The Message
I hope that I may compel you to please read today’s message at the website. The story is important, and so are the colors, the formatting. Click the picture, or the link above.
🌎 The World Before the Word
There was a stretch where I didn’t stop believing.
I just stopped leaning in.
I still showed up. Still read. Still led. Still prayed — technically.
But something underneath had thinned out.
Not rebellion. Not crisis.
Just low-grade spiritual fatigue.
The kind that makes worship feel like effort.
Scripture felt familiar but not alive.
Prayer felt functional.
I told myself it was a busy season…. that turned into decades.
But if I was honest, I had slowly shifted from abiding to managing.
From communion to output.
And I’m sure people could see it.
That was the unnerving part.
…but there is more
I started having anxiety (decades ago).
Not the “I’m feeling jittery, or this crowd makes me anxious.”
It was the kind that would build and build.
I was walking in fear everywhere.
…but there is more
That slow ripple of nagging anxiety would leap to full frontal panic attack.
It was horrific. It was conscious death, not just fear of it.
Pure and absolute sabotage of all reason.
I learned to manage anxiety,
but that fear of DEATH
…stayed with me every day.
This burden led to depression. This burden required self-medication.
That cycle leads to more depression, and more anxiety, and more DEATH.
…and then your temple, your body, starts to catch up with your anxiety, your depression—
it begins to say YES to real death.
The Old Reflex
The old reflex when faith feels thin is often guilt or grind. For me, it was fear.
Guilt whispers: “You should be better than this.”
Grind whispers: “Fix it. Add more disciplines. Push harder.”
Fear scream: “Disappear!”
Spiritual vitality cannot be bullied back into existence. especially with anxiety, depression, and at any moment, DEATH.
Performance cannot replace presence in that state of mental and physical strife.
The reflex treats anxiety and depression, or any illness like failure.
But sometimes it is simply depletion.
At some point a decision must be made. A crucial one:
…surrender to DEATH
or surrender to GOD
🌿 The new Covenant Posture
The New Covenant posture is return, not self-correction.
A living sacrifice does not strive to re-earn closeness.
It repositions itself to receive.
Under grace, the invitation is not “try harder.”
It is “abide again.” or, in many cases, abide for the first time.
Fatigue, pain, fear, anxiety, depression are not solved by volume.
They are healed by nearness.
Sometimes surrender looks like this:
Naming weariness without shame.
Simplifying instead of intensifying.
Sitting before doing.
God is not startled by your tiredness, your pain, or your suffering.
God is not happy for your suffering, he is happy for you.
He is steady. He simply Loves— and Love is all powerful.
Considering the context of the World Before the Word— this may sound simple.
This may sound contrived.
This may sound like a lie.
…but I didn’t say it was easy—
📜 The Word
“Abide (‘remain’) in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
📖 John 15:4-5
Jesus speaks these words on the night before His crucifixion. THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH.
Not as disapproval of his fate, but as preparation. Feel the verse— and by the end, I know you will. “Remain in me, and I in you”. It’s reciprocal. One without the other makes it false. It is UNION.
While some read this as a master/servant relationship, it truly means that one without the other is dead. The fruit can’t survive without the vine, and the vine has no purpose without the fruit— so both perish.
“ There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”
📖 Hebrews 4:9-11
Written to believers tempted to drift under pressure, Hebrews reframes striving itself — not toward achievement, but toward rest in Christ’s finished work. The paradox is intentional: we labor to resist self-reliance.
The cure for anything, literally anything, is not intensity.
It is return.
🤵 Pastoral Word
The hard part is not the Return…
It is the surrender.
So, after decades of the cycle of depression, anxiety, and death. I had no choice but to live.
This was only a year ago.
It took all those decades, years of hell for me to decide to surrender. Then another six days of shutting off everything and making sure the house was clean so I would not be embarrassed by the untidiness of my demise. It’s true…
Yes, a decision was made— a final “this has to work” moment.
Then on a late Saturday night in June, less than a year ago,
I encountered Jesus and the Angels.
I’m happy to share the story— but that’s really a distraction from what matters.
I made a choice to surrender— and boy did I ever— and the gift I received IN A MOMENT, RIGHT THEN was complete healing from depression, anxiety, and death itself.
The next day, I said out loud to my wife over the phone:
“I won’t be having depression and anxiety ever again.”
…and I won’t.
Christ and the Angels simply want me to speak about the message that was given— you already know them— the message is what matters. And I find that beautiful— it’s about the message, not the messenger.
Wanna know the story? Feel free to just imagine a really cool experience then return your attention right here so you can see the true miracle.
THE REAL MESSAGE
WE ARE TO
…and as simple as that sounds, we so often fall short.
That is how we
LOVE GOD
And when we return to Love God
We see God everywhere
and then nothing is scary anymore
not even death
There was another message for all of us
When I asked Christ to Reveal Himself
He did…
the message was clear…
Christ Lives within Each of Us
🙏 Let's Pray
Heavenly Father, Christ in me,
You did what I could never do.
You fulfilled every requirement,
Every shadow, every promise, and you called it finished.
Your Son became the sacrifice, the mercy seat, the way back home.
Because of Him, I don’t stand outside—I stand welcomed.
Lord, thank You for a covenant sealed in blood stronger than my weakness,
stronger than my past,
stronger than every accusation hell could make.
You remember my sins no more,
not because You forget easily,
but because You forgave completely.
Write Your truth deeper in me than fear.
Write Your grace louder than shame.
Put Your Spirit fresh within me—
teaching me, correcting me, leading me into love.
Not by duty, but by desire.
Not from distance, but from union.
Jesus, be my righteousness every morning and my rest each night.
Let my life prove the power of a new heart and a renewed mind.
Not striving to earn You,
but living from the gift of You.
Make me a sign of this covenant—
a life that looks like resurrection,
a heart that carries mercy,
a voice that speaks hope,
hands that break bread instead of breaking people.
May Your kingdom come in me and through me,
just as You intended when You tore the veil.
I am Yours.
Loved.
Reconciled.
Made new.
Amen
🔥 Carry this With You Today
I return to abiding, not striving.
I had to share this
This is part of a new system I’ve been working on. It’s called “Witness V2”. It’s almost ready for everyone. But tonight, reflecting on all this, the system detected that I was “Anchored and Peaceful” over the course of writing this.
That “82.7” is extraordinary— it represents a level of steadiness that is hard to reach, and it happened while writing this.
I hope to share this with all of you within very soon.