Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

My First Sergeant told me, “Not knowing is not an excuse; the duty roster has been posted on the bulletin board for over a week.”

I was late showing up for Charge of Quarters duty because I had not checked the company bulletin board in over a week. I would have missed showing up at all if my friend had not noticed and woke me up.

The stated requirement, by all Company NCOs, was every Soldier was to check the Company Bulletin Board twice a day to ensure they were aware of the latest unit information, requirements, and duty roster changes.

We have a bulletin board in our hearts. Have you checked it lately?

“In reality, the truth of God is known instinctively, for God has embedded this knowledge inside every human heart. Opposition to truth cannot be excused on the basis of ignorance, because from the creation of the world, the invisible qualities of God’s nature have been made visible, such as his eternal power and transcendence. He has made his wonderful attributes easily perceived, for seeing the visible makes us understand the invisible. So then, this leaves everyone without excuse. (Rom 1:19, 20 TPT)”

Our loving, gracious, kind God wants us to know him today and be with him forever. Check out what Father God has written on your heart and look around at his wonderful creation. Also, consider what your naked eye can’t see, like the trillion billion water molecules in a drop of water and the estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the universe.

The Gospel, the Good News, is more about how good God is than how bad we are.

He loves you so much He sent Jesus to bring you to him and Holy Spirit to help us know him.

“When the roll is called up yonder” will you be there?

Russian cowboy version

Charles J. Rolls, God Loves Us, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Uncategorized

Jesus “is affectionately loving, altogether lovely and always lovable.”

April 5, 2022April 4, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

“Christ monopolizes loveliness by His heart of lowliness, He multiplies preciousness by His spirit of meekness and He magnifies graciousness by His deeds of kindness. As Bridegroom He is affectionately loving, altogether lovely and always lovable.”

The Bridegroom of the Bride

He that hath the bride is the bridegroom (John 3:29).
In that bright and beautiful narrative of the book of Ruth, Boaz, the notable kinsman who played the part of restorer and nourisher, also became the beloved bridegroom (Ruth 4:15). When the storm of sorrow and the waves of dire distress which Ruth had encountered died down, a new dawn of radiant splendor broke upon her life, in that she made the soul-stirring discovery that Boaz, the mighty man of wealth, was actually her kinsman and her redeemer. The damsel found in this nobleman a stronger sympathy than she had known before, a sweeter society than she had previously experienced and a dearer relationship of remarkable renown; for Boaz, the mighty, became her very own bridegroom.

The greater reality of the New Testament is reflected in this record; for the Son of God became the Son of man, our near kinsman; so that by identity of life and integrity of love, He might redeem and raise up His Bride, the Church, to share the intimacy and immortality of an eternal union with Himself. The illustrious and illuminating portrayal in the record of Ruth supplies an index to infinite movements that find complete consummation in the marriage of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7).
By virtue of Christ’s identifying Himself with human history, God wrought out His great regenerative purpose of salvation. If the celestial One had not entered into the realm of the terrestrial and overcome the infernal power of darkness, mankind would not have had any title to the heritage of light with its infinite glory and incorruptibility.
The Apostle Peter presents this Bridegroom as the perfection of all preciousness, the sum-total of exquisite beauty and majesty; whose life is everlasting, whose love is everabiding and whose endowments in an unwithering inheritance are to be eternally enjoyed. Christ monopolizes loveliness by His heart of lowliness, He multiplies preciousness by His spirit of meekness and He magnifies graciousness by His deeds of kindness. As Bridegroom He is affectionately loving, altogether lovely and always lovable.

The Scriptures disclose a series of illustrious bridegrooms in whose lives are given glimpses in faintest tracery of the tenderness of this eternal Lover. Glimmers of Him are reflected in the first love of Adam for Eve, in the faithful love of Abraham for Sarah, in the fervent love of Isaac for Rebecca, in the fragrant love of Jacob for Rachel, in the fruitful love of Joseph for Asenath, in the faultless love of Boaz for Ruth, and in the fascinating love of Jonathan for David.

The majestic countenance of the heavenly Bridegroom shines as the sun in its strength, so that the mystery of beauty is manifest at its best and brightest. Through Him the divine luster of lovingkindness beams forth in all the richness of moral goodness. He discharges the highest obligations perfectly. He has always been chivalrous in conflict, valiant in victory, constant in courtesy, loyal in love, thoughtful in tenderness, kingly in kindness and gracious in gentleness. No one is able to find in Him a single trace of failure or the slightest taint of fault or forgetfulness.

How solicitous He is in His care, how steadfast in His love, how sympathetic His heart and how sensitive His Spirit in understanding! Emanuel displayed infinite affection in coming to earth to select and secure His Bride, the Church, and to present her to Himself without spot or wrinkle or any such blemish. He has designed that His Bride share with Him in joint heirship His celestial home and heritage. Little wonder that the name of this Bridegroom is adored for its unrivaled glory and that His love is admired for its unchanging fidelity.

What a thrill comes to the soul when we anticipate sharing a home with Christ beyond the hills and the horizon. A mansion beyond the mists and the mountains. A possession beyond the plains and the planets. A society beyond the stars and the sky. A dominion beyond the darkness and death. A state of bliss beyond the sun and the shadows. A titled estate beyond the trials and tribulations of time. A paradise beyond the perils and pains of the present era.

Thou glorious Bridegroom of our hearts
Thy present smile a heaven imparts,
O lift the veil, if veil there be,
Let every saint Thy beauties see.

Charles J. Rolls, The Indescribable Christ: Names and Titles of Jesus Christ: A-G (Loizeaux Brothers, 1984).

Charles J. Rolls, God Loves Us, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Uncategorized, Yehovah

Are you hangry for Love? Jesus is the Bread of Life!

April 5, 2022March 30, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

“Christ is the true legacy of life; He heartily loves, tenderly calls, sincerely welcomes and gladly receives all who come to Him. No one can have too much of His preciousness, sweetness, or loveliness; all He bestows is fresh and fragrant and satisfies forevermore.”

The Bread of God

The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world (John 6:33).

The context shows that the emancipation from Egypt, which was followed by the supply of manna forty years in the wilderness under Moses, is closely associated with this new claim. During that period of national history, four outstanding experiences are recorded. These experiences relate to the Passover lamb, the Red Sea deliverance, the uplifted serpent and the fording of Jordan. The Apostle John introduces the spiritual significance of these same four features in the opening three chapters of this Gospel. These memorable links with the past, together with Jacob’s well (John 4), and the pool at the sheep gate (John 5), furnish an illuminating background in relation to the far-reaching claim Christ made of being the Bread of God from heaven.

The secret of Israel’s sustained strength was linked with the lamb in Egypt, the power at the Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness and the old corn in Canaan. These reflect Christ in His personal holiness at the crucifixion, “a Lamb without spot,” His prevailing power in resurrection (John 2:19), His perfect humility in submission, “the Bread which came down from heaven,” and His pre-eminent honor in glorification, as the One enthroned high above all principality and power.

The third of these is the subject here, where Christ declared Himself to be the Bread of God. To draw definite attention to the fact of His own manifestation and ordained mission, He refers to the source from whence He came and the sequence of that coming. Bread, in the use we make of it, is brought to nourish those who are alive; but Christ the Bread of God imparts life eternal. John is careful to mention among the essentials of this life, birth, breath and bread, and attributes these in turn to the Triune God. The physical bread we eat is from wheat grown in the ground, from whence our bodies are derived. The calcium, silicon, iodine, iron, phosphates, etc. in an organic form are packed into the wheat in order to build up our strength. In like manner, if we are to become partakers of spiritual life and immortality we must needs eat the Bread of God, which is made up of righteousness, goodness, lovingkindness, graciousness, perfectness, holiness, and such like which result in Godlikeness.

Our Lord also claimed, “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me” (John 6:37). This is a sure anchorage for faith; for by our coming it is obvious we form part of the Father’s gift. The decision to do so leads to a great discovery. “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). An eternal mystery is unveiled to everyone that comes. Christ is the true legacy of life; He heartily loves, tenderly calls, sincerely welcomes and gladly receives all who come to Him. No one can have too much of His preciousness, sweetness, or loveliness; all He bestows is fresh and fragrant and satisfies forevermore.

Charles J. Rolls, The Indescribable Christ: Names and Titles of Jesus Christ: A-G (Loizeaux Brothers, 1984).

Uncategorized

The Gospel is about how Good God is, not how bad we are!!!

April 1, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

The Lord Has No Equal

To whom will you compare me?
Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.
Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:25-31 (NLT)

Uncategorized

The Gospel is about how Good God is, not how bad we are!!!

March 31, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

The Lord Has No Equal

Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand?
Are you deaf to the words of God—
the words he gave before the world began?
Are you so ignorant?
God sits above the circle of the earth.
The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
and makes his tent from them.
He judges the great people of the world
and brings them all to nothing.
They hardly get started, barely taking root,
when he blows on them and they wither.
The wind carries them off like chaff.

Isaiah 40:21-24 (NLT)

God Loves Us, Jesus, Messiah

The Gospel is about how Good God is, not how bad we are!!!

March 30, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

The Lord Has No Equal

No, for all the nations of the world
are but a drop in the bucket.
They are nothing more
than dust on the scales.
He picks up the whole earth
as though it were a grain of sand.
All the wood in Lebanon’s forests
and all Lebanon’s animals would not be enough
to make a burnt offering worthy of our God.
The nations of the world are worth nothing to him.
In his eyes they count for less than nothing—
mere emptiness and froth.

Isaiah 40:15-17

Uncategorized

The Gospel is about how Good God is, not how bad we are!!!

March 29, 2022March 29, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

The Lord Has No Equal

Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
Who else knows the weight of the earth
or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord?
Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?
Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice?
Does he need instruction about what is good?
Did someone teach him what is right
or show him the path of justice?

Isaiah 40:12-14

Testimonies, Uncategorized

I’m So Stoked

March 6, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

“I’m living the Dream,” Ben Gravy

Ben Gravy loves to explore and find one-of-a-kind waves to ride. In this short clip, Ben is sharing his excitement about catching one Bonzi Pipeline wave recently. The waves that day were bigger than they usually are.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxa6WUsdzdHia6IljNpRwMjnhucUwGDrJv

I love Ben’s honesty about being so afraid in the morning he told himself he wasn’t going to surf that day.

Ben’s experience is universal. Having a dream that is so big were to afraid to even paddle out into the line-up with all the other dreamers. But, each time we try we experience something new, that we could not experience if we didn’t “Go For It.” I have

I have dreams that scare the crap out of me and I know, from experience, that going for it out weighs staying on the shore.

I want to be in the middle of the arena with the Teddy Rosevelt’s of the world, not an onlooker from the stands.

Let’s do it together!!!

Defination of Stoked: being in an enthusiastic or exhilarated state. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stoked)

God Loves Us, Guest Post, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized

A Way Forward by, Michael Metzger

February 22, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

https://claphaminstitute.org/a-way-forward/ (copied Feb 14, 22)

I appreciate folks who can evolve in their thinking. So I find it fascinating that many who are evolving are recommending the same way forward.

In March of 2020 Chuck DeGroat wrote a confessional titled, It’s Always Been About Love. He felt he’d forgotten that. A great many evangelicals feel similarly, including James K. A. Smith, N. T. Wright and Dallas Willard. Here’s Wright’s evolution over the last 30 years.

In 1992 Wright wrote about a “spiral path” of knowing reality, where the only access we have to reality “lies along the spiraling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known.”[1]Few Christians understood what he meant by that.

Maybe that’s why in 1999 Wright sounded rather pessimistic. “We live at a time of cultural crisis. At the moment I don’t hear anyone out there pointing a way forward.”[2] He felt some Christians “put up shutters” while others capitulate to the post-Christian world. “My brothers and sisters, we can do better than that.”

But Wright wondered aloud who in the faith community has a way forward?And, if believers aren’t pointing a way forward, who else might? By 2013, Wright had found a who else.

That year DeGroat joined a small group of believers meeting with Wright. They were exploring faith and formation. DeGroat asked Wright for his best recommendation for a resource that explores spiritual maturation at depth. Without hesitation, he recommended Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World as a way forward. Wright called it is a “magisterial” work.

I can imagine a few reasons why. McGilchrist says findings in neuroimaging reveal how knowing reality is a spiraling path, a reciprocating flow between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. It turns out Wright’s intuitions were right on.

McGilchrist says the right hemisphere is the intuitive mind. The left is the rational mind. Since 95 percent of the western world biases the left brain, and most of Wright’s readers are western Christians, most couldn’t intuit what he was saying. Small wonder Wright was pessimistic.

But there’s more. McGilchrist notes how only the right hemisphere has direct contact with the outside world, the cultures passing through our gills. The left doesn’t. Since 95 percent of the western world biases the left brain, and most of Wright’s readers are western Christians, most do not touch, feel, taste that we live at a time of cultural crisis.

But there’s more. According to McGilchrist, it is only in the right hemisphere that we make a paradigm shift. In most cultural crises, the way forward requires shifting some paradigms. I have a hunch Wright read that and thought, That’s why there’s so little spiritual maturation at depth. The deepest part of our being is not beliefs but paradigms, unconscious assumptions shaping beliefs. Western Christians don’t go deep enough into anthropology, human nature.

James K. A. Smith, Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University, does. He notes how our anthropologies shape our theologies. He gets that from reading scripture as well as Iain McGilchrist. He cites McGilchrist’s work as a way forward for the church.

It’s no coincidence that DeGroat, Smith, and Wright are all now saying they missed the wider picture. Love. All three come from Reformed traditions formed by the Enlightenment, biasing word over image, language over metaphor. Language is the domain of the left hemisphere, which is narrowly focused. Most Reformed traditions embrace a narrow view of the cross, substitutionary atonement. Jesus died on the cross to satisfy God’s demands for justice. Law. DeGroat, Smith, and Wright are saying they missed love.

The good news has always been about love… and law. In other words, Jesus did die for our sins. But he did this for the joy set before him of “marrying” us, love, enduring the cross, despising the shame. On the cross, we were betrothed to Jesus as his bride. [Yes Love. Father so loved us he sent Jesus. Jesus so loved Father and us he came. Holy Spirit so loved Father, Jesus and us he helps us know them. Jesus is the true way to life (more than Zoe, Shalom); Becoming children of God the Father, betrothed to King Jesus and indweldt by Holy Spirit. This comment added by Michael J. Weiss]

It seems that Dallas Willard was moving in this direction in the last months of his life. Like Wright and Smith, he was despairing. Do people really change—even with all the available resources and practices and disciplines? With his good friend and neuro-theologian Jim Wilder, Willard was exploring how neuroscience is a way forward, developing a psychology of love.

I had a similar experience when I first read The Master and His Emissary. That was in 2010. It helped me see why so few Christians recognize our post-Christian age. McGilchrist helped me see why we don’t seem to have a way forward, and why so few ever make the necessary paradigm shifts. I didn’t feel quite so alone.

That same year I read Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010by Charles Murray, a religious skeptic. Yet he’s hoping for a fourth awakening in America. The first three were led by religion. But Murray rightly notes that religion no longer has cultural capital in America. It can’t lead the way. Neuroscience can, so Murray writes…

“The more we learn about how human beings work at the deepest genetic and neural levels, the more that many age-old ways of thinking about human nature will be vindicated. The institutions surrounding marriage, vocation, community, and faith will be found to be the critical resources through which human beings lead satisfying lives.”[3]

Wow. Neuroscience is a way forward. It can validate, corroborate, older Christian traditions and their understanding of human nature. They can be a resource for shalom, satisfying lives, seeking the well-being of all.

So… if you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day gift for a loved one who wants to evolve in their thinking, and seek a way forward… I highly recommend Iain McGilchrist’s work.

There’s The Master and His Emissary.

There’s a shorter rendition: Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World.

And there’s McGilchrist’s new book: The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. I bought the Kindle version and am currently making my way through it. I’ll report on it later, but I feel it’s reinforcing what a heckuva of lot of evangelicals smarter than me see as our way forward.

[1] N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Fortress Press, 1992), 35.

[2] N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is(InterVarsity, 1999), 195.

[3] Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010(Crown Publishing Group, 2012), 300.

I highly recommend you start receiving Michael’s blog and listen to his podcast!!!!

“The Gospel (Good News) is about how good God is and not how bad we are.” Michael Weiss

Personal Reflections, Testimonies

When am i going too . . .

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

My lower back hurts a lot this morning. When I laugh, cough, stand up, sit down, basically live life, my brain feels a scream of pain from my midsection. I hate it when I am immobilized like this.

Why did this happen again? Did an evil force do it to me again? Did the divine hand of God reach down and touch my back yesterday morning with the intent of causing me pain so I will finally learn a specific lesson? Or am I responsible?

I believe I am responsible!

I have known since 2003 that when I keep the core of my body strong, I reduce my risk of back pain and immobilization by over 85%. In 2003 my back said stop again, and our orthopedic surgeon recommended fusing some of my lower vertebrae to prevent this from happening again. I had been babying this issue for many years, and some say it’s from jumping out of excellent airplanes.

Wise friends encouraged me to get a second opinion, which I did. Six weeks later, another orthopedic surgeon said I didn’t need surgery. “One of your discs still has a bulge but, your leg numbness is gone; you can move without pain, you’re doing fine.” “What do you attribute this excellent recovery to?”

“Pilates”

I told the doctor I saw a Pilates TV commercial and started doing the floor exercises as I was able. Slowly the numbness in my left leg decreased and stopped. Slowly I was able to dress myself, especially but my Army boots on, without pain. Slowly the muscles that wrap around my waist got stronger and stronger, supporting my lumbar vertebrae and discs keeping the bulge from causing problems.

The Doctor replied, and wrote in my medical record, “patient should do Pilates regularly.”

I believe God gave me Pilates. Instead of healing me he was daily giving me the grace to do Pilates. For me, instead of a one time miracle he is giving the the miracle of his sustaining grace everyday. Instead of me remembering one awesome thing God had done I have the opportunity to be with him as he and I walk together daily.

His grace is always sufficient for every one of my needs whether I appropriate it or not.

When am I going too appropriate his grace? I hope more often then in the past!!!

Are you going to acknowledge and appropriate his loving, kind and faithful grace right now?

He is only this whisper away, “I need you God, I surrender to your will and way.”

Shalom to you and yours!

Family News, Recovery Updates

Move Complete

January 9, 2022 Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

We have moved from NC to Springfield, Missouri and glad we did it. We are getting more and more settled as boxes get unpack and our things are put in their new places.

Our new address is: 4535 S. Crescent Ave, Springfield, MO 65804. We are using the same phone numbers.