Monthly Archives: March 2025

Give Me A Heart To Follow You

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Give Me A Heart To Follow You

I’m a goat at times,

too smart for my own good,

stiff-necked and belligerent,

refusing to move unless I want to, until I think it’s safe, until I know where we’re going and why.

I repent.

Lord Jesus, help me to be Your sheep that says,

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;

FOR YOU ARE WITH ME…”
— Psalm 23:4

Help me follow Your voice because You love me, because I love You and because all I want is to be where You lead.

Amen.

#perfectourlove #desireGodalone #therealbattle

The Danger Of Any Other Desire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Danger Of Any Other Desire

The road to hell is paved with “there’s nothing wrong with…”

How many times have you heard that?

Countless.

How many times have you heard “desire nothing besides God”?

Maybe a few.

Take the narrow road.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
— Matthew 7:13-14

They say, “There’s nothing wrong with money, it’s the love of money…”

Why then does Jesus refer to money as “unrighteous” mammon in Luke 16:9 and 11?

Why then does Peter refer to money as “filthy lucre” in 1 Peter 5:2?

Why then does Jesus warn us against the “deceitfulness of riches” in Matthew 13:22 and Mark 4:19?

Whatever we set our hearts on moves it.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
— Luke 12:34

Money is not inert.

Money is part of a system. It’s currency.

Money pushes and pulls. When we set our eyes on money (or anything else) to desire it, we fall into the bondage of sin.

Does this mean we can’t or shouldn’t have money?

I can have anything, I just can’t want it.

THAT is why money is described as unrighteous, so that I maintain a healthy suspicion of it and avoid its allure.

It’s a lure.

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
— 1 Corinthians 6:12

The real battle is desire.

Desire God alone and resist giving other things power over you.

I couldn’t have understood this just five years ago, because on some level, I believed that God was the means to achieve goodness and abundance.

But that is the lie.

God is everything good. There is nothing desirable beyond Him.

He IS all that I desire. (Psalm 73:25)

Everything else is a deception and leads to destruction. (James 1:16-17)

Jesus said the greatest commandment is,

“And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
— Mark 12:30

Ask, seek and knock for a heart that desires God alone.

#perfectourlove #therealbattle #desireGodalone

Victory Over Desire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Victory Over Desire

The real battle is desire.

Jesus is plainly giving us the keys that unlock everything.

But we miss it because of what we want.

This frustrated Jesus. He exclaimed,

“Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.”
— John 8:43

Then, He explains,

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.”
— John 8:44

The real battle is desire.

Jesus continues in John 8:44 saying,

“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

The beginning.

Adam and Eve had everything—goodness and abundance in the presence of God. They lost it because they were deceived into wanting something else.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
— Genesis 3:6

The problem is we want a lie.

And, Satan is the father of it.

But what the first Adam lost, the second Adam reclaimed through the biggest flex in history.

“I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”
— John 14:30

In other words, Jesus was saying, there was no desire for anything else in Him for the enemy to manipulate.

Jesus desires God alone.

We lose the Truth when we want a lie.

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
— James 1:16-17

This is why the WHOLE work is believing God rather than Satan.

“Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.'”
— John 6:28-29

What are we to believe? What Jesus says about God.

Why? So that we desire God alone.

When that’s our heart it naturally produces the work of God: being with Him.

And, how do we be with Him?

Through Communion with Him and all that belongs to Him.

So, the goal is being with Him and the means are helping others to be with Him—the ministry of reconciliation.

The main enemy that hinders that is our desire.

Any desire other than God is sin and causes division, making us an enemy of God.

“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”
— Matthew 12:30

Through Christ we have goodness and abundance in the presence of God.

Don’t lose it by wanting a lie.

The real battle is desire.

Lord, I repent!

I want other things that hinder my enjoyment of You. Reveal them to me that I may surrender them to You.

Father, please give me Your heart—the heart of Your Son, Jesus Christ—that desires You, alone.

Signed with the authority given to me by Jesus for His business.

Amen.

#perfectourlove #therealbattle #desireGodalone

52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #13 – A Smile

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #13 - A Smile

In Week 13 of 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a smile.

We’ve been working with some students to prepare for a cybersecurity competition.

I noticed that one of our kids stopped coming to the meetings.

So, I went to their class and asked for them by name.

They come to the door with a blank stare—a palpable hardness.

I say, “Hey, I’ve missed you at the meetings. Do you want to go to the competition?”

Something in their face shifts for a second and they say, “Yeah, but I didn’t think I was good enough.”

I responded, “That’s why I’m here, because you’re one of my best”, and handed them the registration form.

Then, there was that shift again but this time it gave way to a brief smile. As though to hide it, they looked down at the form.

“You’re going to bring this back to me tomorrow?” I asked.

They nodded affirmatively and then walked back into class.

The child that walked away was different than the one that came to the door, and I’m grateful.

#52WoG

Realizing the Wonderful Work of the Wilderness

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Realizing the Wonderful Work of the Wilderness

Money’s tight. Somehow in my mind that has come to mean I’m a failure. As I pray, looking for a way out, God shows me this is why He led me into the wilderness: sanctification. He allows me to walk in circles to kill off the Egypt in me that would even think in those terms. I will wander until I’m perfectly content being with Him wherever I am.

“Now godliness with contentment is great gain.”
– 1 Timothy 6:6

Then, and only then, am I truly free to have other things without them having me (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Am I growing spiritually? That’s the measure.

I believe I am growing spiritually, and that it has resulted in more life in me and my relationships. That’s success.

I’m not settling though.

I am still moving toward the full consummation of His kingdom, which includes His sufficiency. But the key difference is that my desire is for Him—not His sufficiency. And because I have Him, I’m satisfied wherever I am along the journey and content to wait for however He may provide (Psalm 23).

I am striving to make God all that I want. And I want all of Him in whatever form that comes.

#perfectourlove #DesiringGod #spiritualwarfare #TheRealBattle #desire

The Real Battle Is Our Desire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Real Battle Is Desire

I prayed and asked,

“Jesus lived without sin, but how?”

I believe the divine response was,

“because He desired nothing besides the Father.”

Jesus was fully God and fully man. And, though He was fully man, His singular desire for the Father kept Him in perfect obedience to the Father and in harmony with His divine nature.

We who have received His divine nature can—by His grace: His nature, His power, and His guidance—walk in obedience to the Father as He did.

But why don’t we walk perfectly in obedience? Why do we repeatedly fall into sin?

Meet your opponent: your desire.

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
— James 1:14-15

What did Jesus have that allowed Him to walk in perfect obedience that we should also diligently strive for?

A singular, undivided, uncompromising desire for God alone. We should desire nothing besides God.

But, what does that look like?

Imagine a circle representing the Kingdom of God, and imagine within that circle another circle representing the life of Jesus Christ. Now include another intersecting circle representing the life of Peter.

When Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ this is represented by the part of Peter’s circle that intersects with the Kingdom of God. But when he attempts to convince Jesus not to die, this represents the part of Peter’s circle that is outside the Kingdom of God.

All the while, all of Jesus is within the Kingdom, including how He must die, and He rebukes Peter for tempting Him to go outside the circle of God’s Kingdom (His will), which is sin.

One of the biggest takeaways should be even though Peter was coming from an undoubtedly genuine place of care and kindness for someone he loved, it was ultimately evil because Peter’s desire was misplaced, and if followed, would have damned us all—just like the original Adam.

This is what God is dealing with me on. He has brought me to a point in my walk where my goal is to desire nothing besides God.

Lord, make me a man after Your own heart!

Does this mean I don’t love my family, my brothers and sisters in Christ, or you?

Remember the earlier Scripture from James 1:14-15? Read the very next verses:

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
— James 1:16-17

When God is our sole desire, we love what is in and we love from within God.

“If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”
— 1 John 4:20-21

That’s loving what’s in God.

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
— Matthew 5:44-45

And, that’s loving from within God.

The goal is union rather than intersection—for God to be our whole desire, with nothing outside.

This is a picture of perfection, and the means of acquiring it: the heart God gives—Christ’s heart—that desires God alone.

The real battle is desire, and the stakes couldn’t be higher—our endless, unhindered enjoyment of God starting right now.

#perfectourlove #spiritualwarfare #TheRealBattle #desire

How Interruptions Reveal Our Heart

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - How Interruptions Reveal Our Heart

When we say what the reason is for the things that we do, what comes first in our lives, and when we say things like, “We do what we do for our kids” or, “We’re keeping God first”, we often deceive ourselves. It is often a vicious lie—a good face to rationalize and justify our real, selfish and evil motives; a totem to mask our idols and the demons that we serve.

The hearts we’re born with, being powerless to resist deception, become agents of deception—a medium of the propaganda of and a means of control for the prince of the power of the air, “deceitful above all things, desperately wicked”—and are therefore not to be trusted.

So, how can we discern the real reasons for the things that we do and what is actually first in our lives?

Interruptions and our reaction to them.

Interruptions and what they elicit in me—irritation, anger, frustration, annoyance, hate—reveal my true priorities and what I’m really seeking.

Whatever is being interrupted is a greater priority than the interruption.

I own a business. I started it to provide for my family.

One day I was picking up my son from school. He may have been in kindergarten at the time. As we were walking to the truck, my son, with a backpack almost bigger than he was, was dawdling about, walking listlessly. But I was in a rush to get to my next appointment and I yelled at him, “Would you come on here?!” I remember how that frightened him by the sudden startled look in his eyes, as the rushed spirit in me became the rushed spirit in him.

I cry writing this.

And as I think back, his little face indicated that he had something on his mind, but I missed that because, my son, someone I truly love—the one who I claimed to be working for—in that moment became the interruption.

How?

Lies block love.

My heart was not guarded and I fell prey to the lying suggestions about what I should want according to this world: who I should be, what I should be doing, what I should have, and it established in my heart a new pursuit.

And just that quick, the lies supplanted what should have been my priority in that moment—my son—by subtly seeding a desire for a different one. It’s that insidious.

I was made aware of it by the grace of God that allowed me to see a priority that I had allowed to become an interruption.

The guard we have against this now is the same guard there’s been since the dawn of man—loving God which is obedience to His Word.

The way we combat the deception of our hearts is by loving God—by abiding in Christ, who is the living Word.

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
— Hebrews 4:12

In His presence, all the shadows of our hearts are illuminated and our hidden motives are brought to light. The ultimate battle is to resist competing, deceptive and corrupting “loves” which is anything besides God. And as we seek to love God alone—with all our heart, mind, soul and strength—He rightly orders everything else so those things that should be priorities no longer become interruptions.

#perfectourlove

52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #12 – A Confession

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #12 – A Confession

In Week 12 of 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a confession.

Today, I attended the Men’s Lunch that is held on Thursdays at New Horizons Christian Fellowship at 1010 Victory Lane in Starkville.

It was one of the most beautiful times of Communion I’ve experienced this year, and it all began with a brother being real and opening our discussion with, “I struggle…”

James 5:16 says,

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

I don’t often see “confession” in our gatherings. Instead, we fall into churchiness and deflect or pretend that we’ve got it all together. In so doing we become guilty of what the Apostle Paul warns against in 2 Timothy 3:5 “having a form of godliness, but denying its power.”

Imagine being sick, going to the hospital, and talking about how bad someone else’s illness is. I’ll never get well doing that. We give up the power available to us when we do that. But all it takes is one person sick and desperate enough to cry out for help to change everything.

There is power in confession, there is power in prayer, there is power in His presence and He is present among His people.

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
– Matthew 18:20

It is no coincidence that Matthew 18:20, quoted just above, is in the context of forgiveness. Hallelujah.

This brother’s confession released what God had already pre-ordained for this moment through brethren God had already prepared for this moment.

I can’t speak for the brother who confessed about whether he was healed.

But, I was.

I’m grateful.

#52WoG

52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #11 – A Token

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #11 – A Token

In Week 11 of 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a token.

“That is so cool!”, I say to my wife as she pulls out her toothbrush.

I’m actually referring to her toothbrush cap that is a svelte transparent capsule with a clean silver inset. It looks like a product that came straight out of the Infinite Loop.

Today—a week or so later, I go to wash my hands and I’m greeted by this shiny capsule and a loving note.

It was the highlight of my week. I felt loved.

The fact that she heard me, she remembered, and took even one step out of her way to do that for me means the world to me. And this is not the first time.

So, when the enemy tries to convince me that I am not loved, I’m going to show him my toothbrush and recall the countless other tokens I’ve been blessed to receive.

While the token is disposable, the meaning is eternal.

I’m grateful.

#52WoG #love #expressions #marriage #perfectourlove

Knowing The Bible Is Not Knowing God

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Knowing The Bible Is Not Knowing God

Communication is not a relationship but a vital part of building a relationship. A relationship is established when communication with a person and experience with that person converge.

The Bible is God’s communication to us. The Bible is vital but it is not a relationship with God. It is tragic to know the Bible inside and out but not know God at all—and this is sadly the case for many so-called Christians.

Two keys to relationship are awareness and attraction—to know a Person exists and the desire to know more about them (Hebrews 11:6).

The Bible is essential for knowing God but it is not a relationship with God. Relationship requires another key: experience.

It is in our experiences with God that we develop a relationship with Him.

Have you been with God? Is He with you now? What have you experienced with Him? What is He like? Who have you learned Him to be? How does His presence change how you live?

This is the focus of a Christian, not debating texts, straining gnats and swallowing camels, but how is my Communion with Him and His family being perfected?

Heed Jesus’ warning to the Pharisees,

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”
— John 5:39

Don’t settle for the picture of Scripture when you can have the Person.

You can have a relationship with God. Moreover, it’s everything—without it you have nothing.

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
— 1 John 5:12

Take note that it’s not written, “He has ‘His words’ or ‘His works’ has life.” But what does it say? It says, “He who has HIM has life.”

There’s coming a day when a lot of people with seminary degrees, knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek, people who did “good” works will be rejected and condemned to Hell because they didn’t have Him.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
— Matthew 7:21-23

Does He know you?

Do you have a relationship with God?

Ask, seek, knock.

He wants to make Himself known to you (Luke 11:13).

Knowing the Person makes the picture more precious.

#Bible #KnowGod #perfectourlove