In the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus steps onto the stage of history in Mark 1:15 with a single, urgent call: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Moments later He walks the shoreline and in Mark 1:17 He calls some ordinary fishermen with two more words: “Follow me.” What begins as a crisis of repentance and faith quickly becomes a life of discipleship. Do you see the sequence? Repent, believe, follow — with “follow” meaning for them to “leave here” and “go there,” leaving one place and going to another. Yet this three-fold sequence still feels incomplete because, to me, there was an overarching theme missing. The apostles later insist that even the most sincere following falls short if it lacks one final, indispensable quality — love. So from my perspective here is the full sequence: repent, believe, follow, love.

Put a pin in that and let’s introduce another idea. Miracles. Yep, all the miracles Jesus did, one after another. Healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons. Then the crucifixion — resurrection, Jesus meeting with people for 40 days after, and the profound ascension. It was a mind-blowing moment when Jesus just “went up” and was received into a cloud. Nobody ever just “goes up.” And then add that later on there was the sound of a rushing wind, tongues of fire, and people speaking in other languages while they were all praying in an upper room — just incredible. People were astonished on top of amazed. Listen to this: From all the miracles Jesus did, miracle after miracle after miracle, the people were “amazed” (ekplēssō), they “wondered” and “marvelled” (thaumazō), and “they were astonished with a great astonishment” (existēmi megas ekstasis) — meaning they were so completely moved outside their natural state that they were stunned into silence, almost trance-like, pop-eyed astounded, like looking at something amazing. We are always being confronted by the miraculous divinity of God and His miracles. All God-sized miracles are so completely outside our perception of reality that we can’t help but be blown away.

With every miracle Jesus did, over and over, there was an epiphany and a choice that came upon everyone who witnessed it. There was a revelation, and then a decision or response. Not only were the witnesses confronted by the epiphany and the choice, but even those who heard about it from the witnesses were also confronted.

The revelation: My paraphrase of what some people were saying is, “This is not ordinary. Who is this that even death obeys Him?” (echoing the earlier question in Mark 4:41 after the storm). The signs and miracles kept pressing the claim that Jesus was acting with the authority of God Himself, and that He really is the Son of God.

And then a decision must follow. Once that revelation lands, any neutrality evaporates. People must decide whether to receive Him as who He claims to be — or who the signs declare Him to be — or to resist. Some believe and follow; others harden and walk away. Nevertheless, even those who harden and walk away, i think they were pressed the rest of their days concerning Jesus, because the word of the Lord does not cease.

Here is the sequence, including the God-insistent epiphany and choice that come from the miracles, and then Mark 1:15-17: miracles → astonishment → revelation of identity → decision → repent/ believe/ follow → love.

Repent — turn from the old direction and come home.
Believe — the present tense action verb of the noun “faith, meaning trust the good news and the King.
Follow — leave your obsessions, take up the cross, walk after Jesus, leaving here and going there, so to speak.
And the fourth step, Love — ah yes, the distinctive, non-negotiable character of that life of following.

i like the way love sits as the “above all” in the New Testament. Love keeps the sequence — repent, believe, follow — grounded in Scripture. It is not only biblically accurate, but also practical for real-life ministry and spiritual growth. The sequence of miracle → astonishment → revelation → decision,  leads us to: repent → believe → follow → love.

Without the fourth step, love, the first three can remain incomplete or even self-focused. A vision of Christ is not sufficient to sustain a life of faith if there is no accounting of how the vision fares in the rough and tumble of the world. i mean “accounting” here in the sense of honestly examining, explaining, and integrating, because inspiration alone simply doesn’t last. Feelings fade, doubts rise, and daily pressures simply grind us down over time. Love sees us through the ordinary chaos of human existence. With the clear framework sequence — repent, believe, follow, love — i believe we easily become more intentional, and the love can be and should be shared. Without the four-point framework, we easily become reactive and inconsistent, driven by personality rather than Scripture, and focused only on immediate relief instead of long-term formation and maturity.

Someone can change direction, affirm orthodoxy, and adopt certain Christian practices, yet still lack the relational, self-giving love that Jesus said would mark His disciples (John 13:34–35) and that Paul said is greater than faith and hope (1 Corinthians 13:13). Without love we are still landlocked and misunderstand God’s heart altogether.

When the Lord intercedes, intervenes, and even interposes, it is always far beyond the reality of this world we live in. How do you think anyone comes to repentance as the starting point of “repent, believe, follow”? How does the sequence miracle → astonishment → revelation → decision lead us into repent → believe → follow → love?

i’ve got this idea that starts like this: in the sequence repent, believe, follow, love, how do we figure people knew to do this thing called repentance to begin with? We understand a little of John 10:9. Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

We cannot — and do not — enter the Kingdom without Jesus. No one simply wakes up one day and decides on their own to repent and call on His name. Romans 3:10 states, “None is righteous, no, not one.” Without God’s intervention drawing us toward repentance, the thought of turning to Him for help would never arise. Jesus makes the same point in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches… apart from Me you can do nothing.” Nothing means nothing. Apart from Him we have no true insight, no righteous desire, nothing of lasting value. Nothing worthwhile in the spiritual life merely “just happens.” There are no pure happenstances.

Consider the sequence again: miracle → astonishment → revelation → decision → repent → believe → follow → love. Not every miracle is dramatic or explosive, and not every response is open-mouthed astonishment. Yet whenever God initiates the work, there is always some form of revelation of Himself. That revelation confronts us with a decision, and from the decision the rest of the sequence follows: repent, believe, follow, and love. The starting point of repentance may differ from person to person, but it remains genuine repentance — and it always comes because God Himself has first drawn near.

For me, repentance started not with an explosion of power but with the presence of the Lord. There was no mere man with magic motivational words. Looking back to 1973, what pressed me to decide was the presence of the Lord in the room who personally invited me into the Kingdom. There was initially a revelation which required a decision, but there was no miracle which astonished me. Now that i think of it, i was surprisingly casual about God being in the room with me, metaphorically looking me in the eye. The Holy Spirit suggested i repent and call on the name of Jesus, so repentance simply seemed like a good idea, so i did. I’m saying there may not be a miracle — as in an exploding-before-our-eyes type of miracle — but somehow there is the intervention and intercession of God, which is a miracle just by His being there, intervening.

Do you remember the sequence in your own life? How did you meet Jesus, and why did you think repentance, believing, following, and now living in His love was a good idea? Tell the story of the time you met Jesus.

What do you think?

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries

Built into the “morning” is the call of God to every person. Within each morning is His intent toward­s us causing a rise in people’s hearts to return, to come home to Jesus.

Some of the following may seem repetitive, but i believe it’s all worth saying as often as necessary until we get it down in our hearts. Know what i mean?

In the Hebrew word, “rain”, there is the hidden and revealed source of blessing, men may not know where the sprinkling comes from, but when the sprinkling on the earth is revealed, man is inspired to return.

In the word for “morning”, there is the rising of the light, the plowing under of the evening…. the morning is like an emissary of Holiness, top and first of the day… in the newness of the morning, again, man is inspired to return.

When it “rains” in the “morning”, it is a double pull on the hearts of people, and i don’t know about you, but i get a peculiar longing in my heart. The world may not realize it, but every morning, the appeal of the Lord to return is for everyone, everywhere, calling us to come home.

On that note, some may say returning to God is a fluid process, and the returning heart can arrive home by many different ways, but we must ask ourselves a very necessary question: How does the Lord say we come home? God is very specific about this and it is not flexible. Twice in John 10 Jesus said, “I AM the door”. In John14 Jesus said, “I AM the way, the truth, and life, and no one comes to the father except through me.” And then the passage through to home becomes more defined when Jesus narrows it down even further by saying, “If you have known me then you’ve known the Father” implying that if someone does not know Jesus then they don’t know the Father and can’t reach the Father without going through the son. Returning home is a nice romantic thing to dream about, but it’s more stringent than simply doing however you want, believing whatever suits you, based on what you think or the rumors you’ve heard. God was very specific about who shall return and how they’ll enter into Heaven. Very specific indeed.

Once God has spoken …. once His words have left His mouth, they continue to be spoken. That is amazing! i’ll say it again, Once the Lord has spoken, His words do not stop being said, they will continue until the end when all things will be revealed.

Hosea 6:3 “Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning that is happening before our very eyes; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain upon the earth.” i’ll say that with slightly different words, “Let us be steady and ready to study God. Let us be eager for God-knowledge. As sure as dawn breaks, so sure is his daily arrival. God is here! He comes as rain comes, as spring rain refreshing the ground.”

In every pleasant thing God has created, know that not only did the Lord make it for us, but there is a subtle call to us all. And yes, i realize i’m using the phrase “call to come home” and “call to return” repetitively, but it’s so important that we hear and understand what the Lord is saying. So much of everything in the world has diluted God’s intent, that in our present system of words and definitions, we easily lose sight of His love.

We are called upon in Philippians4:8 to think on whatsoever things are lovely …. in the word lovely there is a call of the Lord to let go of the hindrances of this life, focus your attention on Jesus, and return to the God of our fathers. When anyone walks into a garden and it’s just busting with brilliant flowers, doesn’t there rise in your heart an inclination to marvel? The call to return pulls at our hearts even when we look at the night sky and gaze at the moon.

The Lord’s longing for us to be restored can be found in almost every part of creation. Many don’t see or hear, but it is there. Will we respond to His ever present call? Either we do or we don’t…there is no sort of, pretty much, or for the most part. It’s a persistent call, an unrelenting call to all mankind, generation to generation, every morning, every evening, every flower, every waterfall, every mist, and every drop of rain which falls, the Lord beckons us to come away with Him, and sing the song of a rising new day.

Many seem to not be aware of the universal call of God…. not knowing what the longing in their hearts is about, but the longing is there none the less. Every time we watch it rain, every time we are mesmerized by the moon and the stars, every morning with the rising of the sun and the dew is fresh on the grass, mankind experiences an unidentifiable desire for restoration and recovery … we yearn to return to God.

The beauty of the morning is always striking and the birds announce the arrival of the new day which wraps our world in wonder. Even when things are bad with us, every morning, we start again with the thoughts of possibilities, thinking, maybe this day will be different. Hope rises on the wings of the new day, joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 90:14, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Psalm 30:5, “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of the morning saying: “I see the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house, from day-break to sun-rise, with thoughts which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fish in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind.”

It was the habit of the hero’s of our faith to rise at the break of day to meet with God. Abraham and Moses rose up early in the morning to stand before the Lord. God sent Moses to stand before Pharaoh in the morning. Joshua, David, Job, Isaiah, Daniel, Jesus, and the Apostles all saw something important about starting the day off by meeting with God in the morning, when the sun begins to crest the eastern sky. They all had a habit of making the Lord the first one they spoke with every morning …. it was a first fruit offering; they gave God the honor of first recognition, first address, and first notice. after all, He is the alpha and omega, and multiple Bible heroes’s honored Him as the first and the last. And you? Who do you honor with your first and last words of the day? We say Jesus is first in our lives, so in light of that common declaration among believers, who is the first person you speak to every morning?

What do you think?

Thank you for listening, i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries

In the “hurry up” world life style many of us live, it seems more and more often, fewer and fewer take the time to comfort, help, or even think about the state of things in life. “I’m late, I’m late for A very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late” There’s a great song by Mercy Me, called “Take the Time”, and some of the lyrics go,

“I’m the hungry and the weak
Can you even see me
I’m the stranger all alone
Won’t you welcome me home
I’m the naked and ashamed
Won’t you look my way,

Do it to the least of these
Do it to Me
You gotta take the time
You gotta take the time”

 Matthew 25:40 “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast of cool jazz and contemplative conversation.  Who knows about tomorrow but God, except this evening, it seems, the world has come to a rest, to a pause to ponder the day, at least on my end of the world, today, for the moment. i hope you have found rest for your body, mind, and spirit. Let’s remember where our true rest comes from. Peace and rest are abundant to those in Christ, and in the cool of the evening i find myself just wanting to camp out and stay. i doubt it’s the place, but if it were, well, that’s just not the way life is, is it? There are truly places in the earth which are peaceful, but the real peace abides with God alone. Life continues with families, friends, work, devotions. But in the midst of difficult and trying days, there can be a rest we all desperately need. Truely, i believe many are just bone weary. Tired of wrestling with themselves and other people. A man says to me the other day while looking out from under weary eyes, “i’m just tired”. Mind you though, he and his wife have been on the mission field for 30+ years so no wonder he’s tired.

Once again, thanks for joining me. Lend me your ears a short time, relax and breath. Take the time to enjoy a time of peace, if you don’t make it a point to “take the time”, it could easily pass you by.

There is an interesting idea presented in scripture which isn’t easily seen, and that is the value of someone who goes out of their way for others, or goes out of their way to accomplish something God has given for them to do. Romans 14:19, “Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.” The word “pursue” there is a present, active verb, meaning the time is now, and we are the ones doing the action. Get it? Do it now, pursue that which makes peace.

Taking the time to reach beyond ourselves is a purposeful thing, we have to purpose to take or make that time.

John 13:3-5, “ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God,
rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.”

i like something i heard recently saying, It’s not enough to simply be “On the path”, we must move our feet forward on “The Path”. If we don’t take the time, and quite often make time, for life to happen, the sun will rise and fall, the days will come and go, days will go by and life will seem to become more and more narrow with the feeling of being stuck in ever decreasing concentric circles.

Many times i’ve set in conventional church meetings when someone brought out a pan of water and towel and there was a “foot washing” ceremony. Someone would sit in a chair, remove their shoes and socks, and another person would kneel in front of them and wash their feet while others prayed or sang. It is a beautiful thing of humility, but let me suggest, though beautiful, it is looking at what Jesus did through a small peep hole with a limited view of the rest of what is going on, for what Jesus did suggests something much, much larger.

Today, a woman came over and weeded our front flower garden. She labored for four hours and then said she couldn’t get to it all today and that she would be back to finish. She said she didn’t want to be “company” but wanted to accomplish her intentions of weeding. She labored in the sun on behalf of someone besides herself, she gave her time and effort with focused intent. Friends, that was foot washing, metaphorically, she took the time to wash her neighbors feet. Had she not taken the time, it would still be a weedy mess which my uncooperative hands would not allow me to do. Again, that’s foot washing in a larger sense.

My wife just had surgery. A couple days later, friend’s brought over evening meals. That’s foot washing. That is taking the time to serve someone beyond ourselves. If we don’t make the time to exercise the Love of God in our hearts, how will the world see our love.

Take the opportunity to listen to your spouse, children, friends, and neighbors, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll hear. i’ve found if you give people just a little of your time, taking the time to listen, they’ll tell you much of their lives. Take the time to listen. Most people really do have something to say, if we’ll take the time to engage and hear them. God places high value on listening, and He also calls to us to be careful what and who we listen to, as in be discerning. We listen to God, to wise counsel and others as a mark of wisdom, humility, spiritual maturity, and healthy relationships.

James 1:19, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” This scripture links listening with self-control, one of the Fruits of the Spirit. Being quick to listen means prioritizing understanding over reacting or asserting our own view. Proverbs 18:13, “if one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

i believe, by far and large, an incredible amount of people feel isolated and alone, as if to say, they feel no one is taking the time to hear them. True or not, it’s how many feel. Don’t believe that? Do you think i’m being negative? Consider then to take the time to go talk to people for yourself, make small talk, give them a chance to tell their story and you too will begin to hear past the introductory talk and general congenial greetings. Take the time to hear the people around you.

Consider the words of our mouths, ponder to a conclusion the conversations we’ve heard or been involved in; considering carefully what we, ourselves, mean in our communications with others, as in what was our true intent. There’s a good one, “Ponder to a place of resolve”. It simply takes time. Let me encourage us all, take the time, the clock is ticking and if we don’t “take the time”, the clock ticks on and many times, the moment is past.

Listening is foundational to relationship with God, after all, faith itself “comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God.” Romans 10:17. And one more point about listening, i believe listening must lead to actin. Merely hearing without doing is incomplete. See James 1:22. God listens to us and we must reflect His character when we listen well to others.

So often i hear people say they don’t have time to do even the simplest things. i’ve wondered why some people don’t do the simplest things like reply to a text message or email. When asked, they say, i’m just so busy i don’t have time. One fellow said his family was a mess. His kids were being difficult to get along with, his wife seemed to grow more listless by the day. i asked him what he wanted and he said, “i just want some peace.” i asked him if he read his Bible or went to church. His reply? “i’m just too busy. We do soccer 5 days a week and then band practice on the weekend, not to mention work, and the kids with homework.” Well, that was only half the story. i decided to be a little aggressive and asked, “Did you go on vacation last year?” He said, “Oh yea! We went to Hawaii for two weeks last year! It was fabulous!” i asked from another angle, “Do you and your wife ever see any of your friends?” He said, “Oh absolutely! i play poker once a week with the guys, and my wife catches lunch with her girlfriends. It’s always a great time.” i bet you can see where this is going, right? So i asked, “If you have time for those other things, do you think it’s more about what you think is important? If it’s more important to play cards, eat lunch, and do kids activities than it is to spend time with God and your Bible, or even go to church, how do you expect to get any peace if peace only comes from one Person in the universe? If you’re too busy, remember, you’re the one who said yes to being busy. If you’re so busy you can’t answer a simple text or email, would you agree that it’s not really that your too busy but more that you’re choosing to not reply or not participate?” He was suddenly pleasant but distant, and i could tell the conversation was over. If we don’t take the time, it’s just not going to happen. God will do all He can do, but we must choose to participate, and that is choose to fully participate, and not from a distance either.

Rest. i mean really let yourself rest. Sit down, don’t do anything, don’t plan anything, don’t allow your mind to wander down the production-oriented path of “git ‘er done”. Many times we are sitting still, true, but in our minds we’re still doing, doing, doing, and not really resting. No one can rest for you, and certainly, no one but you can enter into the rest God has for you. Take the time to rest. If you don’t take the time to step into the place God has for you, it’s simply not going to happen and perspective easily gets lost.

Have you ever watched the flight path of a butterfly? It seems completely insane. But let me suggest, take the time to watch and consider that maybe much of our own life’s flight path isn’t all that different. It seems to me our lives, looking down from a 5000 ft view, are characteristically erratic, with flutters, loops, pauses, and constant changes in direction rather than flying in a, what we wish would be, a clean, measurable, predictably purposeful direction. The butterfly seems to zig and zag with reckless abandon, but amazingly it seems to find all the flowers it needs to find. Is it really so different? Is it really all as crazy as it looks? If God doesn’t open our eyes and we don’t take the time to watch, we’ll never see it. You’ve gotta “be there” to see. Besides, we all rarely move in straight lines anyway, if you think about it.

Take the time to observe. If we don’t do it, it’s simply not going to happen. Many years ago, i farmed for a living. One day, rather than immediately getting to the tasks of the day, i decided to just walk the rows and fields to look and see what i saw; observing the manner of things, observing how the work of my hand was prospering, or not. While standing up on a high hill near the edge of a hardwood forest overlooking the fields and all that God had given me, for some reason i turned my head to look into the woods. From deep within the woods i saw something large flying through the trees, twisting and turning, even spinning once in a spectacular barrel roll through the thick boughs of the trees. As it got closer i saw it was a large red-tailed hawk moving with such silent fluid skill i couldn’t help but stare, slack jawed. As it cleared the edge of the woods, the tip of it’s wings swished inches from the end of my nose; i looked square into the eyes of this incredible bird of prey as it looked back at me. Seconds later it was gone across the fields. i thought, how totally rare that was and i got to be here to see. If I hadn’t slowed to walk and simply observe—

if I hadn’t stood still in that one precise spot,

at that exact hour, on that particular morning—

if hurry had stolen the quiet from me,

I never would have witnessed the miracle of God’s creation. If we’re not willing to take the time to be there, feet moving on the path, the clock will tick on and life will click past us, one second at a time.

Jeremiah 15:15, “O LORD, You know; Remember me and visit me, And take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In Your enduring patience, do not take me away. Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.”

In his great discomfort, Jeremiah is calling to God to take the time, to come aside and visit with him. For us, let us take the time to go aside with God and be healed. All wounded things must go aside with God to be healed, they must take the time to sit with the Lord, visit and be visited. Oh, and that time alone with God, it isn’t punishment or exile while we are being healed, it is alone time with God, and that’s the best time above all best times.

The Lord, in His tender compassion, shares His wisdom with us—

a sheer mercy, pure and unearned, just to keep humankind breathing.

If God hadn’t poured out that wisdom, hadn’t taken the time to intercede, intervene, interpose… we’d have killed ourselves off a long ago without any help from anyone else, sure as the sun sinks, every day since the beginning, over the vast land mass of the earth. He doesn’t owe nobody anything. Not a debt, not a duty. No one has any leverage with the King of the Universe. He gives because He’s generous and it’s kindness in it’s purest form, and we best see it for what it is. Now think on this: Why would He share His deep, everlasting wisdom with us if we aren’t willing to step aside, sit down with Him, and just be still? He leans in close and says, “Come now, sit a while with Me.” Take the time.

If any of us have fallen into the snare of the enemy and we are possibly in a leadership position of some sort, if we have fallen down and been bruised by wrong choices, ours or others, or even by sin, sit yourself down and be healed from the contusions of your heart. Not sitting down because we are bad, but sitting down, removing ourselves from our duties of leadership because we need time to heal. Take the time to be healed, trust me, you’ll be better for it and so will the people God has asked you to invest in.

Consider this also: In 2 Samuel 7:18 it says, “David sat”, and, in general,  the phrase “sat down” is used 45 times approximately. David stopped what he was doing and sat down. He got himself out of the driver’s seat, and deliberately and reverently placed himself before God. For us it is “strategic not doing”, and it is a far cry from passivity or slothful resignation. As David “sat down” before God, he prayed. 2 Samuel 7:18-29. We say, “don’t just sit there do something”, but more often than we suppose, God says, “don’t just do something, sit there.” Let us pray, not that official thing we do, but the casual conversation, that every day, walk around conversation with God like we’re friends walking together, belonging, connecting, and practicing being good friends with God.

Maybe the only true failure is when we fail to become who God has envisioned us to be. Other than that failure is just the slip and slide of human behavior. God doesn’t have a problem with people who fail, but He DOES have a problem with people who fail to try. Don’t wait until you’re failing at everything to take a moment and do like David, “sit down”.

Take the time to be still and position yourself before the Lord. Read carefully and listen carefully. Take the time to dream, believe, and imagine. Learn to ask good questions, and to get wisdom to know when you’ve gotten a good answer. Do more than just be “on the path”, move your feet forward on the path. Think about it.

The date is today and the time is now. i have two watches i wear, one is a Chronos time piece and it ticks away in physical time. The other is a Kairos time piece, God time, and it always says the time is NOW. Now, take the time to listen for God. Now, be responsible for your actions. Now, take the time to remember, feel, laugh or cry. Chances are if you don’t take the time, things simply won’t happen. Tend your garden and make it beautiful, pursue an honest inventory and do something about it. There are many windows of opportunity along our path if we’ll lift our heads and enter into them.

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts, a fine establishment in the crook of the river, at the end of Old Field Road. i’m Social Porter and this program has been brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, Jaan Ojala, Ed Zangerle at Zangerle’s Farrier service, Kevin, Perry and Tommy of the Mebane Freedom League, ClassyKeys Computer services, Area 22 Guitars, and Jeff and Karen of Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.

As you go your way this week, remember that it’s not enough to just be on the path, you must move your feet. If we’re not willing to take the time to be there, feet moving on the path, the clock will tick on and life will click past us, one second at a time, and the moments will be gone if we don’t take the opportunity to be engaged with God and life.

Be strong and courageous, until we meet again.

The Infinity of God.

Eternity. Now there’s an amazingly big word. A vast, staggering word that we, as mankind, in and of ourselves, can’t really relate to. Every human has an expiration date stamped on our lives, and God has no such limit.

Our eyes only see just so far, our ears only hear in a narrow frequency band, our breath grows thin and slips away — in this body we were never meant to last forever. Yea, we can’t hardly relate to the word’s eternity or infinity. We’ve only ever known this one small existence. We were born under this sky, standing on this earth, breathing this air, eating this food, seeing and hearing only the sights and sounds of this single world.

Any ideas or dreams further, beyond this world, are inserted by God that we would relate to Him. Why? Because we have never stood beneath a different sun, lived in a different light, or walked on the ground of a place we can’t even imagine. Without help, we would have no bridge to the One who made us. Without Jesus, we’d be left trying to reach God through the law alone… and friends, that road was never going to get us home.

But because God loved us enough to intervene… we are not left empty. We are not lost in the dark. Because of Him who intervened, we are not nowhere, having nothing, blind and lost in the dark.

The infinity of God is pointed to in scripture by sequence and pattern but i think we walk all around it and don’t give it a thought. In Ephesians 3, and more specifically Ephesians 3:18, there is a sequence of four words that points to the infinity of God, showing the Lord has decisively acted and declared His love in Christ — and that love is an ever-present, ever-expanding, never-ending reality with no boundaries. When YHWH-God speaks, His speaking doesn’t stop, He doesn’t incur lost words, extra words, or meaningless phrases. When He dreams, it is so. When He speaks, things happen and His words do not cease.

In our hearts, we secretly long to try and look past what our eyes can see. We’re driven to search for some kind of ending point — a place where it all stops. Like the sequence in Ephesians 3:18, the length, width, breadth, and height, implying there is no end point in the love of God. We strain to find the edge of it, because in the world we live, everything seems to have a limit, real or imaginary, it all comes to an end.

Yet… at that place where the sea conspires with the sky, out on the horizon where the beyond of the beyond steps into a God-place, the air itself feels alive with the sky, and there is a beyond-ness, a vastness so deep our hearts can scarcely comprehend. And that… that is just a shadow of the love of God.

Ephesians 3:19-21, “And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

When Christ loves, with His four-dimensional, measureless love sequence, unlike the love of mankind, His love doesn’t stop or shrink. The grammar of Ephesians 3:18 points to divine finality and completeness, while the spatial language of Ephesians 3:18 gives us the metaphor of divine infinity. And while we’re here at vs 18, notice Paul says, “May be able to comprehend…”, “comprehend” being a Greek verb whose tense has, once again, no concern for past, present, or future which makes all this “comprehending” to be a decisive, whole act in itself — not a partial or ongoing struggle, but something only God empowers us to grasp, get that? God empowers us to lay hold of His love as a reality. We are empowered to grasp His boundless love with no edges, no end, no “side to side” or “top to bottom”, and without Jesus, without all His boundlessness, the nature and character of God ultimately escapes our grasp.

Oh, God. No edge sharp enough to cut the hem of Your robe. No number large enough to reach the hem of Your thought. You speak — and the words do not fall. It keeps traveling, aorist and perfect tense and all, all at once, finished and never finished, rolling through the dark between galaxies and the quiet between heartbeats. Breadth without border, length without horizon, height with no ceiling, depth with no floor — Your love is the room that contains every room and still has space left for more. I stretch my small hands into forever — and they do not, cannot touch the end.

Before time learned how to tick, Oh God, You were. After time forgets its own name, You will be — the same endless I AM, breathing galaxies like dust and stooping low enough to whisper eternity into even the small dust at the edge of the universe. O God, how can the finite know the Infinite? Only because the Infinite first knew us. Eternity.

Not to be repetitive, but i want us to really get the idea of sequence and pattern. Throughout the Bible there are many sequences and patterns, either in word or thematically. A sequence is an ordered list, and a pattern is like an underlying rule, or a repeatable structure that regulates. A sequence is actual data, and a pattern is the idea of rule behind it. A sequence may or may not have a pattern, whereas a pattern generates one or more sequences.

Again, take note of the sequence in Ephesians 3:18. “Breadth, Length, Height, and Depth”. Think about that. It’s a deliberate sequence that paints a rich pattern — with the pattern being: the infinite, all-encompassing nature of the love of Christ that “surpasses knowledge”. The sequence and pattern are tied to our knowing the fullness of God. Just incredible! In the book of Ephesians, Paul repeats “hope-words” over and over, “may give unto you”, “you may know”, “you may understand”, “Christ may dwell”, “you may be able”, “you may grow”, “that you may have”, “that you may serve”, “it may be well with you”, “you may be able”, “it may be given”, “i may speak”, and “that you may know”. That all speaks to God-possibilities in a future tense. They are words of hope, of becoming and overcoming.

From the infinity of God, the Breadth, Length, Height, and Depth, He calls us to enter into His fullness to comprehend the incomprehensible — the everlasting, eternal love of God. The four dimensions, length, width, height, and depth are a vivid way of saying Christ’s love has

no edges,

no up or down,

no left or right,

no front or back,

and no side to side.

We read phrases like, “God said…” and the word “said” is a type of Greek verb, as i understand it, which has no concern with past, present, or future. So where Scripture says, “God said…” as it relates to “we heard”, both “God said” and “we heard” literally means, once He has spoken, His words do not stop being said, and once we have heard God, it does not stop being heard.

In Ephesians 3, when those powerful verbs that speak of completed and continuing action are combined with words like “eternal” or “God always”, Scripture gives us language for our God whose words, works, and character are not bound by man’s created categories. Once the Infinite speaks, it does not fade, it does not “stop being said”. When He loves, it’s a well which never runs dry and remains forever inexhaustible like an ocean with no shore.

The word of the Lord runs on into eternity. We lack words to describe God, and if we find words within ourselves, God put them there. John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing”, and friends, nothing means nothing. If He did not give us words to describe Him, we would have no words.

When you lay in your bed, in that place between awake and asleep…

in that “gray” place between awake and asleep — I believe,

more often than we admit, every soul, in its own quiet way,

becomes suddenly, sharply aware of their own mortality —

how fragile our breath, how brief our flame — and at the same time,

how undeniably, how certainly, eternity exists.

It presses in. It whispers through the dark.

It refuses to be ignored.

Looking at the Bible and God from the platform of Ephesians 3:18, the page i write on seems to get wider and longer, as if infinity and eternity have taken over my vision. The closer the Lord gets to all things, the more all things become like Him. Our God is a consuming fire. i realize there is no format, other than the cross, resurrection, ascension, and Holy Spirit by which there is enough space or time, wisdom and knowledge to sufficiently cast a vision of the Love of God. Knowing Jesus is the only Way to begin to comprehend the incomprehensible. Paul says it all and captures the hope in Ephesians 3:18-19, that we “May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

Again, our greatest strength against darkness is to come into the likeness of the Son. Character, character, character. It’s not rules to keep, but someone to be. Be the people.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries

The following is a definition and short explanation of which i’m going to use in the opening of each of the Sequence and Pattern series. Throughout the Bible there are many sequences and patterns, either in word or thematically. Let it be understood that a sequence is an ordered list, and a pattern is like an underlying rule, or a repeatable structure that regulates. A sequence is actual data, and a pattern is the idea of rule behind it. A sequence may or may not have a pattern, whereas a pattern generates one or more sequences.

In light of that, let’s think about *why* it’s important to do more than merely read a verse or chapter, go to church and call all things good. i believe that in the industrial American church complex, generally speaking, most people don’t want to read their Bible, don’t want to pray, give a little money, and mostly want to be told what to do, and it appears they’re good with that. i’m not. That’s not enough for me. The goal is to know God, to study God, and to understand Him. i want to be God-fluent, God-loving, God-lighted, and God-life-giving, tuned into the Holy Spirit more than the world. The Lord our God WANTS to be known. From the beginning His mission was to be known, that we would know Him and He would know us. It’s a relationship. He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God who is the sovereign Creator who made everything good and purposeful.

Seeing and studying the theme of God opens the Bible in Genesis and repetitively underscores that the world and humanity have inherent value and design. Jesus said that you are worth dying for. Think about that.

In our lifelong pursuit of Jesus, among the themes and narratives of the Bible there are sequences and patterns, and we really need to know the Lord intentionally put them together. God NEVER sits and stares, doing nothing, for all He does has a point and purpose. If we’ll look for Him, He will find us. He, Himself is a pattern for us to model ourselves after. Jesus is about more than rules to keep but that we should be like Him. The following is one among many sequences with a pattern in the Bible, and honestly, i just picked one i liked.

2 Corinthians 12:10, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with hardships, with persecutions, and with calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Do you see the sequence of five? Weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecution and calamities. That sounds awful, but what’s it about? Why would God put that sequence on Paul’s heart to write in a book that will last forever for everyone to see? “C’mon Paul, you’re always such a downer!” No, he’s not. i see it as a sequence which covers an all-inclusive range of trials — from inward struggles to outward hostility. Paul experienced all of these repeatedly and he points out his struggles that we would be encouraged to trust God and know our earthly struggles can be endured and overcome in Christ. God wants us to see His power that is perfected in weakness, when we are stripped of self-reliance, and that we learn to be content, “for the sake of Jesus”. Take a good look at the sequence: weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. It is important. Everything Jesus said is important and there are no extra or wasted words. John 16:33, Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Paul is purposely painting a dramatic picture of his life as a testimony of God’s faithfulness. He suffered Weaknesses, Greek word “asthenia”, a lack of strength, general weakness and debility, with debility generally pointing to fatigue and loss of energy. The same Greek word is linked to our English word, neurasthenia as in nervous exhaustion and mental fatigue. He endured insults that were forced upon him, but it’s worse than snide comments from the sidelines. Insults is Greek “hybris”, where we get our English word “hubris”, in this case meaning outrage, arrogant speaking, and insolent words filled with “wanton violence”.

He suffered hardships, the Greek word, “ananke”, for anguish, like being squeezed into a narrow place, choked and pressed tight. Another word is “diogmos” or what we would translate as persecutions. Paul is saying he was chased, hunted like prey with the intent to harm him combined with “stenochōria” or calamities denoting, while he was pursued like an animal he felt suffocated by his circumstances, again, as being stuck in a narrow alley with no room to maneuver.

2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

2 Corinthians 12, among other themes, is probably one of the most profound statements in the New Testament on how God works through our weakness and is about “the way we go our way while on the Way” to experiencing God’s strength and living in Christ, even though we are weak and have no strength of our own.

The sequence has much more substance than a basic summary. 2 Corinthians 12:10 goes far beyond a mere catalog or random list of bad stuff that can happen to you. The literary style (which is something new to me) is called a “rhetorical crescendo” or a structured, escalating sequence of sufferings that move from internal to external, and from milder to more intense forms of hardship, and the pattern is the dramatic build-up, the theological purpose showing we are weak and Christ alone is strong, and it subtly reflects the suffering Savior pattern of humiliation, persecution and anguish. Do you see it?

His love unfolds from grace to grace, ever widening, ever deepening,

until we know at last, as we ourselves are known.”

Other than a testimony, why would Paul layout this “rhetorical crescendo” of suffering in 2 Corinthians 12:10? i suppose, it is just like Paul to take the boasting of strength by the Corinthians and then carefully show an ordered list of weaknesses instead. He was defending his apostolic calling. i have read that there were, at the time, “self-proclaimed super-apostles” in Corinth boasting about their strength, visions, and credentials, much like today in the American church. We should take the example from Paul, rather than sell ourselves for money and recognition. Let us practice our humility, and instead of competing on their terms, we boast in our weakness and the strength of Christ alone, giving glory to the one true God and not ourselves. 1Corinthians 1:31, “so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

i believe another reason was that he was modeling, for us, how to view suffering, and instead of seeing it as affliction and proof of failure, see your trials as proof of authentic kingdom service. Paul laid it out this way in order to, probably, invert worldly values, turning the local church’s desire for power, comfort and success upside down, basically saying, (my interpretation), “the real power of this life we live in Christ, is found precisely where the world sees only defeat.” Stop being ashamed of your flaws and turn them into testimonies.

Isaiah 40:26, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”

Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries

Throughout the Bible there are many sequences and patterns, either in word or thematically. A sequence is an ordered list, and a pattern is like an underlying rule, or a repeatable structure that regulates. A sequence is actual data, and a pattern is the idea of rule behind it. A sequence may or may not have a pattern, whereas a pattern generates one or more sequences.

i think it necessary to give an example. A sequence with a pattern would mirror the powerful triplet from the Love Chapter, “faith, hope, love”, as taken from 1 Corinthians 13:13, which is three that belong together, though not a pure pattern but definitely a sequence with a pattern. Meaning they form a natural progression in our lives: We believe (faith) → We look forward to God’s promises (hope) → We live in self-giving love (the greatest). The triplet is both an ordered list, a sequence, with love being the ultimate goal and also the underlying rule of who we are in Christ, who is the personification of the pattern. “Faith, hope, and love”. Think of the three as travelling companions — if you find faith, rest assured hope and love are probably somewhere nearby — they go together. Do you get it?

i love the sequences found in the Bible and i’m absolutely persuaded that the Lord intentionally put them together. God didn’t put them together for nothing. In fact, many people say, “If God would simply tell me what to do, plainly, i would do it.” Well, there are a multitude of patterns and sequences God has given us to fashion ourselves after if we will search, and even pointed out some we should NOT reflect, like Ahab or Absalom. These righteous patterns were/are created from the heart of God Himself and hold an overarching importance to which we really need to give our attention.

It’s more than just a descriptive list, and many scholars, one of which i am not, call it “dimensionally symbolic” of a love which cannot be measured or contained. It’s about the four dimensions of the cross — left, right, top, bottom, His love is infinitely beyond the beyond and has no left, right, up, down, front, back, or no side-to-side.

So today I have a wonderful sequence to which i hope you can relate. It’s an example of how we were “far” and then God brought us “near”, going from exclusion to intimate belonging. Sort of like, thematically speaking, the parable of the prodigal son who was “far” and came “near”.

Ephesians 2:19, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Do you see it? We were once strangers and aliens, and have become, by the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, citizens and saints. Stranger, Alien, Citizen, Saint. Do you see the progression from death to life in it? Ephesians 2:15, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” When we were strangers we had very limited rights, acting as complete outsiders or temporary visitors. No legal protection, no standing in the community, and were often viewed with suspicion. As aliens, things got a little better in that we had some ability to do business and settle down, but still lacked any rights, lacked full protection under the law, and were not members of the community. As aliens we often paid some form of fees for the right to live there, but had no political voice.

Ahhh, but now, now you’ve met Jesus, purchased with His blood, and BOOM! just like that, suddenly we find ourselves in a new, never lived in place of family reality. Suddenly we have standing, not as outsiders, but now have the status of “Citizen” and all the broad landscape of God-possibilities open before us in a great sweep of the Fathers hand called “salvation”. Now, as citizens we are also saints.

Being a citizen is represented as a vertical relationship with God, and being a saint is a horizontal relationship with the family, the household of God. Citizens and saints get full rights, protection, privileges, and can fully participate in the community (including responsibilities like taxes). It’s a strong legal and social status God has given us! As citizens and saints, we belong to the entire Body of Christ. These wonderful titles point to our shared fellowship and reminds us that we are intimately connected to every believer in God’s house as blood relatives, joined together by the blood, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus and are given the privileged status of firstborn in His family. Get that? Firstborn, no aunts, no uncles, but first born brothers and sisters in Christ

Take note of the entire idea which starts in Ephesians 2:11 and continues through to vs. 22. Paul is purposely painting a dramatic before-and-after picture. Before: No rights, no protection, no real belonging. We were outsiders. After: Full citizenship in God’s kingdom plus intimate family membership in God’s household as saints. Paul is making all efforts for us, the believers, to see the social reality behind the words. Paul probably stacks the sequence in Ephesians 2:19 for emotional impact so we can “comprehend the incomprehensible”.

Do you see it in the sequence and/or pattern? Through Christ, we are transformed: From strangers and aliens to citizens and saints as the family members in God’s household, living stones being built together into a holy temple supported by the seven pillars of heavenly wisdom. Proverbs 9:1. What are those seven pillars? Maybe James 3:17 spells it out specifically. You should go see! Herein is the support structure of the temple, who is us: Wisdom builds her house with seven pillars (Proverbs 9:1), God builds His temple (us) with the seven qualities of heavenly wisdom. When you combine Proverbs 9:1 with James 3:17 we get a pattern, an underlying rule of character: pure, peace loving, gentle/considerate, reasonable or willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. See it: not just what we are, but how we are: it’s not rules to keep but someone to be.

Friends, this is not just about individual improvement. It is about God creating a beautiful, stable, unified dwelling place for Himself — where His presence lives by the Spirit. It’s about family and being a team. The seven pillars are the internal character structure that holds this temple strong and allows us to grow.

In short: We are becoming the house that Wisdom builds — a people who reflect the character of Christ so that God can dwell among us in fullness, having gone from far to near, or death to life by the sacrifice of Jesus. We were strangers and aliens, and now are citizens and saints. Again, our greatest strength against darkness is to come into the likeness of the Son.

i’m going to be repeating the following throughout this series: It’s not rules to keep, but someone to be. Be the people.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries