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God's Light Exposes Everything In You

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God's Light Exposes Everything In You

Toxic Religion tells the world that God is too holy to be near your darkness so he separates himself from you until you admit you’re a sinner and ask him to forgive you. The truth is this, God has forgiven you in Christ and is seeking to invade your heart and the deepest parts of your soul with his light to deliver you from darkness, whatever that darkness may be.

If folks knew that God would gently, kindly and mercifully remove their darkness and nurture his own light within them, they would be more receptive. That’s our role, the role of the body of Christ, tell them of God’s kind heartedness toward them and create an environment in which their hearts will be receptive to his light, life and truth.

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Toxic Religion is Destroyed through Inner Balance

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Toxic Religion is Destroyed through Inner Balance

Lack is at the root of addiction. Feeling like something is missing and trying to fill that gap with toxic substances or behaviors is the engine for addiction. We see that same cycle in religion. Religion is the king of causing you to feel like something is missing. Under religion you’re never good enough and you can never do enough to keep God happy. Most people never say it this clearly but they believe that God’s happiness is based on your behavior. This lie is the root or toxic religion.

Toxic religion is the mindset that acceptance or rejection with God is based on how good or bad you are. Religious folks would never say they’re good because of their behavior, but they might say they’re bad or unrighteous because of sinful behavior. That’s just as self-righteous and toxic as thinking your righteous because you kept the commandments.

The solution to breaking the addiction to toxic religion is to find a place of inner balance that’s rooted in Christ’s finished work. Your true, spiritual, eternal identity is complete already. Your standing before God doesn’t change. Only toxic religion believes otherwise, and if you believe God changes his mind about you based on your performance, it’s tine to detox from religion.

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Breaking Your Addiction to Self-Righteousness

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Breaking Your Addiction to Self-Righteousness

Righteousness determines how God treats you. There are two kinds of righteousness, the kind that Jesus gives and the kind that religion thinks it can earn or be disqualified for through keeping and breaking laws or commandments.

Religion can become addictive. Religion for the purposes of this article is man’s attempts to be accepted by God based on deeds or rules. It feels good to do the right thing and it feels bad, for normal people, to do the wrong thing. But to think God is changing how he relates to us based on our behavior is a toxic view of God and it invalidates the right-standing with God that Jesus died for. To believe that God withholds blessing, wisdom or love based on behavior is a toxic doctrine of religion that ends up driving people away from God.

God's Inner Kingdom Affects the World Through You

God's Inner Kingdom Affects the World Through You

The kingdom of God was cast into the earth in Christ. The Kingdom of God began to increase when Jesus walked the earth. There will be no end to the increase of God’s Kingdom, it will ultimately overcome all the world’s powers and take over the earth. See this article for the scriptural references for these statements.

God is actively speaking to us, leading us and revealing his will and character to us as he further establishes his Kingdom in the earth. Ultimately he is bringing all things together in Heaven and Earth together in Christ. Praise be to His glorious name forevermore!

The fascinating reality that follows these truths is that we’re actively experiencing God’s Kingdom now. You might say “I don’t feel like I’m in Heaven,” to which I’d say, it’s there, let me help you see it.

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Revelation: How to Receive and Apply Consistent Wisdom from God

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Revelation: How to Receive and Apply Consistent Wisdom from God

Revelation is not an endless pursuit of mystery, it’s an ever deepening relationship through which God glorifies himself and moves through you with your collaboration.

Revelation is two-fold; it comes when you have placed attention, time and study in an area and increased your knowledge and understanding. God will use that knowledge to enlighten the eyes of your heart so you are persuaded in faith and it moves beyond just information. Then God helps you understand how to wisely apply that revelation.

Ultimately, revelation is when you see God’s glory, meaning you see things like he sees them.

The reason you don’t allow yourself to receive revelation is because you don’t have the intention to act on what’s being revealed, you won’t let yourself see it. When you are willing to yield to his will, the truth you need will no longer be covered.

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God's Kingdom Is Increasing

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God's Kingdom Is Increasing

What do you think about when you hear of “the Kingdom of God?” Do you think about the future, in Heaven with God forever? Or do you think about how we are connected to and operate in his kingdom now? Both maybe? It’s both for me.

Look at this progression of passages. The point of aligning them in this order is to show one simple truth, Jesus brought the kingdom with him and it’s been increasing ever since. A great light has come!

Mark 1:14 After the arrest of John, Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. 15 “The time is fulfilled,” He said, “and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!”

What Gospel? The Gospel that the kingdom of God is near. When he says repent and believe the Gospel, he’s saying, “you’re going to have to change the way you think because God’s kingdom is now in the earth. You are part of it, it’s in you and it will now begin to increase.”

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Dream Together with Your Spouse

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Dream Together with Your Spouse

The Apostle Paul refers to our union with our spouse a mystery. While there are plenty of jokes that could follow, what he’s talking about is the nature of the spiritual union in marriage. He describes it as a husband and wife being glued together. He gives the example that we are one with our spouse as Christ is one with his church. He even goes so far as to say if a husband loves himself he’s loving himself. He doesn’t say it’s “like” loving yourself, he said it “IS” loving yourself.

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Submit to One Another

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Submit to One Another

Marriage is a reflection of Christ’s relationship with his body. The husband is to love his wife as she responds with respect. This is the recipe for a thriving and fruitful marriage.

We really could just stop there but those of us who are married know it’s not that easy. When we look at the lengths to which Jesus went to make his bride his cherished eternal partner, we don’t see him demanding a response. We see Jesus dying for mankind and extending his love for us before we ever loved him back. So should a husband love his wife.

A marriage in proper order is not when the man has authority over his wife but when the husband is bringing unconditional love into the relationship that produces the fruit of respect from his wife.

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Vision and Mission 2019

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Vision and Mission 2019

This weekend I spoke about the Vision of our church. My church’s vision and my personal vision are very similar. While I’m part of Forward Church, serving my community through that role, I also have a personal vision for my ministry beyond my role as pastor of Forward Church.

The big picture is to change the way people see God. I do that by bringing people to wholeness through God’s love and help them establish their hearts in grace.

I want people to change the way they see God by putting their views and opinions of God through a new covenant lens and looking to Jesus for understanding about God’s attitude toward mankind. Too many people think it’s a good thing to be afraid of God, that believers still have a sin nature, that God will judge you for your sin, that God won’t put more on you than you can bare and that their righteousness is related to their behavior. I want to help people detox from those legalistic and unscriptural beliefs.

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SPLAGCHNIZOMAI

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SPLAGCHNIZOMAI

SPLAGCHNIZOMAI is Greek for “moved with compassion.” Jesus was SPLAGCHNIZOMAI and healed people. Jesus was “moved with compassion” to teach people. When you look at all the usages of this word you see that Jesus was moved with compassion in just about every aspect of life he walked in. You can be too.

Being moved or led by God is not as difficult or mystical as it sounds, it can actually be done consistently. There doesn’t have to be guess work in hearing and following God. The guess work only comes in when we’re unsure of our identity or we’ve allowed our hearts to be distracted by life’s circumstances.

The key is understanding that you have a new heart. Unfortunately when discussing the heart, many Christians think of this verse…

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