Does your imagination ever run off and go wild? Mine does. And it’s not always easy to grab it and bring it back home. “Are you kidding me? Get back over here and behave yourself.”

Fortunately, I’ve found that my imagination—that part of my mind that explores for me what could have been or could be—is often a fertile place for faith and encouragement when I offer it to the Spirit and what Jesus did with me. The exercise of offering my imagination to God engages and involves me with Him in a way that He uses to refresh and strengthen me. I’ll give you an example from yesterday.

I began thinking of Jesus bringing me close and hugging me as He went through His crucifixion and burial. I could see it, and in my imagination, He said, “I’ve got you, Ralph.” And after a bit, He said, “Wake up now.” In that same embrace, we rose together in His resurrection into a new life, established and revealed in heaven, where I was alive for the first time. “There now; we’re all done with that,” He said. “Look around you, because there’s so much to know and enjoy in this life with me that will dramatically affect you and your days. And we’ll always be together.”

You may know how very scriptural that is. In the truth found in the spiritual and eternal realm (2 Corinthians 4:18), I was brought into Christ, and crucified and buried with Him. It happened. The former me died. (See Romans 6:3-9) Further, I was raised with Him into heaven and new life, where every blessing is mine. (See Ephesians 2:1-7) It’s true. The new me was born, and lives at this very moment—in heaven and on earth. While I navigate this world, I’m humbled and thrilled to know that I have a unique and purposeful way of involvement with it. So I’m living by faith, thanks in part to my imagination.

How’s yours? See you later.

Aren’t you glad you’ve already got the antidote, the cure for what ails this world? I know there’s a lot going on that’s wrong and sick, but there is one essential cure from God’s perspective. Jesus announced the very reason for His coming—that we should have life, His life, and have it to the full! (See John 10:10) He knew our impossible condition—spiritually lifeless, dead—and did something full-strength about it. He’s been proving this for a long time.

Through the use of laws and rules for behavior, God diagnosed for us and proved to us that our condition was terminal. We cannot get ourselves right. But in the fullness of time, He provided our cure—Jesus, the Son of man. He invited us to believe and accept Him as our representative with God, and thereby included us in His crucifixion, burial and resurrection—in other words, His life—and seated us in the heavens with little to do but marvel. Think what that will look like. There will be dancing! And in my case, that means I might actually look decent at it.

So think of yourself in Christ, full of life. There, in Him, you cannot judge yourself according to your color; there is only His. In Christ, you cannot judge yourself by your ability, you cannot judge yourself by your faithfulness, your righteousness, your practice or your history; there is only His. And that’s why and where it’s all perfect—and you are too.

The new humanity that Jesus created in Himself is the end of sinful and lifeless, separate and self-centered humanity in favor of a glorified, Jesus-centered, new creation, full of life, his life. (See Ephesians 2:11-22)

That’s what we celebrate; God’s full-strength cure.

See you later.

The winds of the world are blowing fiercely and chaotically. Even friends burst out with a gale-force of angry words at each other, thinking their outburst will surely conquer and quiet the rage of the other. It’s madness.

But this is not our wind. This is not what moves us. This world’s wind is lifeless. Can you tell?

A particular meaning of the name, “Spirit of God,” has always been (whether Hebrew or Greek) the “wind” or “breath” of God. In Genesis 2, the wind of God breathed life into man, who “became a living being.” That same wind was removed from mankind when Adam and Eve died spiritually after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. No one had “the breath of life” within them from that day and all through the Old Testament. But God had a plan for His return, which Jesus proclaimed to Nicodemus in John 3.

Essentially, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he is born again, he could not enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells him that he had to be born of the Spirit, because only “the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6). And soon after Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit, the original wind of God, makes a grand re-entrance into the believers gathered in the upper room!

Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit (literally, the holy breath or wind of God) and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Parenthesis mine.)

What a day! What a moment. What a time—right on time. Because where was the wind? Where was the life-giving and life-moving Spirit? He was in! He was in again, full of life and movement. Why are we looking at this today? Because if you don’t know this, you might grow accustomed to the winds of this world and think they’re your winds. You might have no expectation of the inside wind, the wind of life for you. And you’ll suffer.

This breath of life, this wind of God is mysterious, I know. But paying attention to Him in you means life for you and freedom for you. That’s what He’s all about because that’s who He is! He doesn’t just do it as a choice; it’s who He is. And He’ll convince you that you’re not in charge because He is, so you can stay in step with His leading or His movement for you. And He’s pretty good at producing fruit, you know?

So if you haven’t been talking about what God is doing with you lately, consider the wind you’re paying attention to: the wind of God in you, or the winds of this world?

See you later.

Christian, there are many ways by which the evil one and the kingdom of darkness seek to influence you. Fortunately, the Father has broken your relationship with both of those, having rescued you “from the dominion of darkness and brought you into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:13-14). However, the attempt at influencing and confusing you with lies goes on. Your weapon against it is the Truth and the words that go with it.

Here’s the truth against one of those lies.

You’re likely familiar with the comparatively recent attempt to promulgate and support gender confusion in every arena. We know this does not come from God, who created us in His own image, “male and female” (Genesis 1:27). There is much more to say about the darkness of this deception (including the essence of procreation itself), but I hope to alert you to a tool being used to sell this lie, one you’ll want to be prepared for.

It’s a single word: “Empathy.” It’s being used as a hammer to get you to go along with people’s feelings, even while those feelings, real or imagined, are wrecking people’s lives. “Empathy” has taken the place of “compassion,” and we need to be clear as to why.

Empathy is imagined and postured, while compassion is real and felt. The word, “empathy,” has only been around for a hundred years or so, while “compassion” is an ancient word. In the last decade or so, “empathy” has been used and demanded increasingly as a way of leveraging societal change. A person can virtue signal by imagining another’s stress and then going along with their course of alleviating it. That’s empathy. Someone who is genuinely compassionate can feel that stress without agreeing with their course of alleviation.

Someone might say, for example: “I have the DNA and body of a man, but I feel like I’m a woman and want to go into women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, and play on women’s sports teams. Have you no empathy for me? I should be allowed to do what I want.” Compassion is free to respond, “I have compassion for your confusion and don’t want you to suffer, but I have a different course for your health because I cannot enter into your delusion.”

Compassion actually cares, and has a course for health that’s based upon the truth—Biblical, god-given truth—while empathy has no foundation. It’s made up, on-the-fly, we might say. It’s man-centered, exalts feelings over truth, and results in lunacy and harm; lots and lots of harm. That’s why people who are disregarding Biblical truth try to leverage you into agreement or silence (at least) by using the word, “empathy.” But you have a foundation for caring that insists upon the truth—God’s truth—which results in health, spiritually and physically.

Of course, we know that walking in the truth is a challenge, especially in a world of suffering and darkness. But the One who is the way, the truth and the life, has given us the Holy Spirit, who leads us in truth and freedom. After all, God is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). And that’s why we care the way we do. And we do.

See you later.

Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Hebrews 2:14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Colossians 1:13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

2 Corinthians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.

If you’re bothered and burdened with problems and the troubling baggage of bad habits and sin, has it occurred to you that you’re probably working way harder than Jesus is? It’s time you gave Him something to do for you. He’s been waiting and He’s ready.

The Jesus I know seems relatively unconcerned and rarely talks with me about “my baggage,” the stuff that stumbles and plagues me concerning how I want to be and what I want to do. You know, my frustrated desire for self-righteousness, my work on getting myself right, so that I’ll finally make myself work right. That. Obviously, He sees and knows another way and another me, the real me—the me that He made a new creation. And He focuses His attention right there. Perhaps today I will look there, too, and let Him handle the baggage. He seems pretty good with it.

Do you let Jesus handle your baggage, or are you still too caught up in it to let it go? Are you not done working on it yet? He really is perfect with our trash and sin and baggage that sticks with us because we insist upon handling it and doing something with it—at best, moving it around, from here to there.

But Jesus picked you, baggage and all, because He has a plan to be great with you—to handle your trash and baggage and sin, and the stuff that plagues you. So whether it’s drinking too much, swearing too much, sexing too much, being angry and mean too much, or WHATEVER too much, Jesus is really amazing right there—with you and for you so you can let it go, look away from it and look at Him.

He knows all about it anyway. He has been an expert baggage-handler for a long time. It’s part of His plan. The Spirit of God moved the apostle Paul to write a letter to the baggage-overloaded Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1:26 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. 27 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. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

Reading it now, does this reveal a little bit of why you are so appealing to God and His choice? Do you ever look around at your trash and stuff and baggage and think, “What am I gonna do with this?!” Well, that’s part of His plan to look good in what He does for you. See?

1 Corinthians 1:30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, He has become your righteousness, He has become your holiness, and He has become your redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

And why wouldn’t you boast in what He has become for you so you don’t have to try? See? It’s all a set up for Jesus. Have you thought of your baggage, your particular brand of trash or sin or fleshly stuff in that way? That it’s something for Him to deal with and to carry so you can do something else? It’s true. It is.

So look at Jesus and how He is for you and with you, and let go of controlling your baggage. He can handle it. He can carry it for the rest of your days.

See you later.

“What’s wrong with those people?” “How can people be so stupid?” “How can people be so uncaring?”

When my interaction with people reveals comments like these are at a sort of flood-stage, a torrent of angst and vitriol, I’m tempted to raise my voice with a perfect tonic of comments that will end the self-righteous floods. “Ha! Sure, Ralph. Good luck with that,” you might be saying. Fortunately, the Wise One living in me pointed out my foolish attempt at flood control (which would only add to the flood), by reminding me that He and I are all about Something Else. It’s not something that stops the flow, but something that rescues those caught up in it. The apostle Paul was also caught up in Something Else centuries ago, and what he wrote catches my attention this today:

Colossians 2:1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart, having been knit together in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by persuasive arguments.

Did you catch that? Did you notice those sequences, each phrase building off another, so that we may know Christ? Let me put it another way. If you’ve been reborn into Christ, but have been deluded into looking for “wisdom and knowledge” outside of where you are, then what you’re finding is false treasure. How can you tell? The evidence will be that you’re not “encouraged in heart, having been united in love,” because you’re not knowing “the mystery of God, namely, Christ,…” The unity you’re looking for in the world has been given to you in Christ alone, but the deception of the world’s “persuasive arguments” has beguiled you toward making another one that He didn’t. The Spirit is calling you off of the flood abatement team because you’re not part of it; you’re part of Something Else.

I’m not saying that Christians shouldn’t be mindful of the water. I’m saying we should be mindful of what the Spirit is doing with us and in us, so that we know Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” From knowing Him, will come our reach to those who are just now carried away. So, live your life in Christ, and He’ll see to your reach.

Colossians 2:5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see your orderly manner and the stability of your faith in Christ. 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 having been rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

See you later.

What’s going on? Why do we make choices and act so differently from one another? Can’t we all agree and get together? There’s a “together,” another “together” we have to think about first, because it affects everything else.

Christians have been given the eternal life of Jesus Christ and been put into Him (John 3:14-16). They, we, are all together there. Naturally, none of us will ever be viewed or treated by God as separate from Him, let alone each other! He did the giving and the putting! (See Romans 8:35-39.) In Him, all of us have all things already (Ephesians 1:3-14), and God provides the grace and power by His Spirit to His body (that’s us) for His purpose and glory. Let’s agree on that. We are together. We are in unity there, because of our union with Christ. He did it! He was successful.

And that’s why we look, choose and act so differently from one another. From that beginning, we’re gifted and motivated by God according to His perfect design of His perfect body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). We’re all good! We’re together at the same starting place. Heaven isn’t so much our finish line as it is our starting point (Ephesians 2:6-7). We’re from the same place, having the same God-given DNA. But like a single, beautiful, heavenly fireworks explosion, we won’t do the same from that place.

We’re not supposed to. The best we can do for each other is not gripe and grumble at each other and try to change each other’s trajectory, but to remind each other of our shared starting point. In other words, to build each other up in Christ, where we are together, so that the Spirit’s influence may be our primary influence. That’s where our health is—with Him. We’re all suffering from worldliness—some of us more than others—so let’s apply the gospel of God’s truth and grace to each other’s wounds. That’s how we help each other. We don’t tell each other to “Heal yourself! Get better!” We serve the truth of God’s grace—what He did and where we are, in Him—to each other. That’s what saves us every day.

Let’s remember and remind each other about the grace of God that starts and continues the work of God in us. In Him, we’re together and safe—we’ve simply got some different things to do.

See you later.

Imagine Jesus suddenly walking into the little room where you’re sitting all alone. What happens? Think about it. Turn on your imagination.

What’s the expression upon His face as He approaches you? How’s His body language? Is He uptight? Does He hurry up and get past the greeting because He’s preoccupied with His To-Do List? Or is He lit-up with delight to be with you, knowing as He does that He is your Lord and Benefactor, having all things for you, His friend and confidant?

In that little room, you’d have the day of your life. And all you want—in that room and outside of it—is shaped by who He is and how He is with you.

This is life with Jesus. This is life by the Spirit. This is why it’s so good to think about, read, write, pray and talk about the goodness of God to us in Christ. There is no burden to it, no responsibility for our performance, and no judgement about the quantity and style of our enjoyment. Enjoying God with you is the thing! You know it’s true by what it does for you, and what it does for others through you. How better to display God’s grace than to enjoy Him?

That little room is in you. There’s no where you have to go. No mountain top or valley low that’s a better place to enjoy Him. No mood music or lighting by which to provide a better atmosphere for Him to show up. You’re it. God’s plan of the ages has come to pass in you. Growing in that grace, growing in believing and knowing that is maturing in the faith. That’s not much of an effort, is it? No. So enjoy.

See you later.

Are you a good dancer?

What if the world’s best dancer were to call you, a fumbler, out to the dance floor and take you in arm? What’s the one thing you’d want to do?

Would it be to tell him how bad of a dancer you are, and talk him out of it? Would it be to pre-apologize because he’s not going to get anywhere with you? Knowing that you’ve got nothing to offer, would you try to drum up some confidence and put on a happy face to put the crowd at ease?

No. I don’t think so. It would be to give all of your attention and hope to him. You would look away from your feet and the test they were about to go through, and look at his face and in his eyes, and find your confidence in him and his ability to lead you where you could never by yourself. He is Perfect, and the dance—from beginning to end—would be to prove it to you and with you. And everyone would know that you’d found your step and movement in the grace of His.

Philippians 4:11 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who is my strength.

See you later.