choosing your lines better

On our 2007 Torches Across America ride, it was almost 100 degrees out by the time we hit Victorville, on a day that would see see 124 on the temp gauge in Needles, a place I still can find no use for.  But in spite of the heat we all made it, with only a few of the less hearty not complaining.  Each year our ride group was different, and this year a battalion chief from San Diego fire and a group of his men, almost a dozen in all rode with us.  Their first Torches, and the excitement showed via all the questions they asked.  My third, I thought I knew what to expect...

Riding up Cajon Pass it was hot and the traffic moving slow, when looking in my mirror to my right I saw bikes suddenly veering right, horns honking, brakes squealing and my adrenaline kicked in.  What was going on behind me?  For a moment I was in a self preservation mode, as we all pulled over, all 50 of us or so, and “what happened?” was our opening line.  When the Chief stepped forward, he had accidently hit his kill button, and didn’t realize what had happened, so was pulling over to check his bike out.  His battalion riding with him, instinctively followed him, without looking they pulled over with him, almost causing a catastrophic accident.  They were doing as they had so many times before in the face of danger, following their leader, and when he suddenly pulled over, they did too.  Such devotion and trust is admirable, but not on a group ride in heavy traffic.  We look back now and laugh, we chided them all across the US on the ride about it, but the thought still stays with me, who do you trust that much you will follow them no matter what?

I am constantly reminding people to ride your own ride.  Yet when riding with new guys the first time feel I must keep up with them, or them with me.  On one such afternoon, I had warned Peter over and over, “don’t try to keep up with me, I know this road,”  and I thought he had, but after five minutes had passed, and no Peter, I turned around and retraced my route.  The red pickup on the side of the road told me more than I needed to know, Peter was down.  Back aways further, they had seen him go down behind them, get up and were waiting for me to return.  Riding back a bit farther, Peter was up and OK, he overshot a turn, and used the weeds to slow himself down, dropping the bike.  Damaged but rideable, both bike and rider made it home safely, but he had tried to keep up, just like the chief’s battalion did, only with disastrous results.

When I ride a road for the first time, I watch those ahead of me and the lines they take in the curves.  At my pace, since you are never sure how well the guy you are chasing can ride.  So I am getting better after all these years at choosing lines better.  And each time I ride the same road again get better, knowing my entrance speed will effect my exit speed, which should be faster I hope.  I have an exit I practice on, the sign warns of a 35 mph speed limit, I try to take it at 80, and can do it safely, if not a bit excitedly.  But I have done it so many times I know the road, and can accelerate through it, while some get in the traffic jam behind me.  But it has taken years, I have reached my limit for that section, so don’t try to keep up with me in it.  Choose your own lines, and improve on them each time you ride.  Enjoying the ride more, for we all know God invented curves for motorcyclists!

Acts 19 tells of the 7 sons of Skeva, who bought into a line, hearing the name of Jesus administered by the apostles and the miracles that occurred, and thinking they could so the same thing.  For profit.  Only to find the gospel doesn’t work that way.  There is power in the name of Jesus just like the scriptures tell, but only in the spirit is that power revealed.  Which they found out, when approaching a man known to have demons in him.  They commanded him to come out in the name of Jesus, and the demon questioned them, “I know of Jesus, and have heard of Paul, but who are you?”  And came out as they commanded, but beat them severely, sending them running away naked and bloody.  If choosing better lines in riding makes you a better rider, choosing better lines when a Christian will help also.  They were trying to ride, to live someone else’s ride, and found out you cannot or you will have a surprise ending.  We need the faith and trust the battalion men did, but with the leading of the spirit.  We need to know we have all we need in Jesus, exemplified by his spirit.  For God also tells us, “not by might, not by power, but by my spirit,”  we like the power and might part, Jesus likes the spirit part better.  A better line to choose in any and all situations.  A Biblical story included for our own benefit, for the scripture is for teaching, reproof, instruction, and to rebuke.  Words on a page to the unsaved, a gift from a loving father to those who are in Christ.  Read it, but apply it too.  

And when entering a curve too fast, take Kenny Roberts advice, lean more and more.  Works with Jesus too, in over your head, lean on him, for his yoke, the thing that binds us too him, the spirit is easy.  Trust God and enjoy the ride more!  Trust King Kenny for riding tips, Jesus for living.  There are names, and there are names to follow.

So choose your lines better, enjoy life more, and be blessed more.  One result is the happier you are, the more you spread it on to others.  Blessings are contagious, so is the spirit.  Ride in it today, and watch how it changes you and others around you.  Any good racer walks the track before the race, we have the spirit to walk us through the human race.  Faith like the battalion, but power under control on the chief’s part would have helped too.  He did as he was trained, get out of danger, only his men followed him blindly and caused danger.  Riding is believing, so is seeing.  Faith is the proof of things not seen, but heard.  From screeching brakes to the smell of rubber, to the sound of sirens, ride your own ride in Christ.  His lines are best for each situation.  You just gotta figure that any guy that can ride for 2000 years like he has without crashing must know something. 

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

the seven year plan-if the dream is big enough the facts don't count

Perhaps one line from John Belushi in Animal House says it best about my college education, “seven years of college down the drain.”  I was working on the seven year plan, only as a third year freshmen I didn’t know it at the time.  I was starting college for the third time, and at age 22 saw the college world and lifestyle much different.  While for most of my classmates it was thirteenth grade, for me it was thirteenth grade repeated, and five years since I had escaped high school.  For them it was the first time not living with Mommie and Daddy, and they were finding out how age doesn’t necessarily represent maturity.  They were all about the freedom of partying, of having to make decisions for themselves, and suffering the consequences of not having a small school to bail them out.  My third time was the University of New Mexico, and had more students than people in the town I grew up in.  And in the five years since I graduated high school, I had experience under my belt, they were still being taught theory.  But then so was I, except I had the experience to back up what they taught, right or wrong.  Finding that what was taught was often at odds with reality.  At least what I had seen.

You cannot teach experience, you must live it.  You may try to describe it to others, with similes like as and like, but until you have applied what  you  have been taught, it is still just theory.  which can be scary, because it requires you to make a decision, in which you may be wrong.  With consequences to follow.  But after two more first year semesters, I was back out on my own, with college added to my list of experiences, with no degree other than application of an education, mostly gained through life.  Which too must be experienced. 

Mostly I felt out of place at UNM, I had seen things and done things that youth cannot brag about, or deny, based on the events.  While the other freshmen wrote home for money, I had to work, changing priorities, and seeing how different life was in the real world.  Big deal I may have a degree someday, and a wall to hang it on, right now it was $1.25/hour working in the filing center in the university office.  Where experience was about to change my education.  I had sold Sam a motorcycle, he had a friend Joe who worked in the counseling office, and introduced me to the Dean of Students at UNM.  Who turned me onto the financial guru, and 20 minutes later I walked out unemployed, but with over $3500 worth of college grants, the largest one based on the fact my parents lived in another state, and I didn’t live at home.  That I would not have to pay back.  Who creates these criteria?  But my experience had given me an education in who you know, and how important it was to be on your own.  Or at least not a slave to the college tradition.  Not one class I had taken to date taught me what I had learned on my own in business.  They had the Banco de Momma y Poppa, or loans, I had grants and the cash.  They worked part time jobs, I got to go riding.  You decide who got the better education.

Now I am not against education, but know how important the application of it is.  A degree may show you have graduated, but what have you learned?  Tell me about your experiences?  Can you teach experience?  A lesson best demonstrated through an lunch at Captain D’s in Cleveland, Tennessee.  I was lost, not really, I still had gas, and stopped to eat lunch.  Across from me were five men interviewing a man for a position at their church.  He had just returned from years on the ministry field, and his words showed a deep relationship with Christ.  He had been there, done that, and had the t-shirt.  And listening in, I could tell they didn’t get it.  They wanted a degree, he had seen Jesus in action.  They didn’t get what a treasure they had in the person they were interviewing, he didn’t meet the criteria of their denomination, and how to tell him they weren’t interested in him.  He didn’t have the necessary degree, but God saw through it.  Where defeat may be evident, he wasn’t hired, God rescued him from religion, and these denominational mental cripples.  They weren’t interested in what God had to offer, it was only a position to fill, one that they could control.  We don’t need no outsider, we are a healthy church, we pay our bills.  We have special services, we blab, blab, blab, blab blab.  But God had greater things for the man, and I would be interested to know where he ended up.  He had seen the things taught in church, he had seen the lost saved, the blind given sight, the lame walk.  He had seen Jesus change lives and change people.  All without the benefit of religion.  They were still being taught, trying to learn, he had the experience of Jesus in his life.  His testimony was his resume, his life was a graduate course, they were in preschool, still wanting and getting only the milk children desire.  Don’t confuse teaching with application, you just may be one of them.  Which one is up to you.

Jesus Christ must be experienced.  He is not a simile where he is like this or as that.  He is unique, the son of God, our Lord and savior.  No one else has those titles or qualifications.  He died on the cross, gave us grace in salvation, yet some feel the gift is not enough.  They must work for a degree in salvation to prove they are saved.  And never graduate.  They might have had a glimpse of heaven, but will be denied entrance.  It is who you know, and knowing Jesus is the only way to graduate upon death into heaven.  We are all always learning, but to what degree?  For what degree?  Studying to be approved by whom?  Or is it who?  Did you know the newest person in Christ has more knowledge available to him than those without him and a list of degrees?  Isn’t it about time to apply what you know?  Or are you already?  A degree in religion may get you a position in church, it may not in heaven. 

So God’s words to me were “if the seat of your pants is wearing out faster than the soles of your shoes, you have a problem.”  Are you sitting studying or out applying what Jesus and who Jesus is?  It doesn’t take a church position, but the church needs Jesus too.  It needs those who trust and obey where the spirit leads, not another D.D. behind the pastor’s name.  Not another radio star, an author or teacher, but one who knows Jesus, and can share who he is.  To encourage their flock to get out and live for him, to apply the Jesus in their life to their life.  Is your whole Christian experience based on an education that has never been applied?  Sadly I know of a once strong church based mostly on teaching the scriptures, that when tested the pastors all lost it.  They had taught about Jesus, now they to trust him.  They may have blown the test, but hopefully passed the course for heaven. 

When Jesus gave the great command of spreading the gospel, it is in Greek “as you go,” share the gospel.  As you go to college, as you go to church, as you go riding.  As you live your life, you are showing what you know, but are you showing who you know?  Still paying college loans off?  God has no degree program for salvation.  It is free.  No diploma, no paperwork involved, he has written his word on our hearts, so we have it everywhere.  Our actions and attitudes speaking volumes.  Maybe Bluto was right about his seven years down the drain.  Only Jesus gives you the chance today to start over, to apply himself to your life.  Looking back, maybe the man was really interviewing the church board, and found them wanting.  If your next job interview asks “tell me about your experience?”  what will you say?  If we ask you about Jesus, your answer is.....

Your testimony, so go out and start living one today.  The world needs to hear it, you need to share it.  But first you must experience Jesus yourself.  How many souls have you effected wearing out the soles of your shoes? 

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

the intrigue of glamorous women

Yvonne was the daughter all parents desired, but none deserved.  She had a beautiful New Mexico charisma about her, she was the head cheerleader, and valedictorian of her high school graduating class.  Yet in one night learning about love in the back of a Dodge, her whole life changed.  She was pregnant, and no cheers for her new appearance.  She would still graduate as valedictorian, her robe hiding her large belly, but the damage went deeper.  Raised in a very religious family, these things didn’t happen to good girls, and she was put out by her family.  Spending the last semester of high school living in an apartment, and working part time while with child to pay for it.  All her religious training, her church’s pride in her, and all she held valuable left her in one fleeting moment.  Except for her relationship with God.  Jesus never left her even though her own family did.  She hung tough with him, and  had a baby boy, who today would be 40.  I lost touch with her and her family long ago, but I wonder how she ended up.  An early lesson to me in how Jesus loves us, even when we are an embarrassment to our family and church.

Debbie had been married to a 1%er until she was saved.  There was no room in this outlaw home for God, so her husband divorced her.  Leaving her with two kids both under five.  But her church family took her in, and helped her to get her life together, and spending time with her sometimes revealed how tough it had been, and why she left.  When Amy, her five year old would tell us that “Daddy was going to cut Mommy’s ears off,”  we winced and turned away, but turned to Jesus. As did Debbie and her kids.  An early example to a young Christian of the church family loving each other through the tough times, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Amy would be over 45 today, I wonder how Debbie and her kids ever turned out.

I’ll call her Josie, for I remember her, but forget her name.  A young girl, after too much Tijuana, decided to drive home, and in a single car accident was left paralyzed from the neck down.  No memory of what a great time would ever heal the tragedy, but it drew her closer to Christ.  And her family also.  I met her and would visit her, just reading the Bible to her, but it was the spirit who did the healing, and would have to forever.  Three lives that never turned out as they had initially planned, and if not for Jesus would have ended in ruin.  But God’s spirit was with them....

She was only a teenager, betrothed to her husband, but the wedding not yet consummated.  And yet, at a time when they should be celebrating their marriage and honeymoon, she was pregnant.  But not from her husband.  And both knew her to be a virgin, yet had trouble understanding how and why this had happened to her.  Joe and Mary, were chosen by God to raise his son Jesus, and Mary had been made pregnant by the holy spirit.  In a verse I refer to often, “and Mary pondered these things in her heart,” I can only imagine how the spirit ministered to her, how precious those times and conversations were.  How many may have started out in fear and confusion, but ended in joy.  She named her son Emanuel, God is with us, and he had truly been with her before, during, and after the baby was born.  Imagine the stories she could have told, but had no one to listen to except for Joe.  No parenting class would have had her.

Joe struggled on his own, as it was his responsibility to present her as pure to the world, and could have had her stoned or divorced her because of her condition.  But the same spirit that had comforted Mary comforted him, and he would not abandon her, and raise the son as his own.  Teaching him the trade of a finished carpenter, historians believe they made yokes, a specialty.  Which scripture would later tell us “to take his yoke, for it is easy.”  Maybe for Jesus, but not for  Mary, not for Yvonne, Debbie, or Josie.  The intrigue of glamorous women had yet to reveal itself until in the spirit.  At which point they became beautiful.  Beyond any glam or glamor the world could supply.  And not for us either.  Without the spirit, we are left to our own interpretation of scripture, we are left at the mercy of religion, at the cure all of studying to be approved.  But none of the above had time to study for their life changing situations, they needed immediate help, first aid, and then care for the rest of their lives.  Friends, family, and the church may provide the physical needs, but the spiritual needs that went deeper they could not.  Scripture tells us there is an earthly and a heavenly life, all covered by a spiritual world, something as real as anything we can taste or touch, and it is that spiritual world that brings us joy, peace, patience, and into the presence of a loving God.  It is these spiritual qualities that make life worth the living, we would be mere animals without it.  A gift God only gave to those created in his image, and for his glory.

Sad stories until we see the truth in them, how in each case God allowed them to bring the individual closer to him, to repentance.  To make us wonder where do these things come from, and draw us to the only one who can answer in truth. Jesus Christ.  A love that is offered to us while we are yet sinners, and made perfect in our lives via his spirit everyday we remain here on earth.  On earth as it is in heaven, something to ponder.  And the same spirit that comforted a young Joe and Mary is available to us today, as we are.  With blessings increasing for those who say yes to Christ, but vanishing to those who choose to neglect him or reject him.  It is the spiritual abundance that makes the difference...

So there is earthly life and heavenly life, and we get to choose.  We are all born into sin and fall short of the glory of God, but we don’t need to remain that way.  Today we can embrace the hope, the joy, and peace given via the spirit freely.  We can find a way through our situations, and grow closer to God and be saved.  Not a bad day’s work.  Today experience the joy and the ability to share in a loving relationship with God, and with others.  When church, family, society, and friends fail, Jesus never does, nor ever will. It is his spirit calling to you today, to bring you out of darkness into light.  In all the above case they could have remained victims, only in Jesus did they become victors.  On earth as it will be in heaven, designed to teach us there is an afterlife worth waiting for.  And that you can have that same life right now...for we can only see dimly, but the spirit sees all.  Ponder that, Mary did....

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

 

bedtime stories

Little Brown Bruno was a bear, the subject of a children’s book my grandmother used to read to me when I was very young.  Bruno was inquisitive, a big word for a 5 year old, curious would be better used today, and got into many situations when he didn’t obey his Mom and Dad.  But every story had a happy ending, with a lesson attached as to why to listen to your parents.  How to use your head for more than a hat rack, and lessons of courtesy, respect, and obedience.  All good things to teach a 5 year old, or any any year old, but to me the exciting part was Little Brown Bruno getting into trouble.  And at an age where monsters and ghosts were scary, one story has stuck with me all these years.  Retold to my sons when they were growing up in various ways...still a family favorite. 

LBB slept with his window open on summer nights, and thought he heard a noise.  Then another, like a monster, he thought, and waking his parents, and told he was dreaming, went back to sleep.  But he heard it again, and after waking his parents night after night, was told “don’t wake us again.  It is a dream you are having..”   But LBB knew different.  He shared the story of the noise with his friends, who chided him, he was making it up, LBB you’re just a baby.  But he persisted, and one night, when the moon was full, he heard the noise again.  It sounded like a man crying for help, a deep voice, but without words, just groaning.  And how his imagination exploded inside him as he decided to investigate.  So tiptoeing past his parents room, he went out in the back yard toward the sound, flashlight in hand.  Shaking, not sure of who or what he would see.  And what to do when he did!

As he walked slowly through the wet grass towards the groaning noise, it got louder, and louder.  He would stop every few steps to see and hear, and consider going on.  Or going back to get his Dad, who might just yell at him, for little bears do not go out at night alone.  But the sound got louder, and in the moonlight he could see two figures, both larger than him.  They were out in Farmer Brown’s field, and in the bright moonlight saw one had horns.  Big horns...and was groaning load, calling out to someone or something.  He froze dead in tracks, what if this creature with the big horns was calling to him?  Was calling to get him?  It was dark and the middle of the night.  He was all alone, what if something happened to him?  What if no one found him until daylight?  And he froze, then went on...

Seeing the monster in a pen, he felt safer, then heard another noise behind him.  Frozen in fear, he felt hot breath on his neck, and started to cry.  So he ran, towards the groaning noise, and stopped at the fence.  Confronted by the monster with huge horns!  And hearing loud footsteps behind him, what to do?  Just before he was to pass out from fear, the monster charged him, huffing and puffing, and in the moonlight saw what his monster really was.  A huge long horn steer, Farmer Brown’s pride and joy.  Looking right at him, but really right past him.  For the hot breathing on his neck was another neighbors cow, who had broken out and was going to visit the bull.  The bull was calling to her, in love, the sound that scared LBB was really a love call from from cow to another!  Boy did he feel stupid!  And relieved.  What a story to tell his parents the next day, it was really a love call in the night from a bull to his loved one.  One that finally called LBB, and he just had to go see what it was.  He just hoped his parents would understand why is feet were wet....if they understood at all.

We are told the spirit intervenes with groanings, too deep for us to understand.  But what sounds like noise to us is really language from heaven, words that cannot be translated anywhere but in the spirit and by the spirit.  Jesus calls to us that way, maybe scary at first, then as our curiosity builds, we investigate.  Some call us foolish, some will discipline us for being weird.  Some will dismiss the claim altogether, but we know it is real.  We know we are being called, but by who?  Why?  It is only when we give into the spirit we see the truth.  And find salvation.  Then a relationship in Christ begins, and we pray.  But too many prayers are like LBB’s, just a “now I lay me down to sleep,” with no depth or knowing who we are praying to.  Books are written, courses taught, and sermons preached on how to pray, or pray more effectively.  Yet people go on, afraid of the groaning like LBB was.  Until they begin to pray more thoughtfully, to know prayer is part of a conversation, and too listen is the best part.  Why ask if you don’t want an answer?  Why seek if you don’t want to find?  It is the thoughtful, personal prayer that has meaning and significance, not just a rote bunch of words recited over and over.  It is the spirit drawing us to him, just like the bull reached out to his girlfriend the cow, and how LBB had to go see. 

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.  But the spirit has not given up on us, and is still desiring time to spend with us.  Hearing is the last sense to go in a person before death, but the spirit will continue to exist.  To live in heaven, or dwell in hell.  To call to you until your last breath is gone, wanting to save you.  Throughout the Bible prayer is representative of conversation with God.  Before sin Adam and Eve walked with him in person, after they had to call out to him.  He never left them, they left him.  From Noah to David to Job, to Jonah and Jeremiah to Saul to the 12 disciples, all heard a call from God and answered.  The conversation started, the relationship begun.  Reunited with God through Jesus Christ via his spirit.  So simple a bear could respond and did to the calling.  With on simple lesson to follow.

A man was telling me one morning of another book he had just read on how to pray.  Shaking my head, I had heard this story before, and hoped I wouldn’t again.  So I asked, “how do you speak to your wife?  Why don’t you speak with God the same way?”  He had never considered God as a person, the person of Jesus Christ.  You can have a conversation with God?  His prayer was with some cosmic cloud, his wife was physical, and he got the idea.  God is real, the calling is real.  Prayer is a dialogue, not a monologue.  Begin by listening, and respond to what the spirit is saying.  The groanings too deep for words will suddenly make sense.  And go far beyond any conversation or prayer you ever had before.  Take it from a little brown bear who heard groaning in the night, God hears, and God answers.  Do you?  And that’s no bull!

love with compassion,

Mike

matthew25biker.blogspot.com

*MIL lights in life and how to turn them off

We don’t do tune ups any more.  We do services.  The days of every 6000 miles replacing the plugs, points, and condensor are long gone.  Today electronic components do their work, and last for over 100,000 miles.  Or longer.  But spark plugs do eventually wear out and need to be replaced, if you remember to.  So we replace them, the major maintenance item is an oil and filter change.  Which is now extended due to superior oils.  But why, you ask, don’t we do tune ups any more?  And the answer is....

You don’t need too.  The computer, or ECU does that for you.  Thousands of times a second, the ECU is telling the engine to make adjustments, to make it run optimally.  Self tuning may be closer, as the engine is directed on how to function via sensors, who are reading constantly things such as temperature, pressure, intake temperature, and exhaust gases.  Not quite that simple, but essentially how it works.  And when it cannot make the necessary adjustments to run as designed, the feared check engine light comes on.  Which according to TV ads, can leave you stranded and cost thousands.  Pull over, stop the car, hide your kids, check your FICO score and call the dealer. And pray!  When in real life it often is much different.  Ever have your check engine light come on after getting gas?  Make sure your gas cap is secure.  Oops.  In all my years of dealing with automotive, I am hard pressed to remember any MIL light as they are referred to leaving someone stranded, unless they panicked.  In our old Ford Ranger, the light has been on for years, we know the problem, and clear it just before getting smogged.  It the reappears a few months later,  and we repeat the exercise when t needs to be smogged.  But don’t trust me, ask an expert who has more than his own well being and income at risk.  At its heart, the check engine light is doing just what it was designed for, to tell you the computer cannot make the correct adjustments any more.  No tune up needed....but you may be past the scheduled service.  When all else fails, read the manual, or at least look up what the flashing light  means when starting the car telling you service engine soon. 

Many of us Christians need a tune up, the check Jesus light is flashing, and we ignore it.  Under the guise of “everything’s OK,” we carry on.  But the spirit tells us different, and warns us.  God refers to this as the sword of the spirit, the rhema, the application of a passage or two in a given situation.  That when dealt with in the spirit leads us to better understanding, and to other scriptures bearing out the message he has for us.  It is the studying to find yourself approved that the spirit is trying to convey to you, not a memorization, not a study, not a work book based life.  It is being in tune with Jesus, and knowing when we stray, when trouble may be ahead, and what to do in the situation.  It is the same small voice that Elijah describes that we need to acknowledge and trust.  It is life to the fullest in Christ, not leaning on our own understanding.  Our own knowledge, our own position.  A good example is in a moment you are reminded of a scripture, then it leads to another, and soon you see the Lord in the midst of it all, and you find peace.  It may be something we forgot or failed to consider, but the spirit reveals it when we need it.  You may be studying Luke, but God takes you to Job, and reveals the solution.  Such is a spirit life based upon.

And so emphasizes being in the word.  Not just for study, but to get to know God, to see him in situations, and to trust him.  Because he is trustworthy.  Allstate, the Good Hands people, is recognized as the most trusted company in the world.  Insurance.  Keep up your premiums, and if you need them, hopefully you bought the coverage.  God’s policy is different, no exclusions, no deductibles, and no fancy words.  He calls it the gospel, good news, and we all can use more of that.  The spirit of the Lord is good news!  And when he brings something to mind, take it, heed it, and obey it.  Trust it.  The ultimate choice left up to us...how many weeks have you been living with your MIL light on, not heeding the spirit?  Only to have someone send you into overload, based on their opinion.  Who knows better man or the spirit?  God brings things to our minds for a reason, trust and obey!

Maybe better put rhema is the word used and applied to an experience.  To our very existence.  To who we are in Christ.  So many claim to be in the word, yet is the word found in them?  What is your Christian experience based on?  Studying to be approved by man, or experiencing Jesus first hand, out in the world and being a light?  When someone asks you, what would Jesus do? do you as a Christian know?  Do you know Jesus, is his word in you?  Or is your experience based on church only?  Study only?  Do you read and reread the same passage for study, but never get it?  Yet suddenly when needed, it jumps off the page, and the spirit reveals it to you.  That is the word, the rhema, the spirit making it come alive, who reveals the mysteries of Christ to us.  For us.  Through us.  A living and breathing testament to who Jesus Christ is!   Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Not just words to memorize or trip over, he is the word, just in time when needed. 

Rhema makes it personal, because being a Christian is supposed to be personal.  Individuals get saved, and make up the body.  And when one in the spirit, we hum and perform like the perfectly tuned engine we were designed to be.  If not....are you listening to what the spirit is saying?

Like my old Ranger, we can limp on for years with a MIL light on, warning us all is not well.  But why not let Jesus fix it?  Using factory parts, for a person he personally designed and created.  Knowing the solution, and knowing the bill is already paid.  It may require some change in us, but he will make the change.  But not violate our will.  Like the old Fram filter ad, Pay me now or pay me later.  The spirit is the filter we need.  Apply it to your life today, and be in tune with Jesus.  Run on all cylinders.  Experience Jesus.  Trust in the Lord and trust in his light.  His light is on, and he is always home.

By the way, MIL stands for Malfunction Indicator Light.  Time to reboot now....

love with compassion,

Mike

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