Musician Paul Wilbur has the idea that a YouTube video of Stacy Westfall and her horse Whizard’s Baby Doll is an excellent example of the contrast between living life by trying to be good enough to obey the rules of the law or by being sensitive enough to live life by listening to the Spirit of Life. Typically, in competitions […]
How do you expect carnal, immature believers and unbelievers to treat you? Should they be nice and generous and forgiving and tolerant and happy to see you? Will they? If you have discovered that you don’t like a certain beverage, like mineral water, or buttermilk, you are not likely to drink it if you see it coming. Interacting with humans […]
I have noticed lately that I am more likely to get headaches when my attitude toward projects or people includes dread. Dread is a soup made from various portions of fear, anger, laziness, unforgiveness, and more. Sometimes it is heavier with one ingredient or another. In contrast, thankfulness, joy, peace, patience, love are sources of life to me, and make […]
Jesus died to give you the life you are living. What are the goals you have for it? Do you hope to overcome sin? To become free of fear? Are pride, stinginess, offendability the hurdles you hope to jump past before you die? What impact do you hope to leave in the earth by your hours, days, years? Frequently, the […]
You need to be well-informed. You need to be strong in your understanding. You need wisdom. You can do things to increase these in your life. However – if you are knowledgeable and wise and have great understanding, but are not under the influence of the Spirit of Jesus, you are like a soldier with no connection to an army. […]
The greatest two skills you can develop in life are the ability to make decisions and the ability to follow through with the decisions you make. The greatest way to practice these two skills is under the influence of the Holy Spirit. I will praise the Lord who counsels me— even at night my conscience instructs me. I keep the […]
My strength cannot find its source in my self. It has to find strength that is like gravity or light or heat. If my ability to stand or to be settled or be committed is from within me, it will be relative in its ability to be maintained. It will be questionable in its ability to discern truth. It will […]
Action confronts and can overcome fear. Delay acquiesces to and can strengthen fear. So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. All […]
One of the most powerful hindrances to our ability to hear the Spirit speaking to us and to our strength to thereafter obey what He says is our religious heritage. We are programmed to believe certain religious practices and objects and designs have spiritual value. Some of what we value is actually very costly liability. We are taught by our […]
My hero E. Stanley Jones once said, “As long as I am alive to God – alive to His suggestions, His urges, His leadings, His love – I am by that very expulsive fact dead to sin. The higher expels the lower. I don’t fight sin. I expel it by preoccupation with the Higher. Looking at Him I am spoiled […]