Spirit Led Living

Mal 4:2-3 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. On these words the Jewish people clung for 400 years.   After coming out of captivity from Babylon the once powerful and independent Jewish nation became a minor territory that was the pawn of successive empires.   First they were dominated by Persia who largely ignored the Jews.   Then Alexander the Great acquired Palestine in 323 B.C.    He decided he was going to unite the world centered on the Greek language and culture.   At first they tolerated the Jewish practices but then began to enforce their doctrine Hellenization.   The majority of the Jewish people resisted by the aristocracy welcomed it.   When the people did not follow suit they tried to destroy the Jewish religion itself and all known copies of the Torah.   They even erected a statue of Zeus in the Temple and sacrificed a pig.   The Maccabeans revolte

Matt 5:23-24 Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. A few days ago I had the joy of getting together with some dear friends from whom I had been alienated for some time.   I had deeply hurt them through my sin and I had felt that they had turned against and wanted nothing to do with me. The details aren’t important except to say that Satan does what he can to drive wedges between us. Real offenses are lumped in with imagined ones and soon there is a gulf between people who used to be like family. I can’t speak for them or their process; I can only speak for myself. At the time I was in denial about a lot of things and while I was the offending party, it was easier to justify my position by assigning blame to others. I felt betrayed and I felt abandoned and ostracized.   I was in a deep d

Matt 25:21 'Well done , good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' This time of year has always been difficult for me. I have suffered many losses. My Father passed in Oct of '96 and my Mom in Dec of '04. This year we lost two good friends in Colin Niven and Dick Phillips. All of them had one thing in common. They called Jesus their Lord and Savior. They all spent their lives living out their witness and touched countless lives. In each case they received their welcome in heaven with the Father saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" In the case of my "Mami" (in Spanish), she lived to be 94 and hers was a long journey. She was born into a Catholic family in Puerto Rico in 1910. She saw many changes come over that little Island in her time. Her father sent her to Syracuse University so that she could become a nurse. Such was her upbr

Luke 2:8-14 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." This was the scene on the night of our Savior’s birth. Here it was the pivot point in all of history; nothing would be the same from this point on. The kingdom of God had just established a beachhead in this world and the beginning of the end was at hand for the prince of this

God never blessed me with the opportunity to father a child. My oldest two were adopted when they were 4 years old and my youngest two came to me through marriage. It wasn’t until my grandson, Mateo, was born that I was able to be a part of the process of watching someone you love grow in the womb and then seeing them moments after they are born. He just celebrated his third birthday and he is the joy of our lives. I think I know a little bit about how Joseph must have felt raising a child as his son that was not biologically his son. The child’s origin soon fades to the background and you are enveloped by the warmth and love of raising that child from an infant through the stages of his growth and development. I can identify with that. I can’t identify with what it must have been like to find out that your wife to be is pregnant and that you, after saving yourself for marriage and resisting temptation despite the passion burning in your loins for your betrothed, are not the father. Ta

Tis the season for thanksgiving and reflection.   My wife and I have done quite a bit of that lately. This time of year is always difficult for me because I am always overwhelmed with work and because of the losses I have suffered over the years. Both my Father and Mother passed during this time and now my good friend Dick Phillips has been added to that list. All of this serves to make us stop and take inventory of our lives. I am particularly blessed to have a job, which although stressful at this time of year, gives me great satisfaction.   This past Thanksgiving, Metropolitan Ministries helped over 11,000 families. In Brandon alone we had 50 people turn their lives over to God and we actually baptized 5 of them on the spot. We have touched the lives of countless volunteers and donors in addition to the families we have served directly. In fact, sometimes the volunteers get more out of it than the clients. I am blessed with a wonderful extended family of four children and one grands

Our friend Dick Phillips has gone on to be with the Lord. While we rejoice in the Lord that He is in heaven, our hearts grieve his loss. Dick was a big gruff man with a bushy moustache that often made his face look like he was frowning in disapproval.   However, the glint in his eyes gave away who he really was. Like many of us from the baby-boomer generation he grew up with a disconnect between what he was experiencing in church and the vibrant Christianity he   found in the pages of the New Testament. Also like many of us, when he came across the teachings of John Wimber he found someone who was giving expression to what we believed. Wimber said what we were thinking, only he said it better. Dick bought into it hook, line and sinker and those teachings of the here and the not yet of the kingdom, doin' the stuff and everyone gets to play. As a result he trained thousands of people on how to pray for the sick, how to usher in the presence of the Holy Spirit (Come Holy Spirit) and h

Micah 6:8 “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” There are passages in the Bible that amaze me by their simplicity and at the same time by their depth. The first time that this passage jumped out at me it was being sung at a service at Calvary Chapel in Rochester, NY. It was sung in a call and response format and I was enthralled by its’ beauty. Growing up I was confronted with lists of do’s and don’ts. People’s hearts were in the right place but I think at times it is easier to follow rules than to hear the heart of God and walk it out. This passage shares God’s heart for His people. He starts out by telling us that He has told us what He wants. He has not kept it hidden from us or shrouded it in mystery.   As it has been said by many others before me, the Jews were so focused on the letter of the law that they could not understand the spirit of the law. In our vernacular, they

Let's start out by beating the enemy to the punch. I have sinned. My sins are numerous and they are grievous.   Through my sin and arrogance I ended a marriage of 30 years. In doing so I abandoned my oldest children. That they were already adults did not matter, they were still living with us at the time.   Add to that the fact that they were adopted and my leaving only added to their abandonment issues. To make matters worse I was a pastor at the time and my sin caused the church to implode. Countless lives were affected and many feel that pain to this day. Many turned their back on me and I don't blame them. I didn't like myself much either. I entered an ever worsening spiral of depression and my decisions at the time were less than rational. Never the less, they were my decisions and they affected many lives in a negative way. For that I am truly sorry and I ask for their forgiveness. I have already asked for and received it from God. But this is not a pity party. You

Ps 46:11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Friday I had one of those days. I took a tumble getting out of my car at work. I keep a golf umbrella tucked next to the driver’s seat in case of rain. I don’t know how it happened but it did. As I was getting out of the car my right foot got caught on the umbrella. My body twisted and I fell forward unto a very rough patch in the parking lot. I fell on all fours and my face hit the pavement. I skinned my hands, elbows and knees. The worst of it was the fact that my leg got twisted and when my foot finally released my leg shot forward and my right knee took the brunt of the fall. I was stunned. I immediately felt the pain. It took me a minute to get myself off the ground. I felt very foolish. I haven’t taken a tumble like that since I was a kid and here I am a grown man just shy of his 59 birthday falling on his face. I went inside the building where a couple of my co-workers helped clean me up and bandage me. I t

As I was rounding out our last session for our Life Steps class we ended up in 1 Corinthians 13 the chapter on love. It got me to thinking about my relationship with God. All too often in evangelical circles when we talk about love we address it in the realm of the mind and the will. We tend to divorce it from the realm of emotions. I understand this and there is validity to the notion that emotions ebb and flow and just because we don’t “feel” God’s love it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. Valid point. On the other hand, I am a hot-blooded Puerto Rican. I feel deeply. To ask me to divorce my feelings of love from my will and mind is like asking an Italian to talk with their hands tied behind their backs, or more to the point, for a Puerto Rican to eat a meal without a piece of bread in one hand. Just not happening. So, what does the Bible say about our love relationship with God? Deut 6:5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Al

James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you Now that we have taken a look at the elements of prayer we can take a look at the one thing that makes it a source of daily nourishment and hope. Growing up in the Holiness Movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s, prayer was taught as a discipline. It was the obligation of every person that pursued holiness to get up at 5am and pray. We also had to go to Prayer Meetings and spend an hour with the 4-5 other brave souls who endured those times. By the time I was in college, prayer was a task to be endured. I knew that I had to do it, but I never got anything out of it. In truth, I didn’t understand prayer at all. My mother was a praying woman and I had seen my share of miracles as a result of prayer. The confusing part was that I had seen my father get up every morning before the crack of dawn to kneel in our living room in prayer. Everyone else saw him as this church planter, this evangelist and this spiritual giant but, I saw him as someone

1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him. Prayer is the expression of man's dependence upon God for all things. Therefore we come as supplicants asking God to act on our behalf. The supplicant’s prayer then is a request to a personal Lord who answers according to His good will and pleasure. Remembering that we live in the here and the not yet of the Kingdom of God there are several factors that influence how prayers are heard. Several hindrances to answered prayer are mentioned in the Bible: iniquity in the heart (Ps 66:18), refusal to hear God's law (Prov 28:9), an estranged heart (Isa 29:13), sinful separation from God (Isa 59:2), waywardness (Jer 14:10-12), praying to be seen of men (Matt 6:5-6), pride in fasting and tithing (Luke 18:11-14), lack of faith (Heb 11:6), and doubting or double-minded

Phil 4:6-7   Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,   present your requests to God. When your sins have been forgiven and your sentence commuted you have much to be thankful for. That, of course, is just the beginning for the redeemed. Every breath we take should be a matter of thanksgiving for nothing is guaranteed to us, everything is a gift. As a child I was taught to always say thank you when you got a gift. I was taught that when someone does something nice for you that not only should you say thank you, you should right them a little note of appreciation. Think of the last time you got a thank you note from someone and how that made you feel. How much more likely are you to do something for that person than you are for someone whom you routinely do nice things for and they never acknowledge it? Working for Metropolitan Ministries for all of these years has made me appreciative of people who have an attitude of gratitude.

1 John 1:8-9 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. The next step in our prayer life that serves to put things in perspective is confession. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). While we are no longer slaves to sin and we strive toward the goal of perfection, the truth is that as long as we wear this suit of skin we will always fall short in some way or another. God knows this and has provided the way for those sins to be atoned for through the sacrifice of His Son. That forgiveness, though, needs to be accessed and applied. The process starts with our admission of sin. This not only overcomes denial, it keeps us humble and dependent on him. We deserve nothing. In fact, we deserve death. When we confess our sins it sets in motion a series of events that serve to wipe the slate

If we continue in the model of the Disciple’s Prayer we can use the acronym of ACTS to guide our prayer: A – Adoration C - Confession T – Thanksgiving S – Supplication We exalt and praise Him for who He is. Ps 147:1 Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! Heb 13:15-16 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that confess his name. He is worthy of our praise. When we praise Him we take our focus off of our belly button and we put it squarely on Him. It goes hand in hand with knowing Him whom we pray to. If we truly know who it is we are praying to, then by virtue of being God, He deserves our praise. Giving voice to that praise puts our relationship in the proper perspective. He is God and we are His creation. While He calls us sons and daughters, there can be no reaching for His level. The creation is always inferior and subservient to the Creator. Not only do we prais

Prayer is one of those disciplines that we realize needs to be a part of our walk by but many of us find it difficult to do on a regular basis. Over my next few blogs I hope to take a look at prayer and explore our journey in prayer and hopefully have it make sense in a practical way. For me it all starts with the Disciples’ Prayer. I know, most of you know it as the Lord’s Prayer but in reality it was how He chose to teach His disciples how to pray. Matt 6:9-13 "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” It all starts with knowing whom we are praying to. We pray to God the Father. The Bible tell us to pray in the Spirit (Eph 6:18; Jude 20) and it tells us to pray in Jesus name (John