From God’s perspective, are we truly assured and persuaded in our heart and minds that we are made righteous in Christ? Do we think more about our condemnation than our sanctification? Why is that? i think we are far more convinced of our badness than we are of being justified by the blood of Jesus. We often think we are far worse than God’s goodness is able to overcome. A lot of people spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about their sin, truly are convinced of their sin, but merely hope in their salvation as some ethereal, distant thing which could be debatable based on the depth of their sin. Why would i say that? Consider how much time is spent, and how many words are given to making sure we know how bad we are than how good God is? Are you convinced of God’s forgiveness for your sins? Are you secure and absolute concerning your standing in the Lord by the blood of Jesus? Friend, after all the seasons you’ve walked through—every unexpected turn, every quiet disappointment—are you truly convinced of God’s faithfulness? Do you rest in a confidence that no longer doubts Him?

Maybe the road didn’t unfold the way you hoped. Maybe the ending looked nothing like the picture you carried in your heart. Maybe the silence lasted longer than you thought you could bear. Maybe the answer arrived in a form you never would have chosen. Just because things haven’t gone as expected, or as predicted, does that mean God failed you? No. He never has.

And still… we doubt. Our mouths declare that we trust Him fully, yet the quiet habits of our days—the worry, the grasping, the planning without Him—tell a different story.

Let us be convinced. In Genesis 31, Jacob having completed his agreement with his slippery, conniving uncle Laban, secretly picks up his wives, all his livestock and goods and leaves town. This really irked Laban so he flies out the door in hot pursuit of Jacob because he thinks Jacob has taken things from him which aren’t his to take. Suspicion evidently played a large part of Laban’s life i think. After chasing Jacob and company for seven days, Laban finally catches up to Jacob and all his people, Laban accuses Jacob of wrong doing and insists on searching through all their stuff, trying to catch him in some underhandedness. After all his searching, he finds nothing in Jacob’s stuff, wherewith Jacob hotly says in Genesis 31:37, “For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen for all to see, that they may decide between us two.“ There, right there in the last sentence where he says, “that they may decide between us two.” The word “decide” is a word used in a judicial sense, meaning “convince”, in the sense of two going to court together, with one trying to prove true or false the accusation of the another.

God’s idea of being “convinced of sin” is not merely about using an argument to prove someone’s guilt. His intent in using that word carries a far heavier purpose—it points toward repentance and a return to the Lord.

There is also a real difference between being convinced and being convicted. You can be convinced of something without being deeply convicted. Conviction is more than just believing the truth; the truth settles in your spirit. It presses on you and changes the way you live. Being convinced and having strong convictions go together like travelling companions. Many people can say with their mouths, “I am convinced God is faithful,” while their habits still quietly reveal lingering doubt. True conviction closes that gap. It takes what the mind has accepted and drives it deeper—into the heart and the conscience—until belief and living begin to match. To be both convinced and convicted does more than expose sin. It points beyond the sin, lifting our eyes to see God Himself—the One who restores the wayward and leads them back into right living.

We often feel the need to convince the world of its sin. But God’s way is different. True, He convicts of sin, yet even more so, He opens our eyes to how good He is to forgive. The upward gaze toward His mercy is always more important than the downward gaze toward condemnation.

Proverbs 3:12, “…for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father who absolutely delights in his son.” Reproves occurs once, loves and delights occurs twice. We often stop at the “conviction of sin” part, but the Lord advances the vision for us to step further in order to see His goodness, not just our badness.

To “convince” means to use persuasive words of wisdom and insight. Like in Luke16:31, “He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” Meaning do we really think, regardless of our gift of persuasion and much speaking, if they haven’t believed the multiple testimonies previously given, even if someone were raised from the dead, do you really think that will “do the trick”, and then, yes then, they will have that amazing AH-HA moment, convinced? Beating someone into submission with a club doesn’t convince them of anything other than to be afraid.

In 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Paul writes, “…and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

What are the earmarks of our being convinced about who Christ is? When we are convinced, we “heed and follow”. When Jesus said “follow me”, do you think they stopped what they were doing to go after Jesus hoping to be convinced along the way? Probably not. The Holy Spirit did something so huge there, that on the spot, they were so, SO convinced AND SO convicted they stopped all they were doing to go with the Lord.

In Titus1:16 the word “disobedient” is used, which from Greek, literally means unconvinced, which gives rise to lies, false teachers, and arrogance which says “i know better than you, and you’d better follow after me because i know and you don’t.” Those who do not “heed and follow” are not convinced and definitely not convicted, making room to achieve their own agenda, often pointing out how much others fall short rather than how we are so loved by God, and that His forgiveness far, far outweighs our wrong.

Are you convinced of whom you have believed and do you hold a conviction that Jesus is Lord? If you do, it is most evidenced in your “heed and follow” lifestyle. If i still make some room for the world, maybe i’m not nearly as convinced as i’d like to think i am, nor do i have a strong, inward persuasion that Jesus is the answer, He is the personification of the Truth, and that everything in the Bible matters… personally, cover to cover.

But i will add this, the longer i “heed and follow” the more i “heed and follow” because i am increasingly convinced Jesus is all He says He is, and so much more.

Here continues from Unheard Conversations Part 1, and i’ll pickup where i left off for the sake of time, short attention spans, and space. In short summary, the focus is on the sailors, their whispered dialogue between two select men, their re-playing of the events of the day, and the miraculous encounter with God Almighty, and them being pressed to decide if the Lord is God or not.

          In their recounting of the day, don’t you think they were pursued, haunted by it all, and the very words of Jonah, “save yourselves and throw me over the side” meaning to treat him as a sacrifice, don’t you think it changed the way they saw the world and influenced their decision-making abilities? They tried to save themselves to no advantage. They threw all their cargo into the sea ruining their bottom line profit margin, but the storm increased and raged on with the ship every moment being threatened with complete destruction. They appealed to their gods with their frantic prayers, “every man unto his god”, and that was a total dead end street. They seemed to do everything possible to keep from being involved with God, but in the end, He was the ONLY one who could help them.

The sailors went on to make sacrifices and vows to the one true God after things calmed down. They had met God, and were profoundly changed by the situation, caught up in the wake of Jonah’s rebellion. It would appear they made a decision to follow after the Lord.

The entire event was beyond their reasoning. i mean, think about it…how would you react if you were in the storm of the century, and it all went from roaring and raging to dead still because you did something, from your standpoint, unthinkable until that moment? From their natural mind, they saw it as doing a radical unconscionable thing, for illogical reasons, to gain an outcome of hope and survival.

Here’s another idea: God was willing to pitch the entire ship, cargo, and crew onto a trajectory of chaos and destruction to get at Jonah. Initially, God said, “Go”, Jonah said, “No”, God said, “Yes you will”, Jonah said, “i will not”. Then Jonah said, “i’ll run far away”, and God said, “I’ll bring you back.” And that’s exactly what happened. Finally, Jonah got to catch a ride in a very large fish where he probably died and God brought him back to life a few times. Alive! Dead! Alive! Dead!, Alive, and vomited out on a foreign beach head. This time though, when God said, “Go”, Jonah said, “Ok”. God got his attention.

From the sailors point of view, there was this thing we call nature, and somehow, we, today, tend to see “nature” as something outside of the Lord and that’s simply not true. Every aspect of nature expresses the character which God wishes it to express. i believe there are in-your-face facts gathered only by observation, like the raging sea, and only by personal observation do we grasp the concept of a raging sea, but observation can’t give us knowledge. C.S. Lewis wrote that knowledge requires reasoning, and i can see that is true. With that knowledge born from reasoning, understanding is required, meaning the union of observation and reasoning… it’s putting things together, or connecting the dots to an “ah-ha” moment and an action item called wisdom. The raging storm was totally within their understanding, they had reasoned through their observations in the past to have the knowledge and understanding of what was happening in the present. But the part where Jonah was thrown into the sea, swallowed by a completely beyond-all-reasoning sized fish, which, by the way, was right on time to do God’s bidding in exactly the right place, and then for the raging storm to suddenly cease… that blew their mind. To think of the events as somehow an isolated fluke of nature was out of the question. Maybe the idea began to seep into their minds that the living God Himself, the only real God was not only the cause, but was a cause and effect within Himself. God’s interaction with them, and us, is not a one way street of action, but a two way street of interaction, which, in itself is a cause, and all His benefits come from it. The Lord is never causeless, never doing stuff just for the doing. Can you see that? God’s miraculous isn’t just an event which happens to us, but is an opportunity for relating and corresponding with the Lord. If He didn’t extend us the opportunity, we would not and could not interact with Him.

We love to see miracles, but we need to see the bigger picture, which is…miracles are, and i say this with all emphasis, miracles are not merely an event without cause and without results. The “cause” IS the activity of the Lord, and the results follow in accordance with the natural, physical, or material world, as He has designed it.

Miracle > Astonishment > Revelation > Decision. Those sailors were swept into the supernatural, the beyond of the beyond of the Living God. So, was God’s pursuit of Jonah the only reason? Scripture doesn’t spell it out, but knowing the Lord as i do, i’d say… no. He brought the entire crew into a miraculous event, an undeniable event to not only capture Jonah’s attention, but for the crew to choose what was real.

Most commentaries always focuses on Jonah, but as in all unheard conversations, the back dialogue in the white space, all the characters involved were affected, and effected, meaning God brought about the situation and all those involved were deeply impacted.

Friends, God is entirely capable of getting our attention when He needs to. It’s not that He is “trying to do something”, as if He might fail. Believe me, if He can get the attention of a hard headed prophet like Jonah, along with a bunch of pagan, dead-end god worshipping, crusty old sailors, you can rest assured He can do the same to you, me, and anyone else when He needs to. That’s how much He loves us in that He’s willing to go with us into the worst situations, making all things work to the good of those who love Him. Even in the midst of a raging storm, the Lord has a plan. Pay attention! The Lord is speaking to you. Don’t just read the black letters, see the white space too, there are libraries of God’s wisdom buried between the letters, lines, and paragraphs.

Here ends this program, part 1 and 2 about of the unheard conversation, meaning it’s not in scripture, but it surely occurred. i call it a white space conversation, meaning the dialogue between the letters.

Have you ever noticed the white part of the page of a book, you know, the unprinted area around the letter? That’s called the “white space”, and should never be considered “empty”. You’ve heard the term “read between the lines”? Yea, that’s the white space, and from a scriptural perspective, there are library’s of God’s wisdom and insight hidden there. We should all realize part of possessing sound doctrine is that we can not make sound doctrine from a platform of silence, or what the Bible does NOT say. On the other hand, we can’t ignore the silences because they do help influence the narrative. You might ask, “Well, how do i get at these library’s?” Good question! i read the letters from the page, but in my imagination, there is a world of information in the unnoticed, taken for granted area around the dark letter. To me, existing in the white space are very plausible “unheard conversations” which lead up to the black letters we read. We are not privy to much of the back-room conversations, but they are certainly within our grasp in the white letter. As an example, Luke 24:13-35. Scripture says “They were talking with each other about everything that had happened”. We don’t know exactly what they were saying, nor the tone or emotion, but we do have a clue as to the topic at hand where it says, “… talking about everything that had happened”, which means we’d have to know something of the events prior to the time of their walking to Emmaus. BUT, with a few educated guesses, and some insight into ourselves, we can, probably, come up with a plausible story line as to how they gestured, their attitudes, how they may have sounded, etc, etc. Get the picture?

Looking at scripture, the Lord gives us ideas to grasp the intent of His heart better. Letting the Holy Spirit give us better vision to see into what we read is a lot like going to the eye doctor to get sharper vision. So often in scripture, things are written telling us of a situation which probably has had a conversation that happened at another time, and that unheard conversation is hidden in the white letter space. Do you get the picture? (yes we see) The more we pursue the Lord, the more evident He becomes, and that is the word “pursue” as a “driving thirst” rather than “sitting in casual repose waiting for God to do something”. He gives us better lenses to see and improves our hearing to perceive in a gradual connect-the-dots process which develops character at the same time.

When we go to the optometrist to get an eye exam, typically, they’ll have you sit down in the exam chair and then pull in front of your face a large set of lenses. You’ll be asked to look at a chart on the wall as the examiner starts with a common set of lenses that they’ll change several times, asking if you can see the chart better with lens A or B. Then they’ll change the lenses, and then change them again, each time asking which is better A or B as they get closer to finding the perfect lens variation for you to have excellent vision. This concerning “unheard conversations” is like that.

As another example, imagine the conversation which occurred after Jonah was tossed in the sea. Sure, throwing him overboard saved the ship and all it’s crew, but the sailors were very probably deeply affected at the idea of throwing someone over the side, as is evidenced by Jonah1:12-13, in that Jonah told them to throw him over the side in order to save their lives. They probably stared at him in disbelief as to his suggestion, paused, blinked, slack jawed at the horror of such an idea… then just went back to rowing with all their heart to avoid doing such a terrible thing. The sailors knew, they knew one of the great taboos of working on a ship was you never, ever through someone over the side. It was sure death and they probably didn’t want to held accountable, for another man’s death, in any fashion. When he finally told them he was a Hebrew and was on the run from God, with exasperation in their voices, i imagine they yelled at him, “Oh My Gosh! Are you nuts?! Don’t you know better than to run from Him?! What have you done?!!” i imagine after some deliberation, as seen in vs 14, the sailors finally resolved Jonah was right and called out to God to not lay Jonah’s life to their charge, then threw him over.

On a side note, if Jonah knew he was the problem, why didn’t he throw himself over instead of putting the weight and responsibility of the decision on the sailors?

Anyway, amazingly, after they tossed Jonah over, the sea miraculously calmed and they were all saved. i have imagined a conversation between two sailors after the wind and sea calmed. i see them afterwards, late in the evening, with only a small candle burning for light, two sailors, Kevin and Tommy are awake in their hammocks in silent, deep pondering staring at the overhead, replaying the events of the day. As they remembered and pondered, they could hear the waves washing against the side of the ship, and the sound of timbers slightly creaking to the gentle sway of the sea.

“Hey Kev, you awake?” Tommy says softly to his friend. Kevin replies, “Yea, i’m here.” After a pause Tommy says, “i can’t sleep man. i can still hear the wind howling and the mast nearly breaking, and then (sigh) it all went dead still.” “Me too. i keep seeing that guys face when we threw him over the side.” Tommy, from his haunted thoughts says, “Oh gosh that was terrible. So terrible.” In a moment, Kevin gets to the root of what’s on his mind, “I can’t get him out of my mind. i can’t stop seeing when he hit the water. Ohhhh… and did you see his face when that giant fish suddenly surfaced? Oh man, it seemed to come out of nowhere! i can still the man’s eyes looking back at us as he went into its mouth. We all locked eyes at his last moment.” Dread and trepidacious doom fill their minds as they pause to ponder the moment. Tommy says, “Yea, the eyes, the eyes of Jonah looking back at us from inside… right before it closed its mouth and disappeared. It just rolled it’s big eyes back in that awful head, closed it’s mouth and disappeared below the waves. Just gone.”

Silence follows as they re-envision that terrible moment in the turmoil of their own thoughts. From their place on the ships deck, they watched Jonah hit the water, then surface, gasp for air and start to drift away, up and over the white peaks of the waves. Then a fish of some sort, probably about the size of the ship appeared, opened it’s mouth and sucked him inside like he was just a crumb of bread. And the eyes, the desperate eyes of Jonah looked back at them, his eyes meeting their eyes with them standing on the safety of the ship, the sailors were the last thing he saw before that massive mouth closed, and was taken down to the depths to be alone with God, himself and his thoughts. At the surface, suddenly everything went quiet, as if God was saying, “think about it”, and put an exclamation point on the silence. The wind stopped howling, the sea settled into a gentle roll, and then the crew was left to silence in the wake of a spectacular miracle.

This is significant… the eyes of Jonah looking back at them as they stood on the deck of the ship, were burned into their memory forever. How will they deal with that? How did this one event affect the rest of their lives of those sailors, for surely the eyes of Jonah, God’s deliverance, and the miracle of the storm and sea becoming calm after they did one of the most taboo things to do among sailors, surely it turned everything they thought they knew to mush in their minds? In view of the miraculous events before their eyes, any neutrality towards God completely evaporated. Look at the sequence: miracle, astonishment, revelation, decision, and God had certainly revealed Himself to everyone, so the only thing left was a decision: is He God or not?

Here ends part 1 of Unheard Conversations. Catch the next program for the continuation of the conversation.

True story: Before i knew that God’s words were sticky, for a few years of my early Christian walk, i was like a man who lived in a canyon and the canyon had been silent for years, of course. i remembered the echo of my own voice, my prayers seemed to go nowhere. More than a few times, in prayer, i shouted into the rock walls—angry, broken words that bounced back, thinner each time until they vanished. i had begun to think that was how all words worked.

Then one day a letter arrived.

It was old, the paper was soft at the folds, written in penmanship i had not seen since my years as a young believer. My Dad had copied a single line from Isaiah and mailed it to me the week before he died: “My word shall not return to me void” from Isaiah 55:11. Beneath it he had added, in smaller letters, “God loves you”.

i almost threw it away. In my heart i mocked, “yea, yea, yea.” The words felt like another echo—pretty, temporary. Day after day, i left the letter on the kitchen table and, day after day, i went forward into the dark season i was in, a season which seemed to have stolen the last tattered remnants of my certainty. Night after night the same sentence lay there, unread but not unseen.

At first it only irritated me. But a word kept floating across my mind: “Sticky”.  i thought about it, half-mocking. i had become so cynical. But the words were like something that clings to the sole of your shoe and wouldn’t leave me alone. i tried to scrape it off with louder thoughts: was it coincidence? Was i dismissing my dad’s words as merely soft, or emotional, rather than solid, true, or powerful? i tried declaring more faith over myself, but just nothing. Yet the line in the letter remained. When the hospital lights hummed over my father’s final hours, the words were still there. When i sat alone on the floor of the living room with nothing left to lose, the sentence still did not leave. Sticky.

The Scripture did not shout. They did not argue. They simply stayed, the way a seed stays in soil long after the planter has gone. Slowly, without drama, it began to work. Not by erasing the loss of my dad, but by refusing to be erased by it. Some days i would catch himself repeating the line under my breath, “shall not return void”. Sticky. The word of the Lord pushed it’s way around my head. “Shall not return void,. God loves you”. One day i noticed that the words no longer felt like an echo. They felt like something that had taken root and would not be pulled up.

Now, years later, i’m telling the story, let me add i never claim the words had made anything easy. i only said they refused to fade. Sticky. They never ceased to point to the sovereignty of God. They never stopped nearly incessantly reminding of the Love of God. Ah, yes. Like rain that falls and does not return to the sky until the earth has been changed, the sentence had stayed. It had stuck to me when everything else slipped. And in the quiet that followed the long dark after his death, God made me to know and i finally understood what my father had known: God’s words are not spoken into canyons to bounce around and come to nothing. They are spoken into people. And once His words go out, they do not come back void. Sticky words.

In the Bible, there are words, sentences, paragraphs, idioms, metaphors, theme’s, and narratives, and all of them mean something, go somewhere, and lead us to know Jesus. In the power of the Holy Spirit, any time God speaks to us, or acts in, with, or upon us or our lives, it does not fade. Did you hear that? His actions and words do not fade. His actions continue to have impact and His words don’t fade away like a mere echo which doesn’t return once spoken.

All He speaks is like sticky words and my calling them sticky words captures something very important by pointing to the infinity of God and the necessity of God. His words do not merely pass through our mind; they adhere. They lodge in our conscience, reshaping desire, confronting unrighteousness, comforting and continue working long after the moment they were first spoken and first heard or read. Sticky Words.

Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Everything in this life is terminal. All of it. Everything of this world we live in has started and will end. The sun has an ending, the earth as we know it will end, this air and this food, these houses, our jobs, etc, it is all terminal. Honestly, i can’t relate to that, nor can i relate to the idea of someone speaking and it does not stop being said. Sticky words. God words, sticky words, stick to us and make a difference. Everything He does prospers. He does not fail, and He does not speak trivia, or pointless things for entertainment. God has no extra words no more than the Word of God, the Bible, like Jesus, has no fluff, it is fat free and every word counts. All of them are Sticky words.

When Scripture declares “God loves you,” it is not a momentary sentiment that rises and then fades like an echo in a canyon. It is a “word spoken” with the full weight of the One who speaks it. Catch that: His words are sticky not because of tense, or amazing examples, but because of the weight of the One who speaks it. Because of who God is, the word does not expire even when circumstances turn dark, when feelings go numb, or when everything visible seems to contradict itself. His word is made to cling.

Isaiah 55:10-11, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it produce and sprout, And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire”.

That scripture captures the same reality: the word that goes out from God’s mouth does not return empty. It accomplishes what He intends. So a statement like “God loves you” is not merely true in a general or past sense; it is past/present/future all at the same time and effective even in the worst moments. It remains attached to the one who receives it, working, holding, and refusing to let go.

That is the kind of stickiness i am describing—timeless, not because the grammar is tenseless, but because the Speaker is faithful and His word is living. It sticks when everything else is slipping.

i use the phrase “sticky words” in the sense that they cling to us, influence us and the world around us, they are words that make a difference. Human words and human strength are seasonal, but God’s word is not. In 1 Peter 1:23-25, Peter connects the enduring word to the very life it produces in us. It is living and abides. In Psalm 119:89 God’s word is “firmly fixed in the Heavens”, meaning it is not drifting or decaying or fading away like a cloud dissipates in the evening, God’s words are sticky, they are anchored.

Those scriptures, and others, together paint the picture i’ve been trying to describe: God’s words are not canyon echoes or worthless words which once spoken just fall to the floor and lay forgotten in dusty corners. Never. Once God’s words go out, they stick, they remain, and they keep accomplishing what they were sent to do. Sticky words, God words, are not a static record, but something alive, still moving, still cutting, still working. The word of the Lord is not merely a finished frozen document — like some old letter that has become lost in a stack of unsifted through mail, piled on an unattended desk. i believe that Hebrews 4:12 pushes against the “some old letter” idea. It calls the word of God “living and active” and has no regard for past, present, or future, like words which are forever words.  The language of Hebrews 4 is deliberate: it is still alive, still energetic, still doing something. It continues to penetrate, to discern, to cut to the heart, and to work in the present moment. It is not limited to the time it was first spoken or written, and then superseded by the next thing.

i call them “sticky words”, God-words, God-actions. They stick to us, words and actions living in us that make a difference to go somewhere and do righteousness and justice.

Do you get it?

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

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.