Snapshots and Synapses

Ok, let’s be honest, who has ever heard a clear definition of a soul. It’s a mystical, ethereal thing that is somehow the same as and yet different from our spirit (Hebrews 4:12). I’ve heard it described as the mind, will and emotion, which is both true and says absolutely nothing. The best definition I’ve heard is that it’s our habit of thinking, those thoughts we think without realizing that we are thinking, and that concept finally opened doors for me to understand how the soul is indeed the mind, will and emotion all tied up together in a way that describes the essence of who we are.  And that understanding opened many more doors to see how this battleground of the soul is where Satan operates. If he can get us to think wrongly without even realizing our self-sabotage, then the battle is almost won (by him… bad for us!). He can neutralize our efforts by the self-sabotage of our habits of thought. He can create discouraging feelings when God’s Word tells us to be bold and ...

“ Who is Jesus? ” That was the question I asked on Good Friday 30 years ago. I had come to doubt all that I had learned growing up in a Christian church. My first degree was in Philosophy, and my definition of a Philosopher was the same as Gandhi’s definition of Hindu: a seeker of Truth. I was a young naval officer who had just come off a miserable 6 week mini-deployment and in preparation for the six-month deployment brought along only “positive” things. I only brought music that I believed would be positive, and I only brought books that would be positive. I read several Hindu books in my search for truth, and I brought a Gideon’s Bible that had collected dust since being handed to me 4 years earlier. I had been praying that if God was real, for Him to reveal Himself to me. I was ready to throw away the concept of God or change it to whatever I discovered. After reading from the Hindu books, I reluctantly picked up the Gideon’s Bible. It only had the Proverbs, Psalms and New Test...

As I write this, I would really like to go to bed, but the Lord told me to get up and type this prayer and then to schedule it to be published on April 19th, 2019. This date has a special meaning to me: it is the 30 anniversary of when I asked Jesus to be Lord of my life. But it has special meaning to believers as Good Friday, the day that we remember Jesus’ death on the cross when He assumed all punishment for our sins, our many, various and repeated sins.  And yet the Church today is sick, giving little thought as to how far we are from Christ and His ways. We need to repent. And so I offer this prayer: Lord, let there be a revival in America and a renewal in Your Church throughout the world. We have let You and the world down. We have not lived as we should. We have sought to entertain ourselves rather than to find joy in Your Presence. We have sought our own comforts over the needs of our brothers. We have acted spiteful toward others instead of loving our enemies. We h...

I have a direct message for the Church but need to remind you of a few things first:  The fickle hearts of God’s people - with palm branches they praised the arrival of Jesus to Jerusalem and days later they were crying: “Crucify Him!” Jesus knew His mission. He came to seek and save the lost, in particular the lost sheep of Israel. He came to extend the Father’s offer of peace and goodwill to men. He was the Messiah, the prophesied Savior and Branch of Jesse. But people prefer darkness to light and choose to do what is right in their own eyes. They preferred a righteousness of self, choosing what is right as if they were God Himself, the Author of all creation, the Authority  of all that is right and wrong.  So the Jewish people welcomed the person they believed to be the Messiah, the Chosen One of God, and days later repeated the words of Satan spoken through the religious leaders of their day. “Crucify Him!” “He saved others, let Him save Himself!”  ...

Mankind is so foolish. We seem to think that evil presents itself as a horrible, ugly, repulsive thing that we would run away from. I wish that were the case. I wish I was repulsed by evil. But if I’m honest there is something attractive about some things that I know are wrong. The promise of pleasure or luxury or security lures many people astray. We are all flawed with the desire to feed all our wants. It is the nature of our flesh. When we give into our base nature, we feed the flesh. But the paradox of man is that we can rise up above our selfish wants and sacrifice ourselves for something greater. We can show such nobility and hope in the darkest times. Our base nature is like that of beasts but we reflect the divine nature of God as His image bearers when we rise above our flesh. We are conflicted, vacillating between good and evil, spirit and flesh, godly desire and carnal desire.  The Beast feeds the fleshly desires. The beast is what we all need to rise above. It...