|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

The kingdom of God is one of addition, not subtraction. If I try to deny what I want in my inner most being, I will lose every time. It's the source of satisfaction that is the problem, not the desires that are found underneath my actions. Satan appealed to the perfect desire in Eve's heart by offering her an alternative source to godliness. God made man to want to be like God! Satan twisted that desire to connect it to a dead end...Eve without God. Genesis 3:4Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. God had already made Adam and Eve in His own likeness to raise them into godliness. All the other beings of creation were after thei

If I set my heart to obey God, He makes the yoke easy and the burden light. If I assume that what He is asking me to do is too hard, then I am right...what God calls me to requires His help. But, if I will see He is generous with His help...with Grace...and take the first step into obedience, He supplies everything I need to finish what He started... He leads, I follow, and He makes a way. Doubt symbolizes and waters down obedience to something I can do in my own strength. Faith sees obedience as something that requires supernatural help. I give God what is costly...my trust... and He makes it easier to trust Him. God is not a hard man. He has already proven He is willing to go to any length to save me. It is required that I have faith that He rewards those who dilligently seek Him. That faith will produce an amazing work of obedience in my life if I will simply step into obedience, trusting that He will make the burden light and the yoke easy. Matthew 25:14“For the kingdom of heaven i

Only God knows the way to my complete satisfaction. God made my heart. He made me to need His leadership. That is why mankind is heading where it is...it doesn't realize it's need for a different leader. I don't want to wish the world would find its way to different leader but not let myself be the start of that. That is hypocrisy... preaching one thing, but then making no effort to let that thing start with me. God knows what I want. He put it there. There is no conscious me without a deliberate God taking stuff that wasn't alive and making it into a living me. He designed me with certain hungers that only He knows how to satisfy. If I will trust Him and follow His leadership, He will satisfy my life. His leadership is different than mine. That is kind of the point. If I could do this without him, I'd already be fully satisfied. The fact is, I can't. The more I walk in God's leadership the more gratitude and satisfaction I find. The more I see of God's

Jesus' coming was the most progressive moment the earth had seen up until that day. His ascension was another huge step forward in the progress of mankind toward complete and full redemption. He tore the veil and walked in first. His second coming is what we look to and celebrate today. Advent was never intended to be a celebration of what happened, but an anticipation of the fullness of what IS happening. Jesus is Lord of the living. Luke 20:37“But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38“For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” Jesus isn't someone that lived. He lives! He isn't someone that stayed in a manger...though He remains meek and humble, unfolding the truth of what started in a barn. The most awe-inspiring demonstration of the unstoppable power of humility and mercy began in a manger, but He didn't stay there

Does your hope include the people you see as against what you believe, or does it war against them? Jesus' hope was for His enemies, too. Right now, the darkness in the world is causing many to search for hope. I want to be ready to give a testimony of the reason for my hope and that reason needs to be the same as Jesus'. For God so loved the world... Jesus came meek...in a manger. That is the kind of king He is, too. He didn't alter his personality to come into the manger, and he won't alter it at His second coming. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The manger is His strength. He could have called on 12 legions of angels to prevent the cross, but the cross was His strength. Demonstrating the heart of His father in perfect submission to the values of God was Jesus' mission...revealing the Father. That made the Father His strength. No one will ever defeat the uncreated God. I have to believe this about God to be His and respond to Him in faith. I

God has provided a rest for the people He made. This is the rest: to stop striving for destiny, provision, purpose, and security, and instead to trust God. The fruit of entering into this rest is to have the grace, or power, to seek first the kingdom and let everything else be added to your life, as God decides the right timing and measure for us to receive provision, purpose, security, and a fulfillment of the dream He placed in each human heart (destiny). The rest God wants to give requires the choice, made in faith, to believe that He is good. Essential to this faith is a simple understanding that we didn't make ourselves. The fact that God made us, if He is good, implies He will provide for us. He is good. The smallest amount of love, joy, peace, patience and kindness in the world shows that He is good...otherwise none of these would ever be felt. Creation declares God is good. The fact that there are places of lack in the world is a direct result of mankind turning from God

I'll only get one life to lay down. Not in the meaninglessly poetic way this phrase is abused in...I mean in a practical way that affects my real choices with time, money, and security today. I'll only ever get one life to fully trust in God. I'll only get one life to fully risk on what I believe. I am unwilling to play church with God... To play it safe hoping God is real. I'm unwilling to waste my life trying to manage the risks like everyone else. I'm looking for ways to give everything away...all my time, all my money, all my security. If God's NOT real, the security of things are an illusion anyway. Everything is in vain if God's not real and doesn't reward those who seek Him. If God is real, then pursuing these things instead of God is the biggest waste of a life I could imagine. I know Him enough to know He is real. I want to fully know Him. I will only know Him to the extent I trust Him and let Him reveal Himself to me. He will never let me fall.

There is no selfish section of heaven. There is no place for people who are self seeking there at all. The point of this life is to learn to put off that way of living now, so we are ready to VOLUNTARILY live in selflessness, peace, patience, and love forever. Jesus will not make you be selfless without your reach for it. Right now, our culture is growing in self-centeredness. If someone doesn't want to do something, they simply don't. This is especially true in church, where attendance, participation, and serving are seen as optional. Work, leisure, rest, sports, personal needs ...these are all generally seen as more necessary to attend to than the group of believers we are learning to live with forever! Believe me, Jesus isn't carving out a spot in heaven for the selfish. Otherwise, it will be no different than what we are living in right now. Selfishness now, although it is becoming more prominent, is very dangerous, because Jesus is sifting His church right now along th

We were made...literally designed...to need God. Your heartbeat and the breath in your lungs is proof. The point of life is learning to embrace that need, learning to not be ashamed of it, and connect that need to God...to let Him be God to you: provider, comforter, counselor, friend, savior, Lord...the one who remakes you into a free person. God made you because He wanted to take care of you forever. To let God lead you is costly to the flesh. It requires dying to your own leadership. But it is a totally free gift that, when embraced, will free you from shame, fear, condemnation, and anxiety. If my "freedom" leaves me anxious and afraid, it isn't really freedom. If my "slavery" leaves me light, free, growing in peace and joy...sign me up! The truth is, I didn't make myself. Embracing that simple truth makes letting God lead me really wise. God is looking for me to WANT to be the man He pictures when He dreamed me up, but not think I have to become that man

Ezekiel 22:27“Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain. 28“Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD had not spoken. 29“The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31“Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD. To 'make a wall and stand in the gap' is to pray. You can watch the judgment unfold with fear and dread and try to avoid it, or even worse, try to resist it, and let it destroy you, or you can agree with

Ezekiel 22:27“Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain. 28“Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD had not spoken. 29“The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31“Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD. To 'make a wall and stand in the gap' is to pray. You can watch the judgment unfold with fear and dread and try to avoid it, or even worse, try to resist it, and let it destroy you, or you can ag

James 4:6 NKJV — But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Grace is conditional. Grace = supernatural power to do the will of God. Part of that power is continued opportunity to repent, or come back to the will of God, when we come up short Obtaining grace begins with seeing our need for grace and coming out of rationalizing sin. If we settle our minds on truth, God releases grace. I can't escape sin's grip in my own strength, I need grace. But, grace is conditional on me determining sin is not ok. To not accept the truth, which is arrogance, closes the door of grace and opens the door to judgment. God always resists the proud. 2 Peter 3:11Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent he

You don't need to be perfect in execution to be perfect in faith. God is looking for the fullness of faith....the choice to believe that He is who he says He is: Loving father Almighty in power Unlimited in love Sovereign over all truth God is looking for those who are willing to choose to believe that His ways...His judgments...lead to redemption and life. God's ways are not our ways. He calls things sin that we would, in our flesh, wish He didn't care about, and He actually de-emphasizes a lot of things we think are really important, often due to our religious upbringing. The point of life is learning to yield to truth established by the One who established life and let Him establish us in that truth. This takes...it's only possible...by His Spirit and supernatural help. It takes God just to breathe and have a heartbeat! How much more does it take God to love, have wisdom, understanding, hold truth, and stand in the face of all that resists God? God is looking for tho