumption. He was laid bare as any man.

In His whisper that followed “Father into Your Hands I commit My spirit,” He let us see His heart as a Son dying, so we could live. He believed beyond His failure to His Father.  He refused to quit on faith in God. He took on sin without sinning.

To His last breath, Jesus was utterly reliant upon the Father. 

At that moment, His heart was torn in two, as Jesus bore the epitome of everything evil we despise in ourselves, and in others. It was a one time act in all of human history. Jesus became the sacrificed Lamb and the atonement that provided forgiveness for the trillions of men His Father created (2 Cor.5:21). In that horrendous moment of fear and despair, the Father had to look away. It was this very moment which left all the trillions without excuse, because Jesus provided everything God demands. He was the Mediator between sinful men and a perfect God. F is for Final salvation.

Jesus revealed that the essence of our fulfillment can only be born again out of complete failure (Rm. 4:19/Jn.3:7). 

If Jesus had not shouted those words, I would never know that fear and unbelief is part and parcel of my daily identity before the Father. His “failure” in death is the bridge for a sinner to access the Father. Paul says “I have been crucified with Christ…” (Gal.2:20). True hope can only be found in true death. Resurrection life is an uncommon divine entity. It can only thrive as death clears away the hostilities of natural ways (Jn.12:25). 

It is written “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor.4:10ff).

On THE EDGE

Many prisoners are in their early twenties. They know and see their life as one huge failure. They face the reality of living out the rest of their lives in this one filthy prison of barbed wire walls, cement beds and eight to ten other guys in one cell. Isolated, alone and living in a body ravaged by drugs, despair and unimaginable regret. I know you can say “Oh that’s terrible”. But I ask you to try to really imagine what this must be like. It is the way to cultivate real compassion.

For 24 hours a day, one thought burns in their mind “How could I have lived the way I did? Surely, God has forsaken me”.  Every one of us is tormented by some variation of these same exact feelings.  We don’t realize that Jesus Himself felt everything inside us. This precious 33 yr. old Carpenter was there with you, and in you,  while bleeding to death 2000 yrs. ago, as a result of His own choice. He had, and has, superpowers. One of which is a personal love beyond all the wonders of the universe.  We hide things for which we could be arrested. He forgives; F is for Forgiveness. One wrong impulse or urge may destroy your life. He redeems. The cross is the historical proof and validation of a compassion for all prisoners of sin.

Who will dare access His power manifested on a cross (1 Cor.1:18) ?

A cliff jumper stands on the edge of a mountain ridge. He looks over all the danger but knows his will has brought him to this point.  Think he’s scared? You bet. But this is what he wants and what he has chosen to do. He faces death but has made his calculations. Every jump is a choice. Of course you’re afraid to take that leap of faith. But life is ticking away and death offers no second chance.

I, like you, must make an individual choice to believe God. No matter how I tried to relate to these prisoners, nothing was getting through. I was standing on the edge facing extreme hostile silence.  Have I travelled thousands of miles, spent thousands of dollars to proclaim God’s mystery only to have common thoughts hinder me on the edge? Do I risk their eternity to maintain my life? Is my goal to appear as a success, for my sake, or a failure for theirs? We have a response we say when people say “Nobody cares”. We say “You’re right. Jesus was ‘Nobody’ to the world”.

When you are a kid, you bank on your parents coming to your rescue. I’m no kid. ‘Nobody’ was coming. We’re talking about a prison, so remote and depraved, only hell has not forgotten it.   It makes the prisons in the states seem like a Holiday Inn.

Was I scared? Not really. Not as you might think.

”“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom…Fear Him Who can cast body and soul into hell”

(Pr.1:9/Lk.12:5). I know myself. So I fear myself.

I choose to ‘leap’ beyond myself into the winds of the cross. A transparent son has no face to save or together-sounding language to espouse. I am a failure like all men and this is what they must see to “see” Jesus. They must see my scar. These are part of the trillions of souls Jesus yearns to save.

It is in this nothingness, of the cross,  that I find the freedom of new life.  I choose to believe God will open my parachute. I take the leap of faith with these men, to be as transparent and loving as I know to be. No pretense or conjured up image. Jesus says take no thought for what you will say because He will come at the last second (Lk.12:12). When we are dead, He lives.

As a father, having to lead six children and a wife into such danger, I thank my Father for His fellowship in the Spirit. It is everything. If my “parachute” doesn’t open, I am doomed. 

The fear of God drives me into self-scrutiny. No place for ‘image’. Either there is a God and He will move or this is all one big sand castle awaiting collapse. Moments on the edge generate new life. Without this,  I sulk into the grief of meaningless existence. In a world of utter routine boredom, it is rare to find the passion of a love that makes your hands sweat and your blood run fast. 

Paul says “I die daily…” (1 Cor. 5:31). He came to end to find a beginning.  He had to lose before he could win. So any victory was not his. I too was at my end.  It was one of my many “Why have you forsaken me?” moments.

Then, as if on the head of a needle, everything reversed. The Holy Spirit acted. Between the time it took for my mouth to open, and the micro-seconds it took for the thoughts of my brain to reach my mouth, the Holy Spirit changed my heart from judgment to mercy. The parachute opened. The anointed love of Jesus broke through me to get to these men. Some of the trillions saw their choice.

(SEE END OF ARTICLE FOR COMPLETION)

Shadows

Do you remember when you were a little kid alone in your house at night? It seemed as if a shadow flashed by just as you turned the other way. You feared ‘someone’ was coming to get you? This was my experience many Saturday nights. Especially when I was watching some horror movie. 

There are two kinds of fear. There is the fear shared with all men. It is the drive to be a success. The fear of death bears upon you that your time is ever so short.  The fear of God is not such. It is the accountability of your conscience that you will answer to God for your choices, or lack of them (1 Pt.1:17/2 Cor.5:10).

You can be anywhere doing anything but deep within is a shadow of fear. Ever day, every moment, you just can’t explain the depths of your anxiety. It is the shadow called death. You do not define it as such but God does (Job 3:5, 11:21-22,12:22/Ps.44:19107:14/Is.9:2,13:6/Amos 5:8). God offers freedom from all fear. David knew His Spirit; “Thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me” (Ps.23:4/1 Jn.4:18). The trillions who are dead testify to the trillions who are alive that death is forever. F is for Forever.

Death is not something that is going to happen. It is something that has already happened (in Adam’s sin) and must simply be completed. It is the Grand Marshall leading the parade called life. The moment Adam and Eve sinned, we lost our immortality. Sin turned us into mere mortals heading to death.   It is not someplace “out there”. We are born into a body in which  death is a code written in our blood. God warns “the ‘wages’ of sin is death” (Rm.6:23). 

It gradually kills human cells, causes wrinkles, muscular atrophy and the rapid deterioration of our brain and body. It will ultimately eat even our bones. 

Thus death is in your shadow as the greatest fear. Yet, it is completely absent in all social discourse. 

INSANITY (Ecc.9:3)

There is nothing more bizarre than man’s insane attitude towards death. If I were an alien, that landed on this planet, and found out that everyone walking around is going to die, yet never talks about it, I would ask “Why?” I would be completely bewildered.

No one runs around screaming “Death is coming upon me. It’s going to kill me. Can anyone help me?” Such people fill the buildings reserved for the mentally ill or are seen on the streets as derelicts. Such erratic behavior would be normal, if all men openly discussed the debilitating reality of our vain existence and abrupt obliteration that can happen at any moment.

Can your mind even consider that death could be one breath away?

I have visited and slowly walked through many cemeteries. I have stopped to ponder what must have been the life of the young and old whose bodies are now skeletons in the ground. I recently saw an article that explained how in Paris, they don’t know what to do with their dead because they are running out of room for them. Trillions! I have visited Convalescent Homes and spoken with people on the brink of death. They are about to die. You know it. They know it. Their entire physical state radiates it. Yet, the unspoken rule is “Don’t talk about death”.  As if it will go away when you ignore it.

150 people die  each day from heroin

7,000 die each day in the States alone

150,000 die in the world each day

You may do things, or had things done to you, that in and of themselves, did not  kill you but affected you in such a way, as to render you incapable of considering the gospel. A boxer becomes “punch drunk”.  A drug addict becomes “addicted”.  A drunk develops “wet brain”. God says a contentious woman is worse than death to a passive man (Ecc.7:26).

People talk about all things that cause death but never about death itself. They talk of guns, drugs and many dangers but never of their end.

Man’s refusal to deal with death is of such stupidity, it is like the eighth wonder of the world. People think more of how to swat a nagging fly than death. Even now as you read this, your thoughts conclude it is not relevant and are driven beyond it to the here and now of your daily life.

We may fail at many things in life but magnitude of the consequences and finality of death makes all other failures as nothing.  It is what you and I must face to escape the hell of the trillions.  

THE MONSTER OF FIRE

My mother complained of pain in her stomach. So my dad made an appointment for a biopsy. No big deal. I remember at the hospital. They were wheeling her into the operating table on a gurney. She sat up as she passed by me, standing in the hallway, and did her Groucho Marx impersonation.  She was a crack up. A little while later, they rolled her out and her face was buried in sorrow. A month later, she was dead. Extinguished like a flame.

I would not hear her voice again. No more jokes. No more special moments. No more dancing together or helping her bake an apple pie. So final. Never could I have understood at that time, this was a death which was both hers and mine. Her life was an obstacle to my death. I had to die to an identity that she kept alive;  the very things that prevented me from becoming a new man. God uses the dying in our winters to bring us into the new life of His eternal Spring.

Dying turned a heavy set, jovial woman into a tiny frame of skin and bones.  Night after night she would literally cry and scream from the pain. She constantly would eat crushed ice because she said it felt like there was a monster inside eating her with fire. Then, one moment in one day, when I was gone, she was gone.  Death came to her. The monster won. Yet the “sting” was short lived because she had renounced all false religion and surrendered to the living Jesus. She blossomed on the other side of death into eternal life.

 A SOUND OF DEATH

No screeching tires. No sound of a bullet.  No terrible storm.

I will always  hear the sound of a large vinyl, black bag being zipped closed. My mother’s body was methodically placed next to it, then rolled into it, by a creepy dude in a black suit.  I had greeted him at the door and pointed him to the stairs to her bedroom. To my shock, he then tossed her body over his right shoulder, like a carpet, and carried her body right passed me down the stairs and threw it into the hearse he parked in our driveway.

My mouth was open. My mind was bewildered. What just happened?  DEATH will come to you in a different way but it definitely will come. They took her to a Funeral Home to “show” a body pumped with chemicals and covered with makeup. As if to fool everyone for one last time into thinking “she” is still alive and looks like this. Nope. She’s long gone. A monster killed her.

Death has no moral code or “nice” sounding proper etiquette. Millions of young people are lured into the military, never told that death is an integral part of the job description. Death will violate your “peace of mind” and devastate your “comfort zone”. It doesn’t care whether you understand. Such talk is not “politically correct”. The trillions of the famous and the poor walked in your exact human shoes and are long forgotten so as not to comprehend their end.

My friend, I beg you to listen to me. All of this about my mother is not shared as a son blinded by his affections for a mother. This one woman changed the world because she discovered Jesus at a catholic charismatic meeting and first witnessed to me of a living Jesus. Now I go into all the world. But I recognize her no longer as my mother but as a woman whom God used to teach me a divine lesson.

I share this as though a divine lecture on life given to me by my Father to share with all my brethren.  Stop living as though you are not going to die. Start dying so you can start living eternal life. You can go beyond the death of sin into the death of Jesus. You can be united in the “death” that ends in eternal life.

The monster of sin hides within each of us. It eats away the precious moments of our life. It burns like an unquenchable fire consuming our time and energy with fantasies and vanities. Satan lusts for our soul with an unbridled fury of hideous passion. If you think you can stop him with a song and a prayer, you have no clue. It was a death of horrendous torture on a cross bearing One Man Who actually surrendered to Satan. He ransomed His soul for ours. One word – D E C E P T I O N. “Oh I’m not afraid of death. I’m fine” are the thoughts of a fool already swallowed by the monster.

Like it or not, admit it or not, self-deception is an out-of-control fire consuming your “house”.  Pride rages from room to room fed by the excuses and alibis of lies of why you don’t have to change.  Men are gluttons for excuses. Death works in unison to hide it’s ultimate catastrophe.  Every day we see it steal away our moments of time. It makes us do and say things that destroy our lives.

We are as if in a drunken coma of the moment.  We think “I ‘m really something. I matter. RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE MATTERS”.  No it doesn’t. Not even one bit in light of eternity. We are obsessed with ourselves as if the lead actor in a movie called ME. We are consumed with SELF; SIN. This is why we must fail. We must die before we die. We must allow the cross to kill the monster within called EGO.

A champion is not consumed with his present moment. His  eyes are on the goal. He knows well his weaknesses and trains to defy them. A boxer  does not obsess himself with the comforts and moments of NOW or he will lose his everything (Ps. 73:4).

“How do I feel, what I am thinking, these things are mine, what am I  going to eat etc.” This, my friend, is the curse of sin. 

The truth is nobody cares. The trillions are consumed with their lives. Your death will not affect one iota of the world. Society will not skip a beat. The clock will tick the same before and after you die. How many people will even know when you die?

The only Person Who truly came back from the dead warned that death is not some “light at the end of a tunnel”. It is terrible judgement and if your name is not in The Book of Life you will be cast into the lake of fire (Heb. 9:27,10:31/Rev.20:15). Have you ever seen a huge lake of lava or burning forrest fire? Hell is real. Satan is an “angel of light” who disguises death to men who fall unconscious then come back to tell others a lie (2 Cor.11:14). Even if you do not believe in hell, do you really think non-existence will be fun? In the blink of an eye, you will fall into the power of death and be taken away from whatever you are doing on earth.

ESCAPE!

Unlike all men, Jesus did not avoid talking about death. It was His life mission. But He did  something never heard before. He talked about a death with a promise (Jn.11:25,12:25). Paul, the apostle explained

“For if we have become united with him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin.

But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him;… For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin (everything related to self-life) , but alive unto God in Christ Jesus”  (Rm.6).

Often times, as a catholic, when I saw the statue of Jesus on the cross, it bummed me out. It seemed so distant and irrelevant. So many sermons spoke of being a “sinner” and having to “die” with Christ. Quite depressing. Like most people, I lightheartedly admitted being a sinner because I had no idea what it meant.

To be a sinner is the most offensive and detestable thing before a perfect God. The accurate reflection of our worth is not known by reflecting on our worldly accomplishments,  listening to our ego, the words of others or looking in a mirror. It is by contemplating the utter horrors of hell as the justice for the death of Jesus.

God made hell for the devil and his angels but man made himself suitable for such a place by contaminating himself with sin. Our “worth” corresponds to eternal damnation.

Jesus put Himself in our place of condemnation. He bore what we deserve.  His vicarious death offers us a retroactive redemption.

Prior to the resurrection, death was final. It was over. No further hope for mankind. However, death could not stop Jesus. It could not hold him in the earth (Acts 2:24). Jesus took over death and made it usable; redemptive. The resurrection of Jesus inaugurated a new death. It is not a physical but spiritual.

“I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:18).

SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE

You have heard “fat cat” preachers hoot and holler about “the cross”.  All you have to do is behold their exalted ego to know they are “enemies of the cross” (Phil.3:18). The cross is not a hollow, ancient symbol but a retroactive mystery of salvation  (Col. 1:27). It is “the place” where our heart surrenders to His work (Jn.14:3). 

As a once-successful rabbi; Paul said “ I will boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (2 Cor. 11:22ff/Gal.6:14). What in the world does he mean? For merely being just two pieces of wood, a “cross”, from some 2000 years ago, gave him a power (1 Cor.1:18).

This term “the cross” is as a foreign dialect from some remote village deep in the Amazon. No one speaks of it as the  power over death. How many world leaders, scholars, actors, coaches, Wall Street bankers, executives, teachers etc. claim the cross as their formula for success? 

The A students of this world have no clue. Paul said, in light of the wisdom gained through the humiliation of the cross, everything in the world is “dung” (Phil.3:7-8). And it does require humiliation, not just humility. For a man to embrace his nothingness is complete defiance to himself.

God specifically designed the cross as the only transition point into His world. Failure is in our blood and He bore it all when He shed all of His

Every single person who follows Jesus embraces his failure as a sinner (1 Cor.1:27). It is the way of salvation. It is not to be feared. It kills our greatest enemy; pride. It kills the monster. It kills our moments of time that we think are so important. “Blessed are those who mourn…” (Mt.5:3ff). It is not that you are left with your failure but with Jesus in His plan for your failure.

Embrace such a One Who designed such a thing. Embrace the truth of Jesus. By doing so you are saying to Satan that what God says to you, and about you, and what Jesus did for you, despite you, is everything to you.  Become united into the specific workings of the Father’s plan.

The “participation”  in the death and resurrection is for you today. It is the plan to turn bad things into good things  (Phil.3:10).

Jesus promises “even though he dies yet shall he live” (Jn.11:25).

This, my friend, is beautiful. Our worst failure can turn into His design for victory.  When I am at my end, as to what to do or how to be, in any and every circumstance, I choose to unify my end with His.  I cry a thousand times “My God, where are You…why have you forsaken me?”  And in this unification, I am free from myself by and in Jesus to rejoice and worship my Father.

It’s not like I ever stop being a failure and start being a success. I live as a failure but believe that if while I was an enemy, I was reconciled to God “through the death of his Son”, much more, being reconciled, shall I be saved by His life (Rm.5:10).

I have nothing to hide or prove. I am a failure to God and to all He intended for the trillions He created. It has been awesome to be freed from the fear of men. I am Michael and there is no one like me. Yet this awareness does not come from looking within but from looking upon the living Messiah.  It is His love that has awakened me to be born again. I do not appeal to the Son on the basis of my ability but on the basis of His accomplishment.

“He Who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall abide the shadow of the Almighty ….”  (Ps.91). There is a “place” in Jesus beyond the shadows of our fallen nature (Jn.14:23). Surely, how to die to yourself is a “secret” to the proud (Mt. 11:25).

Abraham did not fight to to rationalize, justify or defend himself to God, but to expose himself as “dust and ashes” (Gen.18:27). Then he rose up and believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. He “found” an individual angle to believe God while “in the flesh” (Rm.4:1ff).

Death is not an option. The question is whether you become united with the death of Jesus now, unto eternal life, or are subject to Satan when he comes at your death with his rights to your soul, to take your soul to hell.

Look in the mirror and consider God warns “from dust you were taken and unto dust you shall return” (Gen.3:19).

(continued from beginning)

BREAKING THE PARADIGM

As I spoke I also listened to what words the Spirit brought as result of my repentance; “We fully understand your skepticism.  I would feel the same. The only appropriate response to each of you is to cry with you. I don’t blame you guys for not wanting to listen.  I can only tell each of you that God put us here because He loves each of you. He is here to save your life.”

As my eyes scanned their faces, back and forth, I could see that the divine contact of divine mercy was made. Jesus sent His Spirit. I was off the hook. My death released His life. The men were engaged. Nodding their heads and laughing. We even sang together. By sharing of The One we shared one on one with so many. No exaggeration to say everyone was touched by God’s love. Our hearts were broken by so many stories of such depth of failure. We did not leave this prison with feelings of elation and success but with great burden and intercession.

We know why God “so loved” these men (Jn.3:16/Heb.13:3  /Mt.25:36). Redemption is not one of God’s ways. It is the essence of all of God’s ways towards fallen men.Paul says “power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor.12:9).

A few days before, Elizabeth had contacted a man from the Gideon Society in southern Brazil. He was favorable to our work and offered us thousands of New Testaments. We were thrilled. It is something I always dreamed of having but not able to afford.

I placed a box of brand new Bibles on the ground and offered all the men this gift. As I watched hand after hand reaching down into that box, my memory took a picture I will always have in the library of my mind.

These are the men who we were initially forbidden to visit. The head of security was relentless in his insistence that the men were too dangerous. Yet he gave us a chance and later told us we had “broken the paradigm”.  No one has ever articulated something of such meaning to us. He had seen a power which we know is Jesus. The  wind of the Spirit had blown into that place.

We did end up laying the sewers in the one prison I previously wrote about. It cost us seven hundred dollars and several of us got sick from the extreme bacteria. But to begin to eliminate this wretched smell from their daily existence was a real privilege for us. We taught other prisoners how to do it and gave them the materials.

I have written much about prisons but God continuously moves on the streets, orphanages, convalescent homes, community centers and  through many other avenues. The included pictures show some of them. The needs are literally without limit.

People think that because we never talk about our needs we must have some source of finances or support. We do not. For anyone who doesn’t know us and might share in our burden to reach the world for Jesus we are not supported by any group, organization or church.  All eight of us work regular jobs and then, when we have sufficient funds, we minister out of these savings. This is very difficult and consumes time we could otherwise be spending reaching the world in Jesus.  I hate to mention the great demands we face but someone may actually be grateful because they want to help. Such was the case for some people that Paul, the apostle, came to know ( 2 Cor.8:3-4). People today tend to only give money to those from whom they can derive some instant gratification and such is not the case with us.

It is hard to imagine someone supporting us whom I may offend with the truth of the gospel. You may not like to hear these things I share but it is out of love for you. All men have the power of free will. You don’t have to be offended. You can be open.  If a true Christian has the means, I believe God’s harvest would matter and they would see this as an opportunity to help do what they may not be able to do.  God willing we will get to Nigeria where there are millions who speak English. Also Japan and South Korea. While here in Brazil we need to yet get to Bolivia and Paraguay before leaving South America. But that involves driving through the Amazon Jungle which will require an enormous effort and time. It would be awesome to be able to fly.

Some may wrongly think that because we know the Lord that we are “blessed” with “financial success”. These are twisted notions from the materialistic poison of American Christianity. The concept of “prosperity teaching” thrives only amidst a culture in the circles of  the affluent rich.  It doesn’t work amongst the homeless or in 3rd world countries because it is not reality but delusion (i.e. “God wants you to have a nice car, house, successful business, etc.”). 

 Anyone who truly knows the gospel and the writings of Paul, understands the opposite is true. Jesus came to the poor and Paul constantly made mention of his needs (Is.61/1 Cor.9:9). This is reality. Having finances for his ministry was a constant issue for Paul because he lived in obscurity and traveled, not by ‘being sent’ by men, but by his witness of the Holy Spirit. If we were of the system, we would have plenty of support and backing, and this would be considered “prosperity”. Be as it is, we are of the Spirit and constantly face great need because we have chosen to “Go into all the world…” regardless whether anyone supports us.  Jesus keeps His servants humble. Praise God.

You are on the clock. Your time is like sand funneling through the hour glass. Horrible judgement is coming soon. Madness floods the earth. Wickedness abounds.  God is allowing Satan to move so quickly. All the filth and perversion has defiled the ancient boundaries and the  “standards’ of the “new normal” are being set by the prince of darkness for the dawning of his final surge.

My wife Rachel, sons Joshua, Abraham and David, and daughters Ruth, Elizabeth and Sarah appeal to you “Come to the living Jesus. Your death is worth His life.” The short circuit to any of your  “success” is the mere mention that you are going to die.

“What man is he that shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his own soul from the power of hell?”  (Ps.89:48)

Picture from last fall preaching on the campus of Central Michigan University.

Ten Brazilian military police dressed in full battle-armor swat gear appeared right in front of us as though they were about to engage in a full-out battle. Four of them had machine guns. Three had double-gauged shotguns. Three had drawn pistols. One had a smoke grenade in his hand. They lifted their bullet-proof shields and, in a crouched line, proceeded down the narrow hallway leading to the courtyard.

A guard looked at me and said, “Follow us”. Their guns scanned both sides of the corridor. They would stop. A command was shouted and several broke off to search each cell we passed to make sure no prisoners could get behind us. One thought just kept pulsating in my mind “I can’t believe this is happening for me. They are doing all this for the Woroniecki family?!”.

(-See section titled Travel Update below for continuation -)

Part I

(next blog Part II)

(Battle Lines)- THE REFLECTION

Do you ever tire of modern ways? Do you ever yearn for ways of olden days, maybe even ancient days?

“I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, it’s wheels a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him and myriads standing before Him; the court say and the books were opened…and behold One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him” (Daniel 7:10:13,22).

“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls” (Jer.6:16/Mt.11:28,7:7).

God. Who is He? What is He? Where is He? Imagine if we, as mere sinful mortals, could find a reflection of such a holy One?  The reality is God has made known, in the Scriptures, that He yearns for men to know Him, to such degree, that in His creation of us, He placed a reflection of Himself.  It is called conscience. It is not hard to figure out. It is, in a sense, “common sense”; truthful thinking about God (Lk.15:17). This thinking is at the forefront of our mind.  It contains ancient thoughts of the Ancient of Days; God is holy, loving, good, right etc. Our conscience tells us we are to reflect these ways (Rm.2:14-15). The conscience is not salvation but it’s promptings lead to the One Who is salvation.. to what…Whom God deems righteous… His Son Jesus.

The conscience guided men of old, like King David and Jeremiah, to write hundreds of Psalms, to hear God and to lead the nation of Israel. In order to fully utilize it’s capability of intelligence, creativity and imagination it requires a depth of individual thinking in humble ways of a childlike attitude. The  conscience tells you that you have individual accountability to God. It compels you to pursue and discover a divine purpose which is to reflect the image of the Son to the Father (Rm.8:29). It will help you figure how to do this.

Have you ever wondered why you want to show others that “I just want to do what is right”? The Scriptures teach just the opposite; that we all do want what is wicked (Rm.3:10ff). Yet, if you were to talk with any individual, they will insist that they want to do what is right.  This contradiction can be traced to the inner battle in each of us between sin and conscience. We may know what is right, and want to do what is right, but end up doing what is wrong (Rm.7:19-8). From every President and Pope, to every leader of every religion or organization, to every citizen of every country, all men claim a vague undefined goal to be right. No one says “I just want to be wrong“. 

Even the most hardened criminal, drug addict or murderer has the awareness that he should do what is right, even if he does what is wrong. Yet, what is “right” for some is wrong for others. So this strange battle rages at the very center of human existence. People fight over what is right. Multitudes suffer because nothing is right. Madness erupts into wars where people kill each other over what “right”. Families are devastated by divorce because husband and wife battle over what is right. The world is a reflection, not of the image of God, but of the powers of sin and Satan. Battle lines are drawn that do not mark off sections of land but “places” in our mind and heart that define the ancient paths of the image of God and the image of a selfish man.

God says that man is driven by sin to want evil while claiming to want what is right proving the reflection of His Law is written within every man  (Read Rm.2:14-15). Men are stuck in this quagmire of pride that prevents understanding and breeds confusion (Ps.5:9,116:11,140:3/ Jn.8:44/ Rm.3:13ff). What about you? Will you read this blog in presumption and remain ignorant “Oh yes, I already know all that” or humble yourself and gain the understanding and freedom offered by a loving Father (Jn.8:32)?

Are you willing to consider that you do not understand something that you may say you already understand? We are not animals or plants. You and I are created in the very image of God so as to have His moral constitution at the center of our being. We evaluate life, automatically, with reason, intelligence and memory. It is not impulse that governs our existence. We do not chirp or bark. We articulate. We use our senses and experience to evaluate our surroundings and determine what we ought to do.

All these things reflect God. All these things originated in and proceed out of our Creator. We are like Him though we reject Him (Jn.1:11). God is not some weird sci-fi entity. He became like us so we could become like Him (Jn.10:34ff/Ps.82:6). We live our life in the Shadow of God, whether we want to admit it or not. Our conscience is built to reflect the perfect image of God. So until we do this to our fullest you will always feel troubled and unfulfilled. It is sin which keeps us from doing so.

The image of God is marked out in our mind by “lines” that distinguish the boundaries of right from wrong, good from evil, compassion from indifference, truth from distortion, humility from pride, grace from license, sincerity from pretense, etc.

Frustration and anxiety stem from crossing these inner “battle lines” of the conscience to know, be and do what is right while seeing sin and selfishness in control. Our conscience demands that we walk “the ancient path” of God’s Law. But we fail. We fall. The conscience was not created to condemn or complicate our life. Quite the contrary. It was created to empower us with “The Reflection”. It is our sinful nature that creates the conflict.

The conscience serves as a “tutor” of the truth that the only way to be right is to be “reckoned” right by faith in His redemption (Rm.4:5,13,15/ Gal.2:19,21/ Phil.3:9/ 1 Cor.1:30). The conscience beckons us with a witness to faith in Jesus (Gal.3:24/Rm.10:4).  We can not do what only Jesus has done; fulfill the Law. Jesus was and is “The Perfect Reflection” of God to us. His conscience was so perfectly fulfilled that He was the “exact representation” of the Father to us. The fusion of His salvation transforms the conscience, beyond the 1st Adam,  with The Reflection of the Son (Rm.8:29/2 Cor. 4:6).

Abraham is talking with a guy who is 21 and has 26 years to go. Men are weighed down with enormous grief .

YOU MAY ASK  “How can the image of God reside in us if we are sinful?”. It is not a physical thing like a heart vale or or ear drum. Every day you see your image in a mirror. This does not mean that you are in the mirror. God is not in us but His reflection is. I can clearly see my image in the reflection of a pond but I am not in the pond.  The conscience is a magnificent creation; “a science invention”. It is the reflection of God in having the composition of heart, mind and life. Conscience means “with” (con)“knowledge” (science) of God.  It is the crown of His creation. It is the center of our reasoning capability.  This knowledge is a reflection of light, not from this world. It gives us a continual sense of something beyond ourselves. The cross is meant to eliminate the prime obstacle to our reflection of Jesus (1 Cor.1:18). If we die with Him we shall reflect Him and His sacrificial love (Rm.6:6).  It is supernatural automation.

King Solomon wrote, “God has placed eternity in the heart of man” (Ecc. 3:10). Eternity? Yes. Eternity. Paul explains that His invisible attributes are clearly seen (Rm.1:20). Even if one denies God, the conscience tells him He exists. All men are liars (Ps.116:11/Rm.3:13).  When Satan seduced Adam and Eve, he appealed to the conscience because he knew he would win them if he could defile it (Gen.3:1ff). He won. Sin became alive but conscience did not die. A tainted mirror still reflects an image (1 Cor.13:12). Our accountability is great.

We all fight a war with guilt, shame and terrible failure to the dictates of conscience. Yet God has fully provided the means for victory. Peace of mind comes only to those who yield and learn how to utilize the conscience by becoming subject to the living Jesus. Satan taunts a proud man into a war between his conscience and sin he is not prepared to fight and does not know how to win.

This war is not with other people, who may have already trampled the lines of their conscience (2 Cor.10:12). It is with Satan who uses pride and ignorance to blur the lines so that you walk away from God’s will and into his (Isaiah 8:20/Mt.6:23/Eph.6:12). Salvation is all about position. It is about standing in Christ, not to reflect your glory but His. Will you stand in the “boundary lines” of the truth, to which the Holy Spirit bears witness to your conscience (Jn.14,16/2 Thes.2:12/18:36)? Satan knows if he can get you to ignore your conscience he will win your soul. He uses thoughts to diminish the significance of your focus and decisions. The mind regulates all “aircraft”  that lands in and leaves out of our brain (2 Cor.10:3). Whoever rules the tower runs the airport. 

One time, I was alone hiking in the high country of Wyoming. I crossed over a mountain range and suddenly, I lost all my bearings. For a short time I thought I was lost in the wilderness. I just couldn’t figure out my lines of travel. I begged God to remember. This deep sense of terrible fear radically changed my attitude, seeing how such a beautiful place can become so haunting when you are disorientated. I became extremely careful. Never again leaving my compass behind. In the midst of my alienation I realized how I must be riveted on things I took quite tritely; calculation and recognition of my lines of travel. The consequence of being cavalier about your conscience can send you on a path of no return.

God offers a top of the line moral compass. He wants to lead you into  beautiful “places”. This is His promise (Jn.10:10). However, it requires extreme caution and attention. If your daily life is haunted by a troubled conscience, the depths of anxiety can make your existence anything but beautiful. The goal of Satan is to distract your focus with confusion and win your soul to hell. If you snub this reality, you are a fool. Paul says he fought to his very last day (1Cor.9:27/2 Tim.4:7).

There are many precise bearings on a compass. It demands the discipline of a disciple. Many have no idea how to accurately “divide” between soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12). Praise God that He did not leave us to flounder about subject to the whims of random thoughts and feelings. Conscience points you in the direction of the truth with a “witness” to the righteousness of faith in Christ. The Father has taught me, over 40 years of salvation, how to engage my conscience to reflect Jesus by the power of His Spirit in facing even the most difficult situation (2 Cor.3:18, 4:6). Jesus promises I can never get lost (Jn.10:29).

It is easy to exaggerate and lie and ultimately walk off the path and defile your conscience. No siren will sound. No alarm bell or buzzer will go off when you ignore Him.  You will not be arrested or need to go to a hospital. No lightening bolt will flash at your feet. No one will shout “Hey you! What did you just do?!” You will not start walking into walls or forget how to cook or brush your teeth. You will just blink your eyes, turn your head and lean back in your chair.  But the “silence” of another dark victory assures how loud shall be the screams of hell.

You have crossed a line of conscience and the ‘silence’ is deafening.

It happens every day in a split second. In countless places, over countless issues, all over the world, men deny their conscience and think there are no consequences. God does not grab anyone by the neck or shake anyone by the shoulders and point to your free will.

Look at the reflection of your life. What do men see? We were not created to reflect our SELF. The reflector on a car bumper holds no light of itself. It merely reflects the light it has received. Our conscience yearns to reflect our Creator to it’s fullest potential. Any resistance is the decision of your sinful nature. Jesus offers forgiveness, understanding and grace. But not license. When we continually resist our conscience we risk losing it.

Continual rebellion causes it’s function to become offset, confused and distorted.  Reason is replaced by instinct, impulse and rationalizations that now become the guiding “light” of a troubled soul. Jesus says if “the light that is in you” becomes darkness “how great is that darkness” (Matt.6:23). Men reflect this darkness in their face, their choices and their obsession with selfishness. Virtue and integrity are easily replaced with shallow words and phony pretense. Bitterness and anger take lodging deep in the soul and leave a man to exist in a manhole of regret. Liars are not rare. Pretenders are everywhere. So many men become adrift on an ocean of doubt.  God warns that a life without a clear conscience becomes a “shipwreck” (1 Tim.1:19). The ocean is full of sunken wrecks.

“Do not move THE ANCIENT BOUNDARY…” (Pr.22:28,23:10).

Have you ever run trails or gone hunting in the backwoods and seen a sign that reads PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPASSING? If you cross the boundary line, you risk being arrested, or worse yet, being shot by some redneck itching to fire his gun to protect his property. I have seen many trampled fences where there no longer remains a clear, defined, boundary line. It gives men a giddy sense that they can cross the line with no consequences.

Have you ever pondered a beautiful reflection of trees or a sky in a still clear lake? Such are the clear lines of what is right in the life of a believer. The voice of conscience is clear. Each line has an edge. You know what you should do. God has given each of us a free will with which we can blur the line and cloud the air with double-mindedness and selfishness. The person we reflect to others is not Christ but our own confused self. These ways trespass the line and lead you into enemy territory called rebellion.  You can become disoriented in finding the road of Jesus back to the Father. You become lost in the wilderness of the world. Indecision and unbelief blur your lines of travel. Paul says his “proud confidence is this: the witness of my conscience” (2 Cor.1:12).  You CAN do what you want but the consequences of confusion will follow.

Before Paul met Jesus, he obeyed his conscience and actually fulfilled the standard of the Law (Phil.3:6). Then, he realized he could not separate himself from the pride of his own self-righteousness. He fell under the death of the cross to obtain the saving righteousness “reckoned” by faith (Phil.3:7ff/Rm.4/Gal.2:20). His conscience was cleansed by the blood of Jesus and redeemed to live in spirit and truth by the Spirit of Truth (Rm. 8:1-3 /Heb.9:14). Two men can take a basket of food to the poor. Outwardly the act seems the same. One man can’t stop thinking “I am helping the poor”. The other man thinks “What is your name, my friend?”. The boundary of God’s love is marked by a line with a clear edge separating it from self-love. If a person talked to someone else about their needs a quarter of the amount that they talked about themselves this person would begin to learn both death to self and the love of God.

Lost men could care less about empty doctrines of Christ. They’ve heard them a hundred times. They need to see and hear the reality of Jesus. Today we see a “Christianization” of the conscience. These “Christians” use Biblical terms with no reality. They pretend to be saved but are lost so they wrongly label the conscience as the Holy Spirit and their own failures as “the old man”. They ignorantly use the terms of grace, faith, the blood and love, but don’t know how to, or even if they want to, apply them to their own life. They wander in a wilderness without a compass.  Satan exploits this confusion born out of presumption (1 Cor.14:33). The Spirit explicitly says that in the last days men will be vulnerable to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons and by means of the hypocrisy of these lies become seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron (1 Tim.4:2). 

A defiled conscience is not seen by someone drinking blood or killing babies. A man smiles. He shakes a hand and asks “How are you?”. He appears ‘nice’. But inside, where no one can see but God alone, he knows that he is not right. And it is the distance between that outward image and his inward conscience where delusion exists. This is the curse and vexing of God that automatically happens to anyone who makes light of the truth in the conscience (2 Thess.2:10).

The trespass shows itself in a fallen countenance and a misappropriation of, and disproportionate responses in, behavior. It is like what the reaction of the trespasser would be at the precise moment that the owner of the property caught him on his land. What should be a “normal” reaction to something, becomes a troubled wrong reaction. Emotional subterfuge becomes the norm. Common sense becomes “hidden”, because reason has now become unclear. You can read of these things, one after another, with the consequences in Matthew 23. (When I look at the picture below I instantly remember it’s stench. It was that terrible.)

“To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled” (Titus 1:15).

A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken

“BEYOND REPAIR” (without remedy) (Pr.29:1).

GOING BACK FOR A FUTURE.

Of all things Paul could have written as the culmination and proof, of God’s covenant with Abraham and Moses, within us, he said it is that Jesus sends His Spirit into our hearts crying “Abba! Father!” (Hebrew ‘DADDY” (Gal.3:15-4:6). A child and his daddy. The primary identity of a true believer is a child of God. If you will expend your energy to comprehend this it will change your life. Jesus gives the right (the power of righteousness by faith) to become (ongoing)  a child of God (Jn.1:12). 

Paul says we must grasp “the mystery” of this faith with a “clear conscience” (1 Tim.3:9).

The strategy of the Father was for Jesus to bring a salvation that would cleanse and “enlighten” the conscience of every man to be transformed into a child of God. He spoke directly to, and explained, that this is the enigma in all men. To do what is right is to become a child(Jn. 1:9-13).

How long has it been since you were a child? Everyone accepts the thinking that being a child was a time left behind, in someplace you long ago lived. I spent 20 years at 919 Lake Michigan Dr. Two cherry trees in the backyard and a huge house with many rooms. It supplied many moments of simple play. I cherish and access memories of innocence, happy contentment and a pure conscience. We have aged and matured but we do not turn into aliens. (At least not most of us. Lol.) 

What I mean is, as human beings we possess a physical brain and an unseen mind. They work together to provide a library of all our thoughts and memories. A thought travels at 250 miles an hour. So, we can literally access the memory of our childhood conscience in an instant. The cost is time, focus and a depth of serious contemplation. Can you remember a moment when you were aware of your own absolute innocence to life? You had no option but to be who you were and trust. The conscience of a child most accurately reflects the image of the Creator. God says the identity of child is everything (Jn.1:12/Rm.8:16/1 Jn.2:2). 

The reward is a clarity of spirit. An absence of burden. No confusion. No complexity. Childhood was the closest time you have ever had to a pristine conscience. Satan knows the proud can never embark on such a contemplative journey to “become a child”. It’s ‘good enough’ to just try to do the right thing on your own. But the price is losing your soul. A childlike heart is more important than anything in your entire life. It offers the key to a sincere conscience, a beacon of contentment and established battle lines. A child releases the intended purpose of the conscience to reflect the joy of being His creation.

This is not just a neat thought. It is a divine command of Jesus as the only way to escape enemy territory and enter His promised land of peace and joy. Jesus put extraordinary emphasis “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you can not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:1ff).

A childlike heart is not naivety or silliness. It reflects the attitude of Jesus. It is the absence of all cynicism. It is absolute trust. It faces every fear with resolute surrender to God. The permanent elimination of complex thought leaves Satan no ammunition (2 Cor.10:3). You establish a firm and clear EDGE to the boundary called TRUST. It insures the edge of love, truth and reality. No trespassing means NO TRESPASSING. It is not Law. It is heart desire. I would have never called my natural father “Daddy”. He was so distant it would have been weird. But this is what my children call me without a thought because we share that special intimate love of the Father that Paul speaks of in Galatians 4:6.

We cannot know or control the future. We can only live in the moments of who we know ourselves to be. This is the essence of the humility that once composed you as a natural child and is now vital to become a child of God. The life of King David is a beautiful display of a sincere conscience. Sincerity is a beautiful Greek word. It refers to a metal proven to have no impurities (alloy). It is a most undervalued word. The lines of sincerity are clearly marked in the conscience of every man. When allowed to function properly, a sincere conscience will automatically lead a person into the truth of multitudes of profound benefits found in the living Jesus.

In the Old Testament the word leb is used for conscience. It means heart. David beheaded Goliath with the vigor of a child. David was smitten in his conscience when he showed disrespect for Saul by cutting off a piece of his robe and when he proudly numbered the tribes of Israel (1 Sam.24:5,2 Sam. 24:10). He instantly repented. David showed a conscience for God like no other man except Jesus. Of Jesus Isaiah prophesied “For a child will be born  to us, a son will be given to us;” (Is.9:6). Jesus was the ultimate Child and cried “Daddy” at His hour of agony (Mk.15:34).

Our conscience resonates with the Character of a loving Father. He put this within us, to empower us to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love each other(Lk.10:27/Mk.12:30/Mt.22:37/Dt.6:5). “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim.1:5).

My friend, listen to me. Jesus offers a cleansing of the conscience but it requires far more than a little prayer or sorrowful emotion (Heb.9:9, 14,10:22). In fact, Paul warns that you can search for it with tears and not find it (Heb. 12:15-17). No matter where you are in life, no matter how old or how tragic; no matter how impossible your situation might seem, you must go back to your past in order to find a good future. A childlike conscience will lead you into the truth that will set you free (Jn.8:32).

Childlike simplicity is the key, because it provides the necessary disposition of a child in submission to a Father, which was inlaid in our composition at Creation.

THINKING-The Road to New

Long ago, you chose to train your tendencies to be who you have chosen to be and this has carried you into the life you now live each day. If you have violated your conscience, your life is one big mess. You can barely stand to be alone with yourself, let alone be still enough to converse with God. A troubled conscience results in constant stress. Anxiety raises blood pressure and causes premature aging.

Good old fashioned “ancient path” thinking is a lost art. Modern thinking is demented. The core is self-obsession. Token words and shallow pretense is the norm in Christianity. Everything is conformity to the same image of someone striving to be right. Self-righteousness. Jesus says lose your life and you will find it (Jn.12:25). THINK. What does this really mean?  Paul says “if we die with Him, we shall also live with Him”. He is speaking of something you have never seen or can imagine (Rm.6:6ff/1 Cor.2:off). You are not meant to be who you are but who you are not (2 Cor.5:17). Jesus puts “new wine” into “new wineskins” (Mk. 2:22).  The writings of Paul overflow with a man who, beyond his enormous suffering, knew amazing joy. His articulation is nothing less than brilliant. He fully used his human capability of intelligence and creativity.

There is no problem Jesus cannot answer. There is no challenge He cannot empower you to overcome; even any mental or physical infirmity. The “secret” is childlike humility (Mt.11:25/1 Pt.1:18).  Thinking that you are different does not make you different. Different thinking makes you different.  Jesus speaks through your conscience to care for others. His purpose in your life is not to “receive blessings” but to give blessings. Not to spend your whole life focused on saving yourself but to be a servant to save others. I have learned His intelligence which is to learn to approach men at their feet, as He did, not at their face (Mt.20:28/Jn.13:1ff).

Pride tells you that you deserve things. Jesus demonstrated The Reflection of His Father’s love comes from becoming nothing and “success” is humiliation (Phil.2:7). The image within us speaks loud and clear that all His lines mark out the image of a Servant of sacrificial love. The “lines” in His face caused men to look away (Is.53). To meet a person at their feet is to instantly find access to their heart and mind. Nothing is the key to Someone who offers everything. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and captured their conscience, not by a summons to Law, but to a Friend Who sticks closer than a brother. The Reflection of love turns things inside out, upside down and recreates a man with a conscience to serve the Father with all the heart, soul, strength and mind. God came as the Servant. To reflect His image is to be a servant to the world. You will never distinguish the operation of your conscience if you are lost in the wilderness of your sinful nature. Never.

Jesus came so the poor, the homeless, the prisoners could find His land marks of “milk and honey” (Is.61/Ex.3:8/Lev.20:24/Num.13:27,14:8/Heb.4:8ff). This destiny can be yours, my friend.

“The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me” (Ps.16:6).

The humility of the Son is indispensable. It is the only seat from which to properly operate and discharge the “Megaplex” called YOU. A new you is not destined to be a small mini-mart but like a battleship, General Motors, an airport or military complex. At any given moment, you are processing hundreds of simultaneous decisions without any calculated considerations. Electrical impulses that skip across trillions of atoms and cells transmit instantaneous reactions, sent from your brain throughout your body, causing you to move in a set direction.

King David reflected the messianic heart of Christ (1 Sam.16-17). His exuberance for God reflected the freedom of a child so in love with God his transparency was astounding. He defied conformity to the fear in the army of Israel as he carried Goliath’s head to Saul.  As much as I may quiver over the many challenges I face, as a weak man, I am constantly exhilarated by the courage that comes only from a clear conscience before God.

The only reason I can walk into a courtyard of 300 hardened criminals and face their hostility with love is because it is so far beyond me. I am like a stilled a child resting in his mother’s arms (Ps.131:1). I am completely at His mercy. If it was not something far beyond me I could never do it. If it was something within my grasp the enormous fear would ultimately crush me. As with David, courage comes from a heart for God. It requires the “work” to hammer out the potential of His image within me (Jn.6:29/1 Cor.15:10). It is my burning desire to give lost, suffering men the reflection of the Son. David says “Why are you in despair, oh my soul (the sinful nature)?…I will not fear 10,000…I am fearfully and wonderfully made (so as to find within my God implanted potential a response to all things” (Ps.42:5,139:14/3:6). 

 I love the word “realignment” because I get “off” quite easily. The Spirit finds no problem, as He aligns my life to it’s fullest.  Like a river that flows down from a mountain, the channels of reason, logic, emotion, patience, etc. stream in perfect symmetry by simple trust. To use a computer term, a clear conscience provides “live streaming”.

When we follow the lines of what is right, good, and noble, the God of all peace rules our body (Phil. 4:6-9).

 Our brain is full of microscopic electrons, protons and neurons that fire constantly to operate the matrix of motives, memories, experiences, and desires. It automatically translates colors, body reactions, smells, what we touch, taste buds, etc.

All these things develop “personality traits”. For every conflict you face, this highly capable system is waiting to launch your thoughts with the overwhelming response of resolution. Ever see one of those medical charts of your anatomical composition? Wow. The combined blood vessels in your brain, called axons, are 100,000 miles long. They could circle the globe four times.

All this constitutes YOU. The greatest “super-computer” in the world can only do 2% of your brain capacity. There is no cord to plug in or button to push. No yearly maintenance required. The Father created us with these phenomenal capabilities to transit on our expressions with His glory. There is no greater joy than to express the privilege of reflecting His love and humor to the world.

The creativity and childlike imagination, suppressed in our conscience,  has the capacity to render us answers to things we never before considered. How will you know, if you do not try? Such thinking is a gift waiting to be opened. Men never consider that God offers something unique and different. They think everybody and everything is the same. If you are different they will quickly accuse you of exclusivity “So, you think you are different?”. Absolutely. They find no answers because they give up before they even search. We were created to be utterly dependent upon God not men. Independence from God is dependence on sin.

Satan uses fear to drive men to trample the lines of courage. To surrender the edge and blur the line called love with lazy tolerance; to trespass the lines of patience, maturity and wisdom and enter the land of apathy, indifference and natural thinking. We must weigh out and determine the value we place on the propositions of sin leading to hell or on the dictates of our conscience leading to Christ. The fear of God is a boundary line intended to lead men into His “ancient boundaries” (Pr.9:10/Lk.12:5). The edge of a line is of high value because it establishes a clear contrast between delusion and reality. When a person justifies and rationalizes his ignorance to the conscience, he blurs the lines. He who loses the EDGE shall not know when he wanders into the place where he is lost and in danger of hell fire. The terrible reality is that such a man chooses to reflect the power of sin to God and thus exalt Satan on earth. 

TRAVEL UPDATE

For those who don’t know, but might care, my family and I are preaching the living Jesus in southern Brazil. The Lord has wonderfully opened many doors of opportunity to use a concert we created to get into places we otherwise would not be invited in to “perform” (preach Jesus). It is actually remarkable.

In the prison described at the beginning, the guards led us into a patio of some 300 prisoners. I touched each man with no words in Portuguese but many with my eyes, heart and handshake.  The head security major explained that at a prior time, a few prisoners had dismembered someone and threw the head into the courtyard. Hence the reason he had originally forbid us to enter this place, but we convinced him to give us a chance. Thus the reason for the heavily-armed guards.

They instantly took positions with their weapons aimed directly at the men. The tension and intimidation were obvious. Childlike trust was our position. We immediately went into the crowd passing out the 300 bags of popcorn that the girls had made the night before (one of the only things we can get in mass quantity that costs basically nothing but time and blesses the guys a lot).  As Joshua told his “hilarious” jokes and Abraham did his “Charlie Chaplin” card tricks, the men slowly realized that we were not there as members of some “evangelical” do-gooders or social group. Just a crazy family with a noble plan.

As we began, the courtyard slowly filled with laughter, tears and most of all the beautiful response to the Word of the living Jesus. Sarah wrote a poem/play about the prodigal son that is very powerful. No one would imagine how Ruth, despite a steel rod and 4 screws in her leg,  does an Irish step-dance (think River Dance) that always wins a rowdy applause and the hearts of so many that have been through such tragedy. David and Joshua creatively thought of how to demonstrate the power of the will, as though it were a machine, through a costume and music (picture included below). The guys ate it up. Elizabeth has this beautiful story she tells about the ground for a seed to grow. She constructed the small model of a cell surrounded with barbed wire and bars out of cardboard as the ultimate soil.

So many stories. Marco is a man about my age put in a wheelchair from being shot in the spine. Your heart is slain by the lack of ability to do something for him. 10 years to go in this hell hole. A competitive humor lifted some men as they competed to show us their bullet holes and scars from operations. So many humble guys. So different from the states.  One tiny-framed young man, who was from a town hundreds of miles away and never had his relatives visit, asked Joshua… “Is that your mom? Can I hug her?”. When Rachel came over, she just broke, and so did he. So many guys moved to tears just wanting to be held. So abandoned and forgotten. One black guy about 6’6 just wanted to give me a hug. These Brazilians are quite different than other Latins. One guy insisted I take his “Matte cup”. This is a coffee-like drink they take very seriously down here. I could go on ad-infinitum. We share with so many people in parks, soccer games, downtown city streets and festival kind of settings. 

The Director took Abraham and I into a dungeon-like basement where pits were full of waste and the cells were worse than any dog cage I’ve seen. We offered our manual labor to lay some much needed sewer lines and he took us up on it. We will all be working on this for a while. It made me terrible sick after the first day but I just kept thinking they have to LIVE in this. Such things as this put something in your character and integrity that will serve my perspective for life.

Recently, while preaching in another prison, some guys asked “Are you from the 1st world?”. Not a question you’d ever expect. We are far out in the middle of nowhere. Everyone constantly asks “Why did you go out here?” The answer is not “Because we are so concerned” or “Because God told us”. It is simply the end result of the command “Go …” and “the wind blows…” (Mt.28:19/Jn.3:8). We ended up here as a result of Go…ing by our will and being blown by the Spirit.

In another prison, I stepped in a puddle while trying to reach up through the bars of a prison window to put a tract in each of the outstretched hands of five guys. I looked down and realized it was full of urine and waste. This prison has no drainage system. Sewage drains down the walls forming pools in the outside courtyard. The whole prison wreaks. The smell remains in your nose even after you leave. I realize this is a disgusting image but more disgusting is that this is the real life situation for men who could be your brother or father, being subjected to this for years on end. These men sit alone in a darkness that crushes their soul.

Tens of thousands of men are forced into cells so tiny that eight to ten guys have to sleep like pieces in a puzzle. Little water and little ventilation in 100-degree temperatures. No relief. No escape. No breath of fresh air. Incomprehensible. Prisoners of a war this world denies.

I seldom use the word miracle because in American culture a 30% discount at Wal-Mart is defined as a “miracle”. But we hope and believe it is God getting this meager family into so many hard-core prisons, city streets, and orphanages. There is no room for boasting or proud self-righteousness. We live by a clear edge of His love and courage. Below is Rachel sending up tracts in a milk carton to guys on the third floor.

I do not think that anyone who is a true Christian, and who has an abundance, could read this and not want to share in reaching people at the ends of the earth with Jesus. I am hoping for one day when such a person would read this and ask “How could I send something to help?”  It’s never happened but I write this with a hope that it could.  No “entanglement” necessary.  It is awkward to write of the needs in doing such work but Paul repeatedly did the same (1 Cor.9:9/1 Tim.5:18). No man wants to be in such a difficult place but Jesus is worthy and these are the last days. We can not both work a job and preach the gospel around the world. However, my motive in writing this blog is not to get support. It is to teach and demonstrate the reality of living the gospel of Jesus Christ so someone might find true forgiveness in His blood and be rescued from eternity in hell. If you’d like to just correspond I could care less about your support. Please feel free to write and ask any questions. I do not bite.

“…not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor.4:2).

Could there be a place, beyond the stars, where there is a real Someone waiting for you to seek His disclosure? Could you be wanted by the God of the universe? He is not ambivalent or neutral in His love for you and does not take into account all your floundering and failures (2 Cor.5:19). Jesus says the Father ‘RUNS out to meet you’(Lk.15:20). I don’t mean to be offensive, my friend, but the truth is that the way you see yourself right now is not at all the reality of your actual state. You are blinded to His love by your fear, rebellion and ignorance. Right now you have the ability to enact something so powerful it will change this moment, this day and your life.

I dare you. I challenge you. I beg you. Stop. Stop allowing Satan to play your life like a video game. Seize control. Unleash the power of your will against the unseen spirit pressuring you to look away and go on to something else. This is not from God but from a dark world within you. It is not unique to you but common in every man. I entreat you, face this anxiety head on. Stand as a brave soldier against a hostile army (Ps.3:6). The goal?  Your own stillness of heart. Absolute inner silence with one Person on your lips…spoken slowly… deliberately… J e s u s. No little accomplishment. The answers to your present dilemma so close. The vigor to live at hand (Malachi 4:2).  Impose your will.  Refuse to conform to the “personality” dictated by a job and others around you.  You are WANTED.

Be no one’s fool my friend. One life. One shot. One Spirit Who can rescue  you…from you.  Hell is not a lame possibility. Escape requires this kind of “work” (Jn.6:29). You don’t need to go anywhere to do something. You need to release what you hold so tightly… and what holds you so tightly; yourself.

I write this letter to enter your home and your heart because I love you. I really do. I am not a “preacher”. My name is Michael and I am a son. I want so much to share beyond all the generic blab and “Christian” terminology. I want to talk with you, to you, in you, as a friend who cares to sit with you and help you learn how to sense the actual Presence of the living Jesus. This is all that matters. In all of life…this is all that matters. This is not a warm and fuzzy “transcendental nirvana”. This is the nitty gritty call of a blood and guts work by Someone Who bore the ultimate brute force. This is reality.  This is freedom, freedom from “the world” is what I write in this blog (Jn.8:32-34).

My family and I arrived here in southern Brazil about three weeks ago. So different. So much need. So much lack of the gospel. We fully rely on the Spirit to empower us with all we so desperately need. Beyond our personal needs are those of the many we face as we “Go…” (Mk.16:15). We also hope,  somehow, to  find a reliable vehicle that is big enough to carry all 8 of us, our equipment, and many supplies, so we can effectively travel, not only throughout Brazil, but Paraguay, Bolivia etc… If anyone would care to help us it would be so great. Just drop a note and we’ll let you know how.  It is so humbling and motivating to experience the amazing mercies of the Father for the lost. Just amazing. We feel at times like the bread which He broke then gave to the multitudes.                       

God is opening so many doors into prisons. We are presently at the 2nd worst in Brazil. I was thinking the other day  if you could set a prisoner free from a ten year sentence by serving one day in jail would you do so? What if you could free a thousand prisoners by one week of hard labor? You have no idea who they are or what they would do. Maybe they beat their children or could kill someone. You don’t know. Would you sacrifice your time, indeed your very blood, for the benefit of a complete stranger? Paul says maybe someone would sacrifice himself for a good man but “…while we were still sinners… Christ died for the ungodly” (Rm.5:6).

It is easy to think our love is some big deal. Nothing we can ever do will match the sacrificial essence of a 33 yr. old Carpenter sent to earth by His Father. Accurate perspective breeds humility. Jesus suffered, not a month of slave labor, not a few years in prison, not a week without food. He sustained a burning, hot desert for a month without food and water.  His love actually sweat drops of blood. Jesus had no apartment.  He carried no luggage.  He was born in a barn and lived under the stars. He took care of 12 very stupid men. Most of which never understood Him.                            

Beyond this, and so much more, Jesus sacrificed the one thing that meant the most, His divine, intimate communion with His Father. On the cross, His eyes searched the heavens for His eternal Companion. He sacrificed everything He had as the very Son of God.  Jesus bore  the penalty of God’s wrath for our sin through a Roman crucifixion.

Understand The Past To Change Your Future.                     

He did all this for every single stranger He never met who would ever walk this earth. The ultimate moment of victory for Jesus was shared with no one on earth. He stood up, out of the ground, alone, in His new resurrection body. He got up from the dead in a remote and obscure desert graveyard, all alone. Imagine the Hollywood depiction of the undead bursting through as the grass and ground are unearthed. Well, this One was not a monster or beast from darkness. Jesus…the Morning Star.                        

All this so we could be freed from “the world”, here and now, and from being tormented in hell for eternity. …What is “the world”?In our day to day routine it is easy to gloss over the most mind-blowing reality in the universe; that all men hate God so much, we killed Him; while at the same time He loved us so much, it killed Him.

The greatest danger we face in life is not some scheme by Satan to unknowingly capture our soul. Rather, it is outcome of presumption; the erosion of the fear of God.  “I already know all this” (Jn.8:32).                     

…

What in the world is “The World”  and/rather/or Who In The World Is “The World”?

Paul says he received “something” not of this world (1 Cor.2:12). Maybe he discovered life on another planet. From where else would he have received “something” other than from someplace or someone in this world? My friend, in order to gain God’s light you must open, not just your mind, but your heart to another world. Jesus says “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn.18:36). There is nothing of God in this world. There is nothing of this world in God’s world. The two collided in Jesus on Calvary and the Lamb was found dead.                          

My friend, look beyond all the pretty songs, poetic words, and the religious guise of altruism. This world is not full of love but lies.  The heart of the world is not for peace but for self.  It was proven by what it did to ‘the Prince of Peace’. So vulnerable. So fragile. So innocent. The world is not some evil substance that fills the concrete mixture of buildings to cause high-level corruption. It is not in some TV or Hollywood image of evil.                      

The world resulted from Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It scared God to the degree He had to frustrate man’s ability to communicate (Gen.11:7). This empire of sin now pulsates in you and I. We are “the world”.  We are the hostile entity against God. We are sin and sinners. Jesus says “…the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.“ (1 Jn.2:16). The world of sin lurks within. Yet, despite this grievous truth, the Father and the Son have provided the work in which, in the stillness of time and soul, we can discover that we are WANTED.                         

Turning Yourself In – To The Authority

Oh, may we change how we talk of God. Both in our countenance and words, may we speak slowly and not in a pride of knowledge. We did not ascertain these things apart from Him. These are not matters of currency or furniture. We speak of Someone Who dwells on a high and holy place. Do we really know what we are talking about as we are talking about it? Do we really know Whom we are talking about as we are talking about Him? How can we be experts on One we killed?                             

Was there ever one time when you were very wrong about something you felt was very right? If there was one could there be another? This can be prevented by implementing a deliberate attitude of transparency. In the morning, we boast of our knowledge of God. Then later, in the same day, we resent Him for not doing what we think He should. When in fact He was just trying to teach and implant into us the humble attitude He Himself has (Phil.2:4ff). Our only hope is mortification. It produces the one thing God will not despise about us; “a broken and contrite heart” (Ps.51:19). Our only hope to “see” the Most High is to view Him from the lowest point we can put ourselves. Humility and a broken heart leave no trace of presumption. Without this disposition, the gift of sonship remains an abstract doctrine.                           

The obstacles of sin are not merely demonstrated in evil physical acts performed in society. The most hideous is seen in the meticulous nature of our own fascination with ourselves. It is self-deification. Pride is like an apparel for our ego. We are intrigued by our obsession with our world. We alone determine a destiny; sin. We can do what we want, when we want, how we want because we want; sin. Not one person can or will stop you. Free will is a Ft. Knox. Satan has fashioned sin with evil expertise to thoroughly corrupt the soul of man. He whispers the evil thoughts of a billion men from a thousand generations. He knows they work because he has seen them work. Evil works. In fact, it works way better than good because man is adept at evil.  Lies and proud images fall instantly into place as if pieces into an age-old puzzle.  A tiny smirk in one man reflects the unity and conformity with the worldwide conspiracy to defy God and do things your own way. Way to go Adam. Way to go MAN.

The ambiguity of sin is not an accident but an ingenious design. Thus, it leaves no excuse. So let me be clear in stating that behind such theological words as sin, ego, the soul and pride is any laymen’s understandable term of selfishness. Downright insensitive to anyone else’s needs but your own. Despite the caring-image-crap, you love yourself. Your life is a disaster because you are obsessed with yourself.                        

As unique as you think yourself to be, there are millions who share in the exact same struggles and deception.  We all share the exact same body of sin and thus are all tied together as “the world”.                             

Immediately after Adam sinned God asked him (man);     

“Where are you?”.

Man was out of place. Out of the place of absolute submission and obedience. This obviously was not a question of physical place because God knew Adam’s location. Adam had conspired with Satan to “relocate” himself into a world of his own; justified thoughts, rationalization, self-pity, defiance; “I am my own man”. Independence.                       

10,000 years ago Adam introduced us to the thinking process from hell. When Lucifer became Satan, the ultimate ego was born and in a divine microsecond, this archangel of light became dark and found himself cast down to earth. Hell was created as his eternal home of destiny and he busily went to work to subvert man away from the Creator.                         

Adam immediately received access to the most wicked thoughts that you and I are thinking this very moment.  Satan manipulates our feelings and thoughts through the conduit of sin. We conspired with him back then and do so every time we side against faith in Jesus. He has successfully built another variation of hell within our very soul and thus, within every culture of mankind.                           

The common expression “I’m going through hell today” is actually a very accurate statement. I “go through hell” every day. This is why we are vexed by, and don’t know how to deal with, ourselves. We do not define ourselves as “the world” because it rubs our self-righteousness the wrong way. We are not like “them”. In this very thought, we are exactly “them”. We are “caught off guard” by something within us that if we refuse to recognize, we will continue to walk as “the world”.                         

Imagine a soldier who parachutes into the heart of enemy territory but doesn’t know it. He is shocked by coming into hostile places he thought would be safe. When you don’t understand that you don’t understand sin, you think you are living beyond it and it is this very thought, of pride, that shows it’s “secrecy”.  You are trying to resolve something within you that is far beyond you. It is called “the mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess.2:7). In all his brilliance, Paul could never understand sin (Rm.7:15). Jesus says the essence of sin is “they hated Me without reason” (Jn. 15:25). We live against God, in conspiracy with all men, because insanity is the essence of sin (Ecc.9:3).                          

The body in which you live is completely against you.  It is your “world”. It is the “place” out of which you try to manage your life. You have not identified it as your enemy, so you treat as your friend. The very attitudes of hell pulsate in your soul. It is inescapable. I can’t stand living with myself. I hate myself (Jn.12:25). I discern and divide between my soul and my God-given regenerate spirit in Christ (Heb.4:12). Salvation doesn’t make me jump around like a happy bunny. It sobers me to realize the immense conflict I face and teaches me how to live by faith in the finished work of Jesus.                         

You and I can not fathom what it must have been like for Adam when his blissful God-consciousness was snuffed out by the petty and nit-picky, sick self-consciousness of rebellion and self-obsession. A consequence he never expected. Jesus says Satan is the master at lying (Jn.8:44). Basically everything you think -is a lie. Everything.  A lie is not a singular notion but the end result of thousands of half-truths, exaggerations, misunderstanding, over-reactions, etc. The only way to reach beyond your world of lies is faith and action based on revelation of His Kingdom.                     

Men are terrified to be ALONE with this monster called SELF. We work in the worst prisons in this world and deal with thousands of men whose prison is even worse than the one in which they sleep. Isolation is a form of punishment and torture in prisons and war. Man does not know how to deal with himself. He can not escape his maddening thoughts and feelings. His spirit cries for a love he does not know. He cannot control his impulses because they are fueled by the supernatural powers of Satan, while he is a mere frail human. It is hell within. Literally.                         

Listen to me, my friend, it would be one thing if these things I write were common knowledge. They are not. They are “hidden” from the wise and only revealed to “the babes” (Mt.11:25). Written in the code of sin is the bizarre conspiracy of the world to defy the evil of sin and trivialize it, as though covered by a prayer or feelings of sorrow.                         

You are dealing with things far beyond your capacity to resolve.  The wicked things you see within yourself are not proof of who you are, but of who Satan is. Once you come to Christ, Paul explains sin becomes an isolated entity(Rm.7:20). You have been crucified with Christ, thus, in a sense, you become a third party to what you once were.  Yet in order for this reality to be your reality you must first recognize that you are now but a maggot; worthless as a tumbleweed ( Job 25:6 ). This will bring you to the humility needed for a new creation within. A new world. God’s world. Satan tells you that you are alone with your “personality traits” and evil tendencies of sin. So you hide, rationalize and deny them. As if God doesn’t see them.                                    

We are trained from birth to go along with this narrative of the world within.They are attitudes coming into us through the pipeline of hell. Hell comes out of us because hell is within us. You must see this. You must define the monster within.  Satan has stolen our greatest gift from God, free will.  God is waiting to empower our will with the unction of His grace through true understanding of how the gospel works. We are seduced by the world into a laziness and comfort, so as not to unearth the power of our free will. So that what we define as “living” is really nothing more than acting.                           

The way OUT of the world

I don’t believe “something good is going to happen to me today”. I believe something good has already happened for me every day. I don’t believe tomorrow is going to be better than today. I  believe what He already did will enable me to face tomorrow. I don’t believe I can be all that I can be. I believe I am nothing and anything I become will be produced by His Spirit. If I am nothing, He will be Whom He is in me. If I were to believe any of this “positive thinking” crap, I would fall for the grand old lies within this disgusting body of mine. I would live on the roller coaster of feelings and emotions, not on faith in the past work of Christ.                       

What I think in daily life was determined long ago. There is one past event by which everything I live each day is subject. Wacko thoughts, whether upbeat or downbeat, do not define my disposition. I believe the Word of God provides both the picture I am to paint and the paint with which to paint it. The reality and the power.  I believe in one thing and one thing only; the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Everything I experience is subject to what His work means. My faith in the past renders my present and future already complete. I am a mechanical “robot” programmed to believe Jesus.                          

I don’t live according to my world. I live in His. This doesn’t mean I don’t exist in my world but I understand it. I live by faith, that the living Person of Jesus bore this exact body, mind, soul, feelings and thinking of mine. He took it to the cross to bear the Father’s fierce wrath. When He did so, it forever condemned the existence of my body on this earth. I can not, nor will I try to, make myself better. Any finger of effort would be to deny the entire revelation of the Word of God.  “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal.6:14). I was crucified in the past. I died long ago.                        

Thus, nothing I experience in this body of sin and hell determines anything today. Jesus rose up from the death of our world, in a new resurrected Spirit-body. Although I’ve never seen it or had any “heavenly visitation” where “God told me” anything, I know what I live is real because I live far greater and far beyond my body of flesh. The life I live could not possibly be out of the power of my wickedness. There is no way I could ever live the way I do, if He were not real. I would never choose humiliation over pride. Never. I could never think of the things I think of, never (1Cor.2:9).                          

I don’t have wings. I can not float. (Not even in water, LOL.) What I do is to believe beyond myself to what Jesus did 2000 years ago. My spirituality is not determined by what I do or by what happens or doesn’t happen in a day or in a situation. It was determined 40 years ago at the University of Notre Dame when I decided to believe and follow Jesus.                          

My life is not determined by “my world” but by the teachings of Jesus, as He defines reality. No matter how real my thoughts and feelings may seem and what they may tell me, when I believe in the light from God’s Word, I am lifted by faith into another realm.  What He has long ago spoken instantly pushes all the buttons of reality within me.                             

The war of the worlds was fought within the human body and has already been won by Jesus. Therefore, I live as a victor, not as a victim. I choose not to whine and moan but rejoice that my name is written in the Book of Life. I triumph over, rather than succumb to, the world of hell within. When I fall,  I instantly rise because, in His world, I have never fallen (1 Jn.3:9). My sin is as the blink of an eye, because such confidence in His finished work is the greatest praise I can offer. My Father sees me under the blood of His Son.                        

THE TERM

When Jesus arrived on earth, He took the idea of  “the world”, out of it’s positive context, and redefined it in His light, as inseparable from condemnation, judgment and ultimately hell.  What had always been used as a generic term referring to the great accomplishments of men, was now exposed as the most evil hostile entity against God.       

In speaking of the world as the place of all men, He says “Light has come into the world and men love darkness” (Jn.3:19) and  “The world hates Me because I testify that it’s deeds are evil” (Jn.7:7).  He is talking about us, mankind. In our world of hell, we hate God, because His light exposes us as so far from Him. We are faced with our free will to choose. Believe or pretend.                          

In the world of our sin, we feel resentment towards God for what we think we deserve. We are frustrated in our putrid, shallow existence. Jesus confronted the conscience of the world. His Supreme Authority over this world resonated, and resonates, within the conscience of our own individual world.  In Jesus, an entirely new dimension had dawned upon the world, with the truth that  “The Norm” of man’s existence (our individual existence) is absolutely abnormal to God. Everything we do, and anything we do, in this world is not only absolutely vain but wicked. There is no meaning, whatsoever, in any facet of this world. It is only to be condemned. Everything about men is essentially bizarre.                                   

The transformation of His light is our only hope of becoming “normal”. He is our only hope to find the destiny of redemption. The world of sin is in our blood, atoms and molecules. It is a smirk with no explanation. It is the vain gazing in a mirror. It is as slight as a twitch of lust.  It is the anger or jealousy right below the surface of our disguised pretense. It is in the gluttony we call overeating. It is the source and strength of every self-serving tendency. It killed Jesus 2000 years ago and resents Him in anyone in whom He lives today.                     

A homely looking Carpenter walked our streets and explained how His mere presence on earth meant  “judgment is upon the world….now the ruler of the world has been judged ” (Jn.12:31,16:8/1 Jn.5:19).                                  

In a short three year period, Jesus designated all the realities and terms of our world as of no comparison to the One for Whom He stood. Satan immediately came out of hiding and, with all the powers of hell, manipulated the world to kill Jesus for giving us this revelation.                                    

The two worlds collided in a place where two pieces of wood made a cross. One act of One Son forever altered the accountability of all men to reject the world. “If I be lifted up…” (Jn.12:32). Jesus says their accountability is now before them. Jesus explained that the body of God upon a cross would summon all men to this inescapable accountability in their conscience. Each man’s response to His act would define their eternity.                                

“If I had not come and spoken to them (about the world), they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin (to live for the world). He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘ They hated ME without A cause.” (Jn.15:18-25).                                  

I was driving up to Central Mich. University for a summer football test. I had just met Jesus, a month earlier, while at a catholic charismatic conference at the University of Notre Dame. I was contemplating the deep things of becoming a disciple. I could have never imagined back then that one day my six children, Rachel and I would be standing before thousands for Jesus.          

All that was on my mind was that I was about to see my old buddies who knew me only as “the crazy War” (A wild ‘party-down’ dude). How would they respond to my new-found decision to follow Jesus? I remember the exact moment of pulling into the parking space outside the stadium housing.                                 

I stepped outside of my dad’s car and, as I saw my buddies approach, I simultaneously realized that I had stepped into a world of complete hostility and opposition. Little did I know of what I had done, in giving my life to Jesus.“If the world hates you, you know that – It Has Hated Me – before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you (Jn.12:31,15:18ff). It wasn’t me they were hating. It was Jesus in my world.                              

There were no sirens, alarms or bells sounding over what was happening. I was just an ordinary man who had been called OUT of the world. It surely hit me hard. “They” came up laughing, swearing and joking expecting me to reciprocate their insanity. While I saw myself in each of them, I was no longer “them”. I knew exactly what they were thinking, because I shared in their world. I was “of” the world but now I was called “OUT of” the world.   I was “born again” and as Jesus promises I could now “see” the kingdom of God (Jn. 3:3).            

“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘ A slave is not greater than his master. ’ If they (the world) persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. (Jesus attaches no names, countries or skin color to “them”. “They” are we. Unless, you are called OUT of them. YOU are either “them” or hated by “them”.)  “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” (Jn.15:20).                     

All the generations of man, though they had never met together, responded to me out of the same conspiracy to hate God “without a reason”  (Jn.15:25). My naive mind was stunned. It was “without reason”.  The world within me was devastated, but who I had now become was secure. I felt His pain and I rejoiced that it was now mine. It all meant so much. It meant that I was no longer of the world. I had received the “something” of which Paul spoke that was not of the spirit of this world. I was actually, not theoretically, in Christ. Just a few months earlier I was “the life of the party”. Now, I was the life of the Suffering Servant.                     

“Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate… (isolation and solitude) And I will welcome you. (The magnificent Friend is the alternative to “their” “friendship” (Jn.15:15) And I will be a Father to you, (The vague usage of “God” becomes “Father”) And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” (2 Cor.6:14ff).

 

Our family: (from Right to left): Joshua – Ruth – Michael -Abraham – Rachel – David – Elizabeth – Sarah

Instantly all the “they’s” and “them’s” of whom Jesus warned stood before me.  It could have been any college campus, city, state or country. And since then, it has been thousands and millions from over 50 countries, cities and nationalities all over the world.                        

**This might be a good place to take a break and then come back and keep reading. It’s a lot to take in, but it is well worth the time and concentration. – Joshua

The “Place”

Jesus says “In the world you will have tribulation but be of good courage I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33). Jesus promised “I go to prepare a place for you” (Jn.14:2). This “place” is the abode I express in these pages. Jesus promises “My Father and I will come to you and create an abode within you” (Jn.14:23).. Beyond the soul, the self, the world, the ego is the precious  heart of Jesus. Catholics call it  “the sacred heart of Jesus”. In response to the sinister choice of Adam, Jesus, as the second Adam, has a heart of selfless love for the Father. He offers this to us by faith.                     

When I met Jesus in the football stadium of Notre Dame, the first thing I did afterwards was to go to a place on campus called The Grotto. I lit a candle of thanksgiving and life commitment.  Prayer is a process of individual calculation to deliberately articulate to the unseen Father certain words about certain things. It is not repeating a “sinner’s prayer” or anything written in a book by someone else. It is the individual expression born out of the heart of a son or daughter crying “Abba. Daddy” (Gal.4:6). Yet, prayer is not just that. There is a much deeper prayer from a “grotto”, an “abode” within, yet beyond this world. This was the entire purpose of Jesus. To create a place for us to fellowship with His Father.                     

As a catholic, I lit a candle as a prayer many times. It took years for God to break through my thick skull, so that I could understand that such an outward ritual was something I could do within. I could become a flame burning in my love for Jesus, despite my world of sin and death. This inner communion is as of  “tongues” to the Son, to the Father. It is the mature response of surrender to Christ beyond my suffering. It is to “connect” at every, and in every, moment, that Jesus might be the beginning and the end of all that I do. It is realizing and rejoicing in His accomplishment of working His will into mine. Paul says to pray “without ceasing” (1 Thes.5:17/Rm.8:26). This is physiologically impossible with audible words. Clearly He is talking about a supernatural operation, because you have to care on the affairs of everyday human existence.                                                    

The sole purpose of prayer is not the happiness of your world.  No matter how the world accuses Him, the Father is not compelled to prove His love. He has already done everything HE can do. God met extreme hatred with extreme love. The world has no excuse. You have no excuse.                                       

Prayer is intended to build communion with the Father. This is your greatest need. Move your tongue and your mind will change and you will “see” things differently. This is your only need. Once you know the Father, you have everything. He calls you OUT of your world into eternal life here and now. Whatever thing you may be praying for, will come and go, but if you could draw moments of eternity using your moments in time, imagine the joy.                                  

The Titanic was a gargantuan ship. Imagine what kind of machine would be required to raise it miles off the ocean floor. This is a small, insufficient picture of how our will and reason remain dormant. The weight of the world upon us is so horrible. It pressures us to fear being rejected by others, to conform, to give way to sin, to give up “What’s the use?”, to be full of anxiety and stress. The world is not ONE reason for despair. It is THE reason for our “hell”. So once we understand it, we can forget it and start doing what Jesus says, “Go into all the world” (Mt.28:19). We are made in the very image of God Almighty, with tremendous capacity to be creative, strong and loving. To bring our light of the gospel to those who have no light. We can sustain enormous opposition and accomplish great things in Jesus’ Name.                                                

To the degree to which we are willing to deal with the truth is the degree to which God can help us, because He says “I will ask the Father, and He will give you the Helper… the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive” (Jn.14:16) .                               

Most people think if they want help, they have to pray for it. They wait and wait and wait for that “something” that never comes. They don’t think to think that it has already come. They must simply believe in the past.  Or people think they have to change this and that and do a lot of other things BEFORE they get serious. These are exactly the lies of Satan to prevent immediate repentance. The Holy Spirit is not earned by prayer or change of lifestyle. No one can draw a picture of faith. It appears at a moment of action. It automatically triggers grace. It requires no journey of self-purification or time, not a second or a month, for you to think about it or ‘get things right’. Everything is done.                                  

To know the character of the Father’s love is the supernatural lifting “machine”. God does not deal with you according to your sin but according to His vast accomplishment in Christ.  He rejoices “It is finished” (2 Cor.5:19). What if the Father’s response to your prayers is at a far deeper level than you are willing to see?                               

God’s compassion will never be triggered by your self-pity. God does not feel sorry for us, in our rebellious world of sin. Our father Adam didn’t reject God by accident or mistake. So his code of defiance is reflected in our nature of response to God. We are defiant. Self-pity is not innocent. It is defiance to the work of Jesus. Sin is a calculated choice against conscience, revelation and free will. It is the choice to reject what is right and choose evil (Jn.5:20).                            

God’s compassion is based on His hope that if any man will see His glory, and grasp what He did, that man will conform, submit, obey and change. When Jesus taught the apostles to pray, He was not giving them a formula of prayer. Jesus does not say this is “what” to pray, but this is how and the way to pray (Mt.6:9). Jesus was giving men a divine perspective. We need to see things as God sees them. Beyond our minuscule world of selfishness is reality and truth as God reveals.  The reality of our situation does not exist within us, or around us, but beyond us.                                                    

It is not what we think or see that should shape our desires and prayer, but rather what Jesus reveals. We are in a tragic state about to fall into eternal hell fire. The worst thing we can do is to “pray” contrary to the will of God. Behold God as Father, with the perspective of HIS realities.                                     

This world is not waiting for condemnation. It is condemned. We need to get out of it and it is not going to happen if we are fixed on praying self-seeking prayers that only further breed our life of self-centered “happiness”.                             

The purpose of your struggles is to solidify your resolve. To prove what, rather Whom, you truly desire. I have talked with many people who cry over their plight. I understand the sorrows we must bear. It can be a good thing to cry like a child. I have done so in times of unbearable sadness.  But in our crying, we must cry out to Him and not in a pouting tone of pity over ourselves.                                     

We must stop the  “praying” for what you think you need and decide to respond to how God has already met your needs. The frequencies of a right spirit are those joined with the song of the Lamb. Everything, everything, everything is about eternal life.                              

THE POWER FOR SUCCESS

”Having begun by the Spirit” (Gal.3:1ff).

The secret power for the success of any endeavor is your degree of will.

The formula for frustration is to follow Jesus without Jesus. Knowledge has no “living” power.                     

Knowledge has no voice of comfort and counsel. It is theory. Salvation can only begin when begun by the Person of the Holy Spirit; “having begun by the Spirit”. If it is God Who starts something, then it is God Who will complete it. Salvation is not a work you can begin, because it is not a work you can finish  (Phil.1:6, 2:13/Jn.6:44-45). If it does not begin “by the Spirit”, it will never result in the Spirit. If you do not begin by the Spirit you will never learn how “It is finished” before you began (Jn.19:30/Rm.8:13/Gal.3:3).                     

The only way to do something that YOU can’t do is to be moved by something greater than you. Faith is understanding that you will never understand. Faith requires a nothing that is quite something. It is not just beyond you. It is in spite of you.  It is the confident surrender to a promised outcome.                     

So often the world responds to the gospel as something so complicated they just can’t understand it. I have known people who go on for years and years without repentance because, they say, they just don’t get it. “How can I become new through an event in past history?” To me it is all so simple.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Everyone chooses their response. We are not a plant.  We are made in the image of God with logic, reason, love, truth, kindness, etc. God did not leave us to function with instincts as an animal but with everything we need to understand salvation.                      

The world uses it’s capacity to explain highly complex things like atomic fission as a process of splitting the nucleus of the atom. The result is a transmutation into two particles. Big words but not that complicated.    A man can accept the complex ideas of nuclear fission, but say salvation doesn’t make sense. Jesus, as the second Adam, interposes His risen Spirit upon our fallen adamic soul to generate a life giving spirit (1Cor.15:45). Simple. So the issue is not a lack of intelligence but a desire to understand. Regeneration causes the “transmutation” of two entities; the soul and the spirit (Romans 7/Heb.4:12/1 Cor.15:45/Jn.4:24/Jn.3:3). Simple.                         

Scientists are all “ga-ga, goo-goo” over  “the God particle” (Higgs Boson); an inexplicable explosion of undefinable, insurmountable energy which gives mass to matter. So what do you do with the history of one Man who rose up from being dead and offers eternal life? My friend, this is all about eternal life. When I decided to seek Jesus I interpreted my natural circumstances of isolation as the chance to repent. Interpret your circumstances as your chance to change.                       

I remember when my life had become one huge struggle. I  wondered if God existed. Why didn’t He help me? I felt so alone. Could I ever escape the burden of my own life. Slowly, the composition of my free will began to materialize.  I could DO SOMETHING about my life. What I DID mattered. My desire grew. Little did I ever expect that as the Father raised His Son so was He about to use this same power to raise my  “Titanic”.  When you are passive and lethargic God seems distant. Faith is action. It is the only road on which God travels.                       

I wondered if there was like one big thought about God that could help me figure it all out. Something where I did not need a spiritual experience or to see a vision of angels. Was there something very obvious and sure that could be known about God if I were to believe Him? He was just like so distant. Then one day I remember reading Exodus 34:6.                                  

“And God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Moses had no clue to God and God gave him the ultimate revelation.                                 

I  chose to believe this. This answers my questions. God is good. The Shepherd is good. I CAN trust Him with my life. He has no hidden agenda of hurting me.                               

Who are YOU?

Salvation does not occur by God waving a “magic wand” over a man. It is an engagement in a two-way relationship or it is nothing.  Paul says “work out your salvation in fear and trembling because it is God Who is at work in you” (Phil.2:12). He has heard your prayers and tried to use your struggles to draw you to Himself. It is you who are caught up in the world.                                

The “Christians” of today think that God should feel for them if they don’t have what they want.  They want the Father to make their own life better according to what they say they need. This, my friend, is crazy lazy. Our problem in everything we deal with IS NOT what we think it is.  It is our selfish world within. “ But your sins have made a separation between you and your God….”(Is.59:2). Jesus says to deny yourself and care about the needs of others. This is His answer.                                 

Sin has rendered us as sleeping giants. We are deceived to our own accountability. Unless we awaken our potential, we will go to the grave like billions who have never tapped the latent power of the will. They never engaged the Father.                                 

What if God allows you to think you are left alone in your suffering for a supreme reason? What if dealing with this thinking brings you to a realization you need? You need to see the person who lies within you rather than the person you CLAIM to be. It really means nothing to say you love God and will do this and that, when you live in a nice, comfortable world. Your inner true person goes unchallenged.                                

God knew exactly what Abraham would do when He told him to sacrifice Isaac. It was Abraham who did not yet know himself. Abraham came to see himself only when he faced his suffering. He was left alone to see what he really wanted in life.                              

The silence of God can seem excruciating, until you gain perspective on His revelation. His goal is to save you, no matter what. Your life here and now is the only thing God has to test every fiber that makes you, you. Will you rise up in individual faith in God? Will you insist that the death of Jesus is not enough? That you deserve “something” from this world?                     

When I gave my life to Jesus, I told God that if this commitment does not involve any spiritual experience, I will just follow Jesus out of my own strength. I determined He is worthy. I’ve never seen any visions of angels. Never been “slain in the Spirit”. Just get up every morning and love the Lord. Never could I have imagined that out of my seed could grow a tree and a place for the birds to sing (Matt. 13:32/Jn.12:25). It is nothing less than marvelous.                       

Yet times without number I have wondered “Where are You, Oh Father? Why won’t you answer me?”.  In the silence and obscurity of severe storms the little seed is sending massive roots into the soil. Such is the outcome of relationship.  There are times when I am desperate in begging God to do something, but absolutely nothing seems to happen.   It is at these times when my roots keep me secure in faith.                             

This one issue of “unanswered prayer”  is the main reason the world answers “Where are you, Adam?” with  “Where are YOU, God?”.                                 

Our world questions His love and existence, because He does not do what we think He should. The natural outcome of “unanswered prayer” is an atrophy of “faith” into despondency. We lapse into self-pity. What does anything matter if God doesn’t hear you? You are all alone. Our world says “God doesn’t care”. This is the same narrative from hell. Few will ever admit it, but gradually this “praying” undermines sincerity and turns a “Christian” life into a facade. On the outside you maintain a “confession”, but inside you’re going through hell.                     

A guy we know from Argentina typifies the world. He told us how his little girl was sick. He prayed and prayed for her to get better, but she did not. He gave up on God and is now filled with bitterness, as he blames God.  God was trying to draw this man to Himself in testing the man’s character. If he would have ever conceded to God, God would have given Him an understanding that he never imagined.                                  

This is not praying to GOD. This is merely expressing what we want to make our world happy. If we don’t get it, then we get angry. God is not a man who bases His response to us on our reasoning (Is.55:9ff/Rm.8:7). Satan wants nothing more than to advance the conspiracy to accuse and defy the Father. He has established this narrative of “prayer” in our world.                                                         

God is not a Genie in a bottle. He is not a divine “Make-a-wish” foundation. God is a Father. He is not obligated to us because our thinking tells us so. Jesus used the expression “Father” 184 times. The Father is so extraordinary, that just the memory of Him carried Jesus through His agonizing visit to earth(Jn. 13:3).  Jesus was enthralled with the Father; “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (Jn.17:5).  Our prayer must be rooted in a faith that the Father is Who Jesus revealed Him to be.

Existential suffering scrubs us down to the bone. King David says God searches our heart (Ps.139:23/Prov.20:30). One time, when we were on a boat, I had to swim down to set the anchor. It concerned me how this relatively small thing was our security in a storm. Tiny unseen motives are the anchor of our life. Each time you suffer, you swim down to see your anchor. It determines how you sleep at night.                

Paul explained exactly what motivated him (motives). He was not trying to show everyone that he was a good Christian. He said:                     

 “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing (not “accepting”) Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that (1)I may gain Christ, and (2) I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that  (3)I may know Him  and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; (These 3 things required) in order that (4) I may attain to the resurrection from the dead”. (Phil.3:7ff).                     

Change may sound like a gargantuan work, but in one quick tick of time Paul left the world. The distance between the saddle and the ground upon which he fell was maybe five feet. In this small space, Paul was raised from the deep. He had no time to pray, get rid of any sin, clean up his act, do any “good deeds”,  obey any Laws or attend any Sunday service.                     

Such a salvation would not register with the evangelicals, but all that God wanted from Paul was Paul. Paul saw himself. All he ever really wanted in life was God. This is what God wants you to see, or not see, in His “answer” to your “prayers”. He wants you to see who you are, so that you can do what you want. Paul stood up from the ground but never again stood up for the world.                     

Could it be possible that you do not know the very thing; the very One Who provides the very thing you do not know  you are seeking? What do you do when you have absolutely nothing and God seems far away? Whatever you do, this is who you are.. this is what you truly want.                     

Louis Armstrong wrote the famous song “What A Wonderful World”.  Back in the 80’s everyone considered the song “We Are The World” a great unifying force. The term “the world” is not harmless. It slaughtered the Son, devastated the Father and necessitated the creation of hell. To understand the unseen powers is to bring clarity into your life.                   

Jesus translated every word of every language into one word; SIN. Every word and every action by every man, every day, everywhere is SIN. After the fall from his horse, Paul never again sought place in the world; “all things are but rubbish”.  He never sought it’s acceptance. Never identified with it’s definitions of morality or thinking of righteousness. Paul lived outside himself. He lived in Christ (Gal.2:2).                     

Beyond all our sin is the debilitating loneliness you and I feel in our bed at night, as though it were some physical pain. It is rooted in our adamic nature incurred by the sin of Adam. This one feeling of isolation is the single most reason for all other sin. The depths of our heart cries out 24/7 for this one thing Adam lost in the fall, which we desperately need but can never supply; the love of an intimately personal Father. The love of our Creator God is waiting in Jesus to bring you into His family, in His love to be reconciled back to His Father. To this my friend I tell again that you are WANTED.                                          

Jn.17:6ff-“ I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world (He was standing on earth.); and yet they themselves are in the world…”.             

I clearly remember in First Grade when Sister Marie Catherine took us to the library for the very first time. She told us to search for any book about our favorite subject. Some kids got books on fishing, cats or rivers. My eyes scanned the shelves until I found my book. I was so excited until I showed it everyone and they all laughed. The title was simply “Mommies Are For Loving”.  I thought this book would give me a new way to love my mother, but they saw only my simplicity.  I actually remember a deep sadness in my little mind because in that moment, I realized I could never say or be who I really was.

My point, however,  is that each of us clearly reveals our true passion in life by the things we choose. On what do you spend your time, emotion, thoughts and money? These days, so many claim to be a Christian. They think it depends on what they “confess”, how many Bible verses they know or whether they prayed a “sinner’s prayer”. The truth is, as Jesus says, “where your treasure is there is your heart” (Mt.6:21/Phil.3:9/1 Tim.1:15).

I couldn’t hide my love for my mother. When she died of cancer, so did I. I had always been, like Jacob, a “momma’s boy” (Gen.25:28,27). (Such a confession shatters the hard-guy-macho image I ultimately developed to hide my heart.) But when I was twenty years old, I chose another book, that once again triggered the mockery of my contemporaries. This time, I did not hide the passion of my heart for God’s Word. I choose to live in Jesus and make contact with the lost. This is the ultimate story a man can read and live. It is not proven by words you speak but by the things you do.  You can not overestimate the power found in being resolute. 

Rachel and I were on the corner of Market and 12th St. in downtown Philadelphia  during the days of the Pope’s visit. We were sharing with a guy named Ray who had just gotten out of jail after eleven years. He was trying to figure out how he could possibly get a job and was at his end. Another woman was not able to pay her rent and that very morning was  forced onto the streets. She was shaken and devastated.

We couldn’t meet their material needs but we could contact them with the love of God we know they need. To make personal contact from our world into theirs with Christ.  It is absolutely amazing what one human can do to help another, without spending a penny. Of all the things you think you are looking for, or that you need, I can tell you, without a doubt, that this thing of helping others in Jesus, is the thing that will answer your everything.

This “Christian” culture requires far more than typical and generic gospel lingo. You’ve heard it a thousand times. So has everyone else. In order to breakthrough with an effective witness, there exists an exciting adventure of shattering our own barriers to discover a living Jesus Who gravitates to sinners and despises religiosity. To bring Him to them in a way they have never heard is palpitating but exhausting.

Sometimes we force ourselves to think as if we were aliens bringing a message from another planet. Indeed, behind today’s complacent “Christian” presumption is the reality that this gospel is a very “strange” message; An invisible Being became the most loving man but was crucified yet rose again to give us eternal life. Even God says “Who has believed this message?….” (Is.53:1).

We must change men’s response from “Ho hum” into “Oh wow”. We must work to create “new wine” that is not befitting old wineskins; “Been there done that” (Mk.2:22). To the majority, this involves ways they define as offensive because they cut against the grain of status quo Christianity, where comfort breeds hypocrisy. Christianity has set the world’s standard for what is “loving”, important and unmentionable and they are all wrong. Christianity does not offer revelation of the living Person of Jesus. It is thousands of doctrines of men that put Christ in a theological system as seen 1 hour on Sunday.

The love of Jesus within us offers a profound magnificence to others, if we are willing to expend our own individual, creative energy to tap it. Our downfall is not a laziness of physical exertion, or the fault of some evil seduction, but of unwillingness to reach deep and expend the spiritual energy from within our spiritual character. This act is true repentance. It is born of love from and to God.

True repentance starts with true love.

Replace a token gesture with the time necessary for genuine empathy. Don’t look away. Look towards. Choose to make eye contact. Personally deliver the gift of the Holy Spirit as He comes to you. Like never before, lay down your fears. That ultimate feeling you have been searching for “out there” is actually right here in front of you, right now in presence of another human. Teach yourself how to engage the face of a downcast soul. This may be his only moment to be touched by the Spirit; “Hey Buddy, how ya doin? You exist my friend. You matter. You are so important to God He died for you.”

You can say it with your words or start with a determined smile. No money needed. He doesn’t care what you say, just that you care. Go to your inner ‘bank’ and draw from those deposits you have long ago made. Enter the secret workshop of your own heart, so you can distribute your personal design. God sees in secret and will reward in secret (Jn.14:23/Mt.6:4).

Noah sent out the dove in hopes of finding rest. Send out your spirit and it too, will find a place. You will receive far more than you give. What you have been searching for will now be within. What has long sat within you unused is exactly what others are waiting for. Stop allowing yourself to prevent yourself. Jesus guarantees He will “send” you a promise. Think about it. How do you send a promise? It’s all about operating unseen stuff in an unseen world. It’s awesome. His promise is His Spirit to anyone, anytime, anywhere (Lk.24:49 ). Freely receive, freely give.

We are constantly told by the homeless how devastated and hopeless they become, because no one even looks at them. Can you spare a look? A few words? I always ask someone’s name and repeat it in the most sincere manner, because, really, how often does anyone hear their own name, spoken in a deliberately loving tone? You don’t have to save their soul. Just make it more open.

After a few hours of sharing the gospel, Rachel and I got back on our bicycles and started riding down the street. A couple blocks away, off on a sidewalk, we saw a young man stooped down giving to someone a hamburger. When we looked more closely, we were so blessed to realize that that young man was our son, Joshua. He gave us a bunch of hamburgers and we went off to a local park.

Earlier that morning, Abraham had contacted a number of fast food places and finally found a sweet woman manager at Wendy’s. She sold him and Joshua a hundred hamburgers for a dollar each with a coupon for a free drink. It’s amazing how God so often leads us to people who will help. So he bought a large cooler and filled it with the hamburgers and was pushing it on a dolly down the street. He had to laugh as this guy yells out “You’re not going to try to give me some weird food or talk to me about some weird cult are ya?”. They’ve seen it all. 

As we made our way through a large crowd going to see the pope, one tall black man was just randomly walking through the crowds saying out loud at a conversation tone  “Could anyone please help me? I’m starving!”.  Rachel could barely hear him. “What did you say?” she asked. He repeated his request. He was so grateful someone heard and helped. What if we weren’t there?

In another part of town were our daughters. A mother of a family asked Ruth if she had any food. Ruth and the girls had made sandwiches,  so she had a bunch. The lady had four children and a husband and was so grateful. Another lady was sleeping in her car and came to see the Pope searching for a spiritual experience but had nothing. She was so happy to get not only a measly little sandwich but the counsel of a loving wise woman.

Story after story after story I could tell of so many individuals lost, devastated and in great need. At the same time, there were so many rich people walking by, talking about the great teaching they had just received on “Helping The Homeless”. 

This is quite funny, but Ruth always cracks me up with her anointed creativity. She told some of the homeless guys to go up to the people who were coming out of the Convention Center and ask them for help because she knew they were just getting out of the “Help the poor” teaching sessions and would be feeling guilty. One guy came back and said “It worked”. He was so grateful to Ruth because he got like 60 dollars. It was a fortune.

I watched two women just staring at Rachel as she was helping this one guy. It was as if they were marveling over some kind of magic she was performing. All she was doing was stooping down on her knees and talking to this guy. It was like “How do you do that?” There was a subtle, puzzled yet condescending smirk on their faces as if to say “I don’t have to do that…I can’t do that…can I?”. It’s not complicated. You can not fail. They’ll take anything. They could care less about your words. They have nothing.  It takes no education or qualifications. It’s called HUNGER…and it’s not a game.

Making CONTACT with people in the Name of Jesus is the purpose of a true Christian. Tons of “Christians” on campuses tell us how frustrated they are trying to find God’s will for their lives. They want some kind of self-serving “special ministry”. The Scriptures lay it out very clearly; Jesus says “Go therefore (anywhere)…I was hungry…in prison…a stranger…etc.” (Mt.25:30,28:19). You will find your purpose, not in a specific place, but in a specific effort to love the unloved. When the world beats the hell out of you, it is only natural to think there is nothing to live for. You become aimless. You feel useless. Everybody lapses into some mode of self-pity; “Where are you God? Why don’t you help me?”.  Use yourself to help yourself give yourself. Then you will see God. 

Being Changed

Pretend you are a young person. Your whole life is before you. You haven’t been beaten up by the world. No dreams dashed or shattered. No tragic events. No physical ailments. No huge worries, burdens or fears. No shattered relationships. Your heart still intact, not broken. Your emotions are not all over the place. Not yet seen the worst of yourself. No disillusionment or cynicism. Fresh. Happy. Alive. Ready to live. Genuine and energetic anticipation boils in your blood.

I tell you, my friend, this is the disposition required for real change.  Put aside all the past stuff and be a child. You can do it. If you want. The crazy imaginations in your mind are just that (2 Cor.10:3). Thoughts are not actual physical or material stuff that weighs you down. They are merely invisible lies that you can ignore. No matter how much an imagination haunts you, resist it’s effect on your behavior. Just keep on doing what you’re doing. Resist the devil. He will flee (Jm.4:7).  Imaginations are like copper to sound waves. They block the frequencies of faith.

God says we do not know HOW to do good. It simply is not in our nature. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” (Jer.13:23). We fail a  thousand times to change a thousand things.  It’s par for our human course. Accordingly, Jesus says His forgiveness is without number (Mt.18:22).  He knows how the sin of Adam separated us into a bizarre world that has us having to deal with problems way beyond our ability. Our sinful nature is simply too strong.

So, how then can Jesus command us to “Repent”(metanoia-change of mind-(Mk.1:14)? Would a loving God tell us to do something He Himself says we can not do? This would be quite cruel. And crazy. Obviously, something is missing. I mean, if God clearly says striving to obey the law is, not only useless, but wicked, then how in the world are we to change (Gal.2:16/Rm.3:20)?

Is it about TRYING?

God says “Cease striving…” (Ps.46:10 ) and “by the works of the law (trying to do what a law says) shall no flesh be justified (-do what is right- . Read Gal.2:16,17,3:11,3:24, 5:4).  The answer of trying is what I was told growing up.  “Well, I may not be perfect (wow what an admission!) but I try as hard as hell to be good” (now there’s something to look forward to. LOL). Sorry Charlie. The best of your strength is the stench of a putrid rag (Is.64:4). It’s not like you can produce divine molecules that enhance God’s existence. He needs nothing (Acts 17:25).  Nothing. We have nothing but sin. The only point of trying is “Look at what I can do”.  Ok, Adam. We got it. It’s called self- righteousness. Ego. It’s what makes the world go round. It is a complete denial and rebellion to what God reveals in the Scriptures of our worthlessness.

No. Change is not wrought by trying. Being right is not something we can achieve. Never, never, never.  There is a food. It doesn’t require a prescription. No doctor needed. Have you ever eaten humble pie? It’s delicious. The beginning of everything and anything begins with your end.  Taste and see that what the Master Chef prepares is good (Ps.34:8). Truth sets us free (Jn.8:32).  “I am wrong. I always have been wrong. I will always be wrong.  I am wicked. I will always be wicked. I am a scoundrel.” Ah,  now isn’t that delicious?

Change requires that you move two ways:

One; come to Him in broken transparent truth to find light from Jesus. From the beginning Jesus says “COME TO ME” (Mt.11:27/Jn.5:39,6:37,7:37 etc.)

 

Two; go to those in great need to bring His love and light.  At the end He commands  “GO TO ALL THE WORLD”  (Mt.28:19/Mk.16:15). When you know Jesus you serve Him (Jn.12:26).

How is it that Saul changed to Paul? He yielded to the Light and came to see how he had something only he could do for God. No one is just another soul. The world may know you by number but God knows you by name. Paul was the only one who could do something specific God wanted. He alone carried a massive love no one else carried. What is your name? _______ (your name here) has something no one else can give. Paul hated life and wanted to die. One thing made him want to live beyond himself; to help others (Phil.1:21ff).

Nothing else in the whole world can change you but these two things. Nothing. The spring of some passing “Christian” emotion or prayer service may cause a temporary change, but hard-core reality will smack you in the face and force you back to your old ways. Your life will be as common and miserable as everyone else’s. You can talk your head off about how much you know God or how different you are from the guy next door but what you do shows your passion.  

Light

“The kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rm.2:4).

“God demonstrates HIS OWN love in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us…the ungodly”  (Rm.5:6-8)

“In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn.4:10).

It is common sense for someone to have to show their excellence in order to get a reward. God did not use common sense. He used mercy and did things backwards based on the secret mystery of His mercy. If you want to know this marvel, it will not happen by trying to prove your excellence.  Don’t focus on proving your strength. It’s like trying to quit smoking by trying to quit smoking. It’ll never work. The law kills (2 Cor.3:6/Rm.7:6).

You have to replace the passion. Focus solely, and only, and always on walking over to the stream, in your mind, sitting down and beholding the Lamb; the living Jesus. “Who are You Lord? Help me.”  Learn and meditate on the revelation He has given of Himself in the Scriptures.

Consider His phenomenal mercy….not for you (as though you are the focus)….but rather because of Who He is. The demonstration of Himself in His love is to be our focus. I don’t mean to sound complicated or “out there”. I am simply explaining real answers that require real work (Jn.6:29). God. Who really is He? To get beyond your ordinary ways you must do extraordinary things that you do not ordinarily do. Jesus. Who really is He?

You see, people wrongly exegete the focus of John 3:16 as to be God so loved this world. Such thinking breeds an arrogant entitlement. The scholastic emphasis of this verse is not on this world but on the revelation that God is of such a nature and Character that He “SO LOVED…THAT HE GAVE”. It’s trying to explain that the nature of His mercy is essentially sacrificial.

The world is not a lovable little teddy bear whom Jesus could not resist dying for. The world shall be destroyed with fire. God cannot love evil (Hab.1:13/Is.6:3). His holy eyes are not on random sinners or their sin. Rather the Father beholds the Son and the Son beholds His Father in a perichoresis (dancing around-trinity) in the Holy Spirit of eternal love. God is such a Person Who did such a thing as giving His Son, out of His heavenly glory, knowing He would be tortured by us and for us. His purpose for us is to be caught up in this glory which is the full realization of all the attributes of God.

It’s like, imagine someone building a playground to show their love for a community. It is not for any particular person. Nor does it matter whether anyone plays on it. It is all about the character of the one who made an enormous investment so as to build a playground (or spaceship – see CONTACT below).

His eyes were full of sorrow. Now, they are full of fire. His face was marred more than any other, now, is like the sun (Is.53/Rev.1:16-18).  He was the Lamb and now, the Lion (Jn.1:29/Rev.5:5).

Everything starts, and ends in, and with, and by, and for, the mystery of His holiness (Eph.1). He has demonstrated, in time and space, a message to mankind which we humans have defined as love but is so far, far, far beyond any human concept. It is “hesed” (Hebrew-unconditional mercy). It is a wonder. It is a miracle. It is a holy mystery of divine majesty. It is something we can only comprehend when we stop, when we are still and when we believe. The prodigal son chose such a moment of awakening, like a lightbulb coming on. In it, he pondered all the everything his father had and all the nothing he had. It motivated his heart to change his direction (Luke 15).

The Life

I can not imagine a life without Jesus and finding opportunities to help people in need.  It is the spaceship that landed in my world of selfishness (see CONTACT below). All that I have come to know in Christ overwhelms my putrid little mind. My heart is constantly grieved by the hatred we bear from this world because it is not my heart.  I am occupied by another Being (Gal.2:20). I am driven by His purpose. I have His vision. 

People lie and say evil things about us but our sounding board is a homeless man. He doesn’t know or care about our rejection. If anything, our suffering helps us relate to him.  They have no one to comfort them. They have no food. I have plenty. Persecution and loving others is the blessed proof that Jesus lives within (Jn.15:20/1 Jn.3:14 ). When I was lost, I did everything for myself and yet could never find myself. Now, I have lost myself in everything that is His (Jn.12:25).

Surely, I was not born this way. I was born again to be this way (Jn.3:3).

 

The other day I was at Kent State University and utterly depressed by the blasphemy, mockery, and filth. The very things that God has given to help a young person find their way to Him: i.e. a stable mind, a will, a heart, a conscience, health etc. are the very things they give to this world to be destroyed.

Insane and lawless teachings of evolution, self-love, anti-God, behavior modification, etc. corrupts them. Their “friends” use peer pressure to force them to conform. It destroys their individuality. The intense scrutiny to succeed by their parents causes them to give in to the ungodly thinking of the world that defiles their conscience.

The educational system turns men, who are created in the image of God, into godless monsters in a very short time (1Cor.3:19, 2Cor.4:4, Jm.3:14, 2Pet.2:12). 

You and I can do something, my friend. We can help one young boy or girl. We can rescue a young person from hell. So many young, energetic 18-year-olds look to their parents for direction, but their parents are only looking in another direction, out for themselves. So they run off into the world and never come back the same. What happened to that young, innocent child?  He is engulfed by the abyss of self-pride. Like a sheep led to slaughter his will becomes trained in hypocrisy and rationalizations. He hides his cry for love with an IMAGE, and no one knows or cares.

Today, the colleges and job market destroy young lives like war killing men. I have met so many young guys whose lives are destroyed because they married a contentious woman (Ecc.7:26/1 Pt. 3/1 Tim.2:9ff). Now their goal is to work, work, work. God did not make us to work. It is a curse of sin redeemed by the purpose of Christ Who became our curse (Gen.3:19/Jn.6:29/Gal.3:13).

“Success!” is nothing but a lie from hell that ends in the grave of regret and disillusionment. If anyone, with an ounce of truth, listens to the language of the common world, they are terrified and aghast. We hear and see every day this world is full of mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. It’s not here and there. It’s everywhere.

The standard of normal that my generation knew is long gone. An insanity concocted in hell is the new normal and sign of these last days (Mt.24:12). No one can imagine the stories we could tell. Parents are going to answer on the day of judgment. They give so much of their everything to so much of nothing, while their children suffer in silence, hoping for nothing more than the attention of love, of which they are due but never receive.

Getting married and having a baby is what young people are told is happiness. Then, once this bubble pops, another disaster results. They repeat their parent’s cycle of loneliness, frustration, anger, misery and divorce. They do not understand, and simply cannot bear, the unseen forces in the air against them in these last days (Eph. 2:1,6:12).

If you were to do a study on crime and all the killings on college campuses, you would find that the history behind every perpetrator is a personal suffering from parental divorce, a breakup or some major rejection, and an unbearable burden. The strain, tension and evil that demons impose upon the vulnerable is nothing less than supernatural (Eph.2:2/6:12 2Cor.4:4). Humans are fragile. God says all of us are desperately “sick”  (Jer.17:9/Ecc.9:3/Is.59:11). To activate this inner sickness only requires some outward trigger. I could write a book on all the bizarre things we’ve seen, heard and experienced over thirty years of ministering, thousands of times, at colleges here and abroad.

All men are closed to the gospel. So we work hard on pamphlets, signs and a heart of gentle love, creativity and truth of Jesus to get beyond the religious garbage offered by the false preachers of today. It is no little battle. How do you effectively fight with someone to give them what they desperately need but deny? How do you warn men about a system that they think is for them, while it destroys them? We have no love or wisdom within our flesh. Not one atom in our body is angelic or divine. We are as selfish as anyone.

This mercy comes only from focus on the fascinating reality of the gospel. To constantly go to the foundation of revelation. We love because His love is so profound. The answer to defy weariness and banality is childlike comprehension, contemplation, reexamination and reevaluation of the gospel. From this do we realize a compassion and burden so deep it controls us (2 Cor.5:14). Eight individual choices to change because we glory in the mercy of God as revealed in Jesus.

Contact

There have been many movies about aliens from outer space beaming a frequency into the atmosphere of the earth. The people in the movie are flabbergasted when they actually make CONTACT.  Scientists scurry about and military generals plot a strategy over any possible threat. They fear military superiority could annihilate their existence. What might a superior being, from another galaxy sound like, look like or be like?

Well, my friends, it has happened. God has made CONTACT. He beamed His message from beyond the outer limits to mankind on this planet called earth.  From a place beyond the stars and all human imagination, this Being sent a clear, lasting and concrete statement. This distant Being reached across all obstacles in every universe, because of His immense and deep desire to communicate one message to mankind: ‘hesed’. He spoke one word. The only living word “Jesus” (Jn.1:1). Can you say this Word? Can you live His Name?

*I hope anyone who reads this understands that I am not being weird by using the analogy of aliens etc. I am just using this verbiage to fully appreciate the wonder of the Incarnation.

This Being is called “GOD”. Tons of people claim they know Him. Really? You KNOW GOD?! Wow.  Tell me about Him. I don’t want to hear doctrines. God is not faith, truth, the death and resurrection, the blood, the Bible, grace, etc. These are all things. God is God. He is a Person; a Father. You know Him? Really? You have met Him? People think that using a flowery and poetic Biblical language proves they know God.

Let me tell you that the frequencies of this Being actually materialized into HUMAN FORM. This Contact from another world came not as a doctrine, militant, politician, educator or ruler. He came as the ultimate Servant. God made human contact with man, as a Man, so that He Himself could both relate to and actually come within man. He offers to transform humans into His very likeness.  How does this take place?

There is a “space machine”. It’s design and engineering is the most sophisticated ever seen by mankind. It dazzles the mind beyond hi-tech gadgetry. It is beyond any robot, computer or sci-fi machine. It has the power to transcend time and space. It reaches to the depths and heights of  dimensions unknown to men. Paul says it killed him while turning him into a selfless person (Gal.2:20).

It is made from two pieces of wood. A tree cut down and crossed together, split asunder the atoms of one man. The arms of this man must be opened, spread wide open and locked into position… but not by His own doing. Two soldiers of a fierce human army did so forcefully. Using nails as the positioning tools. The man’s blood would now be used as the fuel to generate the activation of the cross. The human beings of this world imposed their will upon the Being of another world. The purpose would be annihilation of Him, because He embodied the worst of all mankind.

He was not made of titanium but flesh and blood. He did not travel through time but devoured time as a Lion does it’s prey. “Oh, death where is thy sting?”(1Cor.15:55). A rocket is not required but the nitty-gritty engagement of your will with the living God. The cross is the “space age” vehicle to transport a human man from this earth into the Presence of the Other Being (1Cor.1:18). A human man can now receive a divine nature (2 Pt.1:3/Rm.6:6). In order for contact between the two worlds to take place, the two worlds had to collide. The battlefield was the cross and a Lamb was found dead. This excruciating experience of horror would provide the contact through which human beings can actually LIVE FOREVER.

What a strange tale. I remember sharing the gospel with one of my Psychology professors in college. How God became man etc. He sat and listened. After I was done, I asked what he thought. He said it sounded like some story from a Marvel Comic Book series.  God asks, “Who has believed this message? …” (Is.53:1). In this day and age of 40,000 denominations and common Christian reference, where is real proof of CONTACT?

God decided long ago He would make CONTACT with the human race, through His Son, with a very specific people;  The Poor. The fall of Adam contaminated the human race with arrogance and pride. God knew His only hope was to focus on those who have nothing in this world but suffer greatly at this very moment. These are those with His greatest hope for contact because they do not have the comforts of this world, so they are more receptive to the coming of His world. Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn.18:36).

Jesus says “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me (Why Lord?),

Because the Lord has anointed me (For what reason Jesus?)

 

To bring good news to the poor (literal Hebrew afflicted);

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives

And freedom to prisoners; (Is.61:1ff).

Want to know God’s will for your life? Here it is in black and white.

The Invisible People

We often wonder why, despite the efforts we make to share our ministry, no one from multitudes of those who claim to be “Christians” have ever made any effort to support us. In the Book of Acts, the true church would sell their houses and possessions to help the gospel go to the poor (Acts 4:32ff). People worked for this sole purpose. The needs of suffering souls, that we could reach throughout the world, are enormous. It is not about us. We want no home, boat or 401k.

The reason is so very clear. The world fully recognizes “Christian” individuals, personalities, groups, concerts, meetings, rhetoric, good works, etc. as long as they agree to throw in their lot for the conspiracy against being real in Jesus (Pr.1:14). When you associate with invisible people, you become invisible. You drop out of the system. No more games; either secular or “Christian”. Your words become silent words, that no one hears, because of this thing called Real.

Some simply refuse to contact us because they fear we may confront their lives. They think that because they may have crossed our path before, it is the same today. One predestined thing that has come out of all the controversy we have faced over the years is a family with one agenda: MERCY. Suffering burns away dross.

The truth is we are extremely sensitive to each contact we make or that is made with us. We treat no one the same or according to previous relationship. Nor do we have some preset radical platform by which we process everyone. God treats us, not according to our past, but according to His future. Likewise, do we deal with others. We made a T-shirt that says                           

NOBODY CARES.

 I AM NOBODY.

1Cor.1:27

People say “You think you’re the only ones”. No. We have never thought this but who cares? Surely not the poor or homeless. We are actually quite grieved when we are told by prisoners or homeless “You’re the only ones who have ever done this for me”. If we are doing anything wrong, God will make it clear and anyone can go out and do it better. Even if we were “off” in some way, Paul says all that matters is that the gospel is being preached (Phil.1:14-18).

You surely don’t have to worry about too many people. The harvest is plentiful. There’s plenty of room in this world.  But be ready. Because nobody cares about what you’re doing. If you embrace the cross it will make you invisible in this world, but be encouraged, you will become visible in His world.

Don’t waste any more time. Refuse to let Satan hold you back with his mickey-mouse lies. Start small and God will turn your mustard seed into a tree. It’s about passion. Enjoy a piece of Humble Pie. Love truth. Talk to Jesus with your own real words. Ask Him for light. Love the unlovable. Identify with the rejects, the ugly, the rebels. The guy who seems the hardest may be the most vulnerable. Don’t settle for who you have been. Become who you are not.

There’s still time. Don’t think about it. Just let it happen. If you pray, just a little, you get so much. Just be ready. Because GOD WILL do what you ask. Become the message; the gospel; His heart, the Father’s mission; contact human beings with God’s love, experience the perichoresis of the Father (Jn.17:26). Judgment is near.

Many men gamble for silver and gold.

But my game is different as I get old.

I hunt for a man whose love is real.

Whose care for others anyone can feel.

Such a prize to gain, so beautiful to see,

One whose vibe isn’t “What about ME?”.

To find this heart is to touch the Lord.

Because he himself is slain by the Sword.

Behold, oh world, my quest is done.

Right under my nose,  my precious son.

Oh, Abraham, how you love us all.

Set your will to fulfill His call.

You maintain, pack, carry and park,

Sometimes work, morning to dark.

You lift our bags and humor our hearts.

Navigate our ways and find our parts.

The Spirit filled you with His wisdom and touch;

a heart for Jesus who offers so much. 

Your nature, we know, is not without sin

It’s your relentless love that proves I win.  .

The world won’t care or say a thing

But of your will for the Father, do angels sing.

*(Had to stick in this personal note. No one will ever know the price my children pay or the character of profound sacrificial love they give in this ministry of Jesus to the world. So their old papa will, here and there, be saying what I think angels say. “Rock on dudes”.)

The 2nd Move

Glory to Jesus. We are finally in Brazil.  All the way from Colombia, down the coast of Peru, over to Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and now Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. What a journey.  So many miles, so many smiles, so many tears, so many fears.  Countries driven and walked by sixteen feet of one family. Not visiting “churches” with sermons but walking streets with signs. Not a token message of status quo Christianity but the personal touch of the living Jesus led by His Spirit.  Over 400,000 tracts given out… one by one. Any support anyone gave us is still bearing fruit. Every provision I prayed how to allocate in so many ways so that men today, at this very moment, are still being changed because we were enabled to get to them. May He reward you accordingly.

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The other day some thieves used a sledge hammer to knock a hole through a brick wall and broke into our trailer late at night. They stole over a thousand dollars worth of stuff.  Many of the things we got for prisoners and we can’t afford to replace them. It caught us totally unprepared. Jesus says “But know this if the master had known at what hour the thief came he would be ready…Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh…Be ye also ready: for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Mt.24:42/Lk.12:40).

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Here’s a video David recently made to share with us on my birthday. The song isn’t ours, it was just a song he found that had the theme “magic” in it. We’ll be posting another blog soon.

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Welcome to anyone picking up my blog in the midst of our ministry in South America. It has been quite an amazing drive of over three thousand miles starting in Bogota, Colombia over seven months ago. You can back log that time throughout the various countries. It has become obvious to us how much the Father so cares for those in prison. No other group of people does God so express His concern than these suffering souls. In Matthew 25: 36 and Hebrews 13:3 God straight out commands those who call themselves His to care for them. It has been such a privilege to be welcomed into some of the worst prisons in the world. I document these times throughout my blog.

 The border of Argentina is only an hour  from where we were in Santiago, Chile.  On the morning we planned to leave a dense fog smothered Santiago.  The visibility was a block. “Lord, please, lead us” was my cry. We decided to head out.  Slowly, the sun broke through as we began to climb the Andes Mountains. It was terrifying but awesome. Like so many times when we have had to find that extra “kick” to move out beyond any obstacles by faith.  Then blessing of the Son will break through beyond the fog. Soon afterwards, the second largest mountain in the world came into view against a beautiful blue sky, because we did not let the fog hold us back. It’s so cool to realize the purpose of what we are doing and how we got here by shipping our van long ago to Colombia. When we stand back and think about things it is so obvious that the very hand of God has brought us here for the sole reason to live love and proclaim His Son.

The mountain range looked like it was divinely air brushed with a soft,  pristine snow. It’s weird for us to see winter beginning in what we know as summer. The pass had also just opened after being closed two days from ice and snow. We made it though a small window without having to be delayed.  We began to zig zag up  it for some thirty switchbacks of fifty yard runs that snaked all the way to the top. We were excited, taking pictures and praising God. Our 43rd country at the 33 latitude. (33 Was my jersey number when playing college football.) It was pretty cool at the border except that our van is so high we almost ripped down a gas line in the tunnel. Guards got a bit uptight until they saw Elizabeth up there pushing all our stuff down. Amazing how God really uses personality. It’s ours to give and no one else has what you have. When they saw our stuffed dog on the front of our cattle guard they cracked up. The Dog is like a secret weapon. He gets his picture taken like a folk hero. One time, prison guards asked us if there was some type of deep symbolism to it. Nope. Just some of our ridiculous humor. The hardest thing was having to pay almost 1500.00 for visas to get into the country. Ouch. That  hurts.

We were going to go to Bolivia first but decided instead on Buenos Aires then to Bolivia through Paraguay. Got a witness in Mendoza and stayed the night there then headed out. What a sweet drive. Woke up early to a phenomenal orange filled sky at sunrise. The song “Fragile” by Sting was playing softly in the background and we were all together as a family, driving to share the gospel, on the other side of the world, in love with Jesus and each other. Hallelujah. Moments like this radiate with destiny. On our way we passed flocks of parrots and flamingos. God’s grace empowered us to be able to make a two day drive in one day.  Abraham is an excellent driver. Also Sarah, David and the others all want to get their time in the seat.  Hit a huge traffic pile up because of an accident on the way into the city. Five motorcycles had slid under a huge tanker. So many ambulances. Just terrible. Buenos Aires is an enormous traffic laden city. It’s always tough constantly figuring out how to get around a new huge city and start from scratch. First on the list was an apartment. Sarah found a place for thirty bucks a night, which is a steal. It should cost at least four times that but they have a natural gas leak they can’t find, so they dropped the prices. Hopefully no explosions. It is a profound privilege to do what we do. Whether we find open or closed hearts it is always a “first love” joy to proclaim the gospel in another country.

Downtown Buenos Aires is just packed with people. They have quite the reputation for being arrogant. A popular T-shirt says “I’m not just perfect. I’m Argentinean”. The arrogance is grievous but preaching Jesus is awesome. It was 34 degrees yesterday. That’s not awesome. Our signs and cross are extremely effective as all eight of us spread out and preach Jesus in both Spanish and English and sometimes Portuguese.  Joshua and Abraham made some incredible new signs and also a new tract. It is just so exciting to actually be an integral part of God’s eternal purpose! Every day, in ministry and practical living, we face a war zone (Eph.6:12). I remember in college when I first read that this world belongs to Satan I was, in a strange way, very relieved. It never made sense to me to “help make this world a better place” (Mt.4:8/1 Jn.5:19).  I had no desire to strive to be accepted by any system of the world. The primary name Jesus gives Satan is “a murderer” (Jn.8:44/10:10). This is not “extreme” thinking. It is basic Biblical truth. I think Jesus knows what He is talking about. Satan is constantly using relationships and circumstances to destroy you. You may not take it seriously, but he does as the “god of this age” (Eph.2/2 Cor.4).  Satan is not thinking about it. He is constantly working every minute, every hour, every day to do so (Rev.12:10).Don’t ever buy the lie that Satan is NOT intimately at work in your life. Yet your response should not be to focus on him but on talking to Jesus.

When you accept Satan’s lies you don’t realize how ridiculous they are. It’s terrifying when you stop  to realize that it hasn’t been a couple of days or weeks, that you have wasted, by listening to him, but rather it has been YEARS. Satan has stopped you from so many things(2 Cor.10:3). Get angry. Get scared. Get grieved. Get up and fight!  He really is stealing, not just time, but the quality of your only life (Jn.10:10). If you don’t change NOW what makes you think that you will ever change?  God WILL be there.

How many times have you felt  you’re on your own, as if nothing you do really matters? The most essential need in your life is motivation. Agreed? Motivation comes from first, breaking beyond a lie, so you can get a hold of God’s truth and love (Heb.4:12).  God offers His divine sense of purpose as your motivation. It is not about whether what you DO matters. Rather motivation comes from WHO YOU ARE. If you are not anchored in rebirth, you will have no real understanding as to the ways of His Spirit (Jn.3:3-8). You are on your own and Satan knows it.

The blessing beyond the fog is in retrospect, when you realize that the decisions you made in faith were the outcome of your identity in Christ (Jn.10:29). God blessed Jacob, not by bestowing on him some vague “blessing”, but by calling him into an identity that changed his consciousness. Jacob had always fought with men. God transformed him into Israel: (Hebrew)-“one who fights with man and God and wins“(Gen.32). Most people think that being a Christian means surrendering to oblivion. Nothing they think or want matters any longer because God is going to do what He wants regardless of they think. Boring religion breeds “the lazy hillbilly” (2nd paragraph below). God is a living Person Who yearns to be actively engaged in your life. Like Jacob, you can WIN with God. 

People meander down a river of self-pity without a paddle or a clue. They claim to be “Christian” but have absolutely no divine sense of identity or motivation. As simplistic as it sounds, they are just too lazy to talk to God. When I was in Fuller seminary, all I ever heard was the chit-chat over what their identity would be when they graduated. They sounded like little children telling their 1st grade teacher what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most said “a pastor”. Others said apostle, teacher, evangelist or umpteen kinds of  “ministries”. They were motivated by filling slots in a religious system, not answering the call of a living God; “the harvest is plentiful…the laborers are few…” (Mt.9:37).  My only thought, my only security was that I knew I was a son in dynamic relationship with myFather (Jn.8:32ff/Rm.8:15/2 Cor.6:17/Gal.4:6). He can use me in any capacity, whatever the need dictates.

A sluggard is full of excuses (Pr.26:13). He has no identity or recognition of belonging to a higher accountability. So he has NO motivation. Picture the image of the hillbilly and a dash-hound dog, sleeping away on an old dilapidated porch up in the backwoods of Tennessee. Grogginess is not a passing feeling but a way of life. He relies on which way the tail of his dog wags for making decisions. “Should I chew my soup or just swallow it?”  He inhales on an old corn cob pipe, thumb-grabbin those suspenders as he watches life pass by from his rocking chair. He can tell you umpteen reasons why his way of life is right and he has no reason to change. He just doesn’t care.

RESOLUTION IS ESSENTIAL TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE WAY OF ‘THE WIND’  (Jn.3:8). MOVE TO THE SOUND OF AN INAUDIBLE VOICE THAT APPEALS TO YOUR WILL WITH GRACE (Jn.3:8).  That still voice in back of your mind that has told you to do this or that, for so long, needs to take over the front of your mind. You need to push away all those old, dead thoughts. Put your foot down. It is the time you say “Enough is enough!”. Tell everyone of those lazy scoundrels who run your  thinking “You’re fired!”. Out with the old, in with the new (2 Cor.5:17).  Obedience is not born out of fearful response to laws etched in stone. It is a HOPE that God cares so much about you, in your personal insignificant situation, that when you move out by faith He WILL let you taste a new identity (beyond the fog). It is an individual choice to defy Satan’s greatest weapon…yourself.

Every time we go out to face hardened strangers on the streets or campuses, we default to silence, stillness and solitude before God. If He does not move we have nothing. What do I really mean? Who is this distant …SOMEONE….  we call God? Who is… the FATHER? What does it mean to “believe that  HE IS” (Heb.11:6/Ex.3:14).  This …SOMEONE….is waiting for you to find your own words to talk, by the only substance which alerts Him to your sincerity; FAITH.  He PROMISES to be “ present” (Ps.46:1). This means whenever,where ever you choose, He WILL be there.  You say “He just doesn’t seem to care about me”. Yet, this SOMEONE says that He cares for you.  Satan looks for any opportunity to tell you that God does not hear you  (1 Pt.5:7). He is a liar. 

Everything starts  with a hope (about anything) and it leads into faith (where you walk out the hope) and it all ends with the effectual blessing of the Son breaking upon you  (Heb.11:1). It is not based on how you feel or what you think. It is not based on your circumstances or living situation.  Abraham was in a tent. Rahab was a harlot. It does not come from someone or something. God doesn’t promise to make things better. He promises to make you new (2 Cor.5:17). It always starts with a full resolution of will. I am doing things I never imagined because I do not hold onto my old self. The eternity of others is at stake. So I am not concerned with what people think of me, but of how I can communicate Him to them.

We are staying a couple miles from Pope Francis’ home church. Buenos Aires, like all South American cities, has a catholic basis. It’s always so funny when the little old catholic ladies come up to us on the streets. They shout something about Mary, then quickly scurry away. We call them ‘drive by shooters’. Just hit you hard and they’re gone before you can turn around to see them. Sometimes however, they stop and talk, and we have had many a beautiful sharing with them.  They realize we are NOT the Brazilian evangelicals whose goal is to attack Catholicism.

I’m just so thankful that change (repentance) is the integral essence of relationship with Jesus. Oh, how I have changed. I first met Jesus as a catholic, who went to Mass and continued to pray to Mary. Some thirty five years ago I even attempted to be a Dominican priest and studied at Aquinas College. Then I graduated from  the largest interdenominational  seminary. My first thesis was on the role of Mary as the “Mediatrix” in salvation. I remember the look of shock on the face of Dr. Wilums when I submitted the title. He said “As long as you can prove it in the Scriptures I’ll accept it”. I thought “Ha. No problem”. Actually, I found it to be impossible. The theology of Mary is rooted in St. Augustine and St. Jerome not the Scriptures. Being in a non-catholic seminary made me doctrine minded. I learned exegesis  (translating from Greek) on all the relevant Scriptures that exposed the doctrines of Mariology, the sacrifice of the Mass, the infallibility of the Pope, etc as being unbiblical (Lk.1:47/Mk.3:33/Heb.9:26,10:10/Mk.7:6/ Mt.16:23, 23:9). Slowly, I became anti-catholic. I could out-quote and out argue anyone with God’s Word. Love? Oh ya. Forgot about that one. As fellow seminarians would sit around hour after hour attacking the Catholic system, I began to question what practical purpose this served. I didn’t realize the pride that accompanies knowledge can easily cause one to lose focus of  His love. I have had to draw  from these early experiences long after I left seminary. My thinking is never out of the reach of my Father, Who over years, has had to discipline this son on his back and forth journey into wisdom and compassion.

God offers His love to Catholics, Protestants and pagans despite any of their deception. Love does not prohibit me from speaking truth but enlarges my character to do so. There is a time for confrontation and rebuke but the goal is to do so in love, not in provocation. Jesus died to save a soul from hell not to put “right” doctrine on the books. It’s easy to blow people off. It’s love to take them on. I constantly change with goal of being bigger; being like Christ. I constantly praise Jesus for bearing my sinful ways in such abundant forgiveness. His mercy gives me “The Kick” that He is personally involved in molding His perspectives within me. I die and and rise every day (Rm.6:6). Jesus does not lead a man to become self-righteous about “right” doctrine but rather to lay down YOUR righteousness to touch unrighteous men who may have no doctrine (Phil.3:9).

The process of THINKING enters a higher dimension in Christ that you could  call “synchronizing”. God gives access to His thoughts which are in a context of destiny (1 Cor.2:11-16).  His desire is to make us actually think with the thoughts of Christ (ibid.). Thus, it is not circular or clever thinking like any natural man. I deal with impossible and obscene situations and people. People don’t understand their own need for personal redemption. How will they hear without someone who loves enough to figure out a way to tell them, to win them.  It is beautiful to actually see the Holy Spirit bring His things beyond my things. What He sees as important is not what I may see. How do you reach a vehement pagan, a prisoner without hope, an upper class businessman or a naive young person? Jesus.

We are in the middle of ministering to three different prisons a distance outside the city. One is rated as one of the worst in the world. One woman’s prison and two are for men. God has opened the doors, the bars, into the prisons of every country we have been to. Surely Jesus cares so much for them (Heb.13:3). It requires a lot to effectively reach people of all ages and walks of life. It is inevitable, with human nature to make mistakes and fail. Who doesn’t wish they could do certain things over? However, in Christ, the Father promises to cause those very things to work for our good, if we are willing to be like a humble child. To believe Him and learn (Rm.8:28). There are those who thoroughly condemn me.  Perhaps they are perfect, but I will always be an imperfect sinner trying to preach a perfect gospel. Hallelujah, God is bigger than all my failures. All those whom I have preached to, over 40 years, remain accountable to God for every word of His gospel. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

When a man lives with leading of the Spirit, he becomes broken of his own will (Ps.51:17). I KNOW I am nothing.  I am a dead man; “crucified with Christ” (Gal.2:20/Rm.6:3-6/Jn.12:25). Failure is a normal part of following Jesus. I am free from the fear of doing something wrong (which keeps many from ever doing anything) because I believe God can make everything right by His blood.  It is good to fail because it exposes our sin and weakness. So we don’t build on self-pride. It is the only way to learn the difference between soul and spirit (Heb.4:12/1 Cor.15:45).  To learn to “walk in the Spirit” does not happen from listening to a sermon or CD. It comes FROM the Spirit in the school of every day life (Phil.2:12).

The apostle Peter was partying with a bunch of pagans. When Paul came in the room, Peter got up from the table so Paul wouldn’t think he was being carnal. Peter thought obedience meant legalism and moral righteousness. He was wrong. He had to learn that obeying Jesus is realistic not legalistic. Paul rebuked Peter because he was not being transparent (Galations 2).  Actually, it was obedience for Peter to keep partying because it was consistent with the freedom a man finds under the blood of Jesus. It’s like me and the catholic thing. I thought being doctrinally “righteous” was obedience when in fact I was being just as unrighteous as the Catholic I attacked for holding to religious standards rather than the Spirit.

Salvation is all about PERSONAL ENGAGEMENT WITH JESUS. If I could know Jesus as  the “Crazy War”, at college, while a Catholic, then why couldn’t others find Him in whatever their lifestyle? It is God Who alone touches a man, leads a man, and loves a man out of deception and into His light. Jesus promises to do so (John 10:29/2 Cor.6: 17). Paul the apostle loved men who were involved in pagan rituals. He did not skip a beat. He knew the mind of Christ was to be all things to all men so as to reach even one… maybe even some nobody named Michael (1 Cor.9:22).

Thank God that change is not  a one time thing but an ongoing growth into His glory. People who say change is a contradiction say it because they are afraid to do so themselves. What good does “righteousness” do if it’s all about YOU and you are really irrelevant to helping anyone else? It is good to be concerned with compromise because we are fearful creatures. I used to react against “Christians” who say “Where’s your love?” by saying “Where’s your truth?”. God says one is not complete without the other;  “…but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him…Christ” (Eph.4:15).  God is holy and just but also so big and so good.

Whether people are open or hard hearted, the gospel must be preached. Obsession with this world hardens the human soul like concrete. The majority just want to get all done with God. They don’t want any learning curve to do with Christ. Just package “IT” all up into doctrines and moral striving; do’s and don’ts. Put a lid on it called “I’m already a Christian” so you can get on with your life. Sorry, I love you with a love far beyond myself. I WON’T leave you to Satan. I will fight for you, even if you fight against me.

Hypocrites don’t want any of this “sonship” stuff to hear “His voice” (Jn.10:4,29). Nothing to do with ground-facing humility and learning.  As if God is the object of what THEY SAY is right.  Such arrogance is as old as the cross. They said Jesus was a wino drunk who had a demon (Mk.2:22/Mt.11:19/Jn.8:48). It cracks me up when I hear people say I don’t represent their “jesus”. I agree. I don’t want their “jesus”.  I stand for the Father’s  Jesus (Jn.6:40). Ever hear of a totem pole? Ancient tribes sculpted  their own images of their god onto a pole. Then, they worshipped what they imagined their god to be. Truth leaves no guess work. The Scriptures clearly reveal Jesus. Jesus was a hostile “Traitor” to this world (Jn.7:7,15:18/2 Cor.4:4). He was an “Alien” (Jn.18:36). Those same people also say we shouldn’t “turn people off” by carrying 10 foot message signs. Yet we use them, like so many other things, to affect entire cities around the world for Jesus in a matter of weeks. We have abundant and amazing fruit of personal contacts and emails.

How can we say “churches” are a joke and the “Accept Christ” prayer formula is not Biblical? How about instead of attacking us and falsely accusing us, why not  look deeper into why we say such things? See what sort of people we are proven to be in the witness of our lives. The same people that ask these questions do nothing to help the poor, homeless etc. or make any effort to be a witness in public for Jesus. It’s means nothing to feel bad for people. Do something to help them. Hypocrites go from sermon to sermon to sermon to sermon obsessed with finding “friends” and  feeling good about their own self-righteousness lives. Don’t do this my friend. You are missing so much. It is JESUS , not me, WHO demands that anyone who claims to follow Him must stand for Him (Mk.8:38 /Mt.16:15/Acts 1:8).  Don’t make your own totem pole “jesus” (2 Cor.11:14/Gal.1:8).

Why are “churches a joke”? I don’t say this in a flippant manner. Many years, hundreds of cities and campuses, so many people, five years of seminary and most of all knowing the true church of Jesus has forged this declaration to this generation. Gordon Conwell documents today’s Christianity brings in about 626 BILLION dollars a year in the US alone! That’s ten million dollars a minute. Really sounds consistent with the revelation of a homeless Carpenter, eh? How about His true followers who often went without food and were cold (1 Cor.4:11/2 Cor.11:27). How about  3.7 million “churches”;  67,000 denominations and 50,000 new “churches” every year! I’m sorry my friends but this IS NOT the church of Acts. Yet this delusion is ever more reason for us to love them with our message of truth because we are their only hope. Regardless of false accusations people make against us we say “Father forgive them they KNOW NOT what they do”.

There is a secular adage “You are either part of the problem or part of the answer”.  You are either learning to cling to Jesus in these last days, and stand for HIM  or you are gradually being dragged under by the tide of delusion. There is an unseen abyss of wickedness overtaking the consciousness of the world. About 2.4 million people get divorced every year. Even amongst “Christians”. Everyone is growing cold to these things I write and the things we preach (Mt.24:12). Where is anyone who cares to labor over lost souls? Not set on a “ministry” but just plain ordinary on the streets talking to people?

We never see such people standing for Jesus. This is just a fact. I’m not lying. I didn’t say  “I have seen people but choose not to acknowledge them”. Where are the two billion other “Christians” who have been commanded by Jesus to “Go into all the world…”?! (Maybe in a building on Sunday busy talking about how radical they are?) We do see plenty of nuts. That’s for sure. People become consumed with issues, doctrines and their own righteousness. It is so grievous to see so many false preachers whose only concern is their own ego. Where is just a down to earth, sincere, simple individual who is willing to bear the anxiety, stress, isolation, rejection and persecution because he or she loves Jesus more than their own life (Rev.12:11)?  It doesn’t matter what others say my friend. What matters is whether you obey what God says in His Word.  This is someone anointed with Christ; i.e. a Christian. This is the church.

You may think that one day you will just snap your finger and “get serious”. It won’t happen. The human soul is just not that way. I warn you my friend. Change while you can. Admit you are an orphan. Ask God for the adoption of His sonship! Stop resorting to your typical responses. You don’t have to take on the world. Just start with some small mustard seed. We are talking about nothing less than eternity in hell. Imagine the horror. Eternity.

Obviously the religion of Christianity has spread throughout the world. It does not preach the gospel of the living Christ. Jesus says “This gospel shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony….and then the end will come” (Mt.24:14). Preaching the gospel of the living Jesus is always a  “first love” experience. Protestants condemn Catholics but hold to their own unbiblical doctrines. The gospel is not a prayer formula to “Accept Christ as Savior” (which is NOWHERE in the Bible). The goal is to bring the LIVING WORD  to all nations and religions; i.e. people. Jesus calls men to follow HIM, individually, by the Spirit, via a religious system falsely labeled “church”. Again and again, Jesus didn’t walk around asking people to “accept Me”, but “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me” (Mt.16:24/Lk.9:23/ Mk.8:34/Jn.12:25). This is the true church as seen in the Book of Acts.

God willing, we may be able to finish South America sometime next year. My hope is then to get to Japan, South Korea or South Africa. We continue bringing the truth of the gospel to all the world. Even though men have heard about Churchianity they have not heard; “Seek the living Jesus NOT “church”. Every time we are out, so many say “I have never heard this before”. The religious saturation (as documented above) makes it harder than in the days of Paul to present the simple message of faith in Jesus. We must speak the truth in love, that the system of Christianity does NOT represent the gospel of the living Jesus.

Story after story I could tell of individuals we minister to throughout the world who hear for the first time the answer of His Spirit rather than the lie of “churchianity”. Does anyone really think that the answer for suffering people is to come to a building on Sunday? Come on my friend. Gimme a break. So much pain and sorrow. God needs your voice and your hands. We met a young man who sold tickets with his family on the street one day. Two days later he was killed in a car accident. His parents were devastated. A woman came up to Ruth who was just weeping. She told her that two weeks ago she came upon her husband who had hung himself in their apartment. He had told her how miserable and lonely he was but she didn’t pay much attention. We constantly deal with the homeless, the mentally ill, those who suffer from divorce or past tragedy.  Hurting people don’t need to “Go to ‘church’ on Sunday”. They need the personal touch and  healing words of the living Christ. Will you lay down your life to give His?

 We will now be leaving here in Buenos Aires and continue to be led by “the wind of His Spirit” (Jn.3:8).  If anyone wants to contact me you can do so through here.

Maybe you saw on the news that a 8.2 earthquake just hit last night in the city Iquique to which we are headed. This is an enormous earthquake. We should be arriving there in the middle of the cleanup. We know that God will protect and lead us in this extremely dangerous and volatile region. They are expecting another huge one at any time. Maybe we can bring the gospel at a time when these people may be more vulnerable to Jesus. It surely does not seem like a coincidence that we are here at precisely this time. Quite mind blowing really.  We could be far more in God’s will then we realize. Jesus IS coming soon.

In regards to the prisons. We are now having to bear backlash of Satan’s fury for what God accomplished through us. Paul warns of “spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph.6:12). Demons whose sole purpose is to craft concepts of delusion to win men. We did several presentations in the prisons this last week. It seems we greatly offended the evangelicals in the prison who rely heavily on the officials to support, regulate and expound their TV ministry out of the prison. In turn officials get a kickback. They actually have a huge banner for it on a prison wall in the middle of all these catholic shrines.Continue reading

I could write a story about all the dogs we have dealt with. No kidding. It is funny but not funny because they don’t bring out the best in you. I won’t even mention the ones we deal with in our crowds.

To follow up from the last blog where I shared about us all going to the prison to ask if we could perform for the ten thousand prisoners. The commander approved our visit so we will be going there three times this week. This is quite a move of God if you knew of all the obstacles we had to overcome.We did something last night that we have never done before.

We explained to the crowd that we were going to the prisoners and asked if anyone wanted to help us bless these guys because we can not afford to do what we would like to do. We told them if they could help us we could buy some things for the prisoners. One person actually gave us thirty five dollars! We were shocked. They didn’t even want credit. They just put it in a hat we had sitting on a speaker. All together we got sixty four dollars.  We’d like to get something that lasts. But when you multiply things out times 5000 to 10,000 it gets very expensive.Continue reading

I’m going to have a bumper sticker made that says “I’D RATHER BE EATING GOAT”. Because it is not about the goat that we ate last night but the abundant blessing we all shared, sitting together as a family on Rachel’s birthday,  just after ministering to an extremely poor but so grateful community of Peruvians. (My precious cheerleader turned 58 but will never be a day over 19 in my eyes.) It’s like what Jesus said after sharing with the poor woman at the well. He told His brothers “I have food to eat that you do not know….” ( Jn.4:32). Jesus was  full of the joy that comes from giving the Father’s life to someone who is hungry.Actually I would bet that  Jesus did eat goat.  This alone proves His divinity. I would imagine it was a staple of that culture. It is cheap but the taste….well…let’s just say if I  had nothing else to eat I would LEARN to like it.Continue reading

The conclusion of our dilemma in the desert was that the sole battery that was in a desert city got us to where Abraham found someone to fix the alternator. So the van rose again from  dead in the desert.

 As we approached a new city we were faced with a whole new set of challenges. When we left Bogotá, or other cities in which we stayed for a while, we spent much work and time to established favor with those who print our tracts, with various officials, venders, lots of street people, some police and merchants. Now once again we have to start from scratch in another city. Nothing too difficult for God. People are not as friendly as in Colombia. Everybody quite mean and people don’t know or care who we are but God does…so God DOES.  Since we don’t have phones we do everything by foot. First we have to find a place to stay. No place for a tent.  A tight budget limits our options.  Then we study and figure out the roadways and places for ministry. Find someone to make tracts, copy CD’s, a place to get food, etc.

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Not to long ago we moved from an apartment in Bogotá, Colombia into a van to travel down through South America to bring the living Jesus to as many people as possible.

Not two.. or four people…. not six people ….but EIGHT full-grown adults living and traveling out of a VAN in a 3rd world country. Awesome. Nothing more edifying than living on ‘the edge’ (literally driving along the edge of three-mile high Andes mountains). The power God offers to live by faith is no little thing. After some forty years of traveling the world we are setting out to do the most difficult thing yet…and I’m 60 years old!

Jesus says, “Go…and…Lo, I am with you always…”   ( Mt.28:20).

God does phenomenal things but altering the molecular structure of possessions is not one. But God does alter our hearts and minds so that we get rid of junk, live with little and learn how to access His love for each other and big grace in little space! (2 Cor.12:9). Jesus repeatedly emphasizes to put no importance on possessions. Why? They become like anchors to the soul (Luke 12:33/ 18:22/Matthew 6:19).

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