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1 john 3.17-18 – But he who has this world’s resources and sees his brother in need and shuts off his inward parts from him, how does the love of God dwell in him? Little children, let us not love in word and tongue, but in works and truth.
luke 10.29-37 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
hebrews 4.15 For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
matthew 14.14 And when Jesus went out He saw a great crowd; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed.
colossians 3.12-13 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on deep mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

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growth is so important to God

then God comes in and takes his own blood & starts erasing things.

1 corinthians 13.5 Love keeps no record of wrongs.
john 20.22-23 He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
luke 23.34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

sin will always equal death, that’s why God can’t stand it. he can’t stand how it always injures other people, takes advantage of them, steals their happiness & peace, & holds them in an addicted cycle. yet rather than reach his hand out & force people against their will to stop it – he came personally & walked in the middle of us, never once joining in with sin. then he allowed jealous & vindictive men to pound steel into his body & hang him up to suffocate slowly. & because there was no sin in him, death couldn’t hold him. he died, they buried him, & then he resurrected. that crushed sin forever. it has no real ultimate power now.

romans 6.14 For sin shall not have dominion over you.
micah 7.19 He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
acts 3.19 Repent therefore and be changed, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
2 corinthians 5.18-19 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

people live stuck in sin, & so for them it does have power. yet right now Jesus wants you to experience his forgiveness so deeply that 2 things happen. first you live totally broken free of the power of sin: you’re not crushed by temptation & guilt & bitterness & judgment & addiction & regret. second you live cancelling sin. when people wrong you, you set them free immediately. you burn your black-list. you don’t demand to be treated a certain way. you don’t always have to be right. every morning you wake up with a new dose of mercy, so you deal that out to everyone you bump into, for better or for worse. you get more passionate about having real sincere love coming out of you than you’ve been about changing other people (friends, enemies, family, employees, boss, government, etc.) to meet your needs.

there’s lots of people out there angry enough for change that they’re ready to break stuff, burn stuff, overthrow stuff, blow stuff up. what about blowing up the death-grip of sin & bitterness?

ephesians 4.32 Forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
matthew 6.12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
matt 18.32-33 I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?
acts 7.59-60 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”

when it was all said & done, we could look back & see how God gave us confidence & strength all the way thru. i never would have chosen that course for myself or my family, but that year was REAL life in a very undeniable way, something i’ll never forget. i know there are people going thru the same kinds of things (or even worse) right now. i know it because God is speaking to me about his miracles like my own life depended on it.

proverbs 31.8-9 Open your mouth for the speechless,
In the cause of all who are appointed to die.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And plead the cause of the poor and needy.
psalm 34.17-18 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears,
And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit.
psalm 68.20 Our God is the God of salvation;
And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death.
job 33.22-26 Yes, his soul draws near the Pit,
And his life to the executioners.
“If there is a messenger for him,
A mediator, one among a thousand,
To show man His uprightness,
Then He is gracious to him, and says,
‘Deliver him from going down to the Pit;
I have found a ransom’;
His flesh shall be young like a child’s,
He shall return to the days of his youth.
He shall pray to God, and He will delight in him,
He shall see His face with joy,
For He restores to man His righteousness.
isaiah 38.16-19 O Lord, by these things men live;
And in all these things is the life of my spirit;
So You will restore me and make me live.
Indeed it was for my own peace
That I had great bitterness;
But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption,
For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
For Sheol cannot thank You,
Death cannot praise You;
Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.
The living, the living man, he shall praise You,
As I do this day.
psalm 130.1-2 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD;
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.

know that God wants to do the impossible for you; and he wants you to come ask him for that full of faith now >>

now i know people get in all kinds of intellectual debates over this kind of thing, but it never occurred to me that most believers probably WOULD step out in faith for miracles if they just had someone showing them how. cuz we all get in situations sooner or later where we absolutely need a miracle. with everything else in life, we’re used to reading the directions on stuff or watching a youtube how-to video or taking a class, & then going for it trial-&-error style until we get it. but obviously, miracles don’t work that way at all. there is no learning curve & no gray areas. either heaven moves on your behalf, or you fall flat on your face.

luke 9.1-6 Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece. “Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

so here Jesus was sending his disciples out to minister on their own for the first time ever. & he focused all his how-to instructions on everything BUT healing. where to stay, what to bring, how to enter & leave a city. the healing part was just a simple matter of him giving them authority, & then saying “do it.”

now course they had just had the benefit of watching him heal the sick & drive out demons for about 18 months previous. and you could guess that maybe he gave them a full behind-the-scenes course that never got written about. but…if you stick with only what’s written in the gospels, you really would conclude that Jesus sent them out cold. especially because before this point they had no authority over sickness or disease or demons. they had to go from 0 to 80 in terms of ministering a supernatural gospel – literally overnight. and when they came back, they were unanimously blown away with the success God gave all of them. it worked!

so what was it that actually worked? clearly, the authority Jesus gave them over sickness & over unclean spirits worked. & clearly, they all did what they were told, & prayed for the impossible cases. authority from heaven, & then simple guts & faith & follow-thru on earth. so…what kinds of things would you move out in faith for – if you knew Jesus had personally given you that authority & told you to do it? if you really wanted that authority, i could show you 20-30 passages from the Bible proving it was all yours.

& then, what if you knew there was no HOW-TO manual available, you just had to go for it? >>

“repent” just means turn around and embrace radical change. since “repent” was central to everything Jesus preached & everything he taught his disciples to preach, history is full of people preaching it. the thing is, when Jesus spoke, it was obvious all heaven was backing him up. pointing your finger at someone and yelling at them to repent is TOTALLY different from telling a paralyzed man to get up and walk, having a whole crowd watch him get up and jump around, & then saying “the kingdom of heaven is right here right now – and it means everything about your lives is changed.”

mark 6.7 And He called the twelve to Himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits.
luke 4.36 Then they were all amazed and spoke among themselves, saying, “What a word this is! For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”
matthew 12.28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.
mark 16.17-20 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.
mark 6.12-13 So they went out and preached that people should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them.

to tell people to repent without the power of God (which drives out every evil thing that has stolen life and love and health and happiness from them) is either completely pointless or completely demoralizing. there’s a reason hatred & sickness & lust & addiction & depression get to do what they do to people. men have already done their best to change themselves, and they know full well where that leads. as a result, many have stopped preaching repentence – and hold out an “it’s all good” gospel. this watered-down gospel is popular in the short term; but it doesn’t offer people anything other than what they already have. Jesus offered them the kingdom of God and radical change – and many men and women grabbed hold of that and never let go.

luke 4.18-19 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
matthew 24.14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
acts 3.19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

i personally love everything Jesus preached, and i identify completely with the way he preached it. i’m not into guilt trips or guilt management. i’m into the absolute freedom that comes when heaven invades earth and someone stands up and says “The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me because he’s anointed me”…and then God signs his name to it >>

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God loves the place of lowliness & meekness & humility – the place men laugh at and are embarrassed by. here Jesus conquered all of death & hell, and Father raised him up from the grave to life and gave him all authority in heaven and on earth; and a name that is above every name. yet Jesus asks us to come meet him in the humble place where it all began before there were any crowds or any attention or any opinions – that place where he personally came & found us & called us >>

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after months of hoopla over the predictions of Christ’s return, here we are on the supposed day. the upside is that people are actually thinking about Christ’s return. the downside is that rather than it being a lifestyle, it’s a spectacle. Jesus specifically prophesied this would happen, and told us to avoid it. Christ’s return will be so radically supernatural, there will be absolutely none of man’s hand seen in it.

everywhere where we see Jesus’ return discussed (matthew 24, mark 13, luke 17 & 21, 1 thessalonians 4 & 5, 2 peter 3 (to name a few) – the common theme is that we will NOT know the day or the hour, but that we are to live continually longing for it and expecting it. the other common theme is that we’ve been given a specific job to do by Jesus, and he expects to find us doing it well when he returns.

of course there will be a backlash over this “prophecy,” which will add to the deception that blinds those who don’t know Christ – and that fortifies a spirit of mockery and unbelief. you will hear people say “where is this supposed coming of his??,” just as promised in 2 peter 3.3-4: Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”

regardless, know that now is the time to live for Christ’s return more than ever. don’t let one man’s error and presumption steal one ounce of your faith and passion. keep it simple. there’s no need to recalculate dates. the world needs to see Jesus now – exactly as he said they would – IN US. be found in Jesus, with your identity, your hope, your focus, your words and your actions completely with hiim >>

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there’s no getting around it – the gospel of Jesus Christ is supernatural from first to last. why not dive into the Spirit?

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The message of repentance is a message of turning to God so that your sins might be completely wiped out. Messiah was coming to his own, and God’s call through his prophet John was that everyone would turn from their own ways so that their sins could be obliterated. There was no call to make the army ready, no call to pull together royal pageantry or fanfare. All God wanted from his people at Messiah’s coming was sincere repentance, and a willingness to walk in straight paths. Justice is his measuring line, and righteouness is his level.

Every high thing would be brought low, and all those who were humble and contrite would be raised up and honored by God. The stone from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (cut out of the mountain without hands) was about to roll down the mountain towards the image of all the kingdoms of man. God will forever resist the proud, but give grace to the humble. The essence of humility is being willing to tremble at God’s Word: to fall on Jesus the cornerstone and be broken, re-shaped exactly in his image >>