NCarolinian

     The Disciples had occupations ranging from Fishermen, to Businessman, to Tax Collector, to Zealot or Political Revolutionalist and to Treasurer. The most common profession found among the majority of them was Fishermen. Andrew, Peter, James and John, the sons of Zebedee worked as fishermen according to Matthew 4:18-22 . Thomas, Nathaniel and Philip were found fishing after Jesus’ resurrection when He appeared to them, so they also may be fishermen. ( John 21:2-8 ) They at least knew how to fish. That is 7 out of 12 belonging to the Guild of Fishermen.      God calls us to be fishers of men and women just as we are – cracked pots and all. Notice Jesus did not go and call a Pharisee, Saducee or religious leader to be fishers of men? Perhaps that is a reason why they were Sad-U-See (insert groaning here). Jesus summoned those that knew they were imperfect. Paul mentions a quality that Jesus loves to capitalize on – weakness. In Paul’s second letter to ...

I believe appreciation of all your blessings keeps the right attitude. This focus on the affirmative is contagious as it forms a positive cloud around you. The challenge in this world is entering and sustaining that atmosphere of appreciation. Some steps that have helped me and perhaps they will help others are - (1) Enter into prayer with God by thanking Him first for your many blessings, then move into a time of praising Him for who He is in your life. ( Psalm 100:4 ) (2) Sow what you desire to reap. If you want the attitude of appreciation then appreciate someone in person who has blessed your life. ( Matthew 13 ) (3) And hang out with those individuals who are also positive, realistic and appreciative. ( Proverbs 13:20 ) So, practice this attitude with God, sow it with others to reap it in your own life and in the meantime surround yourself with those that already have an Attitude of Appreciation.

Jesus has always existed. Humankind knew Him as Jesus when He was born. That is the name Mary was instructed by the angel Gabriel to give her supernatural baby. However, He has always been and forever will be The Word of God. Father God's Word has always been with Him.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." (John 1:1-2) The Father, Word, and Spirit of God all live in harmony within the mind and heart of Father God. Anytime Father God speaks, God's Word performs Father God's thoughts perfectly as He, The Word, is uttered from Father God's lips. "'Let there be light' and there was light... " - Genesis 1:3 "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (John 1:3). The first question I come to is - Why God? Why create this grand story to begin with? The only answer I keep coming back to is His display o...

1 Corinthians 13 "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." (verses 1-3) The effort or energy that we bring to all situations has to be motivated by compassion if life is to be meaningful. Not only is the lesson - what wolf do you feed within yourself, but does that wolf contribute to The Pack and beyond? What source do you operate from - Love, Hate or Indifference. Jesus does not like the middle-ground. Jesus said to the believers in Laodicea and those whom would take on lukewarmness, " I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are luk...

We are sometimes thrust into situations in life where we convince ourselves that we are the only ones that are going through a particular predicament. This is a bad trick we play on ourselves and a lie. First, there are too many people on the face of the earth for the odds of someone, not having gone through the exact or at least similar issue. Second, if you consider all of human history, then our complaining of the “only one” really gets ridiculous. I don’t mean to discount the feeling itself. I have had this feeling, but it is not based on truth. The feeling is a self-pitty cloud, if you will, that blinds us to what is really happening around us. And if we buy into the lie of exclusivity in a problem, then feelings, NOT based on fact, can arise to complicate matters. Feelings of shame, depression, bitterness and so forth enter into the picture. The key is to recognize our feelings as our emotional response to what we are experiencing and let them run their course, but Do Not a...

I am who you say I am God. It is time I believe and proclaim over my life what your Word says about who I am. I am free, I am a child of God, I belong in His Family. I am chosen, not forsaken, you are for me, not against me – I am who you say I am. Help me Lord to keep your perspective of me in mind, on my lips and displayed in my behavior. Lord, help me not to measure who I am or what I can do by comparing myself with others. I recall what you told Paul to share with the believers in Corinth - "We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise." (2 Cor. 10:12) I realize that this takes the specialness of my offering away. Plus, I don't want to be a copy-cat anymore, I want to be me before you Lord. Thank you Lord, that in the challenge of Colossians 3:12 to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient - you also tell us what...

As the hymn states - "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, my Righteousness." Christ Jesus is my Right Standing with Father God. All of my expectations, desires and needs are found in the confidence I have in my Savior. A person needs an event in their life to spark hope, to establish a different perspective worth holding onto. Jesus did that for all humanity, I have just chosen to accept and believe in His compassionate gift of grace. Father God has loved the world so much that He gave His only Son - Jesus Christ - that whosoever would believe in Him would be saved. (John 3:16)  However, Jesus did not just live an exemplary life for us and die a martyr's death. If He had done only this we would be living for just a good cause and not The Good Shepherd. The Good News is not complete without sharing Christ Jesus rose from death and the grave after the third day from purchasing everyone's relationship gap with Father God through His death on The ...

First we must believe we have been heard, then we must trust God wholeheartedly in the answer, which includes the timing of the remedy. In this process, the Holy Spirit is calling us to pray, believe and trust corporately and privately too.  Jesus had approached Lazarus' tomb four days after Lazarus had died. After counseling and comforting Mary and Martha, Jesus had the stone from in front of Lazarus' tomb rolled away. Then Jesus prayed out-loud because Scripture says "Jesus...said". So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” (John 11:41-42) I believe this is the perfect example for us. Jesus gave gratitude for not only Father God's omni-presence, but personal attention to His request/petition -  Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  Then Jesus gave ack...

Names - usually parents are the ones responsible for identifying us with the combination of names - first, middle and last - we will be known by for the rest of our lives. Then there are those like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who had their names changed by a king. You might remember the last three as - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Daniel's name was changed by the king to Belteshazzar, to reflect belief in the king's god. ( Daniel 1:7 ) For those who believe in Jesus Christ - The King of Kings - there will come a day when The King will be delivering and inscribing new names. Allow your imagination to be structured by Christ's words as He promises to those "who overcome" - "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. " - Revelation 2:17 What an extreme...

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." (1 John 2:1 NIV) Does this mean I have permission to go on sinning? Absolutely Not! If you do continue in a lifestyle of disobedience or sin against God, then you trample the very sacrifice of redemption He offers. We cannot live a perfect life, Christ Jesus has done that for us. We are called to live a Sin-Less life.  Furthermore, we should not be on eggshells about our behavior, feeling as though God has a large bolder hanging over our head ready to drop at the first sign of a mistake. If you do not know Christ as your Savior you are condemned already. " Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son." (John 3:18)  Christ Jesus was the one who said,  “I am the way and the truth ...

The Lord has stirred my heart, mind and spirit to write to you about the following subject once again. Please soak it in and I hope it blesses you. Proverbs 18:24 "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." This verse speaks to reliability, dependability, steadiness, stability and faithfulness. It is what I call a Battery Verse - it has a Negative part to it and a Positive part to it. The Negative is the unreliable friend(s). The Positive is a particular friend that is more reliable than family. The first part of this verse talks about the importance of the company you keep. The section states,  "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin," .   Not only will bad company hurt you, but if you have people you call "friends"  which are unreliable - the unreliability places you back by yourself when you need help and even ruins you. I encourage us to be very selective in cho...

Did God miraculously heal you? Did God save you from a perilous or dangerous situation? Did God rescue you out of a lifestyle that was destructive? These are reasonable beginnings to a life of faith in Christ Jesus. However, my effort is for us to revisit the "altars", the trophies or memorials of God in our lives. Altars in and of themselves are structures that were built to certain specifications and placed in a specific place for many different uses. Multiple cultures have integrated the use of altars in their society. The Mayans, Incas and Jews are just a select few that we know used altars. For the Jewish usage of the altar the usual observation is that they dealt with all the many sacrifices brought before the LORD. However, not only was it a place of daily sacrifice, but much more. Consider the following about the Jewish Altar... It was portable (Ex. 27:7) A place of offering (Ex. 29:18)   A place of consecration (Ex. 29:21)   A place of seeking holin...

Dear Lord,  Thank you. You have been the anchor for my soul. You have been the wind in my sails. You have been my help when I knew I needed it and when I did not know.  Lord, I apologize for dragging your Holy Spirit through my sinful mess. Savior, I request you forgive me and immerse me in a baptism of your Holy Spirit Fire-River . Empower me again, oh Lord, to be a mighty, positive influence for you. Help me to know The Shepherd's Voice more clearly and be able to carry out His Words. I pray, there is no compromise in trusting you King Jesus. You have been so good, you have been so faithful to me and my family. Even when the answers have varied from yes, to maybe, to yes, to wait for it - I have always benefited from trusting you first. Help me to continue to live like this - always consulting you first in everything. You know my first day from my last. You know every hair on my head or lack thereof. You know my thoughts before I perceive them. Your ways and though...

The Kingdom of Heaven is not just a supernaturally built structure, people or your true home. It is where creativity is nourished and grown. It is a limitless supply of potential, making you forever a work-in-progress. It is a fostering of leaders of Righteousness for His name's sake. The Kingdom of Heaven isn't just a place of citizenship - it is an atmosphere, attitude and person of Christ Jesus you always carry with you by the grace and power of The Holy Spirit.

"Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow of The Almighty." (Psalm 91:1) Turn Psalm 91:1 backwards and paraphrase it and it states - anybody resting in the shadow of The Almighty has chosen to dwell under the shelter of the Most High. It is a choice to know "The Secret Place" as the King James Version refers to "the Shelter" of God. For the Christian, the practice of a quiet time or personal time with The Lord is an awesome avenue to tap into the benefits of resting in God's shadow . The shadow of an object or person can only cast so far. To be in the shadow of something or someone is to be in very close proximity. Applying this to our walk with God speaks of intimacy and communion with Him. God's Shadow does not refer to darkness, doom or gloom but of shade, comfort and refreshing. In Psalm 91:1 we read that "The Shelter" is His and "The Shadow" is His. Those who journey to this...

Doesn't it mean the world to you when you have shared personal information with someone you trust and they check up on that subject with you later on, especially when you least expect it? This remembering shows they have paid attention to you and cared enough to commit it to memory for regurgitation later on. In Scripture, the word  remember  is found throughout the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament Israel had a cyclic issue of forgetting God and His blessings on the country. "No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the Lord their God , who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side." (Judges 8:34-35) "Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power — the day he redeemed them from the oppressor, the day he displayed his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the region...