Choice Morsels

Proverbs 18:8
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.

"You are what you eat." Sound familiar? Or, how about, "garbage in, garbage out"? Well, that’s pretty much what this verse is reminding us of.

When we look at the root Hebrew word for "choice morsels," laham, we find that its definition is actually, "to gulp, swallow greedily." And really, isn’t that what we do with choice morsels? We gulp them down, often not even stopping when we are beyond full! But in this case, we are talking about the words of a gossip - someone we shouldn’t be listening to in the first place - something we should have no appetite for.

However, truth-be-told, we are all drawn to gossip, aren’t we? We think it’s harmless, or else we camouflage it as a prayer request. We just eat that stuff up! But, is it really harmless? The KJV translation tells us that these words "go down into the innnermost parts of the belly." Now, the Hebrew word for "belly" is beten, which means, "belly, womb, body - as seat of mental faculties." In other words, these "choice morsels" go right to the root of our minds, feeding it, affecting the way we think, the way we act, the very foundation for all that we do. Boy, and we thought gossip only hurts those who were the subject of such words, didn’t we?

This is what it comes down to - we need to be wise, and very deliberate about what we feed our brains - garbage in, garbage out. If we want to live lives that reflect the glory of God, His goodness, truth, and love, then we need to be feeding our minds with such things that will get us going down that path. Be mindful of the books and magazines we read, the TV and movies we watch, and the "news" that we listen to, because it will all ultimately affect the way our body works.

Really, this starts with reading the Bible. I’m often asked if there are books I would recommend on any given subject or topic - my first answer is always the Bible. It has the answers to all of life’s difficulties, and really, if we are not being fed by the Bible, then books won’t do us much good either - they are simply man’s opinion of such truths found in the Word of God. If we are not in the Word on a consistent basis, allowing it to form the foundation of the seat of our mental faculties, then we shouldn’t even bother picking up some other book. Pick up the Word today and let it "go down to your inmost parts." See how it begins to rearrange your thoughts, your actions, your life. I think you’ll be delighted at what you discover!

The Word of Our Testimonies

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Revelation 12:10b-11a
For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

The final way we’ll look at, by which we can see the love of God, is in ourselves, our own lives. When was the last time you looked at yourself, and reflected on the changes God has made in your life, and even the changes He is in the process of making even today? Think of all the problems He’s brought you through, the dilemma’s He has delivered you from. Do a before and after of yourself, and see what a difference love makes.

Now, maybe you’re one of those amazing people that find it really easy to sit and count your blessings. I, myself, find it to be a huge practice of discipline and will, but it is my hope that after much practice it will become like second nature. We need to take time daily, if possible, to sit down and thank Him for all that we have, for all that He has done in and through each of us. Because the fact is that while the Word of God is the most definitive and perfect way to see His love, our own lives and how we reflect His love onto others is the way that most people will be introduced and drawn to Him. It is the most personal and often the most touching. That is why a testimony at church can often do more to draw people to God than a hundred sermons.

I would highly recommend, if you already haven’t, sitting down and writing out your testimony, your life story – good and bad. Nobody has to read it, if you don’t want, so be honest and real. Look back at your life, and you will see the hand of God in situations that you’d never even considered as part of your testimony. You will see how He has worked things out so that you would come to know Him in a deeper, more intimate way. Sometimes, the only thing that is glorious about many of the situations in our lives is that they have been touched by the mighty hand of God, and they now reflect His magnificent glory. Looking at your life is a wonderful way to see His great love for you.

One of the amazing things that can happen when we face our life like this, is that we allow God to get into our past and heal us - all our past, even the stuff that happened before we came to know Him. He is the God who was, and is, and is to come – He is not restrained by time, and He desires to get into our pasts, even now, and bring great glory to our mistakes and heart-aches. He is the only One who can bring victory out of every single bad thing that has happened to each of us, whether it was circumstance, or of our own doing.

And, as the verse in Revelation says, "the word of our testimony" can bring the accuser to his knees, because it is in each of our testimonies that God’s power is revealed in our lives. We have overcome Satan by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the victorious lives we live in His shadow. Satan is brought down hard when we have testimonies that prove victory in Christ time and time again.

So, write down your life story, and keep it up-dated. Sit down once a year and add all the amazing things that God has done in your life. Keep in mind that a testimony is not just the moment we came to salvation through Christ, it is our life – yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And as long as we have breath, our testimonies continue to grow and change, reflecting the love of a God who knows no bounds.

Blessings From Above

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

My husband loves to shoot guns – hunting, target-shooting, and all that. I think he’s pretty good, and it’s something he really enjoys (I guess that’s something that comes in the genes, when you grow up in Wyoming). Well, about a year ago he had his eye on a certain pistol, I think it was a Colt Mustang, but not being much of a gun person myself, that’s just a guess. He did research on it – books, magazines, internet – and felt that $400 was a reasonable price to pay for one of these treasures. After much prayer and discussion, we decided that he could make this purchase.

So, he and his buddy took $400 and headed to the gun show here in Phoenix in search for this prized pistol. He finally found one, after much searching, but alas, the price tag said $450. Being a little above our discussed budget, even though it was very tempting, he felt the twinge in his stomach, and put the pistol down moving on to check out the remaining tables. He very quickly found another Colt Mustang on another table, but this time the price was $500. So, feeling as though this was it, the only chance to get his gun, he went back to the previous one, only to discover that in the 5 minutes he had been gone, it had been sold to someone else. That was it, his last chance to get this pistol . . . or so he thought.

On his way out of the gun show, something caught his eye, or rather, the Spirit drew his attention to it – a mint condition pistol, similar to the Colt Mustang – a Colt Pocket 9. The price tag read $450. After debating the purchase, he went to lay the pistol back down on the table, when the guy behind the table said, "I’ll give it to you for $400."


All green-lights to work, stepping on the scale to see that you’ve lost 5 pounds and you weren’t even trying, getting an unexpected raise, or promotion, finding a buck in the road, these are all what I like to call little love-notes from God. What the world would call luck, I would call a good and perfect gift from above, a special touch from a God that loves us so immensely. Just as we love to give unmerited, no-special-occasion gifts to those we love, so God loves to shower us with little blessings from above.

Watch for them, and soak them in, knowing that they are another way that we can see and experience His wonderful, refreshing love each and every day. Keeping a journal of these love notes is a wonderful way to end a day – reflecting on and basking in His glorious love for each of us. And the more we watch for them, the more we’ll realize that each and every day is filled with such intimate encounters with our Love.


By the way, it turns out that this new pistol of Chris’ is a rarer pistol than the Colt Mustang, and really a nicer pistol over-all, a much better purchase – it’s even worth more than the Colt Mustang. Isn’t God awesome!

God's Love Through Others

1 John 4:7, 19
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Love must be sincere.

Romans 12:9
Love must be sincere.

The second way we can really come to know the love of Christ is through those around us. Think about those people that you spend time with, those Christian men and women who just magnify the love of God – in the way they speak, they way they talk, in the way they help, serve others, and pray - in the way they love. So many times it seems these heroes of the faith blend in, because they are not in it for the glory, they are in it for the love of it all.

These are the people who love you even after you’ve told them your deepest, darkest secrets. They love you on the days when you’re in a bad mood, and being mean and ugly. What you see in them is the love of God. When we meet people who love God intimately, they are overflowing with His love. And when see and experience their love, we come to know God’s love in a deeper, more intimate way.

A word of caution – we cannot expect these godly people to fill our cups for us. They are not capable of giving to us the love we need to be full. Nor are we designed to receive our fill of what we need from others. We must go to God and Him alone. He is the only One with the "gas" we need to keep running each day. I am simply suggesting that you can experience God’s love and really get to know it through the love He displays in those around us.

How often are we drawn to those people who are just radiant with the love of God, especially in times when God feels distant? Could it be that we are so thirsty for God that any taste of His refreshing, life-giving, luscious love is what we desire? And so we spend time with these people, hoping to get a splash here or there – feeding off their over-flow, when what we really need to do is go right to the Source, and have our cups completely filled, instead of just whetting our lips.

Then, not only can we experience the love of God from those around us, but those around us can experience His love through us as well. God knows that in order for us to love each other sincerely, as Romans 12 tells us, we need a complete heart change. No, just going through the actions does not count, although, that can help get us to a place where we can love sincerely.

To love others, even (and especially) those that we find difficult to love, is a command, and we need to take it seriously as people who really desire to obey and please God. This forces us to go to Him daily for an overflowing dose of His lavish love, so that it can then spill over from our lives into the lives of others. This is how He changes our hearts, by daily filling us and cleansing us with His perfect love, spilled out for us on the cross.

The love is of God, not us – we are only involved in that we must choose to receive and exercise God’s love daily, rather than our own, faulty love.

May we each start living lives that allow those around us (both Christian and non-Christian) to see and experience the lavish love of God. Let’s start today by letting God fill our cups so full that we’re spilling love all over the place.

Dearly Loved Children

Psalm 119:18, 20
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.

Ephesians 5:1-2
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Ephesians 3:17b-19
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Yesterday, we began the journey to discover what it means to have life abundantly, and how we can begin to live our lives in that abundance.

Christ went through all that He did because of His great love for each of us, and I believe the first step toward abundant life is knowing His great love for us – I mean really knowing it, not just intellectually, but deep down in our bones, so that it affects every aspect of our lives. We need to accept His thick, lavish love so that we can each live a life that manifests this love in every way.

The first, and most amazing way we can come to discover His great love for us is His Word. We have at our finger-tips the most amazing, most powerful love letter ever written. The Bible is God’s love letter to us and it is alive, it comes to us from a living, breathing God, and He wants to use His Word to get under our skin and change us from the inside. We need to be praying each and every day that our "souls would be consumed with longing for His laws at all times." His Word is rich and there is so much that we can find – so many little treasures just waiting for us to dig them up and consume them.

Ephesians 5:1 holds one of my favorite discoveries of all-time, but you have to dig a little to get there. The key is in the Greek word for "dearly," agapetos, meaning "beloved, esteemed, dear, worthy of love, favorite." That’s right, favorite. I had always struggled with wanting to be the favorite, the one everyone liked. So, you can imagine the joy and elation that came with this discovery of mine. Each of us is God’s favorite! I am continually amazed that His love is so deep, and wide, and unfathomable that each and every one of us can be His favorite, for that is how He sees us, and that is how He treats us.

In spending some time really just meditating on just exactly what that means, God has begun to show me what it means for each of us to be His favorite. And in the process I have begun to cherish this truth even more. We are each His favorite, set apart from the others, unique, and greatly loved. But standing in the midst of a hundred or more other people who are also His favorite has a way of diminishing the glory behind the truth, doesn’t it? But, in fact it is there, standing in the midst of many more saints that we should be able to get a glimpse of the true glory and wonder of His mighty and vast love.

It is because we all are His favorites that we can be set free from comparing ourselves to one another, and comparing our relationship with God to another person’s. God created us each completely unique, and it is within our individuality that God approaches us, loves us, teaches us and uses us. My relationship won’t look like yours – it can’t, because that is how God wants it. He created us each unique, and rather than dealing with us all in the same, exact, cookie-cutter way, He comes to each of us individually, and loves us as we are, where we are.

That’s the beauty of His love. And because we all experience His love in a slightly different way, perhaps together we will "have power . . . to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you (and I) may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Now wouldn’t that be glorious indeed?

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1)

Life More Abundant

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:10
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Christ told us that He came to give us life more abundantly. What exactly does that mean? Life more abundantly. Well, the world would tell us that it means we have to have the biggest and the best, the newest and shiniest - we have to have a great body, the newest in clothing, a big name and power to go with it, a big house with lots of whirs and whistles, and the latest greatest car. But is that really life more abundantly? I would argue no. The life that Christ offers is generally far less glamorous, but far more fulfilling. Let's take the next few days and discover together what it really means, and how to get it.

To begin to understand this, we need to look at the price Christ paid to give us this life more abundantly. He paid a great price to make us His own, to give us life. While we were out partying, being less than righteous, God came to earth as a man and died for us. Why? Because He loves us. He loves us, and more than anything He wants an intimate relationship with us - that we would know Him and we would let Him know us. Love - what better topic for Valentine’s Day?

But have you ever really thought about what that meant for Him? I mean, before He gave up His life on the cross, He had to live it, right? He had to live life - life as we know it, and really, life as we know it can really stink sometimes, can't it?

Can you imagine what He must have given up? Angels worshiping Him, the stars as His throne, while all creation cries out in praise and wonder. He gave all that up to step out into the world in a fragile, restricting body of flesh. I wonder - was He made fun of as a kid, because His ears were too big, or because He was too short? Perhaps He was a teacher's pet, always telling them what's right and wrong. I have always had a tough time coming to the full realization (and perhaps I’m never supposed to) that while Jesus was the fullness of the Godhead bodily - 100% God - everything that God is, He is; He is also 100% man - He went to the bathroom, He blew His nose, maybe He even hit His thumb with a hammer once or twice. He was human.

I wonder how difficult it must have been when the Father told Him it was time. He knew what He was giving up, and what's more amazing is that He knew what He was getting Himself into - first to last, not a thing was hidden from Him. Yet, because of His love for us, He chose to step down and become the greatest Servant. Only to be mocked, rejected, beaten beyond recognition, and nailed to a cross to die for me and for you. And in His time of greatest suffering, He felt one of the most difficult things we experience - loneliness - aloneness. "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" The Father had to leave Him, to turn His face, so that He could place on the shoulders of His most precious Son the sin of all mankind. Can you imagine? The one thing that Jesus could always cling to, the One He could always turn to, gone in His moment of greatest suffering. All so that God could get what He's wanted all along - you and me.

God considers your life more precious than that of His own Son.

Think about that.

Already Perfect - Being Made Holy

Hebrews 10:14
By one sacrifice he [Christ] has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

I love this verse because it seems to present us with such a dichotomy of ideas.
First, it tells us that Christ has made those of us who fall under His Lordship - Christians - perfect forever. We are complete. The moment we accepted Christ’s sacrifice and began walking with Him, we were made complete. We have all that we need. When God looks at us, He does not see our sin, but rather Christ’s righteousness! Isn’t that amazing? We have already been made perfect forever - WOW!

But then the second part of the verse reminds us that we are still in process. Until we leave these fleshly bodies behind, we are being made holy, or set apart, for all that Christ has in store for us both here on earth, and beyond, in heaven. So, while we are already perfect and complete in Christ, the Holy Spirit works tirelessly in us to mold us and draw us closer to the image of Christ. The Spirit has at His disposal all that the heavenly realm has to offer to use on our behalf, that we would draw on His power in the process of "growing up."

We are already perfect in Christ - saved from the penalty of sin, which is death. And we are being made holy, each and every day, being saved from the power of sin - it’s hold on us and our lives. We are completely free from sin - it is no longer our boss - we finally have the power (through the Spirit) to say no to all those things that so easily pulled us in before. Yet, living in these old, fleshly bodies, we can still be tempted, and so many times it is much easier to just do what we’re so used to doing than to break out of that cycle to walk in the freedom already given to us. Boy, have I learned that lesson all too many times - I think I lived the first 20 years of my Christian life ignoring the freedom that God so desperately wanted me to walk in. Now that I have tasted it, I hold on desperately - there is nothing more I desire in life than to walk hand-in-hand with Christ from now until eternity. How about you?

So, let’s choose to walk today (not worrying about tomorrow until tomorrow comes) in the glorious freedom that God has already given us. Let’s use the Holy Spirit - the Holy power source that can enable us to do all that God has asked us to do - living lives that are so radically changed that even our friends don’t recognize us, whether we’ve been Christians for a day or 20 years. That freedom will shine on our faces, and radiate from our countenance in such a way that people will be drawn to us and ultimately to the God who so graciously gives us all. Won’t you join me?