Walking With Jesus

How Good Are You at Listening to Your Spouse (Part 2)

By: Janel Breitensten

*If you haven’t read part 1, please to back and read it first; otherwise, this one won’t be as helpful as it could be. This is rich, please read slowly. Blessings, Ed 😊

Listening is a form of loving. It’s a gift, really, of being fully there to receive a person.

Words tether us to each other. They are, in many ways (but not all), our relationship, the cord between us.

Authors John and Stasi Eldredge note in Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul:

The gift of presence is a rare and beautiful gift. To come―unguarded, undistracted―and be fully present, fully engaged with whoever we are with at that moment. When we offer our unguarded presence, we live like Jesus.

So what’s one way, through listening, that you could move into being fully present?

Reminder on how to use this inventory: With each number, see if it’s a strength, weakness, or neither. Then, select 1-2 weaknesses from this list (and 1-2 from yesterday’s) you’d like to improve. (We’ll specialize these for listening to your spouse, but they apply to all relationships.)

You refrain from finishing your spouse’s sentences.
You ask for clarification when you don’t understand what your spouse means.
You don’t feel the need to prove yourself as wise or helpful.
Rather than planning your responses, you try to set those aside in your head and focus on what’s being said.
Your spouse is noticeably comforted after you spend time listening to them.
Your advice is highly individualized to your spouse, reflecting back what you’ve heard them say and steering clear of pat answers and cliches.
You have time in your schedule to listen to your spouse (and friends, children, etc.).
Before offering advice, you offer compassion and understanding: “I am so sorry. That sounds incredibly hard.”
You share your own circumstances that relate, but are careful not to refocus the conversation on you, or to indicate your circumstances were worse/harder.
You think of your spouse’s experience after you’ve left the conversation, internalizing their struggle. They’re on your heart, so you pray for them, too.
More than a problem being fixed, you prioritize that your spouse feels heard, received, and understood.

Would you like to improve your communication? Tap here for four tips.

THE GOOD STUFF: Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. (James 1:19)

ACTION POINTS: Write down your 1-2 points for change, and pray that God will create these from the inside out in your heart. Then tell your spouse about them for some accountability. Bonus: Have your spouse take this inventory evaluating you as a listener.

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How Good Are You at Listening to Your Spouse? (Part 1)

By: Janel Breitensten

*Janel, as I may have mentioned before, is among my favorite Family Life writers. She has a way of sneaking up on us with points that hit home hard sometimes. Please read carefully, because her words apply to a much broader audience than just our spouse. Blessings, Ed

Anyone else feel like listening is a dying art form?

We carry our lives tucked deep within us. We long for somebody (anybody!) to simply have the occasion to ask for and absorb what’s on our minds, what makes up our lives.

But communication in our world happens at the speed of light. We feel more “connected” after a 140-character tweet. Few of us possess the time or the training to receive the stories of those around us.

Unfortunately, this means people are withering around us―even in our own homes. Even in our own marriages.

This art form takes practice. Time. The ability to love someone like we love ourselves.

So we’ve created a brief inventory to help you uncover strengths and weaknesses of your personal listening style.

Answering honestly, ask yourself if each statement below is a strength, weakness, or neither. Then, select 1-2 weaknesses from this inventory (and 1-2 from tomorrow’s) you’d like to improve. (We’ll specialize these for listening to your spouse, but they apply to all relationships.)

People come away from talking to you possessing a better understanding of themselves.
You wait a few seconds after your spouse has stopped talking to see if they have more to say.
You practice “reflective listening,” using words like, “So I hear you saying that you’re …”
You’re comfortable with abstaining from advice at times, to simply be with someone in their grief. (Think of what Job’s friends didn’t do.)
You ask questions that cause your spouse to explore what he or she hasn’t before.
Your spouse frequently responds to you, “That’s a good question”―but it’s okay with you if you’re not the person with all the good questions.
You refrain from interrupting.
You’re comfortable with not having an answer for some of life’s unfixables.
You use facial expressions that are receptive: soft eyes, nodding, eye contact.
You pray silently for your husband or wife while listening, and ask God for wisdom in responding.

Click here for three communication tips based on wisdom gained from years (and years) of trial and error

THE GOOD STUFF: A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. (Proverbs 18:2,13) ACTION POINTS: Got your 1-2 points for change? Write them down. Because speech overflows from our hearts (Matthew 12:34), pray that God will reveal the heart issues beneath your listening issues. Bonus: Have your spouse take this inventory evaluating you as a listener.

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God and Neighbor

“Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NLT)

Our response to the Gospel, once we’re saved, is to share the Good News of salvation with anyone and everyone who will listen. To be possessors of the truth of the Gospel and not share it is sin. We’re not saved simply to grow spiritually fat with all our knowledge and wisdom, but to grow in those things with the express intent to be more prepared and equipped to share them. Preston Perry was right when he said: “We fall into sin when we don’t think about God and we don’t think about our neighbor.”

The plot thickens when we’re surrounded by those who hate the idea of God and hate us for believing in and following Him. Again, Preston Perry asks a vital question: “Will my love for Jesus still be as loud when I’m surrounded by people who hate him?” Obviously, the Lord plants us where He desires us to bloom, but often the Lord puts us in an environment where everything and everyone seems opposed to anything we stand for, but why? Why would the Lord put us in such an environment? Simply to fail?

Photo by https://kaboompics.com/ on Pexels.com

Having met a lot of angry, God-opposing people, one thing I’ve learned: they may hate God (or think they do), but they have a real affinity to love, kindness, gentleness, generosity, and patience. The worst thing we can do is respond to anger with anger, but when we respond to anger with kindness, thoughtfulness, patience, generosity, which are all expressions of love, while they may not make the immediate connection between God and love, hopefully, it will at least begin to soften their heart.

After several interactions with a young Mormon Elder, he texted me and said: “Yeah, there are definitely a lot of differences between us and traditional Christianity, thanks for being so even-keeled and a good friend to talk to!” And please don’t misunderstand, my intention isn’t to brag on myself or say I have this down, I certainly do not. What I do is ask the Lord to give me wisdom in writing any communication with anyone. The Spirit will lead you when you ask Him.

My approach has been to be upfront and honest, but also bold in sharing the truth of the Christian Faith. I’m simply doing what Preston Perry suggests when he wrote: “Using the gifts and personality God has given you, through your fears and discouragement, be bold in how you tell the truth to others.” We must understand that sharing our faith isn’t about winning an argument, it’s about rescuing a drowning person. We don’t offer swimming lessons; we extend a hand to rescue them.

As we communicate daily with lost loved ones, friends, co-workers, classmates, and others, we’re not seeking to win a battle, though on some levels we’re in a spiritual war; we’re seeking to convey to someone who doesn’t yet understand, what created in us the desire to follow Jesus. We must not allow our pride, arrogance, or other manifestations of sin in our behavior push people away. We can’t allow the enemy to use our personal conduct or behavior to cause someone to turn away from the Lord.

While the Lord has given me a burden for my neighbors, if they ask me not to send them anymore messages, I do comply but seek to keep the door of communication open as I see them in their yard or pass them in the neighborhood. I’m also praying the Lord will put someone else in their lives who can water what I’ve planted.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Embryos Aren’t Property

By: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett

*Am I wrong to assume most believers know or even care about the fate of most embryos? This helpful article gives us a much-needed perspective. Please read carefully and pass it on. Blessings, Ed 😊

In a recent exchange on X, Hannah Strege, “the world’s very first snowflake baby” was told by @RoryLS,

“There’s no such thing as ‘embryo adoption.’ Embryos are property, not people. You were not ‘adopted’ as an embryo, you were donated property. You might as well argue that a pebble has human rights.”

Hannah’s story as “Snowflake #1” has been told in various media outlets. She was born in December of 1998, but she had been conceived far earlier, deemed a “leftover” or “excess” embryo from an IVF process. Her parents, who were struggling with infertility, sought the counsel of Christian leaders about the ethics of adopting embryos and giving them a chance to be born and live life outside of the freezer.

As she put it in an article:

I was a frozen embryo, one of perhaps hundreds of thousands of them at the time, created via an in vitro fertilization industry unregulated and out of control. But I was fortunate. I was the first frozen embryo ever adopted. Before I had a name, I was assigned a number, not an identity.

In-Vitro Fertilization has created a moral crisis. There are now as many as 1.5 million frozen embryos in the U.S. alone. Many of these will remain frozen or simply tossed out. In the UK alone, an estimated 130,000 embryos have been thrown in the trash since 1991.

At the heart of the crisis, a crisis made worse by the normalization of IVF and other artificial reproductive technologies, is what Hannah Strege noted in her response to the X user:

And there it is. When your defense of IVF requires looking at a living human being and saying “you were property,” you may want to reconsider which side of the ethical argument you’re standing on. I was never property. I was somebody’s child.

Hannah has now dedicated her life to advocating for a truth that many have intentionally forgotten. As Dr. Seuss put it, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” Each and every human being carries unique value and priceless worth, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. The denial of the humanity of the unborn lies at the root of much evil in our world, from abortion to calling people like Hannah “property” on social media.

Whenever someone claims that the unborn, including embryos, do not count as fully human, we must be prepared to challenge it. Ask the one who made the claim what difference there is between the person he or she is now and the embryo he or she once was that would justify killing it? Or in the case of IVF, locking the embryo in a freezer or donating the embryo to science.

The only differences there are do not change our value. Just remember “SLED,” an acronym that stands for Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependence. Our value is never dependent on our size or location. Humans are always developing and always dependent on others. The fact that an embryo is small, frozen, dependent and still developing makes it no less a baby and no less a human being.

IVF, as it is commonly practiced, dehumanizes more embryos than are born, by treating human beings as “excess” and “unwanted” property. We’ve heard that kind of thinking before. In fact, we hear it every time a tyrant or particular group of people wants to oppress or destroy another group of people. Once we push past the special pleading and sentimentality, we will find the same reasoning behind current IVF practices. For now, you can find that quiet part said out loud on X to Hannah Strege.

Thankfully, she knows better and is more than able to push back on the lies said about her. As she recently tweeted out:

The fertility industry once had the power to decide whether I stayed frozen, was discarded, or got a chance at life. I grew up. That frozen embryo has a voice now. And I intend to make the industry very uncomfortable with what she has to say.

Is Worship Feeding You?

“Honor the Lord for the glory of His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.” (Psalm 29:2 NLT)

The sole purpose of worship is to give the Lord glory, honor and praise. The resultant “feelings” derived from our surrendered heart are personal, private and irrespective of the setting in which we find ourselves. Personal or corporate worship through prayer, fasting, singing, dancing, or however the Lord prompts us to come before Him is for Him, not for our recognition, right feelings, or edification. Whether by ourselves or in a crowded auditorium, our focus should always and only be on the Lord.

Music, preaching, and other components of modern worship must only be instruments in enabling us to see the Lord and hear His voice more clearly, not to hype us up into some emotional frenzy in order that we might feel like we’ve worshipped. Yes, of course, worship often has an emotional component. Sometimes I cry, but often a more appropriate response is contemplation, consideration of what the Lord is saying and how it applies to my personal life. The feeding of my soul comes through God’s Word as I read and study it for myself. Yes, of course, the Pastor’s messages give me insight and understanding, but I can’t expect the Spirit to always use another person to feed my soul.

Worship should open our hearts to the Lord, enabling our spirit to be sensitized to His Spirit that we might hear His voice and submit to His directives. Worship isn’t primarily for us, it’s for the Lord, but out of that experience should grow intimacy with the Lord which results in logical applications.

For example, worship should broaden our minds to grasp that though there is a vast difference between the Lord and us, His desire is that we should grow in our likeness of Him. Through worship the Lord communicates ways that can be accomplished. As we love Him in worship, our heart grows in love, thus broadening our capacity to love Him more and grow to become like the Lord more effectively.

As we express dependence upon Him in and through our worship, we learn to depend on Him more fully in the activities of our daily lives – in our home, at work, school, play, wherever we are, whatever the circumstances. Dependence on the Lord grows out of our recognition that apart from Him we can literally do nothing. The picture painted by the original term we use as “worship” means “worth-ship” and is illustrated by a dog licking its master’s hand.

Dogs are completely dependent upon their masters, just as we must be dependent upon our Savior. Does that mean we simply sit around and wait for the Lord to “feed” us? Quite to the contrary, it heightens our understanding that though we’re completely dependent, He has given us gifts and abilities designed by Him to make us useful in the carrying out of His eternal plans. That’s why it’s ludicrous to believe we go to worship to get something: i.e. to be fed, to get an emotional or spiritual “high” or in any other way be enriched by what we offer to the Lord other than the jubilation of our soul.

Micah Fries gives us insight when he writes: “If you judge your church’s worship based on how well you’ve been “fed” you have made yourself the object of your worship.” Worship isn’t about us! From start to finish it should only be centered and focused on the object of our worship, the Lord Jesus. There have been those who have used the excuse to leave a church that they weren’t “being fed”! That’s more often than not a reflection of the one leaving, not the ones being left.

Our spiritual nourishment must be derived from our personal and corporate worship of our Savior, not feelings derived from a special setting, listening to certain kinds of music or our favorite speakers “we” like, or reading only those portions of the Biblical texts that “speak to us”. Lord save us from selfishness and self-centeredness that rob us of the heart of what true worship of You is supposed to be.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Choosing to Believe

“It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.” (Hebrews 11:24-26 NLT)

Following Jesus isn’t an accident or something that happens by chance, it’s an act of the will, hopefully based on an informed decision that changes everything about us. We don’t become a believer in Jesus by osmosis or association with godly people. We may learn to love the Lord because of godly parents or others in our lives, but their faith is not transferable. Any faith in Jesus must be based on firsthand commitment, because anything less is a counterfeit. God has no grandchildren.

Does it seem strange to you that the writer of the Hebrew letter specifically mentions that Moses “thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt”? We’re tempted to think Jesus didn’t come on the scene until many years after Moses, but Jesus is our eternal King who has lived and will live forever. It’s clear from Moses’ writings that the Lord had given him insight into His future arrival and the plans the Lord had for Moses were exceptional.

It’s no accident that Jesus chose Moses and Elijah to visit with Him on the high mountain when Jesus’ appearance was transformed. Elijah had not experienced death but had been carried up to heaven in a whirlwind, and Moses, while the Bible says that he died on Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, no one was allowed to know where he was buried, that God Himself would handle His burial. Might the Lord have decided to take Moses as He had Elijah and Enoch, to heaven without dying?

That’s just my speculation, but my point is simple: Knowing Jesus is transformational and will result in our being with Him in heaven, whether through literal death, or being raptured as many will one day be and some of the Old Testament men were. Belief is life-transforming or it’s valueless; it changes everything or is meaningless; it affects every area and dimension of our life, or it’s not of God. I love the story Dr. David Jeremiah recently told in one of his Turning Point articles about Chrisitan author Jennifer Rothschild.

When Jennifer was a teenager, the doctor told her she was going blind. Returning home with her parents, everyone was silent in the car. Jennifer recalls: “When we got home, I went straight to our old upright piano…. I started to play a song I had never played before. I could no longer see to read music. I played the song by ear. Yes, that was a gift from God, that ability to play by ear. But the greater gift to me was what I played…. I played “It Is Well With My Soul.” I think God, even then, was reminding me what He had already embedded in my spirit – that while it was not well with my circumstances, it was probably not ever going to be well with my circumstances, but because of Jesus, He really had already made it well with my soul.”¹

Choosing to believe cannot be dependent upon our circumstances, but completely dependent on our conviction that the Lord owns our life and can do in, through, or with us anything of His choosing. Commitment to the Lord Jesus can never be: “I will follow You IF”, but simply: “I choose to follow You!”

Have you made that decision? If not, please tap ANewStory.com and let Ron Hutchcraft share a very simple and straightforward way you can have a relationship with the Lord Jesus for yourself.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

1Jennifer Rothschild, “Is God Just, Not Fair?” C. S. Lewis Institute, May 15, 2025.

The Only Hope For a Dying Heart

By: Ron Hutchcraft

*Ron Hutchcraft continues to inform and challenge us with this helpful article. Enjoy! Blessings, Ed 😊

David Letterman was one of the kings of late-night television for years. His offbeat sense of humor gave him a prime spot in America’s entertainment constellation for a long time. But one day, suddenly everybody stopped laughing. David Letterman, whose family had a bad history when it came to heart problems apparently, went in for some seemingly routine cardiac tests. Suddenly, this comic king was rushed into surgery by his doctor and given a multiple bypass operation on his heart. The doctor saw major blockage in David Letterman’s heart and he took radical action to save him.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about “The Only Hope For a Dying Heart.”

We all have heart trouble—potentially terminal heart trouble—according to God. Even if you have perfect EKGs and cardiac test results, you may very well have the kind of spiritual heart trouble that can only be removed by the greatest Heart Specialist in the universe. Like David Letterman, if you don’t allow the Surgeon to take radical action, your condition will be fatal—forever.

God’s Book, the Bible, says that our heart “is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jeremiah 17:9). Then God says, “I the Lord search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10). Man, God knows all the darkness we’ve concealed from everyone else. His heart tests expose every lie you’ve ever told, every adulterous thought or relationship, all the anger, all the selfishness, all the prejudice, bitterness, everything you’re ashamed of, and everything you wish you hadn’t done.

It isn’t that you don’t want to change—that you haven’t tried to change—but there’s this darkness inside of each of us that it seems nothing on earth can change; nothing on earth that is. In fact, a parent of yours, a grandparent of yours, may have had the same kind of heart trouble—the same sins. Those sins probably hurt you didn’t they, and now maybe you’re hurting people you love repeating those same sins.

Without radical action, we die spiritually from our heart trouble. That’s die as in being separated from God and His love forever in a place Jesus called hell. That’s the penalty for our sin, but your hope is in this wonderful word for today from the Word of God in Ezekiel 36:26. God says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit in you.”

God actually says He wants to give you a heart transplant; a whole new perspective on life, a whole new power to change, a whole new eternity. He wants to forgive all the sin and remove all the sin that has clogged your heart for so long.

It took His Son, Jesus, dying for your sin to make this miracle possible. And then Jesus walked out of His grave under His own power on Easter Sunday to prove He can give us eternal life. If you’ll give yourself to Jesus Christ and trust Him to be your Savior from your sin, the healing heart miracle can begin in your heart that very moment.

If you want to begin this life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ – and oh how I hope you do – you need to tell Him that right now. Tell Him, “Jesus, I know that I have sinned against You by running my own life. I know the penalty for that is spiritual death. Thank you for taking that penalty for me. Thank You for rising from the dead and for giving me this chance to begin a relationship with You. I want to, Jesus. Beginning right now, I’m Yours.”

If you want that, and you’d like a little encouragement in that direction, go to our website. It’s for you for a moment like this. It’s ANewStory.com.

See, religion can’t do this. It can only make you look better on the outside. Jesus will change you from the inside. There’s no need to hurt like this anymore. There’s no need to go on flirting with eternal death. There is a Savior who loves you and who paid the price so you could have a new beginning today my friend!

Destiny or History?

“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. ‘Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy, now you have received God’s mercy.’” (1 Peter 2:9-10 NLT)

How do we become great for God? By allowing Him to become great in and through us. Here’s the truth: if we’re seeking greatness for ourselves, if it is attained, it will be short-lived and disappointing. Why? Because God alone is “great and greatly to be praised” as the Psalmist declared in Psalm 48.

Greatness grows out of history, but is realized in our destiny, I love how Lisa Bevere expressed it when she wrote: “God speaks to WHO we are BECOMING not to WHO we’ve BEEN. He calls forth DESTINY rather than echo HISTORY.” The Lord isn’t nearly as concerned about who you are or who you’ve been as He is in who you will allow HIM to be in and through you. The more visible Jesus becomes in and through us, the greater measure of usefulness we’ll have in His Kingdom.

If we come to the Lord with a crisis of identity, we’ll be lost and virtually valueless to the Kingdom of God, but if, by His grace and in the power of His Spirit, we yield our life and allegiance to the Lord Jesus, open our heart and life to His directives, we can be anything He desires us to be or do.

If we see ourselves simply as a victim and we choose to be shaped by our victim mentality, we’ll feel worthless, depressed, distrusting, negative, and very likely self-pitying. Our identity will always be overshadowed by our thoughts of ourselves as “poor me”, rather than “How Great THOU ART!” Or if we only see ourselves as a worthless sinner, while the victim may focus on their pain, the sinner focuses on their failures. “Sinners” continue to relive their failures, living in shame and regret, ultimately concluding, “What’s the use! I’ll never amount to anything. I’ve failed, I must be a failure.”

Gratefully, we can learn from our history, but lean into our destiny by choosing a third option. The Apostle Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when he writes: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” Does that mean we simply ignore our previous life? Absolutely not! We learn from it, but we refuse to live in it.

Our new life allows us to experience an amazing, life-altering transformation that transcends the past and allows us to flow into a brand-new future designed and guided by the Lord Himself. The picture Paul paints is the beautiful butterfly that emerges from a cocoon; an ugly slug of a creature that becomes the awe inspiring butterfly, never to return to the confines of a cocoon again. The old is gone! The new has come!

This amazing transformation begins the moment we open our heart and mind to the Lordship of Jesus and will last throughout eternity. When a person is willing to give themselves to the ownership and rulership of the king of Kings, the Lord Jesus, from that moment He gives them the right , the Spirit-supplied power, to become and live as a brand new person.

If you’d like to discover that transformation for yourself, click on this link ANewStory.com and allow Ron Hutchcraft to walk you through a brief illustration as to how you can begin your new story today. You can step into a brand-new destiny, leaving your history behind.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Our Walk IS Our Message!

“As you go, proclaim, ‘The Kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:7-8 CSB)

What the Lord gives us we should freely give away, whether a message or money, but what He has NOT given us, we should keep to ourselves. Remember the words of James in 1:16-17: “So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.”

Not everything that comes into our lives is a gift from God, so, we must use discernment and wisdom as a child of God. As media from all sources floods our mind and heart, without the governing wisdom of the Spirit we will quickly believe lies that the Lord never intended for us to believe. Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light and has misled and deceived many into believing what is clearly false when compared to God’s Word, is true and believable.

Think of the millions who have fallen prey to the lies and false teachings of Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon cult, Charles Taze Russell, then Joseph Franklin Rutherford who forwarded and promoted the lies of the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult, and many others too numerous to list who have taken a thread of truth and twisted it into the lies of Satan.

Not unlike Satan himself when he said to Adam and Eve: “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit of any trees in the garden?” which, of course He DID NOT say, and Adam and Eve recognized what he said was a lie. But when that didn’t work Satan chose to clearly contradict what God DID say by telling Adam and Eve, “You won’t die!” Every lie begins with some twist of truth that unless we know and understand God’s Word, can twist our heart and mind and have us believing lies.

Do you know why Mormons are so believable? Because they are such good people. Friendly, helpful, loving, kind, and generous. They live better, more godly lives than many professed Christians, yet, their morality and goodness are based on lies, which makes their lives valueless to the Kingdom of the true God. Many people who are sucked into cults are looking for someone to love and accept them, to help them find meaning and purpose for their lives, but cults always have an ulterior motive.

Francis of Assisi wrote: “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” If our lives don’t reflect the life of our Savior, we’re wasting our life by living for ourselves. But, of course, a fair question must be: “What does the life of Jesus look like?” His life was built on the basis of His Lordship and His relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit. God’s Words found in the Bible will guide and guard us in our walk, but we must know them, believe them, and walk by them.

Learning to walk by faith in the Risen Christ is not a solo act, but a group effort. That’s why the early Church banded tightly together and learned at the feet of those whom Jesus Himself had taught and trained. We must, as children of God, align ourselves with those who follow the strict teachings of the Bible as outlined and governed by the Apostles themselves. The original Apostles’ Creed outlines the basic tenets of the Christian Faith and is still, foundationally, the tenets upon which evangelical believers base their Theology.

As disheartening as this next statement may be, hear my heart: No one denomination or non-denominational tenants of belief will encompass the totality of the true message of the Lord, that can only come from the Bible itself; however, some come closer than others. Align yourself with believers who not only “talk the talk”, but “walk the walk”, whose lives actually reflect the character of the Lord they profess to know and serve.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Darkness

“I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night – but even in darkness I cannot hide from You. To You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to You.” (Psalm 139:11-12 NLT)

Darkness manifests itself many times and in many ways. Darkness isn’t simply the absence of literal light; it can be the blindness of a heart or the closing of a mind. The tragedy of people in bondage to the darkness is that they believe they can see. Because they’re able to see the Sun with their physical eyes, they fail to make the connection with the bondage of their soul, they’re blind to the Son who liberates because they can’t perceive their bondage.

Think of the millions held in captivity by false religions, cults, and even “Christian” cults who follow a false Jesus. Yes, of course, it’s frightening and can be discouraging, but here’s the truth – Jesus is Lord of Light and He has power over darkness! We are not held in bondage if we’re servants of the living God. We’ve been liberated and empowered, not only to avoid darkness, but to overcome it in the strength of His Spirit. And, by His grace and in His strength, we can lead others in finding their liberation. But how?

The same way Jesus liberated those in bondage when He was on the earth – through believing prayer! Just as Jesus gave His disciples power and authority over darkness and the forces of unseen spirits, He can and will give us authority as the need arises, but this demands discernment. Satan will have us believing every lost person is filled with a demon if they don’t believe, and, admittedly, some surely are; however, demon possession is real and I’m convinced many who are locked away in “Insane” asylums have not lost their mind, they’ve lost their soul and the deliverance they need is not mental or emotional, it’s spiritual. But, again, this demands discernment and may be a “hard sell” to those in charge.

We’re good at putting “Band-Aids” on broken people who need a touch from God and deliverance from the evil one. While we shouldn’t see a demon behind every tree or the cause of every lost person’s evil, we must certainly be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s anointing on and in our own lives, enabling us to identify and respond to genuine needs of possession and oppression.

While Satan nor his emissaries can possess the heart or mind of a Jesus follower, he can certainly oppress us, causing us to act, feel, and think very frightening and ungodly things. When I’m distracted, my mind going in directions that I know are not pleasing to the Lord, my immediate response, as yours must be, is to turn to the Lord. Sometimes I stop whatever I’m doing and immediately refocus my thoughts intentionally on the Lord, seeking His presence to enable me to stay strong in Him.

Another very real avenue of attack is our dreams. Partly, I suspect, because I’m on a lot of medication, there are more nights than I care to admit when I have very bizarre and sometimes disturbing dreams. I’m in situations where I feel trapped, alone, lost, uncertain what to do or where to turn. People are strangers and sometimes aggressive and mean, uncaring and disregarding me almost as a stray dog.

What we can feel in our spirit is unsettling, but the moment I awaken I turn to the Lord and seek His strength and deliverance. I rebuke the power of the enemy over me and tell him to go back to hell where he belongs. We need not fear the enemy because every power he has against us as Jesus followers is a smoke screen. He has no authority over us except that which we give him

God’s Word assures us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that there is no temptation that can defeat or overpower us; that He is faithful and “WILL SHOW US A WAY OUT SO THAT WE CAN ENDURE!” Remember and claim Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and HE WILL show you which path to take.”

Darkness is prevalent, but Light is powerful and pervasive. We are not victims, but overcomers in and through Jesus! Be strong and courageous in and through Him, to His honor and fame.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊