Personal thoughts from Pastor Jeff on a(n almost) daily basis.
“So you’ve gotten right with God, have you? You think you’re all religious now and are naive enough to believe that God is just going to accept you with open arms because of what Jesus supposedly did. Well, tell me something, my precious – how come you can still sin like you did before your little religious experience? How come …
For you who have long prayed for God to move on your behalf, I want to deposit some encouragement with you in hope that your cries will not be silenced by spiritual fatigue. Perhaps, one of the most confounding elements of being a Jesus-follower is that we often find ourselves in the waiting room of unanswered prayers. Would it shock …
Most of the time, most of us are not too weak. Most of the time, most of us are far too strong. We feel that we lose when our weaknesses are prominent. We want unlimited resources. We prefer strong bodies. We pray for elevation and advance and consistent breakthroughs. It just seems right that we would operate in our …
So, who has your face on their dartboard today? Is there someone’s face on yours? Let’s peel back the curtain for a moment and acknowledge that behind all the desires and commitments for Jesus-followers to honor one another, we all have a propensity to get sideways with others from time to time. A simple survey of the New Testament shows …
The longer you are an active participant in the Kingdom of God, the more your citizenship allows you to see. To be a Christian is far vaster than asking Jesus into your life, being water baptized, joining a church, behaving morally and learning theology. While all of these things are good, they also can serve as potential fig leaves behind …
After a week of a spiritual mini-retreat, I’m grateful to get back in the saddle on the blog today. From February 14-23, I was visiting the House of Prayer in Kansas City. I made some new friendships, enjoyed some healthy Kingdom connections and was impacted by long, anonymous, uninterrupted hours in the prayer room as God was speaking. While I …
Our understanding of God’s grace should serve to level the playing field which our egos might raise up for our own benefit during the week. Living daily in a culture that tries to demand that you and I must participate in the rat-race of the American Dream can distract us and distort us from the higher calling that we are …
Every now and then, you remember something you wrote and decide to resurrect it for the present moment. I went back to the vault and decided to share something I posted some time ago. I hope it helps you. It did me. – Jeff “And next to him was Shammah, the son of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines gathered together …
May the God whose watchful eye never sleeps, the God of wonders, power and love – May He keep your feet from falling and make your thanks be endless, until the coming of the full deliverance that is ready to be revealed in the last time. May the God whose robe is light, whose canopy is space Whose mercies are …
Until the Christian receives her own grasp of the Kingdom purposes of God, she will continue to be distracted by small slivers of Christianity while never entering into the whole of God’s eternal purposes and power. As long as that man who longs for God’s presence and the resulting sense of personal identity remains committed to splashing around in the …
For my entire lifetime, I have been hearing about air pollution. Growing up in suburban Atlanta, we really did not have any major issues with smog but, in sixth grade, I did a report on what we called then “acid rain”. It resulted in me having a slight phobia about the potential to turn into a puddle of goo anytime …
How many times has our opposition charged against us at full strength, seemingly to shred us to the smallest of bits, and then dance upon the shards? More than once it has been human opposition – we remember their names and faces, and their words and tones. Beyond the human foes, there is Satan, along with his army, who every …
Out of options. Discouraged. Jaded. Disgusted. Fearful. Bitter. Fatalistic. I have experienced all of these undesirable aspects of life. I wish I could boldly declare that these facets of living below only occurred before my delivering conversion. I prefer not to lie to you, however. No, I have often hit some low spots in this journey with Jesus, and I …
I love to do biographical studies of the people we find on the pages of our Bibles. There is something about intentionally focusing on an entire life of someone whom God chose to memorialize in His Word. Elijah, that grizzled Old Testament prophet, has been a regular source of encouragement for me over the last twenty-five years. Elijah is presented …
This past Sunday evening, my co-pastor, Billy Humphrey, asked my wife, Amy, to share some of her story. In 2011, Amy was hit head-on by a distracted driver. She nearly died, but God allowed her to survive the impact of the collision. Her mother who was her passenger, heartbreakingly, did not survive. Amy received extensive injuries which threatened to leave …
If you have been following the Transforming Truth blog for any length of time, you are familiar with the pulse that is in my Kingdom veins. You know what I think – my bend, my passions, my contentions and my priorities. If you have been with me for a couple of years or more, and if you consider yourself a …
It is not unusual for many Christians to spend some time in introspection at the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. I do this without trying every year around Christmas and through the month of January. At the beginning of every January, I always seem to hear Holy Spirit’s whispers to me about the condition …
January 1, 2019 Dear Doubt, Hey there. Please forgive the formality of me writing a letter to you. I know it seems weird, especially since we have spent time together lately. I really felt like I needed to put my thoughts down on paper so you would understand clearly what I need to say to you. It is a brand …
Pastors & church leaders, God is not doing anything yesterday. Don’t seek to preserve it – even the best of it. Status quo leaders shepherding status quo flocks is not the Kingdom. We are commissioned to stay at pace with the God who is making all things new. Don’t play it safe today. Lead! Stretch the people of God. Challenge …
Have you ever straddled a fence for so long that you get splinters in your backside? I’m speaking figuratively of course, because I grew up in the suburbs and we don’t sit on fences in the suburbs. My question really is directed to our tendency to avoid commitment in areas where we are unsure of the outcome of that potential …
“He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name…” – Luke 1:49 Jesus, the words from this precious young woman who was Your mother motivate me this morning. She had not seen Your face, nor had Mary yet held Your little body. She had not yet been awestruck by Your wisdom, nor had she seen …
It is highly likely that our deepest relationships are with people who have something to offer to us that we value. Our nature is reluctant to enter into commitments that are one-sided and require more from us than we receive in return. Marriages fall apart often because one spouse feels like there are more withdrawals than deposits from the other …
You have likely wondered on occasion whether or not God is actually for you. Most of the time when this occurs, there are some forces in play: unfavorable circumstances which show little promise of improving, guilt over some personal failure, fear of being misinformed about God’s goodness, or maybe memories of some painful loss which causes you to wonder why …
“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” – Galatians 4:4-5 What a remarkable thought: there was a fullness of time that God had ordained into which He would inaugurate the visible unfolding of …
Children are precious little gifts to the world. My thoughts have rested upon children the last several days as Christmas time has again come upon us. My two children have exited those years wherein Christmas carried with it the air of dreaminess and wonder. For so many years when they were younger, Christmas time revolved around them (insert your snarky …
