Grace – Page 2 – Pathway Journey

December 10, 2024December 9, 2024

Instinct and Discernment: Radars of Protection

I am amazed at the programming in creation by our Creator. Mankind, being the pinnacle of His earthly creation, has the greatest capacity for logical reasoning. Animals including man also have instincts. Instinct is part of the intellectual design God “hardwired” into his creatures for them to survive in this world. Instincts are not things that need to be learned, yet they can be sharpened by experience and reasoning.

November 14, 2024November 13, 2024

Fake Fruit on Dead Trees

“Fake fruit on a dead tree”, is a phrase my pastor, Bro. Bradley Petrey, recently used in a sermon. It describes the look some folks try to portray in Christian circles. I told him, “I do not like the condition it describes but I loved the phraseology.”

Jesus used something similar when He said, “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. / A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matt. 7:17-18 NKJV).

The fruit depends on the tree. Said another way, the tree determines the fruit.

September 17, 2024September 16, 2024

Be the Fragrance of Christ

Let us be the fragrance of Jesus, by being Jesus to others on our journey of life. “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14 NKJV).

As this scripture states, the fragrance of Jesus is diffused through us in every place. We journey through life in the power of the Holy Spirit. The lives of others are touched by Jesus through us. We need to understand that we can be Jesus to someone, somewhere, somehow.

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024

Be Merciful: Drop the Rock

We live in a world that celebrates bravado and even ruthless behavior. Even the word meekness is thought to be weakness by many. Biblical meekness is actually restrained power; having the power over someone but exercising mercy instead.

To be sure, Jesus spoke truth and at times He was very straightforward especially to the religious elites. But we see the tenderhearted Jesus dealing with the woman about to be stoned for adultery. He challenged the religious leaders, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” (John 8:7 NKJV). He forgave the woman’s sin without excusing the sin by telling her to go and sin no more.

August 21, 2024August 21, 2024

History-Long Hatred of Children: A Ploy of Satan

Children are the most vulnerable humans on the planet. They are very dependent upon adults for provision, shelter, protection, and education. Through the course of world history, children have been neglected and worse of all targeted for exploitation or even destruction. Why?

In our present age, we see children used as slave labor, sex slaves, so-called collateral damage in endless wars, starved by abject poverty, and easy fields for organ harvesting in less humane societies.

Then in our more so-called civilized cultures, we see children harmed in sex abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, objects of child pornography, sexual mutilation, destructive drug therapy, warped by dysfunctional families, and killed by abortion.

June 4, 2024June 3, 2024

Hate is Bloodless Murder

Have you ever said with clenched teeth, “Awh, I could just kill him!” Yep, just about ninety-nine percent of us has said something like that. Thankfully, we probably didn’t mean it. There are millions of good, godly people who get angry in the immediate time frame, but get over it in the long run.

Then there are many bitter people in the world who have calcified anger. Their anger has gone to seed resulting in bitterness. This aged anger stored up in people’s lives punishes people of today who had nothing to do with the wrong done to them by people of their past. Jesus can set you free.

April 19, 2024April 18, 2024

Ordinary Days

I remember during a very busy season of my life hearing someone say, “I’m bored!” and wishing I had time to be bored. For the record, I hate being bored.

Many of us have a “first world problem” (as opposed to someone living in a third world country) of possibly despising a simple ordinary day with nothing special happening. We need to appreciate ordinary days. I love simple, ordinary days.

It is wonderful to wake in the morning and have a few minutes to thank God for another day, to give a phrase of worship to Him, pray for my family, and pray for a few folks who I know are not having an ordinary day. Then staggering down the hallway to the smell of fresh brewed coffee, savoring the slow, unhurried sipping of brown liquid gold.

April 10, 2024April 8, 2025

Don’t Let Crazy People Drive You Crazy

I recently heard someone opine that he thought that 15 percent of people are bad, 50 percent misguided, and 35 percent were good. Now whether you agree with that number or not, you must admit that there are some crazy people in this world. When I talk about crazy, I’m not talking about people with organic mental issues. Crazy is a term reserved for those who can do better but don’t. I believe some people who act crazy are demonically influenced. Now you may think I am crazy.

I am not a psychologist, but my life’s work has been in the people business from being an educator to a Christian minister. Furthermore, I think of myself as a somewhat positive person because I usually reserve an ounce of hope for everyone regardless of their craziness.

The truth of the matter is, everyone can change but not everyone will or want to change for the good.

March 7, 2024March 6, 2024

What Has Changed? Times or People

Recently when I was preaching, I said something that really resonated with my audience. The statement I made was this: “Often people will say that times have changed. But that is not true. Times have not changed; it is people that have changed.”

The rural community I lived in as a boy was not perfect. We had a few rough folks living among us. The little farmhouse we lived in had a screen door and wood door with the top third being three panes of glass. It had a lock, but I never saw the key to it. We never locked the front door. We would sleep inside with an unlocked door. In the summertime every window would be raised and only a flimsy screen separated us from the boogey man outside.

January 26, 2024March 1, 2024

Looking Into Their Eyes

I have seen some pitiful folks in my time. It is not the ragged clothes I see or their crippled limbs, but their eyes that give me a glimpse of their misery and hopelessness. I believe every person was granted to exist by God; this in itself makes me know that there is dignity in every life.

Many choose to take a path that is not God’s best, but some seem to have it thrust upon them by poverty, abuse, sickness, or where they were born. I have come to know with more awareness and certainty of the dignity of every human being. I know Christ loves them just as He loved the women He saved from a stoning, the demoniac He delivered from legions of demons, and even my wretched soul.