On January 11, 2013, Skip and Carol watched the movie The Way, starring Martin Sheen, about the Camino de Santiago. While we’d never heard of it before, we were definitely struck by something, which I’m calling unction, especially since we both felt the same about it at the same time. We learned about an ancient pilgrimage through Spain and immediately planned to go. At first we planned on going in 2014, but after about two weeks confessed to one another that we’d like to go this year, and again we agreed immediately. This is not normal. But this is surely awesome. When married folks are in such unity it is indeed wonderful, and thus the plan was hatched. If you would like to follow their adventure go to pilgrimage.banksdayspring.org.

Dear Church,

I’ve just been watching the opening segment of The Bible on the History Channel, and I am struck by one profound truth. I’m sure there are many more, but this one stood out for me: Promise. After all the debate one could have about how God works and why, it is clear that what He promises, He achieves. We may not know the why’s of it all, but we can trust in His Promises. This certainly sets our God apart from other gods, who can deliver nothing, and no one.

Some of you did a further study on the I AM, and what the Word of God says about you. Good for you; it’s not too late for the rest to also dig deeper into these, because they are promises. What God says, He can achieve, and our part seems to be cooperating with Him. Praise God for His great Love for us, and for helping us to trust Him and follow His Word.

God Bless you,
Pastor Skip

“…for the Lord our God is holy!” Psalm 99:9

We know the Lord is holy; the Bible says so in many places, and the Old & New Testament each provide many stories of His holiness in demonstrated action. He is Awesome. He is Powerful. The word “God” is what we use to try to convey the meaning of His power and righteousness and attribute it all to His Being!

The more one studies the holiness of God the more one shrinks. Not in fear, as in cowering, but in pure awe and surrender. Well, that is, “if” one surrenders. The more we try to get our mind around the holiness of God Almighty the more we perceive our own failure or weakness or inability to “be perfect as He is perfect.” (MT 5:48) If we’re not careful, this entire “study” of an attribute of God can lead us to negative feelings about ourselves, and be used by the enemy to pull us away from the very relationship God wants for us, Himself.

Here it is! A mystery revealed! We can say with certainty that God wants us, and He wants us to be in relationship with Him in such a way that we would call it “personal.” When Jesus spoke that the Kingdom was at hand He didn’t mean in the future, He meant right then, right there, and right now. Adam had a personal relationship with his Creator that was broken by sin, causing a great separation, such that God has been working to restore this relationship with His Creation ever since. Jesus offers that. Jesus Christ isn’t trying to create a new religion on planet Earth. He is offering Himself to restore what was lost, and He makes it personal.

Herein we find a problem, with us, not with Him. The saying “familiarity breeds contempt” is proved out all too well in our relationship with a Holy God. In our “familiarity” with Him we tend to bring Him down, rather than grow ourselves up. We try to make Him be like us, instead of our being transformed into His likeness. One author has said it this way: “God is not a big one of us.” He is, after all, and I do mean all, God Almighty. Sometimes we are subtle, often not so much, in our attempts to manipulate Him to do our will, answer our prayers, lead us where we want to go, provide for us what we want, etc. We even try to use His Words, which we quote back to Him, as if to persuade the God of Heaven to do for us what we feel is best. The creation telling the Creator a this or that! Imagine!

A friend of mine likened it to a lion behind the fence at the zoo. He is ferocious, powerful, and not a bit tame. We stand behind the fence as if we were stronger, somehow better, because we seem to control the relationship. The Lion of Judah from the Old Testament is ferocious, powerful, and not a bit tamed by us, yet He becomes the Lamb of God, as Jesus Christ, and removes the fence without destroying us. Rather, He offers us the opportunity to follow Him into the wonders of a real life of joy and victory. I realize any illustration like this is somehow incomplete, but the point is clear. We cannot approach the Holiness of God from our side of the fence, with us in control. We cannot “get” holy by being separated from Him.

Isaiah saw the Lord, and declared “Holy is He”! “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips.” He got it. He understood the depth of his dilemma. And the Lord worked a miracle upon Isaiah and said “Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” (Isaiah 6: 3,5,6) The Lion was certainly able to walk through the bars of separation and devour the man, but instead He became the Lamb and saved him. This is Jesus Christ. And, if you can possibly wrap yourself around this last truth, it’s a gift!

The mother of a family of 5 children asked the father to help with getting the kids ready for bed. Dad thought that his 6-yr old son would do well to take a shower this night, so began helping him get that done. Just before stepping into the shower the boy says “Dad, did you know you can talk to God even though you can’t see Him?” Not knowing exactly where this came from, or why, and not really prepared for a thorough father/son theological discussion, with a 6-yr old, the task at hand was to get the boy clean, so the father replies “Of course, son, you can talk to God at any time,” and pulled the curtain as the boy entered the shower.

The boy then began, to the father’s amazement, wonder, and delight, a conversation with God.

We have questions, right? What did the boy say? What did God say? What topics did this conversation with God cover? Certainly not about World politics or National crises of any kind. Certainly not about how to solve the fiscal cliff! What could a small child possibly have to talk to God Almighty about?

They probably talked about the more important things. Perhaps the boy asked “God, how are you today?” or “God, my sister’s sick. Please make her well” or the boy may have said to God “Christmas is coming. Can I get you anything?”

I know this 6-yr old boy. I see him almost every Sunday, and I can assure you he simply believes in Jesus, and believes that you can talk to Him, about anything. The Love they share, this boy and Jesus, is available to each of us. Jesus is ready to talk with you about anything, so ponder what you might want to say to Him, and then begin…

Take a break for a few minutes. Relax. Let your mind’s eyes see something wonderful, and real. Just because we can’t see it with our natural eyes right now doesn’t mean it isn’t real. You can imagine all sorts of things, the well-spring of hopes and dreams.

For now, let your imaginer loose into the pages of the Bible. John is telling us about incredible things to come, almost too amazing to comprehend, but things which are true none-the-less. Our task is to read about them and ponder them and allow the Holy Spirit to Bless us as we do. This is good stuff.

We read that one day we will have new bodies. I don’t know what they will look like, but I know Who made them, and that’s enough for me to be excited about it. We’ll have a new name; a new identity, if you will. Again, we can’t say much about how all this works, but we know Who is working it out, and that is enough to prompt us to dreaming about it. Imagine!

This coming realm is so fantastic that we risk all sorts of errors just trying to think about it, as we try to understand the future in terms of the now, or the past, both of which have failed so badly we should welcome dumping them both for the glory of what is coming. We know this in our spirits.

So put yourself there, right now, in this new realm of what God has promised those who believe in Him. Imagine that you are happily engaged in doing something. What that might be I can’t say, but I’m sure we will be on assignment, not just sitting around bored.  You’ll probably be doing something, custom designed by Jesus just for you to do, which will use whatever gifts and powers He has given you for that task. Whatever you need He will give you. If you need others to help they will be there. Whatever power or gift or talent- whatever- He will provide it all, to accomplish His will through you. Cool, huh?

There we are, in Heaven, or the Heavenlies, where ever in Creation He wants us to be, doing whatever He wants us to do, completely fulfilled and full of awe and wonder each moment. No worries. No tears. No anxieties, fears, or doubts. There may be troubles, but that’s probably why we are there, to deal with them according to His Will. Very cool, indeed.

Now imagine this: A voice of some kind is heard. It’s probably not the voice of God, but of one of His agents; maybe one of us, or an angel. Or some other created being. Wow. We all hear the voice at once, in the same way, understanding what is said perfectly, without any confusion of any kind. We know exactly what is being said, and we know exactly what to do, and we respond with joy and willingness, because we so desire to serve the Lord and obey His Word to us. In fact, the emotion of anticipation builds to a crescendo as the voice calls to us.

Then, whether all at once, or in some kind of divinely ordered distribution of time, we hear it. The Word is instantly familiar to us, because we’ve heard it so often, both here, in Heaven, and before, in our former lives, the ones you’re living now. We no longer wrestle with the Word, as we did before. We don’t reject it for some other pleasure. We don’t neglect for some other perceived duty. We don’t ignore it because we’re doing something we value more importantly. Immediately we respond, properly and completely, because we really WANT to, because this is more important than ANYTHING else we might do.

Because we can now see our past so clearly, we see all those times we heard this Word before. It adds to our joy. All through the ages the Church of Jesus has begun its service with…..and now in this present future we still hear this Word….a call to worship. The very first thing God wants is for us to worship Him. We stop everything to worship Jesus Christ, because we WANT to. We are filled with wonder and awe, again and again, as He reveals more and more of Himself to us, throughout eternity. Imagine, if you can, the worship of God Almighty.

Paul said for Timothy to not let folks despise his youth, for God was with him. Age seems to be one of those things where we automatically assume it brings wisdom, due, certainly, to the experience it generates. But sometimes God just shows up in places we don’t expect Him, and speaks through younger folks. Regardless of age, we would do well to listen for the Voice of God, and recognize Him when He talks to us.

On June 3rd we had the privilege to hear from God, through a high school sophomore. His assigned text was Romans 5, and it can be a bit technical for even the most intentional Bible student. As the “covering” pastor I told Jason Ross to just let the Bible speak to him, and to tell us that. I encouraged him to not worry about the academics of it, but to share the “unction.”

You decide if what he told us speaks to your heart:
1. Speaking about the topic of “faith,” he said, “if you don’t believe, you don’t have it.”
2. About “joy” he said, “It’s knowing that you are working for the Master.
3. Concerning our “identity” with others: “Jesus Christ is our ‘Letter of Introduction.’”
4. When addressing in his own soul a great sorrow, and whether he was trusting God through it all, he discovered that “The love I had for God was based on a choice.”
5. The tragedy of another person spoke to his heart, as this person awoke in a hospital bed, after a car crash and missing some limbs, to declare: “Wow. What has God done?” The emphasis was on the new adventure of faith, not the so-called loss.
6.For his closing, he told us of a “word” God said to him as he was feeling downcast. Jason then prophesied to us as well: “You’re too focused on YOUR problems.”
7. Finally, a little story about how our problems are like facing an Elephant. So we ask:
“How does one deal with an Elephant?”
“You eat him one bite at a time.”
“But, HOW does one eat an Elephant?”
“One bite at a time.”
“Aw, c’mon, how does one even cut up an Elephant?”
“LET GOD CHOP UP YOUR ELEPHANT”

As the “covering” pastor, it was my joy to adjourn our “meeting with God” and proceed to fellowship time …

Thank you to all of you who worked so hard to host this amazing group of kids. It just sort of happened, in a way, because we certainly didn’t “plan” the thing very well. But because of YOU, it happened with wonder and awe and the revealed nature of our God.

There can always be better organization, in a way, but when the Holy Spirit is moving and we dare to join in, well, it just sort of works out to His Glory. That means each of you is/was willing to let Him move, and I’m certain you felt His Presence and Leading.

We are Christians, and by that title we are declaring that we are Christ-ones; or, better still, Little Christs. When “He that is in you…” is operating from within you, then it is no longer ‘you,’ but He doing the thing; as in “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

We are not really part of a religion, but of a relationship. We do best when we allow Jesus to be Lord of our life, and simply follow in obedience. We experience true freedom when we break away from the bondage of the world, and walk in His Spirit. Our best experiences of joy come when it is His joy we feel, not something temporary. Isn’t it amazing how “the cares of this world” that weigh us down disappear when we focus on others, like the Asante kids?

Thank you for hosting. Thank you for providing beds and meals and transportation. Thank you loving on these kids, and praying with/for them, and thank you for giving money too. Thank you for rearranging the church for their use as both a concert hall and their classroom for their schooling. Thank you for helping that wonderful day at the beach, I know they will remember that one! Thank you to Odyssey Productions for the amazing generosity of going to Africa and making a film that can be used over and over to spread the message of this ministry.

We learned the word in Swahili, that we should speak to Jesus often:

ASANTE- Thank You

Pastor Skip Heiney
Dayspring Christian Fellowship

This is a living testimony, written in my heart the last two days, as I successfully connected 3 modems to 3 routers, establishing 3 Wi-Fi hotspots.

You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that it’s the young who know how to do computer stuff. Don’t call grandpa, call his grandson if you need computer help. It gets worse. The computer has made possible The Internet, connecting the entire planet to…..well, everything. And now we have Wi-Fi, that strange name for connecting to the Internet without wires. It gets worse. We now have a broader term for it all, “The Cloud”.

It’s an amazing concept, really, that all of man’s knowledge, good or bad, is somehow shot into the ether, and just held there waiting for us to access it. Who puts it up, and how it gets there, is becoming secondary to the fact that it is, simply, there. How it gets there is a boring question, left to geeks, but the reality that it is there is for all of us. What is
there isn’t really questioned at all, because if it “is” then it can surely be “there.” Why it’s there is easily answered, because someone put it there, which answers the Who put it there. When, isn’t an issue. And where, we’ve said, is The Cloud. Clear?

I’ve also noticed that the older one gets, the more resistant one is to new technology. As we age we like to keep things the way we understand them, and often just put our heads in the sand, ignoring, if possible, whatever is “new.” New stuff requires learning, and
we seem to feel that once we reached a certain age of adulthood we don’t need to learn anymore. It takes effort. It requires being stretched. Etc. We just want to go about being, and being left alone to all these new things is part of it. Ok, let’s just say it, we get set in our ways, and a bit stubborn. Maybe a lot stubborn. After all, we now know it all. Except for all this new stuff.

And then came Pentecost.

For thousands of years God had, on occasion, sent His Holy Spirit to do this or that. We have the record in The Bible and can easily read that God does indeed work toward His plan of reaching us. We are not surprised when we read that the Holy Spirit was sent
by God to do His Will, and mostly just have a lot of questions about why He does what He does, because it is so different that what we would do. In the Old Testament, when the Holy Spirit showed up, it was a big deal, and people paid attention. God worked
something out, and man took notice. Or not.

But then came Pentecost, when God fulfilled His promise through the prophet Joel,
and poured out the His Holy Spirit to everyone? Yes, all. This created quite a
stir, as all kinds of regular folks began experiencing God in powerful ways and means.
Religious leadership didn’t quite know how to handle this, as they were no longer the
primary means of people connecting to the Lord. Did you get that? “Connecting” to the
Lord?

You see, prior to Pentecost, we had to “hard-wire in” to God though the Law and the Prophets. And priests. And religion. But God Almighty threw down upon us a “new technology,” the Holy Spirit, available to everyone! It’s like He’s The Cloud, and all
we need do is “connect.” He’s no longer limited to a select few who know how to talk to Him, or a more limited few who know how to read His Book. He is now available to everyone, everywhere, at all times. His Holy Spirit has been “poured out” and is now THERE, which is HERE, for any and all to “connect” to.

You can develop the rest of this illustration for yourself, as I’m sure you get it by now. I know there are limitations in any illustration of how God might work, but the task for us is to not be “old” and “stubborn” to His desire to connect to us! He loves us. He loves YOU, and He wants to talk. Go on, go vertical. Let the Holy Spirit have you, and dare to enter His Presence, and allow His Power to both overtake you and then work through you. OMG!!!!

What about homosexuality? And homosexuals? And the church? And American politics? Issues of personal rights, and issues of tolerance toward others. What’s “moral,” and who gets to say so? And, oh, by the way, the issue of Love…

These are but a few of the provocative questions we could ask, each with an inflammatory side, able to cause division among us. Then again, separating oneself from evil is a proper thing to do, and justifies all kinds of divisions among people of faith.

A “foundationalist,” notice I didn’t say “fundamentalist,” would want to “stand” upon “truth.” For Christians, the truth is found in the Holy Scriptures, so we invoke the Bible as our authority. We also say that Jesus Christ IS the Truth, and in so doing can paint ourselves into a bit of a corner if the only truth we are going to cite is from the Bible. In this way we get to declare what truth is, because we “translate” the Bible, and thus control its meaning.

This can leave Jesus out of the conversation. And He very much wants to be IN the conversation of our lives, and has sent His Holy Spirit to keep that conversation alive and beneficial. After all, He is Lord, not us, and we are constantly having “epiphanies” as we grow in Christ and discover that we didn’t know it all, after all.

The Bible seems very clear to me about homosexual practices, as it does about many other kinds of enumerated “sins.” They separate us, not only from one another, but from God Himself. Based upon that alone I would recommend not doing them, and surely not “practicing” them. Some in the faith have gone so far as to try and categorize the list of sins, creating a kind of ranking, from sort-of-bad to really-horrible. I’m of the opinion they are all bad and all should be avoided and that we aren’t capable of managing which ones we should dabble in and which ones we can master.

Then there’s this whole Bible “truth” about not judging others. I suppose that’s another sin, and I suppose we all do it and therefore all are without guilt. So we’re all guilty, of various transgressions, and all deserve the “punishment” for the transgression. That’s Bible, after all, so “the truth hurts.”

Except for Jesus Christ. He changes everything. This, in fact, IS the Good News. He doesn’t judge us, because He died for those sins and in Him we are set free from the guilt and shame that normally would haunt us. Do you get that? Do you get it that YOU are set free from sin by faith in Jesus Christ?

So, what about homosexuality? I’d say “Don’t do it.” Well, what about ANY of the sins listed? Same answer: “Don’t do them.” Here is where the hammer falls, and the hammer isn’t judgment and sentence and penalty. The hammer is love. Love never fails. Love doesn’t condone, and Love doesn’t condemn, and Love doesn’t participate in doing wrong. Love just loves. We can only Love if Love is being manifested through us. Period. You can’t give what you don’t have. If all you have is guilt, about yourself, then it makes sense you’d have a tough time giving Love to others. Let Jesus Christ clean YOU up, and you’ll be amazed how everyone else seems less dirty.

These 5 chapters of the Gospel of John cover almost ONE QUARTER of the thing, and yet it covers a period of time about 24 hours, maybe a little longer, in the life of Christ. One could conclude that John thinks highly of this information, to devote so much to it.

Every time I read this section I am challenged, convicted, perplexed, and filled with joy and wonder and awesomeness, as the I AM speaks again.

As I read I nod my head, as if I understand what I’m reading. I think I do. I mean, I understand the words ok, and they seem to make sense. I’m a learned man, sort of, at least with a college education, and I’m willing, aren’t I, to keep learning? Of course I am. I’m a bit like Nicodemus. Educated, and in “leadership”. And yet I hunger for Truth and know that I don’t know much, especially about God’s Kingdom. So I come to Jesus, by day or by night, asking again and again the questions we all have. And Jesus speaks to me every time. May I (we) have ears to hear.

May I suggest you read these 5 chapters, and ponder this question: “What is the self?”

Don’t blow me off here. What is self? Or, what is a self? You may want to write out your answer so you can look at this/these question(s) more completely. To “ponder” means to examine carefully, to search about, to consider deeply, etc. Do you have a self? Are you a self? If so, what is selfishness? What is self-centeredness? What is self concern? Self protection? What is it to be self absorbed?

Is there anything in chapters 13 thru 17 to address the self? If so, what?

You should know by now that I’m not interested in fancy analysis or complex theology. I’m interested in shoe-leather application, as if our lives depended on it! They do! The reality that can explode off these pages is transformative. It can change the life of the reader! There is a great mystery revealed in these few pages, and the revelation is worth the search, worth the find, and worth the results.

Go ahead- see if you “get it”. If you don’t, go ahead and ask; I’d be glad to tell you!