Fort Collins, Colorado

I will be in Fort Collins, Colorado next weekend (Sept 7-9) speaking on Saturday.  I you are interested in joining us, here are the contact details.  www.fathershousefc.com 970-402-0747.

Abide

To abide in Jesus means, at the very least, to see with his eyes—to see God, yourself, others, life with the mind and heart of Jesus.  To do that you must stop abiding in yourself, and that, at the very least, means that you must stop clinging to your way of seeing things, to your interpretations.  If you are going to abide in Jesus and see with his eyes you must listen to him, and you can’t actually listen if you are not aware that your own way of seeing could be dead wrong.  Well, perhaps you could listen, but you are listening to confirm you own thoughts rather than learn new ones. 

I suspect that most of us live with the unspoken mantra, ‘If it doesn’t make sense, it can’t be true.’  Those who face this secret mantra discover that a few more words need to be added.  ‘If it doesn’t make sense to me, it can’t be true.’  This is the assumption of the fallen mind, and the single greatest hindrance to our growth as persons in relationships.  We have an awful lot invested in the way we see things.  To admit that you could be as blind as a bat is scary because we have built our security on being right.  It is a false security, to be sure, but if you don’t see with Jesus’ eyes it’s the only security you have.  So you defend yourself, which is not relationship, and does not lead to communion.  How much time, I wonder, do we spend defending ourselves and our positions rather than listening to others, and not least to Jesus?  Insofar as we listen to Jesus we get to see with his eyes, love with his heart, and experience his life.  Insofar as we don’t we get to live with ourselves and our own worlds, stuck in our own delusions, victims in a world that doesn’t get it.  And that is a lonely place.

Holy Spirit, give us Jesus’ eyes.

The Shack Revisited

Available 2 October 2012

“The Shack Revisited is Baxter’s masterpiece.  On the canvas of The Shack he has distilled the heart of the Trinity.  This book is a Bible School for all of us, expounding the heart of the God who is love.  A must read.”

—Malcolm Smith, International Bible Teacher and author!of The Power of the Blood Covenant