We are under attack every day.  The attacker wants your fruit to be bitterness, jealousy, anger, failure, lust, and desolation.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These are outcomes, conditions of our heart when we give ourselves over to God or something else.  For … Continue reading Choose your god, pick your fruit

There's an interesting note in the NET Bible about Matthew 5:13.  The passage is this one: 5:13 “You are the salt 13 of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, 14 how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by … Continue reading You are the salt of the earth

All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers in the field. The grass dries up, the flowers wither, when the wind sent by the Lord blows on them. I am like grass, my faithfulness is like the flowers in a field. The Lord tests me. He sends the wind of … Continue reading Thoughts on Isaiah 40:6-8

One of my daughters can't sweep a floor to save her life. Her personality type causes her to be a random thinker, and she just doesn't have a methodical bone in her body. So no two strokes of the broom go in the same direction. She'll sweep a little here, and then a little over … Continue reading Learning to sweep

I periodically collect quotes. This morning I was reading some quotes about missions, and noted that some think that all quotes about sacrifice and passion are about missions. There are myriad quotes about the Church's lack of passion for missions, about complacency in the face of the millions of people bound for hell. I believe … Continue reading The aim of passion

I've been reading the "Life of Faith," the Narratives of George Mueller. One of the things that I noticed from him is that when he spent relatively short (for him) amounts of time in Bible study and prayer, he noted a difference in his day in his journals. It made a significant difference to him. … Continue reading A Life Commited to the Word and to Prayer