The information that I can properly use to refer to my identity is located outside my self. The two points of reference I can use are my relationships and my work. If you ask me who I am, and my answer is “Douglas Thomas,” I have not answered your question. I have only given you the label by which I […]
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”“I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.” (John 4:25-26 Holman Christian Standard Bible ©®) Jesus announced to a woman from a Samaritan town that He is Messiah. She was expecting Messiah to appear […]
We should really be something between surprised and perplexed by the fact that one of the times Jesus spent the night praying, He called his disciples around Him and called 12 of them “apostles.” “Disciples” makes sense. Some of His followers were in deep relationships with Him. Some were intent on being obedient to His instructions and on applying His […]
As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be committed and repent. Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me. (Revelation 3:19-20 Holman Christian Standard Bible ®©) Jesus is committed to you. He is […]
You are important and valuable. Your life is important and valuable and powerful. How could any alternative be true when it is Yahweh, Who breathed the stars and universes, Who works in you to want to do what is righteousness and to be enabled to do what is righteousness (Philippians 2:12-13)? Go be awesome.
James wrote that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Paul wrote that in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6). Potential in a battery is power that is latent. It could produce work, but not unless it is connected properly in a circuit with a load that can do […]
On days, Yahweh is in your face with power and fire. On other days, He seems to be hiding, and the only communication you sense seems to be a quiet, garbled whisper. Further complication comes when He uses another person to communicate with us. Finding the thread through all of that which is like you “knowing your Shepherd’s voice” can […]
All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us. Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, […]
Frequently there is a battle between Yahweh’s desire to change us and our desire for Him to change our circumstances. It is difficult to imagine in the heat of that battle that He really wants to change us and our circumstances, but will only do it in His preferred order – when we accept being changed, He moves us into […]
Faith is weird. How do you get some? After you somehow find out after something went well that you actually had it (you think), how to you increase the amount of it that you have? What is it, even?? Maybe faith is doing something to prove you believe something. Sometimes it seems like faith is doing nothing, but in those times faith maybe […]