Having a number of conversations lately about being generous with people we meet caused me to think of one of my favorite books, especially during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season we are heading into.

This book is a great story of people learning that generosity is often is as simple as putting your spare change in a jar and then finding a person to give it to. It’s a short read and would be a great book to read with your kids let alone for yourself.

At my last church, we made it a yearly event to pass out canning jars a number of months before Christmas and then the week before Christmas we would find a person to bless. We would pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to just the right person who need the encouragement. We would try not to look at the persons outward condition in choosing them, say a person in poor clothing, but anyone that need a touch from God to know they were loved by God. I can’t tell you how many times people were surprised at the impact this kind of generosity would or could have on someone.

Listening to different news outlets talk about the same events can be down right disturbing. No matter whether its sports, politics or the accident in your neighborhood, facts matter. But what if the person or persons we listen to who are reporting an event have a bias? Take the NFL & North Korea.

The real truth is that everyone has bias on multiple topics, news people included. Bias is shaped by the information we receive and how that information is communicated. The human soul processes that information and our previous bias helps us come to conclusions. So if my previous experience identified “Red” as dangerous, I am easily moved to see danger every time I see red no matter what someone might say to me afterword.

These 52 selections from Tozer’s works are based on some of the major themes he tackled. Each chapter is clear, concise and compelling. This is spiritual reading at its best.

This morning, I sat at an outside Starbucks to read the Word and a great new book I recently purchased – “Hearing God” by Dallas Willard.

You may wonder why I would read another book on hearing God’s voice when I have been doing so for 46 years, since becoming a believer. Well, the truth is, hearing God’s voice is often a misunderstood subject and I, for one, am not exempt from misunderstanding what I think I hear from God.

Just before coming to Christ in 1969, I got in two motorcycle accidents that nearly took my life except for the miraculous intervention of God. In the first accident, I hit a parked car going 55mph and prayed a desperate pray – “God if your real and you get me out of this I will seek you!
I was knocked out and when I came to I did not have a scratch on me; no bruises or broken bones. I think God is looking for those kind of prayers from lost people to show up and confirm His reality.

While reading the scripture this morning, a passage stood out, and I’m wondering how many of us often pass over such verses to quickly because we think it’s just a bridge between ideas. Maybe the Lord has something to say to us this morning that we just might miss as just being filler, when it’s far more than we realize. Here is the verse that caught my attention:

John 16:12
“Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.”

Who is the Holy Spirit, and exactly what does He do?

Many people find the Holy Spirit mysterious and confounding.  Why is the third person in the Godhead—the one Jesus said would be the believer’s ultimate source of truth and comfort—the source of such confusion?

The information we are exposed to shapes our thinking and action, whether we like it or not. Our minds are created to process huge amounts of information and develop the ethics we end up with. But what if the information we acquire is either distorted or presented with a bias that we can’t detect on the surface? You know the answer…a distorted view or reality.

If the foundation of our thinking was corrupt or bias at an early stage of our development, we incorporated those distortions into our perception of reality, all the while believing our way of thinking was how life is. I’m still trying to correct those imbedded distortions in my life at the age of 65. Some things are hard to get out of our lives even when we know they’re false.

The Holy Spirit…

Greater than your theology, bigger than denominations, beyond all we can imagine, God’s gift to the church and to you

Debate about the Holy Spirit has been around for a long time. In Holy Fire, best-selling author and respected theologian R. T. Kendall sets the record straight about the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives and in the life of the church.

I’m sitting on my patio this morning praying when the thought comes to me, “Remember”. As I sit and think and ponder what I’m suppose to remember, I’m reminded about two things.

First, I need God’s Word more than I realize. You see, I know that God’s Word is important and given to make me wiser every day, but sometimes, more than I care to admit, I think, “I know that” and therefore I feel I don’t need to read it again. That’s when I realize I am dumber than a rock! When I admit the Word is important and yet fail to reinforce what I already know by reading it again, I just rob myself of the very thing that makes me grow wiser. How dumb is that?