Transformed Mind

1 John 1:5-2:10 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6  If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to...

13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.   Let me stop right there. What was wrong with their eyes? They didn’t recognize him? Seriously? These were two of Jesus’ disciples. Theologians have many explanations, but as I was thinking about it I thought, “How many times do I tune out that which is right in front of me?” I’m particularly good at filtering out crying babies, which is pretty handy on flights. Or maybe think back to your school days where your mind drifts into a long day dream and you completely miss the entire content of the class. Deeper though, think about a time when there’s been suffering in your life, in that gut-wrenching place of grief, disillusionment, and darkn...

  Valentines Day & Ash Wednesday (Feb 14), an interesting combo of holydays this year. Valentines Day of course we think of love and romance, a time to express emotions, hand out little cards, boxes of chocolates, and for some reason a fat baby with wings and a bow and arrow. Love in scripture goes deeper than some of the superficiality we get on the commercialized day of Valentine, for it proclaims, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a time of self denial, fasting, prayer, and the giving of oneself to contemplate God’s ultimate act of love that culminates on Good Friday. It’s a time to think of our own mortality. During the imposition of ashes whereby a person makes the sign of the cross on the recipients forehead you may hear the words, “All are from dust, and to dust all return.” It’s a sobering thought. And working in a hospital I really think about this quite a bit, deat...

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." - John 5:39-40  Book of Kells image Jesus here is talking to the Pharisees, the religious folk of his time and isn't too happy with their arrogant blindness. It's the equivalent of being a PhD in political science, writing articles for professional journals about current political affairs, pouring into students the knowledge you've obtained and then one day a living US president walks in and you have no idea who they are. He says, "Don't you know who I am I'm the one you've been writing articles about, those economic policies were my doing, everything that's right with this country has my fingerprints on it. My staff have been pushing my agenda for years to get things done." And nothing, you're clueless. You actually think this guy is pulling your chain ...

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers." - Galatians 1:11-14    Pretty amazing stuff. Paul didn't have to confer with others about the gospel, he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He experienced truth incarnate, the word of God made flesh, and forever changed. How about you, what's your story of transformation if any? Paul here before being blindsided by the risen Jesus thought he was on the right track in life. He tried to literally destroy the church. Just look at Acts where Stephen is stoned to death... "Then they cast him out ...

Listen to full sermon here (Scroll down to …from Restless to Fulfilled)  http://journeyqueens.com/podcasts/overwhelmed/ So here we now come, to the meat of Paul’s prayer, and what does he pray for, he prays, “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Just like Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive, because in all seriousness we are all dead in our sin without Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross, so like that, he did not come from heaven to make our external circumstances; jobs, relationships, health, perfect, but to change us from the inside out, to completely gut our inner being, to utterly destroy that selfish ‘meism.’ I don’t need a better job, more stuff, a better wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, or the like; I need a new me. I need God, according to his vast, immeasurable, unend...

As Paul writes this letter to the church in Ephesus, things are not going well in that metropolis of trade and shipping. The church there is experiencing fear AND hostility. Culturally, Ephesus was a strong city that had many marks of a bustling metropolis of the ancient world. Its harbor provided shipping and trading opportunities and its former claim to fame, the Temple of Artemis, still provided opportunity for local artisans to profit by making idols, little silver and wood statues. Paul’s teaching about Jesus though turned people from and against idol worship and therefore deprived these artisans from their source of income. In the Book of Acts one of these artisans, Demetrius, states,  Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. So things are bleak as persecution persists against the ...

This past winter I spent 10 weeks at Bellevue Hospital Center in NYC as a chaplain. It. Was. Awesome. I had the chance to minister to a very diverse group of people, I mean, on Bellevue's own website it says that it's, "a microcosm of the Third World – a hospital for the undocumented, impoverished and disfranchised" ( Bellevue CPE ). I was assigned the prison floor where inmates from Rikers Island would come to have medical/surgical procedures done, Medical ICU, Coronary Care Unit, Rehabilitation, Adult Psych, and when on-call Adult and Pediatric ER.  To be honest I really didn’t know what to expect coming into CPE. I had spoken with a couple of other Army chaplains that have been through at least one unit and they absolutely loved it. Well, maybe love is too strong of a word, lets just say that they learned a lot from the experience and told me that if I ever got the chance to do it, to jump on the opportunity. They said it was very introspective and there’s ...

I just want to express how awesome it is to be a part of this corps, to be able to speak truth in love into Soldiers lives and to see God's kingdom grow for His glory... Heavenly Father, I pray that You continue to watch over the men and women in uniform that serve You above all else and that through their service to country, Your name is glorified and Your will is done. Surround them with Your divine protection from both the physical and spiritual enemies of this day. Thank You for Your unconditional love, unmerited mercy, and bountiful grace that You have shown in Your Son...for "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life..." In THIS name I pray. Amen! Chaplain Corps' 240Th Anniversary by  Representative Doug Collins  Posted on 2015-07-27 ...

“Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture – and ourselves.” – Josef Pieper, Indeed. We in fact become idolaters when we immerse ourselves in work as an end in itself, when in reality it is simply a means to sustaining our lives, lives that are meant for more. We are to glorify God and edify others. These are the chief concerns of life. Leisure is the ability to let go of oneself and to engage the world and others in a deep and meaningful way. With that, take some time to reevaluate your life. Are you wasting away working for works sake? Take a walk outside and just be still, that is, listen to the world around you. Engage a thought-provoking book and just contemplate its message or find a friend and just talk about life. Take care and God bless.

Kaiser Söze from The Usual Suspects (yup, I’m quoting Kevin Spacey’s character from this awesome movie) once said, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” [1] The Apostle Paul and his contemporaries knew better though, and so, taught and fought against this otherworldly entity from the power of God, through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as a whole speaks of salvation as the grace of God (2:4-5) and expounds greatly on the unifying work of Jesus Christ (2:13, 16; 4:3-6). God is sovereign and loving, bringing new life to those who know and accept His Son. What of the last chapter of the letter to the Ephesians then? Although believers are saved by faith and not through works (2:8) faith is an active obedience to God’s Word, so that one cannot simply sit idly by, but must strive to become more Christ-like. The spiritual battle then, Paul asserts, occurs because if true believers walk in a way worthy of our ca...