Check your pulse

Try to read it like it's true.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17 ESV)

 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 ESV)

 How are you? How is your soul? Who are you living for? Where do your thoughts go?
What are your big concerns? Where is your heart? Really.

 Take a second and think about it.

 Would you give it all up for Jesus? Not in some spiritual sense. Would you give up those plans? That success? That 401k? That stuff?

 Today, there is a fork in the road- to lay it all down- the opinions of other people, the money, the car, the house, the dreams. To lay down before the cross- your heart with all of it's sin and dreams and loves and idols. The alternative?

Just keep doing religion- go to church give your 10% and let your soul shrivel. I pray that the Spirit would call you back like He does me.

 It seems repentance and faith are never my idea first.

Love is not a victory march

"Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and its a broken 'Hallelujah'" -Leonard Cohen (Hallelujah)

Where does the time go?

Let me ask a question: would you rather live in a crappy, sub-par house but have life-giving, deep, meaningful relationships with those around you? Or would you rather live in a large, beautiful house, but have broken, draining relationships with those around you, leaving you feel unloved? If you're like me, you'd opt for #1. Now here is a question to think about: does your expenditure of time, energy, and thought reflect those priorities? Or does it reflect something else?

Prerequisites

A prerequisite for loving your neighbor as yourself... is loving yourself.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31)

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A prerequisite for denying yourself... is having a self to deny.
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mark 8:34)

Invitations to the Invisible World

It seems like Christ in the gospels is constantly calling us to value, to pursue, and to delight in the world of the invisible. It's not that the visible, touchable, smellable, tasteable, and audible are unimportant. It's very clear that Jesus cares a great deal about the physical needs of men and women.

Even with that tangible care, though, Christ continually calls us to life that values invisible realities more than material circumstances.

Highlighting the Difficulty of the Evolutionary Process

Martin Luther King Jr. and the choice

I wonder if I'm at a point like this in my life (whether I realize it or not).

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.