As I read Ephesians 2 this morning, I was overtaken by the love and compassion of God.  Paul is addressing the Gentiles, and he clearly revealed the heart of the Jews who were “Circumcised in the flesh but not in their hearts” and how they considered the Gentiles as “uncircumcised heathens.”     The pride of their religious affiliation made them look down upon a group of people who had not yet been invited into the family of God.   This is the religious spirit I mentioned last week.  

Are we ever guilty of forgetting that we, too, were once like the “uncircumcised heathens” who had not yet been invited into God’s family?  Yet God, in His great love and mercy, gave us the invitation to become children of God.  So, if we have a lack of love for the unsaved, is that not a characteristic of our own uncircumcised hearts?    My friend, Naomi Dowdy, calls all unsaved people “Pre-believers” who have not yet answered the invitation.  Does our indifference or lack of love turn off the pre-believer from wanting to follow our great God?   Does our system of rules and regulations scare them away?   Do we require more than God requires of those who do not yet know Him?  Or, do we give more than God would give, trying to create our own system of salvation for the pre-believer and ultimately leading them further away?

God’s Spirit must lead our hearts.  We are not to be foolish and do more or less than God would do for those yet to believe.   But we should always show kindness toward a world filled with chaos, confusion, and pain.   We must remember that God’s love, agape love, is a love that will always do what is in a person’s best interest.  A Pastor friend of mine had a couple recently who wanted to join their church, but they were told no because they were living together and not married.   They were putting off the marriage for all the wrong worldly reasons and didn’t understand why they should be denied entry into the church, but the church stood firm in its decision, loving and ministering to the couple in accordance with God’s Word.   The couple decided to get married, and they are very happy they did.   They realized their reasons were worldly and that God was not pleased.   Do we understand that many are not taught the truth and live by the world’s standard because that is all they know?  

So, we walk in love without compromising God’s Word.   Our standard must be His standard, and as we remain close to God, we understand His love for others.  God is an uncompromising God, and He will not compromise on His love for all people.  He will not compromise on opening the door for those who want to receive His love and sacrifice, Jesus.   He will not compromise on mercy and grace to those who stumble or fall along the way.   He sees the heart, and He understands the struggles.   It is the religious and rebellious heart that He will not tolerate.  

So, as we walk into this beautiful Thanksgiving season, let’s not be afraid to show God’s love.  Our kindness will open a door for someone who needs Jesus.  

Morning Thought: Christmas 2025

I am so glad that the celebration of the darkness is over. Last night, as we prayed through our town and the peripheral streets, it looked like the celebration was continuing, with houses draped in darkness, witches, death, and ghouls still on lighted display. This was sad.

This year, I decided to start my Christmas decorations on Halloween. I have never started this early before, but this year the darkness seemed especially heavy. It seemed like the decorations were more outlandish than I ever remembered before. So I decided to begin early to display decorations of thankfulness, joy, and light. Jesus is both our joy and our light and worthy to be celebrated. And as we also celebrate our time of Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for His many blessings to us

As we enter the Christmas season for 2025, there is much to be joyful for, but some get hung up on “religious details” that take away from their joy. First, we realize Jesus was probably not born on December 25th, but how often do we celebrate our friends and loved ones’ birthdays on dates other than their actual birth date? The point is that we celebrate and honor them.

Secondly, some oppose the commercialism at Christmas. That is a choice we each individually make and we can participate at any level we choose. Buying gifts for people often brings joy to many hearts and is certainly a recognition of the joy that comes from the greatest gift, Jesus! Impact will choose to participate in this Christmas by providing gifts for children in foster homes through our local DSS, showing the love of Christ for each one. Yet, we know some companies and organizations will capitalize on every season, but we each decide how and at what level we will participate.

Even the word Christmas conveys Christ, as its etymology leads us to its basic meaning: “Christ’s Mass.” Christ is indeed left out of many people’s Christmas, but that does not have to be the case with us. We each choose every day how much of Jesus we celebrate and honor. And Christmas is no different. Even St Nick was a real Christian bishop of Turkey who distributed gifts and joy to the needy. He never intended to replace Jesus, but his documented acts of generosity and love display the heart of Christ. And this is the actual fruit of a relationship with Christ.

So whether it is gifts or no gifts, decorations or no decorations, our hearts should be filled with love for Christ and also for each other. I believe Jesus loves the smiles on children’s faces and the joy in their hearts for the celebration of His birth and life!

Religion has made celebration extinct in many lives. That is what a spirit of religion does. It demands more than God demands and takes the joy of our wonderful salvation away, replacing that joy with an emotionless existence.

Choose joy this year! Celebrate our King by caring for those less fortunate and also the family you love the most.
Decorate! Sing! Love! Give! It becomes contagious!

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room
And heaven and nature sing”.

During chapel today at Kingfom Christian Academy, I watched our middle school students create skits about “emotional” baggage. It was amazing to see how even these young ones understood the importance of letting go of “weights”that they recognize at their young age.

Many believers carry emotional baggage much of their lives. They refuse to drop the disappointments, hurts, and frustrations because somehow it makes them feel justified to remember the past negative events and blame others for where they landed in life. They never realize that as long as they remain self-victims, they are choosing to stay in the place of stagnation and frustration.

Others refuse to be accountable and deny their part in events in their own lives, often blaming and criticizing others, while they continue to carry the weight of the past. Their pride holds them in bondage to resentment and blame, paralyzing the God-potential within.

I know a man now in his later years who has consistently blamed others for his failures. He blamed those who called him out on his laziness, lack of preparation, and sloppy follow through. He refused to drop his baggage and be accountable for his own choices in life. And he remains in the same defeated place.

I know others who have manned up to their weaknesses and mistakes, giving opportunity for growth, development, and greater success because they refused to hold on to the old mistakes of the past. Rather, they used these times as stepping stones to their future growth, development, and increased self-awareness.

We must choose. Do we hold onto our baggage like a prized possession? Do we continue to blame others when we get called out? We must choose. Blaming others is a shovel that keeps burying future potential, peace of mind, and God given opportunities.

There are many examples in Scripture of letting go and letting God take us where He wants to take us. But we must first release the anchors of the past so we can soar to the heights God desires us to go.

What baggage are you clinging to? What anchors are you carefully maintaining that keep you earth bound and unproductive?
It’s a choice! Choose life!

These are the words I heard “again” during Saturday Night prayer at church.   I knew He was asking, “Are you ready for what you are asking for?   Can you handle what you are asking for?”  I again thought of Nehemiah, who was moved with great love and compassion for the city that moved God’s heart, Jerusalem.   Nehemiah was so moved when he heard of the city’s devastated condition that he spent 4 months mourning, fasting, and praying.  It occurred to me Saturday night in prayer that the 4 months were for his heart to be made ready for what he was asking for, or rather, what God was asking of him.   Are we ready?  Are our hearts ready?  Can we handle what God wants to do in and through us?

As I look over the church world, I see much that is concerning.  I have been in meetings where the message seemed to be so powerfully delivered, only to suddenly end with a price tag: a “special offering” was required to release the blessing or promise of the message into our lives. Was the cross of Jesus not enough?  I have observed that many who are called do not seem to understand that Jesus’ words to pick up our cross and come and follow Him are still relevant today.    I have ministered many times on Matthew 6:33, where Jesus tells us to “seek first the Kingdom of God”, yet this Sunday, the one following the Saturday night prayer, was different.   Suddenly, what rang out in that Scripture were the words of Jesus that it is the unbeliever who seeks after things, but those who seek first God’s Kingdom do not concern themselves with things.  (Mt. 6:32-33)

The words “Nehemiah Call” rang out in my head and heart as we closed up prayer on Saturday night.   Was it a call for another God-Project?  Was it a call to gather a group and go into the streets of our city with another community project?  There is nothing wrong with any of this, but what I heard was about a heart call.   It is a call, like Nehemiah’s, to prepare our hearts for what God requires of us.  It is a call to develop a heart, like Nehemiah, that loved his city (assignment) more than he loved his security and comfort as a cupbearer.   It is a call to abandon every assignment other than the one God is calling us to embrace.  It is a call to get out of God’s way and let Him move in, around, and through us as He desires.   I mentioned what I heard to the handful of prayer warriors present, not really understanding then what God was saying to us.

As I arrived at church the next day, Sunday morning, a man who was present at our prayer told me he had begun reading Nehemiah. He said he noticed that Nehemiah asked for supplies to rebuild the walls, and also to build a house for himself.  Nehemiah was making a commitment to the assignment.   It was not a temporary call, but a commitment to fulfill the desires of God’s heart.  Was this what the four months of mourning, prayer, and fasting were really about?  Was it about his own heart’s preparation for the call God had on his life?  Wasn’t it really about aligning his heart with God’s heart, so that the future insults and accusations by Sanballat and Tobiah would be ineffective and not abort the assignment?  Are we ready?   What boldness it must have taken for Nehemiah to tell the king he was not on a temporary assignment, but instead he was making a long-term commitment to the thing God had placed in his heart to do and he was asking the king for provision for the assignment.

How many of us are walking on paths that God did not call us to, but instead we find ourselves on paths set before us by well-meaning people who really do care about us, but do not understand the Nehemiah Call?  Or possibly due to fear of the unknown future, we have chosen a path that is seemingly secure because the “things” we need are readily available on this other path.   I believe that too often we make emotional jumps when our hearts are not yet prepared.   We make moves from one path to another, thinking the move itself is all that is necessary.   I have observed some who left their secular work and jumped immediately into church ministry because someone prophesied over them a call of God, but their hearts were not prepared for the assignment. Or maybe it was not God’s call at all.  Possibly we were moved by an emotional pull or a “prophetic word” delivered by a well-meaning person with no skin in the game for the assignment at hand.   Many never take the time, as Nehemiah did, to seek God’s plan for their lives.   And there are always those positioned by the enemy to accommodate these false moves through prophetic manipulation and emotional appeal to a person’s ill-prepared heart.   And sadly, I have noticed those who were in their place, yet the fear of the unknown and the fear of not having the “things” necessary, caused them to abandon their assignment for a more secure future.

Are we ready?   How many of us attempt to prepare our minds, but not our hearts, when God asks such questions?  Nehemiah did not take a crash course in wall building.  He was a cupbearer and not a construction guy, so how would he know what to do?   We are told as Nehemiah entered into the city, he was careful to follow God’s plans…“Nehemiah 2:11 So I arrived in Jerusalem. Three days later, 12 I slipped out during the night, taking only a few others with me. I had not told anyone about the plans God had put in my heart for Jerusalem.” Just as God had given Nehemiah favor with the king to make provision for the assignment, God would also give Nehemiah a building plan.  God is the great architect for our lives, and He has the building plans for each assignment.   God is the great wall builder, and He alone understands why areas of our lives have fallen into disgrace, leaving an open door to the enemy.

So, whether as an individual, a church, or a city, God has people He is calling.   But He will first deal with our hearts, as I believe He did with Nehemiah.   Nehemiah is no exception to this principle of heart preparation.  Gideon had first to remove the idols from his father’s house before he could answer the assignment.  Then Gideon’s army had to be reduced from 32,000 to just 300 to prove it was God and not Gideon who would win the battle.    Moses had to develop eyes to see God in the burning bush in the desert before he could lead the nation out of bondage.  A burning desert bush was not unusual, but this one was, and Moses had to develop the ability to discern the difference.    David had to defeat the lions and bears behind the scenes before he could take on a more public enemy, Goliath.  Jesus spent 30 years preparing for the last three years of His life and we are told that He learned obedience through the things He suffered. (Hebrews 5:8)

Are we ready? Are we willing to pay the price for the assignment? Can we handle what we have been asking God for in our prayers? These are the questions I have been hearing for months, and I understand fully that there is an expiration date on the assignment at hand. There are seasons of time when God must move, and as Jesus looked over Jerusalem and wept because they had missed their time of visitation, we must ask ourselves, are we ready?

I ministered on Sunday about the importance of understanding what Jesus was really saying when He told Peter in Mt. 16 that He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  (Mt. 16:18).     The word used in the English translations does not carry the true meaning of what Jesus was actually saying.   Actually, the word “church” did not exist at the time of Christ, so if He had actually used that word, no one would have understood Him.   Yet, the translators chose to translate the actual word He used, “Ekklesia,” with the word “Church.”  So what’s the big deal?   Does it really matter?

It matters only in the sense that we understand that the etymology of the word church has some very dark and objectionable history and can reduces what Jesus really said to a benign form of an expression of our faith.

A more in-depth study of the word church would be interesting, but not at this time.   In a nutshell, the word “church” has its origins in ancient Greek, derived from the word “kirke” or”circe,” which means “circle or circular.”   It was used to refer to circular buildings; however, it also referred to the Greek goddess, Circe, who was the heathen daughter of the Sun God and would tame wild animals in her “circus.” (from The Myth of Kirke, Robert Brown)   Brown also says that the goddess Circe is the great whore referred to in Revelation 17, who sits on the many waters and seven hills and comprises the religions of the world, culminating in the Babylonian Mystery, the great mother of harlots, and the one who pours out abominations on the earth.   So, back to the English word church.

When we think of church, we think of a building.   We say, “I am going to church.”  Jesus did not say, “I am going to build a building where my people can congregate.” Perhaps, had He meant to say something along those lines, He would have used the Greek word for “synagogue” or “temple.”  But, He said, “I am going to build my Ekklesia.”  This word, Ekklesia, was a very familiar word that was not spiritual in meaning, but quite secular. In the Greek language, this familiar and often-used word referred to an assembly called out together generally to discuss legal matters.  So, rather than being a place where people congregated once a week to perform activities inside the building, it was a place where people assembled for a specific purpose: to address and decide upon legal issues that affected the people of the region.

Why would Jesus use this word to refer to His church?  It is because His church is not to be a static entity on earth, but a dynamic force that expands the Kingdom of God and overcomes the darkness of the devil and his kingdom of evil.   His representatives are to legislate the authority of God to the evil powers and principalities ruling in the earth and in the lives of the people God loves.

Jesus took His disciples to Caesarea Philippi for an object lesson.   This was a place of high occult activity.  It was the location of “the Rock of the Gods”, the temple of Caesar and of the god Pan.   It was a place where a literal “Gates of Hades” existed as a cave where human and animal sacrifices were made with all types of sexual perversion. It was at the entrance of the cave where the opening was actually called “the gates of Hades,” and it was believed that Baal and the spirits of the dead would enter the underworld into Hades through an opening in the rock.  It is reported that the opening looked like a yawning mouth.   It was a place of debauchery and darkness, and Jesus was giving His disciples a show and tell of the power of His “Ekklesia” that could stand against any assault of Hades.

It was at this place that Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”   In the face of such evil and power, this truth about Jesus must be understood: He is greater, and His Ekklesia, His representatives, are stronger than the evil that is in the world.

In Ephesians 3:10, Paul states that the purpose of the church (ekklesia) is to reveal to the powers and principalities in the heavenly realms the manifold wisdom of God.  That wisdom is that through Jesus, the world would be reconciled back to the Father.  And through Jesus, authority and power would be given to His followers to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)

So, is it essential that we understand we are the Ekklesia and not just a church gathering?  Absolutely.   We are called for a purpose, not just congregating on Sunday mornings. We are called to equip the saints to go out and do the works of ministry until we are all united as one in Christ. (Eph 4:11-13) We are a called-out assembly with authority to establish God’s Kingdom legislation in the heavenly realms, based on the delegated authority of Christ. This is not about political anarchy but about establishing the will of God in the hearts of people which then reflects in families, cities, cultures, and nations.

We are in such an urgent time, and many are slipping into eternity without knowing Christ.  Many are held in bondage to the powers of darkness, crying out for not just another church service, but for someone to exit the building and extend the power of Ekklesia into their lives.  We are Ekklesia!

Who do you say that He is?

Jesus said we should “Always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).  Paul tells us we are to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).   Yet when we research several polls, we find that Christians spend very few minutes in prayer each day.

Why is prayer so difficult?   Prayerlessness is a serious problem in the church.   In Ezekiel 22, the Lord told the prophet He was looking for someone who would stand in the gap and intercede.  What was he to intercede for?  Was it a revival?  Was it for marriages?  Was it for a new King?   No, the Lord said He was looking for someone to intercede so He would not have to destroy the land, but He found none.  Those words ring very loudly in the ears of each of us today.  He found none!

As we watched the memorial for Charlie Kirk on September 21, we could not help but believe and hope that Kirk’s death was a seed planted that was already yielding a great harvest of souls.  Many responded as Kirk’s pastor asked for anyone who was not a believer to stand to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Savior.  The seed that was planted has already begun to sprout a harvest as new growth appeared.   And now prayer is more important than ever.   We must pray for those who were moved in their hearts to acknowledge Jesus and will begin to walk the path of discipleship.   We must pray that churches will respond to these hungry hearts and not return to church as usual.

We saw a similar incident in 2001 soon after the attack on the towers in NY City.   Broken hearts were moved, and churches were filled.  Yet within a short time, all returned back to the norm.   But the glaring difference in Kirk’s memorial is that there was no room left in this service for anyone other than Jesus Christ.  There were no other faiths given equal status.  There was no religious synergy of many faiths that attempted to soothe the hearts of the people.   Politicians, newscasters, and even our President had room for only one name, Jesus Christ.   His name was exalted and spoken into the heavens for the powers, principalities, and evil forces of darkness to hear.   I can only imagine how this evil must have shrieked in pain at the great mistake that was made in taking Kirk’s young life.   They miscalculated, just as they did with Jesus on the cross, and had they known the result they would never have assassinated this young man.   One dies and many more are birthed, a fatal mistake for the opposing side.

Now we must pray.  We must pray for those new ones in Christ who will certainly meet the opposing side with philosophical persuasions and arguments.   We must pray because the forces of darkness will certainly launch unceasing strategies and opposition.   We must pray for unity in the body of Christ.  We must pray for true love one for another.   We must pray for the prodigals that are out there and looking back one more time, thinking again about the safety of their Father’s house.   We must pray!

We must pray, as Paul states, at all times and on every occasion, in the Spirit, being alert and persistent. (Eph. 6:18)   We are in war as two kingdoms continue to clash and the primary weapon for warfare continues to be prayer.   We must pray at all times, in every season, in the Spirit.   As we pray in the Spirit, we are praying the will of God because we do not know how to pray as we should, but Holy Spirit does! (Romans 8:26-27)   WE MUST PRAY!