Geoffrey's Notebook

And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. Leviticus 1:15 As we're on the altar of fire —" a living sacrifice" — our High Priest does His expert work on us.  We are not only cut into pieces by His double-edged sword of the Spirit, but our wounds bleed and must be drained out.  The cuts of the cross may also arrive from other people. It seem to hurt the most when coming from our beloved brothers and sisters in the church. We are left with wounds. We are left bleeding from their words or actions.  It hurts ... and we bleed.  We forgive ... but we still feel the blood pouring out. The wound is still open.  It hurts ... but let the Lord drain the "blood" all the way out. As our own soul's life is dried up from this work of the cross, this altar experience, we end up fully dead to it. There's no more that may be done to us. We are drained out. No more ble...

I started a short series with a brother on this topic of the kingdom but we never finished it. Here are the ones we've covered so far. These were meant to be short and simple introductions to some concepts that are often too complicated or controversial to cover easily.  These are based off of many talks in our living room when some questions would come up about gift or reward or future prophecies and we'd end up on a tangent with a messy whiteboard. 

 This is not a message, it is more of a discussion that I’ve been having with several people by phone call or email or chat or in person. This only includes some notes on it but I wanted to share a more comprehensive view all at once.

I just received a question via text from a brother who is about to share a short word at an upcoming event. He wanted to know how I prepare when I'm sharing a word. There are many more details to talk about, but for those 5-minute times, here are my notes: 1) Pray for the people  The "burden of the word" (Mal 1:1) or the specific main word I get often comes through this. If I have no clue what to share on and I'm asking the Lord about it, the answer doesn't always come until I begin to pray for the people. More often than not, I'll be praying for the souls, and some Scripture or topic will come through that. Sometimes I already have the word, and I cannot tell when it came, but I know what I should share on. In your case, you may have a word already in your heart that has worked in you to get you to this point. Even still, you take the word and bring it to the Lord and pray for the people that will be listening. 2) Meditate and receive the word The largest par...

I've recently picked up studying Romans again and found this old outline that I had scratched down maybe 15 years ago. It was refreshing for me to see and was not something that I had seen in a commentary or heard in a message. 

I had a question from a brother who was about to counsel someone for baptism in May 2021. What follows are some notes I sent. Recently, another asked me about this, so I thought it best to post this as a reference. It's a little raw, like an email, but hopefully helpful to the baptism counselor. See the links at the end of this post for more teaching or preaching on baptism.  Question Asked:  Hi Geoffrey. Someone here has asked to be baptized and requested that I do it. I'm willing but have never baptized anyone before. Can you give me a crash course as this may happen as soon as next week. Also, shouldn't there be some sort of counseling prior? A couple others have expressed interest as well. Quick Response: Awesome to hear! I'll write more later, but I can share a little now.  Counseling  should be simple enough for the thousands saved at Pentecost to get baptized on the same day with only 120 counselors :) If you are counseling, you want to check for two things ba...