This World Is Not Our Home

For the last few years I have used Mondays to fast and pray.  I try to set aside the first part of the day to focus on the Lord, perhaps reading the word, or praying specifically about something that is going on.  Some weeks I have done well to stick closely to my plan, and other weeks I have had to miss it all together due to a travel schedule, something that has come up, or sometimes for a pure lack of discipline.  Overall it has been pretty consistent though.

There are a lot of things that fasting does for us, but most of my early experiences with fasting were unsuccessful, and certainly unenlightened!  A little understanding goes a long way when it comes to things like this, things of a spiritual nature that go against what the body is used to or finds pleasure in. Continue reading “This World Is Not Our Home”

Change

change from earthen vessels

We are being invited into something new in God. It doesn’t look much like what is, and it doesn’t look much like what has come before. There are few who see it, and fewer who enter, tho it is being felt and is stirring in the hearts of many. More would enter, but forerunners are needed to make the way for others to come. Will you be one of those?

I am having the sense that this is bigger than i thought early on, or maybe just how I have thought about it lately. There seems to be a fair amount of turbulence, resistance, that is attempting to prevent access to the promise of change, this groaning promise of something new. How can we be sure that our pursuit will bring us to where we are hoping to go, when the trail is not well marked, there are many detractors, and others prominent who market false hope?

Luke 18:25 In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

Is it that we have to take off everything that we have put on, accumulated?

As we enter the Kingdom more and more, we lose affection for and entanglement with the things of this life. The verse above reveals the idea that abundance creates many entanglements. Whatever our entanglements, their value can not be compared to the value of His Kingdom, tho it takes the eye of faith to see it as it is.

Is the threat of losing what we accumulated worth the promise of something transcendent, but elusive? People are making this decision every day. Make it well today.

A Message You Need To Hear – Escape from Christendom

lonely_journey

Escape from Christendom
by Robert Burnell, 1980

The Journey

In my dream I see the lone figure of a man following a road. As the sun sets
beneath the hills, a city comes into view. Nearing it, the traveler sees what
appears to be a large group of churches. Spires and crosses pierce the
skyline. His pace quickens. Is this his destination? He passes an imposing
structure, a neon sign flashing “Cathedral of the Future.” Farther on a
floodlit stadium supports a billboard boasting that fifty thousand people
crowd into evangelistic meetings there three nights a week. Beyond this,
modest “New Testament” chapels and Hebrew Christian synagogues
cluster together on the street front.

“Is this the City of God?” I hear the traveler ask a woman at the information
booth in the central square.

“No this is Christian City, “she replies. Continue reading “A Message You Need To Hear – Escape from Christendom”

The Establishment

establishmentObserve “The Establishment” (of human institutions) and the pressure it exerts toward compliance – it's suspicion and self-righteousness. To these things I must not react, as Jesus did not, but rather do everything I see my Father doing.

The establishment, holding the truth in unrighteousness, seeking to limit and control the truth, to prevent it's freedom and influential impact, is storing up wrath for itself against the day if wrath. This much is routinely visible. Continue reading “The Establishment”