I want to step into a topic today as I blog I’ve not addressed before at least here.  I tend to write about what I’ve learned or find by walking and believing.  Yesterday as I was reading in the Bible I needed to make a choice about what Bible version I was going to now read since the day before I’d finished Revelation.  I chose to continue to read the Joyce Meyer Bible which is The Amplified version and the one Joyce has added her insights as well as personal stories relating to her walk with God.  I’ve read the Bible through many times now in my lifetime.  So doing this is not anything like a goal for me.  It is something I do to connect more deeply with God.

Today I’m reading about Satan’s manipulation of Eve and Adam in Genesis 3&4.  It says that when they did as Satan said they not only sinned, but Adam turned over control of the earth to Satan.  This is not new information, but today something hit me from this passage.  Adam and Eve had been walking with God and conversing with Him daily until this time.  They saw God.  As I began to process this, I put this along side the passages later when different men of God were told they could not see God’s face or they’d be destroyed.  Yet, in the beginning God and man were fully ok being face to face with each other.  There was no threat.  It was simply part of their intimate relationship.

My heart has longed to know God this way since I was a boy.  I would have instances where I’d think He’d shown Himself to me through circumstances.  But to see Him and know Him the way they did has always been a deep yearning.  As I asked God about this He brought to mind the verse from I Corinthians 13:12  “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  I’ve had this information given to me through sermons and scripture reading much of my life.  Today, however, it was like I read it for the first time with personal meaning and application.

This human side of us being so dominant and out of balance with our spirit is totally the result of sin.  However, the new creation Jesus makes in us when we accept Him into our hearts has the ability to see and know God much more like God intended.  The degree I trust God and believe all He tells me will determine to the extent He reveals more and more to me.  Boy, do I want to stick close to Him!

God never ceases to amaze me.  As we were moving through the last of the training videos last night I could see that we were running out to time for what I wanted to address:  stating what our topic would be for leading this fall.  We didn’t get to it.  I know that some are ready to commit and yet I could see that there are several who wanted time now to ponder this with God.  We have two weeks to do this as we won’t meet again to begin going through the curriculum until April 24.  Kathy and I are leaving this Saturday for Oklahoma. Our daughter there is being ordained as a pastor and we will be there for this.

This morning I was made fully aware of a misconception I’ve had for years.  When John wrote his book he never mentions his name.  He calls himself, “the one Jesus loved”.  I’ve always perceived this as somewhat arrogant.  Our pastor recently mentioned in a sermon that John was so humble that he only mentioned himself as someone Jesus loved rather than naming himself.  Then this morning in my devotional reading it says John was so humble.  God’s Son–Jesus Christ chose him to spend such intimate time with him as well as trust him to bring His message to the world.  This blew John away.  All of a sudden I realized I’d been judging John all this time rather than seeing the truth of his relationship with Christ.  I hate it when man judges others and here I was doing it.  On top of this, I realized too that God has given His Son Jesus to me and to each one of us along with His Holy Spirit.

The humbleness John felt towards being chosen by Christ is just how I feel today.  To think this Almighty God of our universe has chosen you, me, each one of us, is simply amazing.  Yes, he wants our surrendered obedience, but He gives us full choice to  do so and this is where I want to spend the rest of my life.

Tonight wraps up the training we’ve been doing for the ones who want to join the recovery work at our church beyond Celebrate Recovery.  As we do, there will be time for each one who has taken part to state their decision—Do they choose at this time to lead one of the new groups?  If so, which area is God nudging you to lead:  Sexual Addiction, Homosexuality, Abuse, or Spouse of Sexual Addiction.

This morning in my devotions I thought it was time to ask God if I should now go back to journaling to His Son since He and I have gotten much better acquainted and I feel so much more grounded in Him.  His response took me by surprise.  He seemed to be saying it is fine to journal to The Team.  It may seem trite to read what I’m writing, but I’ve had this desire to do just that–journal to all Three–God, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit as a TEAM.  I don’t want to isolate one of them.  I want to be doing what The Holy Team wants done and have all THREE speaking as necessary.  Having God nudge me to go ahead and write to the TEAM made ms smile and shed a tear.  I felt welcomed and invited to be part.

Now, back to tonight’s training.  Tonight is an important night seeing if others are ready to step into the four areas of recovery I’ve felt needed to start this Fall.  God, this morning, seemed to be saying that this recovery team is on assignment with His Holy TEAM.  We need to know this.  We need to be a vessel that God’s TEAM will use to bring Light into individual’s darkness.  This Light is Healing and Powerful.  However, when we are caught in the bondage of sin we have no idea about this.  We don’t do the healing as vessels of Light, we simply carry the Light and IT will do the work as the one in bondage begins to take their personal steps just as I had to do not so many years ago.

It is a privilege and honor to be part of this work.  I look forward to seeing just what God and HIS TEAM will be doing with this new recovery team.

This is the first week I’ve had this Spring where I can spend much of it in my own yard getting it in shape (or the shape I want it).  I’m going first thing to get the rest of the garden seed for planting this week.  The seeds in my greenhouse as mostly up and it is just plain fun to watch this taking place.

Yesterday was the most powerful day in Christianity.  Today we have a decision to let it pass as a nice holiday or to deepen the reality of it within.  By now the disciples were in the height of awakening.  The king they buried on Friday has now risen from the dead and so they’ve been processing all that He’d told them and how they may have misunderstood so much of it.  They thought they were getting an earthly king.  Instead, now, they are trying to replace that thinking with what they hadn’t understood correctly.

I have known all my life that Christ died for my sins.  I was 10 or 11 when I asked Him into my heart and I know He did come in.  What I didn’t understand was the huge gap between what I actually knew about Him verses Who He really is.  I had my own expectations of Christ like:  “now that He is in my heart dad will not treat me the way he does” and “now that He is in my heart my brother will stop what he’s doing to me”  and “now that He lives in my heart I won’t be ‘different’ boy”.  None of that happened and so I thought this was about my value to Christ.  I even thought it was about the fact that maybe Christ wasn’t as powerful as I thought.  I know now that Satan feeds this confusing thinking to the point of complete isolation where I lived for decades.

Christ arising yesterday doesn’t end the Easter story.  He stayed with the disciples until they better understood just Who He really is and what His Kingship is and what He truly meant by it.  He also gave them their assignment.  Today I much better understand who Jesus is.  The confusion I’ve had in the past is now much more fully understood.  I also know my assignment in how He wants my past to be used by Him to break the bondages others still carry.

I challenge you to take the time to reflect on the full understanding of Christ in your life.  He wants us to not only know He is the King of Kings, but that this very King has a purpose for each of us and it includes His leadership.  Don’t keep in isolation if this is unknown to you.  Christ wants the shackles broken from the bondage of sin.  Reach out to Him and to whomever He may be nudging you.  To God be all Glory.  Great things He has done and will do as we continue on the journey of this life with Him.

Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed!  As I’m reading Revelation I am continuously stunned by what is coming.  I ponder if some of it hasn’t already started.  I wonder what will it take to awaken people to today’s importance?  The message of Christ’s work on the Cross is so clear if we will only take a moment to let Him speak to us through His Word.  I pray this will take place for each and every one regardless of what our background is.

Today I want my own grandkids to be grounded in the fundamental meaning of Easter.  Yes, we will hide eggs and have a wonderful meal, but what I pray will happen is that the Christ of today will be better rooted in their personal walk with Him.  He is Alive!  What I love most is that He is Alive in me.  I cherish the truth that He loves me.  For so long I could not love myself and thought the reason I couldn’t is because I wasn’t really worthy of love.  Yet, Christ, in His tender mercy has shown me that I too am loveable for He has taken all my sin and buried it at the Cross for which could not contain Him.  He has conquered it all!

Rejoice today!  He is Risen!

Last night was our Good Friday service.  We call it Good when it is so bleak and black.  I’m unsure who coined the label Good Friday, but whoever did was only looking at tomorrow when they put Good in front of Friday.  God IS so Good and Christ’s work on the Cross was so GOOD.

In my years gone by I would come home from a Good Friday service and have to steel my emotions.  Knowing the reality of Christ’s work on the Cross, seeing it being relived would overwhelm me.  In those days I couldn’t dispel the weight of the sin of abuse.  I didn’t know how Christ took care of the sins done to someone.  I knew He buried the sins I committed, but I was also carrying the sin within me of my brother’s sin.  How did Christ bury it/them?  All of this would be the reason why I’d steel myself from these feelings in order to celebrate on Sunday–Easter.

All these years later, working with Celebrate Recovery, having the counseling and therapy, telling the bondage within me to Godly ones God has placed in my life and daily journaling to God and His TEAM (Christ and The Holy Spirit), I now know that the sins I thought were mine to house in me were never mine to carry.  I believe this is one of Satan’s strongest shackles used on abuse victims.  He keeps us in such bondage believing there is nothing we can do because we are less than others or else we would not have been the one chosen to be abused in the first place.  There is so much I could write out here, but my point in doing this is to let any reader in bondage know that these sins are forgiven and buried by Christ’s work at the Cross too.  If the abuser had asked for forgiveness, as my brother did, they were buried.  The bondage of carrying them within me was a weight I needed to give to Christ and understand I am a child of the One True King.  I wasn’t the sin, my brother’s actions were the sin.  This reality has taken years for me to unravel, but I am pretty much there.

So, because of these truths, today I don’t anguish over the weight of sin in me as I use to do.  You don’t have to anguish over what was done to you either.  Give it to God and allow His healing to be yours as you take the steps of talking these through with Godly people and allowing God to speak to you through the steps of journaling and daily coming to Him with what might be tormenting you.  Read the scriptures of truth about what the Bible’s authors say such as in Ephesians 2:10–“I am God’s masterpiece.”  Reach out!  God is wanting so much to give His Mighty, Powerful Help.

I’m home and it is much more like Spring here than on the eastern side of Idaho.  The temperatures are warming there but there is no evidence of life starting to show its colors like flowers beginning to bloom, trees starting to show their changes in color as life if beginning to flow in their veins.  I’m glad to be home where this is happening.

Today is Good Friday.  We know this story.  Even though it is devastating to think about Christ’s crucifixion, we know the purpose, the outcome and the final outcome.  No one of the time recognized any of this except Christ even though the prophets had given many prophecies which were grossly misunderstood.  It is interesting for me to be reading presently in Revelation.  Here is where the prophecies of Christ’s work finalizes.  This Son of Man who is also the Son of God fully reveals Himself.  It certainly gives Easter a luster I haven’t thought out the way I am this morning.

I am still amazed that this Son of God places himself in me–on the throne of my life as I turn it all over to Him.  He also gives me this Glorious Holy Spirit to live/dwell within me.  Boy, does Revelation give more powerful credibility to The Holy Spirit I had not recognized before.  All of this is within me and it is within each of us if we have surrendered our life to Jesus.  I love Him and want to fully trust Him in all aspects of living each and every day.  His Holy Spirit promises to help me and each of us do this when we accept the challenge of surrendering.  To God be all Glory–Great things He has done and will do as we continue on this path of living for Him.

It is amazing to be on God’s team working to do what He wants done for the day.  Yesterday I finished what the day’s work was to be.  Even though I’m not to anticipate what the outcome was to be in God’s leading, but, I did anyway.  I was expecting the four men to have their eyes greatly opened and eager to make changes as needed.  Well, Earnie was awakened yet again to the fact that man doesn’t change so easily.  I’m no different in this category either.  It has taken me 67 years to get to the place of surrender I am today.  One of the men was fully engaged, another one wants to be but he’s very green to the work.  The other two were like misbehaving kids.  I will be back in a month and will address this behavior if it continues then.  My point in writing this is that I’m continually awakened to God’s Work and His Timing.  I keep trying to put the work into my timeframe and with my expected results.  I don’t mean to do this selfishly, but I’m learning it is nonetheless, my selfishness that drives my thinking and expected results.

Today I finish the work here and head home.  It will be nice to get back home too.  This morning I’m reminded that Jesus and his disciples spent this day prepping for The Last Supper.  I can only imagine the anguish Christ was sensing knowing His men still didn’t “get it”.  Their selfishness, their expectations were continuously getting in their way.  I find this so true for me much of the time.  In my Bible reading of Revelations 2 & 3 this morning I am challenged to keep myself open fully to Christ’s leadership in my life.  To also keep His Holy Spirit alive and well within me.  I never want to be lukewarm as John is challenging the churches of the time for which he was writing.  For me to stay on fire I must surrender these selfish moments when I want to yield to temptations of simply thinking about things that could easily yield to sin.  I am instantly being selfish when this happens.  This morning I realize these are the times when I am to “surrender rather than linger”.  Jesus takes these to the Father when I surrender them.  I want to put this into full operation.

God just isn’t done with me, transforming me into the likeness of who he created me to be.  I feel Him nudging me to say: “In the likeness of His Son Jesus,”  yet I (we) are all so unworthy of this capability.  However, as I write this I already know that this isn’t about our worthiness but it is all about God’s Grace given to us through His Son Jesus.  Along with all of this, the indwelling of His Precious Holy Spirit.  I just started reading Revelation this morning.  In the first chapter John is writing about hearing this powerful voice behind him.  When he turns around he finds the Transformed Christ in all his glory giving him the message to write to the 7 churches.  He even says the Spirit of these places is the Holy Spirit–the same Holy Spirit that dwells in me (us).

Yesterday’s work with the district showed me 4 men who are running a small Idaho school district with a whole lot of man’s ego.  Today I finish the work and report back to them everything that must be done differently and I’m allowed to offer my help in making these changes in the months ahead.  This morning’s revelation in God’s Word shows me that the Almighty Spirit of God is within me.  I am not giving yet another man’s ego message to these folks.  It is a message of man seeing how his ego is competing with other egos to try and get as much money to do their own thing rather than completing as best possible what is in the best interest of all their kids.  I saw the ego of my dad over and over yesterday.  Now that I know well that dad’s ego stemmed from his insecurities I see that in these men.  I’ve already asked God to let His Wisdom show forth today not through another man’s voice but through Him using a surrendered man.  How that is done in a secular meeting will just be one of God’s workings today.  I’m trusting in Him to complete what He wants done here.  I sense the spirit of evil, but that has already been shattered by the Light of God’s Truth in my devotions so I know it won’t be me, it will be God’s Spirit mightily at work today.

I’m hoping this makes sense to any reader today.  God is showing me that no work is too difficult for Him.  He wants His children treated fairly.  My assignment is to deliver a message to these leaders of the kids about a better way of doing things.  To God be all Glory!

Why do I ever fear or even begin to question God?  I write this because in the back of my mind I have not wanted to be on this trip today due to one of the people I am working with.  We go back a long way in the education field.  She has been one of those who has made me most uncomfortable even though she has never made any overt moves towards me.  My radar is simply always on high alert when we are together.  Last night when we’d finished getting all documents ready for today, she and I walked across the street from the hotel for dinner.  It was there she told me about her son who has a background exactly like mine.  It wasn’t a brother who abused him, it was the father of her son’s best friend.  This took place for several years.  He was 15 when they found out.  The man is now in prison and her son is in his own prison.  He is married and has 3 girls (like me).  He has talked to his mom but won’t address this with his dad or with any of his siblings.  We talked for two hours.  I keep a copy of my book in the glove box of my car just in case I come across someone where God nudges me to share it.  Last night when we walked back I gave it to her for her son.

Yesterday morning I said God had given me a peace and an anticipation for this trip.  I don’t know if this is the only reason for it but I sure do know God doesn’t wanting me fearing the association with this person.  He wanted me to be willing to listen and let her share.  I have much to learn about trusting more fully this God of mine and ours.  I don’t want to quit growing in Him and letting His Spirit have His way in my life.  He truly is an amazing God!