52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #48 – Leadership Of Leroy and Shannen Williams
In Week 48 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for our Thanksgiving 2024 hosts, the newlyweds, our nephew and niece, Mr. Leroy and Mrs. Shannen Williams.
They did a wonderful job bringing our family and friends together. You could tell the amount of thoughtfulness and work that was put into it, including the recruitment and coordination of a lot of help from many wonderful people.
Even as we were cleaning up, they said, “We can do this every year!”
For years, the home of Willie and Mary Harris was the epicenter of our gatherings. When they passed, there was a concern about whether we could stick together after the glue was gone.
But as it turns out, the glue isn’t gone—they put it in us, as shown by the many family members who have stepped up over the years to create safe spaces for the family to come together. This year, it’s Leroy and Shannen.
The attitude of “We can do this every year!”, stepping up to put in the work for your family, is the spirit of Mary Harris.
Our future is in great hands.
Thank you to everyone who helped and participated, and especially to Leroy and Shannen for leading the charge this year.
Melissa and I love each and every one of you.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG #Thanksgiving
The Call To Communion
This revelation is one of the greatest and most recent watershed moments of my life:
Our entire mission and purpose in this life is drawing others into deeper communion with Christ by the lifting up of Christ through our deepening communion with Christ.
Communion is where we began.
Communion is where we will end.
Communion is what always has been.
This insight was the unexpected outcome of going through a book with our marriage ministry group written by our mentors,
“Intimates, Roommates, or Enemy Combatants: 7 Essential Paths To Marital Greatness” by Pearson and Pepper Liddell.
It came to me during the study of the second chapter called Focus 2: 1+1=1, where they pose the question “Why marry?”
Their Foundational Scripture for this focus was Genesis 2:24, “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
But what really struck me was the verse that followed and that they later cite in this chapter of the study, Genesis 2:25, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
There was a term that the author used repeatedly as though they were really trying to hammer it home: “transparency”.
Here are couple of relevant examples:
“And it is not just they did not have clothes, but this nakedness is also apparent in the transparency of their relationship in all aspects of their lives. They kept nothing hidden from each other. This is God’s ideal!” ~Page 40
On the same page, they talk about the harmful games during conflict that couples play, such as “The Quiet Game”, “Darts” and “Tug-of-War”. They state, “The truth, however, is that all these games are sin because they lack transparency.”
These and statements like these impressed a phrase from Genesis 2:25 heavier and heavier upon my heart, “They were naked and not ashamed.”
This evoked in me a sense from Isaiah of the perfect and ultimate safety that will be established when the Lord’s kingdom is fully consummated in the world. For example, Isaiah 11:9 “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
“Naked and not ashamed” is such a stark contrast to our current state, to my current state.
I am clothed, veiled, and very much afraid.
We are all hiding behind some fig leaf of our own making.
It is the effect and cause of sin, the plight of the human condition.
So, the statement “naked and not ashamed” led me to ask God, “How were they naked and not ashamed?”
The Holy Spirit through our mentors and the book that they wrote, had already primed my heart for the answer: transparency.
And that led to yet another question. I understand conceptually what transparency is, but to yield such a remarkable phenomenon as “naked and not ashamed,” the transparency spoken of here must be special, right? What does this transparency look like?
The Godhead.
In God, there is only light.
“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 1:17
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit see perfectly, more than that, they share a perfect communion.
They are One, in perfect sync and harmony around a singular purpose: magnifying God’s glory, the limitless expansion of good.
Jesus spoke of Himself and the Father,
“the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” — John 5:19
And of Him, the Father and the Holy Spirit He said,
“when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” — John 16:13-15
This is an image of perfect agreement and communion.
This brought to rememberance a previous lesson from the Lord that everything God gives us teaches us something about Him. This law is even how we can discern whether something is from Him. And, God gives us marriage.
The Godhead says with one voice, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” — Genesis 1:26
Then, in Genesis 2:18, God gives marriage, “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
God gives us marriage to do what He already declared, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”
To reflect the trinitarian nature of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, there is now marriage: God, the Husband and the Wife.
Like the Trinity, members of marriage do not just exist aimlessly.
God said, “I will make him a helper…” (Genesis 2:18)
They work as one, in perfect sync and harmony around a singular purpose: magnifying God’s glory, the limitless expansion of good.
Magnifying God’s glory is the “what”, but “how?”
This was the watershed moment.
What we see in the Godhead is perfect communion.
This definition of communion was impressed upon me,
“Communion is the pursuit of oneness, where willing participants are bound by a common unifier. They intentionally share themselves and what promotes their union, while also seeking to remove what may hinder it, including obstructions within themselves.”
Then it was shown to me that in everything God does, communion is at play. Once we see it, it cannot be unseen.
In the Genesis, God says, “Let us”—communion.
God establishes marriage—communion.
The Passover meal—communion.
The Lord’s Supper—communion.
The early Church Fellowship (Acts 2:46)—communion.
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb—communion.
We are created in the image of God to reflect Him. That’s the what.
We do that together through communion. That’s the how.
So, how were Adam and Eve “naked and not ashamed”? They had communion with God. They dwelled with “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
Earlier I cited a passage from Isaiah about a perfect and ultimate safety, Isaiah 11:9 that says “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain…”
The “transparency” that secures our safety was not by our seeing into each other, but seeing God. Isaiah 11:9 concludes, “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
The authors of this marriage ministry book, posed a question, “Why marry?”
The answer is communion because it is a reflection of God’s character.
The purpose of my marriage is to provide an earthly representation of a heavenly reality, like Jesus, to do what we see God do and do nothing of ourselves, to make the Father known that He may be glorified.
It’s the reason to do anything.
Communion also gives us some insight into why God does what He does, what is permissible or is not permissible in the life of a believer, and what is pleasing to God or not is because of its effect on communion.
Anything that hinders communion is sin.
Adam and Eve were able to be naked and not ashamed because God established an order. As finite beings, like Jesus, we were to rely on an infinite God to navigate the challenges of our finitude. The order was for us to look to God who understands all, and then to each other in the illumination of His counsel. In His order there are no misunderstanding, allowing us to work in perfect harmony. That’s communion.
Sin disrupted that communion, throwing us into darkness (darkness being an allegory for disorder and misunderstanding). Rather than looking to God first, we now look to each other with incomplete and often incorrect information, thus misunderstanding and thus sin.
We’re all suffering being out of communion with God.
But, God.
We are brought into fellowship with God through communion with Jesus Christ.
Everything that separates us from God has been removed through His life, death and resurrection, which becomes ours through communion.
Communion is more than eating bread and drinking wine as a symbolic association with Christ. It’s much more.
Communion is the pursuit of oneness, where willing participants are bound by a common unifier. They intentionally share themselves and what promotes their union, while also seeking to remove what may hinder it, including obstructions within themselves.
Communion is the pursuit of oneness with God through Christ. Jesus is our common unifier. He is The Way to God, through whom we can relate to God, then to each other and all of creation. This is what makes for our peace.
Jesus alone sees the Father. He came to make Him known to us. We see the Father because we see Jesus, through whom we receive the Father for ourselves. Other’s see Jesus because they see us (beginning with the patriarchs, prophets and the apostles), through whom He is preached and they come into fellowship with Him to receive the Father for themselves. All of this facilitated by Holy Spirit, all for the purposes of magnifying God’s glory, the limitless expansion of good.
Oneness to this end.
We look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, as our example. We give ourselves as a living sacrifice toward promoting this oneness, giving all that we have, including our material substance. This is why the early church rightly came to the conclusion that “neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.” (Act 4:32)
Never again will we allow Satan to obstruct a right view of God and each other. So, we also make war against everything that hinders our expressing the oneness that already is, especially the obstruction within ourselves; lies, pride, selfishness, idolatries.
This is communion, or at least what I understand so far.
Our entire mission and purpose in this life is drawing others into deeper communion with Christ by the lifting up of Christ through our deepening communion with Christ.
For it is written,
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
– John 12:32
Communion is where we began.
Communion is where we will end.
Communion is what always has been.
This is a call to communion.
Will you come?
Those who answer can then be naked and not ashamed, not only in heaven but now,
“For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
— Romans 10:11
Come.
*Special thanks to our mentors Pearson and Pepper Liddell for allowing the Holy Spirit to use you and for being willing participants, who intentionally share themselves, to draw me into communion with Christ as they draw nearer in communion with Christ.
I love you.
Meet God In The Fire
Is God not real to you?
Does God seem more like a lofty concept than a real person you can walk with through life?
Do you want to see God?
Meet Him in the fire.
“Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, ‘Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?’ They answered and said to the king, ‘True, O king.’ ‘Look!’ he answered, ‘I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.’
– Daniel 3:24-25
Fire brings God’s shape into view when, in humility, we desire Him more than we desire to escape the flames of adversity of this life through safety and comfort elsewhere.
When we abide in His love through obedience, stand firm on the hope of His appearing, and do not abandon the eternal for the temporary, He appears.
I don’t like hardship, but it is often in the midst of difficulty, at the edge of our ability—where we don’t know what, why, when, or how—that causes us to question and cry out in faith, and there He meets us.
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
– James 1:2-5
It is there, in the fire, where it gets real, where His presence is often most keenly felt, where He grants us wisdom and a grace to go on that we did not previously have. What is more real than that?
It is in the fire that God is a very real comfort for me. It’s more than head knowledge; it’s a presence like being braced by an arm to keep me from falling.
In my own words, I echo the words of the Psalmist, David, in Psalm 23:4,
“As I walk through the seemingly existential threats of this life,
You protect me from the death of separation from You,
You keep me in The Way of life.
‘You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me'”
This is the God I’ve met—and the One you can meet too—in the fire.
Who Can I Run To?
Carefully tucked away in one of the synthetic leather CD cases in our attic is a song by the group Xscape that posed a profound question: “Who can I run to?”
I find myself asking that question today.
Because I’m sad.
It was an emotionally tough day. On my way out of the office, I passed a bucket of candy and I reeeally wanted to run to some chocolate.
But in that moment the Holy Spirit whispered to me that I am welcome to anything I can enjoy in God, but what I cannot do is seek something from anyone or anything else—that’s idolatry.
Consider 1 Corinthians 6:12,
“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.”
Whatever my heart is set on—in other words, whatever my heart desires—is where my heart is. If it is set on worldly things, it leads to death (overeating, futile attempts at comfort through other profitless pursuits, a downward spiral of disappointment, etc.); but if it is set on the Spirit, it leads to life and peace (Romans 8:6).
I know this from painful experience.
So, who can I run to?
I chose (this time, at least) to deny myself and refused to allow another to comfort me.
I have a Comforter (John 14:16).
I cry out and run to Him.
I will wait faithfully on the Lover of my soul.
Broken With Purpose
Before Christ, I was just broken.
In many ways, I’m still broken.
But now, I’m broken this way with purpose.
Jesus uses my brokenness to heal others of the same brokenness as He heals me.
Hallelujah!
Jesus healed a man born blind so that others could see.
“And His disciples asked Him, saying, ’Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’
Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.’”
— John 9:2-3
The key is not hiding my brokenness.
“Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, ’Are we blind also?’
Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, “We see.” Therefore your sin remains.’”
— John 9:40-41
But we must confess our sins to one another before God that we may be healed.
“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.”
— James 5:16
Lord, if you show me, Imma tell it. Like the woman at the well, I will run and tell of the One who told me everything that I ever did, so they, too, can drink of this living water that You gave me and be healed.
Everything I am, Lord, including my brokenness, is for Your use.
I love You.
Amen.
I Will Not Let Fear Stop Me
You know what?
I’m going to stop trying to anticipate when someone might hurt me.
I’m not going to let fear of what someone might do stop me from doing what is in me to do, and what I am eager to do, which is to love fully without holding back. (2 Timothy 1:7)
If and when you hurt me, I’ll deal with it then.
I can take the hurt.
And I know I CAN because of the power of Christ that is within me—power that allowed Him to take the hurt, power that can even raise the dead. (Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 4:13)
There’s nothing you can do to me that Jesus can’t heal. In fact, all you can do is make me stronger. (Romans 8:37-39)
Here’s how “[His] perfect love casts out [my] fear.” (1 John 4:18)
I will not let fear stop me from enjoying His wonderful love.
#perfectourlove
What Is Sanctification?
Sanctification is learning to love God and to hate everything else.
Does this offend you?
Consider Deuteronomy 6:5,
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
And, Luke 14:26,
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
My prayer has been to be set free even from a desire for my wife, who is most dear and precious to me.
I want my only desire to be for my wife who is in Christ.
See the difference?
Loving who is begotten by God, including those not yet made manifest, is one and the same as loving God.
“And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”
— 1 John 4:21
When the affection and desire of my heart is singular, I become “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58)
I can then be like Jesus, who hated Simon, but loved Peter, who in one breath calls Him blessed and in the next call Him Satan, because one was in God and the other was without.
Matthew 16:17, after Peter’s confession of faith,
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.’”
Matthew 16:23, six verses later,
”But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’”
When the affection and desire of my heart is singular, I become pure (oneness) in heart—a prerequisite to see God.
Learning to love God and to hate everything else is the process of being made holy, set apart and fit for service, which is sanctification.
#sanctification #heartwords
Delighted In God Alone
If I have God and want anything else, I do not see God properly.
“Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.”
— Psalm 73:25
God is more than enough—He is exceedingly greater than anything I can desire.
If I have God and want anything else, I do not see God properly.
So, my prayer in this season is,
“Please let me see you, God.
Lord Jesus, I want to see the Father the way You do.
I want to love Him the way You do, so that I may gain the same heart and mind that You have—a heart so full of love for the Father that it needs nothing else.
Help me, Lord Jesus.
Please, Holy Spirit, open my understanding.
In Jesus name I pray.
Amen.
I want to be delighted with God alone.
Please pray for me.
#perfectourlove
How To Experience God
How do we help others who have not yet experienced God relate to a God we cannot touch, taste, see, smell or hear physically?
Ironically, it is by touching, tasting, seeing, smelling and hearing—but spiritually.
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”
— Psalm 34:8
People are spiritual.
Have you ever encountered a bitter person?
In many cases you don’t even need any physical indication that they’re bitter; it’s a spirit you can “sense” that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
I believe we are all built with the capability—the spiritual receptors to perceive God.
Could this be what the Apostle Paul is referring to in Romans 1:19?
“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”
— Romans 1:19
But our nerve endings are dead, numbed by sin, their sensitivity suppressed under layers of the filth of this world—what we’ve come to believe and accept as truth rather than The Truth, the ways we’ve come to operate rather than The Way and the value systems that we’re governed by rather than the Kingdom of God—ways that are own ways and government that is lawlessness.
The condition is referred to spiritually as “hardness of the heart”, a condition that progresses to a point that the Apostle Paul refers to in Ephesians 4:19 as “being past feeling”.
And nothing accelerates this condition more than fake church and false religion (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Jesus said to Pharisees who claimed to “see”, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:41)
The degree of the hardness of the heart is a measure of how much territory Satan controls in our heart. Said another way, the degree of the hardness of our hearts is a matter of how much we believe Satan—which is anything other than God, and it is a matter of how much we’re governed by anything that is not the Kingdom of God—which is anything other than Love.
And it is this hardness of the heart that prevents us from perceiving and experiencing God.
The remedy is believing God, being washed by His Word.
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
— Romans 10:17
But God, even in our deadness, sent The Word to us that we might be made alive, that we may know Him and be made sensitive to His presence.
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;”
— Hebrews 1:1-2
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:5-6
”And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!’”
— Luke 9:35
Do you want to experience God? Then, do not harden your heart.
Humbly and consistently expose yourself to the Word, crying out to the Holy Spirit for illumination.
A wonder I regularly observe is people who close the doors, shutter the windows—barricading themselves in Satan’s house, and then ask, “Where is God?”
I was one of them.
But, God.
Thanks and glory be to God that He came for me, that He broke through, that “God commanded light to shine out of darkness”, and has shone in my heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:5-6)
Hallelujah.
He’s been coming for you. It is why Christ came.
He’s coming for you right now. It is why I preach Christ daily, to make God known to you.
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
‘Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness…’”
— Hebrews 3:7-8
Do not harden your heart.
Today, I am challenged to identify and abandon indulgences that dull my senses and to confront and war against demonic occupation in my heart—the obstruction of lies, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for everything besides God that makes it so I can’t hear and experience Him (Mark 4:19).
I count all things loss that I may know Him (Philippians 3:8-10).
As you read this, do you taste that?
It is the residue that mists up from the implanted Word in my heart that is living and powerful, residue that collects on the heart of believers like dew—manna that is sweet to the taste, that provides nourishment, that manifests in a form we can share with others, Bread from heaven that is Spirit and Life.
Taste that?
That’s Christ.
This is how we and how we help others experience God.
#tastimony
Grieving In Context
One of the most striking verses in the Bible is the shortest, “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
Think about that.
The God-man who knows the power of God, who knows heaven, –who knows the ultimate outcome, wept at the tomb of Lazarus.
Jesus, as I call it, “grieved in context”. He was fully God and fully man and therefore fully felt the grief of Mary and Martha, and fully felt His own pain over the loss of someone He calls a friend.
Jesus did not gloss over the grief. He did not ignore it. He did not deny it. He did not overlook it.
He wept.
But, what He did next is key. In verse 41, it says, “And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You…'”
The confidence that He expresses in the Father is the context that allowed Him (and us) to grieve but not be consumed.
Grieving in context allows us to be fully human while fully having eternal life and enjoying the peace that comes with it.
“… in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
—Philippians 4:6-7