Over the last few weeks, we have covered some of the basic issues of judging and judgment. Understanding these is basic to living a great Christian life because they affect our basic relationship to others.

         A prevailing teaching throughout Scripture is that we cannot understand God without understanding His judgments. “Eternal judgment” is listed as one of the basic doctrines of the faith upon which a solid foundation for the Christian life is laid. Our King is also the Judge, and we must know Him as such, or we will not truly...

        As we have covered, it is a common belief that Christians have been instructed not to judge. But nowhere does Jesus say that, and nowhere is this said in the Scriptures. Some flawed English translations give the impression that Jesus said this when He talked about taking the log out of our own eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. However, what He taught there and elsewhere is not to judge wrongly. He did not say not to try to remove the speck from someone else’s eye, but that we must be...

         Last week we began to address one way we can judge by appearances that can be wrong. I shared a prophetic experience I had years ago in which I was shown a man of God who was accomplishing many things for the Lord. I was then shown a man who appeared to be homeless walking down the street. His name was Angelo. As he walked, a little kitten got in his way, and he roughly thrust it aside with his foot. The Lord then asked me which of these two men I thought He was most...

         In the summer of 2014, I had an experience with the Lord in which He said I was no longer a servant, but a friend. It was like being born again, again. I have had the most wonderful times with the Lord ever since, but in some ways this has been much harder for me than learning to be a servant. Even so, everything I learned being a disciple and a bondservant was necessary for this next level of relationship with the Lord.

         It has taken me forty-five years to get to this point. I...

         When the Lord called me to take on some very difficult restoration projects, it was the best of times and the worst of times. He gave me jobs no one else wanted. They were hard on me and harder on my reputation, and sometimes cost me good friends. But through them I got to know the heart of the Lord better than I ever had through study. The harder the job, the more deeply I grew to know Him and the more fulfilling it was, and I think, the more fruit that came.

         We are...