August 2026
#79 The Political Pendulum 08/02/2026
Please consider:
Too lenient or too strict, either extreme is dependent on the wisdom of men and not the Wisdom of God.
Jas 3:17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
#80 "I AM" the Fruit of the Gospel 08/09/2026
The word "gospel" literally means "good news". In Christianity, it refers to the central message of Salvation: that humanity is separated from God by sin, but through the life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, people can be forgiven, reconciled to God, and granted eternal life.
Jn 14:9 Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."
Please consider:
In my opinion, too much of contemporary Christianity is caught up in a quagmire of theology that merely praises God, enhances "knowledge" of Christian history and Christian standards. It leads to "legalism", which is fleshly attempts to accomplish Godly objectives. Although it is well-intended, it deters from "knowing" God and participating not only in blessedness of Salvation but in Sanctification, Restoration and Reconciliation to God's Image and Likeness and Eternal Life.
With God's provisions, in and through Jesus Christ, we no longer need to be separated from God! God is not merely with us He is in us. Through the process of Sanctification, we become His eyes, His ears, His hands and His feet. We, then, as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ of Nazareth become God's ambassadors of the Way, the Truth and the Life. We may not only be Saved but progressively Sanctified so that we may "intimately know" God and reap and sow His "kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven".
I believe that the following concepts convey that which is most vital to greater testimony and witness of the profundity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: restoring "intimacy" with the Father; restoring "the image and likeness of God, the Father; cultivating more than an Old Testament personal relationship with God, the Father; cultivating more than a New Testament personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son; knowing the Ultimate as "an intimate" relationship with God, the Father who is "I AM"; understanding that Jesus Christ of Nazareth opened the door of awareness and the ease of access to Salvation and the process of progressive Sanctification; and understanding the "Written Word" as a roadmap to cultivating an "intimate" relationship with God, the "Living Word". Knowing God's Way, Truth and Life as proclaimed, in:
1 Jn 2:27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit — just as it has taught you, remain in him.
Recognizing the profundity of "I AM" begins in Exodus, where:
Ex 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
To "Be still and know that I AM God" is to recognize that I AM is the Spirit; I AM is the Living Word; I AM sent Moses; I AM directed Jesus Christ of Nazareth; I AM inspired the saints of Hebrews 11 (by faith); I AM inspired Martin Luther, "by Faith alone", not merely faith in but Faith OF God; I AM allowed Peter to recognize Jesus as "the Christ of God"; I AM, is the bread of Life, not merely of existence; I AM is the Tree of Life; I AM is the Wisdom of God, not merely the knowledge of God; I AM is the Fruit of the Spirit; I AM is the Gifts of the Spirit; I AM is the Way the Truth and the Life; I AM is the Alpha and the Omega; I AM is with you always; I AM is the Good shepherd; I AM is the still small voice, for His sheep; and I AM is your God.
I AM is also who, prayerfully, we may become — not by becoming God, but by the Spirit of God so filling and conforming us that His character, His Fruit, and His Life become visible in ours. I AM in the Father and the Father in me. I AM is the mystery hidden for ages and generations, the Spirit of Christ within the hope of glory. And I AM is a Christian, a child of God, becoming a new creation, by the presence and power of "Christ within", the hope of glory — a new creation in union with Him.
Understanding the profound witness of the Faith of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who demonstrated the Way, the Truth and the Life of "I AM", we find that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must do so in Spirit and in Truth (Jn 4:24); "I do nothing, but what I see the Father do" (Jn 5:19); "These things that I do also shall you do and even greater things" (Jn 14:12); "It is not I but the Father within who does the good works" (Jn 14:10); "Why call me good, only God is good" (Mk 10:18); "While I am in the world, I AM the light of the world." (Jn 8:12); and, "Dear Father may they also be in You and You in them as I am in you and you are in me" (Jn 17:21).
Realizing that not only "in Him we live and move and have our being", but also more profound is that His Spirit is in us (the mystery hidden for ages and generations) (Col 1:27), we hear John the Baptist himself point beyond his own ministry, to One coming after:
Matt 3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
Believing that the ultimate testimony of the Gospel on earth is our ability to love God and our neighbors and even ourselves, to the Glory of God, brings us to the shape of the journey itself.
It is a process
It is a process: from a sense of separation from God, to awakening as a disciple, to Salvation, to opportunity for ever greater Sanctification; to the disciplines of discipleship — seeking God first, praying without ceasing, forgiving, dying to fleshly ways of heart, mind, body, soul and spirit, knowing God's still small voice, and obeying God's still small voice, for:
Matt 12:50 "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
It is a process that continues in witnessing conspicuous Fruit of the Spirit, serving in the Gifts of the Spirit, and loving the Lord with all heart, mind, body, soul and spirit, and loving neighbor as self; to "knowing" God (Heb 8:11); to being progressively Sanctified, Purified and Transformed by the anointing of God's Spirit; to being one with Him (We in Him and He in us); to bearing witness God's proclamation that "All shall know Me" (Heb 8:11); to witnessing Unity of the Faith!
Matt 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."
Matt 12:50 "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
The door has been opened, and we no longer need be "separated" from God. We may not only be Saved but we may bear witness to a progressive and cumulative freedom in the Spirit and of the Spirit to bear the Fruit of the Spirit and do God's Will. It is the evidence of the Fruit by which we are to be known. This is the best news of the "good news" of the Gospel.
John 10:34 Jesus replied, "Is it not written in your Law: 'I have said you are gods'?"
1 Pet 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
This, then, is the Fruit of the Gospel: not merely a Christian who knows about "I AM," but a Christian in whom "I AM" is increasingly at home — begotten again unto a lively hope, and bearing, in ordinary acts of love toward God, neighbor, and self, the unmistakable evidence of the Vine from which the branch cannot be separated.
#81 Identifying the Enemy 08/16/2026
Prov 23:7 — "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee."
Jas 4:1–3 — "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
Conflict within the church is often blamed on outside forces. When a congregation is torn by interpersonal strife, it's common to hear someone say that the enemy is attacking. That instinct isn't groundless — spiritual opposition is real, and Scripture never asks us to pretend otherwise. But James 4 points us in a different direction first. The language he uses is military: wars, fights, a term rooted in the Greek word for soldier. And yet the battlefield he has in mind isn't out there. It's inside.
Pastor Andrew Comings, reflecting on this same passage, notes that the verse essentially borrows the logic of an old cartoon line — the possum Pogo surveying a littered forest and concluding, "We have met the enemy, and he is us," itself a twist on Commodore Perry's triumphant report from the War of 1812. James is making the same reversal. The instinct to locate an enemy outside ourselves, whether in the Devil or in "the other side" of a dispute, is understandable, but James insists the heart has to be examined first.
What exactly is it in the heart that produces these wars? James names desire — not necessarily sexual desire, although that can certainly apply, but the quieter, more socially acceptable desires that slip past a believer's guard because they rarely look like sin from the inside. Among the most common: the desire to be recognized. The desire to be needed. The desire to be right. The desire for position. The desire for revenge. The desire for financial gain.
Each of these can operate almost invisibly. None of them announce themselves as enemies. But when any one of them is trampled on, however slightly, the person responsible for trampling it can start to look like an adversary — not because of what they did, necessarily, but because of what the desire itself demanded and didn't get. That is the mechanism James is describing: not external attack, but internal want, left unexamined and unspoken to God, converting a brother into an opponent.
This is where the passage does something more than diagnose a problem — it points toward the only real solution. If the enemy is internal, then internal work is what's required, and that work has a name: examining the desire honestly before God, and releasing the claim it has staked on someone else. That is not merely conflict management. It is closer to repentance than to negotiation. The fight James describes will not be resolved by trying harder to get along with an opponent. It ends only when the actual desire driving the conflict is named, brought into the light, and surrendered.
The verses that follow in James 4 go on to make this even more explicit, warning that these unspoken desires, left unexamined, don't simply cause isolated arguments — they can define an entire community's posture toward God and toward one another. The invitation, then as now, is the same one James opens with: before assigning blame elsewhere, examine what it is you actually want, and why you haven't brought that want honestly before God first.
#82 Beware of Pride 08/23/26
Please consider:
Prov 16: 18 Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
Prov 29:23 Pride brings a person low,
but the lowly in spirit gain honor.
Vines Bible dictionary: "spirit"
the immaterial, invisible part of man
the sentient element in man, that by which he perceives, reflects, feels, desires
the inward man' (an expression used only of the believer,
If we are Christians and believe the Word of God, it is essential that we be aware of the spirit with which we hold any banner high.
#83 Foundational for the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus Christ 08/30/2026
Please consider:
Jn 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 The you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Mark 2:8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." So he said to the man, 11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
That implies that the paralysis (disease) was (and apparently is) a result of a sinful trespass (Mark 2:9).
Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Consequently, it seems that forgiveness is essential.
Forgive individuals (Matt 6:14)
Forgive sins, even though not necessarily specifically identified, as the root cause(s) of disease (Mark 2:14)
We have been empowered to forgive all trespasses or impositions "In the name of Jesus Christ!"
Therefore, accept and implement God's provision
"In the name of Jesus Christ!"
I forgive________
An individual
Individuals
Groups of individuals
Classes of individuals
I forgive________
Circumstances
Conditions
Impositions
Dissonance
Disease
"Amen."
It may not be the final resolve; however, it is apparently an essential genesis of the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus Christ.