‘Old Friends’ Finally Meet!

The wife and I were priviliged to meet up with Geo from BoldGrace.com today. Geo and I have enjoyed a lot of conversation in recent months via the Net and by phone. I can’t say enough about the connection I enjoy with him. We finish each other’s sentences and carry on like excited kids when discussing this awesome Grace in which we stand… and excited kids we are!

Geo’s work had him in the central Florida area for a few days so we chose to rendezvous on this gorgeous sunshiny but mild Saturday morning. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast and great time of conversation at an area Cracker Barrel! Our first time together ‘in real time’ truly seemed like a reunion of long time friends – it was enriching and also totally cool! Thanks Geo for taking time to hang with us… we hope it’s the first of many times together!

Transition (you go where you look)

For the past several days my wife and I have both been devouring an audio message series by Wayne Jacobsen called ‘Transition:  Moving From Religious Thinking to Relational Living’.  Wayne has generously made this series of 8 CDs available for free on Lifestream.org and we highly recommend it for anyone being drawn from religiosity to truly relating with God and others. On #6 How God Changes Us, about mid way, Wayne is speaking about this freedom of living loved, free from condemnation, from the context of Romans 8. Here’s some excerpts I grabbed and formatted as one paragraph:

If you’re living your life to abstain from the flesh rather than to indulge the flesh, you’re still living with a mind set on the flesh. This was never meant to work. The old nature can not please God. If you live to abstain from the flesh, that’s the same as living to please the flesh. It’s still living in the land of sin and death. But the more I get in touch with Who God is, the more He transforms me. I’m not even thinking about my flesh. Not only do I not indulge it, I’m not abstaining it, and I’m finding freedom to be who God wants me to be. What God wants to do is displace sin that’s in us. Our best effort can not move darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. Sin is a nothing. Sin is the darkness of our hearts that results from us not knowing we are loved by our Father.  

Religion conditions us a mindset of  ‘sin avoidance’ but this never truly leads to the liberating and vibrant life that God intends and desires for us.  Motorcyclists know the rule (and most of us learned the hard way) – ‘look where you go and you go where you look’. A surefire way to wipeout is to gaze at the oncoming traffic you intend to avoid.  Someone once said ‘you become what you behold’. God beckons us to gaze only upon Him Who IS love, not at sin or our sin condition which He already has dealt with through the Cross. The Good News of the Gospel is an invitation to a relationship, and relational living which transitionally displaces the darkness – not the instructional regulations that man has shrinkwrapped it down to in our effort to avoid darkness!

This is only a test

God loves me because

(check only one) :

A) I’m entitled to it or have earned it.

B) I’m needy and to be pitied.

C) He wants to fix me so I can fix others.

D) He loves me and desires this love to be enjoyed and expressed back to Him in a vibrant, life-transforming relationship.