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I got an email this weekend while I was traveling about Washington State from Adam, a 22-year-old who works with a campus ministry in Kentucky. I can’t tell you how much his words refreshed me personally and encouraged me to give my life afresh to what God has asked me to do. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it with you:

It amazes me how much strength and joy we can draw from a simple word of encouragement. Maybe that’s why the author of Hebrews told us to look for ways to encourage one another daily. Is there someone in your life who has had a profound impact on your own journey? Have you taken the time recently to tell them how much they have meant to you? You’ll never know how much they might gain from your simple words of affirmation from you. Why don’t you take some time and give them a call or write them an email today and let them know how Jesus has used them to touch and encourage you?

Sorry it’s been so quiet of late, but I’ve been on the road in the Seattle area for the past five days. I’ve been with a wide diversity of people and I wish I had time to tell you about it… But, I have to head for the airport in a few moments and have been in conversations with people almost nonstop. No time to write. Sorry! But I’ve met some fabulous folks at various stages of the journey, and now in the last couple of days with some old friends I have visited before.

Now it is home for two days and then I go again, but this time Sara goes with me, as do daughter Julie and granddaughter Aimee, so that will be fun. And I also understand the family will be over tonight. That’s why I love Flydays… I love getting back to those whom my heart loves so much. I wonder if dying some day will be like that. Just another Flyday to be near those my heart has loved so much. That would bee cool! Blessings on you all.

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Religion’s Antidote has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Why do passionate disciples of the Living God continue to get caught in the system of religious obligation? Because they have not understood that God has satisfied in himself all that he would ever require of us to have full and complete access to his presence. He did that in the cross of Jesus Christ, and if we understood the power of the cross, we would never fall victim again to the manipulations and appeals of religious obligation. In their latest podcast Brad and Wayne discuss what happened at the cross and how it frees us from the bondage of religion so that we can live together as Father’s family.

In the morning, I am off to Seattle and a weekend retreat there with a group from a nontraditional fellowship and then some time in the Tacoma and Port Orchard area with some old friends and some new ones…

I’ve been home for a few days now, trying to get my head back in my home time zone and trying to process the incredible experiences I had in South Africa. First of all, let me thank those of you who helped make this trip a reality—those who kept us in prayer and those who shared with us financially in the expenses and ministry of this trip. It was awesome in every way. I have posted some photos at Ofoto.com if you want to view them.

On my last Friday in South Africa Phillip and Vicky took me to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. What an awesome experience. This is more than a museum—it actually invites you into the experience of what apartheid felt like for oppressed and oppressor alike and allowed you to experience the triumph of its end and a fresh new hope for a country that faces incredible challenges in transitioning to a democracy that all can participate in equally.

I was struck by a number of things there—how easy it is to justify, even in theological terms, what serves our own self-interest, the oppression on indigenous peoples that European civilization exported to the world, and courage it took for the disenfranchised to stand up at great personal cost and demand liberation for the oppressed. Everyone hails Nelson Mandela as a gift from God to help build a new South African society that includes all races. I am reading his autobiography to understand how this man could have suffered so much and come out with heart for reconciliation and not vengeance. It is great reading

As we drove away from the museum that day I was greatly encouraged by those who put the ideal of freedom above their own personal expedience. Mandela spent 27 of his prime years in prison for treason because he dared to try to overthrow the apartheid regime. Many more were imprisoned, persecuted even killed for challenging the status quo. I was reminded of the many people I’d met in South Africa who have struggled to leave the religious institutions that have become such a part of Christianity to seek a greater life and freedom in the reality of Jesus. Many felt the were alone and one man said leaving the institution he’d been part of for life was like ‘crucifying his mother’. Many of you reading this know what it is to suffer the rejection of family and friends, maybe even mentors to you in the faith because you felt you could no longer fit in with a system of religious obligation that you found lifeless and empty. It is those first few years that are most difficult, and, yes, it can be painful to experience disapproval and judgment by people you care deeply about.

But in the end, it is just disapproval and that is an incredibly small price to pay to find your way into the life of God. No one is putting us in prison. No one is killing us, torturing our children or burning our homes. As people remind me often, “Do you realize they were killing people only 400 years ago for writing the things I write?” Yes I do know.

If people can give up their own self-interest for freedom in this age, how much more can we lay ours down for the freedom that supercedes all other freedoms—life in Christ? I know it may be difficult for a season, but no one I’ve met who has broken free of the system of religious obligation and discovered the life of God beyond it, has had any regrets. The life deeply lived in him is worth any cost or risk in this age. Let us pursue him with firm resolve, laying aside any thing that entangles us and love him more deeply than anything else. Who knows? We may yet suffer again for doing so, but the wealth within easily overrides any pain without!”

We have reached the day of my departure. In a couple of hours I will be heading to the airport and the long flight home. I honestly can’t wait to reconnect with my family there. This has been an awesome trip and the last weekend in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area has been no exception. I have met so many believers hearing God say similar things about escaping the clutches of religious obligation to live in the life and freedom of Jesus. It is truly a call that has gone out over the whole world. We need to live to him a lone, and not be seduced into any system of man that seeks to replace his living presence with rituals, traditions and regulations.

Yesterday morning I met with a large group of Christians in Pretoria in a lovely home overlooking the national government buildings of South Africa. They had left the reformed church they had all grown up in some years before at God’s leading, even though they were misunderstood and rejected by close friends and family. They were seeking a place in the reality of God’s presence they had not found yet. They had a copy of an earlier incarnation of The Naked Church that had spurred them on from more than 15 years ago. When I came in they were in a large circle with pens and notebooks ready asking me to share with them how to live in the affection of the Father of all! I now know just a little bit what Peter felt when he showed up at the House of Cornelius. The four hours I had with them flew by and I could hardly pull myself away. What an awesome group of people, and I hope to cross paths with them again.

Then I spent my remaining hours with some out-of-the-box believers around Johannesburg. Last night we were in a coffee shop exploring the power of the cross. This morning we went on an hour and a half walk through the bush and then spent a few hours cooking breakfast on portable cookers and sharing our lives together. They do this ever few weeks as God leads and it was such an amazing expression of body life. Young people and unbelievers joined us as well because they just enjoy being together and sharing life. What a great way to hang out as the body! As excited as I ham to get home, I have been deeply touched by my many experiences here and the people I have met. May God lead them with his great grace into ever-deeper expressions of his love. I do hope to return someday. They have all said I must bring Sara when I do. Amen!

In my first few days in Johannesburg I got to know a couple from Zimbabwe who had come down to meet me during my stay. They are an older couple, hot on the path of living out the life of Jesus and we enjoyed so much swapping stories and the things God has shown us in our journeys. They were such a joy to be with, especially given the dire circumstances where they live.

The revolution in Zimbabwe has been devastating. Now run by a dictator who bulldozes the homes of anyone who disagrees with him, the economy has collapsed. Crime is rampant and today the Zimbabwe dollar trades for $30,000.00 US and it costs more than a million dollars just to go get groceries and food is incredibly scarce. Over 90% of the white population has fled the country in recent years to find better conditions elsewhere.

They told me a story about a friend of theirs, a dentist that had moved to Australia some years earlier as the country was collapsing. After he was there a few years he felt God ask him, “Why are you here?” As he thought about the trouble in his home country and the better life he was able to make for his family in Australia. Then the Lord continue to speak to him. “You can live in a first-world country naturally but spiritually it is a third world country. Or you can live in a third-world country in the natural but in actuality is a first world country spiritually.” Within a few months he moved back to Zimbabwe where he remains today.

The courage and passion of people who are led by God to stay in a country so broken, when most of their friends have fled was inspiring to me. Pray for them and others throughout Zimbabwe who live in the midst of such incredible need yet continue to grow so deeply in the life of Jesus.

FRANKILIN, PA – There is nothing I love doing more than hanging out with folks for a few days sorting out the reality of what Father and Son did on the cross for us. We’re in an old castle on a hill in the woods of Western Pennsylvania that was built in the early 1900s by the man who invented kerosene. There’s just under 50 of us and we’ve had the whole week to refocus our life in God and to sort out what it means to live in his reality. It has been awesome. It always rekindles my passion to focus on these things.

This is a new group of folks for me. For forty years these people and their families have come together each summer to spend a week growing in some area of their spiritual life and fellowshipping together. They invited me to join them this week and share with them anything I felt led to share. What I love most is the questions people are asking both in sessions and at other times we’re just hanging around. The spiritual hunger is glorious, and the work Father is doing to free people into his life has been a joy to frolic in.

One of the things that has been fresh for me this week is thinking of the Parable of the Incredible Father (popularly known as The Prodigal Son.) We’ve looked at this parable with a different older brother. We not only looked at the Pharisee-son slaving on his father’s farm with anger and resentment that Jesus told about. We’ve also contemplated what this story would have been like with Jesus as the older brother. He is that, you know. He is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters who have been invited into his Father’s house.

If Jesus were the older brother in this story, how would he have felt about his younger brother? What might he have said to him when he reached rock bottom? How would he have made a way for this brother to come back home as a restored son and heir? That’s what Jesus did. Not only in his life here on earth, but continues to find us at our lowest, most broken moments, and invites us back to the Father’s house, where the table is set and the barbeque is blazing. It doesn’t take much imagination, because Jesus has already accomplished this in us who have found ourselves back home in the arms of a loving Father.

Well, gotta get back to the retreat as we finish up in the next twenty-four hours. Then it’s on to Youngstown, OH and some great friends there.

Tomorrow I head for 11 days in Western Pennsylvania. I’ll be teaching at a family camp through the week, head up to Youngstown, Ohio for a Saturday afternoon/evening with some dear friends in a home church up there and then it’s back to Pennsylvania for a seminar at an Assembly of God fellowship in Grove City. I’ll be gone about 10 days and would appreciate your prayers for the folks I’ll be with during these times. I’ll try to blog when I get near an Internet connection.

I have finished Robert Farrar Capon’s Kingdom, Grace and Judgment and there’s a few more quotes I think you’ll enjoy:

Wow! Can you imagine living alongside folks that really believed that? It would be an absolute joy. I hope you know some of those. If not, I hope you are one of those so that others near you will have a safe place to fall in moments where their weaknesses are evident. If not, ask Jesus to help you see this reality from the core of your being. He’s the one who helps us live in this freedom.

I love the questions people are asking as they wake up to the reality of living in the life of Jesus. This one came today from Mississippi and in the limited space email offers, I tried to give her a bit of an answer:

Not stupid at all… Religion finds no end to the ways of manipulating people to do good or even to convert. As God wakes us up to his reality we can admit that most of what evangelism has meant is exploiting and manipulating our neighbors and friends, rather than demonstrating to them the reality of who God is by the way we live our lives. I’m blessed God is doing that work in you.

Scripture makes clear that it is the Spirit who convicts the world (John 16) and that it is our task to love them freely (John 13:34-35) and not manipulate them by persuasive words (I Cor 2) nor shameful tactics (2 Cor 4). Rather by living in his reality and openly talking about it as others ask us about our lives we ‘set forth the truth plainly (and in doing so) commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Cor 4:1-4)

As we live in his reality, we’ll have no end of opportunities to give an account for the hope that lies within us. And then we can truly express our love and concern for people and not just manipulate them to respond the way we think they should.

It makes sharing this kingdom a task of exquisite joy, not a heavy obligation.

I’m sorry it has been so quiet around here. I got back Monday from a weekend in New Mexico and fell right into a host of details that need to be sorted out not only for the people I encourage and the websites I run, but also to make final arrangements for our move next week about 30 miles to the east in Moorpark. So don’t be surprised if this blog is kind of quiet for the next few days.

Last night Brad and I recorded a new edition of The God Journey which has just been posted on our sister website. “Living in the Relationship” is designed to encourage people outside the box to go on and thrive in their personal relationship with God through Jesus. Brad and Wayne also tackle the difficult question, “What do you do when you feel like God is asking you to do something you’re not ready for?” and comment on some recent letters from listeners.

I had a marvelous time in New Mexico, meeting a wide variety of people in a broad diversity of places in this journey. We talked and talked and talked about how it is that we can live in the power and simplicity of the life of Jesus and how we that can be freely shared with other brothers and sisters without the complications and baggage of institutions and programs that offer an illusion fo community without letting us experience its life and depth. I spent a couple of days in Albuquerque and then the weekend up in Capitan. I am continually blessed by the hunger I find in God’s people and the willingness of so many to risk the disapproval of friends and family to pursue the hunger that is on their hearts.

We ate everything from barbeque to Mexican to Cajun, sat under the trees and shared the rich heritage our Father has provided for us in his son. We were even interrupted Saturday night as we talked outside under a 1500 square foot tarp some of them had put up that morning in case it rained. As we were winding up for the evening a powerful thunderstorm cell crossed overhead flooding us with water and blowing down the tarp we were under. It was quite a finish to a marvelous day. We left Sunday evening to head back to Albuquerque so I could catch my 6:00 a.m. flight home. We were treated to a magnificent sunset as we drove west from Capitan back to Albuquerque.

One of our themes from the weekend came from Ezekiel 34. As God prophesies against the bad shepherds for feeding off of his sheep instead of feeding them, he said he would replace those shepherd himself. One of the things I noted in that passage was that he never blamed the sheep for being scattered. He blamed the shepherds who had misused them. Then he promised to gather the sheep to himself. He would be their shepherd and lead them into pastures where we would never need to be afraid again. What an amazing reality! Jesus is the only Senior Pastor you will ever need. Imagine the freedom and joy we could experience if we could grasp that one simple truth.