Snapshots and Synapses

As we  spend time in His Presence , we take nourishment from His very life, just as a branch receives the nutrients it needs through it's connectedness to the vine. So eating and drinking the Reality of Christ fills us with an ever growing awareness of Who God is: He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and fully-good! I become emboldened by His love, the heart-felt knowledge His goodness is directed at me, and that his power and knowledge are working that goodness together for my benefit! (Romans 8:28) Basking in the Reality of God soaks us in the awareness of His Presence. Where we see the Reality of God, then? We know Him through the life and witness of Christ We touch Him through the life and witness of Christ's Body, His people We listen to Him through His prophetic speaking through dreams and visions or as a gentle voice in our consciousness We breathe in His Presence through our wonder of creation We experience Him through His coordination of our life's circumstanc...

So jumping back to the first question: what does it mean to remain in Him? Somehow, our lives and His essence are joined. My very being, my existence is intertwined with His. My purpose, my identity, my... me, is one with Christ. The circumstances of my life are perceived in the context of this relationship with Him. It is my very life. “I think and therefore I am” is a quote attributed to Rene' Descartes, a French philosopher, mathematician and physicist. Descartes exposed a fundamental truth about living, something completely personal, inward-looking and undeniably real: with life, there is an awareness of existence. The mere fact that I know I'm alive, proves beyond doubt that I am a being who exists. You see, this awareness... this heart-felt understanding that “I am aware” proves that I am alive. Am I aware of my environment? Am I aware of pleasure? Am I aware of pain? It's this awareness that makes my existence irrefutable. But there's a deeper, newer awar...

So as adopted children of God, what are our Family Values ?  Above all, we value the Presence of God’s love. We seek to live in His Presence. John’s gospel is often used to introduce new believers to the faith. John, friend of Jesus, often referred to himself as the beloved disciple. He understood the importance of basking in God’s loving Presence and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote: "Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to My Father's glory, that ...

In some ways, this is a continuation of a previous post , but I think it also stands on its own: In the beginning God's love overflowed into an action: the creation of others for Him to love. Because of His love, we are continuing to learn how to love. But rebellion entered the world when those He created for love sought to become their own god rather than remaining in the peace and grace of His Presence. The rebellious forsook His provision and protection (as well as obedience to His divine direction) and pursued inflated self-gratification in all its myriad forms. So sin entered the world, and the would-be-gods became victims of each other, pawns of a great deception because a rebellious heart tends to use everyone and everything for self-gain… and because there is and can only be One True God, Who is all-powerful, all-knowing and fully good.  God is love, and while He has loved us from the very beginning, He existed before “the beginning”. Since love only exists when the...

Why would anyone looking from the outside want to be a Christian? And why choose Christianity over the many other religions out there? In this ever-growing, post-Christian America, I’ve heard commentaries on all sorts of threats to Christianity: Secular Humanism, Islam, New Age Spiritism, Wiccan Paganism, etc. To be sure, these are all different world views, competing in each of us as well as the culture at large for our habits of thinking. But in reality, the greatest threat to Christianity in America is Christians. One of the most critical statements I heard about Christianity in America came shortly after the tragedy of September 11th. I read: “We went back to church after 9/11 only to remember why we left in the first place.” Ouch. Going along with this line of thought, I had read something years ago attributed to Mahatma Ghandi: “If it weren't for Christians, I'd be a Christian.” Or as C.S. Lewis put it: “Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.” The church i...

Shortly before the ball dropped in New York, signifying the start of 2013, Train sang John Lennon’s song: Imagine. I think the band, Train, is very talented, and I don’t want to sound critical of them or anyone who enjoys this song, but I disagree completely with the philosophy behind the lyrics. Now there’s a goal behind the song that I completely agree with and which everyone can get behind: aspirations of brotherhood and peace. And according to the song, the strategy for getting there is to eliminate those things that prevent men from attaining the desired goal: faith in God, patriotic affiliation, religious affiliation, and personal possessions. In other words, the solution to all the world’s problems is communism: “from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs”, fueled by the understanding that “religion is the opiate of the masses”. These concepts are attributed to Karl Marx and are cornerstones of his vision for communism. Now I believe it’s ...

I have a pin that says “Jesus is the reason for the season!”, and I used to wear it proudly. But recently, I’ve seen some things that make me a little less likely to wear it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still want people to know I’m a Christian and I want to tell people about Jesus. I want others to remember that God so loved us that He gave us the Gift of His Son. I want people to know that God demonstrated His love and sympathy for even the poorest of humanity by having His Son born in the lowest of circumstances: unknown - a stranger in a strange city, homeless - refused the most meager of human housing and forced to lodge with animals at birth. I can imagine Bethlehem bustling with economic flurry as it’s filled to capacity with visitors drawn by the Roman census while a poor carpenter and his wife seek to find a better shelter for their newborn. I want people to know that shortly after the Magi found Jesus, bestowing Him with gifts worthy of a King, that the family fled for Egyp...