Posts

Why do you trust in yourself?

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Why do you trust in yourself? You trust in your own abilities. You believe you can accomplish things for My kingdom by your own efforts. You even believe you are a good “repenter.” You trust your ability to repent. You trust your ability to weep. You trust your ability to look after your own soul. You trust your thinking and belief. You even trust your own self-effacement. Most of that is rooted in pride. They are rooted in your own abilities. They are not rooted in grace. They are not rooted in me. You are too often like the prodigal returning from the pigpen with these ‘offers.’ He has worked this all out. He was going to work his way back into good favour with his father. Luke 15:17-20 (NIV ) “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; ma...

Deepness

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Psalms 42:7 (ESV) 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. I bless you, my child, with deepness. It is within the deepness of your interior that I dwell. It is within the deepness of your spirit that I dwell. It is there I speak. It is there we communicate. I bless you with knowing deepness. I bless you with sensing deeply. I bless you with feeling deeply. I bless you with seeing deeply. There is so much shallowness in your culture. So much shallowness in your life. But today, deep is calling unto deep. Do you hear Me? Do you sense Me? Deep is calling unto deep.

Praying with others around

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  Luke 9:18 (NIV)  Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them,  “ Who do the crowds say I am? ”   Notice two things about this prayer time of our Lord Jesus.   First, Jesus was praying in private. He was alone, by himself.  The same term is used in  Mark 4:10 (NIV)  When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.   Second, his disciples were with him   With him means: “to come together, to stand at one's side”. Same word is used in  Acts 22:11  My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.     So, Jesus is somehow alone yet his disciples were with him, standing at his side, or somewhere in proximity.  It is like Jesus is expressing something that crossed his mind in his praying.  He appears to kind of direct his thoughts to his disciples while he was in prayer ...

God's Typewriter: Letter by Letter

  Letter by Letter A LONG time ago, I took typing in grade 10.  We sat down at a desk with a manual typewriter, and adjusting the kerosene wick—joking about the kerosene—we began to type the letter “A” with your left pinkie finger and the letter “Y” with the index finger of your right hand (not joking about the manual typewriter). Boring!  But that is how it began.  Bit by bit, you added more letters with the correct finger and later, much later, you could fly across the typewriter, writing paragraphs and eventually entire letters or stories.  But you won’t forget where you started from—typing one letter!   God’s will and God’s way are like that.  It seems God gives you a letter—-not even a word, much less a sentence, and hardly a paragraph!  Occasionally, you will get the full picture, but more often than not, just a letter.  Just a sense.  Just a thought.  Just a verse.  What do you do with one letter?  Keep pract...

The Story of my life

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As we are joined “in Christ” through that union with Him, we are journeying back to God on a sacred journey. Indeed, the entire world is on a sacred journey that tells us a sacred story.   ONE day. The world itself will be reconciled back to innocence   2 Peter 3:10-13 (NIV) 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. The “Christ of the Cosmos” loved us so powerfully, He came down into the midst of all sin and deb...

Two Rooms. Two Couches.

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I grew up in the era of the “front living room.” This was a more or less uninhabited space—except when company came over. I remember we had a maroon couch in there that, although old, looked new, simply because no one ever sat on it. That room was different from the “den.” The den went through a series of well-used couches, which, when we were finished with them, eventually ended up at the dump. It was the room with the TV, and it was thoroughly used by our family. The front room was nice to visit—but not used much. It was also a room where you had to be on your best behaviour: use proper intonation, mind your manners, and be very polite. After all, if you were in there, so were visitors. The den, on the other hand, was a place to sprawl out. To yell when the Leafs won the Cup (yes, it was 1967!). It was the place to snack and burp out loud—as long as Mom and Dad couldn’t hear. Why the story of the two couches? Because those two couches, those two rooms, represent a couple of (very use...

More Alive than Ever!

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  John 5:25 (ESV) 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. The more you hear, the more alive you are.  Gradually, you will hear more and more, and you will become more and more alive.  So there is the paradox of Christian spirituality.  The longer you live physically, the more you die physically.  The longer you live spiritually, the more opportunities you have to become increasingly alive.  So that at the end of your physical death, you are more alive spiritually than you ever have been prior.  How?  By listening to the voice of the Son of God!   That spirituality will then burst forth into eternity.   This is why D.L Moody wrote the following:  “SOME day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shal...