Deep Well Discipleship

Damaged Fruit Growing up in rural Shelby County Missouri meant spending lots of time on the farm, one of my favorite places to be.  We had a farm just north of Shelbina that my dad called Beulah land and it had a small fruit orchard on it.  I loved walking through and picking pears, apples, or plums then eating one after another.  Nothing beat the taste of freshly picked fruit off the tree.  One of the worst things though is picking a piece of fruit, taking a bite, then realizing it is rotten due to worms or birds eating on it.    We, the church, are to be an orchard for the LORD.   As we live out in the community, or gather together, we are to bear good fruit that others would know Christ.   Matthew 12:33 says “Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad; for a tree is known by it’s fruit.” (CSB)   When we live out gospel lives, we bear good fruit as we live out the great commandment and the great commission.   When we are striving to be like Christ

HEAD, HEART, HANDS Have you ever met a know it all?  You know, the person that tends to know everything about everything.  They might even know about your life more than you do as well.  The problem I tend to see in the life of a know it all is that they often fail to live out some, if not all, of the knowledge they have.  They know what foods not to eat but they eat them anyway.  They know every call to make at a sporting event but they don't coach or officiate.  Know it all types tend to posses lots of knowledge but it never seems to move from their head to their hearts and from their hearts to their hands.  This is often true in the realm of Christians, more than many would ever admit. James writes that faith apart from works is foolish (Jas 2:20).  He is not saying works save you but if you indeed claim to have faith in Christ your works should express that faith.  Often as Christians we have lots of knowledge that we have garnered in Sunday school, worship, small grou

I’m not racist but… For years the phrase that makes my skin crawl always starts the same way “I’m not racist, but…”  What follows is always a racist statement.  It is as if the first part of the statement clears the way for us to be horrible people and get away with it.  It is akin to “Don’t take offense to this, but…”  Like someone will say “Oh, since you said don’t be offended I guess I can’t be…”  Seriously, you are just looking for a way to be a not very nice person and have an avenue to justify yourself.  Racism is unfortunately still a problem in America and it is even more so unfortunately a problem in churches.  I have had more than one “Christian” come to me with the crushing and sinful statement “I’m not a racist, but…” and follow up with something that is racist yet they justify it as not racist because they said they weren’t racist.  The reality is we can say “I’m not a racist” but if our words speak in a racially demeaning way the truth is you probably are racist, a

Making the most of time In the movie "Alice Through the Looking Glass" Time makes the statement we all will one day face "Tick-Tock you time is up!"  This is a fearful statement for most because it is a stark reminder of what we know and see in the Bible that life is but a vapor, a mist.  James says "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (Jas 4:14b)  Time is something that we all desire to control yet truly have no control of for we cannot add a single moment, hour, day to our lives (Matt 6:27).  When we are young we often view time as our friend, days are long and go by so slowly, then as we age we begin to see time as our foe, time moves quickly and we do not have enough of it.  So what should our view of time be as Christians?  Paul writes in Ephesians "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of your time, because the days are evil." (Eph 4:15-16) Going throu