Month: February 2026

Gifts galore and giving gifts

eejoseph, ,

Some gifts do not deserve the name. Others mark a person in ways one cannot explain. The intrinsic value of gifts must be measured by the source and the receipt.  Only the most twisted or damaged personalities customarily reject gifts.  Today the things I call gifts are not things at all.  They are people.  All give and sputter. Supposing one gave and never stops giving, would it be time to stop living? Giving perpetually without strings is diagnostically divine.

Gift glut and glitching generosity

Your parents may have passed off the stage of life but from time to time something they passed on to you comes in handy and supremely effective.  It seems that people are needing bigger barns for all the gifts we receive; gifts from the home circle, from school, from friends, from the workplace, and from random strangers who have taken notice of us. The numerous gifts in our experience may cause us to think that generosity is mounting, that would be an illusion. Society is so fragmented and siloed that interactions that would have been the agency of generosity and love are fewer.  Genuine gift giving is rare and still needed.

The everready gift that keeps giving

In our world where buy and sell,  glorified consumerism, and law and order are quick and easy gotos, the things that are permanent and infinite get graded C, D, and F. You ask someone about the morality and they give you the Ten Commandments.  You can also discuss salvation with someone and you’d be surprised at how often people will deny that they are saved.  There are people who actually prefer living in terror of losing their way, and are convinced that they get baptized by the Holy Spirit every day, and can be born again every day.

Deniers of the truth

This is what happens when people replace the Christ of  Calvary with their own message, a time-bound doctrine, or even a divine promise. I think we can agree that the truth for Christians will always be tethered to the elevated Christ. They will never say that God has saved them. They deny the truth of their conversion,  their passing from death to life, and the receipt of the Holy Spirit as down payment of the future inheritance.  They deny Jesus the outcome of his offer. 

Belief is not works

Whether we need to be saved from our sin, or whether we need the necessary maintenance of our salvation from sin, it is the Christ who is lifted up who is the remedy. Imagine that God needs to test you after he gives you repentance, gives you faith, pardons all your sin, makes sure his child, and gives you an appointment to serve. Then imagine that God sets you adrift and requires you to finish what he started on your own. That horror house is where many Christians live. 

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

My fear and my trembling is God at work!

Affirming from antiquity that God fights for his people, he saves them, he keeps them, and he brings them to fulfillment, we find.

Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. (Psalms 127:1)

Let’s get our fasting act together

eejoseph, ,

Have you been telling yourself that you have a full slate of victories, are so soulfully graced that you have not a single request to Almighty God?  That’s not happening, right? Still, we truly find ourselves bent out of shape often enough to want to do something about it.  Fasting has become a primary rallying point for many believers, providing a fellowship opportunity, a smoother of rough spots, and a panacea for a host of human problems.

Fixing the bends

Suppose the things we needed to do were aligned with the simplest and delightful human routines like feeding ourselves and doing something for others, would we have genuine access to that fabled victorious life?  Yes, if fasting is a means of getting God’s attention.  But all the fasting to cast out demons, fasting to counteract the influence of evil, and fasting to bridge the gap between our diligence and our mediocre efforts. Fasting for spiritual revival and physical fitness are probably driving by you right now, but we must ask why we still have so many hurdles to overcome.

Upping the game of effective feeding and fasting

We fast every day quite naturally, between each meal.  If we followed the conventions and the elementary constrictions of nutrition and energy we might find ourselves doing what we do for machines.

  1. Loading up on fuel before we work
  2. Take on only the amount of  fuel we need on a daily basis
  3. Using the energy to serve others
  4. Running regular maintenance routines

We can sum up these as eat measured amounts, be active, and rest.   The only thing missing from a vibrant life with those priorities is feeding on God’s word.  If that were prioritized perhaps we would not need an emergency approach to fasting. there is less effective feeding on God’s word per believer.

Let us recognize that there is a famine for the word of God. There is increasingly less effective feeding on God’s word per believer.  How many demons have you seen expelled by fasting and prayer? How many people have been healed of cancer because of fasting in prayer? The testimonies about victories achieved, all the jobs acquired, the perplexities smoothed over by fasting and prayer are many.

If you are not feasting you are fasting

Fasting has become a fad, offering people physical and spiritual advancement and progress. The physical benefits of fasting are unmistakable, and the average person, though he fasts every single day, is not benefitted by his fasting because his feasting is dysfunctional. We have lost sight of the permanence of feeding on God’s word.

The juvenile vs the mature

If no one needs commands to eat to live why are commands (invitations?) being issued to fast to die?  Sure enough, both feeding and fasting support life, but no feeding leads to death.  Let’s recognize that fasting and feeding are natural phenomena.  Mature Christians live on a faith highway.  It is completely satisfying to God that people in the Way believe, pray and lovingly serve others.  The same highway – faith – brings solutions to problems, spreads goodness and keeps the believer safe.  It is juvenile to live under a host

You have fasted without feasting on God’s word and expect to live. By God’s word I mean the life giving example of Christ and his verbal wisdom. Surely there should be no confusion about Christ as example and instructor. So let’s approach our daily food understanding that a fast will follow, and understanding that in that fasting we need to create profound feeding opportunities.