Dale Cresap's blog

Are you under financial pressure? Isn’t it delightful to get a large amount of money unexpectedly? If this happens to you, what do you do with it? If your desires exceed your resources at your current level, are you prone to take the windfall and buy things you don’t need, leaving you under just as much financial pressure with more stuff? My word counsels you that when riches increase not to set your heart upon them, and teaches you about contentment. If your current resources are meeting your needs, then you are in a position to make wise use of any additional money you receive. 

Do I seem far away from you? You take it as a settled matter of theology that I am omnipresent and with you always even if you are not aware of me. Does your world consist primarily of concrete, glass, steel, and plastic? These are not evil things, but perhaps your awareness of me would improve if you sought out opportunities to visit the world of trees and grass. There is truth that is more obvious during a walk in the woods. I can hear you wherever you speak. Do you hear me equally well in all places? If not then you should seek out the places where you hear me best and spend time there. 

Do you see yourself as being on a spiritual journey? This is the normal state for everyone who follows me. So on this journey you have the company of all your fellow believers, and finding fellow travelers on your way is pure delight. Yet there is another sense in which you must take this journey alone. That is that you can’t tag along on someone else’s journey of faith. I call you to follow me and not someone else. In like manner don’t expect anyone else to follow you. I have mapped out a path and rate for you that do not coincide exactly with the path for anyone else. Only you can fulfill the destiny I have set before you. 

Have you noticed that people with mental illnesses are treated as outcasts in ways that cancer and heart disease victims are not? Why should this ailment be a completely separate category from others? Your culture elevates reason above other things and considers it central to identity in a way that physical wellbeing is not. Yet this understanding of identity is not consistent with my word. Your true identity is that I created you in my image, not in your ability to reason. Therefore you should not use that as a basis for rejecting anyone, but it goes beyond that. Understanding this will help you know who you are as well. 

Do you know people who are absent-minded? They seem to live in their own world, which is not here. Perhaps your own mind has wandered away, making plans, playing out conversations, or thinking what you should have said in some encounter, only to be jolted back to present reality when you are interrupted. I am with you always, and you accept this by faith as a foundational doctrine. Are you with yourself? You can’t change the past, and I teach you not to worry about tomorrow. If you live with a sense of awareness you will hear me speaking through your real life.  I am present with you. Will you be present with me? 

The Pharisees asked me if they were blind also. Does this seem like an odd question? How could you be blind and not know? Yet this is not the only place in scripture that this question arises. The Laodicean church in Revelation is wealthy and has no awareness of need, but I see them as poor and blind and miserable. I advise them to come to me to meet their real needs, including eye salve that they may see. It is possible that affluence or other factors can keep you from comprehending more important reality that is right in front of you. Do you examine your own vision frequently to be sure it is true? Come to me for eye salve; I’ve got plenty.  

You study my word and see that it commends faith and condemns doubt. Yet there is such a thing as honest doubt, but it is rare. Most who doubt are no longer searching. They have rejected faith to justify themselves and are content with that. Those who doubt honestly are still searching, and still willing to respond and be taught by truth that they encounter. I am not threatened by this, and this is not doubt that leads to death. I declared an eternal principle that those who seek the truth hear my voice. Some struggle more than others on this pathway but those who follow it honestly will find their way to me. 

My word teaches you that though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Do you think this is a special case referring to the short term experience of a few individuals? In the long term it applies to everyone. People can accelerate or retard the effects of aging by the way they live, but time will win in the end. This may be a hard reality to face in a culture that values youth and beauty so much, but it is part of my plan and design from the beginning. Don’t ignore the second part of the passage which is the real message. Look at the advancement of years as a process in which you can become sharper and more focused on the things that really matter. 

Do you admire people who have great willpower? Perhaps it should be termed won’t power. They won’t give in and won’t be swayed from their determined course. Yet how do you distinguish this from willfulness? This refers to stubbornness. Willpower is commendable if it is used for admirable ends, but my word commends those of a broken spirit and a contrite heart. There is too much of human effort in willpower, which in Biblical terms is the works of the flesh, and not enough of divine grace. Human strength will not accomplish the works of God, and those who serve me effectively have learned that my strength is perfected in their weakness. 

Do you see yourself as being on a spiritual journey? Your faith will affect you in one of two ways. It will keep you from changing, or it will be the agent by which you change. You can remain among those of your own tradition, reassured and confirmed in the things you already know. You can read only those things that show you were right all along. This is comforting, but false. True spiritual maturity comes from expansion and that involves stretching. This is uncomfortable, but true. If you continue in my word this is a truth that you will understand and be free. Then your faith will be the agent by which you are changed into my likeness.