Month: April 2020

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 feel his presence…  I can feel his warmth…  I can feel his love.  During these times, as troubles fade and are replaced with his amazing love, I wonder why I would ever want to leave.  Father, let me hide in your embrace as close as a mortal heart can be.  Even if it is just on the fringes of your perfect love in this fallen world.  As I pray… as Christ and I become one in the spirit… I know in my heart that the trials of this earth will try to take me from him.  The problems of daily life will pull me in different directions.  At times I fall and his embrace slips from me.  Then I pray harder and his embrace comes back as if time stood still.  His light surrounds me as the world rushes by.  As I become closer… as I feel his love…  as I realize that no matter what this world does, his love is always there.  I start to catch a glimpse of what heaven will be. 

Matthew 6:6 (MSG)

I Love You!

Perry

There is beauty… and peace… in chaos, if your heart is in the right place.  

Six years ago after not feeling like I should, I went to get tested.  As it turns out my testosterone was extremely low.  So now, I go every Thursday for a shot.  The week after all this chaos started my blood pressure was high, according to the nurse.  After a talk with her, I spent the ride home examining the reason and then it hit me.  I was not turning my frustration over to my Savior.  I was not overcoming my fear with my faith.   I was not relying on my God to steer me through this confusion…  through this chaos…  After much prayer my blood pressure is back to normal.  Along with my peace.  “DO NOT FEAR!”  is the most used phrase in scripture.  I simply was  not listening.  

We all live in a world of wanting to be in control.  Fact remains control is an illusion.  Only God has control.      

As your heart and soul grow in the Lord you will move beyond faith into unbridled belief.  Only then will the troubles of this world, that haunt most people, become strangely dim. Then and only then will you find that perfect peace that passes understanding… as you learn to set fear and control aside and truly trust our father.  Philippians 4:6-7

I Love You

Perry

She saw him but wasn’t quite sure who he was?  He seems familiar but I can’t quite place who he is.  He must have taken my Lord and I need to know where  they have put his body so I can care for him.  Mary had loved our Savior deeply because he was the only one that loved her.  She couldn’t bring herself to leave even though she knew he was dead.  But here it was, an empty tomb!!  A missing body!!  Then just like the blind people he had healed, Mary saw Jesus.  She saw her Lord.  Her Savior.  Our Savior 

HE HAS RISEN!  HE HAS RISEN! 

Do you ever wonder if he was standing next to you would you recognize him?  Not by his appearance, but by his love…  by his heart… by the connection you have thru the holy spirit… His spirit.  With each passing day I love him more but I want to be closer.  I try so hard to imagine how Mary must have felt.  Did she fall to her knees?  Did she hug him like never before?

I try to imagine… then it hit me like a blind person he has healed.  One day I will see him.  One day I will hug him.  One day I will drop to my knees as I behold his glory.  Because he has risen… I will too.     

Happy Easter!

Perry

I woke this morning wishing it was just a nightmare!  I’m still in shock from the cruelty, the agony, and the shame of yesterday.  I know he is the son of the living God.  I saw the miracles… I saw the healing.  I never thought I would turn my face from him. I certainly didn’t think I could ever do that not once… not twice… but three times.  I feel such shame, such hatred for my actions.  Now I face my first day without him.  My first Saturday without his touch, without the love in his eyes.  I am struggling with why he didn’t save himself.  Why did he not call his angel armies to rush to his side?   Because he didn’t… I face this Saturday with uncertainty.  I face this day alone and in silence.  I will spend my life in service to him even if he doesn’t come back as he told me he would.  

Are there times you feel like Peter?  Times when you feel he is not to be found.  Many times I feel like Peter.  Thinking I could never turn my face from him, then I knowingly sin again. I knowingly do things that make him sad.  At times I sit in silence, as Peter did on Saturday, and I doubt if he is there.  Father forgive me for my doubt. For my lack of faith.  For my lack of patience.  Forgive me for my sin and fill my spirit with your presence… with your peace.   

Come Lord Come!! 

I Love You!

Perry

How good is your imagination?  Can you picture things in your mind!  I want you to use your imagination… imagine what it feels like to be spat on?  To be laughed at… thrown around by your hair.  Imagine being beaten to the point that your face was swollen.  Imagine what it feels like for your back to be beaten so hard and so long that your muscles are torn… tendons exposed.  To have multiple thorns shoved into your scalp… into your forehead.    Picture carrying a huge piece of splintter filled wood on your back with open wounds.  Imagine the pain of having large nails driven thru the bones in your wrist… the bones of your feet.  Picture hanging from those nail driven wrist only to have to push up on the nail that was driven through your feet.  Think about having to do that over… and over… and over.  With no hope of ever getting a breath.

Now imagine knowing you can’t stop it because you love so deeply. 

Our Savior… Our Lord… knew what was in store for him.  He knew the pain.   He knew the humiliation.  He knew the suffering.  He understood it was the only way to save you.  To save me.  

What an amazing Savior!!

I Love You!

Perry

Do you remember 9/11?  Most can tell you what they were doing…  where they were…  As I think on disasters, I find one thing to be true.  It brings people back to God.  After 9/11 churches were full.  Children that had lost their way to God, found him again.  We have a God… that wants our love.  He wants our devotion. He wants our trust.  Just like a parent he will do what is needed to gain that love… that trust.  

He had been blind from birth.  With some simple spit and a little mud he could see again.  Could Jesus have healed him without the dirt? Without the spit? Of course!  But Jesus wanted to see the young man’s faith…  the young mans trust…  

In scripture, as now, he allows our suffering and asks us to trust him.  On the back of our dollar bill it says “In God We Trust”.  Do we really?  As a minister, I’ve been asked,  “what does this all mean?”.  Turn back to God! Turn back to his word! Turn back to trusting him!  You want everlasting peace?  You want continual comfort?  You want nonstop healing?  That can’t be found anywhere but in the arms of our Savior.  He is talking…  he is pleading…  it is time we stop… and listen. 

Psalms 46:10 / John 9:1-7

I Love You!

Perry