BTZ Blog

Are you holding onto God's hand or, is the hand of God holding onto you? You may ask, what is the difference? If you are holding onto God there is a possibility that you will let go...but if God is holding onto your hand, He will never let go! He said; “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Are we guilty of wearing religious robes to hide our self-righteousness and superficial spirituality as we proceed to our “Bless Me Club Meeting”, the next “Poverty to Riches Conference” or the self-proclaimed “Revival and Healing Meeting,” to stock up on teaching material that if we follow is suppose to give us assurance that we are Godly, that is, if we give of our money. But, my concern is; is this participation a participating in the Church that Jesus said He would build?

Jesus is the WORD, He gives us life to equip us to live life and guide us through life. To often the written word is applied without His life as a formula to fix ailments, pain and poverty by the hype of the moment to prop up ministers and “their” ministry. The word is not life unto itself, the word points to the WORD who is life. Trying to apply the word without a relationship with the WORD of LIFE is LIFELESS!

The birth of Jesus was DIVINITY taking on HUMANITY so that HUMANITY could have a TRUE LOVE relationship with DIVINITY. DIVINITY taking on HUMANITY also provided HUMANITY the ability to have a TRUE LOVE relationship with HUMANITY that is unconditional and expectation-less, that before Jesus was mostly a DIVINITY to DIVINITY reality!

One of the Pharisees' (religious sect) problems was spiritual pride. They were so blinded by their arrogance and their preconceived notions, they couldn't believe anyone who hadn't been through their "seminary" was qualified to teach them anything. Is this kind of arrogance prevalent in the religious world today? The Pharisees, like many religions today were ignorant of achieving right standing (righteousness) with God through the simple act of receiving His forgiveness by grace and were trying to earn salvation by their own do;s and dont's. No one can fulfill God's commands (Rom. 3:23) except Jesus (Heb. 4:15). Therefore, to be righteous, we must put our faith in Him and what He has done for us, not what we can do for Him!

Has Jesus been reduced to a religious icon that serves the objectives of religion, causing the majority of people to view God as difficult to please and a hard task master? Many believe He is harsh, demanding, judgmental and angry. Ironically, in some cases, this flawed picture of God is painted by Christendom to keep its subjects subjected to the rules and regulatory controls that keeps the people dependent on religion in order to keep the wheels of religion rolling.

I hope your day is filled with multiple BURSTS!  SMILES that BURST into LAUGHTER...it will lift your spirits and the spirits of those around you to increase the healing process!, for LAUGHTER doeth good like a medicine.

Every person you meet on life's journey has an invisible sign around their neck which reads; "Don’t be hurtful, show me love and make me feel worth-full." Doing so will cause you to feel worth-full and loved, and you will not be hurtful to the kingdom of God!

If everybody around you suddenly disappeared you would soon discover that relationships with people are much more important than things. You could be surrounded with all the world's goods but without the relationship with people things are meaningless!

The confirmation that a person is of a child of God is not in the height and quality of their religious performance but in the depth and quality of their love.

The person that will be respected in life and will be remembered fondly after death...is a person who offers forgiveness and shows understanding, kindness, caring and love!

A true friend is a safe haven, it is someone you can be with and not be questioned even though you may deserve to be questioned!

Religions are created by man to organize people into controllable groups and provide them somewhat with an identity, sense of belonging and to maintain their religious institution. Granted most religions have helped civilization externally to be good people by providing moral codes, rules of conduct, social organization and establish a sense of community among people of the same religion, some have helped by their outreach services and education to people. But in to many cases this is a front to cover up its foundation of deception, illusion, manipulation, fraud and intolerance. Religion tries to change the outer man to look good and be respectable whose inside are full of decay and rot like white washed tombs. God on the other hand is about changing people from the inside out, a heart change instead of just a head change! Each religion on earth today believes and wants everyone else to believe that they are the one and only true religion when in reality none of them are. If left ...

We are in such a religious quagmire of doing things culturally right that it renders us incapable of doing the right things. The answer to this Pharisaical attitude is not administrative incompetence by developing more rules and regulations. It does not mean to fall in line with the direction of the religious hierarchy by blankly trusting its leaders. Isn’t time to rethink the rule-bound, regulation-strangled, policy-panicked church culture that keeps people in bondage while not realizing it?

The only way to know that you know you have gone beyond your limits is to know that you know your limits!  

Treating people immaturely is nothing less than an extension of our own immaturity!

An irony of life is that those who have more share less, while those who have less share more!

A calm and peaceful spirit ensures a calm and peaceful mind which is an important factor to attaining and maintaining a good outlook on life and contributes too good health! That is why we need quite times to reflect on God's goodness with thankfulness.

Salvation is confirmation of a love relationship with God that extends far beyond any religious belief system of shoulds, woulds, do’s, wont’s and dont's.

Love that has not relationship as its base is like a house built upon the sand, guaranteed, the storm not to withstand!

You can release God into every situation you may face by releasing love...God is LOVE therefore, if you release LOVE into a situation you release God into the situation. In LOVE resides the power of God to work in the circumstance for His and your good.

Don't let your hope die. Live inside the hope you hope for, it will keep your hope alive.

Many people claim and promote that they are a friend of, and love God yet, fail to befriend and love people who are outside of their circle. Can we be a friend of, and love God without befriending and loving people? Does not God’s friendship and love circle extend to all people? If so, should not our love and friendship circle extend to all people?

When we restrict the life of God to within the four walls of a building, we rob His life of its vitality and only distinguish Christianity from other religions by claiming to have a more scriptural correct doctrine. Could that be why Jesus didn't teach His disciples how to gain a following or build institutions? He didn't teach them how to meet in Sunday-go-meetings with a worship team and a preacher to lecture the listeners. He didn't give them a prescribed set of religious behaviors that people were suppose to follow as the means to God or maintain a relationship with Him. No, He invited people into his Father's household to share in a Father/son/daughter love relationship that would transform them from the inside out and open the way for them to share that love with others as a community of believers seven days a week. That you can't incorporate into Sunday religion, and trying to do so hinders any hope...

Non-judgmental Non-condemning Understanding Encouraging Loving Kind Empathy Honesty Forgiving Giving Respectful Spirit controlled instead of religiously controlled.

To many people say they love people but don't care about the people they say they love...impossible...Caring is the ACTION of love, Love that is not shared is a loveless love that is of no value!

Don't let strong feelings about someone or something from your past hinder you living in the present and render you unable to plan for your future!

Care enough about yourself and others to look into your heart to find peace and contentment before you react to an offense, if you cannot find contentment and peace do not react, instead act in a way that will bring peace and contentment to you and forgiveness to others.

If we plant in the soil of prayer we will reap GRATITUDE, UNDERSTANDING, FORGIVENESS, KINDNESS, EMPATHY, and LOVE! If we reap UNGRATEFUL, JUDGMENTAL, CONDEMNING, UNFORGIVING and LOVELESS as our crop, we are praying with our LIPS rather than our HEART!

Prayer is more about listening than talking! Most praying sounds like begging God to carry out our will! Praying is not about tongue talking, asking God to perform our will but heart listening to carry out His will!

Why not show APPRECIATION to somebody. The one thing people APPRECIATE is being APPRECIATED by an APPRECIATIVE person who gives APPRECIATION APPRECIATIVELY!

Salvation is not about being a good person by living life as a good person according to the standards set down by religion. God brought us into relationship with Himself to develop relationships with others as we live our life through His life by sharing His grace and love in our relational journey with people.

Religion, meaning an obligation, bond or reverence, is based on the Latin word religare meaning ‘to bind.’ "Re" means "again"; "ligare" means "to bind." Pre-cross, religion was to help man bond to God. When Christ shouted "it is finished," it announced that no longer was our existence to be defined by the religious rules, rituals and regulation keeping as the way to God. The master and servant relationship was now a father and son relationship. Jesus destroyed the dividing pillars with his death. Now we are on a one on one relationship with God. We are sons now. The very pillars on which religion has been built were abolished, the veil was rent in to from top to bottom. To perpetuate religion in the face of the finished work of Christ is therefore but a manifestation of unbelief that the work of Jesus was insufficient. In attempting to bind man with God, religion attempts to do (anti, "in the place of" Christ) what was done ...

The greatest sign of a love relationship with God is not so much based on the amount of religious activity you can absorb yourself in such as church attendance, preaching, worship leading or being a board member...but, it is having a peaceful spirit of trust and assurance in God as you live life loving people on a daily basis that He brings across your path. If you show love, kindness and respect to people you will receive love, kindness and respect from people! You will reap what you sow!

Is it possible for people to try to hard to be holy and Godly? People say it is hard being a believer but it’s worth working at. Folks the Christian life is impossible to live by working hard to attain it and we can never work hard enough to be Godly! I know that probably goes against what has been taught to us in the religious realm. Relationship with the Living God cannot be earned by human effort, even extensive human effort. And sometimes our trying harder to make it happen, distances us further from it. Religion never tires of telling us to try harder and giving us an increasing array of tasks to 'help' us find God. Our self-effort still focuses on meism, and we end up missing Jesus, who is right there longing  to lead us into relationship with His loving Father. This is something He does at our invitation, not something we can do by our diligence in keeping regulatory rules and regulations of the established religions. There are many leaders who have entered the minist...

The highest goal of a believer is DEVOTION to God and Christ likeness, this will lead to loving to love others; “God is love”. A DEVOTION for God and a LOVE for people will result in BOUNDLESS GOODWILL toward our fellow man.

Some leaders and members of their flock, who claim to have experienced God’s love through the life-changing power of Christ, display harshness and impatience with people who continue to live their lives without regard for God, and are judgmental, demeaning and condescending toward believers who do not believe as they believe, as if they had the corner on truth regarding God and His Church.

The reality of Christ is not found through HEAD KNOWLEDGE only. The reality of Christ is known through HEART KNOWLEDGE that transforms into a love relationship with Him that permits His love to be extended to the people that cross your path daily.

Is the reason people do not experience what they THINK the scriptures mean because, what they THINK the scriptures mean is not what they actually mean? God does not honor what we THINK scriptures mean, but does honor what His Word actually means? God is not man that He should lie therefore, He will not violate His Word but, He will violate our perceived understanding of His Word if our perceived understanding of what the Bible says is not really what the scriptures mean!

The strong person may be the one with rippling muscles and washboard abs, but the stronger person is the one who allows nothing to disturb their relationship with God, their trust in God and their peace of mind.

The gospel is not about getting people to agree with our mode of doing church and siding with our religion by getting them to convert to our side and attend the “church” of our choice, where we can love them because of their agreement with our philosophy. The gospel is about God’s people dwelling amongst people of society, living kingdom of God principles in loving them into God’s kingdom!

Church buildings may be important to its adherents, but when spirituality becomes about what we reflect in the building, we are not spiritual, we are a institutionally institutionalized institution.

Religion has projected the worldview that defines the Kingdom of God as what is within the four walls of a building known as “CHURCH.” This view of God’s Kingdom is false because; the place of worship has become the invisible obstacle that hinders people from experiencing the real Kingdom of God, which is OUTSIDE of the “church” building. Church is lived in living life, in fact, Church is living life! God is reflected in life, and life is not lived in a church building. Participation inside the building is not the Church in action, it is the Church in retraction!  

Loving with TRUE LOVE disarms people and displays the quality and equality of love for all people as opposed to loving only those who agree with our religious persuasion and attend our event-driven-meetings in order to be good people like us! Religion has got to realize that salvation is not about cleaning up people to look respectable enough so as not to challenge our regulatory man controlled environment. Salvation is a RE-BIRTHING, not a CLONING!

Viewing our spiritual self-worth based on comparing ourselves to other people we believe to be less spiritual than we are because they do not believe the way we do, is nothing less than condescending religious bigotry showing our insecurity with our standing in God, and should have no place in a believer’s life!

What compels us forward into religious activity is not always the leading of God. If we do not have the vision of conforming to Christ as central to our relationship with Him, then what may be guiding us is a "wind of doctrine,""man-made tradition” or performance performing for audience and hierarchy recognition.

If you think you can't you probably won't...if you think you can you probably will! Most of the time you can ACHIEVE what you BELIEVE if you assist your BELIEVING with DOING! In order to accomplish something you must leave the THINK arena and move into the ACTION arena!

Salvation is not about winning the lost so God can have more servants to add to His kingdom that will work for some religious organization. Salvation is about adding more children to His kingdom because He wants to be in relationship with them, not because of what they can do for Him but, what He can do for them because He LOVES people! Within that LOVE RELATIONSHIP He desires for people to share His LOVE to the people they meet winning more children to His kingdom!

It is appalling that a lot of the preaching and teaching that is coming over the pulpits in "churches" is not preparing the people of God to be the Church! The preaching and teaching that has, and is being presented is validating church-goers to be pew-warmers, note takers, sitting at ease in Zion, while the people outside the “church” need the Church in action demonstrating the living, loving Christ on a daily basis.

Because it is constructed of human ideologies and doctrines, religion is a man-made structure that obscures the Church that Christ is building. For the life of Christ to be manifested to the world through His Church on a daily basis, the barriers that conceal the “Church” in religious buildings called “churches” that obscures the body of Christ, must come down. Believers are called to be representatives of Christ to people, not representatives of a religious denomination.

Who doesn’t want to know the will of God for their lives? We all do. Many of us have heard the statement; “God has a plan for your life, to know and follow that plan will mean success, not to know or follow that plan leads to failure.” GOD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE IS NOT A THING TO FOLLOW, IT IS A PERSON TO BE IN RELATIONSHIP WITH DAILY! Jesus in your life, working through your life, in your sphere of life, demonstrating the love of God through your living life, is God’ plan for your life.

Would it not be more authentic if people were considered “good Christians” because of their example and likeness to Christ, rather than what they know about Christ, theology and by their attendance record at Sunday-go-meetings!

Allow God to take the MESS you find yourself in and create a MESSAGE for you to share of His faithfulness. The TESTING you may be going through can result in a TESTIMONY of His goodness. The adverse TRIAL that you find yourself in could teach you patience and is something for you to TRIUMPH over by His power. Your adversary plans for you to be a VICTIM because of the MESS, TEST and TRIAL you face but, God plans for you to be the VICTOR! The choice of being a VICTIM or VICTOR depends on your TRUST in God!

How many churches would advertise by putting the following on the billboard in front of their building? We don’t care who you are, what you've done, whether you are straight or gay, big or small, short or tall, have hair or bald, pretty or ugly, smart or dumb, rich or poor, healthy or sick, sinner or saint. WE ARE NOT HERE TO JUDGE OR CONDEMN YOU, BUT TO WRAP OUR ARMS AROUND YOU, AND LOVE YOU AS GOD HIMSELF LOVES YOU! IF WE ONLY ACCEPTED PEOPLE WHO DO NO WRONG THIS BUILDING WOULD BE EMPTY!

Many church-goers are comfortable and content to live within the sound of a “church bell, but don’t want to live where they can hear the sound of people living a life of hell. People heeding the church bell call are not attending the “Church” that Jesus came to build and to you call. Hell seems to be prevailing against the churches with bells. The “Church” that Jesus, came to you call is driving the forces of evil behind the gates of hell and rescuing people from a life of hell!

People live and die! Christ died and lived so people may live on after they die! To die in Christ is gain, to die without Christ is a pain!

PERFECTION is a POSITION in Christ that is GIVEN while LIVEN because we are FORGIVEN, not a STATE gained by STRIVEN while LIVEN because we are FORGIVEN!

Preaching by mouth is a solitary act by one individual sharing his/her beliefs that are influenced by the organization to which he/she is affiliated, with little or no interaction with people. Preaching from a relationship with God, is preaching by example by living a life of interaction with people seven days a week. Preaching by living is far more effective than preaching by mouthing! You say a lot more by living life with Christ and people, than verbalizing about the life of Christ to people in a Sunday-go-meeting. And unlike mouthing sermons, people will remember living sermons.

You define who you are by the ATTITUDE you portray in the words that you say, and your actions throughout the day!

The "modern church’s” Commission is an event-driven-Mission requiring adherence to their Conditions! The Mission of the “Church” stemming from Jesus Christ’s Vision, is living the Commission seven days a week by showing Compassion and love in Action!

Creation cost God nothing, for Him, creating creation must have been fun. Salvation of mankind cost God everything, providing salvation for mankind cost Him is only Son! Accepting the gift of salvation offered by God through His Son cost you nothing of more value than His salvation gift of life! Your acceptance of His salvation gift of life may influence members of your family and friends to accept His gift of life as well.

Letting people know so much about what you think you know yet don't know, shows your ignorance about what you think you know! What you think you know about what you don't know does not mean you are in the know about what you think you know enough to let others know what you think you know!

It is one thing to be known as a good Christian in “church” but, we must realize that God is reflected in living life, and life is not lived in “church”. When spirituality becomes more about what we reflect in a building than what we reflect in life, we have become more institutional than spiritual.  CHRISTIANIZATION must come to the REALIZATION that INSTITUTIONALIZATION is not the answer to SPIRITUALIZATION!

The demeanor and character of a person is not shown so much in how they respond in moments of agreement, comfort and health...but in how they respond in moments of disagreement, discomfort and pain!  

Be careful about looking for, and finding fault in others...The fault you look for and find in others may be a reflection of the fault that is in you! Fault finding may be very defining of the indwelling faults in you!

B ecause of my frankness regarding my expressed view of “religion” some people have taking offense by insinuating that I am referring to their religion of choice and have even taken offense as if it was directed to them on a personal level. Therefore, there arises the need for an explanation as to what I mean by “religion” and the system on which it is founded and what I mean when I refer to the “Church” that Jesus established and is building. I do appreciate and understand why people may take the view that I am unconventional in the way I relate to what has been accepted as the norm when it comes to church. I understand the philosophy of such thinking because of growing up in the culture that has been accepted as the norm for Christianity. If you are happy with the status-quo of organized religion today, you may not like my response. My purpose is not to convince you to see the Church of Jesus Christ the same way I do. If you only believe because I convince y...

One reason why relationships fail is because to many people are present without being present thus, they are absent emotionally, conversationally, compassionately, and understandingly, while being present physically. Being present is more than being there it is BEING there! Many couples have come to the conclusion that the secret of a happy and successful relationship still remains a secret!

Jesus, the express image of God, came to show us what God is like. The “Church” (the body of Christ) was created to express the characteristics of God that Jesus expressed on earth to people. When you look at the life of Jesus, very little of what takes place in “church” buildings” resembles the life that He lived during His time on earth. I wonder why?

You weren't born to be someone else you were born to be yourself...be the best you...you can be!