A blogger’s manifesto

Greetings, highly favored one!

If you are anything like me, then you might not be expecting to be called favored, and yet if you are a Christian, you are!

There is a problem in the world, in America in particular. We have lost our way. Whether you think our country was founded on Christian principles or not, it seems clear that there has been a dramatic shift in our country, and I do not think we are as great as we once were. I don’t know where you stand politically, and generally, I try not to care about politics. It’s just not my thing, but when Trump leads all the polls for President, you take notice of such things.

Do you know what I believe the solution is?

Simple – it’s you! But without God, there is nothing to be done, so it’s you, me, and the Holy Ghost. And I’m not even going to try to get you to vote one way or the another, but what I think our world, and especially our nation, our cities, and even our homes need is revival. The days are dark, and we need the light to shine bright.

I believe that when we encounter the Living God, we cannot help but live and walk changed, with His goodness and light radiating from our faces. It doesn’t matter what denomination you are – if you are Lutheran or Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal. If God is in you, then you are a changed person. A defeated Christian is an oxymoron, even though I know what is like to struggle through all the hardships of life. Christians are victorious!

I surmise that these two things are happening: 1) there are less Christians who know God than actually claim to be Christians and know God and, 2) there are a lot of Christians living in defeat.

Now, these are my real problems – men and women who need to taste and see the goodness of God AND Christians who need to walk in the fullness of being loved and known.

I have been thinking a lot about my message and why I blog, and I believe these are the most important things I want to do: I want to see people come to understand who God is and who they are in light of God. I want to see men and women tasting and seeing the goodness of God and walking in the fullness of who He says they are. I want to see men and women walk in the favor of the God, which is walking in grace and freedom. My solution is to keep telling you over and over again the gospel truth. Book agents say that this makes me no different than the big name theologians, who already have a big, platform from which to shout.

I am no big name theologian, and I am not sure I am even a little one. My platform is like two people, but I love my two people. My life is fairly ordinary, so for me, my message has to begin where I am – in the home, in my kids, in the women I sometimes interact with, with my smallness, and here, with you, my people. People who need to know the goodness of God over and over again in a practical way, in a deep way, but also in a storytelling kind of way. People who have felt orphaned in life and are looking for a solution to that lostness, people longing to be loved AND known, who have been rejected over and over, but need to know how valuable they are to the kingdom even though, like me, they feel ordinary and small.

Small, you see, is the new great. In God’s economy, I have a power that is even greater than the President of the United States, yet how often do we wield it?

The solution I believe is encountering the Living God. Now, there is nothing I can do to manufacture an encounter with Him, but I can tell you about Him, and I can seek to know God myself. Such a small thing is really the most powerful thing in the Universe. Knowing the One True God and living to tell about it? Oh yes, please, that we may do that.

So how can we change the world? First things first, seek the Lord so that you may know Him and He may know you. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.”

Then, I believe revival cannot help but come. Men and women will be changed, and then whole homes will be changed. Homes will be changed, and then cities will follow. Cities will then, in turn, transform the nation. So what if Trump becomes President, if we allow God to move and work in and through us to be living stones and living lights and living water. We are building a new nation – the nation of God on earth!

So today, do one think to seek the Lord.

Here are a few options:

• read the Bible.
• pray.
• listen to a sermon.
• spend some quiet time in creation reflecting on what you know of God.
• ask Him to show Himself to you.