“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt 5:8)

A pure Heart. How could I ever hope to possess such a treasure? My heart is the most twisted, sick and malformed part of me. It is so deeply hidden and protected that it is impossible for me to know its true condition. Moses got a terrifying shock when God directed him to “Put your hand inside your cloak.” When he pulled it out, it was in the advanced stages of leprosy! This was a sign to the Israelites, but mostly to Moses, that inside his heart, something was very, very wrong. It is most humbling, and hopeful to realize that what was revelation to Moses was not revelation to God. He knew Moses through and through, from the height of his humility – he was pointed out as being the meekest man on the whole earth – to the depths of his depravity. Yet God was STILL calling him to be the leader of His chosen people. God sure loves to take chances, doesn’t He.

Scripture abounds with the testimonies of men and women of God who came, by grace, to the crucial realization that they were not all that they had thought themselves to be. Their “I have a heart wholly given to God!” declaration was silenced by the acknowledgment that their self-assessment was fatally flawed.

Job – “I abhor (m. utter disgust and extreme repugnance) myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)

David – “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from faults that I know nothing about.” (Ps 19:12)

Jeremiah – “The heart is the most deceitful thing there is, and desperately sick. Who can comprehend it?” (Jer 17:9)

Thankfully, Father God is not in any way put off by the ruined condition of our hearts. He knows what we are capable of, He observes it every day. But all of His rejection and revulsion toward our sin has all been poured out on His Son on the Cross. It is gone! So today we can receive nothing but His Joyful, Hopeful positive assessment and affirmation. Again, Scriptures abound:

“If anyone is in Christ, they become a New Creation. All the old things are gone forever, everything has become New!” (2 Cor 5:17)

“Jesus, Who never sinned at all, became The Sinner for our sake – He took our sin away from us and put it on Himself -  so that we can become His Righteousness, in Him!” (2 Cor 5:21)

In Christ, we go from very, very bad, to very, very Good. And what is the key to walking this out in life? The two little words: “In Him.”

If the snake-bitten Israelites in the desert went from dying to living simply by looking at their Savior on a pole, so we also can know a Resurrection of Life as we keep the eyes of our hearts “fixed” on Jesus. How does the change happen? I don’t know, it’s a Mystery. I just know that it is True. I can feel myself changing! The Spirit works out the process as I keep Jesus firmly in my view. “As we fix our gaze intently on the Glory of Jesus, the most amazing thing happens - we become like Him, more glory and more glory every day! That is how the Spirit transforms us.” (2 Cor 3:18)

Whew! I am so thankful that God has worked out the details. He has “undone the works of the devil.” (1 Jn 3:8) He has reversed the effects of the Fall! So today you and I can walk, not in death, but in Life; not in the dark, but in the Light. And our view of our Beautiful God is becoming clearer and clearer.

“Come into His Presence today with a true and uncondemned heart, in Total Peace, and Absolute Confidence of Faith. How is this possible?! Because our hearts have been sprinkled with His Blood from a wicked conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure Water.” (Heb 10:22)

There is only One Reason why I can walk confidently and joyfully in the Presence of God today. It is because of what the Father and the Son have done to make it possible. The Cross, the empty Tomb, the Throne, the Blood, and the waters of Baptism, all have secured for me a place of unbroken acceptance in Relationship, and an assurance of that acceptance that is so good that, well… it simply HAS to be True! You can’t make this stuff up!

God can only be described adequately in superlatives, and “He only does amazingly Wonderful things!” (Ps 72:18)

Without the Blood and the Water, I am totally lost. Because of the Blood and the Water, I am totally saved!

Learning that the Old Me has been truly buried, and that all the sins of the Old Me have been totally Forgiven and Forgotten, is a Truth that is slowly marinating its way into my conscious mind and heart. The more fully I realize the size of this Lottery that I have incredibly won, (lucky me!!) the more deeply I am able to step into, and OWN, this place of ridiculously wonderful Acceptance and Affection. And because this Love that is coming on me is like the flow of a dam burst open, I can allow myself to be carried away to a place where everything has been thought of, and everything has been provided for, in this eternal Relationship.

I understand that to many, I sound like a person babbling excitedly in Japanese. :) You can see that something has me excited, but what it is, is totally unintelligible! I encourage you, open your heart Today to the One Who speaks the secret and hidden Language of your heart, and He will give you YOUR winning Lottery ticket, and usher you into a Divine Romance that is the End, and the Beginning, of a Life that can only be experienced to be understood.

“Taste, and see, that the Lord is Good!” (Ps 34:8)

The default emotion of the spiritually mature, is Joy.

Worry - when I am unable to see Jesus in the midst of my circumstances.

"while we look, not at the things that we 'see', but at the things that we do NOT see; for the

 things that we 'see', are only temporary, but the Things that we do NOT see, are Eternal."

(2 Cor 4:18)

"I have spoken these things to you so that IN ME you might have Peace. In the world you 

have tribulation. That is no cause for fear though, because I have overcome the world!"

(Jn 16:33)

"Fixing our eyes on Jesus..."

(Heb 12:2)

This is what I heard the Father speaking this morning:

“The Just shall live by their feelings.” Oh, how My children want that to be True! But it is not. Faith and feelings are not the same thing. In fact, very often they are opposites. When you have feelings, you don’t need faith. You are totally convinced of something – you “know” it, because you FEEL it. The problem with that is that when those feelings go away, so does your faith. You no longer “know” what a moment before you had been ready to bet your life and fortune on. This is the definition of the “double-minded one, unstable in all his ways. Don’t let that one think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:7-8) Not because I am angry with you; it is that you cannot be trusted in the challenging struggle of life on earth; a planet, at present, still in rebellion.

The enemy knows this, and does everything he can to slip in a feeling. If you receive it, then your Faith disappears, and the evidence of Heaven disappears with it. This is what happened to Peter on the water. “Oh Peter! Why did you doubt?! You were doing it!” (Matt 14:31) As long as Peter walked in his faith – not Mine, his – he experienced the “impossible”. Earth-bound human beings don’t walk on water! But Peter was no longer earth-bound. He was joined with Me in a Heavenly experience. He saw Me, and believed that he could be with Me wherever I was. And at that moment, I was in a Realm that simply is not bound by earth’s rules. As long as HE believed, he walked ON the water. When he doubted, that bubble burst and natural laws resumed, which of course is where the other eleven disciples were the whole time.

“Without Faith, it is impossible to please Me.” Not because I’m hard to please, but because if you are going to walk with Me during your time on earth, Faith is required. I will show you Myself, and what I am doing. But then you must believe it. When you do, you will break free from every sin, darkness, doubt and fear, and you will, in and with Me, experience the “power of the age to come.” And you will see Me smile.

In 1797, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay wrote: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” He also declared that, "No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, we will then, be surely doomed.” 

Let us pray that the righteous men and women of this nation will accept their right and responsibility to choose their leaders, and seek wisdom and discernment to vote for men and women who recognize the Lordship of Christ, and His oversight over our nation.

President Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII in 1947 that "This is a Christian nation." He certainly did not mean that the United States has an official or legally-preferred religion or church. Nor did he mean to slight adherents of non-Christian religions. But he certainly did mean to recognize that this nation, its institutions and laws, was founded on Biblical principles basic to Christianity and to Judaism from which it flowed.

As he told an Attorney General's Conference in 1950, "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State."

I’m with Harry on this one.

Quote from “Is America a Christian Nation?” by Carl Pearlston

I am fighting for First Place in your heart. It is a Good Fight, and I fight with the Joy of Great Anticipation, the Joy of a Lovestruck Suitor pursuing the one who has captivated His heart. “I know the plans”, and they only await your complete investment in our Relationship to come into view. Your Joy is never in what you do, it is only in doing it with Me. I AM your Joy.

All I need from you... is time. Give Me your time, away from all other distractions, and I will wash your heart and mind from everything that pollutes your consciousness. Nothing else is more important than the Time you spend with Me. The more Time you invest, the more your senses will perceive the amazing awesomeness of Life in the Spiritual Realm, where I constantly Live. I so desire… First Place.

“Choose Life!”

What can THAT mean? How does a living, breathing human being CHOOSE to be alive?

Unless you are a cadaver with a computer propped up in front of you (not sure about some of you…), we can say with certainty: you ARE alive. Until the coroner gives the word, you are alive, and not dead. So what does God mean when He says, “Choose Life!”?

In the Garden of Eden, Father scooped up some dust, molded it by Hand (the original Play Dough), and made the most beautiful and incredible artwork ever: a made-in-His-Image masterpiece, the first Human. We lay there (as dirt does) until God put His Mouth on our nostrils (Gen 2:7) and Breathed Life into us. And…we became Alive!

And what a life it was! Walking with God in our own Private Garden, playing with all the peaceful animals, eating the healthiest and tastiest of foods, and - the best part - never doing laundry!

All was well, and every day was perfect, until…we chose. The choice started with a simple decision to look at forbidden fruit. From there, temptation grew; and, because it was never cut off (another choice) sin occurred.

“On the day that you eat of it, you will most assuredly die.”

Well, THAT didn’t happen, that is, if we are talking about physical death. So there must be another death, and another Life, that God was referring to. Adam and Eve both continued to live on for hundreds and hundreds of years after that, living a life that was far, far from the Life they had been created into.

“Today, I set before you Life…so choose it.”

What if I told you that there was another Life available to you today, other than the one that you are now living? A Life where worry, fear, anger, lust, depression, pride, boredom…simply do not exist, and therefore have no power over you. A Life where God the Father, by the Holy Spirit grows His Fruits in you for you, and those around you to enjoy? If I showed you how to access that Life, would you be interested?

That is what we are going to talk about next time. 

Have a great, ALIVE day!

“Everyone who has been born of God overcomes over the world. And this is how we get the Victory that overcomes the world - our faith.” (1 Jn 5:4)

What does Father want/need from us today? It is a day just like any other. Oh, for some of us it may be smooth sailing, but for others, it may be stage 4 cancer. For some, it may be our birthday! Yahoo! For others, death is drawing near. But for each of us, it is a day, a day to come to consciousness, another day to overcome the world. I was going to say, “get out of bed and…”, but I am very aware that today, for some, this is not possible. My own father spent fifteen plus years in bed, unable to get out because of a debilitating illness. And yet, he had to live each day.

Whenever our day begins, whether it be in the middle of the night, or the middle of the afternoon, we are met with two options. There are always two non-sleeping “friends”, waiting to accompany us, to be our helper and guide. One is an assigned demon, a Screwtape if you will (a la C.S. Lewis), the other – the Lord Jesus Himself. The one wants to stay hidden, so that we think that our lie-affected thoughts are our own. The Other wants to come into Full View, so that our day will be a continuation of what He intended it to be from the beginning - a walk with our Lover in the park, another day in Paradise - so that all that is available to us in the Heavenly Realm in Him can be poured in, and out of us.

Father said it plainly through Moses, long ago: “Today I set in front of you, Life and death. 

Choose…” (Deut 30:19)

I think that very few of us really comprehend the import – the opportunity and the gravity - of the fact that we have the ability to choose. Blame and domination is primary in our mindset. From “the devil made me do that!”, to “my parents…”, “my aching back…”, “my ______…” - it is quite accepted and universally understood that the management of and responsibility for our present circumstances is seemingly outside of our internal control center.  And yet, we can choose. It is one of the ways in which we bear the Image of the One Who created us. He chooses, constantly. And every Choice that He makes is eternally and infinitely Good, especially as it involves those He loves – us. And in order to have a meaningful Relationship with us, He has created us with the ability to choose.

I am going to leave it at that, it is only an opening thought, and close with a question: “Do I believe that I always have the ability to choose?”

Thoughtful responses invited. To be continued…

King David’s New Year Resolution – circa 1010 BC: “This year I resolve, and ask God for one thing: I want to consciously live in His Presence every single day, so that I will be continually awestruck by His Glorious Beauty, and be able to talk to Him about everything.” (Ps 27:4)

For me, I can’t think of a better NYR-2016 than that. It is a resolution that goes right to the heart of the matter. I want this God that I have discovered to consume every part of my existence - yes, He is that Good! It is a resolution that comes out of a life of experience that has convinced me that any other pearl simply falls short of this One that I have seen, touched and handled. I want to possess it.

Fortunately, this Resolution is not only mine, but His as well. He wants this for me, and has promised over and over and over again to give me everything that I need in order to fulfill it. How? By my simply coming, asking, seeking, knocking. “You will seek for Me and find Me when your whole heart wants it.” I have found that to be True, though sometimes it takes some struggle to get my heart into that truly humble, hungry posture. But He helps me out with that too, because He knows that I really want it.

The results of this resolution fulfilled are simply too wonderful for words. My life takes on a richness that cannot be disturbed. And those around me get the best of who I am, which is me dead, Jesus living instead. Now that’s a result that benefits us all!

So, here we go! New morning, new day, new year. One day at a time, begun and lived in His Presence. He assured me that this is one Resolution that I can keep! Yahoo! (non-churchy version of “Hallelujah!”)