MRLPJ

Greetings, friends, and welcome to The Revellious Podcast.  Dave here... Today will be my very personal take on my identity as A Jesus-imager, -lover, -imitator, and -follower . Recently, I asked God (as I've done many times), "Who am I to Y-you?"  This is what I heard... -- From the Father (My Papa!):  “Dave… You are My Beloved Son .. My Boy ... and I’m so very proud of you!” From the S-son (Jesus!):  “Dave… Not only are you M-my Baby Brother and Intimate Friend , but you’re also A Kindred Spirit .  Further, you're  M-my Fierce Lover and Eternal, Wedded-like Companion .  Just as a good and loving husband loves, cares for, leads into rest, protects, and provides for his wife, so, too, do I (and will I) love you, care for you, lead you into rest, protect you, and provide for you.” From the Holy Spirit (the Breath of I AM!):  “Dave… The above Words are not just poetry.  I’ve made them--and am making them-- AN EVER-PRESENT REALITY in ...

[ Begin soothing background music ] My dear friend... May you hear these words, for they speak of you and to who you are: You are fierce, you are powerful, you are strong. You are a force to be reckoned with. Remember this: You are at your strongest when you are lifting the spirits of another. Remember, too, you are far more winsome, beautiful, intelligent, and resourceful than you think you are. Far more so. It’s never too late to live into the person God recreated you to be: His son (or His daughter); and it’s never too late, either, to be the warrior of lovingkindness and the awakened purveyor of goodness, gratefulness, and deep, everlasting happiness Jesus lived and died for you to be and become. Sadly, most people in this life are asleep: Asleep in their mindlessness, their self-centeredness, their sickness and falseness, and their God-self-and-other-separateness--just as you and I once were. Lazily wandering through this Earth-life (and, in many ways, doing so by themselves), the...

Greetings, friends... “Ultimate Vulnerability:  An Open Letter to a Friend”   I first wrote this letter almost ten years ago.  I wrote it to myself and to a few other people I was thinking of at the time.  Have you ever written yourself a letter before?  Maybe after reading this, you'll write something to your own heart that you need to hear.   It is my fervent prayer that this letter speaks to you in some way.   ---   My dear friend… To discover who you are and what you’re about requires great humility and genuineness.  It requires you to look at who you are without pretense or artificiality.  Learning to live congruently (basically, in accordance with who you are and with what you’re about) also requires great humility and genuineness.  Beyond that, it requires vulnerability, because it necessitates that you empty yourself of anything that’s not you or that doesn’t belong.  In doing this, voids (of a sort) a...

Greetings friends... I'm excited to share with you today's blog post subject: The Practice of Scripture Amplification. Scripture Amplification is a way of expanding out a portion of Scripture in a way that feels meaningful while still remaining faithful to who God is and to the contextual messages of the original text. The Amplified Bible  is a wonderful compilation of just such a practice. This practice is not intended to be a rewriting of Scripture, as though the amplification--or "expanded rendering"--could be deemed a new version or translation of Holy Writ. By no means. For me, it's become a contemplative and prayerfully iterative practice of writing out an expanded understanding of a text in a manner that feels intensely meaningful while still remaining faithful to the Holy Bible's literary , cultural , and theological contexts .  By literary context , I'm referring to the paragraph in which the verse or passage is found; the larger passage in whic...

Even though God is neither male nor female (because both sexes are fully present within “Him!”), I address the Persons of the Trinity using the metaphoric, traditional, and scriptural “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  I’ve chosen also to refer to God (in His Trinitarian Godhead sense and, of course, in all my references to the Individual Persons of the Trinity) with the traditional “He,” “Him,” and “His” pronouns.  Sometimes, I refer to Them together as just that:  "Them." In integrated harmony with historic orthodox theology, it is my long-held belief that Jesus is… The Eternal, Second P-person of the Trinity; The Eternal S-son (the Ever-proceeding Divine Expression of the Eternal, Living God [that is, God the Father]—Word, but more than just “Word”—Made Material [see Jn 1:14]); And… The Eternal Pre-existent Christ—H-he (that is, the Lamb) who was “slain long before the foundations of the Earth were laid” (see Re 13:8). God the Son took on the nature of humanity (as a sec...

Greetings, friends... Today, we're gong to talk about the heart.  If the words I share in this podcast sound a lot like those of  Howard Thurman, or, say, John Eldredge in Waking the Dead , or Michael Thompson in The Heart of a Warrior , you would be right.  These precious Jesus-followers, along with several others--including Dan Stone, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Rainer Maria Wilke, and Hannah Whitall Smith--have profoundly shaped my thinking in all these things. -- Pr 4:23 reads as follows ( Note :  This is a command from God.):  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”?  The church has, unfortunately, maligned the human heart to the point where the heart has become completely discounted and, rather than honored and protected, treated more as something to be chastised, beaten down, and even tossed out with the garbage. St. Irenaeus of Lyons once said, “The glory of God is [humankind] fully ...

Greetings, friends... When Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead, the enemy was defeated... ...but the war didn't end.  In fact, it intensified.  We live in the midst of a fierce war between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.  As followers of Jesus, the Eternal Master of Forces, Lord of War, and God of Angel Armies, we've been commissioned as warrior-saints in H-his Army. The word overwatch is a military term.  Overwatch is a force protection tactic used in modern warfare, where one small military unit, vehicle, or aircraft supports another friendly unit while the latter is executing fire and movement tactics.  The term was coined in U.S. military doctrine in the 1950s. An overwatching unit typically takes a vantage position (usually on high ground or atop a all structure with good with good covering and shielding), where it can observe the terrain far ahead, especially likely enemy positions and movements.  This allows it to...

As I've stated and written before... For many of us, prayer can feel intimidating.  Especially when we start talking about lofty prayer concepts like intercession , supplication , and prayer and fasting .

Begin well, end well … I love that slogan! I use it every day, multiple times a day—not just with those I train (and train with), but with myself, too. It pithily reminds me of exactly how I want to be when I begin or end anything, be it tying my shoes, backing up my truck, or just listening to a friend. Every day, I engage in three mind/brain-body composite rituals.  Rituals that engage my entire personhood and that help me begin and end well each day as well as each endeavor I pursue throughout each day. Ritual Element 1 :  In the morning, soon after awakening, I make my bed. Every morning, after telling God "good morning," and after completing my first round of self-guided PT (that is, physical therapy) exercises, I make my bed.  If someone were to watch me closely over the course of several days, he (or she) would notice how I make my bed exactly the same way every time.  That person would notice, too, that it takes me about three minutes to complete it--an...

[ To be "dropped" with the audio podcast episode at 230am (Eastern) on Thursday, June 1, 202 3 ] -- Greetings, friends... I wrote "Brenda" many years ago.  Occasionally, I’ve updated it so that the present reading of it feels a little more current. At the outset, I want to indicate that this episode will exceed my typical 10 minute limit.  Rather than splitting this into two episodes, it really makes the most sense to keep it to just this one episode.  Please note, too, that, at the end of this episode, I will not be providing a Maxim or Call-to-action . This is, almost needles to say, an extremely personal piece; and it can be very difficult to hear and read.  It was difficult to write and excruciating to live through.  I share this as, in some ways, it may benefit you and give you a window into a world that nearly swallowed me whole.  Over the years, many who’ve read or heard this piece have said things like, “Now I see, Dave.  I think I unders...