Monthly Archives: October 2023

Prayer

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Prayer

Prayer is not talking in the air.

Prayer is spiritual.

Prayer is companionship with God

through communication,

“to open into each other” (etymology),

mediated by Jesus (as matter is to sound -without it nothing carries. He is The Way.)

and facilitated by the Holy Spirit (as language is to sound -without it no information is transferred. He is the Spirit of Truth).

God shares,

I share,

to be understood and to understand.

Prayer is sharing that builds on each other and illuminates the hearts.

The purpose is to be clear, to have no darkness at all -the truth in love removing every offense (anything that would cause me or another to stumble – lies block love), to be made one, so that I can walk according to His light, so that His light might shine through me.

“God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”
—1 John 1:5

To this end, with full expectation,

I pray.

I speak to be seen.

I listen to see.

Because of Christ, God hears me.

Because of Christ, God is a Father to me and so speaks.

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name…”
—Matthew 6:9

The Father’s speech is the pressing of the keys of the kingdom in our heart.

“And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
—Matthew 16:19

The more we consume His Word -the person of Christ, the more we work with a full key-board when we pray and the closer, and consequently (God’s love burns away sin), the more clear we become

for His glory.

#prayer #definitions #heartdictionary #heartwords #perfectourlove

Should Christians Be Passive?

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Should Christians Be Passive?

Are Christians supposed to be passive?

No.

It’s not that we’re not supposed to fight. The issue is we don’t understand what to fight for.

Christians are big on fighting for all the wrong things; standing up for themselves and their rights.

Does Jesus do this?

No.

But, if you dare come between the Father and His children, Jesus starts whopping folk and flipping over tables.

Complaining Is Evil

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Complaining Is Evil

Complaining is evil. It is thought and speech in service to the evil one.

Complaining weakens the hearer (I can even weaken myself from my own internal dialogue)

directing attention and energy

away from God

and to my dissatisfaction or displeasure.

Complaining is contempt for the reality I’m faced with while cowering from the responsibility to make it better.

Complaining shirks that responsibility and shifts it to another, often in the form of blame.

Complaining denies my duty to glorify God (by keeping Him central, maintaining attention on His goodness) and abandons my responsibility to represent the goodness of His kingdom order in every situation that I face.

“Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as [it is] in heaven.”
—Matthew 6:10, Luke 11:2

Complaining is cowardice.

And, no coward will be counted among the children of God.

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
—Revelation 21:8

Believe Jesus. Repent and be saved.

#heartwords #heartdictionary

Complaining Is Weak

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Complaining Is Weak

God wants to glorify Himself through me.

But, the Spirit has revealed weakness in me that is not in Christ

that He must burn away

so that I am able to reflect His glory.

The Holy Spirit said to me, “You have a problem with complaining.”

It’s a weakness that hinders my use for God’s glory. I repent.

Something I do a lot in my internal dialogue is express contempt for a situation I’m facing and always saying what I don’t want to do.

Jesus never did that.

“Not My will, but Yours, be done.” —Luke 22:42

Jesus did not complain, even as He was being crucified.

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.”
—Isaiah 53:7

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
—Philippians 2:8

He was not deterred by the difficulty of the situation.

“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.”
—John 12:27

He did not try to shift the burden to another in the form of blame.

He didn’t concern Himself with who’s fault it was.

Jesus did not cower. He came. He confronted.

He committed Himself to the work of reconciliation. He focused on God and directed our attention to the kingdom of God and His righteousness and He set His hand to the task of bringing everything, all of creation back into God’s kingdom order, at any cost.

He put His hand to the plow and never looked back.

This is the man I want to be. This is the man I’m becoming, who God is making me.

He’s burning away the flesh, to reveal Christ that’s being formed in me, bit by bit.

I thank God for His love that both comforts my heart and burns away sin.

I confess my sin and submit to His scalpel.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” —1 John 1:9

I trust Him. He is faithful. He will finish the work.

“being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete [it] until the day of Jesus Christ;” —Philippians 1:6

The work God is doing in me isn’t flashy, but it’s miraculous.

May God be glorified.

#GodsLoveBurns #perfectourlove

God’s Love Burns

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - God's Love Burns

We gush about the blessings and kindness of God’s love, but what about the change His love demands and causes?

Our God is a consuming fire.

His love burns.

It both warms the heart and burns aways sin.

If I’m not experiencing both, I’m not experiencing God’s love.

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It would probably be better said, “His love ‘ignites’ the heart and burns away sin”, because we were completely dead before, we had nothing to warm.

It was for reason of our common understanding of the expression that I chose “warm the heart” as in the pleasant warmth often associated with being loved.

But His love is not just pleasant, it’s transformative. It creates new life in us and eviscerates the darkness of our former selves.

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
—John 1:4-5

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“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!

Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

“Little children, LET NO ONE DECEIVE YOU. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
—1 John 3:1-2, 7-9

A Non-obvious Encounter With God

Is God real?

The natural approach to the concept of God often leads to the search for the super-natural, that is a super-event that is still along a natural continuum, a sign, an observable phenomenon, something bound by space and time that we can perceive with our five senses.

But, God is spirit. (John 4:24)

An authentic encounter with God is often non-obvious and imperceptible to the natural eye because it’s spiritual.

“Philip said to [Jesus], ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.’

Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, “Show us the Father?”‘”
—John 14:8-9

An encounter with God is a committed, consistent, all consuming burning that transforms us.

“And they said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?'”
—Luke 24:32

“For our God is a consuming fire.”
—Hebrews 12:29

We can know and experience God.

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
—John 10:10

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
—John 17:3

Everyone who does is transformed by it. No one who sees Him remains the same.

“You must be born again.”
—John 3:5

It’s a miraculous reality unbound by time that always is; before you were born and after you die.

“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world”
—Ephesians 1:4

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
—Ephesians 2:4-7

That’s spiritual. That’s supernatural.

It is real.

It’s a reality on a higher spiritual level, that’s not always obvious on this natural one, but its effects are (Galatian 5:22-23).

When The Flower Passes

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - When The Flower Passes

I constantly struggle, especially as I age and face the certainty of death, with the feeling that what I am doing isn’t big enough, isn’t grand enough and that I’m a failure.

Perhaps that’s another way of saying that I’m seeking approval or recognition.

Honestly, I’m not sure, but it is a lie that’s blocking love and needs to be purged. This is why I must continually expose my heart to the Word of God to search such things out.

When I brought this to God, this is what the Spirit gave me.

A meditation, a poem:

When The Flower Passes.

A flower,
stretched toward heaven,
taking in the Son,
passing Him on,
so others would live,
pleases God,
and that is enough.