Mission Faithwalk

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—     the things God has prepared for those who love him—   these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.           The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.   For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.   This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.   The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The pers...

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.   Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.   Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)           This is the first part of what is known as the Shema. Some Jews say it as a prayer on a daily basis. Jesus quoted part of it in His answer to the question of what the greatest commandment is.            This is really an amazing statement. Whatever the religions of the times before the Exodus, by the time of the Exodus, lots of groups had multiple gods. Consider…. You get up one morning an...

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:26-31)           I read an editorial yesterday that started with an explanation of the history of the “the earth is flat” nonsense. He concluded that only the uneducated believed that the earth is flat, then he made what I assume he thought a logical leap to evol...

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)           In writing, lists can be presented in arbitrary order, in order from most to least important, or in order from least to most important. In Hebrew poetry, at least, the convention was to go from least to most important. Doctrine shouldn’t be set that bearing with one another in love is more important than being completely humble and gentle, but the argument should be made that the statement leads up to bearing with one another in love. The preceding matter expresses the (not exhaustive) components of the full command.           Part of the reason I tend to withdraw from people and relationships is that I know myself to be difficult to love. Another reason is that you are difficult to love. Both of us may say, “No, I’m easy to love, all you have to do is… give me everything I want, do what I want you to, don’t...

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)           I remember a scene from an old show from the seventies: Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century. I forget the precise circumstances, but Buck and Princess Ardala board a ship, and he sends her to the cockpit to start the engines. When he joins her there a short time later, she’s just sitting there, staring. He questions her about it, and she replies, “Princesses don’t start engines.” It was funny then. It’s not quite so funny now when stuff shows up on social media telling how the generation of Disney Princesses can’t cook a chicken or sew on a button. One of the things that irritated me at my last job was managers not knowing how to run the cash registers.             There’s a story about Booker T. Washington, founder, and president of Tuskegee Institute. He ...

  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.   In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.   Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.   And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. (Ephesians 6:14-18)           If we are to stand firm in the day of evil, we need to be dressed. Sometimes, the emphasis of discussion on this passage is on the armor: belt, breastplate, boots, shield, helmet, and sword, rather than on what they are made of: truth, righteousness (right behavior,) readiness that comes truth buckled around your waist, with ...

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesian 6:12-13)           I once read that if someone broke into your house while you were sleeping, put a gun to your head and demanded to know your mission in life, you should be able to express it in under thirty seconds. I don’t know that I could do that. It’s not that my mission is difficult to remember, it’s just that I tend to freeze under pressure. Today’s passage is another of those I think we should be able to repeat under pressure. In fact, being under pressure is the reason we should repeat it.            Our struggle . Make no mistake, w...