April 7th, 2007 by admin

A family once had two little puppies. One of the puppies was a boy and the other was a girl…and for some strange reason wherever the sister went, the brother was on her tail following right behind her. Every morning, as they were let out to play, they would go scampering out the door, down the steps, across the lawn and through a hole in the fence–and always, the brother was following right behind his sister.

One day, the family decided to fix that hole in the fence, and the next morning, they let the dogs out to play. As usual, the puppies went out the door, down the steps, across the lawn. As the lead dog approached the fence, she saw that the hole in the fence had been fixed and she quickly turned to the right to avoid hitting the fence. Her brother, however, was not so fortunate; he crashed right into the fence. Later, the family discovered why: he was blind–the puppy had been blind since birth. He had simply learned that to get around he had to listen… listen to the sounds of his sister’s footsteps… listen to where his sister was going and follow her.

Jesus wants to lead us on adventures that will go out the door, down the steps, across the lawn, and through the fences (so to speak). I am not saying that we should be blind like this puppy, but we should be free from the distractions around us to follow Jesus as closely as this puppy followed his sister. Happy following!!

April 3rd, 2007 by admin

You know… no one ever sat around and tried to invent something that would get rid of darkness. The thought of removing darkness is kinda weird. I mean… how do you get rid of “darkness”. It is not something that is generated. It is not something that is created. We don’t go around and create darkness (it even sounds stupid).

Thomas Edison didn’t sit around and try to invent the removal of darkness. When he created the light, darkness automatically left. Edison didn’t have to remove the darkness… he just had to create light. Darkness just left on it’s own.

Sometimes in our own lives we spend so much time trying to remove the “darkness” or the negative things that weigh us down. This can become weary and tiresome. Edison would have been a long time trying to remove darkness without the lightbulb.

When God created the earth He said, “Let there be light”. He didn’t say, “Darkness be removed”. When Jesus healed the blind man, he didn’t remove blindness… He told the man to receive his sight. When the man received his sight, blindness automatically left. This is interesting to me…. “Why do we spend so much time trying to get rid of things, when all we need is the receiving of things.” If we want to get rid of the negative in our life, we need to add more positive. The negative will then leave on its own. If we want to get rid of the darkness in our life, we need to add light. And we all know what the light is…. and in case you don’t. It’s Jesus.

April 1st, 2007 by admin

We’ve all heard the the term… “The Sixth Sense”. What is the “Sixth Sense”? I know what the normal five senses are and they are all part of our natural being. We hear, see, taste, smell, and feel, and we do all of this with our flesh. These senses are designed to show us that something is real. Let me explain… Without using the “smell sense” we would never know that flowers had a fragrance. We use the sense of smell to capture a reality that would otherwise not be known… and that is…Flowers have a fragrance. The fragrance still would have been there even if we did not have the “smell sense”, but this sense allows us to capture it… and ultimately enjoy it. This goes for all the five senses. If you were born with no ears and I told you about a fire truck siren. How do I convince you that it makes a sound. The fact that you don’t have ears doesn’t change the reality that the siren on the fire truck still makes a sound. You just can’t hear it. It is still there… You just need ears to capture the sound to experience it. The fact is… there are millions of realities that are out there that only our five senses can pick up. That is why we were given them… to capture the reality of things and enjoy them. Well, Faith works this way too. God has tons of realities that are in His kingdom and we need a “sense” to capture the reality of them, and ultimately enjoy them. Faith acts as our “sixth sense”. The five earthly senses are for us to pick up realities on earth… the sixth sense is for us to pick up realites in heaven. Remember, all that God has is ours. He has given all blessing to us through Jesus. These are realities that are ours. We just have to have a “sense” to capture it. Just because you can’t see, taste, feel, hear, or smell these realities doesn’t mean they are not there. You would never use your nose to listen to a fire trucks siren, so you can’t use the five earthly senses to obtain heaven’s realities either. Use faith to capture the realities that are yours… in heaven… and enjoy.

March 22nd, 2007 by admin

Have you ever been under pressure? I think we have all felt the �pressure experience�. It’s not fun, nor do we go around praying for it. So why did God design us to feel pressure? When pressure comes in our life we normally ooze out all the nasties that are inside of us. These nasties usually come in the form of biting someone�s head off or like me in my earlier days� just throwing something. In moments like these we find out who we are� the real us. We are being �pressured� into knowing ourselves.

I heard this quote a long time ago that stuck with me. It goes like this� �You only have what you can hold under pressure�. This is a great quote and absolutely has meaning for all of us. You know� when a plumber puts together all his piping and steps back to observe the layout he knows that the job is not finished. It may look finished. All the piping may seem to be connected and in the right place. But is it really right? The purpose of the piping is not to �look� right or to �look� like it can hold water. Looking like it can hold water is not good enough. The only way to know if the piping will hold the water is to apply pressure to it. The plumber proceeds to turn on the water and checks for leaks or in some cases�gushes.  Without turning on the water and building pressure in the line, there is just no way of knowing how strong the structure is.

God is piping you and I for His will� a people that will prosper� a people that will flourish� a people that will be strong. The pressure situations in our lives are just checks that reveal where our leaks and gushes are. If you notice a leak… just ask God to help fix those leaks and hold on. The “season” of pressure will subside� and what you will be left with� is a thing of beauty.

March 21st, 2007 by admin

I know that you could have lived seventy years without seeing this… but I just had to post it. The photo is one of many on the web of the nasty stuff that comes out of your colon during a detox cycle. I am happy to say, that I have never seen this come out of me during any of my detox experiences. I have had three colonic sessions and though uncomfortable all came out well… enough said on that. Maybe I will post those experiences another time.

This past year I changed my eating habits drastically. I have been off sugar and sweets for just about a year now, along with tons of other things. (I will post more about this later I promise.) It has been a great detox for my body and has aided in my overall health. Somewhere last summer in the middle of the detox and diet changes, I was given a thought (this is how God speaks to me). The thought was, I needed to take the same measures that I was taking to detox my physical body and apply them to my spiritual body. WHAT AN IDEA! I needed to detox my soul. Since the soul is made up of your mind, will, and emotions. I was going to detox my mind, my will, and my emotions. How do you do that….? Well… when detoxing my physical body I had to limit the negative things that I ate and substitute them with the positive things, like organic foods etc… I had gotten so used to eating Reese’s and Oreo’s that this was a difficult thing and I was not aware of how far those negatives had taken my physical body. It’s a simple parallel. I had to limit the negatives that were going into my mind and for me this was words, TV, movies, the news, books. Once I limited the negatives going into my mind it cleaned up the rest of my soul. Negatives are simply anything that is contrary to the life that Jesus desires for us. Next time you decide to detox your body, maybe try adding a little extra detox for the soul as well… It does the body good.

Just a side note… Detoxing the soul takes forever. Literally

March 19th, 2007 by admin

This is one of the rare images from the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz”. I have always loved this movie, and remember as a child sitting as close as I could to the TV. The intensity of the movie made me feel like I was right there with them. The Wicked Witch and her flying monkeys scared the crap out of me! If you click on this photo it will enlarge for you to see that the Cowardly Lion has a spray pump thing called, “Witch Removal” in his arms.

Here is a journey of friends all pitching in to help the other find what is missing in their lives.  Sounds a lot like the world. Hmmmmm….. Here’s the twist. They weren’t missing anything at all. Everything they needed they already had. They just didn’t know it. Now that sounds a lot like Christians. Hmmmmm…. Here’s the thought. When Jesus gave his life, he gave us everything we need to make it in this journey, even “Witch Removal”. Dorothy and friends had the shoes, the brain, the courage, and the heart. We have our feet clothed with the gospel of peace, the mind of Christ, we fear not, and we have God’s heart. The question is do we know it. You don’t need the “Great and Powerful Oz” to tell you what you already have… just crack open the Word and see for yourself.   

March 17th, 2007 by admin

Take a real close look at this photo… see if you see something you have never seen before. This is not a trick photo or an illusion as you may think. The fruit is hanging out on the limb. The fruit is out on the limb!

OK… let me show you what i see. I was looking at a tree one day and thought about where the fruit was. The strongest part of the tree was its trunk… but no fruit was there, next came the main branches…still no fruit. The fruit was on this small little limb connected to the branch, that was connected to the trunk, that of course was planted in the ground. The small little limb was the most vulnerable place on the tree. The weakest part. The weakest part was the avenue to which the greatest results took place.

The actual purpose of the tree was being manifested through the weakest part. AMAZING!!!!! God is so awesome!! Jesus tells us that, John 15:5 �I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. God is not bearing fruit… You are!

Jesus is the trunk and we are the branches with limbs. Weak limbs at that, sometimes. Yet our purpose can be manifested in the things we deem “weak”. Other scriptures for this is 2 Corinthians 12:9 And He said to me, �My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.�  and in 1 Corinthians 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.

The next time you have a “weak” moment try to remember God has some fruit for you to bear, and he will do it even in your weakness. And by the way…. it’s scary sometimes out on the limb!

March 15th, 2007 by admin

He said, “Come”. Have you ever wondered why Jesus told Peter to come out of the boat and walk on water? This story has always been taught and gave the analogy that we must keep our eyes on Jesus in the midst of the storms. While that’s all well and good, we may want to take a look at this popular and often told “Sunday School” story from another angle.

What was Jesus doing telling Peter to “Come” in the first place? IT’S STORMY! Winds were thrashing and the waves were beating against the boat. And on top of that they were physically weak and tired from straining at rowing trying to get their boat to work right. This has got to be the worst time for Jesus to be teaching someone to “walk on water”. Yet Jesus said, “Come”.

When we think about this from inside the boat we realize that Jesus was trying to tell Peter, the disciples, and ultimately us something. It only takes “one word” from God to overcome the raging storms. When Jesus told Peter to come, Peter not only walked on water but he was overcoming the raging storm. No sea spray in the face, no water splashing on his clothes, no wind blowing his hair around. Just perfect peace… It was only when Peter saw that the wind was boisterous and feared that he began to sink.  One word brought peace to an unbearable situation. There are 791,328 words in the bible. Pick One! One more thought… Jesus also had enough confidence in Peter to say to him,”Come”. That’s an awesome thought knowing that Peter was not much different than you and I. You know… Walking on water is simply trusting the unknown, the future, and the risks of life to God, and staying true to the God who loves you more than you can ever imagine. Let us all here the words…”Come”

March 13th, 2007 by admin

Four old ladies sitting across the table from me throwing peanut shells wildly on the floor and having a big time. My co-worker Josh Onstott and I were grabbing a quick lunch at our local Logan’s Roadhouse Restaurant when suddenly our waitress came up to me and said, “Sorry, but I’m gonna get loud!”

She then proceeded to pull up a stool and stand on top of it. She got everyone’s attention in the place and said, “We don’t sing happy birthday around here, but we have a young woman that just turned 21 and on the count of 3, lets all give a big “who ya”.

Of course when she hit 3 we all gave the big “who ya”. These women were late, late, late twenties. More like pushing 80. This made me think. Why are we so ashamed of our ages. There comes a time, and I suppose it is different for all of us, when we start lying about how old we are. We also teach our children that it is not polite to ask old people how old they are. Why? Isn’t old age a thing to celebrate. These crusaders have made it through the trials, ups and downs, pain etc… of life and they are still journeying on. Old age is awesome and reveals strength, endurance, and determination. We should be proud to say we have made it 80 years in this life and are still smiling, throwing peanut shells frivously on the floor, and shouting out “who ya” to the top of our lungs. We should honor those we call “blue hairs” instead of complaining about them driving 30 miles an hour down the highway. It’s the BIG COVER UP! I just turned 40 and I could use some of their endurance. How about this, on the count of three we should all give a big “who ya” to those that are passing the wisdom down to us and help us realize “what really matters”. OK ready… one… two…three… “WHO YA!!!!”

March 11th, 2007 by admin

Do you know that you have never seen your face. Now I know that sounds weird, but think about it. You actually have never seen your face. You have only seen a reflection of your face. Whenever you look in a mirror you are not actually looking at your face. You are looking at a reflection of your face. Actually, it is impossible to physically look at your own face. We use mirrors to determine if something is out of place or to tell us we need to fix something. This is similar to our spirit. Have you ever wondered what your spirit is like. James 1:23-25 tells us, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the Word of God and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”  The Word acts as a mirror to our spirit. The Word of God tells us who we are and what we are and what we need to change. Next time you take a gander in the mirror mirror on the wall…take a gander into the spiritual one as well.