Reconciliation

The 3 Dimensional Word! Feasting on the Scriptures

There is no more delightful fellowship than among empty, hungry, willing believers who seek one another out for no other purpose than to eat Jesus together. This Divine privilege belongs only to the Corporate Body of Christ!

They do not talk about themselves or commiserate in self-help programs or discuss what they want to do or build in corporate self-actualization, but they simply come to give themselves together to Him and to “seek first” His corporate expression!

Their passion is to exegete Jesus (to make the Son of God known), as “Word” made flesh, and the “Word-Son” lifted from the very pages of Scripture and applied by Holy Spirit to the believer’s heart! And then to take Him to the world!

Jesus is Father’s living, ingestible Word – your nutritious Life. The Spirit will feed you the Word-Son by revealing Him to you primarily through the Scriptures but also by many other creative means, which enable you to recognize and eat Jesus in your study of the Scriptures. Come with me as we are invited by Jesus himself to the ‘mysterious’ table of God; both, individually and corporately!

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Never Give Up! (Part 1)

15The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. 16 But the LORD God gave him this warning: “You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17 except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely “die” (forfeit a living/intimate relationship with God).” (Genesis 2:15-17, NLT)

Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame.(Genesis 2:25, NLT)

Shame was born in dis-obedience. And so was mankind’s propensity to lean upon flawed understanding and call it “wisdom or knowledge”. This was the result of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! Their/our eyes were opened to what they weren’t equipped to understand or process.

Mankind was awakened to deception and blinded to the trickery of illusion!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths. 7 Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. (Proverbs 3:5-7, NLT)

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What dynamic transforms us into the image of Christ?

I think not! God forbid! May it never be!

    “I suggest that there is no other conclusion which can be drawn from those who teach versions of legalism? They say if you can make sin look grotesque enough, believers will stop sinning. How is that working for you? I have a Greek word for that philosophy — baloney!” (Clark Whitten)


Either we choose to rest in the dynamic of Christ’s finished work, or we will foolishly seek ways to finish it ourselves and continue in a hopeless journey of defeat after defeat! The following passages from Galatians could not be clearer as to what Our Father in Christ is offering to us!

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Practicing Self-Control

Proverbs 17:27-28 NRSV
One who spares words is knowledgeable;
one who is cool in spirit has understanding.
Even fools who keep silent are considered wise;
when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.

A truly wise person uses few words;
a person with understanding is even-tempered. NLT

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain

We talk too much and we feel too much. Period. End of story. Somewhere, somehow, in our culture, the idea began to permeate that one who says a lot knows a lot. But you only have to listen to people through the media to know that’s not true.

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Family Doesn’t Come Easily

Proverbs 17:17 NRSV
A friend loves at all times,
and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

These days everything is throw-away. We love our fast food disposable society. Our cars break down; we buy new ones. Our homes need remodeling; we buy bigger ones. Our relationships sour; we find new “families.” We’ve lost an important sense of investment in life. Rather than invest, we throw out. And we fail to learn many important lessons when we live like this. We also may find ourselves on the short end of the stick when adversity strikes because we won’t have established the kind of relationships and skills that are necessary to persevere through the hard times.

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What Kind of Friend Am I ?

Proverbs 17:17 NRSV
A friend loves at all times,
and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

Prior to the giving of the Holy Spirit (in the New Testament), those who followed the Lord (predominantly Israelites) had only the capacity for earthly love, not for heavenly or agape love since they loved out of their own ability and not through the spiritual ability of the Spirit. However, there were still higher standards of behavior given. In the Law, the Lord required:

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:17-18 NRSV


You shall love your neighbor as yourself. It was this law that was discussed by the lawyer and the Lord Jesus in Luke 10:

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Listening More and Talking Less

Proverbs 18:2
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing personal opinion.

Proverbs talks a lot about, well, talking! I think that we often confirm who we are (whether we want to be that person or not) when we talk. Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” And yet, we still talk. We talk in person. We talk (and text) on cell phones. We talk on the Internet. We talk, talk, talk. And a great deal of the time, we are “expressing personal opinion.”

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Understanding and Living our Relationships According to God

… diligently seek him. Hebrews 11:6

Who do we have relationships with? What are our most important relationships? How should we handle our relationships with others? Is our interaction with others pleasing to God?

Who do we have relationships with?

    1. God/Christ
    2. Spouse
    3. Children
    4. Extended family (parents, grandparents, uncles, nieces — etc)
    5. Friends
    6. Co-workers and acquaintances

What are our most important relationships? (In this order)

    1. God / Jesus Christ
    2. Spouse
    3. Children
    4. Family
    5. Friends/Others

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Do You Want to Be Righteous or Right?

Do we want to be righteous… or do we want to be right? It seems, these days, that many people have difficulties taking constructive criticism. The fact is, our egos are so sensitive (so self-centered) that we want everyone to approve of us all the time, rather than accepting the kind of sacrificial love that comes from a friend who wants us to be right with God. And, oh my goodness, what turmoil wells up inside us when we are rebuked! We take it as a personal offense, rather than quietly wondering if perhaps it’s really true and we should do something about it.

    A rebuke strikes deeper into a discerning person than a hundred blows into a fool.Proverbs 17:10 NRSV

Friends don’t let friends sin. That’s the simple fact about Christianity. If we are true to our faith, we understand that everything here is temporal and our focus should be on the eternal. And the eternal is concerned with pleasing God.

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The Breath of Life: How Do You Feel About Yourself?

Do you like yourself? How do you feel about yourself? How do you view yourself? In the eyes of those around you? Your peers? Your family members? Your employers and the other authority figures in your life? In the eyes of your Lord Jesus Christ?

Personally, for as long as I could remember, I had dwelt beneath a shadow of deep inner shame. Shame that whispered in my ear, tortuously accusing me with words such as, “You are dirty; you are worthless and deserving of punishment; you are unlovable and warrant no merit in this world.”

Proverbs 23:7 teaches us that, For as he thinks in his heart, so is he [Amplified Bible]. Like the leper in Luke 5:12, I knew (or so I thought) that I was unclean. However, unlike the leper in Luke 5, I had no idea that Jesus could make me clean, and that He desired to do so. I was lost in a deep ocean of deceit with the waves of false belief tossing me against the sharp and slippery rocks created by the lies of the enemy – Satan – along with many falsehoods from my past without God. Furthermore, I was being dragged beneath the dark surface by the undertow of lack of knowledge:

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