by

Light of the World

That scene where Peter makes his enlightened confession of Christ leads me to ponder. As I recall from scripture, only Peter, James and John witnessed the transfiguration. Before that, the 12, just like everyone else, saw the natural man Jesus, with their natural eyes. Asked “Who do people say that I am?”, there was no risk for the disciples to answer Jesus’ question; they simply repeated what they’d heard. Not once did Jesus say “BZZT! Wrong!” Even when some of the answers were preposterous. “John the Baptist? Someone thought I was John the Baptist? He baptized Me! How could I be him?!?” No, Jesus just listened. But then He asked the $64,000 question; one fraught with risk for the disciples. Did fear of speaking foolishly make for a complete silence? How long did the crickets chirp?

It was Peter who declared what man can see only with eyes opened by God:

“You are the Christ – Son of the Living God”.

How I admire Peter’s willingness to take a risk and get out of the boat again – casting off the safety net of group conformity and boldly declaring his faith.

Continue reading →
by

Lord, teach us to pray!

I watched a man hobble out of the post office to his car, laboring over each step while leaning on a cane for support. With so many elderly in our community, it is fairly common to see people who are struggling with failing health. My heart goes out to them and often I find myself quietly praying for their healing and comfort.

As I prayed for the man at the post office, the Holy Spirit impressed me that I was relying on human sight to pray for people suffering from obvious physical conditions. After reminding me that the Proverb says “lean not on your own understanding”, the Holy Spirit prompted me to consider how my praying might change if I could see a person’s spiritual needs and respond with prayer for those.

Continue reading →
by

Still in Love

Gone are the days when I could wile away the hours playing my guitar; responsibility trumps making music. For me, more than a hobby or profession, playing is a means to work out what I’m feeling when words elude me. With everything I need to do in caring for my elderly father and working with my wife to make a home for us, there is no more telltale sign of self neglect, than the dust buildup on my guitar. So when our wedding anniversary rolled around, I took my wife and my ‘girlfriend’ Roseanna* to Orcas island.

The ferry out of Anacortes to the San Juan islands affords many awe inspiring views as it weaves between the islands. Secluded on 80 acres, our room at the bed and breakfast overlooked a working sheep farm, from which the comforters in our room were made. Fresh eggs are collected and served for breakfast together with ripened fruit from the orchard. There is no television in the room; it is a place for rest and to reconnect.

Continue reading →
by

The Sons are FREE Prologue

Concerning Jesus and organized religion who rejected Him, it is written:

So we must go to Him outside the camp and endure the insults He endured. (Hebrews 13 verse 13)

When the Holy Spirit first called us to “flee Babylon”, I remember asking “who or what is Babylon?” It was nearly 2 years before we understood enough of what the Lord had shown us to hear and obey His call to leave man’s Laodicean church and to join Him outside the camp where He was waiting for us .

The ensuing years were humbling and wonderful as Jesus taught us through the Holy Spirit, corrected and freed us from the manipulative and errant doctrines of men, and led us into home-based fellowship with a few believers. When we retired, the Lord called us to move back to the Pacific Northwest where He led us to attend a small country church. We had visited them 6 months earlier while staying with my father and found the people to be warm and friendly and we looked forward to their fellowship.

Continue reading →
by

He Possesses my Reins

Next year, I’ll turn 70. Raised from childhood in a mainline church, the stories of Noah, David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale, captured my young imagination. There wasn’t anything we couldn’t make out of Popsicle sticks, craft paper, paste, and Plaster of Paris during Sunday School hour. It was a joyful experience, fondly remembered. Yet somewhere along the line, I learned that God was a harsh judge, sending punishment on people who were bad. Whether that was expressly taught, I don’t know, it’s just the impression I was left with by the time I reached adulthood. Fear and insecurity were reinforced at home and school, where some times it felt like the only time I heard my name, was when an adult summoned me for inquisition and punishment.

Realistically, fear and insecurity were at work within me even from conception. I was born with a heart defect. No, not a physical defect, but a wound to my very being that somehow prevented me from receiving love. Mom even wrote about it in my baby book – how it broke her heart that I didn’t like to be held or kissed, refused to suckle, or receive any other form of affection. The curse followed me into adulthood where I often downplayed anyone’s expression of love for me. From sources unknown, condemnation rang in my ears and denied me the love and care of others.

Continue reading →
by

Being Thankful

The Lord is good. Always good. He’s blessed me in so many ways: a loving wife, a comfortable home, health, precious time with my elderly parents before He took them home. For a lifetime, God has listened to my prayers and continues to demonstrate His loving kindness towards me and all those I’ve lifted up over the years. And as often as I’ve accused Him of not acting fast enough on my prayers, He’s even been patient with my impatience.

Though I am cognizant of all these things, sometimes it’s the little things that remind me of just how wonderful God is; how closely He watches over and protects me.

Karen and I went shopping about an hour from where we live. We visited several home goods stores to find accessories to decorate our living room. A few days before, we jumped in the truck to go grocery shopping and found the battery was dead, so we took the car. As soon as we got home with the groceries, I put the battery charger on the truck and gave it a full charge. “Must’ve left the lights on” I reasoned and assumed everything would be OK.

Continue reading →
by

In memory of Betsy

When the Father directed my wife and I to Illinois the summer of 1999, we met 3 older women who were real spit-fires; they frequented half the churches in town where they were always praying for revival. They led Bible studies and prayer groups, and discipled new believers all in service to the Father.

They were intrigued by our introduction to the congregation, specifically a couple so crazy as to move 2400 miles cross country, sight unseen, at the Father’s direction. Since I wasn’t yet working, the old gals invited me to one of their weekly morning prayer meetings. Just 43 years old at the time, I wasn’t particularly inclined to hang out with women in their 70s, but the host said there would be carrot cake for dessert. So I went. We had a nice time getting to know each other, sharing our testimonies and praying as the Spirit led us. As lunchtime approached and I began gathering my things to leave, one of the ladies said they were going to the home of a young woman who was bed-ridden with cancer. In that instant, the Spirit gave me the brief vision of 4 men who removed a section of Peter’s roof and lowered a paralytic by the 4 corners of a bed sheet to the front of Jesus for healing. Looking once again at the 3 ladies, I blurted out “YOU NEED A FOURTH!” Inwardly, I groaned but it was too late, they’d heard me.

Continue reading →
by

Who Bakes Your Bread

Jesus calls each of us to fellowship with Him because He loves us. He wants to spend time with us and teach us His ways. Getting to know Jesus takes commitment and discipline on our part to spend time with Him daily. But how should we go about getting to know Him?

I once thought knowing Jesus was as simple as reading Christian literature. There is no shortage of Christian devotional and study guides, topical books, and even fiction for entertainment. As if that weren’t enough, there are countless blogs and web sites devoted to spreading the Gospel, and an abundance of subscription services to deliver daily prayers, scriptures, and devotionals directly to my desk top.

But is reading Christian literature and media the best way to get to know Him?

Continue reading →
by

School of the Holy Spirit

I’ve attended more than a dozen churches in my lifetime. Some of the ministers I met encouraged me to seek God for myself and obey Him without hesitation. Such were the men who led me to Jesus and who married me and my wife. Both remained genuine and loving brothers in Christ who would never come between me and the Lord, except perhaps to stop me from doing something that would harm my relationship with Him. The former was like a 2nd father to me during my teen years, the latter a sweet friend and counselor, who could always be found on Saturday evening standing in the pulpit delivering his Sunday sermon before God and an empty sanctuary. Sadly, some others questioned whether I could really hear God’s voice for myself and insisted I obey them instead. Through them God taught me to stand up for my freedom and to respond like Peter who said: “judge for yourself whether it is right to obey you, or God”.

Examining what it means to be a Free Son takes several forms: identifying ways in which we’re free, and the things that hold us back. Often that means coming to terms with falsehoods we’ve embraced and the people who taught and reinforced them. No one ever said rising from the dead was going to be easy (Luke 9:60, Ephesians 5:14). Imagine Lazarus, passing peacefully in his sleep, only to awaken days later on a cold slab in a dark tomb, tightly bound in linen cloth with 75 pounds of burial spices wrapped up with him (John 19:39-40). However did Lazarus manage to get to his feet and stagger out of the tomb? Likewise, when we awaken from our slumber, how do we come out from under the heavy burdens placed on our shoulders by false teachers and teachings (Matthew 23:4)?

Continue reading →
by

Exposing the Tithe Lie

The TITHE AUDIO SERIES tab at the top of the page is the most recent and complete treatment of the TITHE subject. Divided into 12 parts, it is intended for individual and group study. Included is the script in PDF format and a reading in MP3 format. – Jack

There are 7 articles in the original “Tithe” series, written between 2000-2002 and posted to my former web site Lord, You Are (dot) com, now defunct. This article consolidates the  7 articles in the order they were published. Exposing the falsehood of the modern tithe doctrine was one of the instruments God used to set me free from man’s dead Laodicean church system. As always, I pray the Lord will use them to set you free from false teaching and guilt-based giving.

To Tithe or not to Tithe: the $earch for Truth

Though I’ve always struggled with the tithe, I still shook my head in disgust when I heard about the preacher who’s congregation quietly left the church during the prayer following a long sermon on tithing. He said “Amen”, looked up and cried out “half my church is gone!” I laughed saying “they must have fled the conviction of the Holy Spirit”.

donottithe8What the Lord said took me completely by surprise: “They fled from error and guilt-based giving”. “What?!?” I’ve heard more sermons on the tithe than on any other topic except perhaps our need of Jesus for eternal life! After I picked up my jaw from the floor, the Lord prompted me to study tithing and giving.

Throughout the Bible study I prayed for His guidance and in the end I reached the inescapable conclusion that the “tithe” is to the modern church what the issue of “circumcision” was to the church in Paul’s time.

NOTE: Nothing in this article is intended as an excuse to stop giving as the Lord leads you to give.

The verse most often cited in support of the tithe is from the Old Testament, found in Malachi 3:8-10: Continue reading →