REALITY CHECK:

Ken’s thoughts on Saturday:

In spending some time with the LORD today and going over some issues.   My wife thinks I am a hoarder…. perhaps she is right?   I saw a couple of end table in the Salvation store yesterday that in the dim light of the store like like they could work for our Wwoofer accommodations… (Trade of board and room for 24 hours help with the place each week.)   But in loading them they looks worse then in the store and by the time I unloaded them at home in the sun light,  I could see I had bought a lot of work for $15.   But my dear wife went ballistic and forgot all about 1 Cor. 13. and claimed up in her room.  By this time my daughter Cindy was saying she would like to have one of them in her room.  So now caught in the cross fire.   So I sneaked out when all were hiding in their rooms and took the end tables to the dump.  So I lost a little time and $15. bucks to have some peace,  I hope.  It is not all over as yet.

But as I was musing over the situation the  Holy Spirit started talking to me about how we see things in the physical world but really don’t see them.  We see a picture in our brain that our brain creates for us out of what information that it collects through our 5  physical senses.  If my brain did not have that input I would have no idea what was out there.

The the Holy Spirit started sharing that learning to walk in the Spirit is like that.   We become born spiritually from above by trusting Jesus to be our LORD.  Then there is a need to train our eyes, ears, touch, taste and feel gates to see things in the Spiritual world.  At first we only know that we are hungry, dirty, tired and need help.   Then we start to hear and to see those who love us.  And as we grow spiritual we start to learn humility and obedience perhaps or perhaps not.   But that this Spiritual world has to become as real to us as our physical world or nothing gets changed.  And by the time we die we need to really be secure in that world or we could miss the boat.  It only took a few minutes for the thief on the cross to see and join God’s Spiritual world.   Others it may take a life time.  The parable of the 4 soils of Jesus gives us a way to understand this.   What kind of soil are you and me?  Only the deep, weed free soil produced fruit.   And what ever did not bear fruit after it’s kind was taken and burned.

So it is by faith that we need to learn to live in God’s Spiritual world and it comes by repeatedly listening to the Word of God.  A great evangelist of the past,  Smith Wigglesworth once said he never read anything but the Holy Bible to be able to keep on track.   Today very few folks stay close to the Bible, especially the New Testament,  and they get lost in the thoughts of those who seem sometimes to be trying to build their own little ivory towers for their own ego.  So if you are not in a disciplined discipleship quest to learn to be like Jesus you are wasting your time and money.  All through the New Testament we are challenged to learn to become like Jesus.  We are challenged to learn what HE taught and to learn how to also make it happen in our lives.  And also we are taught to enjoy teaching when we find others who may become interested as they see we have also become both salt and light in being with Jesus.  And that our real family are only those who are in obedience to Christ Jesus as LORD.   It is a brand new existence that we are invited to experience and to learn how to live in.  James teaches that if we learn to have real faith then we will also have real spiritual results.

Yours, In HIS great love and wonderful grace and mercy,   Ken<><   www.Trinity-Aloha.org