There is no doubt as to who the listening audience is for these broadcasts. The programs are meant to encourage the body of Christ and to inspire us all to put our thinking caps on and think. Use your God given ability to pray, consider, and think. If any of us believe God doesn’t speak to mankind anymore, to me that’s just confusing. i can’t imagine why my Father would not speak to me; i can’t imagine why my blood brother Jesus Christ would not speak to me; and i can’t imagine why the Holy Spirit would not allow me the words of God in the now. In light of that, considering there was a series on the nine fruits of the Spirit, it’s time to talk about the gifts of the Spirit.

A year and some months ago i decided to not do any programs on the gifts of the Spirit for the sole reason that i realized i didn’t know enough about them to do much more than just mention them. i didn’t hardly understand what they were nor how they work. Oh, don’t get me wrong, i actually thought i knew, but the more i read scripture, the more i knew that i was wrong. Since then i’ve been praying and asking the Lord to make me to understand a little better, taking notes, writing down little resonant heard at the most unusual times, and trying to gradually give some definition to a greatly misunderstood topic, the gifts of the Spirit.

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.

We all have gifts God has given us. i believe each person is born with gifts and capacities to employ, or not, to use or abuse, but more importantly to use for the betterment of the rest of humanity. Yes, the rest of humanity. 1Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” What do you think Paul means by “common good”? Do you think it’s ONLY where you’re comfortable, in church, or does “common good” mean for the wellbeing of the, in general, world we live in?

God’s gifts aren’t just to be used in church, the safe place that is not likely to criticize us nearly as much as when under the scrutiny of the world. We, the church, must take our fruits and giftings beyond the safe place and practice them for the benefit of a lost and dying world, learning to do that in such a way so as to not immediately put people off while still reflecting God’s values and standards, still pointing to Jesus. You know, it’s tough to give away what you’ve got if you’re not there to give it away.

To have gifts of the Spirit is truly operating in the miraculous, yet most of us, in one way or another, share the most common ailment of all men, the strange disinclination to believe in a miracle even though it’s right in front of us. We possess the gifts of God right in the middle of our hearts, and these days in which we live, those gifts are increasingly becoming more important to understand, employ, and deploy.

Come go with me concerning the Gifts Of the Spirit. Let’s dig in our Father’s pockets to see what good things He’s got hidden in there, that is if we’re willing to study a little and chase after His wisdom.

 Not to be negative, but right off i think it needs to be reiterated that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not to boost or promote ourselves personally in any way. Paul repetitively points this out in 1Corinthians 12, that the gifts are for the building up of the church, not for the exaltation of ourselves. Surely many of us have met those who have employed their God given spiritual gifts to advance their personality or, by showing outwardly their amazing gifting, it may even be evident there was a secret hope of being promoted to some elevated position.

In Acts 8 we meet a guy named Simon. We shouldn’t take this lightly. Evidently, God considered it important enough to put in the Bible, so let’s take it seriously. Acts 8:9, “But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.” It would seem that if you wanted to know if Simon was an amazing person, just ask him and he’d tell you exactly that. Yea. he was just “that” kind of guy. In vs. 10 the people called him “great”, saying “With him is the power of God”, and i think it’s of special note that the Greek word for “power” there is our English word “dynamite”, they were literally calling him “the dynamite of God”. Wow! Quite a title for himself, huh? The people paid attention to him, it cost them something and they were willing to pay for it, they “paid attention”. i’d bet he was a very charismatic and influential fellow, and maybe even had some real gifts. Scripture doesn’t exactly say, but just by the description given, we could conclude he desired to be an outstanding personality, to attain the lofty places of privilege and to popularize himself by staggering the community with his demonstrations of power and foretelling. i would guess he was cloaked with seeming devout zeal, casting himself as someone who was advancing God’s work. (Circus music playing in the background)

To this day, there are many out there selling themselves to the public for the same reasons as Simon, but, this was never, ever the true purpose for Spiritual gifts, and we should not put off God’s gifts due to some bad actors in the mix, and i say that emphatically.

Unfortunately, it appears many people are blindly swayed, mesmerized with awe and wonder that they nearly place a halo on the head of anyone who frequently exercises their spiritual gifts. When Peter stood on Solomon’s porch after the Lord made a lame man walk, he had something to say about people being mesmerized Acts 3:12, ““Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?”

The church in Corinth was encouraged to “come behind in no gift” in 1 Corinthians 1:7, but yet it was a pretty unspiritual place. God’s purpose behind His generous endowment, or manifestation, was not, by any means, meant to confirm or broadcast the spiritual superiority of the operator. i find it odd that we as people though, tend to put on a pedestal and sensationalize those who do actively and accurately operate their gifts, and it doesn’t appear some of those who have been somewhat pedestalized were in any real hurry to get off the stage either.

In general, we do tend to lift up those who we admire, i think that’s unavoidable to a degree, of course, after all, we’re just people and most of us can think of someone we admire. Now, you’ve got to really hear this part: of those who are called to exercise their gifts from an elevated dignity or platform, it is their responsibility to not allow themselves to be enthroned. People love to have their senses tickled, we enjoy being entertained. i know i certainly do. Honestly, if watching someone exercise their gifting was not sensational, i sort of doubt too many would desire such a gift. Like watching someone do foot care as a kindness at a retirement home, or visiting the elderly and incapacitated. Those two are pretty non-sensational, not glamorous nor glorious appearing. As a result there doesn’t seem to be too many lining up for the gift of hospitality and mercy, but yet, hospitality and mercy are very much considered of very high value in God’s economy.

True, according to Romans 11:29 the gifts are without repentance, but friends, the gifts can remain even when the spiritual standard of Christ and our relationship with Him have deteriorated. i think we can all be in agreement that the gifts of the Spirit should temper by the fruit of the Spirit.

Ok, so, having spoken of these beautiful gifts while casting a note of caution, let’s press on to see the positive aspect and see what the real purpose is as the Lord reveals in His word. As a reminder, i’m not saying watch out, be careful, and don’t, i AM saying think, think, think, but also be audacious, and go for it.

It seems to me that the value of the gifts of the Spirit and the appreciation of their benefits are governed largely by the position they are allowed to occupy, which their value to believers as is largely determined by their worth to the church, which means if a body values service above all things, then the other gifts are likely to be left to go fallow. That doesn’t mean they aren’t available from the Lord, it simply means we typically believe what suits us or what we’re comfortable with instead of embracing all the Lord has for us. In some congregations, the gift of tongues is far more important to them than prophecy, it’s highly likely that it is safer to them, so the value of the other gifts is considered lower than the others. Let us remember, just because someone doesn’t recognize God’s gifts of the Spirit, doesn’t mean they aren’t there, it just means they don’t recognize God’s gifts.

Here’s a sticky statement: If the gifts are allowed to rise to a place of dominion, appropriating the platform where the Lord should stand, their value will become nil. Similarly, if they are caused to not be exercised at all, many times being trampled, or are wrongly decided that God doesn’t do these things anymore, which is foolish, then again, the value of God’s gifts will become nil. In our efforts to employ God’s gifts, sometimes we go overboard in the sensational. But i must say, and if you hear anything here, hear this: when everything becomes sensational, eventually, nothing is sensational. Let me encourage us all to allow God to be all He is. Let Him do what He does best and that is being God. If your Father wants to give you extraordinary endowments, let Him. All of the gifts of the Holy Spirit working together are needed to produce the full potential of the church.

Gifts of the Spirit should work together, complementing each other in tandem with Fruits of the Spirit. Friends, there is, truly, a need for them to be active in the church. In 1 Corinthians 12:1 Paul encouraged believers to not allow themselves to be ignorant of what they were, and in 1 Corinthians 14:1, he encouraged everyone to also zealously pursue them. Paul makes the point that as much as all believers may desire the manifestations of the gifts, and yes, i think it would be safe to say everyone loves to be wow’d, we are encouraged to not get caught up in our shorts over the sensational but more that the goal is to build up the church. Let this next sticky statement, linger in your thinking: Just because you have a different gift, doesn’t mean you have a lesser gift. All are valuable and God employs each as is necessary to prosper the Kingdom.

i feel like we’ve caught three forward gears so far, but let’s catch 4^th gear and get up to highway speeds.

After the discussion of what the gifts are, and there are truly many, many variations in those spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, the most important part of it all comes in 1 Corinthians 14 when Paul writes of the necessity of love which is the overarching bottom line of all that God does. If the gifts of the Spirit are practiced without love, there comes upon the body a type of diminishing and maybe even dishonor. When love, the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22 is allowed to govern the beautiful gifts, it’s like fine oil in a machine. Just like character must exceed ministry, so love needs to exceed our gifting. It just makes it all work well together. Love reduces friction, tends to clean up sludge, and reduces wear on moving parts, just like quality engine oil.

How much do you value your ability to do your part in the Kingdom of God? Just like the life of the engine in your car largely depends, in no small way, on the quality of the oil you put in it, so does your effectiveness in employing your spiritual gifting depend on the quality of your fruits of the Spirit, love being like the oil, and the more the love of God has gripped our heart, the more effective we’re going to be. Do you want to be sensational, standing high and glorious on a platform of your own making, or do you want to bear fruit, lasting fruit in the name of Jesus?

How often do we call our “comfort zone” our spiritual discernment? Please take a moment and consider that. Judith Bardwick calls a comfort zone an “anxiety-neutral position”, sort of sounds more like a political statement, huh? All jesting aside, it means … as long as we operate within our comfortable, familiar doctrines of faith, as long as we feel at ease, in control, and we’re experiencing low anxiety and stress, we tell ourselves it must be righteous discernment. Your comfort zone is a place where your uncertainty, suspicion, and vulnerability are minimized. Think about it. How often are we uncomfortable talking about spiritual gifts, and we turn it into a spiritual thing by claiming “discernment”, but really it’s just us stepping beyond the edges of our comfort zone. i think so many avoid the topic because they have an underlying attitude that says, “I’m uncomfortable, therefore this conversation must not be God!” Hmmmm.

My comfort zone actually has nothing to do with the idea of Godly discernment.

i’d bet most people who are uncomfortable with discussing the gifts of the Spirit, call themselves discerning, but i think it’s highly likely what they call discernment is actually their comfort zone.  Discernment is the redeemed version of suspicion because when discernment conceives it brings forth building up and edifying which is quite the opposite of suspicion. Let’s recap the idea of sound doctrine again:

– Sound doctrine is made from cover to cover of the Bible;

– sound doctrine is born of 2 or more scriptures;

– sound doctrine applies to the entire body of Christ, not just for the rich, and not just for the poor with a “special excuse” why the well-to-do’s don’t have to adhere to the same rules.

Considering that sound doctrine is from cover-to-cover of the Bible, then we must take the time to understand God’s intent, not avoiding the conversation any longer. Friends, there are things we, in the body of Christ, must begin to talk about. We can’t avoid the discussion of gifts any longer, we can’t avoid the discussion of whether God speaks to us or not, etc, etc. We’ve got to look to the Lord to help us better conclude many topics we have avoided in our modern culture which seems to think that soon as we are uncomfortable, then running away is a good option. No, not at all. Just because we may have come out of a church body with poor and abusive leadership, in no way means we don’t need leadership. Similarly, because we came from a church body which abused the gifts of the Spirit, does not invalidate the gifts of the Spirit.

Paul’s discussion of the gifts is nothing new. Actually, they’ve been being spelled out since the O.T.. They are for yesterday, today, and tomorrow, never to be ignored simply because they challenge our “comfort zone”. We all should know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that each divine gift, or enablement/manifestation that God gives to ordinary people, just like you and me, is for the purpose of building up His body for the purpose that we can function the way the Lord wants us to function. God’s opinion is more important than our opinion and if exercising our gifts and fruits of the Spirit is the way He wants us to operate, then, gosh, why shouldn’t we live like that? The Lord is supernatural, and i don’t see why His children shouldn’t be like their parent?

Our opinions of the gifts of the Spirit will pass away, but His purposes are forever. As was previously said, just because we don’t believe something God said, doesn’t mean it isn’t true, it just means we don’t believe it.

Friends, we are called, called to not only realize and recognize our gifting but to develop them as well. The Lord has called us, in our ordinary lives doing our ordinary things to build up those around us, and mind you, that doesn’t mean walking around only saying sweet things. It means being honest, accountable, transparent, and emotionally availability with tact and diplomacy too.

Some would say we have to have a basic understanding of the gifts before we can employ those gifts, but honestly, i don’t think that is a true rule of thumb. There are people who naturally function in their gifting and don’t necessarily know they are doing it. They are just that way and it flows naturally. Haven’t you met people who are just charismatic and engaging and people just like talking to them? i would suggest that’s one of the attributes of an evangelist probably. Sure, maybe sometimes, some folks use their God given gifting for the wrong things, but none-the-less it is a gift, an endowment and expression of the Lord. Because we don’t categorize and labelize what our gifts are doesn’t make them any less than what they are. And, again, just because we have a different calling with different gifts doesn’t mean it is a lesser calling with lesser gifts.

If we’re going to develop the gifts the Lord has given us, it would seem good to actually have a basic understanding of the gift. It is difficult to develop something we know very little about. Now, i’ve gotta’, say, there are some gifts of the Spirit where the Lord gives us a good bit of information, and there are other gifts which aren’t so well defined nor is there much of a layout on how to do it.

But He does not leave us ignorant and He did give us some information. From 1 Corinthians 12:1, let’s recognize God’s idea of a spiritual gift, it’s a breath-of-God thing, from the Greek word pneuma, where we get our word pneumatic, they are a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. We don’t get them from the store, can’t get them by reading a how-to book, no one can loan them to you, nor can you buy them at church. Spiritual gifts are exclusively a result of the breath of God, so if you don’t believe God breathes on people anymore, then i hope you ask yourself the question: If God doesn’t breathe on us and speak to us, what are we left with?

Then in 1 Corinthians 12:4,5,& 6 Paul says there are different kinds of distributions, all from the breath of God. From vs 4, the distribution is the Greek “charisma”, in this case “gifts of grace”; from vs 5, different kinds of “service”, Greek “diakonia” (deeah-ko-nee’-ah), a root word for deacon, meaning servant gifts; from vs 6 there are different kinds of “working” gifts, Greek “energema” (en-air’-gay-mah) where we get our word for energy. It could be thought of as the power to accomplish God’s directives. The Lord gives gifts, but also gives the power, “energema”, to operate the gift.

Those three distributions, grace, service, and the impartable energy to operate the gifts are so closely associated with the quality and idea of His name, that the mention of His name calls the three distributions to mind, and thinking of the three fosters the vision of His name … Jesus.

i think it’s also good to note that 1 Corinthians 12 is not an all inclusive list of spiritual gifts. There is also a short list in Romans 12:3-8, and again in Ephesians 4. While we may want to categorize, aggrandize, rank, typecast, and specialize the spiritual gifts, like personal gifts, ministry gifts, public gifts, extraordinary gifts, or ordinary gifts, i hope we all never forget there are many, many spiritual gifts which are not exactly listed.

1 Corinthians 12:7 says we all have at least one gift which the Lord has given us, so no one can say, with any honesty, that God has passed them by when it came to gifts, which brings me back to the idea we must all keep in mind that just because we have a different calling and different gifting doesn’t mean, in any fashion, it is a lesser calling or lesser gifting.

Romans 12:4, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function … ” 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” A manifestation is a bestowment or an endowment, an ability or talent, in this case, given to them by God. We all want our Heavenly Father to give us stuff, mostly things we call valuable, but in this case, what God calls valuable is apparently different from what we often call valuable. Maybe we need to rework our ideas to match the Lord’s ideas and values, you think?.

This is an overview so the next part is given in hopes of drawing the gifts into a better context.

Speaking of the fruits and gifts of the Spirit isn’t something which suddenly appears in the N.T. for the first time. Be encouraged to do your own diligence and search these things out yourself, but, from way back to God’s description of the priests robes in Exodus 28, Moses was given a detailed description of fruits and gifts in the metaphor at the hem of the priests robe where there was to be embroidered blue and purple pomegranates, and between each embroidered fruit was to be a golden bell that made a little tinkling noise when the priest walked. Think about it, the tinkling of the golden bells were tempered by the embroidered fruit in-between the bells. Does that sound like a theme in the New Testament? Yep, indeed it does. 1 Corinthians 13:1 says that without love we are a clanging bell, without the fruits of the spirit to temper the gifts of the spirit, we are just out there clanging, and banging around. Think about it.

With little golden bells at the hem of the priests garment, just like the priest couldn’t make a move without everyone knowing where he was, i believe the Holy Spirit gifts operating in us is like that, everywhere we go, everyone knows who and where we are. Unless God hides us, wherever we go, we have a righteous chiming to us. And yes, i used “we” in the broad sense because in Revelation 5:9-10, scripture says we were a ransomed people for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation, and that we have been made a kingdom and priests to our God. The language of that verse includes all believers.

1Peter 2:9 says we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and like it or not, if you’re a believer in Christ Jesus, you wear a robe with bells and pomegranates at the hem, meaning, you are a living, breathing, walking, talking representative of the fruits and gifts of the Spirit. If we don’t want to believe God’s word, that doesn’t negate God’s word. Just because we don’t believe it, doesn’t make it not so.

By observation, many believers are looking to acquire the gifts of the Spirit without making the fruits of the Spirit a first priority. According to John 15:8, we are called to be fruitful. “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” i don’t find anything there saying we should be amazingly gifted, but more importantly, to be fruitful, like the Lord commanded us in Genesis 1:22.

The goal is not to influence people to “get it right” but to be able to ask themselves better questions leading them to a deeper relationship with the Lord. Be inquisitive as to who this amazing person is in our lives, what is God about, how does He think, and why does He say the things He says? We can have no obvious gifts, and no Bible to refer to, but if you have a relationship with Jesus, there, now you’ve got something worth living for.

Support for this programming was given by Living In His Name Ministries, Bill and Gary at Big Pine Fast Food and Mortuary, CaseOn Builders on Spartanburg Hwy, Sisters Coffee Company, His Heart Missions taking the gospel to all the world, and of course, the one and only, our good friends on main street, Trinity Bakers, that’s right, Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.

Stir up the gifts within you, let these words stir up your sincere mind, to stir up your strength and courage being honest about what is it that constrains you, going beyond your comfort zone, that “negative stress position” and see what God has for you. Be an adventurer to know God and let Him be who He is in you. Allow Him to renew your desire to be fruitful, renewing your appreciation of being active in God’s plan. Find your gifting and use it with all your heart for the Kingdom of Heaven. Did you hear those key words and phrases? “Stir up, be honest, go beyond, be an adventurer, allow Him, renew your, and find your,” those are action words if i ever heard any.

Drive carefully this week  …  pray for your neighbor and be nice to that person in the mirror who looks back at you, exercise your gift of grace for yourself and others  …  Be strong and courageous, and i’ll talk to you next time. Amen.

There is no way to know what we could achieve in life if we made more of the right choices. Of course, someone a long the line is probably going to ask, “Right choices according to who?”  Learning to do a good job of choosing, evidently, is not something we do well as humans, but, if we partner with God, then comes the power to choose wisely.

It would seem that the decision making machine in us to choose seems to follow from one generation to another. Someone’s grandfather chose the path of alcoholism; his son chose the same path, and the father’s children will be met with the same choices: to drink themselves into oblivion, or not. We even have the power to choose whether we are angry or not. The other person didn’t “make” you angry, c’mon, you are choosing anger as your reaction. No one made you jealous, you are choosing, choosing to become circumstantial rather than resting with Jesus, who is seated, ?get that?, seated at the right hand of the Father. He’s at rest. Are you at rest with Him? Consider your choices at your intersections: there are other choices.

Intersections are a fork in the road, so to speak, where a choice must be made. We can sit at that crossroad, intersection however long we like, that too is a choice, but eventually, at some point, we must choose a direction. But sitting at that intersection and not choosing is much a kin to sitting on a fence. It’s only a moment of rest before the indecision concerning our choices becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Fence sitting is inevitably always uncomfortable.

i sat at a light once, more than once, unsure about which way to go, left, right, straight … but when the light changed, there were blaring horns and people yelling. i had to choose, rightly or wrongly, but i had to make a choice. Often our lack of choosing affects everyone around us, just like that traffic light. My indecision caused everyone behind me to be forced to comply with my lack of decision. Volleyball games are often won and lost on one players indecision – in a moment of paralysis about the choice to hit the ball or not, the ball hits the floor, the moment to win or lose is decided for the team due to the lack of decision on the part of one player. Choices are often not easy and have a far reaching impact, and often on more than ourselves.

To my understanding, when coming to a 4-way intersection, there are only 3 choices in life, going back is not an option because that would be like re-making history, and there is nothing in history which would ever allow itself to be relived in order that it could become something other than what it is. But, there is still, in front of us, a choice of left, right, or straight ahead.

God is the God of choices. He came up with the idea of intersections, or choices and it was His idea of our having options and the will to exercise our free will to choose.  He brings us to many intersections across the course of life, and one of His goals is to bring us to maturity so we can make good and Godly choices for ourselves, our families, and quite possibly the world around us. Christianity is the only religion which does not prescribe and demand external behavior such as praying five times a day facing a certain direction, abstaining from this or that, what to wear, wearing a certain kind of hat, only drinking a particular kind of tea, etc. God gives to us a life of constant individual decisions and choices, although i must admit, sometimes the barrage of choices is truly overwhelming. We, granted by God, have the right to choose: we can choose to be truthful, or lie; we can choose to live or die; we can even choose to express ourselves poorly or well; we can choose to come or go from the church body of our choosing and we’re not in debt to explain if we don’t want to. You decide. But consider carefully, Joshua 24:15 “…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.”

Galatians 5:16, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh”. Here the word “walk” literally means “to walk around,” where we allow our feet to take us is our own choice, and Gal 5:16 is saying to let God direct our walking around. “Walking” is about how we conduct ourselves. Another implication of the word “walk” means orderly arrangement of our steps, not a haphazard one of going here and there. Gal 5:25, “If we walk in the Spirit, let us walk in an orderly fashion by means of the Spirit.” This time the word “walk” in Greek means not only to “tread around”, but to “tread around with order”, in a row, a column. It is orderly, directed by the Holy Spirit, not some haphazard going around like an intoxicated driver, going from ditch to ditch, but instead, one of order and consistency. The Holy Spirit must be the arranger of our walk in our daily lives. Is He? Only then is our freedom truly of the Spirit.

i find most intersections in God’s Word are places of the supernatural. Take the incident in Luke 19:28-34 and Mark 11:4 where there was a colt tied outside by the door in a place where two ways met, or, at the fork in the road, near to Bethphage and Bethany. Bethpage, meaning where they grew figs, and Bethany, meaning where dates were grown. If we carefully read it, it’s an amazing sequence of events. Everyone made choices. Jesus chose to be obedient to the Father and prophecy correctly; there was the choice to be obedient by the disciples, you can read how the villagers chose to allow the disciples to accomplish what Jesus had asked of them. The people chose to lay their clothing across the colts back for the Savior to ride on into Jerusalem (v35). Other people laid their clothing down in honor before Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on the colt (v36), and they made the excellent choice to glorify God who rode on the colt rather than glorify the colt on which God was riding. Did you get that? They glorified God who rode the donkey rather than glorify the donkey God was riding on. What do you make of that?

Job had reached a major intersection, more than once, where he had to make the choice, driven by his friends to admit sin which wasn’t true so he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore, or go with God, trusting and believing that God is righteous, even if he had no understanding or answers from the Lord?

And ultimately, Galatians 5:17 from the Message, “For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are in direct opposition to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?”

Psalm 1:1-6 speaks of living life in two ways. There is a choice given to everyone, to either live for the Lord, or not. Mark 4:25, “For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” Mark 4:25 contrasts the results of life which is lived in two opposite directions. It basically says, the more you have, the more you have, and the less you have the less you have, the more you go left, the more you go left, and the more you go right, the more you go right. The coefficient of slipping says the more you slip, the more you slip, and the more you grip, the more you grip. Our choices have momentum and weight, the more we choose wrong, the more apt we are to choose wrong. And the more we choose right, the more apt we are to choose right.

So, why don’t you let God help you choose? Or better yet, let Him choose and then follow Him. That’s not to say you’re not responsible for your choosing, but still, God is much better at knowing the good choices than we are. Choosing right gets easier the more you choose right. Choosing the right is good for our conscience too. A good, sound conscience is key to making good choices. Making a good choice, choosing to do right when at an intersection puts us in a position of planting righteousness, for planting righteousness reaps righteousness.

Thank you for joining me, i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.

My Box of Valuables

In another room in the house is a blue metal box with a small lockable latch, though the key is long gone. i’ve had it for years now. In it are things from when i was a boy, memento’s, little things which remind me of someone, or some place i went a long time ago. Like the baseball cards.

There’s only 2 in the box now. There used to be a whole stack, but i suppose i’ve given most away and probably lost a few in moving here and there. When i put my hands on the two which are left i remember how my brother and i used to go to a little package store down the road from our house, and for a nickel or a dime we could buy a pack of Topps bubble gum that came with 3 baseball cards. It was the worst bubble gum there ever was, but the real prize was the cards. One of the two cards i’ve still got is a nearly worn out 1963 Pete Rose rookie card, with Pedro Gonzalez. Over the years, from time to time, i used to stare at the faces on those cards and dream of being on a big league field … all that green on a cool summer evening. Funny how i’ve still got it, and when i touch it all those memories come back. Another thing in my little blue metal box are the ownership papers when i paid off my tractor. That was the day it was mine, and it was so significant. i’ve also got my first magnifying glass that i used to study bugs with. As a kid with an extra nickel burning a hole in his pocket, i won it out of a drop-n-grab machine where you drop the claw and pickup one of many items in plastic, snap together bubbles. That little magnifying glass was the forerunner to my first microscope. Also in that blue box is my first pocket knife my dad bought me when i was 5, and i’ve been carrying a pocket knife every day of my life ever since.

i know another guy who keeps some things. He doesn’t have a box, but it’s a drawer in the night stand, and in it is his great grandfather’s hammer, his grandfather’s hammer, his dad’s hammer, and his first framing and trim hammer … i suppose he just likes hammers. Like myself, he keeps a couple knives, one was his dads, the other was his grandfathers. He hopes to pass them down to his son one day.

These sorts of things are small to others maybe, but to us who keep such a box or drawer of “moments to be remembered”, they’re things which are significant in the process which made us who we are today.

i reckon we all tend to keep things which you wouldn’t think were important really. i’ve got a friend who has the first marbles he ever won. It’s only a handful, but they are precious, not precious like money, but precious as in what they represent. He won those marbles fair and square, but then he ended up having to fight to keep them. The bigger boy decided even though he lost them, he was going to get them back. My friend went home with a busted nose, skinned knuckles, and a pocket with about 3 hard won marbles too. He won them, and then he won them again … something important happened inside him that day, and to this day when he looks at those 3 little old marbles, he still feels the pride and courage it took to win them.

Some people think keeping things like marbles, baseball cards, or hammers is just dumb. i’ve been told that sometimes i hold on to the past so hard, maybe for no other reason than it happened to me, it has started to take up way too much space in my head, and maybe i don’t have room to adventure out to something new. i disagree in that those things are important. If we don’t remember our history, which is part of our identity, we lose sight of our own reflection. It’s one of the purposes of an inheritance and being an heir. Purpose, as in the “conclusion of a dilemma that we take action over”. Those little things we keep add to our purpose, describing us as named and designated by God, holding His preferences and standards in front of us to accomplish with all our breathing, thinking, all our feeling, and strength. We are made in the image and reflection of God Almighty, and there are reflections of Him in all parts of our lives, even the smallest things are important. Those small things in my box of valuables are things which describe me, and you too if you’ve got a box or drawer of similar stuff. There is nothing in our lives which “doesn’t matter” just like there are no “extra people” in Heaven. It all matters, it’s all important. Every little rise and fall is relative to our composition, the way in which a whole story is compiled and told again. We are like a work of music, literature, or art, and we are poetry in the eyes of the Lord.

Isn’t that yet another fabulous facet of the Lord to ponder?

What do you think?

        If i could want anything for you, what would i want? In Romans 12 & 13, Paul lays out for us a list of good things we should want for ourselves and others.

It would seem that most of us are primarily concerned with what we would want for ourselves, but i thought it a good question, “What Do I Want For You?” i’ve been pondering this. God cares about the details of our lives, willing everything in and about us into transformation. Ok, that said, here’s what I want you to do, with God’s help of course:

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, your work-a-day world and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do. i would want you to not become so well-adjusted to our culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, i would want you to fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. i’d want you to recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Now there’s a word for today: Respond. i’d like that for all people, everywhere: Respond. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God will bring the best out of you, and develops well-formed maturity in you.

Living then, as you do, in pure grace, i would want for you to not misinterpret yourself as someone who is bringing their goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by who and what the Lord is, by what He says to us and what He does for us, not by what   we are and what we do for him.

Seeing as how a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe doesn’t amount to much in and of itself, as a standalone person as in not part of anything else, and neither do we. No one is a light unto themselves. We are not our own beginning and end, nor are we our own mother and father. Since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, i want you to just go ahead and be what you were made to be, without envy or pride, comparing yourself with anyone else, or trying to be someone you aren’t. i feel quite certain that when we out run our gifting, giving ourselves titles which are beyond who God said we were, we can easily be run aground, wondering how we got there. i would want for you to never get lost in the arrogance of counting yourself too high, or comparing yourself with those who commend themselves. You know the ones….they measure themselves using themselves as their standard, and even compare themselves among themselves, let me say tho, it just makes for a lot of wounded people. Just don’t go there. Take it from me, been there, done that, bought that t-shirt, don’t want to buy another one.

If you preach, faithfully preach God’s heart, nothing else; if you help, genuinely help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond. Oooo. There’s that word again: Respond. There is a difference between mentoring and taking charge of someone. There is a difference between letting people put you in a position to help them navigate as opposed to letting people make you the dominating directional force in their lives. There is a difference between encouraging people to do the right thing, and demanding they do what they are told and then marginalizing them when they don’t do it or get delivered your way, when you say, or how you say. If you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

i would want for you to love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. i want for you to have good, solid boundaries. Yes, Love is the standard, but good boundaries help maintain the standard. Run away for all you’re worth from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply, and, here’s a good one:

Try to practice playing second fiddle. Oh boy, that’s a good one.

i want for you to keep going and not burn out; take your time and learn to rest, keeping yourself fueled and blazing. Be alert as a servant of the Lord, cheerfully expectant: Respond. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the more. It is no skin off our nose to help needy people and be inventive in hospitality.

God always cares about the details of our lives. Read your Bible, the Lord has a great deal He’d like to talk to us about.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.

Epictetus was a Greek speaking Stoic philosopher, born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia, and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in north-western Greece for the rest of his life. He wrote what is likely the earliest known version of the serenity prayer: “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions-in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing.”

Later, in a diary entry from 1932 by Winnifred Crane Wygal, a pupil and collaborator of Reinhold Niebuhr, she quoted the serenity prayer and attributed it to Niebuhr.

“God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.”

If we are not willing to press forward, i don’t believe we’ll ever have victory in our lives not nearly as much as we often wish and hope. You must press, it’s not something anyone can do for you, we all have to do our own pressing, exerting steady force or pressure against something. There is always something pressing against us, and there is nothing worthwhile in this life which happens without our pushing upward and pressing forward. i can confidently assure you, nothing “just” happens. Wishing things were different isn’t going to gain us anything but illusions … and we can conjure all the positive expectations we’d like, but it needs to be said, without Christ, expectation is a lover which will always break your heart. What is it Joyce Meyer says, “We need backbone, not wishbone.” i like that. It takes courage to know good from evil and then practice that knowing, and that is “knowing” not in the sense of “head knowledge”, but throughout scripture, God always intends “knowing” in the experiential sense. More than head knowledge, but heart knowledge.

For many, boldness is not easy to come by, and to acquire it, i believe, requires some suffering … we’ll have to endure, or suffer through somethings and that’s just the truth, that’s just life. i figure we can suffer through the changes God takes us through or we can suffer in our state of no change, but either way we’re going to endure some suffering, so we may as well go with God for the betterment of all things. i still say, the only thing worse than change is NO change, and the longer things stay the same, the more things stay the same.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts. i can feel spring in the air, the buds are busting off the tree branches, it’s as if everything is pregnant and about to bust wide open with life. One morning we’ll wake up and, BOOM, we’ll see spring has fully come and the air will be buzzing with color and newness. Gosh, isn’t God amazing!!

i’m in the post office five days per week, enough so that i’ve listened to entitled people complain how slow the service is saying, “why don’t they hire more people so we don’t have to stand here so long.” i’ve actually done time studies as to how long it takes the clerk to take care of each customer. Actually, the clerks are pretty fast. My conclusion was that it’s not the clerk who isn’t speedy, but the people who are unprepared. It’s amazing that the people perceived the clerk was slow, not that they, the customers, were unprepared. Similarly, i find it a profound observation that in the eyes of many people it is God who is not speaking, when the truth is, it’s us who aren’t listening.

i love pomegranate juice, grape juice, and cherry juice. i love using olive oil and i love getting my coffee from a French press. All those things require pressure. The juice must be pressed from the fruit, the olive oil must be pressed from the olives, and water must be pressed through the coffee grounds in order to make a cup of coffee. It requires pressure, and if we’re going to get much out of our walk with the Lord we’re going to have to press through the obstacles and situations in front of us. Think of all the things which require pressure and pressing in order to get good results or gather good fruit. We take our suits and shirts to the dry cleaner and they “press” the wrinkles out. Think of all the things which require pressure to accomplish. Life is no different.

We all have things we need to press forward about. Some of us need to press forward to make a budget and sticking with it this time. A year ago January, the Lord told me He wanted me to start wearing shirts with a collar and buttons, that i was to look like someone others might want to talk to instead of some worn out farmer or crusty construction guy. Silly as it may seem, i’ve actually had to press forward about that every day. When i leave the house i make it a point to wear a nice shirt with a collar and buttons and, odd as it sounds, it has been a struggle. Many say they’re struggling to overcome the devil, maybe they should press forward and overcome that sink of dirty dishes first. It’s easy to decide you’re not going to do drugs anymore, that’s easy 10 mins after you’ve gotten loaded again, but to truly escape the gravity of the situation requires some pressing, pushing forward, pursuing, some taking action maybe even hour to hour. It’s the same as a determination to advance onward to the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ. Pressing on is not a timid, passive term, it is action and perseverance in motion.

It’s not that the devil has got us in a corner beating us up, we ourselves are the problem in that we don’t want to press past the frustration, we don’t want to press past our old wounds, we don’t want to restrict our appetites. We can’t live life in the now nor hope much for the future if we’re always living life based on the past. From where i’m standing, we don’t seem to want to be pressed about honesty and taking responsibility for our actions. Those old wounds need to quit making front page news every day, if you know what i mean.

Also, among us are those who have made up their mind, deciding they’re not going to live at the beck and call of old wounds. i refuse to let my stomach control me, i refuse to keep being addicted to self-pity and the spirit of “woe is me”. For overcomers, something rises up in us that says i will not be a slave any more, i am not going to live in bondage, i am a child of God, and the children of God aren’t slaves and in bondage. The Lord gives us the gumption to say i’m going to press through and past all those chains and griefs and latch onto Jesus….knotting my fingers in the hem of His garment, refusing to let go even if i am dragged down the street.

Let us learn to have our joy and to also be happy whether anyone approves of us or not. i have learned to rest in the joy of the Lord if everyone wants me around or if no one wants me around. i don’t know about you but i’m fed up with my circumstances dictating my joy. Knowing Jesus and the power of His resurrection is what drives my heart and life. Why? Because there is no other name under heaven. It’s good to read John 6:68-69, “Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” When you’ve lived life like a bright beacon, and then the circumstances of life have crashed you on the rocks again, only to rise and fall and rise again, you start to notice the pattern of God’s presence…. you begin to know that you know that you know, truly, there is only one Name under heaven, Jesus, beautiful Jesus.

Do you want power in your life? Know Jesus. Our reason and purpose shouldn’t be to know our purpose but to know Jesus, the buck stops with Him. Matthew 28:18, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He said “all”, and once again, God is not mincing words here. This is a declarative, and it’s the truth, ”all” means “all” and Jesus wasn’t being flippant.

When the Lord said in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly,” He wasn’t using words and phrases He might have to back up on later…. it was a well thought out, pre-planned statement in the heart of God. How many of us say, “Oh, i’ve got life, or so i’ve been told, but i’m just wondering where the abundantly part is going to come into the picture.”

It’s nice to think we’ll just get saved, live our little lives, and go to heaven, and i’m sure heaven is all together wonderful because God built it, but i don’t want to just go alone. In order to go with God, we’ve got to press forward. It seems to me, by way of observation, the only people who actually accomplish mighty things in His name are those who press on. There are so, so many things to waste our time on being offended and wounded over. These days are some very dangerous times. We are going to have to press past those things, keeping our eyes on Jesus.

i had a dream, and i’ve said this before but i feel it’s important to make mention of it again. i dreamed i was in a little boat, maybe 10ft long and i was in a terrible terrible perfect storm. The lightning was flashing, the rain was coming down in buckets, and the waves were so high i couldn’t see the top. In the dream i was looking at the raging ocean and briefly thought about the certain death i was facing. i turned my head and directly across from me was Jesus holding on, just as wet as i was, but He was smiling, yes He was smiling across at me. Above the roar of the storm, i heard Him speak loudly and He said to me, “Pretty cool, huh?” i woke up immediately thinking about the dream and had a startling thought, no matter what my circumstances are, no matter how good or bad life gets, as long as i can see Jesus, i’m ok.

Maybe you can’t do anything about your situation right now at this time, but someday, someday, with God’s help, you will find the courage to change it. There may still be things you wish didn’t happen, but that was then and this is now. Maybe you can’t change some of it, but those things you can change, get to your feet and take hold of Jesus, declare out loud every morning that in the name of Jesus darkness and circumstances will NOT take over your mind, or your life. Persist! As long as you can see Jesus, it’ll be ok.

This scripture has come up a lot lately, and the Lord will bring it back to us as often as necessary until we get it down in our head. Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Press on, push forward, refusing to give up. It is high time we stop letting the devil and our circumstances mow us down like we were weak weeds at the mercy of a lawnmower.

           i believe the Lord wants us to not only press towards Him but to set our mind to push past the things which hold us back. Many, many people are in a holding pattern of sorts, just circling something in their past that possibly should never have happened, regardless as to who’s responsible for it, and they just can’t seem to leave the place of their brokenness. Maybe it’s “offense” which keeps our feet nailed to the floor. Let us not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed in the flood of our circumstances.

For some folks, old wounds have become an addiction and the addicts wander in the cemetery of old hurts and past errors, rereading the old headstones of old things long gone, moaning over old wrongs like a lost spirit out of an old horror movie, saying over and over, “Oh, i so wish it wasn’t so.”

Now listen, you may have driven yourself far past anything reasonable and done a nose dive into a ditch of your own making, and when all was darkest and you were laying in the bottom of the empty place, too exhausted to even crawl up the ladder that was nearby, in the moment, when your heart seems just crushed beyond being able to bleed anymore, right there, at that crossroads, a magical place of miracles as all crossroads are, God was bringing to you the symphony of the morning that will rise to the ears of your heart. Redemption and change were at your fingertips, or “the Kingdom God came near to you” that day. You may not want to believe in the Holy Spirit, or maybe you’ve been taught there is no such person, but yet, well, there He is, coming to you with a voice like birds singing, like wind in the tree tops and the consonants of His words are like bells chiming in the distance, all a melody so sweet you can’t imagine how to tell about it. Yet there He is and He comes to you to give to you His strength to crawl up and go out of your pit.

We can’t allow anger and bitterness to stay with us so long it grows roots. If we let a seed grow in a rock wall, given time and water, that seed will sprout and little by little it’ll grow roots through the crevices and will eventually split the boundary apart….anger and bitterness is the same way, it’ll just grow roots breaking down our boundaries, eating away at the joy and peace in our hearts until we’re just horrible people nobody wants to be around, unless they want something from you. The Lord is so very not interested in you living life that way, and if God isn’t interested in that, who would you say is? And if you said it is the devil, then the next question is, “why do you let him ride?” You know, if you let the devil ride, the next thing you know he’s gonna want to drive.

You’d be surprised at the people who walk around disappointed, angry and bitter.

Philippians 1:9-11, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” The Hebrew word for “offense” means to stumble or trip over and it’s root word means something like a plague.

Think of offense like being gripped with malice, potentially capable of causing death. The root word of “offense” is in the sense of seriously slamming your feet on rocks. In Jeremiah 13:16, Israel is threatened with being allowed to possess “toe breaking offense” if they don’t repent. The same word is also used in reference to the Messiah being a stone of stumbling.

Press past your offense, past your anger and bitterness. We can’t stop there and linger in the twilight and the dark, there are better things to do.

           “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions-in short, whatever is our own doing.”

Offense is akin to the plague. i don’t know about you but i get weary of brutally slamming my feet into rocks, and yet many seem so willing to carry offense like a plague with them everywhere they go, allowing it to influence everything about their lives, constantly bearing about the heavy, intrusive, burden of offense. Don’t we all know there is always something to be offended about, hell makes sure of that. The mature thing to do is to consider carefully, “Can i do anything about it?” and if not, set your mind on the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, in fact, even if there is something you can do about the situation, again, above all, set your mind on the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Here’s a follow-up question: Upon what or whom do we center our minds and hearts? If our hearts and minds aren’t set on Jesus, what or who are we set on? If we aren’t serving the King of Kings, who are we serving?

We, who are in Christ, must learn to press past offense and its potentials to see the big picture, Jesus Christ, the point and focus of the entire universe. If we’re waiting to be validated by the approval of someone with a recognizable name and titles, we need to know that approval is a lover that will always break our heart. Chances are slim we will ever get the approval we desire from church dignitaries, or those who stand on an elevated platform.

i heard someone say once that the present is the making of soon-to-be-history.  Stop looking where you are and focus on where you’re going, every step counts and it’s either a stepping up or a stumbling down. In Christ, even if we stumble, He empowers us to turn our stumbling down into stepping up. He has turned our morning into dancing and loosed us from the coarse adornments of this world which chafe us to blood. Jesus set us free from having to do penance, wounding ourselves when, by the blood of Jesus, we need not suffer any longer.

We are pressing on, pursuing, pushing, exerting steady force or pressure toward attaining Christ. Not that we have already arrived, but i can assure you we have left, and every day, we press on to make Jesus our own, because Christ Jesus has made us His own.

If we can’t say something nice about those who don’t like us, then, well, this may be a little blunt, but, just shut your mouth. Bless those who despise you. Ain’t it the truth, there have been times when someone has mentioned another person’s name and they’re just saying such nice things and we’re thinking, “Oooo! If i could just tell you what i know!” Every time we feed into our offense and bad attitude we are helping to keep it alive. Romans 12:21 says We overcome evil with good. These are things i can do something about and i choose to press onward and upward. How often do we practice our offense and anger and we end up taking it out on people who have nothing to do with it? Let’s be so good to people they can’t help but notice Jesus in us. Hospitality is one of the earmarks of our faith which is in opposition to letting our anger and offenses dictate prejudice, which is judgment based on unfounded facts. God brings reward and no one or thing can prevent His reward for the Lord is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Think about it!

           Who is going to pay you back for doing the right thing when life is hard is a great big “what’s in it for me?” attitude. “God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time;

enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;”

Proverbs 25:21-22, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”

And expounding on the part about heaping burning coals on his head more clearly, the burning coals part is the fiery love of God which melts even the hard hearts of those who oppose us. Jesus died so we could have the life He desires for us, and in fact, we have to give up our lives like Jesus did, so others may experience the overwhelming love of God and live instead of being held captive by death, hell, and the     grave. God has healed our hearts giving us the power to own a renewed mind, and delivered us from the downward spiral of the world, where darkness has tried to keep us slaves and captives to offense, to keep us occupied with constantly battling with things we have no power to change. Let God be the great equalizer He is….and He will restore what darkness has stolen from us. Believe it, it’s true.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation, speaking to people about three inches below the surface of their presentation face.

To truly escape the gravity of our situations requires some pressing, pushing forward, pursuing, some taking action, and determination to advance onward to the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ and stop feeding into our own offense and evil forebodings. Pressing on is not a timid, passive term, it is action and perseverance in motion. Come go with me, it’s time to change the planet and the Lord has empowered us to press forward, losing the goodness of God on a lost and dying world.

Pray for your neighbor this week, set your feet toward home friends, we’re almost there. Amen, and amen.