pastor john's Weblog

What are your dreams? Is there something way back there that hasn't happened, or been put aside, or been discouraged, or made fun of???

Those things that have been placed upon our hearts have great value and should not be ignored. God pulls us into the future and often puts something deep inside of us that is our true calling. So, don't ignore your dreams, pray about them, play with them, talk about them with others and see what doors begin to open up for you.

And please don't be a dream crusher...so often kids dreams are smashed on the altar of our "realism," and "practicality."

Let us dream dreams of wonderful things we can do and be for the Lord!

When was the last time you listened to the wind, or watched the sky turn from blue to yellow, to gold, to red, and then as darkness comes count the stars in the sky? When was the last time you deliberately stopped and paid attention to God's creation???

I think that there is a Word in creation that we can see and hear if we take time to pay attention. God speaks in the multi-colored pallet of this world.

I hope that you can take some time very soon to get connected once again to the natural world we all live in. What a shame it would be if we live such hurried and distracted lives that we miss out on something God places right before us each day.

Blessings and peace be with you.

Being in the world, but not of the world is a very difficult thing to pull off. The electronic media (from TV to the Internet) pulls us into a set of values that often stand at odds with Jesus. Paul would say that:

Gal.5:22-23 .But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

In the world we are being called to division, suspicion, judgement, harshness and self absorption...all of which fly in the face of our faith. I think that we need to continually absorb what Peter calls "pure spiritual milk," so that we are grounded in the basics of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We do that by reading and hearing the Good News...you can not read, study or hear the Gospel enough.

It is said that you need to reinforce neural pathways in your brain by repetition... "Pick up and read."