.jpeg)
Life Around "The Fire"
Life Around "The Fire"
Having a Centered Life Free from Empty Pursuits
Have you ever felt utterly alone in a crowded room? That's exactly what happened one night in 1980 when, surrounded by party-goers in my own home, I realized a devastating truth: once what I provided was gone, these people would leave. This moment of clarity became the backdrop for a life-changing spiritual encounter.
The voice cut through my emptiness with three simple words: "I love you." Something about it was unmistakable – Jesus Christ was speaking directly to my heart. While everyone around me wanted to take something, He wanted to give something. While my relationships were transactional, His love was transformational. This stark contrast illuminated the deception I had been living in – what I thought was freedom was actually bondage, what looked beautiful was ultimately destructive.
This personal testimony opens our eyes to a profound spiritual truth: there's a fundamental difference between pursuing relationships, substances, or experiences to fill our emptiness versus allowing Jesus to occupy the central place in our lives. When we make Him central – not ourselves, not others, not our careers – spiritual doors open that nothing else can unlock. The deepest human longing to be loved and to love can only be genuinely fulfilled through Christ, who demonstrated the ultimate expression of love by laying down His life. As the Holy Spirit continues working across nations, He's clearing away clouds of delusion to give us clearer glimpses of our magnificent Savior.
Ready to experience God's love at a level you've never known before? It's waiting for you – not in religion, but in relationship. Contact us at lifearoundthefire@gmail.com to continue the conversation about moving from eternal religion to eternal life.
Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!
Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearounsthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.
Shalom to you and your home.
It was somewhere around March or April 1980 that I was with a group of 10 or 15 people that had been partying nonstop for about three days and three nights. We'd been drinking smoking, had been doing just a variety of different drugs, kind of a marathon and it wasn't an uncommon thing for us to do that. In fact that was something that was really a way of life for many of us and in some respects we found some sense of enjoyment. Otherwise, I mean, we wouldn't have done it or wouldn't have been doing it had there been some enjoyment involved. Or isn't appealing or doesn't give some sense of gratification is telling you a lie. Because if sin or things that we do that aren't good for us didn't have something in them that were attractive, there wouldn't be a temptation to do them again. But because of the nature of and the deception of that whole facet of life, facet of life, sin has something that is on one side. We've heard the beautiful. It has on one side something beautiful. We've heard it said, the beautiful side of evil. Now, ultimately, there's nothing beautiful about evil, but it can be enticing and for me, drugs and the lifestyle that went along with that was very enticing for me in my late teens and early 20s and I was of that school that kind of went along these lines, thought along these lines Only the good die young, right. I mean, if you lived to be over 30, you were really old and that if you really wanted to live life, you'd live it real hard between the age of 12 and 25. And give it all you got and then coast until you're about 30 and then be done with it. That was really, that was my mindset, and so I was.
Speaker 1:As I said. I was with this group of people and we were at my house and there were couples that were sleeping together all over my house in different rooms and I couldn't find anywhere to sleep. And it was my house, in fact. I couldn't find anything to drink and I had supplied all the booze and I looked for something to smoke and couldn't find anything to smoke, even though I'd supplied that. And I realized that as soon as the supply that I had been providing was depleted, once what I had to offer had been taken and used up, most everyone would leave, and that really dawned on me. I looked around and I thought, if I didn't provide the basis for all this entertainment and if I didn't throw the party, what and where would these people really be? I mean, who would really be who really cared about me? And I kind of I realized that there really weren't many people who cared about me, many people who cared about me.
Speaker 1:And that really struck me and I heard in the deep part of my innermost being a voice saying to me I love you. And I recognized that voice. Even though it wasn't really all that familiar to me, it had something unique to the quality of it and it was so genuine. But it was also really in saying that he was the one who really loved me. He actually that he was the one who really loved me. He actually had the tone in his voice that he could back it up, or that voice had the tone in it that it could really back up what was being said. It was a male voice, so he and that he happened to be Jesus.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ was speaking to my heart and was using a scenario that had really been one of many scenarios throughout my life, but this particular time he was using it to show me that there's a difference difference between people getting things from us and something being given to us. And he wasn't saying he wanted something from me. And he wasn't saying he wanted something from me. He was saying he wanted to give me something, and he was saying he wanted to give me love, his love. And somehow I knew in the depth of my, even my depravity, that what he was saying he could deliver, and I knew that that was what I was looking for. I was looking for love, I simply wanted to be loved. In fact, I realized that I was willing to pay to be loved and granted, I was also one who is accustomed to using people to get what I wanted. So it was really just a society made up of that way of doing stuff to each other you scratch my itch, I'll scratch yours, type of thing. Except this voice, this person, was telling me something differently and he made it real to me that actually no one, no one, including you know.
Speaker 1:This was a real mind-expanding moment for me at that time, where I realized that there was a malevolent being, that there was a malevolent being, there was a evil force, there was a power that wanted to not only take from me, but it wanted to destroy me and bring it into a place of bondage that it was in and was disguising it in love, and that being that was doing that was Satan. And it became real to me that Satan Satan never once offered to lay his life down for me in order to bridge a gap that I had in my life concerning my relationship with God. Concerning my relationship with God. In fact, as I looked at it, it became clear to me that it was just the opposite Life was being taken from me instead of being given to me, and the only, only, only the only source that was on planet Earth and throughout the cosmos that was capable of giving me love was Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, we've been taking a look, recently, at this wonderful dynamic of the life of Christ and the centrality of Jesus him being central to all of life, he being the focus, he being the center. Not us, but Jesus, not other people, but Jesus, not our occupations, but Jesus being central, being center, being the centerpiece. And because of Jesus being given that place, there are spiritual doors that are opened up. There are spiritual doors that are opened up that we can't open up on our own and no one else can do so and will not be able to satisfy the deep longings of our life, which all stem from our longing for love and then to be able to give love To be loved, to give love To be loved and to love.
Speaker 1:But there's something about there's something about there's something about elevating Jesus and exalting him, even if we're not all that eloquent in our ways of being able to communicate. But we have the simple way of acknowledging that Jesus is God, the Son who is sent by God, the Son who is sent by God, the Father, as a sacrifice of love for our sins, and that by us believing in him, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and that by us believing in him, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness and gives us the right to become known as children of God, to literally be those who carry the nature of God in us, where we didn't have it before. It's granted to us as a gift in response to our faith in believing that what Jesus did was exactly what needed to be done and that he did it because of love and he wanted to show us the depth to which his love would go. No one else would do that. No greater love does any man have than this but to lay down his life for his friends. Satan wouldn't lay down his life for me. Lay down his life for me. He wanted to take my life.
Speaker 1:The culture that I was in didn't want to lay down its life for me. It wanted something from me. Jesus wanted to give me life.
Speaker 1:Religion Religion doesn't want to give me life, it wants me to perform. There's no other name under heaven by which we must be saved, or which we even can be saved, except through the name and the very person of Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the very person of Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father and has a relationship with him except they come through Jesus, and we can't even come to Jesus on our own. It's a gift from God for us to come, because we're drawn by God and we're given the ability to turn and change our mind and change our ways. The gift of repentance is given to us, repentance meaning to be able to change our mind and change our ways. And so and so I just want us to chew on that again that no one, no one, no one is willing to lay down their life for you to the degree, to the degree that Jesus did.
Speaker 1:Some might say well, I really love my kids, I would do anything for them, except if you're to be tortured to the point where the only way to get that torture to stop would be to renounce your relationship with your children. There is an element of torture that is so great that it could cause the greatest people with the greatest intent to switch foot and renege on their promises. Peter, one of the chief disciples of Jesus, had that happen. He said that he would do anything. Anyone else can turn their back on Jesus. Everyone else, anyone, everyone except him. And yet when it came down to it, at a place where his skin was on the line, he denied Jesus.
Speaker 1:There's no greater love that can be given to us, except it's the love of God that comes to Jesus, to us, except it's the love of God that comes to Jesus. And Holy Spirit is doing a magnificent job once again throughout the nations, blowing away the clouds of delusion so that we can have a clearer glimpse of this magnificent Savior, jesus, that we can see God revealed in a greater way. And that's what's happening in your life, in my life, on a level that none of us have ever experienced before. You've heard this word before, but you've never experienced the love of God to the degree that he wants to reveal it to you and through you To me, and through me To us and through us. So I just want us to remember that exalting, lifting high the name of Jesus, worshiping Him, is our highest priority.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, father, I thank you for who you are, for what you're doing, for why you're doing it, for how you're doing it.
Speaker 1:You alone are God and there is no one like you. Help us, help me be in a place where I can see Jesus exalted Less of me and more of him, that it wouldn't be me that people remember, but it would be Jesus so that hearts can be drawn into relationship in a more intimate way with you, breaking us free from religion and setting us once again on the path of eternal life, not eternal religion. I thank you of eternal life, not eternal religion. I thank you, I thank you, I thank you, god, and I stand here in the name of Jesus and I declare these things to be done in his name, by you, holy Spirit, and say amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, all amen, amen. All right, folks, I love you and if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns regarding what we've been talking about, please once again feel free to drop us a line at lifearoundthefire, at gmailcom, or type in lifearoundthefire and look us up on the web. We would love to hear from you In the meantime. God bless you. Adios amigos.