
Throwing Bible verses at people is much like throwing bullets at an intruder. Bullets are powerful, but only when you have a matching gun can the bullet be directed with pinpoint accuracy.
If I were to show you a bullet, most everyone would recognize it, but we may not realize what all makes up a bullet. For instance, a bullet that has been fired leaves behind a shell casing. The shell casing is very important to housing the bullet. ALL the power is within the casing. The casing alone has no power but in proper order, you wouldn’t want to lackadaisically toss it in a campfire while roasting marshmallows. It’s only when the casing is properly loaded, with the correct amount of gun powder (power) and placed in the proper setting that it offers predictable outcomes.
Let’s look at a 45 caliber bullet; they require a 45 caliber bore to be effective.
I’m gonna jump from bullets, guns and ammo to the idea of receiving Christ. When we ‘receive’ Christ, believing that was the end would be ludicrous. The Bullet is powerful but if you are NOT formed to carry and deliver The Bullet, then you’re of no use to the owner of the gun. The frame is important because it houses the barrel and trigger mechanism, but it can come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors. The thing that’s consistent in frames is their unique bore sizes and presence of rifling.
- Bore size is is the approximate diameter of the barrel or the bullet it fires. It’s measured in tenths or even hundredths of an inch. The example above is a 45 caliber, so it measures .45 inches in width.
- Rifling is grooves machined into the barrel, which are spiraled. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one full revolution, such as “1 turn in 10 inches” (1:10 inches). The rate of turn (twist) indicates how fast the bullet will rotate upon exit.
You can imagine if a bullet were made of hardened steel, it would resist the syncing of itself to the twisting rate of the barrel riffling (grooves). The bullet, as it goes out the barrel, is uniquely marked as coming from ‘this’ barrel; as it spins, IN SYNC with the barrel.
Religion that isn’t pure focuses on everything except Christ being formed in you. Those who are spiritual understand that in life we will be disappointed but quickly seek to understand and embrace this ‘forming’, which is transforming the way they think and setting us ‘in sync’ with Creator God.
We definitely need a frame, just like a river needs banks, but the frame is only a tool to carry and deliver what it was created to do. Don’t fall in love so much with your idea of what life is supposed to look like. Trust that God has His hand guiding you, shaping you, to be. When we can just be then you are in the place of still, where we know God, surpassing everything our imaginations could have ever dreamed. Before you know it, you’ll have His markings that identify you as His.
The Church is The Gun, sending saints into the Kingdom, with His unique markings.
Bullets are powerful, but only when they match the gun can they be directed with pinpoint accuracy. We can have all the right goals, but if we aren’t fired from the right vehicle (sending agent- gun- proper order in the Church) we’ll end up shipwrecked, with only hope for a future help. Future help is awesome, but it is ‘present help‘ our souls long for… and it’s ‘present help’ the world groans for. At some point we need to ask ourselves why we are here. As our minds are changed, we’ll discover we are here for the world. The changing of our minds transforms us. Let’s lay our agenda down and allow Him to shape us as He fires us into the world, using the Gun He created.
I hope you’ll engage in conversation by commenting below. Share what Spirit speaks to you.
In the world, vessels of dishonor love man’s failed systems, typically considered to be “church”, defined solely with human intellect, without preparing others to abide in The Kingdom. Held hostage in a school only those like itself can graduate, the cycle repeats. Not all, but many of the “shepherds” of these institutions have already received their reward. They have argued with God about who is in charge of “the body”. This morning, my mind began to think of one of the decisions Solomon made. Recorded in I Kings 3, two women had a disagreement about who was the mother of a child. One mother, said not to split the baby and walked away, while the other demanded the baby be split in half and they would each have half. In Solomon’s wisdom, he determined the true mother was the one willing to give up the child. She loved her baby so much, she was willing to die for him to live. Her instinctive role was not to demand her rights to be the mother. Her instinctive role revealed in salvation to the child. As painful as it was, she denied her own desire and was willing to lose the role of mother to her child and that is how she gained the right to care for him.
The Ebola virus is very serious stuff and should be given a lot of attention. My real question is why we don’t we use the antidote to fear? We have it, or at least we talk about it enough…
If you’re wounded from the battles of life, we think you may be closer to harvest, than you might otherwise believe. The love of God is best revealed by our diversity, rather than our uniformity. It’s in unconditional acceptance we find Light. Uniformity judges based on things seen rather than the heart. If you’ve been rejected (or at least perceive it that way) we want you. If you’re a Christian Church who has a few people that just don’t fit in, send them to Restoration House Ministries; we want them. We’ll take your rejects and your misfits; we’ll take your square pegs that don’t seem to fit in your round holes. Come as you are but don’t be offended if we’re just as open as we’ve invited you to be.
Most anyone exposed to Biblical teaching, preaching or personal study has heard the word ‘Agape’ being used. No one would disagree that ‘Agape’ is the Greek word for ‘Love’ when used as a noun. The study is extensive so I’m not attempting to ‘can‘ what it means. Often, we also use the word ‘Love’ (Agape), when we attempt to ‘describe’. In those cases, the word ‘agape’ is being used as an adjective or adverb. The descriptive word (adjective or adverb), as defined by 





different sides reach a point where it’s impossible to reach agreement. When a jury is ‘hung’, they’ve reached an impasse. What if the whole world were to be on a collision course, a hung jury, where everybody ‘knows’ they are ‘right’. Class, patriotism, race, religion, economic warfare… Imagine all these different opinions (and many more), seeking coalition together, and standing their ground at the same time? That’s what’s happening and God is the instigator.