A vision aligned with "the vision"

My friend Loren Bishop has revisited his vision for his blog: Pulpit of the Last Days. It is a great reminder that our Biblical hermeneutic (way of interpreting the Bible)is to have a Christ centered one not a human intellect centered one. Check out his vision on his blog.

link

Real versus False Religion

One afternoon on our recent trip to Kansas city the kids and I decided to check out an authentic Kansas City barbecue restaurant. I had heard of the fame of KC barbecue and wanted to check it out. We ended up at a place near downtown.

We walked in and you could smell the smells of barbecue cooking on a grill. One of the first sounds we heard as we walked in was a high shrill voice almost yelling "Hi may Heeeeelp U". Honestly it was a little freaky because this lady was yelling this statement over and over. My first thought was that this was a gimmick used by the restaurant so that people would remember it. I've been to places where the waitress poured your tea from a distance of three feet above your glass as a gimmick or another place where all the employees had to say "Welcome to Moe's" as soon as you walked in the door. So again, I'm thinking okay this is a ploy to advertise and it's kinda weird.

As we got to the counter I saw a little sign saying you got your meal free if someone didn't say to you "Hi May I help you". It dawned on me that this lady with the shrill yell had taken on a false religion. The store had a statement that was intended on politeness to their customers. They so believed in it that it was required for every customer. It was meant to be done with a heart to serve. This lady had taken that principle and decided to yell an abbreviated version of it so often that every customer would hear it. She didn't realize that the meaning and heart of the matter had totally been lost. Instead of leaving customers with a sense of being truly served, they were left with entertainment at the most and irritation on the other side.

This reminded me of the church today and where we get in trouble. The commandments of the Lord were given as a means for loving and serving God and one another, but at times we manipulate them to serve ourselves. This was a great example of true and false religion.

postnote: the barbecue was good, but didn't quite hit Texas standards.

All the plates are never spinning at the same time

I was listening to Mike Bickle teach and he said some things that really made me think. He was talking about the human propensity to look towards the future to a time when everything in our lives is in sinc, we have all the plates spinning. He laughed and said this is not a perspective birthed from reality. The reality is that there is always a plate not spinning. It helps us continue to depend on God.

Either the devil is keeping one of the plates of our lives from spinning, or our own immaturity, or at times God keeps that plate from spinning.

He also said he considers this life like a 70 year internship preparing us for the kingdom of heaven.

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels. that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 2 Corinthians 3:6,7

From the mouths of pups !

I ran across this on Dan Kimballs blog and thought it was relavantly funny.




Originally published August 9, 1976 by Charles Shultz

The New Blog and Dialogue

For a time I have wanted to put together a blog on the topic of the Kingdom of God. It seems God brings that theme to me over and over. So the Kingdom of God dialogue has been birthed . It is my random thought on the Kingdom.

This blog isn't designed to be a thorough treatise on the Kingdom or a well built linear theology of the subject. It is primarily a place for ruminations, meditations, and a growing ideology about the Kingdom. Come visit and feel free to leave a comment.