“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Romans 7:24

s the PERFECT night with family and friends. My daughter Cori turned into a Samurai Chef before my eyes as, standing in her backyard over an outdoor Habachi Grill, she entertained us with chopping food and uttering Japanese sounding like words… “HAIIIIIIIIIII!” Our family friends from Ohio were there with us…setting there taking it all in. It was PERFECT!!!!! Well…..almost!

Filet, shrimp and scallops were cooked and joined with broccoli, onions, zucchini and a host of other vegetables. ‘Flied lice’ was added at the end as a bonus! We were all stuffed to the max and could hold no more. After a few old family stories to remember our mutual times together, it was time to go home. Heading out I saw a pan of brownies and took one. It was THEN I discovered the something that was out of place…a hair!

All Cori could do was LAUGH!! Try as hard as I might, I just couldn’t! I kept trying to fish the hair out of the brownie, but it kept breaking off in my mouth! With my manliness reduced to nausea, I finally spit it all out into the trash! And right about now I KNOW, that YOU KNOW, EXACTLY how that feels! NOBODY likes hair in their food! It doesn’t matter that it was probably clean, and even baked free of any harmful bacteria. There is something about that experience that grosses ALL of us out!

Some unpleasantness in life can become accustomed to. A foul smell, a gross sound and even a nasty sight can be abated with time. But a hair in food? Nah!!! No way! Sadly, it is the same story when sin comes before the presence of God. It doesn’t matter if it’s from a blonde, brunette, or a gray or redhead! Sin is ALL intolerable to God! Some things just gross HIM out!

As I was leaving and the laughter still hung in the air, I noted my granddaughter’s face as she looked at me through a mirror. She had a kind of guilty smirk on her face! It was then that Cori said, “Gema and her friend made those brownies!!!” And ‘just like that,’ the circle was completed!

Gema didn’t MEAN to put that hair in the brownie. I know there’s not a mean bone in her body! In fact, we don’t even know if it was HERS! But it was THERE! And one way or another…it had to go! Just like the sin that separates me from my perfect Heavenly Father, someone HAD to REMOVE the offensive substance that made me WRETCHED before God. And ‘just like that,’ the answer to today’s Bible verse question is…”JESUS!”

Have YOU been delivered?  

“Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” John 20:29

A friend gave me and a few of the church guys this shirt over Christmas. Yesterday I was heading out with ‘my wife’ and decided to put it on before leaving. I had no idea it would get such a large reaction from other people. One guy said it was the best shirt he’s seen in a while! Since Katie was standing right beside me, I didn’t know if He was talking about the shirt…or HER!

I have to admit that when I saw Frankie wearing his shirt, I had missed ‘seeing’ the fine print myself. That is, until I finally saw it! Now I realized that the best and biggest reaction to this shirt is IMMEDIATELY when the word ‘psycHOTic’ is FIRST seen! Which is kind of the way it works with Jesus too!

Psychosis is a symptom of an illness, and is used to describe conditions that affect the mind where there has been some loss of contact with reality. That’s a big fancy way of saying someone is ‘out of their mind’ or ‘crazy!’ Which can EASILY be a word describing a Christian. Since we can’t SEE Jesus, many think we are CRAZY to BELIEVE in Him. When folks SEE the word ‘HOT’ on my shirt…then SEE my wife beside me, it’s not a crazy statement! When they catch the whole word, usually the crazy person becomes ME!

Faith is not blind and it is never intended to be so! No where in the Bible are we called to put our faith into something that has no proof of existence. On the contrary! The Word of God PROVES and gives even MORE evidential proof as to how, and why, Jesus Christ is EXACTLY who He claims to be…the Son of God!

I am called by Christ to be His disciple and to go out into the world to prove, and BE the proof of, His claim. It is an impossible task…on my own! He even says so in His Word! Jesus Christ, living in me, is supposed to be proof of His existence and Godliness. But I have to admit, that seems kind of crazy! Which leads me to a thought!!! Could this maybe be proof that Jesus Christ is psychotic???

There is nothing wonderful, awesome, loving and attractive in me. As a born sinner I cannot redeem myself. But The Word says that God loved and saw me how I am NOT…and made me what I AM. Romans 4:27 says, “God gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Which is the craziest thing I could ever hope for! It makes me see and love this ‘crazy Jesus’ all the more!!

Are YOU crazy for the God who is crazy over YOU?

Thanks for the fun Frankie!

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.” Luke 3:4

Our immediate family is rather big. With 19 of us, all busy and running in different directions, it isn’t often we can all get together. Some old family friends were in town visiting, and I thought it’d be great to put out an invitation for everyone to come together on Sunday afternoon…if it was convenient. Sometime around midnight on Saturday, my oldest daughter fired a flare!

Flare guns are meant to pinpoint a location where a possible emergency exists. Having all gotten together at Christmas 2 months ago, each family had to weigh out the importance of what they had planned against the invitation to get together as a family. It wasn’t actually critical to be there…until we all saw the flare!

I’m writing this AFTER the get together to say that we had a BLAST! And yes…everyone came! As the subject of the coercive flame shot came up, we all laughed and gave our own side of what happened. My daughter took it all in stride, while sitting there with a smile on her face. She ended the conversation with…”but you’re all here aren’t you?” She had made her point!

There was a time in History when God fired a flare! After centuries of invitations, calls, cajoling, guilt and even threats of persecution, God’s last ditch effort to get the attention of His Family was to fire a flare. His name was John the Baptist! And man…did HE ever get attention!? But toward the end, it wasn’t the kind of attention he was looking for. It cost him his head!

Sin and its independent lifestyle had taken everyone’s eyes off Father God. In fact, the religious leaders were so off base, they invented rules to secure that their lifestyles would remain. That is…until the flare! Suddenly, being part of God’s REAL family made all the sense in the world! And to the chagrin of those with other plans, God’s family came together to form ‘The Church!’

I am pleased and proud that there was a 100% response rate to the flare from my daughter. No one questioned WHY she fired it. THAT was not what was important! Just like God’s flare that He continues to fire in these crazy mixed up days, the only importance was the response of The Family. In all our time together, she has never fired that flare even once. Until now! And I’m glad she did. It gave us a chance to verify just how important we are to each other!

How are YOU responding to God’s signals?