Feel The Zeal...

FEEL THE ZEAL…The coming of Christ signaled the beginning of grand plan. In fact this grand plan has mushroomed into the largest single initiative on our planet and has only increased in momentum with time. It’s the redemption mission of God.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
~Isaiah 9:6-7
Notice with me the zeal of the Lord. God is absolutely invested in the Christ-mission heart and soul! Thus Christmas is a time of remembering what God has begun. Rick Warren makes the point that in California there are many places you can get surfing lessons. But there is no place you can get lessons on how to make a wave. The sport only exists by riding on the waves God makes. On this earth, God has created an enormous wave called the redemption mission. That first Christmas was the first time it hit our shores. And His zeal is fully & emotionally committed to keeping that particular wave hitting us over and over again. Can we pause in this Christmas week and feel His desire that we become invested in His wave…FEEL THE ZEAL! ~verlon

Merry Christmas...

MERRY CHRISTMAS…This is the anniversary of the day that changed the world like none other. Nothing has so affected our planet as the coming of Jesus the Christ.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
~Isaiah 9:6-7
What intrigues me today is the phrase about the increase of His government and peace having no end. Limit-less favor and unending grace. It’s hard to fathom that Christ desires to pour favor into our lives and families forever. His blessings that are new every morning have no conclusion…if we will allow it. It saddens me to think of the millions around us who’ve never learned to rely upon the limitless blessings of Christ. They are a prayer away from becoming deeply enriched by the same one that enriched the world 2000 years ago. It moves me to help others reach for the spirit of Christ. Oh I how depend upon His daily favor. Oh how it changes me. I wish you and yours a most favored day. And tomorrow…more…much more of the same. Because of Christ…Merry Christmas! ~verlon

His Name...

HIS NAME…A persons name revealed a lot in Bible days. Names were based upon character traits. As an example, Peter was a ‘back and forth’ young man, so his family named him ‘blown in the wind’. But Jesus renamed him ‘Rock’. Let’s look at the names given the Christ…
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
~Isaiah 9:6-7
The strong traits attributed to Jesus are many. And this is just the short list. But it defines what the world received on Christmas night. And for those of who’ve invited Christ to move into their lives, this is who they now enjoy. Sometimes we need to be swept away…that’s why He’s called wonderful. Sometimes we need guidance…He’s the counselor. Sometimes we need strength…He’s called Mighty. Sometimes we need eternity…He’s Everlasting. And sometimes we need rest for our troubled souls…He just happens to be the Prince of Peace. All we need to compensate for life in this fallen world is guaranteed in His name…His amazing name! The song says it well: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name.” ~verlon

A Son Is Given...

A SON IS GIVEN…Absurd generosity. That’s what it is for any father go give his son to save a people.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
~Isaiah 9:6-7
There is a short-film called ‘Most’. It’s a true story of a train switchman in Europe. His was a lonely job, to sit in a small switch house and lower the bridge when a train would come a couple times a day. He decided to take his 7 yr. old son to work with him one day. No one would know. When it came time to put the trestle down his son had wandered out of the switch-house. The switchman called for him so he could watch the lowering bridge, but there was no answer. Then to his horror, he saw his son playing down on the gears beneath the bridge. He heard the trains steam whistle in the distance. He was faced with an absurd choice. Save his son & kill everyone on the train, or crush his son & save the train. I won’t ruin the ending. But that’s the choice God was faced with too. We know what He chose, “unto us a son is GIVEN”. Absurd generosity, isn’t it. ~verlon

A Child Is Born...

A CHILD IS BORN…Here is it, the week of Christmas. The possibility of snow is a wonderful background thought and our hearts are getting ready to feel the love of family. God counted us valuable enough to send His own son to be our Savior. There is no greater proof in all of earth history that we are truly valuable then the coming of Christ! And what an affect that one child has had on our entire world.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
~Isaiah 9:6-7
This is clearly my favorite Christmas verse and I am going to obsess on it all week long. The first thing I see in these words is the intriguing idea that when God needed to redeem a world that had lost it’s way…He relied on a child. He sent His son into a mothers womb, to be birthed and begin life as an infant. If I were sending a savior, I would think a show of strength would be in order. But God would not agree. He saw it as a time for the frailty of infancy. A time for the Christ-child to be dependent upon us. Think of that, God dependent on us! I can’t even put into words how that makes me feel. ~verlon

Open Our Eyes...

OPEN OUR EYES…Blindness is common to our human condition. I am not speaking of physical blindness, but rather blind to needed perspectives. We each have a world that we live in. This world is a culmination of past lessons learned, personality traits, and attitudes we’ve learned from others we’ve been around. The are the things that have shaped our views, by which we interpret everything by. But sometimes our world doesn’t provide what we need, nor does it instinctively make room for God’s plans in response to our needs. This is referred to as paradigm blindness. In other words, we just can’t see outside of our memorized thought patterns and ‘lived in’ world.
“Just then God opened her eyes. She looked. She saw a well of water. She went to it and filled her canteen and gave the boy a long cool drink. God was on the boys side as he grew up.” ~Gen. 21:19
This is the story about Hagar. Sarah was frustrated with her servant Hagar and sent her away into the wilderness. She was out of water, and her boy was wasting away in the hot sun. She sat down and cried, on the edge of fainting and no options left. In that desperate moment, God opened her eyes, and in the near distance was a well. She didn’t expect a well to be there, they were in the wilderness afterall. Whether it was a well that had been dug by man, or was miraculously provided by God, it was there to sustain them, thought they didn’t see it at first. Hear this point clearly: God is pulling for us and providing for us, but we will forever need Him to OPEN OUR EYES! ~verlon

To Be Known...

TO BE KNOWN…I walked into a starbucks a few weeks ago that I don’t usually go to. Behind the counter was a guy who used to work at the starbucks near the church. He looked up at me and without any hesitation said, ‘let me guess, a triple tall wet breve cappuccino’. I was shocked. I didn’t know he knew me that well. We laughed and I applauded him on his memory. It felt good to be known.
“Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” ~Psalm 139:23
We all have a basic need to be known by God! Most people have a theoretical understanding that God know everything about everyone. But we need something more personal than that. We need God to look at us and say, ‘let me guess, (and then read our mail perfectly including the nuances of our personality and the precise concerns of our present situation). So how do we know God is paying close personal attention to us? Believe it or not, it’s the discomfort of being searched and tested that reveals God’s attentiveness. In this verse David actually asked to be searched and tested…so He would be known. When we invite God to put His finger on our inward faults and press against our anxious thoughts, something comes alive in us. It’s the message beneath the testing that is so enriching. To have God look into our hearts and speak about what He sees, is a very esteeming thing. To be known by God…is to be deeply cared for…is to be valued beyond measure. ~verlon

The Lowly...

THE LOWLY…There’s an interesting part of the Christmas story that we often overlook. It’s the fact that the Christ-child was born in a ‘lowly’ town, in a ‘lowly’ animal hovel, laid in a ‘lowly’ manger and visited by ‘lowly’ shepherds. It might seem like an over-use of the ‘lowly’ theme, but I didn’t write the script for this story…God did! He chose all these lowly components to tell us something. HE LIKES THINGS LOWLY! How’s that for stating the obvious…
“I will remove all proud and arrogant people from among you. there will be no more haughtiness on my holy mountain. Those who are left will be the lowly and humble, for it is they who trust in the name of the Lord. ~Zephaniah 3:11-12
See I told you, God likes lowly things. And there are hundred of cousin verses just like this. He chose the pentacle moment of earths history to state it again. He literally wrapped the incarnation story around the ‘lowly’ theme. It was the atmosphere He wanted His son birthed into. In fact, in some way He wants all of our lives to be touched by the richness that comes from ‘lowly’ moments. There is great blessing here. For it’s only then that we learn true dependence upon God. It’s only then we learn what real rest feels like. When every visible thing around becomes lowly…we finally look to the invisible God. AND WE FIND HIM! If it was good for the Christ-child…it’s probably good for us. Can we ever learn to embrace the ‘lowly’ parts of our life? Blessings await! ~verlon

Makes Me Laugh...

MAKES ME LAUGH…We humans become far too concerned and serious regarding the challenges of life. We long for things so deeply that we often overlook the blessings the Lord is giving us each day. We also get so stressed out by the challenges that we can’t appreciate the creative and poetic way God inserts Himself into our situations. This story is a needed reminder…
“Don’t call her Sarai any longer; call her Sarah. I will bless her, yes! I’ll give you a son by her…then Abraham laughed, ‘can a hundred year old man father a son? Can Sarah at ninety years, have a baby?’ But God said,…name him Isaac(which means laughter). ~Gen.17:15-19
God is the creator. We all know that about Him, but when it comes to our life we want the predictable version of His answers. Down deep we tend to resist the creative God being creative in His responses to our problems. For Abraham and Sarah, they needed a son. God had promised them as many descendants as there were stars in the sky. They waited and waited and waited for Sarah to get pregnant, but no baby arrived. Now they were old, and had settled on the notion that their half-son Ishmael would be their only son. How interesting that God would show up late, and give them a son anyway. On top of that, God enjoyed His plan & told them to name him ‘Laughter’, because everyone is going to be laughing with joy about this anyway. Do you think God missed the opportunity to fix something in your life? No! God’s way are so surprising they MAKE ME LAUGH! ~verlon

One Who God Watches...

ONE WHO GOD WATCHES…There is a basic and deep in all of us to feel the attention of God. Most of us understand that God is Omnipresent, in other words He’s everywhere at once, thus always here. But somehow we still wrestle with that alone feeling. This is especially true on the hard days. Here’s an interesting story…
“Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away. An angel of God found her beside a spring in the desert…She answered God by name, ‘you are the God who see’s me’. That’s how that desert spring got its name, ‘God-Alive-See’s-Me’ spring”. ~Gen. 16:7-12
Somehow I think we can all relate to this story. Sitting in a desert by a lonely spring…been there. What I love about this story is that an angel found Hagar in this lonely place. What, did he just happen to be flying by? No, of course the angel was there just for her. Many Bible scholars believe that when the Old Testament uses the phrase, ‘angel of the Lord’, it’s often actually talking about the Lord Himself. It’s not far fetched to think it was Christ who was there for Hagar. Afterall Revelation states that the lamb[Jesus] was present before the foundations of the world was laid[Creation]. So I guess the son could handle the Hagar assignment. Back to the point, there comes a time in our faith journey that our heart somehow gets re-forged because of Christ’s attentiveness to us. And the places that used to be lonely, get renamed. And our self-worth and self-identity changes. And we become ONE WHO GOD WATCHES. ~verlon

The Secret Life of Servants...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Oh praise the Lord all you servants of the Lord, you who serve at night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your holy hands in prayer, and praise the Lord.” ~Psalm 134:1-2
THE SECRET LIFE OF SERVANTS…The bible refers to us sons and daughters…and yet calls us servants too. It’s not a demeaning thing, Jesus even referred to himself as a servant. But there is something within this title that helps us return to God’s best plans for us. Somehow within this world of servant-hood we find a deep bond with the Divine like no other way. And this verse seems to capture just a bit of the secret world of the servant. Much of this world is talked about as a night thing. A true servant does more for the Lord than anyone ever see’s…they are not doing it for the applause of others in the daylight. They are simply responding to their Lord. But there is another ‘night’ truth here. Our servant-hood isn’t just a day job. It’s a 24/7 expression of our life…spilling into the night too. Doing works of Christ during the day…meditating on Him and His mission during the night. But the part I love most about this verse is how it casts us as the first ones to partake of what we’re selling. We are quick to lift up our hands in prayer…because we truly believe in the power of our message. And we are the ones who respond first and fast at the opportunities of praise…because we know how He enables us as we exalt Him. It’s how men and women of the cross have found strength in the night for centuries. It’s the secret life of servants. ~verlon

Desperate For Agreement...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?...Indeed the sovereign Lord never does anything until He reveals His plans to His servants…” ~Amos 3:3,7
DESPERATE FOR AGREEMENT…There are many circles of humanity that are desperate for the attitude of agreement to touch them. There are families in which each person is insisting on their own way. Companies are struggling because their people haven’t grasped the power of agreement and hold to their personal views like they’re gold. Churches struggle with the same problem…and we actually have the playbook on unity…the Bible. But our humanity gets in the way and we cancel out the power of agreement with almost as much regularity as those who are uninformed of this attitudinal value. There must be agreement! We don’t have to like everything about a direction to embrace it and enable it for the greater good. Contrary to popular opinion, the universe doesn’t revolve around what we want. Even God limits Himself to the paths of agreement and works His plans on the earth only after revealing them to us and gaining our agreement. Wow! He knows that until the attitude of agreement has been forged, even His efforts will be mis-spent. We live in a ‘my way’ culture in which most people navigate their way through it insisting upon what ‘they want’. Is it possible that this deep individualism has made us blind to a deep need in our families, churches & work-places that are desperate for agreement? ~verlon

Powerless...

POWERLESS…I hate being powerless. There are moments in life when we are simply outmatched. Bills become greater than our income…disruption becomes greater than our ability to breathe peace…chaos undermines our plans faster then we can instill direction…discouragement becomes greater than our energy …etc. etc. I even hate it when someone makes a snide remark and I can’t even find a good come-back…too brain-dead to go tit-for-tat with a friend in the halls of church. Bumping up against our limitations is part of our adult learning, isn’t it. When these moments are visiting me in living color…I like this verse.
“Oh Lord, no one but you can help the powerless against the mighty!”
~II Chronicles 14:11
This is one of the great benefits of being on friendly speaking terms with God Himself. When we are powerless…we aren’t really powerless. In other words, when we come to the end of our abilities…it doesn’t mean we are at the end. Beneath us is God. Around us is God. Within us is God. God is consumed with our life and our present challenges. And God has no idea what it’s like to be powerless. However dark and impossible our present challenge looks, we are never without options and power. Our only problem is that we don’t know what they are. Our problem is that we only see our resources, and how futile they can be. When we see no answer, He see’s 10,000. Are you facing a mighty problem and completely powerless to address it? No you’re not!
~verlon

Believe Him!

BELIEVE HIM!...“How good are you at believing what the Lord is whispering in your soul? This is a spiritual aptitude that must be developed if we are going to be affected by Christ’s leadership and influence. Yet there are many who simply have never learned to believe! Accordingly, the interventions of Christ never leave the story books and enter their daily lives. Here’s the moment Abraham chose to simply believe…
“Count your descendants. You’re going to have a big family, Abraham! And he believed! Believed God!” ~Gen. 15:5-6
I like how the voice of God was talking to Abraham. God likes to talk with His creation. That’s still true today. The Spirit of Christ that lives in us is always whispering His comfort and His direction inside of us. If we can’t trust those inward words, then will fumble many blessings & encouragements He’s trying to give us. We’ll fumble provisions He’s lining up for us, we’ll fumble mission engagement opportunities, we’ll literally talk ourselves out of ‘one blessing after another’. Why does the voice of doubt get so much credibility? Has doubt ever led to a single blessing in our life? The presence of doubt only means that we can’t see the whole plan at that moment. Abraham had no son, and he was old, so he couldn’t see where all these descendants would come from. So, he simply chose to believe God! There’s an age-old lesson to be learned about God’s whispers, that even though we don’t see all the facts, we can choose to simply BELIEVE HIM! ~verlon

After We Lose...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“The Lord says, I will give you back what you lost…The threshing floors will again be piled high with grain and the presses will overflow with new wine and olive oil.” ~Joel 2:25,24
AFTER WE LOSE…Loss is a part of this fallen world. For every 2 steps forward we will take a step backwards. The construction worker labors hard for his paycheck, but he gets sawdust in his eyes and slivers in his fingers in doing so. The athlete trains their body and tunes their muscles, but injury is part of the journey of performing at their best. The business person works hard at putting together relationships and making deals, yet some of them still come unglued costing their company huge dollars. Loss is present almost every day. We lose positions, we lose influence, we lose faith in others, we lose money, we lose belongings, we lose friends, we lose health, we lose family to death and when we lose too much, we even lose confidence in God. But what happens next? What about after loss? If we’re still here, there just has to be an after, right? The above verse is one of the classics. Israel had lost huge. They had lost their focus on God and that brought loss in every other area. They found themselves despairing for even food. Then these words were given to them. This is a great example of what happens after loss. God see’s to it we are offered a tomorrow. A good tomorrow. In fact a great tomorrow. We perceive loss as the end of the road. That’s actually not true. God will again offer us options of blessing…He still builds tomorrows. ~verlon

A Crop Of Love...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Plant the good seeds of righteousness and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and shower righteousness upon you. .” ~Hosea 10:12
A CROP OF LOVE…We would all probably like more love flowing in our lives. Love is a great theme, and yet it gets squeezed out so easily by everything from busy-ness to offenses. We only seem to be able to focus upon it for short spurts. In this scripture we see an interesting idea. That we can plant some seeds into our lives that will grow into an entire crop of love. There is something about the planting metaphor that fits us well. We plant words and attitudes into our relationships every day…and they do turn into a harvest of sorts, don’t they. And we do need to plow up hardness in our hearts from time to time, like a farmer would need to plow a field after winter. However, there are a couple turning points in this verse. The seed that turns into love isn’t love itself…it’s righteousness. That term isn’t used much today but it means right-way-ness. In other words, doing the right thing according to God. It’s an intriguing thought that if we purpose to seek & follow God’s directions every day it will result in a great crop of love. And further that He will take on the role of the farmer and shower us with seeds of right-ways-ness so we can flourish well. If He gets His way…we will each one have a great crop of love springing up in our lives one day. ~verlon

Don't Give Up...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Yes the Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy! Restore our fortunes Lord as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” ~Psalm 126:3-6
DON’T GIVE UP…The human spirit can handle difficult seasons if there are a few things present in us. Without them however, and it only takes a few short days of struggle to wear us down to the point of utter despair. The above verse gives a short list of what fuels the soul during harsh times. 1)The remembrance of God doing amazing things for you in the past. 2)The presence of joy…which is instilled in you by the presence of God. 3)Prayer – just asking the Lord to restore your good fortune is strengthening. 4)A vision of streams flowing across the dry parts of your life. We all need a flourishing vision to focus upon. 5)Remembering that all harvests require days of planting that are harsh enough to bring tears. 6)There is coming a day of shouting and laughter…a day when you will break into spontaneous singing even if you can’t sing.
If we keep our thoughts and hearts focused on these things, we will bravely endure dark days and hard times. For down deep we know that these days of planting are the very thing that is preparing us for the day of harvest and the day of song. ~verlon

Those First Steps To Self-Destruction...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me.” ~Hosea 4:6
THOSE FIRST STEPS TO SELF-DESTRUCTION…When I speak of self destruction, the first images that come to mind are probably the alcoholic, the gambling addict or the person soliciting prostitution. Actually self-destruction starts off in much milder places. The alcoholic starts as the fun guy at the Saturday night frat party, The gambling addict started off just kicking it at Vegas a couple times a year. So, the question becomes, what are those smaller paths that lead to the grander destructions? What things seem like innocent fun but turn into brutal rock-crushers of our esteem, marriages, families, and careers? To look even deeper, what did that first step look like and how did it happen? Wow, now that’s a deep and important question to wrestle with, and the answer might be different than you think. Some surmise that the first steps toward destruction is about boundaries, but the above verse shows it’s a lapse in focus. When we don’t ‘know God’, we are more available for other precarious paths. Knowing God is more about experience than information. There are many people sitting in churches today that know all about God…but it’s been quite a while since they’ve ‘known Him’. We need to feel God often! We need to sense the pressure of His hand against our chests and His stirring in our souls. Experiencing God this way holds our intrigue and dulls our interest in those first steps to self-destruction. ~verlon

He's Paying Attention...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“When I call, give me answers. God, take my side! Once, in a tight place you gave me room. Now I’m in trouble again; Grace me! Hear me!” ~Psalms 4:1(message)
HE’S PAYING ATTENTION…It’s our nature to get into trouble. We don’t mean to, we don’t go looking for it, in fact we usually don’t even know how it finds us so easily. But it happens. Our inability to see around corners and living in a fallen world seems to invite trouble. The scripture above is one of David’s great prayers. I truly resonate with this one. I need God to answer me when I call…don’t you? I need to feel God is taking my side and not just doing what’s best for the universe…you too? When I am in a tight place, I really need preferential attention from Him. I need him to move the crushing weight off of me before it kills me. Can you relate with that need for His immediacy? I also recognize that I need to be graced. I need His divine favor to flow into my life and my situation. And sometimes desperately quick. Finally, I just need to know I’ve been heard. I need the same feedback from God that I would need from you if I were sharing a heart-felt need. I need an occasional nod, eyes of compassion and evidence of someone deeply listening to my saga. I’m quite sure you need that too. Let me venture this thought. It’s more God’s nature to pay close attention to us than our nature to pay attention to Him. Let’s not make the mistake He’s only as attentive as we are. He’s Here! He’s Present! He’s Paying Attention! ~verlon

No Standing Alone...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“But the son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.” ~I John 3:8
NO STANDING ALONE…It doesn’t take us long to realize that evil is real. We have all met people who are truly warped and determined to bring pain on others. We have watched good environments turn caustic and seen an evil cloud drift in and make friends into negative, spiteful and hurtful enemies. We can look inward at ourselves and see the presence of truly dark thoughts and feelings…the kind we’d be totally embarrassed if anyone around us knew were there. I heard one guy say, “I often envisioned taking a driver who had just cut me off and pulling him out of his car and slamming his head repeatedly on the hood. I was a Christian with anger fantasies”. Can you relate to that? I can. YES EVIL EXISTS! And it seems to have convincing power. Goodness is soft and subtle, but evil comes like a fire-storm. It rolls into our lives with a fearsomeness that makes us cower. I love this little verse above…it so simply dislodges darkness in all it’s power. Make no mistake, Christ is not a nice guy when it comes to the facing off with evil. He is bluntly opposed to anything the devil has planned for society or for us. Whether evil is being imposed from without or trying to take root from within, Christ positions Himself to tackle it with a vengeance. Because He’s so focused on our lives…and so quick to take a determined stand…we have power over evil. We will never stand alone against the dark. ~verlon

Fill The Earth...

FILL THE EARTH…We live in a time that is far removed from the early instructions God gave to man. So much so we all but deny the identity God intended for us to wear.
“God blessed Noah and his sons; He said, Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth!” ~Gen. 9:1
Did you realize that you were commanded by God to prosper in your efforts of filling the earth? This isn’t merely populating the planet with our offspring, that is carried in the word ‘reproduce’ from above. No, ‘fill the earth’ means something beyond physical reproduction. It’s a call to advance into spaces of our world that are chaotic, and insert order into it. To Adam, God used the words, “subdue the earth”. In the new testament Jesus said, “occupy until I come”. And here to Noah He says, “prosper…fill the earth”. There is a repeating theme through time regarding this. God has places something deep in our DNA to push us forward into new places and spaces. Did you know the word ‘male’ means ‘fill’? It’s even communicated in our gender definitions. The apostolic instinct that we see modeled by Paul and others was of this same bent. They felt compelled to push the gospel, the ‘good news’, out to the hamlets, the towns, the villages, to tribes, to the very corners of population. It’s in our very nature to reach into the unknown and make it known, to reach into blackness and turn on lights, and to reach into chaos and initiate order. This I believe, God prospers the person or persons who takes seriously His repeated instructions to FILL THE EARTH! ~verlon

What do we love?

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you…but anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” ~I John 2:15,17
WHAT DO WE LOVE?…It is so easy to give our hearts away. When we get a job we love we thrust ourselves whole-heartedly into it. When we see the house we love we go to the ends of the earth to get it. When we see the see the car or truck or boat we love we can get quite excited. There is nothing wrong with enjoying things on this earth, God actually wants us to. But there is a point when we’ve given too much of our heart to this world and have little left for Christ’s world. A good question to ask ourselves is, “Do I express more passion about my job then I do the work of Christ?” “Do I consistently get more excited about a new house or new cars or trucks or boats than I do the call Christ has given me and my church?” Most of us would say we love God, but when we break it down, we sure invest a lot of our hearts and emotions in other directions, don’t we. According to the above scripture, investing our love in what pleases God significantly affects our lives. Have you thought about choosing in advance where you will invest your emotional energy? We know what pleases us… that’s easy to see. But do we know how to invest our emotions in what pleases Christ? Interesting question isn’t it. ~verlon

Must Grow...

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY…“Be on guard so that you will not be carried away…and lose your own secure footing. Rather you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” ~II Peter 3:17-18
MUST GROW…Developing our spiritual lives often gets over-ran by other things jamming our schedules. Financial concerns, family schedules, house clean-up or fix-up’s, on and on the urgent things call. We get moving at such a fast pace that slowing down to the speed of God feels awkward. To pull out our Bibles, and get into a meditative mood to listen to the soft voice of Christ is exactly the opposite of everything else we do during the week. But it’s exactly what we need the most. The above verse reminds us that this growth is too important to be done with our ‘leftover’ time. There are things and influences and people and ideas that look so right, but actually lure us away from Christ’s directions. These things carry people away every day and cause good people to lose their solid Christ-stance. According to the Barna research group, 53,000 Americans stop attending church every week, never to return. That’s alarming. Anyone can be lured away from Christ’s best plans. We must grow! Our growth occurs in two ways, ‘Grace’ and ‘knowledge’. We need to know the mind of Christ to follow Christ. But we need to feel the grace of Christ to stay courageous as we walk where He walks. We must know Him AND we must be moved by Him. WE MUST GROW! ~verlon

Overpowered...

OVERPOWERED…The voice of temptation can sure get loud at times, can’t it. How many times have we simply been overwhelmed by that voice, and yielded to the sheer force of it’s strength? It happens. Perhaps we need to look at where this voice gets its power…
“God spoke to Cain; why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce, its out to get you, you’ve got to master it.” ~Gen. 4:6-7
We learn a lot from Eve’s temptation story. And here her first born son is again a battle with temptation. There is a lesson in that alone, in that every generation must face temptations voice. Here’s how it went down with Cain. God had made it clear how He wanted to be worshipped. Cain’s younger brother Abel did exactly what God wanted, but Cain wanted to worship in his ‘own way’. God wasn’t quite as fulfilled by Cain’s worship, as He was Abel’s. This irritated Cain deeply. And herein is the lesson. The verse above captures the exact moment where a door opened for temptations voice to flare up with power in Cain’s inner thought-life. Look closely at the words above, this voice was now strong enough to entrap Cain…to actually pounce on him. And that’s in fact exactly what happened. Within days, it spoke such evil into Cain’s mind that killing his brother actually seemed like a good idea. Wow! Temptation has been flaring up into power through the ages for the same reason. Doing things ‘our way’ is still how we become OVERPOWERED! ~verlon

No Longer...

NO LONGER…It’s an amazing thing to step back and see how you are changing. There is a percentage of people that are dedicated laggards and aren’t changing much. But for those who wake up each day looking for the leadership of Christ, more change is occurring then they probably realize.
“…your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the
flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you.”
~I Peter 4:4
One of the great way we can tell we are becoming more Christ-like is looking at what’s dropping off of us. All of us enter our lives with destructive things at work. For some it’s obvious like alcoholism or a violent temper. But for others it could be more subtle…like a stubborn will hidden beneath a sweet smile. Either one of these leads a person to destruction. And that’s only naming a couple of the hundreds of ways we wreck our lives. But the person who wakes up each day asking the Spirit of Christ to live large from within them…things start to soften…downward habits start to fall off. And those around them who aren’t finding such progress in their lives become jealous and start throwing jabs. These are actually positive symptoms of a life that’s improving. In fact, scripture instructs us to revel in this kind of persecution, because it speaks well of our alignment with Christ. Our life is not measured by how much money we are making or how much fun we’re having after work…but by how much more we are becoming like Christ. All other metrics are indelibly flawed. I have a question for you, “what’s falling off”? [not a question to ask a leper, btw]. But what destructive habits, blatant outward ones or subtle inward ones, are falling away? Take some time today to pause and notice them. If you see your growth has stalled…be done with that today. But if you see that you’re interested in some lesser things NO LONGER…Give thanks. ~verlon

Breath of Life...

BREATH OF LIFE…We seldom think about our origins. We all know the biological nature of reproduction, but how often do we think about what God to actually make us come alive?
“God formed man out of the dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The man came alive…a living soul.” ~Gen. 2:7
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to witness the creator at work. Especially when it came to His favorite project…US! At first, God formed the body out of dirt. That’s no small feat. But it lay there motionless and lifeless. What God did next fascinates me. He breathed into the human-form’s nostrils…and Adam came alive! God didn’t do that for anything else in all creation. But for us, He bent down and breathed His own air…His own essence…into us. And because He is “life” by His very definition, we ingested “life” into our very person. Have you thought about the implications of this Divine act? Not only did God form us, but He breathed His very essence into the very center of us. Wow! You and I are closer to God, and His very breath, than our fallen-ness allows us to see. Whether we see it always or not, there is a very intimate closeness with the living God. No wonder He wants us back so badly when we’ve wandered away. Without us, His very breath is wisps away. And without Him, we can’t even breathe. And the mystery is this…He continues to breathe into us the BREATH OF LIFE! ~verlon

Self Promotion...

SELF PROMOTION…All of us probably know someone who is a self promoter. They’re kind of hard to be around for any length of time aren’t they. There’s an old southern saying when speaking of the self-promoter… “if you could buy that guy for what he’s worth, and sell him for what he think’s he’s worth, you’d be a millionaire”! Here’s an interesting snapshot from scripture…
“During his lifetime, Absalom had built a monument to himself in the Kings valley…” ~2 Samuel 18:18
Absalom was an arrogant man who felt his way was better than everyone elses. He was one of King David’s sons, born into privilege, handsome with long wavy hair & accustomed to getting his way on everything. While David was a great leader, he didn’t work as hard at leading his son’s to do what was right. Absaloms life reads like a spoiled child who never grew up. He burned Joab’s field to get his attention; he killed his brother Amnon; he sat by the city gates befriending all the people who were at odds with his father, the king; he subtly stole the hearts of the people & forced his father out as king; he set up tents on the top of the palace roof & slept with his fathers wives in full view of the people…you get the point. He truly believed that he was better than everyone else …and his perspectives were simply higher. Self-promotion flowed so naturally out of him that he saw nothing wrong with building a monument to himself in the valley of Kings, though he wasn’t a king. Self promoters never see their sickness…or how they sicken those around them. Interesting isn’t it. Nor do they see the thick barrier between themselves & the voice of Christ. Hearing & responding to the voice of Christ is an exercise in humility. We will never hear the voice of Christ clearly as we are gazing upon our own monuments of achievement. We will only hear Christ as we are gazing upon His monument… …THE CROSS! ~verlon

The Different World...

THE DIFFERENT WORLD…It is almost incomprehendible how different the visible world is from Christ’s world. And it’s amazing we’ve been invited to live in that world. These worlds are sooooo completely opposite in sooooo many ways. This verse explains it well….
“Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires…He
called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.” ~I Peter 1:14; 2:9
Ours is a world of darkness. Christ’s world is one of light…Wonderful Light! This verse is not speaking of heaven, it’s speaking of a way to live in the present. Without Christ’s insight and wisdom, we grope around as though it were pitch black. But when we invite Christ to live within our person He starts breathing insight into us and the lights start pouring into us. We now have enough light to read ourselves well. We now have enough light to read others well. We even have enough light to read what’s going on in the world around us. The contrast is as shocking as going from pitch black to total light. I had that experience this morning in fact, when I turned on the bathroom light after being asleep for 7 hours. WOW! My retina’s were freakin! That’s what the Christ difference is like. It’s shocking to have that much vision! But what a wonderful thing to see that well. And yet, we can slip back into our dark habits. In fact it’s likely that we will drift back to doing the things that are only to desire-based living. Why do we do that? How can we experience the wonderful world of light, then slip back into groping around for ways to please ourselves? It’s a fascinating study in human nature isn’t it. But for this reason we find many warning in scriptures to patrol that border in our lives. Christ doesn’t want us going back to groping. We are called to something better…the wonderful world of light…THE DIFFERENT WORLD! ~verlon

The Joyful...

THE JOYFUL…We are on the threshold of Christmas, where we will be hearing the word ‘joyful’ often. “Joyful, joyful we adore thee…” and “this child will be a joy to the many…”. This helps us to understand the source of joy…and it isn’t something that we expresses as part of our typical array of human emotions. Joy is a divine gift. God implanted His joy when Jesus came to earth in several ways. But He has generously served that divine gift at many, many other times…
“Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.
Joyful are those who obey His laws and search for Him with all their
hearts.” ~Psalm 119:1-2
We are more accustomed to happiness, than joy. Happiness is what we feel when there has been a positive happening…thus happiness. It’s attached directly to a good event or circumstance. Joy on the other hand is a divine implantation into the human soul. And it occurs at different times altogether. It is initiated by God, and experienced by man. In the above verse we see a couple times when we can expect to experience the joy of the Lord pour into our hearts. When we are expressing integrity, following the voice of our conscience even when it’s a disadvantage for us to be that honest or fulfill that promise…We become strangely joyful. It’s the Fathers way of saying He is proud of us. Also, when we work hard at searching for God’s leadership and robustly follow the direction He reveals…we become strangely joyful too. That joy communicates to us that we are on the right track…even if it initially looks a little bumpy. There is joy on the journey…when we are on the right journey. Many people are looking for the next good happening so they can feel happiness. The new car, the new job, the million bucks. But for us, the followers of Christ, we are fueled by something better than happenstance. We are…THE JOYFUL! ~verlon

The Menu of Grace...

THE MENU OF GRACE…Christianity offers so much that it takes a long time just to know what’s on the menu. Beyond that, it takes a life-time to learn how to actually embrace such large and deep favors as Christ gives. I like the verses that list the menu and how to grab it. Here’s one…
“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy?
You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders
of the church to come and pray over you…and if you have committed any
sins, you will be forgiven.” ~James 5:13-15
What menu items do you see in this verse? How are these menu items embraced? The answers to these questions are important and worth meditating upon. We are so forever stuck in the world we can see, that we struggle to apprehend the world we can’t see. However, this unseeing world of Christ is all around us and in us and every bit as real as the see-able world. To engage Christ’s world, our spiritual curiosity must be present, our hearts must be bold and our faith must be exercised and strong and engaged. Such a person will know how to grab the menu of grace for themselves and others. The Lord’s table is open for one and all. He longs for us as His friends and family to eat long and large at His table. He then longs for us to walk out and offer it to others who don’t know it exists or where it is or how to eat of it. It’s the greatest secret in the universe…THE MENU OF GRACE! ~verlon

A Purifying Effect...

A PURIFYING EFFECT…It seems to go without saying that any religion in which humans are involved it is probably diluted. And that covers all religions. Christianity too has its lesser moments. It doesn’t take long for someone to bring up ‘the crusades’ when wanting to find fault with Christian history. Our ability to shipwreck the wonderful gift of Christ has proved itself, hasn’t it. For me, that then leaves a question, how can we purify ourselves so we don’t dilute Christ? Here’s a surprising answer…
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” ~James 1:27
Most in Christian circles don’t realize how vital it is to pay attention to those who are ‘without’. It’s not only vital to them that they get our help, it’s vital to us that we have a repeating expression that actually cleanses us. Confession is good for the soul, but reaching our to help another in need does way more for our soul and alignment to Christ than we commonly imagine. James called it ‘pure religion’. That actually sounds pretty good to me. And it’s a lesson the church is re-learning in this decade. It’s indeed time to learn the cleansing that occurs when we reach out to the marginalized. God built it into the universe for just such a reason. Jesus phrased it this way, “you will always have the poor among you”, as though it was a necessary part of the big picture. We truly need to reach out to others. It has A PURIFYING EFFECT. ~verlon

God-ness and Bold-ness...

GOD-NESS & BOLD-NESS…No, I didn’t misspell the word ‘God-ness’. The typical term is Godliness…which is short for God-like-ness. It’s applications are varied and many. What I want to focus on today is God-full-ness. An inward saturation…if you will. Many people think about God…but are they full of God? Some enjoy His influence in their lives…but are they full of God? Still others pray to Him often…but again do they sense the affect of being full of God?
“The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, but the Godly are as
bold as lions.” ~Proverbs 28:1
One of the grand affects of being full of God is…significant boldness. We often hold an image in our minds of the ornery old cuss who is drunk half the time, pushes ladies down in the street, scares children and laughs at danger. We surmise that toughened shell of a person is afraid of nothing. When in fact, that man is more riddled with fear than most. The tough persona is an effort to try to feel fearless…to compensate for the real fear. But it never works to deal with fear from the outside. Fear is soul deep. Trying to address it from the personality level is fruitless. The drunken rough-neck isn’t the fearless one…it’s the person who is filled with God that is fearless. I love the phrase, ‘bold as lions’. What a picture. Has anyone ever scared a lion? Lions have the physical strength and speed to dominate all other creatures…AND THEY KNOW IT! Try to scare a lion, and they just look at you like they’re bored. Try to intimidate a lion, and they look back with true intimidation. They don’t have a flee instinct…only a chase instinct. And these are the creatures we are likened to…when we are full of God. Christ lives inside of us…and He simply doesn’t know how to run. The flee nature is non-existent in Divinity. And in some incredible way…we can actually feel that indomitable spirit flowing from inside of us…from Christ Himself. We are the Boldest of the Bold! Do you know it? ~verlon

Never Abandoned...

NEVER ABANDONED…We sure live in interesting days. We are watching wages drop, while prices continue to soar. With every news cycle comes another American company or industry announcing that it’s on the verge of toppling. This last month, its another bank. Where is this all going to go? For those who walk with Christ, is there some kind of a safety net beneath us? Well, actually yes. You just can’t separate God from who He is. And one of His undeniable identities is…THE PROVIDER!
“Don’t love money, be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, I will
never fail you. I will never abandon you. So we can say with confidence,
The Lord is my helper so I will have no fear.” ~Hebrews 13:5-6
The person who loves money can’t handle touch financial times. By nature we come to rely on what we love. So the person that loves money, is relying upon it. Days like we are facing are extremely unstable for people who are relying on money. There is something so much greater to rely upon than money…The faithfulness of God! God’s support doesn’t go in and out like the waves of the sea. He shows up every day…watches over our lives every day…provides for us every day…supplements us every day…every day…every day. He is our daily provider, and that’s something we can take to the bank…every day. Many are waking up this morning feeling abandoned by their money. Their confidence is rocked, and they don’t know who is going to craft a ‘bail out’ for them. They are afraid. But for the person who never wove a reliance on money into the foundation of their hope…this day is no different than two years ago when Seattle was booming. God is as faithful today as He was then. No abandonment …no fear…still seeing solid reasons for confidence…still receiving daily help… just like always! Do you need a new reliance today? ~verlon

The Real You...

THE REAL YOU…There are many different versions of us that show up in the average week. At work we might be a focused business mind. Then a couple hours later, we put on our evening persona and are laughing and telling jokes while at dinner with friends. Then on the weekend, we shift into ‘slug’ mode and stay in our sweats until noon drinking coffee. Then of course come Sunday it’s the natural thing to put on our ‘spiritual cloak’ and check in with the Big Guy! With all of these different versions showing up…who is the real you? Do you even know? Do you know how to tell? Here’s some help from scripture…
“As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person”.
~Proverbs 27:19
We are not the sum of our intelligence, as some propose. Neither are we the sum of our negative history, as some feel trapped in. However, if you we want a good read on who we really are…look at what’s flowing out of our hearts. By this I don’t mean our intentions. Some people measure themselves by their intentions and are frustrated that the world measures them only by their actions. But it’s our actions that reveal out hearts…the telltale of the real us. So what is flowing out of our hearts? Is there a desire to be with and work with Christ? Is there an eye for the needs in others around us present? Are we willing to take some of our needed money and time to lift someone else up? Truthfully, there are many people who don’t even know what is trying to come out of their hearts. They are so cerebral that the soft voice of wisdom is seldom heard. They can go through an entire week responding only to what their minds have lined up next in their schedule. The real them is…“occupied”! Who they are is… “distracted”! They don’t know their heart. They haven’t listened for a while. What a great thing for anyone to stop and ask, “so what is my heart saying?” The answer to that question is…THE REAL YOU! ~verlon

Readiness Thinking...

READINESS THINKING…We understand the idea of readiness. We get ready for work, ready for vacation, ready to go the gym. We get ready to go out to dinner, ready to go to bed, even get ready to get out of a chair. Every time we have another cup of coffee in the morning, we are getting ready(emotionally) to get ready(physically). I think it would be interesting to know what percentage of our day is spent getting ready for something. It’s possible we spend more time getting ready than actually doing what we’re getting ready for. I wonder if we apply ‘readiness thinking’ to our spiritual lives? Or do we consider spirituality a ‘whatever happens’ thing. Here’s a good nudge for us…
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to
the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down…and let us
run with endurance the race God has set before us.” ~Hebrews 12:1
There is a fact we need to revisit occasionally…we are walking a road that millions have walked before us. And as they came down this path they did so with soberness, with reverence, with energy, with sacrifice, with works in their hands…they were ready to walk this road well. We have gotten a bit slothful in our faith, by comparison. This is not my lone assessment…it is the mounting voice I am reading over and over again. I read a book about Christianity every couple weeks. With every one I pick up, here it comes again. Another voice saying, ‘we need to pick up the spiritual pace America’. There has to come a season in our life when we get serious about why we are here. There has to come a time when we choose to break out of the survival cycle…and identify the race God wants us to enter. There has to come a day when we start stripping away the things in our life that keep us from doing well in our called race. There must come an hour when we actually get ready for the race God has entered us into. Many have ran it. Some gave up, Most didn’t. Our turn! ~verlon

He Likes Faith...

HE LIKES FAITH…Every relationship requires us to figure out some things. There are things our friend really doesn’t like. So for the sake of the relationship, we will tend to avoid that list. There are some things they really like. So if we’re a good friend, we’ll start weaving those likes into our life. This is what makes a friendship thrive. That exact dynamic exists in our relationship with God. Some view God as a force. Like electricity. They reason that as soon as they figure out the God thing, they are good to go. But God is not a force. He has a personality. He has certain likes and dislikes. He really likes the kind of things that build us, & the brothers and sisters around us. He really doesn’t like things that degrade us & our brothers and sisters. There is one thing however that would have to go down as one of His favorites…
“And it is impossible to please God without Faith”. ~Hebrews 11:6
God is immeasurably pleased when He see’s His sons and daughters trusting Him even though He hasn’t showed up yet. For whatever reason, God finds great joy when He feels that His kids have that kind of confidence in Him. Not only is He proud of us because we have developed a depth about us that measures life by more than what’s visible, but our confidence in Him is very esteeming and reveals the kind of soul-deep friendship He has with us. On a more practical note, Life is about seasons…and timing…and ripening. Jesus told the parable about the farmer that plows, then plants, then waters, then waits. Finally, after many long days, the harvest is here. Our lives have these kind of seasons too. Just as the farmer doesn’t expect harvest during the days of plowing…we shouldn’t expect God to bring harvest, out of season. God will always work with the seasons of our maturity, the seasons of our spiritual growth, even the seasons of our trial and error. If God isn’t dumping a harvest on us, it’s because He’s reading our seasons. Can we find faith to wait for the day of reward? ~verlon

Valiant...

VALIANT…I like the notion that its possible to become a noble and strong person. But it’s not something that many people hold as a part of their self-identity. I suppose it harkens too much back to the days of knights & war-hero’s for many to think it’s something they should expect to show up in their lives. Would you be surprised that valor and being a valiant person is actually one of the foundational promises of the gospel? And that it’s been heralded through time as something God wants to do in us?
“With God we shall do valiantly…” ~Psalm 108:13
God is our father, and He wants all of us as His offspring to do very well on the earth. The problem this verse doesn’t become more of a reality is our human tendency to venture out on our own and with ourselves in the drivers seat. The DNA of the fall still resides in us all. These self-impulses spring up so often, that even for the diligent, sooner or later one gets through and undermines the valor God was working into our nature. This is the very reason that we must have a very active and daily salvation. When one of those self-impulse initiatives shows up, its time to confess it bluntly and trust our Savior to wash it out of our mind, heart and soul. Then in an instant, we are back on the path to valor again. In fact, we are back in God’s hands for him to work greatness into our lives just like He planned. We should be a people that expects God to cause us to do noble and strong and noteworthy things. It shouldn’t be a surprise when someone says of us that we are VALIANT! ~verlon

A Welcomed Rebuke...

A WELCOMED REBUKE…Some people are not correctable. They don’t have enough inward strength to be wrong about anything. They somehow feel they are a zero if any imperfections ever surface. But the path to adulthood requires us to come to terms with the fact that we are flawed and imperfect and it’s O.K.! Mature people know they are going to cross the line of insensitivity occasionally, and when it happens, they apologize, fix it and move on in good relations. That’s life at it’s best. But there is yet another level in this arena that can be taken by those who are spiritually motivated. It’s has to do with actually inviting and warmly welcoming the direct honesty of friends…
“An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend
are better than many kisses from an enemy”. ~Proverbs 27:5-6
This takes a level of soul strength to be sure…but for the person that sets up this kind of accountability for themselves…their future of Christ-like formation is very, very, very bright. This requires the right mixture of humility and strength. Humble enough to accept their flaws…strong enough to have it talked about openly. Jesus talked about this by His occasional use of the word “meekness”, the gospels. Meekness means ‘humility with strength’. For people who are worried more about their reputations…the appearance of their perfection…this kind of strength never develops. But for the person who is seeking Christ-like-ness with great fervor, this ‘meekness’ starts to form quite naturally. Thus they are able to invite the straight stuff about their imperfections. They have the strength to embrace their failures. They become “rebuke-able”. The ‘soul-weak’ person enjoys flattery…even from people who don’t have their best interest in mind. But the ‘soul-meek’ person, actually prefers the wounds of a friend. So the probing question…CAN YOU WELCOME A REBUKE FROM A FRIEND?
~Verlon

Look Back...

LOOK BACK…History is a potent thing. However, many of us look back into our history wrongly. Some are so rooted in their history that they can’t make needed changes. Some are so affected by regrets in their history, they can’t be effective today. Some give history so much power, that they see it as a negative predictor of their future. Still others hold such an exaggerated and nostalgic feeling about a part of their past that they are riddled by discontentment now. Yes, some people are limited by history. But there are those who have learned to use history as an empowerment. This is wise…
“Those who are wise…will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.”
~Psalm 107:43
Wise people see something in their history that others overlook. They see the unfailing love of the Lord. In fact, they look for it intentionally when they need encouragement. We all face impossibilities in this life…times when the need is greater than our resources. Oft times is money, sometimes health, and other times it’s relational pain…God forbid the times when it’s all three at once. Unfortunately, even that happens. At these times, one of our great recourses is to look back to the other seasons in our history when the seas were rough, and we were seriously outmatched. How did the unfailing love of the Lord show up then? He did show up, didn’t He! He did get you through to this point, didn’t He! Yes there was pain but He showed up with relief, didn’t He! It’s these remembrances from our past that breathes strength into our present. It’s these realizations that makes our future secure…even though it doesn’t look good now. This is what the wise know…its what the wise do. They stroll back through history and revisit all God’s show-up moments. Then they rest in the knowledge…that after all of His unfailing attention in their past…it’s unlikely that He’d decide to pull a ‘no-show’ now. That’s just not Him. ~Verlon

The Secret To Life-Change...

THE SECRET TO LIFE-CHANGE…Sometimes we just get tired of ourselves, don’t we. This tiredness shows up in many forms. Sometimes it’s irritability and blaming others. Often it’s depression and pessimism. Occasionally it’s venturing into some form of abuse. But what’s going on down deep is…we are just completely done with ourselves. There is a undercurrent of self-blame beneath many surface feelings and behaviors. Upon this realization, life-change is possible. But how do we reinvent something as basic as ‘me’?
“Put all your rebellion behind you, and find yourselves a new heart and
a new spirit”. ~Ezekiel 18:31
I love this verse. I think we need it’s wisdom in a very deep way during turn-around moments. For us to create life-change, we first have to come to terms with what got us to this irritating spot. We have to admit the real reason we have become tired of ourselves. It’s rebellion. Rebellion is as simple as wanting our own way rather than God’s way. Following that instinct was fun for a season…then it began to sour…then the souring turned to loathing…and now you simply despise yourself. It was rebellion that started the negative slide…it always is. So the road back up starts when we stop blaming things without…and start admitting what emerged from within us that created this mess. We need to hear our own lips say, “I have rebellion in my heart”! That’s key to any turn-around. in fact, that’s the great secret to a new chapter. Once we identify rebellion, confess it, and remove it…the rest is surprisingly easier. In the absence of rebellion, a new heart and a new spirit is actually “find-able”. That was the impossible part before, we couldn’t even see a new way. All we saw was more of ‘me’…‘mine’…‘my way’. But once rebellion is cleared…a new vision will emerge. A God-path will start to look good. A new voice will call to you…a new desire will form in you. Welcome to the first steps of life-change. ~Verlon

Desires...

DESIRES…Human desire is an interesting thing. Desires are powerful beyond words. They have the ability to mask themselves as noble things. They have a tendency to pork-belly themselves to otherwise right actions. And, they are in all of us. No human being on earth doesn’t have to manage potent…wrong…ill-timed …and self-serving…DESIRES. The nation of Israel had their bouts…
“In the wilderness their desires ran wild…so He gave them what they
asked for”. ~Psalm 106:14-15
It’s an intriguing thing how much our desires can affect our spiritual walk. Here the people of Israel were in the wilderness and you’d think they would be removed from the temptations common to civilization. But no! Even in the wilderness their desires for better food, for better shade, for better stability swept in like an evil wind. It’s also important to note that their desires flared up…‘ran wild’. That is common to human nature, too. Sometimes our desires are quite dormant. Then for no apparent reason and in an unexpected time…they spring to life with a ‘want-power’ that literally overwhelms us. Suddenly God’s people wanted what they wanted. Miracles of the red sea aside, they cried, “WE WANT!” It sprung up quickly and spread from person to person. Now here is where things get a bit scary. They actually wanted so long and so loud that God finally gave them what they were demanding. I don’t know about you, but down deep, on some very spiritual level I wish He wouldn’t do that. I wish that no matter how big a fit I pitch, that He would hold me to what was right. But that would be, for him, turning humankind into a puppet. And that is one thing He won’t do. When He made us in His image, He gave us with our own sovereignty. Thus we are free to choose His leading…and scarily so…we are free to follow our desires right to destruction, if we want to. “Oh Lord, teach me to want what you want, way more than anything else. Please!” ~Verlon

Represented...

REPRESENTED…Where is Christ standing? Simple question. But it has deep implications. Some view Christ as in heaven and they must make a distant appeal to Him for help. Others view Christ as only involved in important things and they must interrupt Him with their problems. Still others view Christ as a friend of the Holy, and beings they can see imperfections in themselves that somewhat excludes them. Where is Christ standing in your life? Here’s an interesting verse…
“Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case!” ~Lamentations 3:58
If you’ll look around the courtroom of your life, you’ll see something interesting. Christ is standing at the table WITH YOU! You are already represented in your struggle for justice and freedom! You don’t need to jockey to get good representation for the issues pressing against you…you already have it! Christ went on retainer for you before you were born. Getting Him to take up your case has never been your problem. Trusting His way of handling your case… probably has been your problem. But navigating the issues of life and eternity is way out of your league. We all need someone to stand up for us and plead our case, don’t we! There are so many voices trying to advantage themselves at our expense. Some voices are external in the form of selfish people. Other voices are internal in the form of self-destructive instincts. Whatever the angle, we all need someone to step into our lives and PLEAD OUR CASE! So I ask again, where is Christ standing in your life? He’s standing right next to you…facing your accuser with you! You don’t have to scramble to get His attention…you got it! You don’t have to clean up your life first…that’s why He’s there! You don’t have to petition heaven to send Him…He’s already at the table with you petitioning heaven on your behalf! Get it straight…Christ is your lawyer…He is already pleading your case…Let Him fight for you…You are already represented!
~Verlon

Courage & Confidence Required...

COURAGE & CONFIDENCE REQUIRED…It’s a good thing that courage and confidence is a choice. Many people act as if courage is a personality trait that some have and others don’t…and they’re not one of the bold ones. So they drift through life in a weak fashion. But we need to probe deeper into the truth of Christ. Because He lives within us…and because He is called the lion of Judah for a reason…and because He welcomes us to ‘let Him out’…we can express courage and confidence whenever He does! That’s an overlooked truth, isn’t it! Here’s a verse on the topic…
“We are God’s house, IF we keep our courage and remain confident in our
hope in Christ!” ~Hebrews 2:16-18
So often we read the Bible through personal eyes only. We forget that the majority of scripture is written to the plural body of Christ! He addresses us as a body of listeners because He expects us to live that way. None of us are to navigate our life on our own. And yet that is the prime ‘modus operandi’ for most. We truly need to get over that. But in the verse above notice the word “IF”. It means that courage and confidence is required if “God’s house” is going to keep functioning like “God’s house”! Without a fresh vision of the courage and confidence of Christ emerging from within us…we start to wilt. And we lose something great. We lose the punchy nature of what God wants His house to be. So here is a charge to all of us. Lets get a good look at the courageous Christ that lives within us… and let’s then choose to be characterized by that courage… and let’s bring that courage and join it with our brothers and sisters in the ‘God Family’ we are called to be in..,and let’s collectively express that ‘Christ-Courage’ and ‘Christ-Confidence’ until sacrifice becomes easy…and impossible becomes normal! WE ARE GOD’S HOUSE! ~Verlon

He Gets It...

HE GETS IT…It continues to plague our thoughts…‘How can the Lord who lives in heaven possibly understand our lives here on earth?…and especially in the 21st century? Many of us know He loves us…we know He has God-like understanding…we know He see’s our lives…but we still go it alone way too much because we’re not convinced He ‘feels’ our situation. The truth is Jesus went to great lengths to feel what its like be human! He learned what it is like to be tired…to be confused…to feel weak…to be abused…to bleed…to get a sliver …to be frustrated…to be enticed by evil…all the common challenges that come with humanity.
“We know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the
descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in
every respect like us, his brothers and sisters…Since he himself has gone
through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested!”
~Hebrews 2:16-18
Have you ever thought about why did Jesus went to such lengths as to actually step into the complete human experience? I’m quite sure a different salvation plan could have been enacted. I’m not convinced this was the only way…it was just the way He chose to do it. Why? I think this verse explains it well. He wanted to help us as much as He could. Christ wasn’t interested in just finding a better way for us to return to the Fathers embrace…He also wanted to strengthen us every step of the way…personally! He wanted to feel ‘all things human’…so we’d trust Him when He offered us ‘all things Godly’! He wanted to start His conversations with us with the words, “I’ve been there”…so he’d earn the right to then say, “so follow me out of this struggle”. He gets it! He put Himself in the place to ‘get’ what it feels like to be human. The question is, do you believe that He ‘gets’ what it feels like to be you? ~Verlon

The Source Of Generosity...

THE SOURCE OF GENEROSITY…Have you ever thought about where you learned generosity? Was it by watching a parent or a friend? A further question, What is your generosity level? Are you occasionally generous? Consistently generous? Sacrificially generous? These are good questions to ponder, because it is only through giving to others that our self-centeredness is tempered. And it is only through giving that we begin to express Christ!
“And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that
comes from your faith.” ~Philemon 1:6
I have been doing a rather deep study of the early church fathers, starting with Ignatius who was the first church leader after the Apostle Paul, and working all the way through 2000 plus years to present day. It has been immensely interesting to see how these leaders have visibly expressed their faith. For example, the first communion services were actually called ‘agape feasts’…or what we might know today as ‘love feasts’. In some cities they did this 3 times a week, in which all the people would bring large & generous portions of food to a meeting place. They would invite the poor to come and eat with them. Then following the meal, in the tradition of Christ they would ‘break the bread’ and ‘lift the cup’ and remember the Lords death together. This was how communion was done the first 400 years of the church. You can see why Paul was so frustrated with the Corinthian church when the poor showed up as usual, but instead the church people gorged themselves while leaving the poor standing against the walls unfed. Great generosity has always been deeply tied to Christ… and thus even to the Lords supper. I am intrigued by the words in the above scripture that show how ‘faith growth’ causes ‘generosity growth’. Do you see that? Generosity can be learned, generosity might even be a personality trait, but generosity is always the proof of real Christ-like faith. ~Verlon

It Is Well With My Soul...

IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL…The hymn, ‘It is well with my soul’, has been a tremendous blessing to thousands since it was written in the last century. But the back-story as to why it came to be it even more tremendous. Like so many other blessings, it emerged out of pain. The author, Horatio Spafford put his wife and two daughters on an ocean liner making their way from the east coast to England. Not to long into the voyage, news reached back that the ocean liner had sunk. Horatio waited anxiously for any word as to whether his wife and daughters had survived. After a few days he received a telegram from his wife in England that simply read, “Saved, Alone”! Horatio immediately boarded the next ship to go and be with his wife and grieve their loss. When they got to the place where the previous ship had sunk, the captain came and got Horatio, took him to the rail and told him, “this is where the ship sank. This is where your daughters are”. As he leaned over the rail & stared into the dark waters, the words of this hymn came flowing into his soul. At a time when there should have been nothing but the deepest of lonely grief, there emerged a flow of words & tones that were unexplainable. A gutteral comfort, in the form of a song of surrender. By the way, this hymn has undoubtedly been sung at funerals and times of loss more than any other. Now that we can imagine him on that ship deck that day…Let’s look at the words again:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
“it is well , it is well with my soul”!
May Christ do for us what He did for Horatio…and in the time when grief should reign alone…the pain is tempered with a hymn of comfort. ~Verlon

His Very Own People...

HIS VERY OWN PEOPLE…There is a difference between having Christ in our life and Him having us in His. There is a difference between us having the Spirit in us and us being immersed in the Spirit. Most people in an individualistic culture like ours instinctively place ourselves at the center of this conversation and only perceive what’s its doing for us. Today I want us to stop and think what it does for Christ to have us in His life. Look at this verse…
“He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, and to make us his very
own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.” ~Titus 2:14
There seems to be a certain ownership the Lord has and a certain need to have a people around Him that are truly His. Christ has an obvious need to have a core of people around Him that ‘gets it’…or maybe it’s better said, ‘gets Him’. A people who are close enough to Him to carry in their hearts a sense of His call…and feels a bit of what it’s like to host the redemption plan. In some way, this is the larger goal of the Savior, to sweep us into a a deeper place as His followers. A people who feel like they are ‘His Very Own People’. The last line of the above verse reveals the common trait that marks those who are His very own…GOOD DEEDS. This core of followers around Him are completely defined by their good deeds. Scripture talks so much more about this then we’ve been noticing in recent years. It’s one of the topics that fell off the theological grid in the last generation. But it’s making a come back! There are hundreds of verses that associate Christ’s close followers with their deep desire to fulfill His works and leave behind a mountain of good deeds. Many Christians are willing to give left-over energy to Christ’s work…but prime energy? First energy? Holding His tasks as priority?...that’s a stretch. And that’s is the difference between having Christ in our lives, vs. being in His. Do you feel a call to something deeper?
~Verlon

What Do You Hate?

WHAT DO YOU HATE?…I know it’s politically incorrect to hate anything. The primer of tolerance is to make room for any idea and anything someone else deems important. But the truth is, once we define what we love, we are automatically then defining some things we hate. For instance, when you really love a new car, you hate the idea of someone taking a hammer to it. When you really love a particular person, you hate the idea of something harmful being done to them. You see what I mean? What we love establishes what we hate. Let’s look at this verse;

“You who love the Lord, hate evil.” ~Psalm 97:10

I suppose it rather easy to be indifferent to many kinds of evil, as long as we’re not doing it. But if we truly love the Lord, and understand that when anything works against His plans, it is the very definition of evil. Then I guess there is a place for us to stand in which we actually hate all expressions of evil, because we see how it breaks Christ’s heart. This is a bit different than the adage of, ‘life and let live’, isn’t it. However, there is something quite healthy about it. Some could over wear this truth and become emotional basket cases, because there is so much evil in the world. And I’m quite sure that’s not what this verse and others like it had in mind. However, to wear it rightly does make the lines within us extremely clear. There is something very balanced about a person who knows what they love and knows what they hate….That knows who they love and reacts to the things that degrades their loved one. So let me ask it again…DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HATE? ~Verlon

It's Already In You...

IT’S ALREADY IN YOU…Dealing with limitation and self-doubt is a constant thing, isn’t it. Somehow we seem to lack the ability to measure all of our resources against the present needs and challenges. We are quick to add up our known abilities & our energy levels, but we seem to stop looking after that. And if a challenge is greater than those measurements…doubt & worry moves in.
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and
self-discipline.” ~II Tim. 1:7
You know that point when you think you are tapped out? Well actually, you’re not! Most of us are blinded by the bleed-over from our pre-Christ days. Prior to Christ, we had to rely on our personality strengths and abilities. But when Christ entered our lives, He didn’t come alone. He brought some empowerments with Him of a divine origin. While we kind of know that’s true, we still default back to our human way of empowering our lives. We pull out our package of abilities each day and use them until we are drained. Then we assume we’re done and welcome worry with open arms. Here’s a good question. Why were you over-using your own limited supply of strength to begin with? Christ brought with Him an unending supply of courage…an unending supply of power…an unending supply of love…and even an unending supply of self-discipline. Are you kidding me? We even have self-discipline?...The ability to wrestle our self-desires to down to the mat and pin them? Yes we do! And here’s the final shocker…THEY ARE ALREADY INSIDE OF YOU! Christ brought them with Him when you invited Him to move in. They reside in your spirit because He lives in your spirit. So, rather than measuring your reserves by just knocking on the door of your mind and heart…try knocking on the door of your spirit. And brace yourself. What will be coming out of that door, will be potent. Do you think that’s what it means to “live by the spirit”? ~Verlon

Those Who Sacrifice...

THOSE WHO SACRIFICE…The mission of Christ has only advanced because of sacrifice. It started with the great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, eternally scarring His soul with the indelible stains of our sin. And the mission has continued through the ages because there were people willing to suffer so the good news could be told again to the people in their generation. This begs the question, who is willing and able to sacrifice now?
“But share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.”. ~II Tim. 1:8
These are the powerful words of Paul to the young and developing church leader, Timothy. Paul had already learned to sacrifice. Timothy was on the front side of the lesson. There is a simple word in Paul’s empowerment of Timothy that we need to meditate upon at length. It’s the word “by”. Most of us get the corrolation between suffering and the advancement of the gospel. What we struggle with is how we can become able to pay that price. Finding the strength to suffer and sacrifice is honestly the deepest question we have. Paul obviously saw that same concern in Timothy’s eyes. So in this verse Paul gave him the secret, and this is it. Strength to sacrifice comes “by” the power of God. God dispenses the ability to rise early, work hard, sacrifice our schedules, deprive ourselves of comfort and pour ourselves out so others can be blessed by Christ. Downloading the power of God is the way of life for THOSE WHO SACRIFICE. ~verlon

Diluted Godliness...

DILUTED GODLINESS…Each of us has a definition of Godliness in our minds. And most work hard at closing the gap between that vision and our actual behaviors. But the fact remains, our God-like-ness gets undercut by our human desires at times. Here is an interesting test Paul gave to Timothy to protect the purity of his Godliness…
“Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment…if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.”. ~I Tim. 6:6
Wow, is it possible that godliness is mostly measured by contentment? Is it further possible that any godliness that isn’t coupled with the symptom of contentment isn’t a very good version of godliness? I don’t know about you, but I find the underpinning questions of this verse a bit disturbing. Mainly because I find to much discontentment in myself. We live in a part of the world where wealth is so available, especially when compared to the nations south of the equator. We live in the wealthy northern hemisphere. Even in these economic downturn times, people all around us are taking exotic vacations, buying houses and driving nice cars. This American reality stirs up more in us than we probably realize. A voice of comparison emerges, and those tones come across our spirituality like a fog, and they blur the motivations that Christ is endeavoring to inspire in us. Somehow we must all learn to silence that ‘comparison voice’. We can do so by verbally thanking the Lord for the food and clothes we do have. Any other response leads to one place…DILUTED GODLINESS. ~verlon

Divine Persistence...

DIVINE PERSISTENCE…I am grateful that God is willing to reach for our attention more than once. Where would we be if we got only one chance to get it right. But thankfully, that’s not the way He is. He brings His truth over and over and over again. In fact, one of the modern theologians calls the Holy Spirit ‘the hound of heaven’, because He is so persistent in His search for people. The name is actually catching on…others are now using it too. There is a very interesting story in the old testament about the prophet Jeremiah writing a word from God on a parchment and sending it to the king. That was the way God instructed and warned people in those days. The king however was perturbed by what he read and responded in an ugly way…
“Each time Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king took a knife and cut off that section of the scroll. He then threw it into the fire…until the whole scroll was burned up.” ~Jer. 36:23
I guess it’s safe to say that the king didn’t want to hear that particular word from God. What’s intriguing is God’s response to the kings protest. Four verses later it reads…
“The Lord gave Jeremiah another message. He said, ‘get another scroll, and write everything again just as you did on the scroll King Jehoiakim burned.” ~Jer. 36:27
Isn’t that hilarious. The Lord just kept coming. It’s true today too. Truth just keeps coming! You can curse it, you can burn it, you can run from it, you can even outlaw it, it just keeps coming! Suppressive efforts ultimately fail! In our life-time we’ve witnessed the end of Mao’s cultural revolution, the iron curtain and the Berlin wall. All were bastions of secularism…determined to suppress the gospel message. All are now gone! This gospel must truly be important…His Divine Persistence isn’t showing up again and again for nothing. ~Verlon

The Different Way...

THE DIFFERENT WAY…It’s hard for us to imagine how much has changed with Christ’s death on the cross. We would have needed to be present prior to Christ to grasp how large of an affect the new covenant had on human life. I think it’s important to revisit this, so we have an appropriate appreciation for how much more available God has made himself to us. This verse touches it…
“This is the new covenant I will make with my people…I will put my laws in their hearts…”. ~Hebrews 10:16
The old covenant placed the responsibility to build the bridge back to God on mans shoulders. By maintaining a righteous set of attitudes and actions would one have access to God. Some today are still trying to work out their spiritual lives that way. They feel responsible to get themselves cleaned up and build a bridge back to God. Thus their Christianity is a very wearisome task. They seriously need our prayers. But the new covenant that Jesus opened up removed all that. When Jesus died upon the cross, He became the bridge. No longer was access to God gained by man forging forward into righteousness, now it was Christ that was forging forward…into our lives. I think most Christians understand this, in theory. However, I fear many don’t understand how it plays out in actual daily experience. The old covenant was navigated from ‘the mind’ and ‘raw human will’. That was the only way we could put on righteousness and close the gap between us and God. But the new covenant is navigated from a completely different place in our person. The verse above reveals how the new covenant is enacted from a deeper part of the human soul. In the new covenant, Christ himself moves into our spirits, and starts writing His plans on the walls of our hearts. Then these Christ-inspired desires start flowing out of us. Christianity becomes an upsurge…rather than an obligation. That’s how the new covenant affects us. That’s the different way! ~Verlon

Overflow...

OVERFLOW…The most common reason people don’t feel they can do much for God is…they’re already tired! Unfortunately we misunderstand something when Christ calls to us. And we decide our involvements like we decide all other things in our lives…by measuring our resources. But Christ’s stuff isn’t like anything else in life. It simply doesn’t initiate from our resources…like other things do. Believe it or not…Christ isn’t asking us to pour out of our tired and depleted resources of mind, body and emotions. He actually only asking us to let His resources flow through us.
“May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows.” ~I Thess. 3:12
Notice the word ‘overflow’. This is a critical and constant part of God plan that we all truly need to understand. Whenever God asks us to engage in His work… He’s actually asking if we’d mind if He filled us up with His unconditional love until it spills over in a direction of His choice. Gary Chapman in his classic book, ‘Love Languages’, gives a metaphor of how everyone ‘a love bucket’ in their soul. And when that bucket is full, they perform well in life. But when it gets empty, we see another side of them. That’s an interesting way to view the soul, isn’t it. This truth is never more experienced then when engaging in the work of Christ. His underlying assumption of every request is that we become filled… filled…filled…until a divine generosity spills out in the direction He is pointing. When we go to work…our boss is asking for us to deplete our energy for his business. Even when we play…we are depleting our energy for our amusement. But when we step forward to fulfill the requests of Christ…we are agreeing to let His amazing love pour into us…until an unexplainable fullness occurs…and a surprising generosity ensues…and an overflow starts spilling into someone else’s life. Saying yes to Christ…is saying yes to OVERFLOW. ~Verlon

On The Front Side...

ON THE FRONT SIDE…What is it about human nature that forgets the past miraculous interventions of God at the first sight of a new challenge? I don’t get it. But we all do it, don’t we.
“They did not remember his power, or the day when he redeemed them from the foe, when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.”. ~Psalm 78:42-43
Most of us have some great stories about God showing up in the most interesting way and bailing us out just in the knick of time. Whether it’s the way Christ saved us, or the way He made a miraculous provision from an unseen source or the way He literally shredded a threat that was pressing against us, we have our stories of how God showed up for us. And yet, these are the last things we think about when we are faced with a new and present problem, aren’t they. Almost instinctively we go into panic mode, our memory goes blank and we start thrashing like we’re drowning. In our panic we actually start to believe that this threat is way worse than any previous one, so the miraculous God stories don’t apply this time. Actually, we’re just facing another…ole fashion...run of the mill…impossibility. The kind that are common to man. We’ve seen em before, we’ll see em again, and some are here now. Boy are we going to feel stupid when He shows up again…like He always does…and dissolves away the impossibility…like He always does…and restores our balance…like He always does. Think we can ever learn to remember ON THE FRONT SIDE? ~verlon

A Quality Life...

A QUALITY LIFE…There is a weak spot in many peoples thinking. They are mistaking quantity for quality. In other words, they are rushing after as much of life as they can grab. They squeeze their schedules to the bursting point to add more hobbies, sports camps, vacation sites, and don’t forget the new run of theater stage shows. For them, life is good when they get ‘more’. Without realizing it they become “a mile wide but only an inch deep”…as a person. They have quantity…they don’t have quality in their life. There is a scriptural call to know what makes for quality. Here’s an interesting way to view it…
“Jeremiah, I have made you a tester of metals, that you may determine the quality of my people”. ~Jer. 6:27
I guess in some way, every spiritual leader is a tester of the quality of God’s people. But what I wanted you to notice is how important quality and depth is to God. There’s an old saying, ‘what gets measured gets done’. God knows that human nature gets sloppy on the soul-deep issues. For that reason He has put people in each of our lives that in some way measure our depth and mirror it back to us. Sometimes we avoid these measurements…probably like we avoid stepping on the scales after the holidays…but these measurements remain all the same. In later verses, we see that many people in Jeremiah’s day had drifted away from soul-deep-ness. They had rationalized abandoning orphans & widows…their worship of God had slipped to second place in favor of many other things…and their quality of life was degenerating before their very eyes. There is a timeless lesson here for all of us. QUALITY OF LIFE FLOWS FROM QUALITY OF SOUL! There is a subtle divine pressure to stop rushing after another activity that we think is a ‘must’. There is a soft divine voice calling us to look inward…to test our metal…to mirror Christ and His ways…to deepen our soul…to find the real ‘quality life’. ~Verlon

Thinking Filter...

THINKING FILTER…I saw an interesting bumper sticker a month ago, “don’t believe everything you think”. Humanity the world over tends to treat their thoughts as ‘gospel’. Further, they seldom stop to evaluate the thoughts they are holding in their minds and hearts. If its there…its just there…end of story. Consider this verse with me:
“Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, worthy of praise…think about these things”. ~Phil. 4:8
Thoughts lead us to places. They are not inanimate. They are not static. Rather they create movement. They cause our minds to create answers and make plans. So if we are spending time with thoughts that aren’t helpful, then our minds will start serving that unhelpful thought and creating ways to empower that thought. This is an unhealthy pursuit. For this reason scripture points to the wisdom of only keeping thoughts around that have a helpful and hopeful future, rather than a degenerative and downward pull. We are free to think whatever we want. But do we really want to? Do we want to be so undisciplined as to keep thoughts bouncing around in our heads that prompt painful plans? The above list is a great antiseptic against such negative mental fodder. Take some time to read and reread this verse until it becomes for you an actual THINKING FILTER! ~verlon

Intentional Forgetting...

INTENTIONAL FORGETTING…It’s early in the football season and already I’ve heard the phrase “he’s got a short memory” uttered at least 10 times. It’s usually referring to a quarterback who threw an interception, only to run back on the field a few minutes later and throw a touchdown. Some football players are better than others at forgetting the mistakes of a few minutes ago and making the next play in uninhibited fashion. That’s an admiral trait.
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal…the upward call of God. ~Phil. 3:13-14
It’s the mistakes of yesterday that keep most Christians from finding the best version of their ‘upward call’ today. We humans are so ridiculously affected by our history isn’t funny. We are clearly over-informed by the historical perspective, rather than a future call. We presuppose the way God is going to show up today based on what happened yesterday. And we presuppose our own spiritual performance based on our worst moments of the past. Why do we do that to ourselves? Can we ever stop anticipating the future based on the weaknesses of yesterday? In short, can we develop a short memory of our frailties? We will never strain forward boldly into any future so long as we are remembering our pasts. It takes a singular laser-like forward focus to actually move into the future with a boldness and momentum equal to our calling. Perhaps its time for you to do some INTENTIONAL FORGETTING! ~verlon