Reconciliation

Matthew 5:23-24 says that, “If, when you are bringing your gift to the altar, you suddenly remember that your brother has a grievance against you, leave your gift where it is before the altar. First go and make your peace with your brother, and only then come back and offer your gift” (NEB).
“As a general principle, God requires us, so far as it is in our power, to live at all times in a right relationship with our fellow men (see Romans 12:18). Therefore, so long as we tolerate wrong relationships, which it is in our power to avoid or to heal, our lives are not fully pleasing to God. Specifically, when we bring our gift to God’s altar, we are asking for His acceptance and approval. Therefore, it is at this point that God raises the issue of any wrong relationships and requires us to take the appropriate action, before He sets His seal of approval upon our gift. This is a clear in the case of Cain and Abel. It was when they presented their gifts to God, that God bestowed His approval upon Abel and withheld His approval from Cain. This in turn brought out into the open Cain’s wrong attitude toward Abel (see Genesis 4:2-15; Hebrews 11:4).” ~~ Derek Prince

Listen up

“Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends them from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears before we would wake from our trance and hear the warning.” ~~ Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

Hiddenness of God

In times of oppression, tribulation and economical hard times, God’s doesn’t always take away these troubles but most often provide more revelation. Why? Because if we are going to learn to be overcomers, then we must allow ourselves to be developed internally. God is more interested in the state of your inner man than our outward circumstances. The hiddenness of God is all about the internal development. In times of manifestation, we focus outwardly on God and the blessings He showers on our lives. In hiddenness, we devote ourselves inwardly to God, yielding to Him in the things that He wants to do in our life. The Lord wants each one of us to be able to live from the inside out, and to fully understand the process of internal development in Him. ~~ Graham Cooke

Jesus wants

What one thing do you lack? What one thing are you holding back? You can bet it’s the one thing Jesus wants – and you can bet it’s not worth being separated from Him. ~~ Rick Reed

Divine Love

St. Catherine if Siena said, “pazzo d’amore; ebbro d’amore” – as “crazed with love, drunk with love.” God not only loves us, but he is also in love with us. A love revealed in Scripture, which is a most unordinary love – passionate love.

Deep thirst

Longing in the heart of man demands fulfillment. God is not so cruel as to give us a desire for which there is no fulfillment. ~~ Bob Bosworth

Spooky is not spiritual

All teaching, revelations and prophecies are to be tested by the Word of God and the discerning of spirits. In 1 John 4:1 says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” Allow the Lord to connect you with the right apostolic accountability. Position yourself under an apostle that has a proven track record for integrity and sound doctrine. You do not need to be spooky to be spiritual! Being spooky can cause you to miss your assignment from God on the other side of the storm!

Eternal truth

What you don’t know about women is a lot. ~~ Rose Castorini (Olympia Dukakis) to a gentlemen friend she meets in a restaurant, in the 1987 film “Moonstruck”

Truth

Deception is the glue that holds every stronghold together. Truth is the light that reveals the lie.

Journey

“Jesus said to them, ‘Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.’ They didn’t ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed” (Mark 1:17, 18, Message).
Walking with Christ is about the journey not about the arriving to a point of maturity. If you have spent any time walking with the Holy Ghost you will soon realize some of your fellow seekers are crawling, some are stumbling, some walking and some are at a fast pace. I have been at a dead end and that is when, as I look back, that Jesus was the closes to me. At these times, I have grown and my life has changed course. There is no course completed. There is no book with immediate answers. We are to be encouraged. We are never alone. The Holy Ghost is with us continuously, giving comfort, encouragement and guidance.
Who has arrived? I want to know that person. I believe the longest distance in the world is between the come and the follow me.
I have dropped my nets and said, “I will follow, show me the new way of travel.”

Do the right thing

Years ago, I heard a teaching about unforgiveness is a luxury no Christian can afford. The teacher began with a story of how hunters catch monkeys in Central Africa. These hunters would fill a coconut shell with lead and bore a whole in the end just big enough for the monkey to get his hand in. The hunter would put coconut into the small hole and lay those out for the curious monkeys to investigate. Had the captured monkeys been willing to release the fist full of shredded coconut he could have pulled his hand out and gone free. As long as he gripped the shredded coconut in the lead filled coconut shell, it held him prisoner.
More Christians than want to admit it are holding on to past hurts and regrets as tightly as that monkey clung to his coconut meal. However, to experience the full forgiveness and grace of God requires the release of every bit of the coconut of bitterness and resentment. Otherwise, a part of us remains weighted down in unforgiveness a luxury one cannot afford.

Transformation

We are so close to Him, does His presence change us? ~~ Mother Teresa

Yes

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intentions of arriving safely in an attractive, well preserved body – but rather to skid in sideways, waving with one hand, holding memories in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming at the top of your lungs: WHOO-HOO, what a ride it was ! ~~ Author unknown

Softly and gently

Love that tenderly draws always makes a significant mark.

Hidden in plain sight

“Whosoever has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the victor I shall give some of the hidden manna” (Revelation 2:17b, RBV). It takes spiritual ears to hear His whispers of His secrets, in His presence.
“In our Christian lives, it is the Holy Spirit who promotes the internal development of our ‘inner man’ – our spirit. We don’t gain spiritual maturity by accumulating knowledge, but by increasing in godly wisdom. This kind of wisdom comes from above and cannot be gained by academic study. James chapter 3 tells us that there are two kinds of wisdom – one is earthly and natural. Often this kind of wisdom appears to have some merit, but is usually rooted in the value systems of the world. If we take too much notice of this kind of wisdom it can lead us into a place where we become vulnerable to demonic influence as we become philosophical about our beliefs. By contrast, the supernatural wisdom that James refers to is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruit and unwavering in its convictions about God. You will increase in this ‘supernatural’ wisdom as you learn to be with God in hiddeness. The wisdom you gain from this experience can give you a whole new perspective on situations in you life. It will produce in you a rest and a peace which, frankly will be astonishing to you.” ~~ Graham Cooke, Understanding Hiddeness and Manifestation

Grace is

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under disapprobation." ~~ A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

Love for neighbor

These last few days I have been reading “The Genesee Diary,” Report from a Trappist Monastery Henri J. M. Nouwen.
“Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You mist love your neighbor as yourself” Mathew 22:37-39, NJB).
Henri wrote, “But when the love of God is indeed my first concern, a deep love for my neighbor can grow. I discover myself in a new way in the love of God. St. Bernard of Clairvaux describes as the highest degree of love the love of our self for God’s sake. Thomas Merton commenting on this says: “This is the high point of Bernard’s Christian humanism. It shows that the fulfillment of our destiny is not merely to be lost in God, as the traditional figures of speech would have it, like a ‘drop of water in a barrel of wine or like iron in the fire’ but found in God in all our individual and personal reality, tasting our eternal happiness not only in the fact that we have attained to the possession of his infinite goodness, but above all in the fact that we see his will done in us.”

Father Mychal Judge

Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way. ~~ Father Mychal Judge
On September 11, 2001, Father Mychal lost his life in the World Trade Center

My life

Forgive me for bringing shame on the name of Christ. May my life abide in the Father’s love and hidden in Jesus, shedding any appearance of evil while maintaining a love and burden for those who do not know God’s mercy.

Were you there where they crucified my Lord

The church father Jerome described his friend Paula's response when she arrived in Jerusalem from Rome: "Before the Cross she threw herself down in adoration as though she beheld the Lord hanging upon it: and when she entered the tomb which was the scene of the Resurrection she kissed the stone which the angel had rolled away from the door of the sepulchre. Indeed so ardent was her faith that she even licked with her mouth the very spot on which the Lord's body had lain, like one athirst for the river which he has longed for."

Blues

In the church today, people become anxious that God will not come through and that their expectations will not be met. When we suffer anxiety, we are less likely to make sound judgment calls. Churches are to be sources of support and information on beating the blues, right? Instead of praying for God to come down, we in the church community introduce a new program to ease the pressure. Everything is suppose to be happy, joyous and perfect, but may turn out less so. Welcome to the faith walk.

Questioning seeker

As a questioning seeker, I continuously cry out to God for understanding.
For many years, the Holy Spirit so often has given me comfort in my despair. Most of my life I have fought the fight as a weary warrior with very few choices but to trust my God.
The Rev. John McLaughlin decades ago lay bleeding on a Boston street after being stabbed from behind. The prayer-filled moment that followed, when McLaughlin believed he might die, changed his life and ultimately led him to God.
“After near death situations you start realizing how fragile life is”, Rev. McLaughlin national vocations director for the Archdiocese of the Military said. “And when people start thinking in those terms, they eventually start thinking about helping people in life.”
I believe that as you face critically situations, life and death circumstances or insurmountable odds a change comes over you. This is what is known as “come to Jesus time.” Please, open your scriptures to the middle of your Bible – Psalms. Sandwich in the center of God’s word is how to walk in religious life. “You reveal your presence and near [is] your name; people tell about your amazing deeds” (Psalms 75:1b, NET).