Monthly Archives: November 2014

The God Kind of Faith: Spirit and Soul Food

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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Mustard Seed Faith

Below are three of my Haiku verses on the God kind of Faith. Every blessing . . . .

•A God-incidence –
powerfully spoken Word:
moving mountain Faith.

•Deployment Order:
to action-heavy trenches –
Faith’s best breeding grounds.

•Global prayers for peace –
unadulterated pleas
soaring under doubt’s breaths.

~ Fall 2014

When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, ‘Why couldn’t we throw it out?’ ‘Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,’ said Jesus. ‘The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.’ ~ Matthew 17:19-20, MSG

God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. ~ 1 Peter 1:5-7, MSG

The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. ~ Hebrews 11:1, MSG

Two Godly Spiritual Haiku Verses

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Isaiah 35_8, MSG

 

Whenever I read Isaiah 35:8-9, I immediately am reminded of the old gospel song my childhood church’s youth choir, which I participated in, often sang. That song is “Walking Up The King’s Highway.” Here are God’s words about His Highway to Heaven, which He spoke through the prophet Isaiah:

There will be a highway
    called the Holy Road.
No one rude or rebellious
    is permitted on this road.
It’s for GOD’s people exclusively—
    impossible to get lost on this road.
    Not even fools can get lost on it.
No lions on this road,
    no dangerous wild animals—
Nothing and no one dangerous or threatening.
    Only the redeemed will walk on it. ~ Isaiah 35:8-9, MSG

My godly spiritual haiku verses are as follows:

•King’s Highway welcomes
holy and righteous natures –
adverse spirits barred.

•Jesus only Way –
plus paths circumnavigate
Heaven’s perfect route.

                                                                                              ~ Fall 2014

In Loving Memory of My Cousin, Harding (Butch) Wade

16 Sunday Nov 2014

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The Morrow Brothers, Minus David

My cousin Butch is wearing the teal-colored shirt.

Harding - Butch - Wade

So we are always confident — we know that so long as we are at home in the body, we are away from our home with the Lord; for we live by trust, not by what we see.  We are confident, then, and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and come to our home with the Lord.

Therefore, whether at home or away from home, we try our utmost to please him; ~ 2 Corinthians 5:6-9, CJB

On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, my cousin Butch, as he affectionately was called, unexpectedly entered into eternal life, just seven days shy of his 71st birthday. His funeral was yesterday, November 15, 2014.

Butch was a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, and cousin. Because he was so close to my mother, who helped raise him, Butch was more like a big brother to me than an older cousin. I looked up to Butch, and there were many times he looked out for me.

My cousin Butch was an extraordinarily intelligent and a phenomenally gifted man. He always had plenty of self-confidence, yet he constantly was aware that his brainpower and talents came from Creator God.

Butch loved to make people laugh, and that is just one of the many reasons why he was a very likeable and a well-respected person. All the same, what I remember most about Butch was his calm and no-nonsense demeanor.

There can be no doubt that Butch will be greatly missed by multitudes of family members and friends. I personally will miss him dearly.

Rest in Peace Butch . . . .

 

 

Let’s Get Our Bounce On!

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Faith and Wisdom

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Get Our Bounce On

A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ~ Ephesians 6:10, NLT

When we put our relationship with Christ Jesus (our spiritual Household of Faith childship) into practice, we soon realize that we will have to battle with His enemy. This battle is the reason why we daily must wear our spiritual armor, daily wield the Sword of the Spirit, and daily be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we will be able to maintain our peace, our cheerful spirit, our strength, and our power, all of which come from Creator God’s Holy Spirit.

Now, if we, for example, have been given the abovementioned kind of protection (spiritual armor), weaponry (Sword of the Spirit), and Power (Holy Spirit Baptism), and if we are using everything we have been given, why is it that so many of us still are walking around looking defeated? How is it that Satan keeps beating our butts? Why are we spiritually fatigued?

The above last question reminded me of this old saying: “Put some pep in your step,” which is similar to the expressions: “Get some get up and go” and “Put a tiger in your tank.” The problem with all of these clichés is that, when placed alongside the measure of faith godly truth, they beg the question: If we have THE measure of Faith that causes us to trust Father God with our future, then why hasn’t that measure of Faith, which actually is a portion of His Faith, manifested enough power and strength in us for us to endure our present days? Said clichés also beg the question: If we have THE measure of Faith that enables us to set our minds on Father God, instead of on our circumstances, or on our problems, or on our inadequacies, then why don’t we have enough Faith to invigorate us—to keep us from dragging ourselves from here to there?

The truth is that we ought to have a bounce in our step (fervor for the spiritual life we have been called to live)—a bounce that is just as powerful as EVERY ounce of faith that is within us. In fact, even a mustard-seed Faith is powerful enough to symbolically AND literally move mountains (cf. Matthew 17:20). With this God-kind of Faith, when our eyes are on Jesus Christ and His Glory, without even thinking to do it, we will walk with a lively step (bounce); raise our heads high, looking skyward; and engage God’s enemy with the highest degree of combat readiness: war clothes, weaponry, vigor, conviction, confidence, strength, power, and so forth.

For many of us, however, the moment despair clouds the sunshine of our love, which is our Faith in Jesus Christ, that is when we immediately lose the pep to our step—there’s NO bounce, NO get up and go, NO tiger in our tanks—our heads are bowed low, and exuberance is NOWHERE to be found. Nevertheless, the Divine Truth also is that the Faith that believes in a God who will make a way (Future Tense) is the same Faith that gives (Present Tense) us the power to be energized, resilient, joyful, authoritative, powerful, and operational in the Lord’s ministry, even in the midst of our trials and tribulations.

We have liberty in Christ Jesus (cf. Galatians 5:1), which means we are delivered from any and all of the trappings that come with every kind of religious ceremony and superstition. For this reason, we never should allow ourselves to become a slave to either our day-to-day cares or the storms of life. Indeed, there is nothing that should hinder the freedom we have to live and move and have our being in Christ Jesus.

We are awesomely and amazingly made, and on top of that we have been given every spiritual gift we would need to indefatigably battle Father God and Christ’s enemy. These Divine Truths are why we should get our bounce on, now. Bounce with me, all who are God’s sons and daughters! AMEN.

~ from Faith and Wisdom: A Rhema Word in a Dry and Thirsty Land (2006); edited

Sanctified for the Mission—Preaching the Gospel, Discipling, Encouraging Fellow Believers, Glorifying God and Christ

04 Tuesday Nov 2014

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GO And Make Disciples of All Nations

Now I’m returning to you.
I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing
So my people can experience
My joy completed in them.
I gave them your word;
The godless world hated them because of it,
Because they didn’t join the world’s ways,
Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways.
I’m not asking that you take them out of the world
But that you guard them from the Evil One.
They are no more defined by the world
Than I am defined by the world.
Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth;
Your word is consecrating truth.
In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world,
I give them a mission in the world.
I’m consecrating myself for their sakes
So they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission. ~ John 17:13-19, MSG

Isn’t it wonderful that Father God’s grand design for Christ Jesus is now a good and finished work—a real, absolute, and unchangeable reality? He performed every part of the mission God had assigned to Him, and, in doing so, He pleased, praised, and glorified God. As a result, His finished work earned Him the right to return into Heaven to His Glory, to His Throne, and in His place of Honor, which is at the right hand of God.

Backing up just a little, in John 17:13-19, Christ Jesus’ mission on Earth is about to be completed, and that is why for protection purposes our Lord is turning over to our Heavenly Father His initial followers, as well as future disciples—all the believers who have received regeneration, salvation, and the Word of God—so that Father God can preserve them (keep them in perfect or purified condition—sanctify them), while they remain in this world. It is just like a good Shepherd to put the care and preservation of His sheep before His own safety and care, even though He is much aware of the immediacy of the Cross, and even though He knows the horrible death He’d have to face before He would be able to leave this world and return to the safety and purity of Heaven. It is exactly this knowledge that has Christ Jesus tenderly praying to Father God on behalf of ALL of His disciples, but specifically for His contemporary followers.

In His prayer, Christ Jesus isn’t asking Father God to translate these disciples right then and there, like in the manner of Enoch and Elijah, nor is He asking Father God to allow them to bypass earthly afflictions and sorrows by experiencing death in its common form. The Lord doesn’t pray for them to be taken out of this world right then and there, because He has GREAT work for them to do. If they were to be taken off of this Earth, there would be no one left behind to preach the Gospel of Christ so that sinners might be reborn and saved. Then too, if His present disciples were to be removed off the Earth at that time, there also would not be anyone left to encourage and edify the remaining saints (Mary the mother of Jesus, the other Mary’s, and other friends and followers of Christ Jesus, who later were in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost). Once again, Christ Jesus Himself is about to be crucified, resurrected, and raptured into Heaven. Thus, it is in His interest (for Christ Jesus’ legacy; everything He has handed down to His disciples) that His original followers should live on the Earth for a little bit longer, primarily so that, in addition to their Gospel preaching, their holy and righteous empowered and disciplined lifestyle also would be glorifying Father God and Christ Jesus, as well as witnessing to Father God’s unregenerate, unsaved chosen people and to the world’s lost souls.

Therefore, instead of praying for His disciples’ immediate removal, Christ Jesus expresses His concern for their safety and care, and by extension ours (meaning all of us who, after being reborn, saved by Grace, and justified, like the first-century disciples, would be left behind in this cold world to continue the Lord’s work). Since Christ Jesus knew that He soon would be crucified and that shortly after His resurrection would be leaving this Earth (would be raptured), He wanted to make sure that His current left-behind followers would have everything they needed to survive and thrive in this sin-sick world—a malignant world that would hate all of His followers just because they have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, and have accepted His Word as the absolute Divine Truth.

This knowledge is why the Lord wasn’t praying that His present-day disciples, nor His 21st-century followers, never would have to know afflictions, sorrows, exclusion, rejection, storms of controversies, adversity, or that they, nor we, never would be vilified, slandered, rebuked, reviled, abandoned, forgotten, or pushed aside, and so forth. There is no doubt that Christ Jesus also knew that these listed sufferings, which He Himself experienced, would be part and parcel of the Christian experience.

So then, for the Christian experience reason, the above stated hurts and sufferings, which are NOT the Tribulation Period’s Wrath of God but rather the centuries of persecutions committed by mankind, are precisely why the Lord knew that in order for His disciples, then and now, to be able to combat this world’s Evil and avoid sinning they all would have to be sanctified so that they would be able to continue to honor His legacy—continue to be holy and righteous saints who would pass on to future generations of believers His Gospel and His discipleship (His Word, teachings, and the good works He performed), until the end of the Age of Grace. Thus, just like the first-century disciples/believers had to receive the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying power before they could be mighty witnesses for Christ Jesus—before they could begin their mission of finishing what He had begun, which is the Great Commission (cf. Acts 1:8; see also Matthew 28:16-20)—we today also must receive the Lord’s prayed for sanctification.

This Holy Spirit-assigned process is the necessary infilling (Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues) that will guarantee we eventually will become Christlike and then, like Him, will be raptured off of this Earth, when our mission here is finished. Our removal at that time will mean that we are officially in the Lord’s rest, enjoying our eternal life with Christ Jesus in Heaven, without ever having to go through the prophesied Tribulation Period.

Praise the Lord! Sanctify us, right now, Holy Spirit! AMEN.

~ from Faith and Wisdom: A Rhema Word in a Dry and Thirsty Land (2006); edited