You don't normally see what you're not looking for. For example, birds. People who enjoy bird watching, who intentionally look for them, see them everywhere. They seek them and they find them. Another example is cars. I tend to not pay much attention to other cars until I'm driving one - then suddenly I see the make and model I'm driving everywhere!
It's the same with our God. Unless you set your mind to focus your attention on Him, unless you look for Him in the everyday, mundane minutia of life - you won't see Him. But if you keep your heart focused on Him as you go about the daily business of living - you'll see Him everywhere! All the time! You'll notice tiny miracles you didn't see before, like, as I was thinking of this essay, I came across a truck filled with pillows and bedding supplies and a man from our school where I teach and live gave me two pillows and a bedspread - just what I needed and had asked the Lord for a few days earlier. Father really does love to walk and talk with us, just like he did with Adam in the cool of the evening, in the garden of Eden (so Adam, how was your day? Fine, Lord, thanks for asking. OOOH! Let me tell you about this new animal I found! I think I'm gonna name him__________, what do you think? That's fine, Adam, it's a fine name).
I was walking along recently when it started to rain. I mean really pour - and me without an umbrella! Immediately, a man walks up to me and says "Sir, would you like an umbrella?", hands me an umbrella and speeds off before I can even reply. As if he knew the answer before he asked. How often, I wonder, have we encountered angels unawares?
Furthermore, God doesn't just walk with us in the lush, beautiful garden moments of our lives - he walks with us in our desert crossings too - when things seem bleak and dark and we begin to weaken and despair. He will escort us to our next oasis, he never leaves us or forsakes us (physically or spiritually).
As he joins us each day on our daily excursions, he will bless us with miracles both small and large but never forget the greatest miracle of all, the only one that really matter ultimately - His presence! Yes, ranking right up there with the Name of Jesus is the name of Emmanuel! (God with us). For the very reason he saved us was so we could be reunited with him, now and forever more. Salvation is pointless if you are born-again, then ignore him the rest of your days, only turning to Him when you need something from Him.
See him in that flower you just passed - yes that one, growing through a crack in the concrete, shouting to you "Hey. I'm still here! In the midst of all man has made, I can still be found!" Let him show you a spectacular sunset (sunrises and sunsets are special moments set aside by God for meeting with him), seemingly hand painted by God especially for you. Pull your car over and enjoy it with him and tell him what a lovely God he is and how talented and creative he is, how his glory is never-ending and unique and in this, your worship is consecrated in the halls of heaven as much as any church building. Go on a date with him, walk among the stars on a darkened beach and watch him dazzle you with a shooting star or two (or three). Don't wait to get to heaven to fellowship with him, enjoy his company now, when you can stockpile testimony after testimony in your heart, to be recited later in Glory, of how you trusted him completely and sought him every day with all your heart, even while walking through this world full of stinking flesh. Set your heart on things above and you will see him on earth below and your's will be a heart he will value and treasure forever. Selah,

Did you know the Cross is both the salvation of this world and it's condemnation? Because Jesus took all the world's sins upon himself, yours and mine and everyone else who has ever lived, when they take them back off the Cross and choose them over Jesus' righteousness, there remains no more salvation for them for they reject the only salvation known to mankind.
Christians are they who choose to leave their sin on the Cross, where they mercifully are accepted. It's at the Cross that we declare we are dead and so weak in our sinful lifestyle (nature) that we cannot break free - we are dead in our sin and our only hope is the Blood of Jesus our beloved Christ.
I fall prostrate before the Cross in full acknowledgment that I need you, Jesus - only you can save me from this death, from my every act of rebellion. It's too late to save my body, but you can save my soul. I confess and leave every sin with you - by faith in you alone I will live with you forever. I trade my death , my sin, for your resurrection life and Jesus - thank you so much for what you've done for me and continue to do and will do. Amen. Selah. 

Question: What is the primary function or duty of believers, one for another?

We are all like Lazarus when we are Born-again. We all respond to the voice of Jesus telling us to "Come forth" (and be ye separate) from our place of death, from our sin, from abiding apart from Him. Come forth from our path to Hell. Without Christ, without his resurrection life, we would forever abide in death. After we respond to His call, after we rejoice in His Truth, His voice, after we accept the Holy Spirit's guidance, we are still wrapped in our "grave clothes". We still have the stench of death, of our old, sinful nature upon us - we are still bound by sin. This is when we need our fellow believers the most - this is when they must obey Jesus' command to "LOOSE HIM AND LET HIM GO". Lazarus could not remove his own grave clothes!
"And he that was dead (insert your name here) came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes" John 11:44. Many in churches today are still "bound in their grave clothes", unable to enjoy the life God has given them. Those of us who are free of our "grave clothes" are to help others to be free of them. We are to lead by example, we are to model a Holy, godly, acceptable lifestyle that is pleasing to the Father. We are to raise our young (believers) on a diet of the Word of God and the fruits of the Spirit. We are to show them how to be filled with the Spirit and how to "walk in the Spirit", how to be led by Him. Like the good Samaritan, we are to bind each others wounds (not cause more wounds, or deepening wounds already there). We are meant by God to heal the broken hearted not break their hearts again. We are to restore sight to the blind and set at liberty them that are bruised.
And when we have done all this, when we have lovingly helped restore a soul to health and freedom from the lifestyle that leads to , that is full of, death, we are to "LET HIM GO"! Our focus is not to fill our churches but to fill the Kingdom of God with souls! With saints he can enjoy fellowship with forever. We read that after Jesus resurrected Lazarus he went to Bethany and "there they made him a supper; and Martha served but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him". Our ultimate goal for every soul Jesus rescues is to invite them to sit at the Lord's table and sup with him, to fall in love with him! Most churches are nurseries full of babies that never mature, yet the goal of all ministry is to present to Jesus a pure and mature bride that he can enjoy intimacy with forever - selah.
So, after you've disciple that young believer, after you've helped him out of his grave clothes - Let him go! Let him fellowship with Jesus, at His table, in his home, not in your church building. This, after all, is where Jesus wants to be invited into - homes. We are never to put believers newly freed back into another form of bondage where we control every aspect of their walk with God, where we make them dependent on us. Rather, as good parents with the Father's heart, we see them to maturity and we let them go! The goal of every teacher is to prepare their students with knowledge, then send them on to the next grade level, not keep them in their class forever. And eventually - the student is to take the knowledge and leave school and build a life of his own, replete with little ones of his own to teach. Spiritual children should grow up and produce more spiritual children. When I started my family, I did not take my children to my parents to raise. Yet, so many do just that, when they dutifully take souls God has blessed them with, souls they led to the Lord, out of their graves, they take them to their pastor to raise. Now, my children liked to visit their grandparents. They were a beautiful part of their childhood...but they were raised by my wife and I.
So I say to Pastors now - for those mature saints free of grave clothes in your church - LET THEM GO NOW! Amen. 

If a pastor is not following the Holy Spirit but the spirit of religion instead, they will end up fulfilling Satan's will, not God's. They won't have enough discernment to tell who is walking through their door. The can't tell who the Devil has sent to curse and those God has sent to bless, they ignore. Worse still - they accept wholeheartedly the immature or false and give them fellowship and sometimes a place to minister, while rejecting wholeheartedly the mature, godly, anointed ones God has sent. This is flesh at it's worse. If you, Pastor, are not submitted to the Holy Spirit, you are rejecting the very salvation of your ministry. We shall wipe the very dust of your fellowship off our feet and "anathema maranatha" will be written upon the door of your heart.

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God". "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not". 

I don't want to live a faithless life
only to stand before you one day and confess
"I could have done so much more".
"I didn't walk through each door you opened to me"
Use me - all of me
for your eternal glory.
Use my hands, my feet, my tongue,
that I may be seen as an obedient son.
Lead me to the poor in spirit (I want true wealth).
Lead me so I may lead others on a path far from Hell.
Don't give up on me,
please don't quit.
Some day may the word "faithful"
apply to Chris Tripp....

The honor of humility
far surpasses any other honor
we may receive in this brief life
(except for martyrdom)
Yes - we may pursue many paths that lead
to attention for ourselves
yet serving with no recognition
at all is better than all other paths by far
for our Heavenly Father
notices
and will reward us
according to His good pleasure
in this life and the next
This my friends is what it truly means to be blessed.
Honor and recognition from God above bestowed
is far greater than any other here below....

Real humility is simply agreeing with God about whatever he says to you and about you.
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven"
"But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted".
"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up".

TV is happy
to be
your faithful companion when no one else will
TV's there for you
so loneliness won't kill
till your dying breath
TV will bless
all your days
with a sort of mindless
craze
full of thoughts
and words
and scenes
that do nothing
to prepare you
for Eternity.....