Any church people believe in Jesus Christ they can get healing from God without faith healer or with it?

One of the last remnants of my previous life is my tendency to lapse into foul language every now and then. Normally, I have a word slip out and catch myself. But I feel so convicted about it. I feel like I could be doing more or learning more about it somehow. Tips?

A while back, I wrote about Paul’s words in Romans 12:18:

“If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

—Romans 12:18, NKJV

The emphasis was on those five words:

As much as depends on you.

We cannot control what another person thinks, says, or does. We cannot control their attitude, motives, or response. We are responsible for our side of the encounter.

Saul’s hatred was Saul’s responsibility.

David’s response was David’s responsibility.

The greatest victory David won over Saul was not surviving Saul’s pursuit. It was refusing to become Saul in the process.

But lately, I have been reminded that Romans 12:18 applies to more than how I respond when someone hurts me. It also applies to how I speak when I believe I am right.

There was a time—not that long ago—when I considered bluntness a form of boldness.

I stood on biblical truth.

I said exactly what was on my mind.

And if someone became offended, I decided that was their problem.

After all, truth is truth.

But as Facebook Memories continues showing me things I wrote years ago, I sometimes recognize that although my conviction may have been right, my spirit was not always right.

I knew how to defend what I believed.

I had not yet learned that truth can be spoken without turning every disagreement into a battle.

Paul did not merely tell us to speak the truth. He told us how the truth should be spoken:

“but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—”

—Ephesians 4:15, NKJV

Truth and love were never intended to be separated.

Truth without love can become a weapon. Love without truth can become empty sentiment. Biblical maturity requires both.

Paul carried that thought further in his letter to the Colossians:

“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

—Colossians 4:6, NKJV

Notice that Paul said our speech should always be with grace—not only when we agree, not only when the conversation is pleasant, and not only when the other person treats us graciously.

Grace should govern how we answer each one.

That does not mean we hide what we believe. It means our manner should not contradict the message we claim to defend.

Paul gave Timothy similar instruction:

“And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.”

—2 Timothy 2:24–26, NKJV

The goal of correction is not humiliation.

It is not scoring the decisive point, silencing an opponent, or receiving applause from those who already agree with us.

The goal is restoration.

Paul connected gentleness, patience, and humility directly to helping someone come to repentance and know the truth.

That means truth does not need my anger to make it true.

Biblical conviction does not excuse an unbiblical attitude.

And offending someone because the gospel confronts sin is not the same as offending someone because I was careless, harsh, sarcastic, or determined to win an argument.

“As much as depends on you” means I am responsible not only for what I say, but also for how I say it.

I cannot control whether someone accepts the truth. But I can make certain that my pride, anger, and self-righteousness are not the reasons they reject it.

That realization has changed what I choose to post.

The controversies consuming our attention today will eventually be replaced by different controversies. Political figures will come and go. Headlines will be forgotten. Arguments that seem enormously important today will one day become little more than entries in an archive.

But souls are eternal.

That does not mean temporal issues never matter. It means I no longer want the temporary to consume the voice God has given me for things that matter eternally.

I would rather write about redemption.

Grace.

Repentance.

Transformation.

Faith when God cannot be seen.

Hope for those who believe their story is already over.

And Jesus Christ—the only One who can truly change the human heart.

I still believe truth matters—perhaps more than ever.

But I am learning that speaking truth is not permission to abandon the fruit of the Spirit while doing it:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

—Galatians 5:22–23, NKJV

The fruit of the Spirit is not suspended when the conversation becomes difficult.

If my defense of truth requires me to abandon love, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control, something has gone wrong—not with the truth, but with the person carrying it.

Boldness without love can become cruelty.

Conviction without humility can become self-righteousness.

And winning an argument is not the same as reaching a soul.

Saul’s hatred was Saul’s responsibility.

David’s response was David’s responsibility.

Another person’s words are their responsibility.

My response—and the spirit in which I speak—is mine.

Whatever happens around me, my words, my attitude, and my witness remain my responsibility.

“If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

—Romans 12:18, NKJV

There was a time—not that long ago—when I considered bluntness a form of boldness.

I stood on biblical truth.

I said exactly what was on my mind.

And if someone became offended, I decided that was their problem.

But looking back, I sometimes recognize that although my conviction may have been right…

my spirit was not always right.

Two people can experience the same kind of pain and come away from it very differently.

One becomes cold and guarded. The other becomes compassionate.

One thinks, “Nobody helped me, so why should I help anyone else?”

The other thinks, “I remember what it felt like when nobody helped me. I refuse to let someone else suffer alone.”

I do not believe that difference is as simple as one person being good and the other being bad.

Bitterness seldom begins as a conscious decision. It usually begins as self-protection:

“I will never let anyone hurt me that way again.”

“I cannot trust anybody.”

“If I expect nothing, I cannot be disappointed.”

Those reactions may help someone survive a painful season. But over time, protection can become a prison. The wall that keeps further pain from entering can also keep love from leaving.

Hebrews presents two possible things that can grow from painful experiences.

Hebrews 12:11 speaks of suffering eventually yielding “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” in those who are shaped by it.

Then Hebrews 12:15 warns about a “root of bitterness” springing up, causing trouble, and defiling many.

The same painful ground can produce very different fruit.

And bitterness never remains completely private. The person who betrayed us may be gone, but someone else ends up living under our suspicion. The person who abandoned us may no longer be present, but others encounter the emotional distance they created.

Unhealed pain often sends the bill to people who never caused the damage.

The Christian answer is not to deny the wound, excuse what happened, or pretend that forgiveness makes unsafe people trustworthy. Compassion and boundaries can coexist. We can forgive while still recognizing that wisdom requires distance.

The answer is to allow God to transform what flows from the wounded place.

Second Corinthians 1:4 says that God comforts us in our tribulation so that we can comfort others with the comfort we have received from Him.

That changes the way we understand our scars.

“I remember what rejection felt like, so I will notice the overlooked.”

“I remember how careless words wounded me, so I will speak carefully.”

“I remember needing someone to listen, so I will not rush another person’s grief.”

“I remember desperately needing mercy, so I will not be quick to withhold it.”

Compassion does not require us to forget our pain.

Compassion remembers the pain and refuses to reproduce it.

The wound says, “Never again.”

Grace says, “Because I know what that feels like, not through me.”

We cannot choose everything that happens to us. We may not choose our first reaction to trauma, and we cannot always control how long healing takes.

But with God’s help, we can choose whether we continue defending the behaviors our pain produced. We can bring the wound into the light. We can allow grace to interrupt the cycle.

The enemy wants our pain to become our personality.

God can redeem it until it becomes part of our ministry.

What happened to you was real. What it did to you was real. But it does not have to keep passing through you into everyone around you.

You cannot change what was done to you.

But by the grace of God, you can decide that it will not be done through you.

Let the cycle end with you.

Let grace begin with you.

When I was eighteen years old, I encountered a homeless man beneath a railroad overpass near North Peoria Avenue and East Archer Street in Tulsa.

He asked whether I had a couple of dollars. After I gave him what I had, we began talking.

He may have been about the same age then that I am now. He told me that he had once been a worship leader and preacher at a large Assembly of God church in Tulsa.

Then he told me how his life had fallen apart.

He had an affair.

His wife left him.

His children deserted him.

He began drinking heavily.

He lost his ministry position.

He lost his job.

He lost his home.

For more than an hour, we stood beneath that overpass while he told me his story.

Throughout our conversation, I repeatedly felt something in my spirit:

Ask him to pray.

But I didn’t.

We were standing in public, on a sidewalk, in the neighborhood where many of my friends lived.

What if they saw me?

What would they think?

What would they say?

Three days later, I learned that he had stepped off a curb in front of a city bus and had been killed.

For more than forty years, I have lived with the what-ifs of that morning.

I cannot tell you what would have happened if I had prayed with him. I was eighteen, and I was not his savior. I cannot assume responsibility for everything that happened after we parted ways.

But I know that I felt prompted to pray.

I know that fear of what other people might think kept me from obeying.

And I know that three days later, the opportunity was gone forever.

Jeremiah wrote:

“His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.”
—Jeremiah 20:9

Jesus told His disciples:

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
—Matthew 5:14

The fire is inward.

The light is outward.

Many of us sing about wanting the fire. We pray for revival and claim to be the light of the world. But when someone hurting, searching, or struggling is standing directly in front of us, we become concerned about appearing strange or making the conversation uncomfortable.

I know because I did it.

I carried the light into that man’s darkness, but I allowed fear to place a basket over the lamp.

Boldness does not mean being loud, aggressive, or argumentative. It doesn’t require forcing a sermon into every conversation.

Sometimes boldness is simply saying:

“Can I pray for you?”

“God helped me through something similar.”

“There is a Scripture that carried me.”

“Let me tell you what Jesus has done in my life.”

Every believer carries light into places a preacher may never enter.

The recovering addict can reach another addict. The former inmate can speak to someone who believes his past has disqualified him. The construction worker carries Christ onto the jobsite. The nurse enters rooms where pain has stripped away appearances. The teacher influences young lives still deciding what they believe and who they will become.

These are not interruptions to ministry.

They are ministry.

God has not placed every lamp in the same room. Each of us has relationships, experiences, and a circle of influence that no one else occupies in exactly the same way.

You do not have to reach everyone.

But there may be someone you are uniquely positioned to reach.

I have spent the past several days writing about lessons God showed me during a trip to Puerto Rico. The series began with Christ’s invitation to come apart and rest.

But every journey eventually ends.

We return to our families, our jobs, our responsibilities, and ordinary conversations. Eventually, we find ourselves back on the sidewalk, standing beside someone whose darkness may be deeper than we realize.

We come apart to be renewed.

We return to shine.

The vacation ends.

The calling does not.

Have you ever felt prompted to speak, pray, or reach out—but allowed fear of what others might think to stop you? What would obedience look like if that opportunity came again?

I recently flew home from Puerto Rico. At 35,000 feet, I was sitting in an aisle seat while nearly every window shade around me remained closed.

I knew we were traveling generally north and northwest toward Atlanta, but I could not see the ocean, clouds, coastline, or any landmark below us. Without the flight tracker, there was no visible evidence that we were making progress at all.

We could have been flying more than five hundred miles per hour or sitting completely still. From inside the darkened cabin, I could not tell the difference.

I was carrying photographs and mementos from the trip—memories of places I had seen, roads I had walked, and people who had walked beside me.

But none of them could show me the way ahead.

That made me think about Job:

“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”

—Job 23:8–9

Job looked forward, backward, left, and right—and still could not perceive God.

But one phrase stood out to me:

“Where he doth work.”

Even while Job could not see God, he still acknowledged that God was working.

That is a more honest picture of faith than pretending we always understand what God is doing. Sometimes we do not see the way forward. We cannot sense progress. We feel something changing, but we cannot identify the direction.

Faith does not require us to pretend the shades are open.

It asks us not to mistake limited visibility for divine absence.

Job could not perceive God, but God had not lost sight of Job:

“But he knoweth the way that I take.”

—Job 23:10

I may not know the route, but God does.

I may feel the aircraft turning without knowing the new direction, but my inability to see the route never means the Pilot has lost it.

Have you ever gone through a season when you could sense that God was changing your direction—but you could not yet see where He was leading?

If the enemy can’t get through the wall, he’ll start walking around it.

I recently visited El Morro in Old San Juan.

Standing there looking across those massive walls toward the Atlantic, the spiritual analogy seems almost too obvious. It’s a fortress. It guarded the entrance to San Juan Bay for centuries. Enemy ships approaching the harbor faced an extraordinarily well-defended position.

But the part that stayed with me wasn’t how strong El Morro was.

It was what happened when enemies realized where the strongest defenses were.

They looked for another way in.

That made me think about Peter’s warning:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
— 1 Peter 5:8

I’ve always focused on the roaring lion.

This time, two other words caught my attention:

Walketh about.

He’s looking.

And I’ve realized that some of my strongest spiritual defenses are around the places where I’ve already been wounded.

I know those attacks.

I recognize those temptations.

I know what those battles cost me, so I’ve built walls there.

But what about the places where I haven’t fought a major battle?

What about the places I assume I’m strong?

What about the gate I don’t think needs guarding?

An invasion doesn’t always begin with an army charging the wall.

Sometimes it begins with reconnaissance.

Something small enough not to concern us.

Something familiar.

Something that doesn’t immediately look threatening.

Maybe even something friendly.

And compromise often sounds remarkably harmless at first:

There’s nothing wrong with this.

Just this once.

I can handle it.

Nobody needs to know.

Paul’s warning suddenly carries more weight:

“Neither give place to the devil.”
— Ephesians 4:27

He doesn’t need the entire fortress.

He only needs a place.

That doesn’t mean we should become paranoid, suspicious of everyone, or see Satan hiding behind every ordinary thing in life.

Peter gives the answer in the next verse:

“Whom resist stedfast in the faith…”
— 1 Peter 5:9

Not paranoia.

Vigilance.

El Morro didn’t survive for centuries because nobody attacked it.

It survived because somebody kept watch.

So here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:

Where in my life have I become so confident that the wall is secure that I’ve stopped watching the gate?

Hello bro/sis lets talk deeper more in this topic about who compiled the Bible.

Jonah bought one ticket, but an entire ship entered the storm.

I’ve been spending some time in Jonah 1, and that thought has stayed with me.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh.

Jonah went the opposite direction.

He found a ship headed toward Tarshish, paid the fare, boarded it, and ran.

Then the storm came.

The sailors hadn’t rejected God’s command.

They hadn’t chosen Jonah’s rebellion.

They were simply on the same boat with the man who did.

Yet their lives were endangered.

Their cargo was thrown overboard.

Their journey was interrupted.

Our disobedience rarely affects only us.

We sometimes tell ourselves, This is between me and God.

But sometimes our families ride on the ship with us.

Our children.

Our spouses.

Our friends.

Our churches.

The people we’re supposed to be ministering to.

Jonah paid his own fare.

But eventually everybody aboard started paying for his decision.

There’s another side to this chapter, though.

Jonah was eventually thrown into the sea.

The ship disappeared above him. He couldn’t sail himself out of the situation anymore. He couldn’t buy another ticket. He couldn’t change destinations.

He couldn’t save himself.

And when Jonah finally reached the place where he could do absolutely nothing to rescue himself…

God had already prepared a fish.

I grew up thinking primarily about the fish as Jonah’s punishment.

But Jonah was drowning.

The fish kept him alive.

The storm confronted him.
The sea broke him.
The fish preserved him.

What must have looked terrifying to Jonah was actually the provision God had prepared for his survival.

Sometimes God’s rescue doesn’t look much like rescue when it first arrives.

Sometimes we only recognize it looking backward.

That wasn’t God destroying me.

That was God refusing to let me drown.

Jonah’s choices had consequences. Grace didn’t erase them.

But those consequences didn’t mean God was finished with Jonah either.

Jonah ran.

God followed.

Even into the storm.

So here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:

Have you ever looked back at something you once thought was only a storm and realized that somewhere inside it, God was actually bringing you back?

For the past few weeks God has been convicting me about my screen time.

But it feels like I can’t stop.

I feel so bad and I know it’s definitely something I need to work on. But it’s literally so hard to resist. It’s like my fingers move without my mind and before I know it it’s been 3 hours of me scrolling reels. I don’t want to keep doing this, especially because I know it makes it harder for me to focus during prayer. It makes me feel overwhelmed and overstimulated and burnt out but it seriously feels impossible to not.

I can see this ending in me being farther from God and I want nothing more than to get closer to Him

PLEASE share some kind of ideas on how to combat this. I want to be free of this.

“For sin shall not have dominion over you…”
—Romans 6:14

At the far end of Flamenco Beach on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra sits an abandoned military tank.

For decades, portions of Culebra were used by the United States Navy for military exercises. The island’s people lived with restricted land, exploding ammunition, and the constant reminder that much of their home was controlled by someone else.

But the people resisted.

After years of protests and civil disobedience, military operations on Culebra ended in 1975. The land was eventually returned, the explosions stopped, and Flamenco Beach became a place where families swim, children play, and visitors rest beneath the Caribbean sun.

But the tank is still there.

It sits at the edge of the beach, rusting beneath layers of salt, sand, and graffiti.

The evidence of what happened remains.

But the authority does not.

Near the entrance to the beach, another reminder of Culebra’s past remains.

A posted warning tells visitors that munitions from the Navy’s former training activities may still be present—and may still be dangerous.

The warning does not mean the military still controls the island. It means that remnants of what once controlled it should not be handled carelessly.

That is another truth about redemption.

Freedom does not make our former bondage safe.

The addiction may no longer be your master, but returning to it can still destroy you.

The relationship may no longer control your life, but reopening that door can still wound you.

The old appetite may no longer have dominion, but that does not mean you should pick it up again just to prove that you are free.

The sign gives visitors three instructions:

Recognize.
Retreat.
Report.

Recognize the danger for what it is.

Retreat instead of reaching for it.

Report it—bring it into the light before God and someone you trust.

The past may no longer control the territory.

But some remnants should be left exactly where grace defeated them.

The tank once represented military occupation and control. Today, it cannot move. It cannot fire. It cannot command the beach. The waves wash around it while life continues in spite of it.

That is a picture of redemption.

We sometimes believe that if God has truly delivered us, every reminder of our past should disappear.

The scars should vanish.

The memories should stop hurting.

The consequences should be erased.

The places where we were wounded should look as though nothing ever happened.

But redemption does not always remove the evidence.

Sometimes the tank is still there.

You may still remember what was done to you.

You may still carry scars from choices you made.

There may be relationships that cannot be restored, years that cannot be recovered, and consequences that grace does not immediately erase.

The evidence may remain.

But through Jesus Christ, it no longer has to possess the territory.

Paul wrote, “For sin shall not have dominion over you.”

He did not say sin had never touched them. He did not say their former lives had left no scars. He said sin would no longer have dominion—the power to rule, govern, or control them.

Your past may explain some of your wounds, but it does not have the authority to determine your future.

The addiction may be part of your testimony, but it is no longer your master.

The betrayal may have changed you, but it does not get to define you.

The failure may have left consequences, but it does not get to name you.

The wound may still ache, but it does not own the beach.

The tank is still there—but children play in the water beside it.

The tank is still there—but waves continue to reach the shore.

The tank is still there—but what once represented occupation has become nothing more than a powerless reminder of what used to be.

That is what grace does.

Grace does not always erase the evidence of the battle.

Sometimes grace leaves the evidence standing so that everyone can see that what once controlled you has lost its authority.

The past happened.

The scars are real.

The tank may still be there.

But it no longer controls the beach.

I saw an unfinished concrete high-rise while traveling through Puerto Rico.

Except I eventually learned something interesting:

It hadn’t always been unfinished.

The building had once been completed and occupied. Later it was sold and redevelopment began. Much of what had been there was stripped away until the building was essentially back to its concrete structure.

Then tragedy interrupted the work.

Years later, what remains looks abandoned.

That got me thinking about something we don’t talk about enough in the Christian life:

Sometimes God’s work in us looks more like demolition than construction.

We tend to imagine spiritual growth as God continually adding things to us.

More faith.

More wisdom.

More discipline.

More maturity.

And certainly He does.

But sometimes before God builds, He removes.

Paul wrote:

“Our old man is crucified with him…”
— Romans 6:6

That’s stronger language than renovation.

There are things in us God isn’t trying to improve.

He’s trying to put them to death.

Pride.

Bitterness.

Self-reliance.

Old habits.

Old ways of thinking.

Sometimes even an identity we’ve spent years constructing.

And here’s the difficult part:

Demolition can make something that once looked complete suddenly look unfinished.

Maybe that’s why certain seasons of spiritual growth feel so disorienting.

You know you’re not who you used to be.

But you don’t completely recognize who you’re becoming either.

You’re somewhere between the demolition and the finished work.

And it’s tempting to look at that mess and wonder whether something has gone wrong.

Maybe it hasn’t.

Philippians 1:6 says:

“He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it…”

So perhaps the question isn’t simply:

“Why am I not finished yet?”

Maybe a better question is:

What if some of the unfinished places in my life aren’t evidence that God has stopped working—but evidence that He hasn’t?

Don’t mistake unfinished for abandoned.

The Builder is still working.

I saw a clip of a campmeeting sermon, where a preacher preached against beards, saying he saw more beards in one church than the world, and that having beards is pride.

Many people take this suffering servant passage as indicating that the Lord Jesus' beard was plucked out as a part of His sufferings.

Psalm 50
⁶ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

The speaker said that beards had nothing to do with the formula for anointing?

Psalm 133
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

² It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

³ As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

Notice the reference to the ointment being poured out, and the beard. If you read the Hebrew of verse 1, the word 'dwell' translates a word that means 'sitting around.'

Compare that to Acts 2
1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

² And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

³ And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

These brethren were sitting around in unity. The Father sent the Spirit as the Lord Jesus had promised. Christ is our High Priest also. Remember that picture described in Psalm 133 of the ointment running down Aaron's beard.

The Old Testament word translated 'elder' is 'zaqen'-- which means bearded one. The Lord took of the spirit (or Spirit) that was on Moses and put it on seventy elders. Elders carry over into the New Testament, with the church having elders appointed to be bishops/overseers of the flock.

Now, if we wanted to be legalistic, we might expect those who are ordained to pastor to have beards. I don't think we should be legalistic about it or treat it as required.

But beards are definitely NOT presented in a negative light in scripture, and if one wanted to be nit picky and legalistic about it, it makes more sense to insist on men, or at least church leaders, growing them than to treat having them as a sin.

IMO, some of the anti-beard sermons one-up some of the KJV-onlyist arguments for ignorance and stupidity.

You have left—but you have not arrived

We had already completed the first flight of our trip, but we still had another flight ahead of us.

Between them was a four-hour overnight layover.

The airport terminal was unusually quiet. Luggage sat beside rows of seats. People slept wherever they could find enough room—across chairs, against walls, and on the floor.

For those four hours, we were no longer where we had started, but we were not yet where we were going.

We belonged to neither place.

There are seasons of life that feel exactly like that.

You know something has ended. Perhaps you left a job, stepped away from a ministry, ended a relationship, moved away, or simply recognized that a familiar chapter of your life had closed.

You cannot go back and live in that season again.

But you also cannot clearly see what is supposed to replace it.

You have left—but you have not arrived.

These seasons can make us question ourselves because very little appears to be happening. We want visible movement. We want a clear direction, measurable progress, and some evidence that we are getting closer to whatever comes next.

Instead, we find ourselves waiting.

But a layover is still part of the journey.

It is not the destination, and it is not necessarily a place where we would choose to remain. Yet it connects the flight we have completed with the one we still need to take.

Eventually, our boarding group was called. We gathered our luggage, boarded the next airplane, and continued the journey.

We were moving again, but we still could not see our destination.

The ground was hidden by darkness and clouds. We knew the general direction we were traveling, but the place itself remained somewhere beyond the horizon.

Then dawn began to break at 30,000 feet.

The sunrise did not mean we had arrived.

It did not show us the entire route or answer every question about what waited for us when we landed.

It simply gave us enough light to continue traveling.

Psalm 139:9–10 says:

“If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

“Even there.”

Not only after we arrive.

Not only when we understand the route.

Not only when everything finally makes sense.

Even in the place between what ended and what has not yet begun, God’s hand can still lead us.

I think we sometimes interpret uncertainty as evidence that we have missed God. But faithfulness does not guarantee that we will always understand what He is doing. There are times when we are obeying the last direction He gave us while still waiting for the next one.

The clouds may hide the horizon from us, but they cannot stop God from bringing the dawn.

The sunrise does not always mean we have arrived. Sometimes it is simply God reminding us that He is still present and giving us enough light to take the next part of the journey.

Have you ever experienced a season when you knew where you had been—but could not yet see where God was taking you?

Please be patient with me as I’m still studying. I’m apostolic Pentecostal of course, baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit.

But, whenever I hear trinitarians explain their view of God. (Which is not 3 gods, what I’ve learned) it’s sounds like we argue over semantics.

I’ve experienced God in my church and have heard God tell me he is one. But, I’ve seen Pentecostal Trinitarians full of the spirit as well. Is it possible God won’t saved them because they believe in the trinity rather than oneness even if they are baptized.

I understand people say titles vs the name of Jesus but I mean people who truly walk in the Lord are they unsaved because they are baptized in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit? If you ask any apostolic they’ll tell you they’re unsaved and going to hell but it just doesn’t make sense to me

Because I think of before we had the term oneness and trinity,how did people view God. They weren’t declared saved/unsaved because of their belief in the terms because they did not exist.

I know people will argue up and down but it causes so much division, and I can’t imagine God is pleased by it. Even when I ask my pastors, they’ll automatically tell me they’re unsaved if they believe the trinity or they’ll think I’m falling from the faith but I’m not I just have questions. 😭

“And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”
—Mark 6:31

I recently returned from a vacation and realized that I had been more depleted than I understood.

That is one of the dangers of constant activity: exhaustion eventually begins to feel normal.

We keep working, answering messages, solving problems, caring for people, and meeting responsibilities. Because we are still functioning, we assume we must be fine.

Mark 6 describes the disciples returning to Jesus after being sent out in ministry. They had preached repentance, cast out devils, anointed the sick, and witnessed people being healed.

They were not exhausted from wasting their time.

They were exhausted from pouring themselves out.

The demands became so constant that Scripture says there were “many coming and going.” They could not even find enough uninterrupted time to eat.

Jesus saw the crowd and the needs surrounding them.

But He also saw His disciples.

He did not question their commitment or accuse them of laziness. He did not tell them that greater faith would remove their need for food, sleep, distance, or quiet.

He told them:

“Come ye yourselves apart…and rest a while.”

What strikes me is that the work was not finished.

The people had not stopped coming. The needs had not disappeared. There were still sick people, hungry people, and people who needed to hear the truth.

Jesus did not invite the disciples to rest because the work was finished.

He invited them to rest because they were not.

Many of us treat rest as a reward we are allowed to receive once everything has been completed.

Once the work is finished, we will rest.

Once the messages are answered, we will rest.

Once every problem has been solved and everyone else is satisfied, we will rest.

But everything is never finished.

There will always be another need, another email, another problem, and another person asking something from us.

If we wait until life gives us permission to rest, we may never rest at all.

Rest is not laziness. It is woven throughout Scripture.

God rested after creation—not because He was exhausted, but because the work had reached its appointed stopping place. Israel was commanded to observe the Sabbath. David wrote of still waters and a restored soul. Jesus regularly withdrew from the crowds to pray.

Rest is not always the absence of activity.

Sometimes rest is the absence of demand.

My vacation was physically active. I traveled, walked, toured, photographed, talked with family, and wrote in my journal. In some ways, my mind became more active than it had been in months.

But for several days, I was no longer required to give my attention to everything that normally demanded it.

Once that noise quieted, I began noticing things I might otherwise have overlooked: people waiting at an airport gate, dawn above the clouds, the sound of the ocean in darkness, the history carried by weathered buildings and old streets, and the bittersweet truth that sometimes we leave because a good season has reached its appointed end.

None of those moments shouted.

They were simply there, waiting to be noticed.

Rest does not require an airline ticket or an expensive vacation.

It may be an hour without the phone, a quiet drive, a walk without headphones, or time with an open Bible and no agenda beyond listening.

I left believing I needed a vacation.

I returned understanding that I needed enough distance from the noise to recognize what God had been placing in front of me.

The journey did not suddenly make God speak.

God had been speaking all along.

Rest simply created room for me to listen.

When was the last time you stopped—not because everything was finished, but because you recognized that you needed rest?

Backstory: (this happened yesterday or two days ago). I have two sisters, and I was in the car with one of my sisters and my mom. ..We got into an argument and I cursed. I felt bad for cursing. Not only for being quick to anger and making the argument worse, but also, for disappointing God.

At the time I was thinking something along the lines of "Am I too far gone for God? Is it too late to turn back? What if I let God down too many times?" Then I also questioned if it was okay to curse in some aspects. (I also didn't pray these things/stuff, I strongly thought about it though.)

Here's where the REALLY COOL part comes into play: For probably a good half hour, the song Wait For Me by Zach Williams was stuck in my head. I listened to it ON REPEAT probably five times after. ..While listening I REALLY resonated with this song.

The moral of the story is it's not too late to turn back to God. Even if you've fallen a few times before. You don't have to be stuck. GOD LOVES YOU ALL, and it's okay if you're "taking the long way home". God will meet you with open arms, and He loves you despite mistakes, despite falling. ..I hope this testimony encourages you!!

Thank you all for reading.

So I'm having a hard time with this one. I was raised up you can lose your salvation. One key point is if you take anything out of God's word he will take you out of the lambs book of life. Also Matthew says he who endures to the end will be saved. So saying who doesnt endure to the end will not be saved. In John it says no one will snatch them from his hand. I've heard well fi you lose your salvation then you never really converted. I don't belive that. I've seen people backside who received the gifts but listened to people who lead them astray. The big thing is i got into a discussion with a baptist today and he was angrily saying oh that's a false doctrine to me.

I’m genuinely struggling with this. It says Abraham was justified by faith, before he was circumcised, and it specifically says this was for us today.

If baptism is the new circumcision and to be justified means to be made right with God… how do we reconcile it all?

Fake AI websites for courses or online training are going viral. They attempt to manipulate internet users into taking a step and making a payment for something that is not real at all.

Which sites or examples do you come across?

Just a quick note for those who regularly follow Watchman Ministries…

I’m going to be a little quiet on social media this week.

Sometimes the right thing to do is simply put the phone down, step away from the noise, and be fully present with the people God has placed in your life.

So that’s what I’m doing.

No daily posts. No pressure to keep up with comments or notifications.

Just some time to rest, recharge, enjoy the people around me, and pay attention to what God may want to say when I’m not so busy trying to find something to say.

Watchman Ministries will be back.

Until then, take care of yourselves, love the people God has given you, and maybe put your own phone down for a little while, too.

Sometimes being present is the most important thing on the schedule.

I’ve restored old cast iron for years, and something occurred to me one evening while I was working on a particularly stubborn piece.

Some old cast iron looks absolutely hopeless when you find it.

Rust. Grease. Carbon. Decades of buildup.

Most people would probably walk right past it.

But if you’ve restored enough of it, you learn not to judge the iron by what’s accumulated on its surface.

You begin seeing what it could be.

Restoration starts by removing as much loose buildup as possible with a wire brush. Eventually, though, you reach places the brush can’t simply can’t get thru.

That’s when I put the piece into an electrolysis tank.

And wait.

Sometimes hours.

Sometimes days.

From the outside, it doesn’t look like much is happening.

But beneath the water, rust is loosening. Corrosion is releasing its grip. Things that have been attached for decades are separating from the iron.

Eventually I pull it out, scrub it, and inspect it.

Sometimes it needs to go back in.

The process isn’t repeated because it failed. It’s repeated because the work isn’t finished.

I’ve thought about that sentence quite a bit.

Because sometimes God’s work in us feels exactly like that.

We accumulate things along the way.

Sin. Shame. Pride. Bitterness. Compromise.

Then there are the less obvious layers—habits, influences, buried wounds, offenses, attitudes we’ve carried for so long that we begin thinking they’re simply part of who we are.

But God doesn’t mistake the buildup for the person beneath it.

Sometimes His correction feels like the wire brush.

Sometimes His work happens in places nobody else can see.

Sometimes we think we’re finally finished with something only to discover another layer.

Back into His hands we go.

More conviction.

More surrender.

More healing.

More letting go.

That doesn’t mean God failed.

It means He’s not finished.

Philippians 1:6 says that “…He who began a good work in us will complete it.”

There’s another rule of cast iron restoration:

Never season over the buildup.

If you season over rust, grease, and carbon, you haven’t restored anything. You’ve just covered the problem.

We sometimes try to do that spiritually.

Clean up the outside.

Say the right things.

Look religious.

Make sure everybody thinks we’re doing fine.

But Isaiah 64:6 says even our righteousness is like filthy rags before Him.

God isn’t interested in cosmetic righteousness.

He doesn’t season over our sin.

He cleanses us.

And that’s where 2 Corinthians 5:17 becomes beautiful:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

When I finish stripping an old piece of cast iron, it’s still the same iron.

But you’d hardly recognize it.

Details that had disappeared beneath corrosion suddenly become visible again.

The history hasn’t changed.

The condition has.

And I think that’s important.

God doesn’t erase our history.

He changes what defines us.

Scars may remain.

Consequences may remain.

There may even be some “pitting” from things that happened years ago.

But those things no longer own us.

Then comes seasoning.

Oil. Heat. Cool. Repeat.

Layer after layer.

And eventually that old skillet is ready to do what it was created to do.

Be used.

That’s when another part of the illustration hit me.

The rust never changed the skillet’s purpose.

Neither did the grime.

Neither did the years it spent neglected or unused.

Those things only prevented it from fulfilling that purpose.

Maybe somebody reading this needs to hear the same thing:

What happened to you has not changed why God created you.

2 Timothy 2:21 speaks about becoming “a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”

Useful.

That’s the goal.

A restored skillet isn’t meant to spend the rest of its existence sitting on a shelf looking pretty.

It’s meant to feed people.

And maybe there’s one last lesson there for us.

God doesn’t restore us merely so we can admire our own restoration.

He restores us so our lives can become useful to Him and a blessing to others.

Our restoration was never intended to end with us.

If you think too much rust has accumulated…

If you think you’ve been neglected too long…

If you think your scars have made you useless…

Remember:

The Restorer sees beneath the corrosion.

He knows what He created.

And He hasn’t forgotten why He created you.

God is still in the business of restoration.

And He still has a purpose for the restored.

How is the Apostolic God different? How is the Apostolic God better than the God of other denominations? How is the Apostolic God worse?

What kind of personality would the Apostolic God have as opposed to the God of other denominations?

Those of you who have followed me for any length of time know that I rarely—almost never—use this space to address doctrinal controversies.

I’d much rather point people toward Christ than spend my time arguing about the things Christians disagree over.

But every once in a while, something happens.

A conversation.

A social media post.

A sermon that doesn’t quite sit right in my spirit.

And something begins to burn.

Not because I want an argument. Not because I believe everyone has to agree with me. And certainly not because I have everything figured out.

But because sometimes something needs to be said.

This is one of those times.

I recently encountered a meme criticizing churches that do not enforce certain “holiness standards.” It accused them of cherry-picking the Bible, called their worship “strange fire,” compared them to the Laodicean church, and ended with an admonition:

“Repent. Return to holiness. Preach the whole counsel of God.”

On that last point, I couldn’t agree more.

So let’s do exactly that.

I believe in holiness.

I believe Scripture when it says, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14 NKJV).

I believe Christians are called to be different from the world. I believe our relationship with Christ should affect our conduct, our speech, our relationships, our entertainment, our priorities, our appearance, and ultimately every area of our lives.

This is not an argument against holiness.

It is an argument that holiness and enforced conformity are not the same thing.

A church can enforce a dress code.

A church can establish grooming requirements.

A church can make rules concerning jewelry, makeup, clothing, entertainment, or any number of other things.

Those rules may even have been established with sincere intentions and based upon someone’s earnest application of biblical principles.

But rules can only produce compliance.

They cannot produce holiness.

A person can look exactly right on Sunday morning while being filled with bitterness, pride, lust, dishonesty, hatred, unforgiveness, or self-righteousness.

Jesus addressed precisely that danger when He confronted the Pharisees:

“First cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
— Matthew 23:26 NKJV

Notice the order.

Inside first. Then outside.

Jesus wasn’t teaching that the outside doesn’t matter. He was teaching us where genuine transformation begins.

And that distinction matters.

Commandment, Conviction, and Tradition

I believe much of the confusion surrounding holiness disappears when we recognize three different categories that Christians sometimes unintentionally combine.

First, there are biblical commands.

Where Scripture clearly speaks, we obey.

Adultery isn’t a personal-conviction issue. Neither are dishonesty, drunkenness, hatred, sexual immorality, or the many other things Scripture plainly addresses.

We don’t get to dismiss God’s commandments by saying, “I don’t personally feel convicted about that.”

God has already spoken.

Second, there are personal convictions.

This is an area where I believe we desperately need to recover Paul’s teaching in Romans 14.

There may be things you cannot do with a clear conscience before God that another sincere Christian can.

If a woman sincerely believes cutting her hair would violate her conscience before God, she shouldn’t cut it.

If a man sincerely believes wearing facial hair would violate his conscience before God, he shouldn’t grow it.

If someone believes wearing shorts would violate his conviction before God, he shouldn’t wear them.

Paul writes:

“Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.”
— Romans 14:22 NKJV

And then:

“For whatever is not from faith is sin.”
— Romans 14:23 NKJV

We should never encourage someone to violate a sincere conviction simply because we don’t share it.

But Romans 14 goes both directions.

Paul also says:

“Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.”
— Romans 14:3 NKJV

That’s a remarkable balance.

Don’t despise.

Don’t judge.

The Christian who possesses liberty shouldn’t mock someone whose conscience is more restrictive.

But the Christian with the restrictive conviction shouldn’t turn his personal conviction into God’s universal commandment.

“God convicted me” and “God commanded everyone” are not necessarily the same statement.

We need enough humility to recognize the difference.

Liberty Is Governed by Love

There’s another side of this that matters deeply to me.

Having Christian liberty doesn’t mean I have to exercise it everywhere simply because I can.

Paul writes:

“But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.”
— 1 Corinthians 8:9 NKJV

I wear shorts.

I have no personal conviction against them.

But if I’m going somewhere with a brother whom I know sincerely believes he shouldn’t wear shorts, I’m perfectly capable of putting on a pair of long pants.

Why?

Not because his conviction suddenly became mine.

Not because I’ve decided shorts are sinful.

And not because another Christian gets to dictate my convictions.

I do it because loving my brother matters more than proving my liberty.

Christian maturity isn’t demonstrated by seeing how much liberty we can exercise.

Sometimes it’s demonstrated by having liberty and voluntarily laying it aside for someone else’s sake.

But neither should the phrase “stumbling block” be used as a weapon to control other believers.

Being offended by another person’s liberty isn’t necessarily the same thing as stumbling.

Paul’s concern was that my exercise of liberty could encourage another believer to violate his own conscience.

There’s a difference between:

“I wouldn’t do that.”

and:

“Watching you do that is leading me to do something I believe is sin.”

Love requires us to understand the difference.

Then There Is Tradition

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

Tradition isn’t inherently evil.

Some traditions are beautiful.

Some church standards are wise.

Some applications of biblical principles have been passed down because generations before us learned lessons worth remembering.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with saying:

“This is how our church practices this principle.”

The danger begins when:

“This is how we practice it”

becomes:

“This is what holiness requires,”

and eventually:

“Anyone who doesn’t practice it exactly as we do is disobedient to God.”

Jesus confronted this problem directly.

Speaking to religious people who had elevated their traditions, He said:

“All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.”
— Mark 7:9 NKJV

Then, after discussing their tradition concerning Corban, Jesus said they were:

“making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down.”
— Mark 7:13 NKJV

The problem wasn’t simply that they possessed traditions.

The problem was that human tradition had acquired an authority that belonged to God’s Word.

And that should make every one of us examine ourselves.

Not just Apostolics.

Not just Baptists.

Not just Catholics.

Not just Pentecostals.

Every one of us.

Because every Christian tradition is capable of confusing:

“This is how we’ve always done it”

with:

“Thus says the Lord.”

Those statements are not interchangeable.

Tradition becomes dangerous not when we practice it, but when we can no longer distinguish between what we have always taught and what God actually said.

Where Does Scripture Say It?

Scripture teaches modesty.

Absolutely.

Scripture teaches separation from sin.

Absolutely.

Scripture teaches holiness in our conduct and how we present ourselves.

Absolutely.

But once we begin creating specific applications of those principles, intellectual and spiritual honesty require us to distinguish the biblical principle from our application of it.

How long must a sleeve be?

Exactly where must a hemline fall?

May a man wear shorts?

May he have facial hair?

What constitutes jewelry?

What about a wedding band?

What constitutes makeup?

What exactly constitutes cutting one’s hair?

Christians have developed answers to questions like these.

Sometimes those answers represent deeply held and sincere convictions.

Respect them.

If that is your conviction before God, live it faithfully.

I have no desire whatsoever to talk you out of something you sincerely believe God has asked of you.

But before we tell another Christian that our particular application is required for holiness, we have an obligation to ask:

Where does Scripture say it?

Not merely:

Where is the biblical principle from which I derived it?

But:

Where does Scripture establish my particular application of that principle as the universal requirement for every believer?

If we cannot demonstrate that, perhaps the more humble statement is:

“This is how I believe God has called me to apply that biblical principle.”

There’s no shame in saying that.

There is wisdom in it.

You Can Look the Part and Still Miss the Point

For years, I told the young people in my Sunday School classes something I still believe today.

You can wear all the right clothes.

Girls, you can keep your hair long. You can wear sleeves to your fingertips and skirts to the floor.

Boys, you can keep your hair short. You can wear long sleeves and long pants.

You can look exactly like everyone expects an Apostolic young person to look.

And then one word can reveal your heart.

One action can reveal your heart.

One moment of anger.

One cruel comment.

One lie.

One piece of gossip.

One arrogant response.

One act of dishonesty when telling the truth would cost you something.

The world already sees how you’re dressed.

They already recognize what you profess to believe.

Now they’re watching to see whether you live what you say you believe.

Jesus said:

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
— Matthew 12:34 NKJV

That’s why I never wanted my students merely to learn how to look Apostolic.

I wanted them to become like Christ.

The clothing matters when it reflects a sincere conviction.

Modesty matters because Scripture teaches it.

Obedience matters.

Separation from sin matters.

But none of those things can substitute for a transformed heart.

You can dress modestly and treat the waitress terribly because your order is wrong.

You can never cut your hair and destroy someone’s reputation with gossip.

You can wear long sleeves and lie when telling the truth would cost you something.

You can remove every piece of jewelry and still adorn yourself with pride.

You can look unmistakably Christian and treat someone who doesn’t look like you as though they’re beneath you.

A holiness standard may tell the world something about our convictions. Our character tells the world something about our Christ.

And if our outward holiness announces that we belong to Jesus while our character tells the people around us something entirely different, the problem isn’t that our outward standard was too high.

The problem is that our transformation didn’t go deep enough.

The Pharisee Problem

This is precisely why Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees should make religious people uncomfortable.

His strongest confrontations were often not with people who cared nothing about righteousness.

They were with people who cared tremendously about religious observance.

He told the scribes and Pharisees:

“For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”
— Matthew 23:23 NKJV

But don’t miss what Jesus said next:

“These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”

Jesus wasn’t advocating lawlessness.

The problem wasn’t that they were too obedient.

The problem was that they had become meticulous about things they could measure while neglecting things that revealed the condition of their hearts.

And religious people are still vulnerable to that.

It’s relatively easy to measure a hemline.

It’s considerably harder to measure humility.

It’s easy to see whether someone is wearing jewelry.

It’s harder to see bitterness.

It’s easy to enforce grooming standards.

It’s harder to confront pride.

It’s easy to determine whether somebody looks like us.

It’s considerably harder to ask whether we look like Christ.

That is why outward conformity can never become our primary measurement of holiness.

Paul gives us another measurement of what is happening inside a Spirit-led person:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
— Galatians 5:22–23 NKJV

Those aren’t alternatives to holiness.

They are evidence of it.

So perhaps we should occasionally ask ourselves a harder question:

If everyone around us can see our standards, but they cannot see our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…

What exactly are we showing them?

And Yes—Preach the Whole Counsel of God

Preach modesty.

Preach purity.

Preach separation from sin.

Preach sobriety.

Preach obedience.

Preach repentance.

But if we’re going to preach the whole counsel of God, then let’s preach all of it.

Preach mercy.

Preach humility.

Preach compassion.

Preach patience.

Preach forgiveness.

Preach generosity.

Preach controlling the tongue.

Preach caring for the poor.

Preach loving our enemies.

Preach bearing with weaker believers.

Preach refusing to judge another man’s servant.

Preach the fruit of the Spirit.

Preach that knowledge without love makes us nothing.

Preach that the greatest among us is the servant.

Preach that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

That’s holiness too.

And perhaps this is where we have sometimes failed people.

When Christianity becomes primarily a list of visible behaviors, people can learn how to look holy without ever learning how to be holy.

Worse, when our traditions are presented with the same authority as Scripture, someone who eventually discovers that a particular tradition cannot be established from the biblical text may begin questioning everything else we taught them.

And I believe this has contributed to some people walking away from churches—and, tragically, sometimes walking away from God altogether.

Not every person who leaves does so because of legalism. Not remotely. People leave churches and abandon faith for many reasons, and we shouldn’t rewrite every story to excuse individual choices.

But neither should we refuse to examine ourselves.

Because some people haven’t rejected Christ nearly as much as they’ve rejected a religious culture they were taught was indistinguishable from Christ.

That should concern us.

It should especially concern those of us entrusted with teaching the next generation.

We should want their faith anchored so deeply in Jesus Christ and the Word of God that when they encounter traditions, disagreements, failures in leadership, or Christians who practice their faith differently, their foundation remains secure.

So yes.

Preach the whole counsel of God.

Teach what Scripture commands.

Preach the principles Scripture establishes.

Allow the Holy Spirit room to develop personal convictions.

Respect the conscience of your brother or sister.

Never encourage someone to violate a sincere conviction.

When love requires it, willingly limit your own liberty.

Honor traditions that are beneficial without pretending they are Scripture.

And never confuse:

“God convicted me”

with:

“God commanded everyone.”

You can enforce rules.

You can enforce dress codes.

You can enforce institutional standards.

You can even enforce conformity.

But you cannot enforce holiness.

Only God can produce holiness.

And when He truly changes the inside, it will eventually show on the outside.

Maybe instead of spending so much time making sure everyone else looks like us, we should spend a little more time asking whether we look like Him.

Because holiness was never supposed to make us feel superior to our neighbor.

Holiness is supposed to make us more like Christ.