“Accidently” Attending Mass in Italy

Daily writing prompt

What topics do you like to discuss?

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The topics I most like to discuss and share with others are the amazing things that Jesus does in my life. For instance, He led my wife and me to unintentionally attend a Catholic mass. Here’s how it happened:

We were recently in Matera, Italy. As we were exploring the medieval walled city there, we realized that we were lost in the narrow maze-like passageways of a residential area early on a Sunday morning and there was no one around to help us. Suddenly we heard what sounded like a beautiful Gregorian chant.

I walked around the next corner and heard the chant-like song coming from a small church. I looked in the open door and saw a priest robed in white and singing passionately from His heart in a darkened sanctuary with only two women in attendance. I immediately went in and sat on an ancient uncomfortable pew. My wife came in to rescue me and then we realized that we were stuck.

The priest’s face was aglow with an inner light; his eyes hope-filled and bright. He was truly a delight to watch. The priest began reading a liturgy in Italian and the two women in the congregation responded from time to time. Although we didn’t understand, our hearts were captivated by the presence of Jesus that we felt there.

After a few minutes the priest stopped, walked over to us, and in the kindest voice began talking to us in Italian. We didn’t understand his words, but we knew that he was welcoming us with the love of Christ. We smiled and nodded and pointed to heaven and told him that we didn’t speak Italian. He beamed with peace, walked back to the front and continued with the liturgy.

Then one of the women went to a pulpit and prayed. Later another went and read something.

The priest walked back to our pew again and we understood that he wanted to know our names. So, we told him: “Steve and Ernie.” He repeated each name a few times and pointed to us correctly identifying us. Then he smiled, walked back to the front, and continued the liturgy.

Suddenly he stopped and walked back to us for a third time. As he spoke, I heard the word “cantare.” I told my wife that I thought he wanted us to sing. Ernie began to sing Amazing Grace in English. I quickly joined in. Then to our surprise the priest began to sing it with us in Italian as the two ladies watched from the front of the sanctuary. His face was beaming. It was a special God-moment for all five of us.

After the song, the priest spoke more to us in Italian. I think he was inviting us to the altar for the Eucharist, but we weren’t sure. However, sitting there in a sanctuary packed with ancient religious ornamentation and tradition, we experienced deep heart-connection with a beautiful Christ-follower–a priest who was eager to step out of routine formalism and demonstrate the reality of “Christ in you” to two strangers from another country who didn’t speak his language or follow his religious tradition. I loved accidently attending mass!

A Southern Boy Traveling Through Southern Italy With New Englanders

Daily writing prompt

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

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My wife, Ernie, and I just returned from a visit to Italy. We’re from the South (in the USA) and traveled with a group of 44 people from Massachusetts. We only knew two of them.

We were amazed by the Italian sights, people, culture, and food. However, we were even more amazed by the warm loving reception and caring friendship that we received from the people we traveled with.

Almost immediately we felt connected heart-to-heart with them. There was a beautiful sense of community and unity among us. It wasn’t a Christian-based tour. It consisted of people from different backgrounds and beliefs, and yet our heart-connection and love for one another was so strong that it overrode divisiveness and created incredible togetherness. Ernie and I felt totally loved, received, and accepted, even though we didn’t hide the fact that we are passionately in love with the risen Jesus.

We saw a lot of ruins from two ancient cultures. The ancient Greeks and Romans demonstrated the deep human need to worship by worshipping many gods. The Romans saw the Christian concept of one God who created all that exists, as a threat to their religion. That’s why they violently persecuted Christ-followers.

Suddenly in the fourth century, Roman Emperor Constatine made Christianity legal throughout his empire and called Christian leaders together to institutionalize it. Shortly afterwards Christianity was made the official religion of Rome and multitudes of pagans joined the officialized form, bringing their belief in many gods with them.

Constantine even gave pagan temples to the institutionalized form of Christianity, and they turned them into churches. This picture is one example of that. In the process of institutionalization Christianity lost much of the Holy Spirit led community that the early Christ-followers experienced daily. In Italy, traveling with a diverse spectrum of people, Ernie and I experienced a fresh taste of that wonderful, Spirit-led community. “O taste and see that God is good.”

Christianity as a personal, Spirit-led relationship with the risen Jesus, began to fade away when human hierarchy took control of it. Throughout the centuries that human hierarchy has evolved into an estimated 40,000+ Christian denominations that all claim that they are following Christ rather than human institutionalism, yet no two of them completely agree with each other. Perhaps it’s time to go beyond religious institutions and return to Spirit-led Christianity.

Thank you to all my new New England friends, family, and “groupo” for sharing your love with Ernie and me! You inspired us beyond measure!

My testimony about testimonies

I woke up this morning with the word “testimony” on my mind. It made me realize how fortunate I was as a new Christian to be surrounded by people who shared their testimonies of how Jesus was working in their lives. Their real-life stories helped me to learn to recognize, hear, and obey the voice of God in my heart and made me hunger for more and more of the Bible. I got out of bed and immediately wrote this testimony about testimonies:

I love to hear salvation testimonies, the living word about the present-day work of the risen Jesus, shared from the heart of people who were born again, healed, and set free by Him! Testimonies overcome the darkness in human hearts by shinning the light on how the risen Jesus is speaking, acting, and working today.

Christians need to gather to hear the living word of heart-felt testimonies, not just one man’s analytical talk about the written word. As a new Christian I was part of a weekly testimony gathering. The first time I went there, I heard people testify about how Jesus saved them. As they spoke Jesus suddenly became real to me and I’ve been passionately in love with Him ever since. Every week I heard open-hearted testimonies that not only told me what Jesus was doing in people’s lives, but also showed me. I could see Jesus in their radiant faces as they told about what Jesus did and was still doing in their lives.

Their living word, life-story testimonials made me so hungry for the written word that I would continually devour the Bible. I still read it every day with an open hungry heart. Although our testimony gatherings had no sermon, my three years there caused me to grow in my relationship with Jesus and in knowledge of the Bible far more than decades years of sermon-hearing ever did. See Revelation 12:11.

When people are being led by the Spirit to show and tell what God has done and is doing in their lives the presence and power of Jesus is demonstrated for all to see. Regularly gather with some Christ-followers and open the meeting for anyone present to testify as they feel prompted by God’s Spirit. The most powerful sermons I’ve ever heard have been sincere, heart-felt testimonies!

There’s no reason why every church service shouldn’t feature at least one salvation testimony from a member. If they run out of members with testimonies, each week they could invite someone from another church to come and testify.

If Jesus has saved you, don’t silently sit on that experience. Tell it far and wide-even in church services! If you are shy about speaking your testimony, write it down. Then post it on social media and/or make copies of it and pass it out to people you see throughout the day.

When Christians meet and testify as they let the risen Christ take full control of His body, amazing things happen! Christian, you have a calling and a ministry. Get busy doing it daily! I don’t think that Jesus calls His followers to assemble together to sit & passively listen to one man’s ministry, but to actively obey the 50+ New Testament “one another” commandments.

The Bible warns us about a false Jesus. Many people and a few denominations that claim to be Christian redefine Jesus. We should always verify testimonies with the Bible and make sure that they are talking about the Jesus who is the Creator of the Universe in human flesh and not a redefined Jesus.

Years after my experiences in the first testimony gatherings I was helping lead a church. Every week we invited a different guest to come on Sunday and give their salvation testimony. We had about 90 different guests come and do that, and it was glorious. Some Mormon missionaries found out about it, and they kept trying to get us to invite them to testify. However, if you examine their beliefs about their Jesus, He isn’t the Creator of the Universe in human flesh, so we politely turned them down.

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“Love never fails.”

Daily writing prompt

Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

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I have 36 journal books full of quotes that I have collected over the years. One of my favorites is: “Love never fails.”

Love constantly looks unto Jesus. It beholds the Lamb of God throughout each day. Experience love at Christ’s sight. Let Him ever write His love letters deeply on your heart and flood you with His patience and kindness, Let the Spirit of Christ lead you away from envy, pride, self-seeking, and anger so that you can enjoy mercy and forgiveness. Rejoice in the truth that if you will continually surrender your life to the risen Jesus, you can trust Him to protect you, direct you, and always be the hope of glory living in and through you. Rely and depend on Him every moment of every day. Jesus never fails!

People can’t see Christ in you if you hide His presence. Walk in His light. Day by day cultivate your heart so that Christ’s life can grow and flourish within you. Pull out the weeds that choke His presence and quench His Spirit. Plow up the hard ground in your heart so it can become Christ’s fertile soil. Let the Master Gardener prune your distractions, addictions, and rebellions so that you can bear even more fruit.

Let Jesus out of
The religious box
So He can detox
You from life’s hard knocks
And heal your hearting heart.

The pearl of great price
Is the Spirit leading
The body of Christ
And demonstrating
The presence of God.
Be still and know,
Then get up and go
Do what the Spirit
Tells you to do.

If you know Him,
Let your life
Be Christ’s poem
Revealing the beauty
Of His presence
So people can see
The Pearl of Great Price,
God eternal gem,
Shining through you
And reflecting Him
Everywhere you go.

Responding to Door Knocks Wakes Me Up From Life’s Hollow Daze

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

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It’s hard to wake up from life’s hollow daze. The word “holiday” came from the old English word, “haligdæg,” which means “holy day.” Every day is my favorite “haligdæg” because every day is a holy day, a gift from God, and Jesus is always knocking on the doors in my heart.

If you are a Christian, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit and Jesus is knocking on your closed doors so that He can turn the tables inside of you and purify His temple from deep within. Will you open the closed doors in your heart and let Him in and take full control?

Who is that knocking on your closed doors? It’s the risen Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Door-Knocker, is your hope for healing, inner peace, recovery, and sanity. See Revelation 3:20. (You can keep some of the doors of your heart closed to the living Jesus, but you can’t make Him stop knocking.)

Jesus is knocking on your closed doors. Open up to Him and live your life with all your doors always open to the risen Jesus. It takes courage and faith to open wide your closed doors to the living Jesus. The people who dare to continually do so are filled with the wonderful fruit of His Spirit. See Galatians 5;22-23.

Even when people
Try to padlock
Their heart
And to block
The sound
Of Christ’s knock,
It echos deeply
Within them
Like the tick-tock
Of a loud clock.

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From Camping to “Gloramping”?

Thanks to the Boy Scouts, as a pre-teen and a teenager I went camping once a month for years. It was always an adventure and a challenge. There were always obstacles to overcome.

When I was 19, I had an experience that is the solid rock of my life. I encountered and surrendered to the living, resurrected Jesus Christ and I have camped on an ever-growing relationship with Him the rest of my life. I love “gloramping” in Christ — camping in His glory!

A Christian lifestyle isn’t a pattern that we learn to follow or a religious program that we regularly attend. It’s moment-by-moment surrender to “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Christ-followers are called to a Spirit-led way of life that rises far above human habits. The fruit of the Spirit isn’t produced by good habits or self-effort. It flows like rivers of living water from deep within people who let the risen Jesus fully inhabit them. As they constantly submit to Christ living in them, He personally directs their thoughts, words, and actions throughout each day. If churches would begin to train people to continually listen to and obey the risen Jesus (instead of catering to human complacency by conducting comfortable church services) spiritual awakening would become the norm in the body of Christ.

Christ’s love is the key to God’s kingdom. (“The greatest of these is love’). When we begin to experientially know the love of God (not just understand it as a concept) we begin to actually rely on and totally depend on God’s love for us moment-by-moment. We learn to live in love throughout each day, not just to philosophy about it. As we, more and more, live in God’s love we experience the reality of literally living in God and of God truly living in us. (1 John 4:16.) Perhaps church could become a place where people train together to live in love by listening to God’s Spirit and each person saying and doing whatever the risen Jesus prompts them to.

Christianity unity has to be the heart-to-heart unity of the Holy Spirit. Christ-followers will never come into full doctrinal agreement on earth. Seeking unity through doctrinal agreement has backfired. It has splintered the one body of Christ into an estimated 40,000+ independent Christian denominations world-wide (not counting all of the independent congregations).

During the Jesus Movement I saw unity between believers bring multitudes into a direct, personal relationship with the living, resurrected Jesus. When we sang, “We Are One In The Spirit,” we meant it, and we felt it, and we lived it. But then some of the 40,000 denominations began to chip away at our unity by trying to pull us into their institutionalism and diverse doctrinal beliefs. Over a few years the Spirit-led lifestyle of the Jesus Revolution was snuffed out by churchianity. O that Christians would return to the heart-to-heart unity and direct, personal leadership of God’s Spirit!

The inner voice you hear calling you to acts of love and kindness that are beyond your complacent zone, isn’t something in you telling you what to do. It’s someone speaking personally to you through your conscience. His name is Jesus.

Make the choice
To obey Christ’s voice
And soon you will rejoice!

Follow Christ Himself,
Not just sermons
About Him
Or the preachers
Who preach them.
Let Christ Himself
Living in you
Personally lead you
In all you say and do.
–John 17:26.

When you ignore
The inner restraint
Of your conscience
The voice of Christ in you
Becomes faint.

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When I’m doing good things that I’m prompted to do

Daily writing prompt

When do you feel most productive?

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I feel the most productive when I’m doing the good things that I’ve been prompted to do. When I obey the wholesome leadings in my heart, my life begins to flow with positive results. I believe those leadings come from the risen Jesus as He speaks in and through my conscience.

Jesus isn’t a statue or a spiritual symbol or the dead founder of a religion. He’s the Creator of the Universe, God in human flesh! I feel the most productive when Christ’s living water is freely flowing from deep within me.

When Christ-followers call Jesus Lord and acknowledge that He is the Head of the body of Christ on earth, we’re proclaiming that we’re letting Him take over and personally direct our lives moment-by-moment, both individually and as a body of believers. O how we need to back up that proclamation with our behavior and allow the risen Jesus to personally direct us in our daily thoughts, words, and behaviors, and in what we say and do when we assemble ourselves together for worship. It’s vital that we let the living Jesus personally lead us both individually and corporately so that through us He can demonstrate His Lordship for all to see.

When Christians gather for worship, we need to let God’s Spirit show us how to light each other up with the light of Christ that is shining in our heart. We need to follow the direct, inner promptings of the Spirit, not just human traditions. We need to openly testify about what Jesus is doing and has done in our life. We need to individually show people the reality of His presence and Lordship by personally saying and doing what He tells us to. Following Jesus throughout each day makes life an exciting adventure.

Where is Jesus in the typical church service?
A) Watching from heaven?
B) Present but mostly ignored?
C) Actively directing the meeting by prompting various people to openly and humbly share what He puts on their heart?

O that we would let the living Jesus take full and direct control when we gather in His name!

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The Way the Body of Christ Can Be One

Viewing the risen Jesus together with other Christ-followers as we watch Him work in and through each other will override our divisive personal views about doctrine or politics or any other obstinate opinions that we have. Observing Christ living in and acting through each other will unite our hearts in overwhelming love for the risen Jesus when He is being literally and clearly demonstrated in our midst. Our love for each other will soar.

So why not? Why not gather and cultivate an environment where Christ-followers can watch the living Jesus work in and through each other? Why not let the Holy Spirit (Christ in you, the hope of glory) take control and personally direct our church services by prompting anyone present to say and/or do whatever He tells them to? Every Christ-follower can be aflame with the fire of God and overflowing with His Spirit.

The world has seen enough tightly programmed and rigidly run Christian meetings. It’s time to let Jesus lead us and be the literal Head of His body, not a mere figurehead whose authority is usurped and overridden by human hierarchy and control.

Many times, I’ve experienced the living Jesus working in and through a group of diverse people who are free to listen to and obey His Spirit together. I always leave in awe about how Christ’s presence unites our hearts in love that sweeps aside human pride and opinions. Why not make that the norm for Chrisian worship gatherings? See 1 Corinthians 14:26 and Romans 8:14.

My Favorite Emoji Calls Me Out of My Complacent Zone

Daily writing prompt

What are your favorite emojis?

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The classic smiley face is my favorite emoji. It reminds me that there’s not much to smile about in my complacent zone.

The smiley face emoji makes me realize that staying in my complacent zone is boredom for my mind! It challenges me to stretch my face with a smile and to stretch my life by living beyond complacency.

Think about, focus on, listen to, watch, and read the things that make your mind a peaceful paradise. Mental health without mind-management is a myth.

Mental health is built on mind management. It requires discernment, discipline, and focus. Recognize the thoughts that make your life better and the thoughts that make it worse. Welcome and cultivate thoughts that improve your mental wellbeing. Oppose and drive away thoughts that don’t. Refuse to be distracted by the enslaving enticements that seduce you from within and without.

Messed up thinking is not mental illness. It’s brain mismanagement.

A great way to get out of your complacent zone is to welcome Christ’s thoughts into your mind. Let them lead and direct you throughout each day. Resist and reject all ungodly thoughts. Allow them no place in your mind. Step outside your complacent zone and begin to experience Jesus-adventures every day.

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What “services” do church services offer?

I have never figured out what services church services offer. Although for centuries attending church services has been presented as obligatory for Christians. I can’t find the idea of “church services” in the Bible. Christ-followers are told to assemble themselves together and in 50+ places Christians are told to serve one another in various ways, but nowhere are they told to be the passive recipients of the services of a religious organization.

Too often the body of Christ, His assembly, rejects His dominion and Headship, honoring Him with their lips but keeping their heart far from Him. Look what human leadership and the concept of human authority (headship) has done to the body of Christ. (Jesus is the only Head of His body.) It’s estimated that there are more than 40,000 independent Christian denominations worldwide and that doesn’t include all the independent non-denominational churches. Jesus prayed that His body be one. Human leadership has sliced and diced it into shreds.

The dream that God has planted in my heart is to see members of the body of Christ overcome their divisions by connecting heart to Jesus and to one another. I want to see churches allowing the Holy Spirit to directly and personally lead the congregation in the actual doing of the New Testament “one another” commandments when they gather in His name. That would be a great service to their members and to the world in general!

Social Gatherings Make Me Nervous

Daily writing prompt

What makes you nervous?

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I feel awkward and alone in casual social gatherings. I feel like I don’t have a purpose or a role. I don’t know what to say and do. Almost everyone is interacting, and I don’t know how to approach small groups of people engaged in conversation. When I walk up it seems like they ignore me. When I interject a comment, it seems to flop. I’m really uncomfortable. I’m the wall flower.

(Perhaps most people feel that way about social gatherings. Maybe that’s why those kinds of get togethers are so dependent on alcohol.)

However, when I gather with people who want to spontaneously pray, worship, testify, talk about Jesus, and be led by the Holy Spirit, I feel totally at peace sharing what God puts on my heart, even if I don’t personally know anybody in the meeting. That’s one reason I’m so excited about Spirit-led Christian gatherings that Jesus called “ekklesia” in Matthew 16.

Also, when I make it my mission to show people the love and kindness of God, my nervousness begins to lift. When I get my focus off of myself and my feelings by focusing on helping other people feel comfortable, everything changes. As if by a miracle, I find myself being welcomed and appreciated by others.

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