Why did Jesus make the religious establishment mad? Why were they scared of him to the point they had him murdered? Simple! He dined with prostitutes, tax collectors, and detested street people. They hated him because he widened the embrace of God. It was his expanding love and acceptance they hated because they believed...
So many people look for happiness in the wrong places. I have come to an understanding in my everyday life that everything we experience transcends our being. We must come to know that, through art - music - love - sex - nature - relationships, there is God beyond the thing. We have to...
In Exodus 14 Moses told the Israelites at the Red Sea “you have to do nothing but keep still. Yahweh will do the fighting for you”. So many times we think we must instruct by words when in fact our deeds and lifestyle is so much more of a teaching tool. A quiet allowing...
If we come to God by being perfect, no one is going to come to God. Our failures open our hearts of stone and move our rigid mind space toward understanding and patience. —Richard Rohr
We tend, as humans, to lean toward rules and laws when it comes to God, and Christ. We like to know...
Songs and music. So much power and so much emotion. Songs and music take us back in time. It stirs emotion… Music fills our hearts and produces in us endorphins like no other type of joy. A song that has always been one of my favorites recently moved up the chart of songs in...
My eyes have not beheld what my heart so clearly sees. Daily I reach for you… knowing that your hand will be there to guide me. To welcome me. I rest in the comfort that your light will shine… to lead… where my life must follow. That your love will bring freedom to my...
The task is not to find the lovable object but to find the object before you lovable.
-Soren Kierkegaard
Don’t be so tied up in what you consider to be truth telling that it becomes more important than loving. Living a life of love is not about telling people where they are wrong but showing them...
It would be easier to not care about the immigrant. But Jesus asked us to. It would be easier to not care about the ones living in the margins. But Jesus asked us to. Jesus said to care for the least of these. Treat them as if they were yours. The hatred has to...
Lorna and I are foodies. Each weekend we search out new restaurants. We like ones that are owned by a chef and not ones that belong in a large chain across the country. We also love art. We go to museums, we go to art shows and we hang nice pieces in our home. ...
Chaos! In China over the past few years elephants have been causing chaos wondering into cities. They seem lost but scientist believe they are confused due to their habitats being taken over by development. They do not mean harm they simply look confused. To the elephants things that use to feel up, now feel...
It’s called umwelt. It’s how you see things based on your position, and way of life. Ever thought of how much our circumstances, skew and alter our understanding of God. We had been to a repair shop to pickup a lawn mower. A police officer pulled us over for no apparent reason. He questioned...
He started with forty, and ended with three. Forty days… alone… tempted… fighting… satan in his face each step of the way. Each day, in the desert, was a battle and each step grew harder and more difficult. He wondered if his father had forsaken him. After the forty days he came out of...
Happy Jesus Day!A Glimpse Of Heaven!
I could stay wrapped in your arms forever! Do you ever feel so close to our Savior that it feels like he is wrapping you in love? There are days, after deep prayer, that I feel so close to him that everything else seems to fade away. I can...
The line from the movie was: “Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing.” As that hit me, my heart pondered, and the movie fell away. When your faith becomes strong, you began to see Jesus in everyplace and everyone. During Jesus last moments, the lessons he gave us were some of the most important. ...
It happens daily. I notice it when I wear my HJD shirts. People look at me and form a pre-conceived idea when they see the name Jesus. Many tell me they like my shirt. Those inquires are great. The ones I worry about… the ones that keep me up at night… are the ones...
God comes into the world in surprising ways so that the sincere seeker will always find evidence. Is sincere seeking perhaps the real meaning of walking in faith? —Richard Rohr
We have forfeited our desire to reason. One of the delights in being human is the ability to reason. To look at issues and...
Grace! So misunderstood. So foreign by our standards. A gift that we cannot comprehended. No strings… no agenda… no effort to earn… simply free. Grace cannot be understood by any record of merits and demerits. It cannot be held to patterns of buying, losing, earning, achieving, or manipulating, which is where most of us...
There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
In a world of so much hatred it is time we realize there is more that unites us then divides us. At...
Why does it have to be human or divine? Maybe to be human is to be divine. Lately many young people tell me they are trying to read the bible from cover to cover. I always share “good luck” on understanding and getting much out of it. It is a library of stories...
Happy Jesus Day!SCHADENFREUDE!
Two teenagers asked me why people are so rude in traffic? Why do they get angry when you pull in front of them? While in traffic recently I inadvertently pulled in front of a man in a big pickup. He followed behind me, on his horn, for the next several blocks. Why? ...
Bird nest’s fascinate me. None more than that of a swallow. Under our carport is a swallow nest that has been there for years. Their nest is so well constructed that it can stay, for years, as a place to return to. They strategically place it somewhere out of the weather. They fasten it...
He told me “you will never find a church like your vision”. I get so dismayed watching what we have turned Jesus’s love into. It’s a show. It’s about this rule or that. This lifestyle or that. When in fact Jesus’s life was about acceptance… compassion. Not condemnation or judgement! Church has become facebook...
Religions see certain people as the enemy. Jesus followers see sin as the enemy. All my life I have listened to preachers speak as though we are in and they are out. They speak of those within the church as being saved and the rest are not. They speak as though its a club...
Happy Jesus Day!The Way Of Love!
The question was “what is love exactly”? Love, as an action, is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better. Love is Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi…. Love is a little girl in Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai standing up to men who said that girls...
A mystic, Caryll Houselander told the story of a train journey where Christ revealed himself to her in every person on the train. Those sitting, those standing, those passing by. Upon exiting the train she saw the same in everyone on the street. Scientist have discovered that even in what appears to be total...
I am sitting alone in our family room. This room was once filled with large amounts of love and laughter now sits silent. The packages are gone and the food has been devoured. I sit in silence thinking how incredible this time of year is and how I never want it to end. Then...
They followed the light. Everyone that saw the light that night followed it. The wisemen… the shepherds… Was it an angel that glowed? A star that shined? Regardless they followed the light. They came because they felt his holy spirit. They came bearing gifts and having a sense of awe and wonder. Should we...
Every year I try to put myself in Mary’s sandals. I try to imagine what it was like to look upon his face for the first time. To touch his head, to feel his breath, and to know it is the breath of God. What went thru her mind as she realized she was...
As I travel down a street in Fort Worth named Lancaster, I pass thru the mission area. I have had to go that way many times, as of late. With each trip my heart hurts, and my spirit instantly turns to prayer. The homeless souls are so numerous you would have difficulty counting them. ...
He comes by when he is in need of validation. So many times I second guess if I should help, but Christ always enters my heart to remind me of how much I love him. Christ took time for everyone. He never turned his back or neglected a soul. As I hug this young...
As I read the account of a slave market my tears flowed in abundance. Men and women were forced to stand on a block of wood… naked… as buyers examined. As buyers threw insults and as they yelled out prices they would pay. In my mind I could see it… I could feel the pain… the humiliation. I then pictured myself on that block. Naked and afraid and wondering “why me”? I pictured myself full of sin… full of selfishness and ashamed of who I was. I could hear the small amounts that satan and his demons would pay for me. One who worships God but falls so short. One who loves God but is so full of sin… so full of selfishness. Then I heard his voice! Above the noise. Above the insults. Above the humiliation. Jesus… standing at the back of the crowd yelling “I will buy him”. Don’t care what he has done, who he is or what he looks like. I want him. Name your price and it is yours. I love him that much. He then walked up to where I was standing. With outstretched hands and love in his voice said “let’s go home”. Slavery was and still is a horrific thing, that in the name of Jesus we need to eliminate. We are all slaves to sin. Thank goodness Jesus is willing to pay the price for our freedom.
In John 8:34 thru 38 Jesus says “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.
Lorna and I had been to Memphis Tennessee on our annual anniversary trip. As many of you may know I am a huge Dr. King fan and so I like to visit places that are significant in his life. The Civil Rights museum in Memphis is the very place where he was assassinated. As we entered the museum the first room was how it all began. The accounting of slaves being taken from Africa, and brought here to be sold as if they were cattle or some such livestock. Men and women forced to stand in front of a crowd of people, naked… afraid… and humiliated. They stood there, alone, as men hurled out insults as well as bargaining for the price they would pay. The young men, with muscles were given the highest premium. Not only for the work they could do but because they would be good breeding stock. The young women were valued based on the way they looked naked, and if they would be good breeding stock, for the men that were being bought. These men and women. Made in God’s image. Given his spirit at their creation, were sold with no regard to their soul and the value they had to our God. Many times this was done in the name of God, by people who called themselves Christians.
As I stood there reading these accounts. As I took in the details and envisioned that market place in my mind, the tears flowed. My crying was uncontrollable as I felt their pain. As I felt their humiliation. As I had compassion on these men and women who are children of God. Men and women who are my brothers and sisters in Christ. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Formed in the mind of God. Given his DNA at our conception. Does he not, with a single breath, give each of us life all in the same way? Are not you and I, and your neighbor, and your enemy, and these slaves of long ago, all related thru our heavenly father?
Malachi 2:10 – Don’t we all come from one Father? Aren’t we all created by the same God? So why can’t we get along? Why do we desecrate the covenant of our ancestors that binds us together?
John 1:3 – Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.
Genesis 1:26 – God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
Luke 6:35 – “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind”.
Colossians 1:15 – We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.
I could keep going verse, after verse, after verse, that simply says we were all made in his image and given life for a purpose. So why do we hate as we do?
We live in a dualistic world where we find it necessary to feed our egos by choosing sides. I want to be right, so you have to be wrong. We feed hatred from that. We feed a feeling of superiority from that. I see it everyday as so many compete with each other over race. Over religion. Over politics. Over our standing in the community. Over who’s right and who’s wrong like anyone knows that but God. We place ourselves on such a pedestal as to think we can judge others based on our ideas as if our ideas are right and others ideas are wrong.
Why can’t we simply see each other, equally in the eyes of our God. Trust me when I tell you that your sin, my sin, is the same, not worse and not better than the very man that brings destruction to this world. Because we are all related by our Heavenly Father can’t we simply be the human family instead of the human race?
You may say “Wake up Perry! We can’t all sat around the campfire singing Kumbaya”
But is that not what will happen in the presence of our Savior and our God?
As I saw myself standing on that block of wood. Naked… ashamed… and wondering why me I thought of how my Savior sees me. He looks past the dirt. He looks past the ugliness. He looks straight into my soul and he sees himself. He sees the love that was given to me, the day he made me, and breathed life into my spirit. He paid a great price to take me away from a life of slavery.
Romans 8:38-39 – So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture
So the next time you find yourself thinking bad thoughts of someone that may be different than you. Next time you find hatred in your heart because of differences in religion, politics, race, or simply because their life is different than yours. Stop and look at them the way Jesus would. From a place of his love that can be found in your heart… because he put it there!
In His Love, Perry D. Hoover
Footnote; Slavery is still being practiced today right here in our country. Young girls and boys are being sold as subjects of sex and perversion. If you can, please give of your blessings in an effort to stop it. https://love146.org
