“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!” Revelation 3:15

As daylight slipped into dusk, the temperature seemed to follow. Almost without a point of notice, the air had turned chilly, making a change of clothes necessary for comfort. By the time it was time for bed, the outside temperature was in the low 50’s! We were sitting warmly inside the house, when a dilemma crept into my brain.

The dilemma was neither dramatic nor life shattering. But it took more than a couple seconds to sort through to a decision, which qualified the thought as a dilemma. We like to sleep in a cool room, so I set the thermometer at night to 72 degrees. The thermostat registered 75. Asking Katie if she preferred I turn the air conditioner down or to open the windows, she had no preference! So I opened the windows. All was well… until about 1:30am.

When I woke up I was uncomfortably chilly, so I threw on a light blanket lying beside the bed. At 5am I was shivering again, so I closed the windows and opted for a heavier blanket from the couch. When the alarm went off, the first thing I did was turn on the heat so Katie would be comfortable!

It dawned on me, as I made my way to the coffee maker for the automatically brewed coffee, that we humans ALL live life with a Goldilocks syndrome. We want our beds, not too hard or too soft, but just right. Porridge, if we like it at all, must not be too hot or cold… but just right. In fact, nearly EVERYTHING we need or desire must fit into a slim margin of error if it is to satisfy us at all. Enter Jesus!

The Bible is God’s Word and comes complete with instructions for His will, along with examples galore of people who have both followed Him… or not! Years ago, moving into the discipline of reading it daily was a work in itself. Being honest, there are times that I am DEEPLY moved, and other times when I get absolutely nothin’! Which is kinda cool!

When I started the Christian Faith I was a pre-teenager. I felt like Jesus didn’t like me if I didn’t FEEL His presence. It took a long time to learn that feeling is NOT necessary for faith to live well. It may be the way I ‘like it’ but it is not any kind of proof. In fact, feeling is not even necessary for Faith to do it’s work! Truly walking with Jesus Christ is an exercise that can be hot, cold or neither! The question is… am I WALKING?

This morning I passed Katie in the hall and felt no giant urge to embrace or shun her. She must have felt the same way, because as we passed, and at exactly the same time, we bumped into one another… intentionally! Then laughed in the acknowledgment. The point? Living life continually loving, learning, serving and acknowledging Jesus is a continual comfort. I don’t need to add anything else to make me FEEL otherwise.

How is YOUR relationship with Jesus? 

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14:13-14

This picture of Mel Gibson and Jesus is a favorite of mine. I’ve seen it many times with words overlaid, the best being, “me trying to tell Jesus about my troubles.” Though the picture itself wasn’t on my mind, it exactly portrays my day yesterday… as one thing after another pushed me to places and attitudes where I didn’t really want to be. Then… the day ended!

As I lay in bed thinking about the events and how it all went, I wasn’t angry. Surprisingly I was exhausted PAST the point of frustration. I was joyful just to have made it through without a major calamity. I picked up a book from my nightstand and read a story of how much Jesus wants to spend time WITH me. Before I knew it, I was listening to HIM.

Me ‘n Jesus are ALWAYS in conversation. The Bible says to “pray without ceasing,” and I have that one down! But now I find myself under conviction, needing to perfect that policy. What I USUALLY do is whine, moan, crank, cuss and complain to Jesus. What HE usually does… is listen. Sadly enough, I don’t usually feel bad about those ‘terms of relationship.’

As I lay there reading, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit as He delivered Jesus’ personal message to me. To try to explain in words what was conveyed would take too long. But if you love Jesus, you already understand. His presence, as He overflowed His Spirit into mine, was more than I needed to KNOW that He was telling me how much He loves me… and MISSES me.

Oh how foolish felt! For a while, and almost out of a sense of survival mode, I have been concentrating on ME and NOT on HIM! But Jesus is a gentleman who never forces His way into the conversation. Neither does He walk away. He stays! And when the incessant whining of my grumbling ceased and silence filled the vacancy, His presence just suddenly became known! Everything else… vanished!

Being a Jesus Guy is a humbling kind of thing. When I realize how much HE gives and how much I take… and how He never complains about it, my joy rises. It is then that I can drop all the junk I’ve been holding on to! It is THEN… that I SEE what I REALLY need to do… is to switch roles. Silly man… It ISN’T me ‘n Jesus… it’s Jesus in me!

I think I’ll start off the weekend with that thought. Where is Jesus in YOUR daily life?

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11

I was undergoing testing and trial the other day. It seems that God is trying to teach me a lesson in an area I have refused to show up for in the past. Not wanting any part of this subject, it suddenly dawned on me that my class on ‘Patience’ was already in it’s 2^nd semester, and I was miserable!! Then my phone rang!

My 2 sons are in the shipping business. The oldest is a Tampa Bay Harbor Pilot….’in training.’ My phone rang because he was calling to talk. I always love to hear about his adventures, and secretly live vicariously through his stories. When I got the call I was unsuccessfully fighting low-class demons while organizing the garage. I was shocked to discover HE was having the EXACT same kind of day as I! ‘Cept HE was chasing ships!

As I was cleaning up the garage, a rope, then an extension cord, got tangled around some of the craziest things! Then I dropped an entire can of tacks all over the floor, while losing track of almost everything I laid down! He told me that, needing 2 ships to complete his training for the week, he had hit pay-dirt with a fast outbound, meeting a slow inbound, returning to the same port where he had parked his car. It turned out to be the complete opposite!

When the boys were little, my goal was not to play, have fun and spoil them until they grew up and moved away. From toddler, my goal was to turn them into MEN. Men who could handle the difficulties of life, while relying on God in the process. That meant there were lots of hard lessons and discipline along ‘Grow-Up Rd.’ It is interesting to note that, even at my age, God STILL has me in His boot camp on the same road.

It is not possible for me to fit all my junk into a garage without sorting, organizing and planning. It is not possible for my son to pilot 1000 foot ships until he has first learned to drive 600 foot ships on his own. An old Italian man once told me, “every job has it’s bones to chew.” We learn to become what God expects us to become, through the discipline of chewing bones!

At the end of the day, we both got what we were looking for. He got his ships out and in, I was able to get Katie’s car in the garage! Neither were possible by simply wishing and hoping. The jobs, done well through sweating the details, produced a peace that neither of us would have been able to enjoy had we walked off the job and said ‘no way!’

God is in the business of conforming all of His children into the Image of His Son, Jesus Christ. Knowing how great His son is, and how far away ‘I’ am from looking like Him, I don’t envy God’s job! He’s got it tougher than you and me put together. But He’s at work EVERY DAY!

What is God trying to do with YOU?

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” John 8:31-32

I had time to get to where I needed to be in half an hour… or so I thought. Needing to just pinpoint the exact building, I typed in the address into my phone and hit ‘GO!’ I was instantly shocked! While I actually believed I KNEW where I was going, the map told me otherwise. But, now rushed, it was decision time. Could and should I trust google? TIC TOC!

I grew up in a world where I had to learn HOW to read a map, and then FIND one to read! If I needed to find a particular house in a particular city and I didn’t know how to get to either, I had to find an atlas and manually look up the city in a legend on a map for that particular state. Then.. I would have to find a city directory of STREET names and look the street up on that legend and triangulate the coordinates to find it. (you’re thinking, “what’s an atlas?”).

I remember having to go to AAA to find the maps for the particular location where I wanted to travel. It wasn’t uncommon to have 4 or 5 maps in the car at once. And if texting and driving is dangerous, you haven’t experienced trying to read a multi-fold map while easing down the road. Today it is much easier. I can look everything up in my phone, and simply listen as it tells me where to go along my journey. If only life were that simple.

It is Thanksgiving preparation time and I recall the “BELIEVE” slogan of the Macy’s Day Parade last year. ‘Believe’ is a VERY interesting word that we are discussing in Bible Study. It is a word that has so many meanings, that ‘believing’ I know the right one can be questionable. Because it is a word that Jesus used a LOT… I think it’s important to understand what He meant.

The verses today are quite complex. Not only do they contain the conditional ‘if-then’ statement, they show that there is a process that must be followed, in ORDER, to receive the ‘freedom’ that Christ promised. Like my experience yesterday, it is not only about the destination, but the journey as well. And BELIEVING I KNOW where I’m going, does NOT guarantee I will get there.

I learned that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. When my sons went to sea, they told me that when traversing a globe, that statement is false! As I travel through this life I am learning that there are a LOT of things I THOUGHT I believed… that are wrong! They may sound good, but they can cause me to miss my destination by miles.

As we get into the HOLY-DAY season, I am committing my way to follow Jesus more closely, and to learn more about what He meant by what He said, so I can get where He wants me to go. Where are YOU headed, Pilgrim?

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

The road was dark and lonely as I sat at that red light. I wasn’t actually ALONE because a friend was in the truck with me. He had just helped me load up a 2^nd truckloads of stuff, and on this last run back to drop it off, we were running late. I used the word ‘lonely’ because NO ONE ELSE was on the road. THAT was when the devil knocked!

O.K… so it probably WASN’T the devil himself. More likely, it was my own selfishness. But the outfit of the whisperer made the speaker look the same, no matter WHO was wearing it! I couldn’t immediately tell by the voice because, after all, it WAS just a whisper. It said, “NOBODY’S WATCHING… just GO!!!!” At that moment, nothing made more sense! But knowing that the advice was an act of rebellion, I pondered it a little longer. Good thing!

I had been sitting at a light that hadn’t changed through it’s cycle. It happens. It was SUPPOSED to change, but it didn’t. So we sat. After several suggestions I was about to just DO IT! To GO! To RUN THE LIGHT! But my thinking took a little bit too long. Just long enough for another car’s headlights to light up the intersection from the other direction. “Eh… too late,” I thought.

As it turns out, the car that was coming from the other direction, and the one that HAD the green light AND the right of way, was a Florida Highway Patrol car! I wasn’t scared of the car… but I was terrified of what was driving it! A bona fide Highway Patrolman! Someone who represents and enforces ‘the Law of the Red Lights.’ I quickly thanked God for the delay.

Oh how often I relive that kind of scenario. My want and will gets pushed onto the highway of decision, directly on a collision course with HIS will and way. It happens often. TOO often. But the reason no one has read about it in the daily news is because God usually ends up getting HIS way when ‘I’ make the decision to drop MY will and follow His. When that happens, the whisperer takes a hike.

While it may not initially SOUND like it, this Bible verse is actually a PROMISE from God. Like an ‘IF…THEN’ argument. IF I submit to God… and IF I resist the devil… THEN the devil WILL FLEE from my intersection and interference position in my life. I KNOW it’s a GOD promise because… after all these years, I have never found it to fail! 

HAVE YOU? 

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise His name.” Psalm 100:4

Yesterday we began moving… stuff that is! Years ago we were blessed with a rental house, in which, over the years, we invested time and money. Unfortunately, it also became a place of storage for the overflow blessings of ‘stuff!’ Having reached a point where life needs to get simpler, we decided to sell the house. Driving over to begin moving those blessings, a song came on the radio that set me in an unexpected and welcome mood.

The song was old and I didn’t recognize it at first. But after a few bars of intro, I recognized it as a Christmas song… my first of this year! The weather was cool, daylight savings time had just kicked in, and the song made me realize that the Holy-day season is LEGITIMATELY upon us. Because I love Jesus… I LOVE the Holy-Days and the expectation that they bring!

Katie and I sweat, toiled and loaded up 4 truck loads of ‘stuff’ we have accumulated over our seasons of life. Some of it is beneficial, some is just junk. But the overwhelming portion of our treasures consists of Holiday decorations. 23 boxes are dedicated, just to Christmas alone! Now the task is to move and make room for them in the house where we live!

Because it ‘just so happens’ to be the Thanksgiving and Christmas season for decorating, moving it all wasn’t really that big of a deal for me. Since Katie is going to begin working her decoration magic soon anyway, we just set all the boxes in the back area of the house where she can easily get to them. Seeing the boxes, I discovered, creates even more anticipation!

God is SOOOOO COOL! There is nowhere in the Bible that says He CREATED anticipation, like He did the universe. But there is no doubt that seasons of life are there to serve the joyful purpose of looking forward. As I move forward in time, I can see where I have been, but I LIVE for where I am headed. The STUFF of my life simply reflects what is really most important.

I am going to sort through our stuff, make places to store what is important, and discard what is not. As I think about that task, I realize Jesus anticipates and EXPECTS me to ALWAYS be doing just that with my life in Him. After all, HE is looking forward to personally seeing me at His place some day. In fact…. He’s decorating it right now!

What are YOU anticipating?

“Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” Proverbs 4:25-27

Heading into the garage, my eyes were drawn to the door’s opening. Attention grabbed me in the form of a tiny anolis (a little Florida lizard) that suddenly found itself caught between me and the garage. And it was FLEEING! The fearful thing that caused its tremendous speed… was ME! But even though it didn’t know any better, it was fleeing toward a greater danger than any human.

My garage can be described by many different words… cluttered, disorganized, messy etc., but ‘kitchen’ isn’t one of them. There is absolutely NOTHING for a little lizard-like creature to eat in my garage. I’ve found their dead, dried up bodies behind ‘stuff’ stored there. Having run in there for whatever lizardly reason, reality didn’t turn out as planned. As an intelligent creature at the top of God’s creation, all I can do is shake my head. Because the lizard… is ME!

Sometimes I amaze myself at the choices I make. And one of the most perplexing questions anyone can ask is, “Why did I do THAT?” Just this morning I read a statement that made me stop to consider some of my own movements. 

“How we behave, over time, reflects what we believe; what we do reflects what we desire; our labors reflect our loves.” *

Difficult choices are really no surprise. EVERYONE deals with SOMETHING, and we ALL have stuff occupying our hearts that does not belong, and will not thrive, THERE! But THERE… it is. Distractedly, having just laid eyes on the capitalized word ‘EVERYONE,’ my heart suddenly lept toward a way out! Because when fleeing to bad choices, excuses are easy paths for convicted sinners.

There’s an old Indian story that presents a boy with a life lesson from his grandfather, “inside all of us grow 2 fighting wolves, 1 good and 1 evil.” When the boy asked, “Which one wins?” the wise grandfather replied, “the one you feed the most.” The story hits home as I look at my heart and see decorations from attitudes and choices. All which I never intended. But, there they are.

Growing up, I never really liked the book of James because it forced me to look at my deeds and intentions. Now that we are focusing on it at Bible Study, I remember WHY I never cared for it. Darkness hates light, and when light encounters it… darkness flees. Having experienced God’s ways of doing things, I recognize that He is trying to show me something I didn’t really want to see… the consequences of fleeing into dark and unfruitful places! Ya think He wants me to watch where I’m going???!!!!

Where do you see YOUR life headed?

*DesiringGod.org Jon Bloom November 4, 2021

This is a subject, I am sure, close to the heart of EVERY Believer in Christ!  A few of us subscribe to this devotional because of its content.  This will be an intro to our FLAP discussion tonight.   WHY do YOU DO what YOU DO?  The premise that we serve God out of duty and obligation is not only borning… it is false!  John Piper calls what we SHOULD be doing… Christian Hedonism.  And it is NOT a bad thing!  Tonight, our FLAP discussion will be on James 3:13 – 4:6.  Subject???  “The Meaning of Pleasure!”

The Meaning of Suffering

Devotional by John Piper

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:26)

We do not choose suffering simply because we are told to, but because the One who tells us to describes it as the path to everlasting joy.

He beckons us into the obedience of suffering not to demonstrate the strength of our devotion to duty, or to reveal the vigor of our moral resolve, or to prove the heights of our tolerance for pain, but rather to manifest, in childlike faith, the infinite preciousness of his all-satisfying promises — the all-satisfying greatness and beauty of his own glory as the fulfillment of all of them.

Moses “[chose] to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. . . . For he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:25–26). Therefore, his obedience glorified the reward — all that God is for him in Christ — not the resolve to suffer.

This is the essence of Christian Hedonism. In the pursuit of joy through suffering, we magnify the all-satisfying worth of the Source of our joy. God himself shines as the brightness at the end of our tunnel of pain.

If we do not communicate that he is the goal and the ground of our joy in suffering, then the very meaning of our suffering will be lost.

The meaning is this: God is gain. God is gain. God himself is gain. That’s the meaning of our suffering.

The chief end of man is to glorify God. And it is truer in suffering than anywhere else that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Devotional excerpted from Desiring God, pages 287–288

“You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” 2 Corinthians 9:11

The opportunity to head to the mountains for a long weekend led to the opportunity to see things a WHOLE lot of people don’t. Cool weather was delayed this year, which meant that leaves hadn’t dropped off the trees. Looking at the trees on the mountains was a spectacular sight. But not for everyone!

I was on a break and had gone there deliberately for the view. Standing in front of the mountain, gazing at the fiery display of color, was overwhelming. Not really looking for anything, I was enabled to see everything that mattered. Knowing who I am in God’s eyes allowed me to see and experience a quiet explosion of thankfulness too big to put into words.

Flying in and out within 4 days gave me an opportunity that my friend easily missed. Since he lives there, the scene, while beautiful, produced within him a conundrum. Looking at the calendar and the leaves still hanging, he wondered if he should start raking them up… or wait till they all fall! I could tell this was a real issue for him because he brought it up several times. I wasn’t concerned because… I don’t rake leaves anymore!

I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams! I often forget that fact and can grumble with the best of men. Which is silly really. Until I remind myself of Who I belong to, I can easily miss seeing the beauty of what that actually means. God didn’t invent colored falling leaves to make men work… He made them to be SEEN and APPRECIATED! Believing that opens me up to see even MORE beautiful views.

Receiving God’s gifts puts me in the position of royalty. Having that blessing reminds me that I am to SHARE what God has given me. Sharing produces even MORE thankfulness and MORE opportunities for me to see what I believe! That view gives me even MORE MOUNTAINS of opportunity to give and share.

What do YOU believe?