But the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

This you know, my beloved brethren But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

( James )

Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It's the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It's worthy of all the hullabaloo.

Cheryl Strayed

We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.

Leo Tolstoy

 Loving you is like being 10 years old again, scaling a tree with my eyes bright and skyward, wanting only to get higher and higher, without a thought of how I would get back down.

Lang Leav

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Phillippians

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

and to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

and to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter

Do not neglect the gift that is in you.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

The CHALLENGE of Advent!

(It) does not look at external authorities to give us peace, but looks to the peace of Christ that passes all understanding . . . AND keeps our hearts and minds in the knowledge of . . . God!

Peace!

It means we beleive in an Emmanuel, a God who is with us, a God who journeys with us all the way . . .!

And that's another cool thing our Senior Pastor told us.

PROGRAM LISTINGS & PROGRAM SCHEDULES

You are, I am, we are the 'creation' proper and fititng, 'made' irrevocably worthy of the veracity, vitality and viability of authentic love.

In general, folks tend to gravitate in one way or another to those who have risen to the pinacle of their fields - the champions, the leaders, the examplars - whether that be in business, sport, academia, art, music or some other admirable aggregate of communal life. We are often seeking out those positive qualities attributable to great achievements. Not incidentally, we find remarkable parallels to the quality of being that is our Lord Jesus Christ as is demonstrated in the simplicity and straightforwardness of His example and in the clarity of all of His teachings which are summed up so beautifully in Christ's invitation for us to be authentic lovers of God, authentic lovers of each other, and authentic lovers of our personage, which God The Omnicient, Our God The All Powerful, has created - namely, each of us. Charlatans are ever ready to complicate the matter and cast shadows across God's light. But love abides. There is faith. There is hope. We are exploring love where TRUTH shines bright and mystery abounds. The attributes of true love are revealing. This thing is HUGE.

Today we've arrived at the grid sector conspicuously named, Love is not easily angered.

We see passion. We are watching poise. There is a crucible. It is getting hot in here. Behold, one of the finest facets of true love - DIVINITY - is revealing itself.

Who-ah!

What are you finding? Share.

I am laughing helplessly. A memory is tickling me that much more at the sight of passion and poise in this holy crucible.

It is a phenomenal procedure.

I am loving it.

There was however a ticklish situation back in the crucial formative years of my youth where passion and poise were not so pleasantly mixed. I alongside one of my spritual mentors was observing this. At that strange sight my spiritual mentor turned to me and said, "Brother, some people are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good!"

As you might guess, I jumped right in with a stupid question, exposing my dumb-fool self. Frankly, I was learning to be of a mind not to be 'judgemental' (a valuable lesson being taught at a time absolutely foolish debates pitting one set of scriptures against another on the matter were raging), so I was spontaneously eager to put in a good word for the 'holier-than-thou' person in the situation my mentor was commenting on, so I asked my stupid question: "How cculd anyone be heavenly minded and not earthly good?"

Oh, be quiet!

My mentor abandoned diplomacy. His vivid response has still got me laughing at the memory.

No! I am not going to tell you how he explained this connundrum to me. I can barely stop laughing to tell you this much, but it is sure weird watching a cart dragging a donkey. I was watching a cart dragging a donkey.

Have you never seen a cart dragging a donkey? Not pretty! While some quite well-meaning folks are swallowing cows and straining at gnats, carts are dragging donkeys.

Such things happen easily - sad, actually - as we may observe in sectors up ahead of us, but we need not worry. Such occurrences are more prevalent far away from activities of renewed minds which are transformative proofs of the good wiill of God, and of the acceptable will of God, and of the perfect will of God.

Share your findings.

Be gentle.

We are blessed by and with a Loving God. Some folks (by confession) are not so richly blessed. They have a scary God, a frightening God - full of wrath and anger, quickly losing patience. We know anger too! Don't you? So what is your 'current' relationship with God? What is God's relationship to you? Is God love?

Love is not easily angered!

Sharing time.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself.

Sometimes in this season (let's call it schooling), life does it for me. Sweet.

It is undeniably a humbling privilege having amongst the clients I happily coach, a group of Chinese nationals - two doctors, a dentist, two technologists, a psychologist, an engineer, four parents and three students - who are followers of Christ. I coach several other nationalities as well. They call me coach. I call this school. I learn a lot.

It amazes me how much.

In the lingering warmth of our ongoing fellowship, it is too often privately embarassing discovering the range of ridiculous stereotypes one is unaware one has piled up over time, having been fed unawares a lot of dribble and junk, albeit sprinkled with a dusting of missunderstood truth. It is privately embarassing and wholly enlightening. Trust me, there are awesome people - everywhere. God is awesome.

Don't worry, I am not about to disclose confidences in any form or fashion, but something wonderful has come to light, timely to our exploration. As if to put a highlighter on the matter, this very past week, another national lifted the very 'biblical' issue to light - The fuel of ANGER!

I am NO Preacher! I have no pretense of wanting to be. I am experiencing this LOVE-RELATIONSHIP; that's what's exciting me, and I trust you too, for this thing we are exploring is NOT you nor me nor anyone else for that matter. We are exploring love. Yes, authentic love! It is not easily angered. Exploring! Not preaching!

But why not light-up the elephant in the room?

Let's do.

Oooh weee, a parade of elephants!

Consider each exposed.

Name yours accordingly. Get ready. We are about to experience love divine!

Something marvelous happened. It challenged everything of life in one fell swoop. Then a new day began for me ... well, night first then daylight.

In a treacherous world, where gluttony, lust, greed, pride, anger, laziness and despair have free reign, the natural challenges and complexities of the evolution of language give charlatans quite a lot of fodder for their chicanery. Regardless of them, all actions have consequences, none excepted. Absolutely none. Not even the innocent can escape absent some other counter action! That just is, as we know our universe today. Has God revealed any different?

We were all gathered, packed to the squeeze in pews. I was about to recieve great news, unaware a majority were about to recieve the most frightening revelation, left shaking in their boots, sniffling on their knees, needing ever more time for full confession and to exercise some newer measure of faith, and to discover hope. It would take me days to learn those details. I was in heaven. I was free.

Today, with a little more understanding I recognize we all come from different roots. I can understand why some looked upon my great news with incredulity. As my mother would say, "That's their businees." Let me tell you what happened, from my perspective. Take a good breath. Just in case of a need.

Now is every fool a hypocrite? Aren't there some folks about us who are just busy messing with other people's minds, binding those to hypocrisy and superstition, setting those up to decieve God, and boasting privately about their oppressive accomplishment?

Whether so or not, God cannot be decieved!

We can be, and often are, quite easily. It's happening EVERY DAY!

I mentioned language. It is how we communicate. We also experience this problem practically every day - with every tweet, post, email, phonecall, text, letter. We say one thing, our hearers are convinced we mean something else. It is one of the chief issues in every kind of relationship. Even this very episode; I am sure.

There are many reasons for this, which time and space do not permit me to adequately address at this moment. You can investigate it. Your research would be rewarding. Many of us played games around this very issue during our childood and youth. We were frequently amazed at the result.

We mis-interpret communications easily.

When misinterpretation becomes belief. Who-ah! We see that everyday too - even in the face of strong contravening evidence. That's how we are stuck with stereotypes: racial stereotypes, sexual stereiotypes, cultural stereotypes, regional stereotypes. On and on! The evidence is usually right in front of us, but it is easier to ignore it. Humans are comfortable believing what they prefer to believe, even if in the process it may be killing us. This is not a speculation nor a new revelation; it is the everyday course of experience.

Now stretch that across cuture, across time, across languages, each of which is always evolving; the effort for establishing truth becomes challenging, but not at all impossible - except, of course, in the face of prefered beliefs, which have many sources. Societies kill over it. This is not new. We find it clearly demonstrated repeatedly in our scriptures - except who reads the whole scripture!!!

Not many! Not even many of those who say the do. They pick-pocket verses!

Then add the clobbering phrase, "God said!"

Is there a special hell for liars? And not so special hell for those who unwittingly, innocently, willingly, so-wanting-to-please-God-ly but not knowing how to verify veracity? Of course, I am being facetious. But the danger is deathly real. Some have turned a Loving Creator God into a monstrous beast. Anger is the key!

And that's what a few of these Chinese nationals were discovering and disclosing to me. They discovered folks pick-pocketing scriptures devoid of their true meaning, context, and setting, and were tossing these into each other's faces like eggs or rotten tomatoes or spit. Every day! And these are Christians!

They wanted me to explain.

Me?

Oh, Dear no!

However, as noted, it really doesn't take all that much training to decipher from the various translations the particular belief systems dishonest translators are very willing to have published. It suits their pocket. Their masses don't have the wherewithal to verify or the courage to question.

None of the above put scriptures in of itself in error, but it does explain why so often folks have to perform spiritual gymnastics to explain away the simplicity and straightforwardness of Jesus' teaching, like, what do you do if a man steals your coat, or slaps you, or forces you to walk a mile with him or . . . . Oh, ye hypocrites! (Well, I added that part to make a point of it.) For love is not . . . easily . . . angered! It is full of passion, yes - fire! - and balanced with poise, yes - grace and favor!

What have you learned?

Here is the beauty: imbibing the full scriptures, each part within its context and period, one quickly finds that picking and choosing cherished bits cheapen everything. Of course, particular passages (as even a flower in a random garden) might pop out with unique meaning or transforming power to any one of us. That is one of the beauties and mystery of the Living Word. Hallelujah! However, forcing that personal power-word meant to one's own soul into a dogma for someone else to stumble over is nothing less than messing with a child of God. Don't do it. Is God not all mighty and able to do all that God wants or chooses? Yes? Or no? Is God not love? Or is that an issue? Or are you the appointed one?

So am I not picking and choosing scripture too? Now that is a solid question! I ought also to answer soon, less these handy words, "You Hypocrite," find ready use! (You're welcome.)

Love is not easily angered. This is not a lukewarm love; it is full of passion. It is hot. It is heady. It does not sit back and linger idly. It is active. It is always ready. And it is full of grace and always in favor. It is divine. It is just the way God loves; you can't mess with it without getting burned. Isn't it awesome to discover 'love is not . . . easily angered?'

Being fully functional and wholly human!

Love . . .

"Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self."

When we renew our minds all of life is different. We look out into the fresh air, and the air is different, our walk has a new perkiness, our smile lights up our eyes. When we renew our minds divine love shines. We begin to see the living word. We see a transformation of the Living Word. We discover a new covenant.

As one of my Chinese clients points out so brilliantly for me:

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

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Something To Consider

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You are

What a PRIVILEGE!