Category: Religious

Don't Fall For It

3/6/2025

On a Christian radio station the hosts were talking about motivational phrases that we need everyday. The host added one that I thought was quite misguided. The saying he thought that we should tell ourselves everyday was, “you are worthy.” At first it sounds great and uplifting and we need those uplifting things to keep ourselves going. But what he failed to do was to think about what that phrase really means and what it does to our motivations. If we are worthy then who or what else do we need other than to go and claim what we are worthy of? We don’t need Christ if we are worthy, we don’t need the Holy Spirit if we are worthy, we can just do what we need to do.
Here is what I would propose instead, then I will explain it. “We are not worthy and God, the one who we are not worthy of, still chased us for an everlasting relationship because He loves us!” Once we understand the explanation we can make that shorter.
Here is the reality. We are not worthy. It is not because I have done something that God wants, needs or is even pleased with. God chooses on His terms – everyone is unworthy and God saved us. Psalms 5 says, “evil cannot dwell with You… God hates evildoers… the boastful do not stand.” Isaiah 64:6 says even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags to God. Are you evil? “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10 + Psalms 53:3).
Humans are children of wrath but now – through Christ alone – are adopted as children of God. We are are heirs to the throne and co-heirs with Christ (Ephesians 2 + Romans 8).
It is because we are not worthy that makes us more grateful of God’s grace in continuing to chase the creation that abandoned Him and wished to be free from the created order, that disobeyed and seeks what is evil. “While still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

0 Comments

Love the Lord With All Your Heart and Soul

3/4/2025

0 Comments

We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
- The God of the universe is not asking you to love something that doesn’t love. He isn’t asking you to love Him solely because He is God and superior to you. He is asking you to love Him because He loves you.
He loved by creating and not giving up when we went against what/why He created.
- He formed man out of the dirt with His own hands and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils (Genesis 2:7). He loves you.
He chased us and never let us get too far away from His love.
- Exodus 13:3 – “…Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it…”
- 1 Peter 2:24 – “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, you have been healed.”
This is why we love from His love – because He pursued us.
And within loving someone there is a kind of alignment.
- Each person has their beliefs and when you love someone there is acceptance and adoption of the other person’s beliefs.
In this case, with loving God, His beliefs are the only ones to be adopted.
- He created, He designed. Everything belongs to Him.
Therefore, we must align ourselves with God’s beliefs because the human machine was built for/by/through His Word (Colossians 1:16, John 1:1).
- Because God is superior and literally wrote the instruction manual for the human machine – as C.S. Lewis calls it – we must adopt His beliefs. God is truth (John 4:16) and if you do not agree with Him, the debate is over. He is the one who created everything and has set the truth standard.
We broke the alignment when we decided to do our own thing. We wished to discover ourselves outside of God and found out that He is the only thing there is. He created from nothing – everything came from Him – so there is nothing but God (1 Corinthians 8:4-6). Not in the Pantheist kind of way, but as the only option. The only manual to be found is that of God’s design.
If we love our Lord, then we adopt His beliefs and because He loves you – His creation – we must also love His creation (Matthew 22:39). This shows and leads us to the second greatest commandment. Love your God is the first, love your neighbour, the second. We love God and so we love our neighbour. He forgave us, so we forgive our neighbour.
But that does not mean forget, nor align with everyone that believes differently. With love comes hate of anything that may come and attempt to harm or take away the one you love.
God hates sin, and the one who does the sin (Psalms 5:4-5) but we stated above that God did not abandon us. He made a way to cleanse us, correct us.
- So with love comes correction and discipline.
The Scriptures are breathed out by God – they are His manual – and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
- This means as we align ourselves with God’s beliefs as we love Him, we also must love our neighbour and teach, reprove, and correct if needed. Always in the love for them.

0 Comments

A Place in Heaven

2/26/2025

0 Comments

1 Corinthians 3:6-11 + 1 Corinthians 15:43-44
The blinding light forced me to close my eyes. I thought that might be impossible now that I was dead. My race was finished; work completed. Trying to think back to my life of the mortal realm, I felt no regret, even though I knew I regretted many things. I looked for the emotion of regret, that ache of the heart longing to change something, and I found it not. When my eyes adjusted, the sight was magnificent. Bright and vibrant colours, sounds of nature clear and crisp, smells of the outdoors fresh and fulfilling. I took a step and felt something different. Although I knew what it was like to have no aches and pain when I was young, my body still felt more painless. I felt weightless, as though I could never ache simply due to age because I had less weight to waste away my joins and bones. I walked up a vibrant grassy hill. Over the hill I found a figure waiting for me. I didn’t recognize the physical appearance of the body, but I somehow knew him. Joy piled up inside me at the realization, it was my old mentor in the mortal realm. Someone who spent five years in my life, which sounds so short of a time looking back at it now, in another lifetime. I owe him so much; he planted the seed of salvation with his mentorship and rhetorical arguments. He was the reason why I continued his work with others. Of course, here, there is no doubt that it was God that did the growth and inspiration, this man was the instrument of that growth and inspiration.
“How are you?” the man asked. It seemed he was expecting me. But he approached with great excitement. It seemed an odd question, does that question apply here?
            “Fantastic!” I say with a smirk. “So great to see you.” I willingly accept his hug.
            “So proud of what you accomplished,” he said. I guess they do watch over us here.
            “You inspired, God did the growth,” I tell him.
“It’s so great to welcome you here,” he said softly. He looked past my shoulder, it made me look in the same direction. Another person entered their new home. The new kingdom. As much as it means that someone died, it was only joy felt in this immortal realm. More joy came when I recognized this person. It was so odd recognizing people when they had their new bodies. Sown in weakness, raised in power. This person was someone I mentored.
Full circle.
            “Hey!” I exclaimed. “So good to see you.”
            “I didn’t think I’d see you so soon,” he ran towards the two of us. “So glad to be with both of you again.” Both? Again? He knew my mentor too?
            “You know each other,” I asked.
            “Yeah,” my disciple said. “He gave me the first thought that started opening my mind to God. Then you came along to further along the idea and belief.” Ah, so he planted that seed too, and I watered it. But always the growth is from God. I looked to my mentor and we both smiled. Looking back to my disciple, we all smiled and laughed together, finally back together again, a bigger team than any of us knew.

0 Comments

First

Last

Going deeper in the mundane to find the extraordinary.

Don't Fall For It

Love the Lord With All Your Heart and Soul

A Place in Heaven

Author

Categories