The Church is the Embodiment of Grace and Truth!

John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of Grace and Truth.”

I love the thought that you and I are to be FULL of both grace and truth. Jesus and the N.T. does not suggest a balance between grace and truth, but the full embodiment of grace and truth. Jesus did not come to strike a balance between grace and truth, but He brought the FULL MEASURE of both.

So what is Grace and Truth?

             Grace is generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved acceptance.

             Truth is is that which confirms reality, fact, or actuality. We don’t have time to debate the philosophy, the historical, or even the age-old question, what is truth. This definition will work for our purposes … In other words, what Jesus is teaching and revealing is that the confirmation of my faith is when I live it in reality, as fact, and in actuality.

The church is the embodiment of BOTH Grace and Truth. Now listen, the only group Jesus consistently condemned were graceless religious people – those who misused truth to control through guilt, fear, and condemnation.

The bible is the ultimate truth which is filled with the ultimate of grace. The church (You and I) is to be characterized by a full dose of truth … calling sin what it is and pointing to the purity and holiness that comes through believing, accepting, and uniting with Jesus … AND characterized by a full does of grace. THIS IS A CHALLENGE!

It takes boldness, commitment, and to move beyond yourself! How do we do this?

First, We confront sin! In our own lives and in the lives of those around us. 

Second, We don’t ostracize the person, including ourselves … Jesus always looked beyond the sin, to the person and helped them to see a greater possibility through living the truth. 

I want to commit to having soft hearts of grace and calloused hands from serving! You know I love ya, Don

The Power of Touch

There’s an example of God’s kind of mercy in Mark 1:40-42. There we’re told that a leper came to Jesus, and knelt before Him and said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”

 “The amazing part of this healing is how Jesus did it - Jesus TOUCHED him!” You didn’t touch lepers. They were unclean! If you touched them, you became unclean and no one wanted that! But Jesus TOUCHED this man.

Isn't it great to know that Jesus is willing to touch our deepest guilt, shame, sin, sorrow, and heartache? Jesus loves us enough to touch us right where we are.

Philip Yancey tells the story of Dr. Paul Brand who devoted his life to treating leprosy patients in India. In the course of one examination Brand laid his hand on the patient’s shoulder and informed him through a translator of the treatment that lay ahead.

To Dr. Brand’s surprise the man began to shake with muffled sobs. Brand turned to the translator “Have I said something wrong?”

She questioned the patient and then replied: “No, doctor. He says he is crying because you put your hand around his shoulder. Until you came here no one had touched him for many years.”

How is God's mercy being experienced in your life? Have you touched the heart of anyone lately? 

You know I love ya, Don

It is not how good we are, But God's goodness within us

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This is a good news for those who accept God’s truth. Paul asks the question of the bad news… Romans 3, verse 3, “Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” God will be faithful regardless of how much we rebel. That is not to say there are not consequences to our sin, God’s faithfulness and I believe the good news is that with God’s faithfulness …you and I have hope.

The hope found in God’s faithfulness grants the believer the power, the will, and the strength to go on. The good news is shadowed in our doubt and inability to save ourselves. The problem is our society and with many religions is that they maintain you get nothing without doing something, which is a matter of law. People just cannot get it in their heads that we can be justified by faith in Christ and that our good deeds have nothing to do with it. It is our recognition that God is faithful, that we can confess our sins, and then join with Christ as we bury our old self in baptism and come out of that water a new creation through the power of Jesus Christ … And that gives us HOPE! Hope never disappoints us.

From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem. Mr. Lang had been asked to speak to a class of 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him.

Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. "Stay in school," he admonished, "and I'll help pay the college tuition for every one of you." At that moment the lives of these students changed. For the first time they had hope. Said one student, "I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling." Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school.

While it is true that should live a life of doing good things, these things do not save us. We do them because we are saved by His grace. We are motivated by His gracious salvation. It is God that is faithful and just … it is God that loves beyond words … it is God that has granted us good news … it is God’s gracious grace that motivates us to love on people and move to new levels of service and sacrifice.  It is not how good we are, but God’s goodness within us.

You know I love ya, Don

Sin seperates us from our purpose!

Well, there is good news and bad news…The bad news is that you are a sinner and there is nothing special about you when it comes to sin. The good news is that God knows that and he loves you regardless. The bad news is that you cannot do this yourself…the good news is that God has and is doing it for you. The bad news is that we lie to ourselves in thinking and living as if my world revolves around me. The Good news is that God made his world revolve around your redemption.

Romans 3:9 states, “What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.” You are a sinner and that is bad news. The bad news is all bad! There is nothing good about it.

For such a small word, a lot is packed into the meaning of sin. The Bible describes sin as the breaking, or transgression, of God's law (1 John 3:4). It is also defined as disobedience or rebellion against God (Deuteronomy 9:7), as well as independence from God. The original translation means "to miss the mark" of God's holy standard of righteousness.

Hamartiology is the branch of theology that deals with the study of sin. It investigates how sin originated, how it affects the human race, the different types and degrees of sin, and the results of sin.

While the basic origin of sin is unclear, we know that it came into the world when the serpent, Satan, tempted Adam and Eve and they disobeyed God (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12). The essence of the problem stemmed from the human desire to be like God. All sin, therefore, has its roots in idolatry—the attempt to put something or someone in the place of the Creator. Most often, that someone is one's own self. While God allows sin, he is not the author of sin. All sins are an offense to God and they separate us from him (Isaiah 59:2).

Jesus speaks of sin and says in John 8:34-26, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has not permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

An awful lot of people in our world view themselves as being pretty good Joe/Jane and everyone else is broken over their sinfulness.  God is not partial to anyone, but that everyone needs His son, Jesus to be set free. We have to go down before we can ever go up. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. The bad news is that you are a sinner and your natural self will separate you from your true identity and your eternal destiny. The good news is that God responded. 

You know I love ya, Don

Sinner ... Jesus is your friend!

Why do we make it so hard? We ask today…who is Jesus? He is the friend to sinners. Sinner: in ordinary speech, it means someone who is deeply depraved, evil, bad. However, that's not what the Christian faith means by the word. In Christian belief, 'sinner' is not a moral description, but a relational one. Sin is the broken state of our relationship with God. There's a distance, a gap between us (with the rest of the created universe) and God, a distance far too wide for us to cross over, a distance bridged only by God's act of coming over onto our side of the gap through Jesus Christ (God-with-us) and the Spirit that Jesus sent in His place. The nicest, kindest, most spiritual, and most virtuous of us is a sinner. The vilest, darkest, crookedest, most evil of us is a sinner. Everyone in between is a sinner. God loves each and all of these sinners. And Jesus is the friend of Sinners.

Perhaps it would be best to use a word, which lacks the moralistic overtone of 'sinner'. That overtone undercuts the Christian message of grace for those on our human side of the divide. I would love to look at the good and pretend the bad away, it's so much happier -- but it is unreal. The words often put forward to replace 'sin' and 'sinner' fail to catch enough of the negative quality of that divide: it is very bad for you (in fact, fatal) and is far from what God wants for you. Because the broken relationship is so bad for us, it has profound and deep effects on all of us and all we do. It is a part of our human identity and character (that which makes each of us who/what we are), whether we want it to be or not.

The Bible has all sorts of words to describe sin. The most striking of these is Heb. mešubah (infidelity); the covenant people Israel was chasing after other lovers, as the prophets described it. In the Hebrew Scriptures, other words include ‘ahar (transgression, law-breaking), ma’al (trespass), ‘awon (straying, wandering), tum’ah (becoming unclean), beged (disloyalty, treason), and peša (revolt, rebellion). The image of sin, which the New Testament most picked up on, was the idea of an archer missing his mark (Heb. chatta’t, Gk hamartia). Anyone who does these is in some sense a 'sinner'. The origin of hamartia is the reward from competition; due to missing the mark badly or often, the archer has no (ha-) share in the allotment (mer-) or prize.

Notice that these are word-pictures, metaphors that help to describe something that has so many angles that no mere word or even phrase can quite hit the mark. You can picture someone straying from the path into the dangers of the woods, getting lost. Another image is being soaked through and through with pig-mud. Some of these are relational, others personal, or ritual, or societal. Sin is so pervasive, it colors everything we do. We all do these things, in all sorts of ways, thus we are all sinners. Jesus is a friend to sinners.

You know I love ya, Don

New Carpet...some new cleansing!

12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.' " 14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.

New carpet at the 1341 Palm Ct. address this morning. It made me think of this scripture and I found this devotion...thought you would enjoy it as well.

Jesus cleansing the temple, we all love this story, because it shows Jesus getting busy and getting those darn thieves out of God's house.

You see these guys (and women) were overcharging God's people to worship Him.
Say a turtledove was sold for $5.00, but they would jack up the price to $10.00 because they would say that the one you bought was not good enough. So they would over charge you, take what they said was not good enough, then turn around and sell it to the next person for $10.00.

Jesus couldn't stand this any more, and drove these robbers out of the temple.
Then the cool part comes in verse 14: Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.

These poor people could not afford to enter the temple, according to those who were robbing the people; therefore they were outcasts from the temple and being held back from God, in a sense.
Kind of makes you stop and wonder how we keep others out of the churches.

I remember a story of Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, who when he started, him and his wife would go down to the beach and witness to the surfers. He was a pastor of a small church as well. Eventually they got new carpet and pews for this church; the surfers would come in from the beach all wet and full of sand. The people didn't want these surfers in the church messing up their new carpet and pews. Chuck's response was to tear out the pews and carpet, because these material things meant nothing and the souls of these men and women meant everything to God. If you have ever heard of Calvary Chapel, you will find that there are hundreds of churches now throughout the USA and around the world. All because one man had the heart of God to see the more important things, which were the people and not the material that we tend to find more precious then the souls of men.

God makes all things new...you know I love ya, Don

He Needs to Know Jesus... as do we.

On April 15^th, 2013 two young brothers left their homes with bags filled with pressure cooker bombs. They deposited the bombs on the finish line of the Boston marathon. The two bombs took three lives and maimed and injured many more. A search ensued for three days until the two brothers were isolated in a suburb of Boston. The older brother was shot and killed in the crossfire while the young brother was injured in the fight. The next day after many events and police actions, the younger brother was captured, arrested and taken to a hospital under intense police guard. These events are tragic and horrific. The victims are in my prayers, as well as in the thoughts of so many Christians. The awareness of God's goodness also sparks within the believer a desire to reach out to the surviving brother. He committed awful acts of evil. He will be held accountable for his crimes against society. The eternal perspective of a Christ-follower is that he also needs to know Jesus.

The world is filled with people who have belief that God exists. The awareness of and knowing God are different. When a person knows God, the “knowing” draws a person to a place of goodness in response to God. It is this goodness which motivates followers of Jesus to be more like Jesus. Dallas Willard defines it with: “Discipleship can be made concrete by loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us, walking the second mile with an oppressor-in general, living out the gracious inward transformations of faith, hope, and love.” Our accomplishments are not as significant as how we touched others for the cause of Christ in this world.

"Oh Lord, please bring a message that has an eternal perspective to this young man. Remind me that I am significant in your plan of reaching out to the twisted and misguided so that you might bring a renewed hope again. I love you, Lord. Amen."

You know I love ya, Don

Brother Lawrence - Embrace the Abundance

Brother Lawrence is a life that every believer should model. His ability to embrace such a life of experiencing the presence of God is truly the abundant life in every walk of life. Richard Foster states: "Brother Lawrence abandoned 'all forms of devotions and set prayers' because he wanted all his life, not simply an hour here and there, to be life in an attitude of prayer." There is a place that structure is needed to attain such a life, but the true goal is to live our daily devotions and prayers in every aspect of our lives.

When I was an undergrad student at Pacific Christian College, I was given a small little 20 page booklet written by Don DeWelt titled, "Sweet Hour of Prayer." I took a year to read, meditated, journal and pray through that little booklet at least five times a week for a year. It was a simple guide yet difficult in making the commitment. It was worth it. During that time I came to a new awareness of God in my life and God in my surroundings. It always took me to a place to pray beyond the hour of the exercises to a place of praying short prayers throughout the day.

Practicing the presence of God helps me in understanding that my relationship with God is truly a relationship. Many worship leaders will start a worship service by declaring that we are about to enter into the presence of God. Dr. Wayne Shaw of Lincoln Christian University and I had a conversation a few years ago about how believers should never leave the presence of God. In reality, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. Brother Lawrence was able to grasp the reality of this truth and journey this life with the destination of transformation in mind. In corporate worship we enter into a time of conscience awareness and recognition of God's presence within our lives. This fact does not diminish the fact that God is with us always and that a believer never exits the presence of God.

Although, I am lacking in my ability, the action of practicing the presence of God brings order to the chaos. The priority of practicing God's presence restores my heart, mind, soul, and strength to a place that God intended in my creation. That I would know God has he is to be known restores my essence to find order in the harsh reality of living with a sinful heart. For me, this is the ultimate goal of transformation. When I get to heaven and Jesus transforms me from glory to glory so as to replace my sinful heart is the "thing" I most look forward to in heaven. I will no longer have the sinful nature nor will I have the desire to separate from God. I will know sin in the past tense and the practice of God's presence will no longer be a need. I will be in God's presence.

What I find most glorious is that I can practice the presence of God while living in my fallen flesh and experience what is to come. The experience is the opportunity to embrace the abundance of life. The abundance of life through practicing God's presence in the ordinary daily life is but a glimpse of what is ahead of us in the future.

Thank You Brother Lawrence. You know I love ya, Don

Temptations are Useful....the proof is in the resistance!

Now this is a quote that I can resonate with: "Our life on this earth is warfare." This was said by Thomas 'a Kempis from his writings in, "The Imitation of Christ." I agree that this life is hard and that we are at war. The temptations of this world are not to be taken lightly. These pesky temptations lead me astray and away from the God I love. I don't want anything to do with them and I certainly rebuke them out of my life. War against the temptations are the only means for survival against evil that dwells within my sinful nature. War against temptations is also the only way to fight off the evil one and his evil snares that so easily entangle my progress.

Here is quote that surprised me: "Temptations can be useful to us even though they seem to cause us nothing but pain." My first surprise was that the words came from the same man that declared war. How can you reconcile that life is a war against temptations and then state that these same temptations are good? My second surprise was in the idea that these horrible tugs in my flesh that I have tried to rid my life of are actually something that I am supposed to appreciate as useful. But, I kept reading and my thoughts were enlightened with the third quote. I see a new understanding of God's favor. Thomas wrote, "Temptation reveals our instability and our lack of trust in God; temptations reveal who we are."

This explanation helped me come to terms with never escaping temptations. Temptations are the piece to the puzzle that are not sin, but the piece to the puzzle that defines the "who" in our commitment to God. I do think God allows temptations to come our way, but I do not believe God sits on the throne planning ways to cause us to stumble. God is much like a parent watching his/her child take their first steps. God is not pushing us down, but watching to see what we will do next. So, why does he allow temptations come, because it is the means for growth. The athlete must suffer grueling struggle in order to build up muscle. The musician makes many mistakes in rehearsal for through the rehearsal the mistakes are made correct through repetition and a beautiful concert emerges. The artist struggles with colors and application in order to find a clean production of an amazing sight to behold.

Thomas has helped me come to a new appreciation for the struggle of temptation. It is for the purpose of learning to resist temptation and draw closer to God. Our resistance to the temptation is to walk with the Lord. The resistance is the proof I am serious in my faith and there in lies the value because the more I resist, the more I rely on God for my existence. The reliance on God is then complimented in (1) striving for others, (2) living as less is more, (3) living without recognition or importance, and (4) allowing God's will to completely fill me.

It is true there is value in temptation and I don't truly want to live without the existence of temptation, but I desire to live a life of resistance to temptation. You know I love ya, Don

Blaise Pascal Greatness and Wretchedness: Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde

I have always admired Pascal for his contributions to math. It humbles me to think that one of the world's foremost brains on math was so dedicated to living a life filled with virtue. I am touched by the teaching on a "duel" nature. It is better for me to state that my study on the "Holiness Tradition" has also knocked me down a peg or two. There is a stark reality in these classic masters of Spiritual Formation teach on living "virtue."

Pascal states, "Our greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in us some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness." I totally agree there are two elements in myself that bring great contradictions that roar in my head, heart, and strength. To what degree is this a nature, I am not sure...but I do know that both of these elements exist in my personality. I am more inclined to stated that I am a fallen creature because of my sinful heart that desires to think only of itself. It is the call of my creator that reminds me of the greatness that he created within me and that God's call is what motivates me to be more like him. It is also his call that lifts me up and heightens my awareness of what he has created me to be.

"It is vain that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries" was a another statement that resonated in my heart as I traveled this chapter. God has willingly united himself to me so as to bring me out of my sinful nature into a life restored to my creator. In God's willingness I experience his favor. I experience grace, while my heart is humbled and in turn he grants me a cure for my miseries. I do not have to beat myself up or denigrate my emotions because the reality is that I am unable to redeem myself. My redemption comes through Jesus Christ. He is the one the has paid my debt and I surrender my all (the great and the wretched) so that he can lift me and demonstrate where my help comes from. It is in this new relationship that I can fully experience life as one united with God by grace and not by my nature.

Therefore, I seek to find the light that Pascal refers to by the grace that God has demonstrated in uniting with me. Thus, I declare to all I meet that Jesus is the means by which we are saved. I am granted courage and strength to stand for justice, fight for those who are unable to fight for themselves, and live a generous life as he has so generously given to me because my nature (great and wretched) has taken the back set and his grace and truth is guiding me.

Learning to live with more virtue...you know I love ya, Don

Needing a Prison Break!

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I am a sinner....You are a Sinner. You are separated from God by that sin. You are granted a prison break because of Jesus Christ. You and I were born sinners...we have no means to break free from sin without Jesus...we have no hope of escape apart from the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are captives to that sin and the only means for reprieve is to dedicate ourselves as Christ-followers so that He might reign in our lives.

Paul writes in Romans 6:18, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

The truth is that we are free from sin, but we are not free to continue to sin by making my own choices and fulfilling my own desires. I am free because I have made a choice to following Jesus and Jesus alone.

The truth will set you free from bondage of sin, yet it makes you a servant accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ. A servant is not free to do as they choose, but a servant makes a choice to serve the master and the master's will and direction. How does this become natural for a servant? Serving becomes natural or habitual through exercise, through practice, through rehearsal … through a regular development and daily routine of regimented growth.

One fellow sinner to another...you know I love ya and seek to grow closer to the One who sets us free. Don

Blow out the Dust!

If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. -1 John 2:1-2 (NRSV)

A friend in Singapore wrote:

The air conditioning unit in our home needs maintenance every three months to clear the accumulation of dust from the air filter. Otherwise the air duct gets blocked and water from condensation starts to drip inside our house.

Similarly, wrongs that accumulate in a Christian's life can be a hindrance. However, God has provided a way to clear this accumulation of sin from our lives. First John 1:9 reminds us, "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

When we try to live the Christian life only by our own strength, we will struggle and feel defeated. But we can experience victorious life in Christ when we confess our sins and depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

I couldn't agree more..."Lord, help me to clean out my life on a regular basis?"

You Know I Love Ya, Don

The Start of Easter Week!

God made [Christ] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. -2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)

I remember one Sunday when I was a in my teens. There was a wall in my Sunday school classroom covered with newspaper clippings bearing disturbing words and images. Then I noticed a large piece of paper spread on top of them. It bore one word: Sin. And there was something even larger layered on top of it all - the shape of a large cross.

I know Jesus took my sins away by giving his life on the cross. But seeing that cross covering those images helped me to better understand what Christ did when he took the sin of the world upon his shoulders. I began to ponder the words in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

I am a firm believer in justice, but I am tremendously thankful that our God is a God of mercy. Because of this mercy, the moment we accept God's sacrifice, acknowledge our sin, and proclaim Christ as our savior, we are free - free to live life as God intends it to be and to welcome death as a portal into God's presence.

Thankful for you this Easter...you know I love ya, Don

Throwing it down!

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

-John 10:10 (NRSV)

So many times I have trouble laying things at the feet of Jesus. Much like Moses standing at the burning bush holding his shepherd's rod...God asks us to throw it down. For when we throw it down it becomes a snake and when we pick it up it becomes a rod again. The following devotion was written by a preacher in Fiji. It touched my heart.

One afternoon as I was driving home from my pastoral work, I met two men who were returning from their gardens. Both men were carrying heavy loads of fresh produce. I stopped on the roadside and offered them a lift in the back of my van.

After driving for some time, I noticed the men were still holding their heavy loads on their laps and not on the floor. I then asked them, "Why don't you set your loads down on the van floor?"

To my surprise one of the men answered, "We did not want to make your van dirty."

Even when we are invited, we are sometimes reluctant to lay our burdens down. I started to think about this in regard to our relationship with Jesus Christ. We come to church, we participate in Bible studies, we attend prayer meetings. But we are not willing to unload our sins on Jesus, who invites us to let go of what weighs us down.

Jesus is able and willing to help us with our daily burdens. When we are set free by his love, we can find the joy and meaning that God desires for us.

Anil Reuben (Suva, Fiji)

A shepherd's rod was a thing of status and comfort. It demonstrated hard work and wear. It granted a sense of pride and it was a piece of wood that was familiar to the shepherd. It took a great deal of faith for Moses to throw it down. When we take a step of faith and throw down our shepherd's rod, the rod no longer belongs to us...it becomes the rod of God. With the rod of God, you can turn the Nile river into blood, you can charge your protests against Pharaoh, you can part the Red Sea, you can strike the rock and water will flow, and with the rod of God you can set the people free.

So, join me in throwing down our burdens and letting go of that which so easily entangles us...our sin. You know I love ya - Don

Seeking Forgiveness, a place to begin.

We are home from our vacation and I am thinking about worship services tomorrow. We are seeking the heart of God just as David pursued God's Heart. I was reading through 1 Samuel 28 and recalled a Beth Moore Study on King Saul's lack of pursuing God. I want to share with you my thoughts along with Beth's.

Saul expelled the spiritualists and the mediums from the land. A time later he asks God a question concerning the battle with the Philistines and God is quiet. Paul turns to an attendant and says, "go find one of those mediums I expelled...." (My Paraphrased version)

there are times when I forget Psalm 40.... and we have to wait patiently for the Lord. Sometimes it feels like we have to wait and wait and wait. At first we may wonder why we have to wait...in Saul's case we might even feel sympathetic towards him. God seems a little unfair, BUT GOD NEVER responds in haste, or flippant, or without regard to the response and outcome. Isaiah 59:1-3 gives a very valid explanation for God's occasional silence. "Your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" (Isa. 59:2)

Saul was being disobedient to God. He killed an innocent man, he slaughtered the priests, and wiped away an entire innocent village. He has some regret, but never truly repents or seeks righteousness. Its not that God does not hear the prayers of the unrighteous, but that He wont. (There is a thought to ponder for awhile.)

I can vividly remember times in my life when God seemed silent, and I realized He was waiting on me to confront and confess certain sins in my life. His silence suggested, I will not go on to another matter in your life, my child, until we deal with this one." - Beth Moore

The first prayer in our pursuit of God and one that God will always be willing to hear is a prayer of sincere repentance. Our reliance on God is demonstrated in our faith. Our submission to Him allows Him to bless us beyond our imagination.

Pursuing Him...you know I love ya, Don