Growing Families

When we use professional designs to grow tribes, we end up with orphanages: a couple of professional parents and a crowd of children who have no parents. When we instead allow the supernatural design built into humanity, boys and girls fall in love and become parents of boys and girls who fall in love and become parents of boys and […]

Commandments

When Jesus gave a command to people around Him, or when He gives us a command, either by speaking it to us by His Spirit, or giving life to a Scripture to us by His Spirit, He is inviting us to live by His word. His instruction to be Holy is an invitation to Holiness. His direction to follow Him […]

Heart in Motion

Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord—you serve the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:24 Holman Christian Standard Bible ®©) We will be brought to justice one Day regarding our work in the garden of Yahweh that we call Earth. […]

No Tourists

As you go to work, to vacation from work, to a missions trip, to the grocery store, home… are you a tourist, or an invading force? Are you expecting, hoping, to encounter something that changes someone’s life, even if its yours? Are you staying insulated from having to care too much, or pay too much, or get too tired, or […]

Seeking and Saving

One test of the righteousness of our responses to the situations we face or discuss could be to ask ourselves how well they line up with the work of reconciliation and restoration and redemption. He is still at work seeking and saving things and people that were lost to Him. But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, […]

Wilt-Resistant

Sons and daughters of Yahweh don’t wilt under criticism. We don’t become bitter when falsely accused. We respond to insults, threats and attacks with love and with intercession. We build and plant and harvest. We may only get one great thing astonishingly right in our lifetime. It might be the next thing we attempt, without regard for how the last […]

Philippians 4:19

And you, Philippians, know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. For even in Thessalonica you sent gifts for my need several times. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that is increasing to your account. […]

Strong Currents

We are all on a journey. Our lives are thrust into a flow of others’ lives and deaths. If we simply surrender to the current, we will end up somewhere. The destination will not be good if we are only under the influence of powers and purposes from the world. Bitterness, unforgiveness, mismatched partnerships – these can snag us and […]

Gossip or Love

A gossip goes around revealing a secret, but the trustworthy keeps a confidence. A contrary man spreads conflict, and a gossip separates friends. The one who reveals secrets is a constant gossip; avoid someone with a big mouth. Without wood, fire goes out; without a gossip, conflict dies down. As charcoal for embers and wood for fire, so is a […]

Equipped for the Harvest

Most gatherings of believers in the US are waiting around, hoping for something. It doesn’t seem to be the Harvest at the End of the Age (Matthew 13:36-43), though. More like the county fair after the harvest is over, or a harvest festival. Or Heaven. Imagine a different scene, with congregations of the ekklesia of Christ in which each believer […]