NextGenKent

  About 94 times this word is used in the Bible, but it was the first time my teenage son asked me about it. We were randomly listening to someone talk on the radio and the word was used in a sentence. So my son asked, "Dad, what does perversion mean?" A couple of days before this conversation, I was meditating (day-dreaming?) when an image came into my mind--a long, thin piece of metal hung in the air before me, the back was black and the front was white. I observed as, like a bread bag tie, the top of the piece of metal turned. Now when I looked, it was still a thin piece of metal, but on the frontside, the top part was black and the bottom was white, twisted at its center. At times, this word can be found to simply describe: roads, pathways, crown of thorns, braids of hair or thread, or a body in pain or possessed. I love the verse that says, "three cords twisted together are not quickly broken" (Ecc 4:12). However, it is used negatively like when Peter describes...

I am going off script today and basically ... just rambling. BUT I think there is a pattern of thought: Contemplation #1: Lately I have been pondering the facts of life and how the power of self deception is subtle yet so powerfully enslaving. I watch AFV from time to time and on one episode, a woman had a VR headset on, pointed screamed, ducked and fell down. Whatever she saw in the video headset caused her reality to shift and she no longer saw the video for what it was, but mistook it as reality and responded. How does this happen? Such depth of contemplation is beyond me to arrive at an answer I shouldn't wonder. Contemplation #2: There is of course, misperceptions: how I see myself, I how think you see me, and how you think you see me. Then there is of course, how God truly sees us. Misunderstandings happen, for sure, but the thinking that you have portrayed yourself one way and it was taken another can be downright befuddling to the mind and impaling to the heart. There ...

The knowledge of God is a vital part of the well-being of your life--spiritually and otherwise God desires for you to know Him, but even more, God desires to reveal Himself to you. The knowledge of God is hidden--you cannot just expect to gain it. You need to especially understand that many will say they have it when in fact they do not. However, those who truly know God have very specific things in common. The Word of God reveals to us the knowledge of God , but it isn’t the only place our knowledge of Him comes from. However, every other place we obtain our knowledge of God will never contradict the knowledge available to us in the written Word of God. When I speak of the knowledge of God, I attach the knowledge of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the knowledge of the Spirit of God--the holy Trinity, three in One, King of the Universe, and of my heart. Proverbs 2:5 tells us that your deepest respect for God , or the fear of the Lord, will accompany the knowledge o...

Exodus 2:11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. "One day, when Moses had grown up;" whatever that means, he came to point where he was different; he was his own man now, he saw things differently, FELT THINGS DIFFERENTL...

Most of us are just waiting around in life. Oh, we have a schedule to keep, make lists perhaps, have a pretty good idea of how the day is going to go; but most of us don't initiate anything. It's a "get up out of bed then live life until we go back to bed" sort of existence. We may gain something from being with friends, family, getting that paycheck on Friday, sleeping in on Saturdays and Sundays, but when Monday comes back around its "same o, same o." I wonder if people tire of this "do it again" existence.  Jesus told a parable about some guys who were just waiting around. In the parable the master hires the guys to go work in his field and they seemed excited to do so...for pay. There is more to this parable but I wonder if this waiting around problem isn't new to my day ... To me? I have been feeling like I have just been waiting around. It's safe, just waiting. Besides the Bible gives a promise to those who wait ... Who wait upon the ...

“IN ALL FAIRNESS” James 2:1-13.  Dealing with the "otherwise" categories in our hearts.   I was sitting in a Chicago corner shop and set my wallet on the table. As I was getting up I was quite aware that I was scanning the room after looking at my wallet on the table to see if I should be cautious … which I should. But I was also noticeably aware of my own awareness … I saw a man in the back sitting at a table and I must confess, that just because he was black I picked up my wallet and put it into my pocket. This is my confession. I don’t know why I did it AND it haunts me. It haunts me for two reasons: because I do not have answer as to WHY I did that; and because I feel like what happened there inside of me, without my conscious thinking, just reacting, MAY have come from sin. I think this goes on a lot; and I don’t think I am the only one who has had this experience. I know I don’t like being in a situation where I feel like I am being treated ...