MIND OF TRUTH

"The Road goes ev er on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road h as gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some large r way Where many paths and errands meet And whither then? I cannot say." --- J. R. R. Tolkien "There is so much more to discover in this journey we are taking. More of the beauty of the Gospel to unveil. More of your own story to uncover and understand. More wisdom for the road. More cunning for the Battle." --- John Eldridge I like that part in "Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship" just after Frodo and Sam leave the Shire, when Sam stops and says "If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been." His next step will be all new. Thats what our journey of life is. Its letting the Holy Spirit lead you to new places and new discoveries on the way both terrible and wondrous. I like what John Eldrige says "There is much m...

God is so good to me I don't know where to begin to thank Him. Its only because of Him that I can give Him thanks. He gives me life and breath and a voice to speak, He gives me this appointed time on earth to live for Him, He has given me my precious Savior who makes all things possible. He has lavished His abundant grace and love upon me and all I can do is fall at His feet and worship. Thank you Jesus for my wonderful wife who you have given to me for ten awesome years as of tomorrow. She is amazing and sometimes I love her so much I can't breath when I think about it. She honors me and strengthens me and lifts me up because she loves the Lord with all her heart. She is the best example I know of someone who gives themselves sacrificially in service to others as she serves our family day after day. I am absolutely, 100% committed to spend everyday of the rest of my life with her, serving her, and loving her, and I know that everything God will do in and through our lif...

I've been thinking about my good friend Suresh Kumar who is the president of Harvest India. God has given this ministry tremendous favor and fruitfulness in India. We need to be doing the work of the Kingdom. Take a look at this video (Click picture to view) and support Harvest India with your prayers.

I woke up yesterday and the song on the radio said "Today is a day of battle", and believe me, it was. There are always battles to be fought, but the real battle for victory is when we are able to push through all the circumstances and distractions around us and walk in obedience to advance the kingdom. The victory comes in the peace and quietness that strengthens us when we submit our mind to the Holy Spirit. The battle must be won within. Then we go out and the Lord will go before us to accomplish His will. Today I woke up and the song on the radio said "Now is the time to worship", and I plan to do just that for He is a good God. His mercies are new every morning. Blessed are those who put their whole trust, their whole life into His strong hands. He will deliver us. He is a refuge to all who call upon His mighty name. There is no name like His name that is to be lifted up and exalted high above all things. He is the God who loves His people and gives H...

OK, am I the only person who can't eat peanut M&Ms without first separating them by color and then eating them systematically?

Is the Holy Spirit able to direct every moment of our lives? I hope your shaking your head yes. Do we know He can do a better job leading and guiding our life than we can? Again, that's a yes. I have found there are a lot of things that we know we need to do, but we don't do. Yielding my life to the Spirit's control is one of those things. Its a journey and it takes time, but its worth every step. Paul says we need to stand ready, positioned, expectant, and willing to sacrifice, yield, and surrender our daily, moment by moment life in a whole and complete and acceptable way to our Lord (Stephen's amplified version of Rom. 12:1). The first step in the journey is to ask the Holy Spirit for His help. Ask Him to help you let go. Ask Him to help you take the next step, and the one after that, and the one after that. That's how we live in His Word.

I was reading Acts 13 this morning, and I came across one of those verses that we normally read as part of the story, but I stopped and thought about the fact that when these mighty men of God spoke the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit, things happened. Are we teaching and preaching to hungry people? Are they begging us to come back next week to share the Word again? Verse 44 says the next day nearly the whole city assembled to hear the Word of the Lord. I want to see that happen in my city. I want to have that kind of hunger for the Word in my own heart. There is no lack of discussion now a days about how todays church can return to this early church model. There is no lack of theories and well thought out ideas, but in my humble opinion, all we need to do is YIELD to the Holy Spirit to have His way and spread His powerful, life-changing Word. "As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now ...

"But the Word of God grew and multiplied" Acts 12:24 This verse is one of my favorites. As I read that verse this morning, I realized how simple and whole and complete that verse is. It sums up for us this whole question of discipleship and church growth, and so many other issues we fret about. This early church, through their yielded lives, produced an atmosphere in which the Holy Spirit could grow the Word of God, or grow Jesus Christ in that community and the lives of every person they connected with. We like to make it about so many other things, but this life is never about anything but the Word being made flesh and dwelling among men. Lord, let my life be yielded, good ground in which your mighty Word grows in abundance for Your glory.

Tomorrow I'll be attempting to install a hardwood laminate floor in our living room. It shouldn't be too difficult, but thats what I always say. I know that two things always happen with remodeling projects. One, you always run into unexpected issues, and two, it always costs more than you planned. I've already experienced both those things with this particular project, so maybe the floor will go down smoothly.

I read the following excerpt this morning from "The Philosophy of Sin" by Oswald Chambers. Since we were talking about "Living in the Later", it struck me about how critical it is for us to walk in obedience to the vision of truth that the Holy Spirit reveals. Being open to the vision and walking in obedience will lead us to greater revelation. Take a look at the story of Cornelius in Acts 10 . Cornelius was obedient to the vision he received from the angel and he sent for Peter. He did not look at all the circumstances and consider that he was a gentile, but he considered the voice of the Lord and knew God would make a way to bring the Word to his home. At the same time God was preparing Peter with a vision which he also responded to and God was glorified through it all. Hold on to the vision God has given you. Follow it through until He completes it in your life. Don't be afraid to let your life be consumed by His vision and His voice. "The health...

I got to take my baby girl out on a date tonight for her 5th birthday. We started that tradition last year. She wanted to go to the Texas Roadhouse because she likes the bread and cinnamon butter. After that we went to the mall and headed to the jewelry and accessories store. I got her 5 rings , a bracelet, and a Bell Polly Pocket for $20. Pretty good. Then we got a milkshake and a giant gum ball. One the way home we were listening to worship songs on the radio and singing together. I looked over and she had her eyes closed and her hands raised. There's nothing better than seeing your kids loving Jesus for themselves. Daddy loves you PeeBoo.

Don't raise your hand, but how many of you live in the later? OK, I'm raising my hand. I find myself feeling like I need to spend more time in the Word or more time in prayer or more time building relationships with others, but I always say I'll start that next week or do it tomorrow. I'm sure you know what I mean. The enemy is all for us doing good things as long as we do them tomorrow. He is OK with us walking in obedience as long as we do it later on. God expects us to obey in the now. There is no time with God. He lives in the now and always desires to transform our lives. There is never a moment when He does not want to pour out His love in and through us. When we give in to living in the later, we usually don't accomplish what we needed to do, and we also miss the moment. Every moment is a gift and an opportunity to know Christ more. One thing that has helped me to live in the now is to always respond to God right away. God may speak to you about s...

“It takes me a long while to realize that God has no respect for anything I bring Him. All He wants from me is unconditional surrender.” —Oswald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest" I think the church needs to realize this today. I think I need to realize this. We bring God so many things, methods, new paradigms and programs, but He has no interest in those things. All God has ever wanted is you and I. Its easier for us to turn our focus elsewhere and sacrifice what does not cost us something. Unconditional surrender will cost you everything. Its hard for all of us because our self wants its way, but I prefer to look at it as positioning myself for unconditional blessing. As I have said before, yielding to God is the easiest thing in the world and the hardest. Lets give Him everything and see what He will do. Lets walk with Him in the impossible places.

Kristen and I got to spend a few days in our favorite place, Stowe, VT for our 10 year anniversary. Here are a few pics of the village, the Green Mountain Inn where we stayed, a moose crossing sign which is as close as I could get to seeing a real moose, and my favorite waterfall . I have the most amazing wife in the world! God is so good to me.

Its been a while for me to post anything. Sorry for those few of you who read these things. I got to go away with my wonderful wife last week to celebrate our 10 yr anniversary, so I'm feeling refreshed and the Lord is speaking to me lots of good things. I've been thinking about how the enemy steals from us by pushing our thinking into the past or the future. God acts in the now, and deals with us in the now. Our past should be filled with testimony of God's goodness and faithfulness in our lives. The future is reserved for hope. The hope of all that He has promised He will do. The enemy uses the past to bring accusation and doubt into our minds. He presents to us a future full of fear and uncertainty. When we live in the now, we live in His voice, we live in obedience, we live in the grace He has lavished on us for that moment. When we yield our mind to the enemy, he will push us into the past or present so we miss the moment God has uniquely designed for us. W...

OK, one more post on Ragamuffins . . . The Lord is really making me take a good look at this thing. Its funny how we approach God in so many different ways and pat ourself on the back for our spiritual stature. In reality, we know nothing and we are at His mercy to teach us all things. Just let me warn you. You don't want to be a ragamuffin. Not only does it require you to let go of your pride, which we all have plenty of (Yes, you), but its a lonely journey. When you start walking down the path of humility and complete and utter dependence on God, people will start pulling away from you because they don't want that for their life. It' sad though because they really don't know what is they are rejecting yet they reject it all the same and they do it quickly without any thought. Some are so addicted to themselves, serving their self, pleasing their self, doing what feel good to them, that they can't even entertain a thought of taking a different path. I do g...

I am realizing the center of a ragamuffins life is surrender. There really is nothing else for us to do than surrender everything we are to serve the Master. I know the Lord is calling His church today to a ragamuffin's surrender. More than ever I feel like God wants us to give up our way, our striving, our best efforts. We keep working so hard and we get little in return. That doesn't make sense in the kingdom of God. God will not waste good ground that He has prepared. If our life is producing very little fruit and is not characterized by abundance and overflow, then God is not in it. Hear me, I'm not talking about things. The material things of this life don't matter. They are just tools and resource and God provides what we need. I'm talking about an abundance of the life of Christ. Are we producing His life and building His kingdom? It takes surrender and humility to do that. God wants us to live in His rest. I think about how much I love my wife ...

One of the biggest challenges we face as disciples of Jesus is trust. Being in a place of trust where we live with our hands off the wheel goes against our nature. I have grabbed the wheel out of Jesus hands so many times I lost count long ago. He still waits patiently though until I turn control over once again. We will never enter into a place of trust until we admit we have control issues. We like to control our life. We think we need to take charge of our spiritual development and discipline ourselves to the point of making things happen. Jesus says "Just trust me, and I'll do the rest". I promise you He knows where we need to go. Don't try to force your life to be what you want. We have no power to do so and we just make a mess of things. I wanted to share a quote here from Brennan's book for ragamuffins like me. Our desire and attempts to control our own life is like trying to make the sun rise or a flower bloom. It is His place to perfect our li...

Picture this ... we stand alone with nothing as a ragamuffin wandering aimlessly through the journey of life. Then God reaches down through Jesus Christ and picks up up and calls us sons and daughters. We welcome His advances toward us because His love fills every need and purpose deep within our hearts. We long to enter into relationship with Him and make His life our life, but we cannot. We do not know how, we are not capable, we have no love to give in return. Just as we begin to turn away in discouragement, Jesus reaches down and fills us with His love so we can give love. He fills us with forgiveness and lavishes His grace upon us so we can now enter into relationship with Him. We can now live life in Him because we have Him. There is nothing we can do to deserve or merit or even participate in the life Jesus has for us. All we need is to accept freely what He offers. Like the prodigal son, we come with all our faults and sins before us ready to recite our prepared speec...

The more I pursue the way of Christ and the life He desires me to live, the more I find incompadability with the church that the world knows today. I'm talking about that part of the church that thinks they are not like the church in America today. I know its complicated, but we do that intentionally to keep our pride in tact and put the blame somewhere else on someone else. The way of the ragamuffin is not popular. Many will say they are willing to follow Christ to a place of service where they are willing to loose their life to find it, but few backup their words with actions. We criticize the rich young ruler because he was not willing to sell all he had to follow Jesus, but we won't do it either. Most of us can't even give Him 10% of our money, much less our heart, mind, and soul. One of the most difficult things I have faced as a Bible teacher is to get people to commit themselves to the truth of the Word. They want to know the truth, they want to know the righ...