How YOU make a difference in someone's life

"Love never fails."  The Apostle Paul to the Corinthian Church


Who really loves you?  Whoever he is, he makes a difference in your life.  Whoever she is makes your life worth living.

You make a difference in the life of someone you really love. 

You make someone's life worth living by really living them.

Your genuine love never fails to change someone's life.  How do I know?  Because you're making a difference in my life by simply reading my words.  Out of all the things you could be doing right now, you're listening to me, giving me your attention.  And out of all the things I could be doing right now, I'm talking to you, giving you my undivided attention.  So by writing to you, the one reading my words right now, I'm loving you.  And by you reading my words, you are loving me.  My love is making a difference in your life because you could be doing something different right now.  Before you read my words, a blogger wasn't telling you that he's writing to directly to you because he loves you.  Now you are, and it's making a difference; it feels good to love and to be loved.  But what if you don't really feel loved right now?

Feel loved by me.

I genuinely love you.

"How can you say you love me when you don't know me?" you may ask.
"Because I feel loved by you for simply giving me your time and attention."
"I'm not really 'loving you,' I'm just reading a blog.  Love is far too strong a word," you may respond.


"Maybe it is for you, but not for me.  I do love you.  That's why I'm writing to you, specifically to you, the one who is reading.  I'm writing as if we are face to face, and I'm sharing my thoughts and feelings with you in words.  Now you can accept or reject my love, but it doesn't change the way I feel about you."


"Maybe you're some lonely stalker blogger desperate for someone to love you," someone says to me.
"Or maybe you're just as lonely as you think I am," I could respond.


What difference does it make whether I'm lonely or you're lonely, whether I'm desperate or you're desperate?  As the apostle Paul said to the Corinthian church, "Love never fails," so love always makes a difference to the one being loved.  Is it wrong for me to love you?  Would you rather me stop?  I won't because I can't, so you've just got to accept or reject it.  But know this, I'm making a difference in your life whether you accept or reject my love, and you are making a difference in my life by simply reading my words, whether I ever meet you or not.


I love you.
My love makes a difference to you.
Your love makes a difference to the one you love.

The one thing you need to do as a child of God

"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God." The Apostle Paul to the Roman Christians

 

I'm writing to the children of God, to those who believe in and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, to encourage us to do the only thing we need to do as God's children. 

 

Here is the only thing we need to do:
Follow the Spirit of God.

 

When we do this one thing, we experience everything necessary for the Christian life:

• We experience an understanding of the scriptures, inspired by the Spirit of God.
• We experience the character and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, experienced in the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit.
• We experience the very presence of God Himself in each of us and with all of us when we come together.
• We experience perfect unity, the oneness Christ prayed for, by which the world knows that Christ came into the world.

Follow the Spirit of God.  This is the only thing you need to do as a child of God.


How do you follow God's Spirit?


You begin by following your renewed conscience, as it is written,


"I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense towards God and man."  Acts 24:16


When you maintain a clear conscience, your spiritual ears become more and more sensitive to the Spirit's voice.  At first you will receive simply "yes" and "no" kinds of guidance from God's Spirit.  You will seek His permission to act or refrain from acting, to speak or remain silent.  You will seek His direction and His will, and He will give it to you more and more as you trust and obey Him.


Soon you will experience the Spirit initiating guidance, giving you intuitive directions and revelations about your life.  As you follow these step by step, moment by moment, and day by day, your spiritual ears will become even more keen. Growing in faithfulness and obedience to God's Spirit, you will come to know with confidence the very voice of God. 


You will not only receive guidance and wisdom concerning God's will, you will become intimately connected to God's heart.  The Spirit will guide you into all truth, His word being truth.  He will connect you to other Spirit led believers, and you will be the true church of Christ, one in heart and mind. You will bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus to those who don't believe.  They will hear God's Spirit empowered word and feel convicted of their sins.  Some will repent, others will reject conviction.  But everyone who hears the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ from you will know that the Spirit of God is with you and in you.  They will have no excuse.


You only need one thing:
Follow the Spirit of God.


Please pray with me:


Our Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus, we ask that you fill us and lead us by Your Spirit so that we will bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus until He returns for us.  Amen.


God bless all who read these words and put them into practice.

 

 

Why God Can't Sin (and how to be like Him) Part 4

I'm John, the husband of Beth, and the father of John Jr.; I just resisted the tempter.  This is my story.


I'm sitting up late at night at my dining room table on my computer.  I just saw Kim Kardashian in skimpy clothes on an advertisement on the side of my email.  (I've tried to get rid of all advertisements, but I can't, which is a shame in the land of the free and the home of the brave.)  My wife sleeps, as does my son.  I have nothing but time on my hands in a quiet house with my computer.  Do I keep looking at Kim K, or do I read Christian philosophies by William Lane Craig?


God or Kim K.?  That's really what it boils down to.


Is God better than imaginary sex with Kim K.?  Again, that's what her pictures do to me.  They tempt me to want to have sex with a married woman who has a daughter named North West.  She is the wife of Kanye West.  She is not my wife.  Yet I feel desire for her because of her lustfully tempting pictures. 


I also feel a desire to read about God.  


Pictures of Kim K. are just finger tips away. 
Words about God are just finger tips away.


I read about God...for hours...and hours. 
I literally find thinking about God better than thinking about Kim K.
Not to mention my beautiful Beth who saves her body just for me.


I so enjoy reading William Lane Craig's words that I have to make myself stop reading so I can go to bed and get up with my son.


I'm John, the husband of Beth, and the father of John Jr. I just resisted the tempter.  That was my story, and it can be yours.

Why God Can't Sin (and how to be like Him) Part 3

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.  James 1:13 ESV


Satan hates you.
God loves you.


Satan tempts you.
God fulfills you.


Satan wants you to commit adultery and fornication.
God wants you to get married and be intoxicated by your husband or your wife.


Notice the differences.


God never arouses desires and leaves them unfulfilled.  God always meets every good need and desire Himself as your Creator, or He will send you a creature to meet your human need, if you have one.


Satan arouses desires like unquenchable fires, then he teases and tempts until you feel like you're going to explode.  After you explode, you feel unfulfilled longing like a gaping hole in your chest.  If you were angry, Satan leaves angrier.  If you lust, Satan leaves you with more lust.


God brings justice to anger, or forgiveness where there is no earthly justice.
God brings a husband or wife to love and hold and make love to, or fills you with a spiritual purpose that consumes your mind and emotions until He brings you a husband or wife.


God never tempts you.
Satan is temptation.

Why God Can't Sin (and how to be like Him) Part 1

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 
James 1:13 ESV


Wouldn't it be nice if it were impossible for you and I to sin?  Imagine that you literally couldn't sin, that is was so contradictory to your nature, to what you are really like, that it would be as impossible to sin as it would be to for you to become a horse.  In this way, it's impossible for God to sin.


What makes sin impossible for God?  To answer this question, we have to understand what sin is in it's truest form.  James gives a good illustration of what sin is through the experience of temptation.


Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.  These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. 
James 1:14-15 NLT


According to James, we sin when we yield to our desires instead of yielding to God.  We want something or someone more than we want God or what God gives us.  So we sin to get what we want.  This is why we sin; but why can't God sin?


God is love, light, spirit, and life.  In other words, God is fulfillment itself, fulfilled in and of and by Himself.  What could you tempt God with?  What can you offer God that is better than God; what's better than being God? 

God can't sin because God can't be tempted.

He has no unfulfilled desires.

God has no needs.

Already, it seems impossible for you and me to ever experience this.  We clearly have needs and desires, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Even Jesus had needs when he was on earth.  He was hungry, thirsty, and sleepy at times.  Satan could tempt Jesus because He had needs like our own.  But Jesus never sinned.  Nor do we get the impression that He had sinful desires.  Hunger, thirst, and fatigue aren't sinful in and of themselves.  But they did give Satan an opportunity to tempt God the Son, yet Jesus never yielded to temptation.


How can we be like Jesus, who in His weakest moments didn't yield to temptation?  (Click here for part 2.)

Why God Can't Sin (and how to be like Him) Part 2

No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.  I John 3:9 NASB


If you believe in Jesus, your body no longer has power over you.  Your body has needs and desires, but your spirit is eternal and powerful; your spirit is fulfilled by God's Spirit in it.  This is why John says that those who are born of God don't sin and can't sin.  When you believed in Jesus, your spirit was reborn, and that part of you, which is the true you, does not and cannot sin.


But how do we make this real?


Think about it like this.


What's making you read this blog?  Out of all the things you could be doing or reading, why are you reading my words?  I'm sure no one is making you do it.


Or why do you read the Bible or biblical books, go to meet other Christians, or pray through out the day?


There is a part of you, the true you, that naturally wants to do those things.  That part of you does not sin when you are praying your heart out to God.  That part of you cannot sin when you are connecting to God.  There is no sin in God.  Therefore, when you are connecting to God, there's no sin in you. 


So what do we do?


We define ourselves by our new nature, the part of us that naturally and genuinely wants to pray, read scripture or scriptural writings, be with children of God, and live our lives for God.  When we do that, when temptations come, we will resist because we want to resist.  We won't resist because we're scared of hell, but because hellishness is against who and what we really are:  children of God, born of God's Spirit.


If you agree, please pray with me:


Our Father in heaven, we are Your children through faith in Christ Jesus.  We are born of your Spirit and led by Your Spirit.  This is who we really are.  Help us to always live according to the truth.  In Jesus Name, Amen.

How to Change the World by Changing Your World (Part 3)

We must change the way we see the world.

Our mind and imagination aren’t the origin of creation.

God’s mind and imagination are the origin of creation.

How would Noar act and interact with you or me?  According to how he sees reality.  If he sees you as a character in the play of his imagination, then he will speak and respond to you accordingly.  But what if Noar had a change of mind?

What if Noar saw you as you are:  God's creature, a son or daughter of the Creator? 

What if he saw you as an image and likeness of the One Who Is, with a freewill like His?

Noar's change of view, of how he sees you, would change the way he talks to you and responds to you.  He would leave his mind in order to experience The Mind, and your mind, which are not Noar's mind. 

Only God's mind is so infinitely big and vast that it can engage with and interact with free minds which are not His mind.  Minds so free that they can not only disagree with Deity, but rebel against the true liberty and ecstasy of oneness with God.  And when this rebellion happens, the rebels live in their imaginations.  In time they commit crime, minor and major, known and unknown.  But for eternity they will live in their own fantasy, one with out God the Creator, and one without creation.  They will be self-negations.  They will be in hell.  For now they create hell on earth by the tyranny of their fantasies, seeking to impose on you and me their imaginary reality.  Or are we the tyrants imposing on others our minds, as if our minds are The Mind?  How do you change your mind?  How do you change the world by changing your world?  Someone tells us how.  Jesus tells us how.  But perhaps you don't know who Jesus is.  I'll introduce you.

About 2000 years ago, a man was born of a virgin named Mary in a town called Bethlehem, located in Israel.  This was no ordinary man obviously.  He was (and is) God in a body.  He was born of the Spirit of God through a Jewish young woman named Mary.  Why her?  That's a long story.  What is more important is why God came in a body.  This is why, according to His own words:

"For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world:  to bear witness to the truth. All who are of the truth hear my voice."  Jesus, the God Man.

If you want to change your mind, your world, and the world you live in:

1. Make an unconditional commitment to see the truth,
2. and commit to living according to truth, no matter the consequences to you. 

When you do this, you will hear the voice of the God Man, Jesus.  You will see the world as He sees it, and thus see reality as it is, seeing yourself as you are, seeing creation as the Creator sees it.  And how you see the world will change the world, beginning with your world.