Wade Poe

Something I've been learning for a decade or more is that we can trust God and depend on him, way more than we imagine. We can depend on the fact that we are his and he is ours - already, now, and completely.  We can know that he will never leave us or forsake us and we've had any division between us removed. He loves us unconditionally and forgives us of anything and everything - in fact he did that at the cross - completely, fully, and forever. Forgiveness of sins is not "salvation" per se, but it makes it possible for us to have new life with God. A lot of people want to be "saved" but they don't necessarily want new life with God. __________ Jesus said a lot of people would be looking for a religious experience, but not everyone would find the path to life - and they are two different things. It's not to say the religious people won't be "saved" for heaven, but that many will live in less than the best available for them in this lif...

A lot goes into decisions to move on and make a change. Leaving a friend group. Leaving a relationship or marriage. Leaving a church. Leaving a tradition. I've said this in pieces over the last few months, but it's coming together more clearly with each passing week - the leaving behind was more of a leaving something that was already leaving or had left. Some suggested to me that I was leaving a ship that was sinking and I get that, but I don't think it was a ship that was sinking so much as one that was changing directions and getting very focused in the development of a certain quality that I'd begun to move away from some years earlier. Denial is a powerful thing.  It can make you hold on to something with the hope that what you want to be true will be true.  It can make you ignore the things you see with your own eyes. Someone told me that my "new understanding" of God, the gospel, etc would be something that would be a thorn in my flesh as long as I was ...

  God wants to know   (and already does)   if you are just using him for what you want - or if you want to actually know him. __________ You  want people to know what  you  think.  But you’re afraid to put yourself out there. Or at least many people are. Probably most. Even if you’re afraid to admit it and you want to avoid any kind of downside to saying what you think or how you feel, you want to be heard. You can deny it, and I’m okay with that, but it’s true. We live in a culture where we/people are dying for affirmation.  People,  including you,  want to be affirmed that what they say, think, do, etc is important, valued, etc. We live in a time in which people are valued for what they can produce for us (money, agreement, etc) and we know that we are valued in the same way for many people. __________ We’ve all seen memes or reminders over the last ten+ years about the need to  actually  listen to people as they talk and N...

Whenever I read Ecclesiastes, I feel sorry for Solomon, the wisest man who'd lived up until that point, according to lore and tradition. I mean, he has anything and everything you could want and he still found it to be just so-so at best on many occasions. It would be like a person who won the lottery everyday and never had to worry about resources - that's roughly the same as what Solomon's situation was. He had all the food, houses, servants, music/musicians, military support, entertainment, books, women/sexual partners in the world he could want and then some.  And he still found it to be, "Meh".  When he was young, God told him he could have anything he wanted and he asked for wisdom. And God gave it to him. I don't know that his wisdom was exceptionally deep, mysterious, or wise by the standards we think of today - it was just basic, profoundly true things that no one we know of had seen, acknowledged and recorded before - and it blew people away. I try t...

Knowing God and interacting with God in a different way has been an amazing and surprising part of the journey over the past few years. I've known about God because I "grew up going to church" and I'm sure God was showing himself to me in ways through that and people and more, but it's different now. __________ Fear is gone.  For the most part. In one of the John letters, the writer says that perfect love casts out fear. I think I used to say that I wasn't afraid of God, but I see there's a difference between mentally knowing I don't have to fear God and being in a different kind of relationship where I don't fear God. In Job 13:15, he says, "even if God kills me, I will trust in him". Wow, that's big. I heard that in a song years ago and struggled with the idea and I think I get it now.  At least more than before. Fear of the Lord IS the beginning of wisdom. It is the start of understanding things, but it’s not the place we stay with...

Is it even possible to share Jesus to make yourself look good?  I've read about it & thought about other people doing it, but was never sure.  One of those revelations you don't necessarily want entered my mind recently & pointed out this passage of scripture from Paul in Philippians 1... "It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.   The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.  The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.  But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice." __________ People have different motives for doing things that even they are unaware of because of the way things work. I remember hearing a fellow minister years ago share with a larger group of ministe...

For a lot of people who are "outsiders" church is like a timeshare that you buy, but you still have to go sit through the sales pitch for it every week. Church people will often respond with, "Well, those without the Spirit can't understand the things of the Spirit" , but are just talking past outsiders, not realizing "church" sometimes has little to do with Spirit. It's a conundrum I've been wrestling with over this past year since quitting a career in full-time ministry as a minister/pastor and "deconstructing" and rebuilding. How do you get outsiders who don't "get" the actual Good News message of God through Jesus to hear that message without some of the unrelated baggage that "church" tries to attach to it? How do you get insiders to see that the whole package deal of "church" as we often think about it is a mixed bag that often includes things that have little to nothing to do with the Good News...