It was a joy to spend time under the fountain of grace that is Bishop Malcolm Smith.

Malcolm Smith

He cleaned out my junk drawer of so many church, ministry and religious distractions that I have allowed to build up. He re-established the virtue of the One message for All men…the Gospel!

Our gathering was a small band of ministry leaders from across the country who have been infected with the virus of covenant love.

Malcolm shared endlessly for 2 days on what is sure to be a trilogy of retreats on the things he has learned in 60 years of ministry (1954-2014).

The retreat was centered around one phrase that was shared with him as a teenage preacher desiring to be a better messenger…

GET FULL OF YOUR SUBJECT, PULL OUT THE CORK AND LET GOD GO WILD!

His mastery of the message made me yearn to become a better follower, listener and minister of Christ in me.

The following will be a few brief notes from this Sage of Scripture.

The Bible is not a book about or for full-time ministers, unless we define full-time as a manner of everyday life.

We need to continually be gently, but powerfully invaded by the Presence through (living) silence.

I can’t put my subject on the shelf and just go to bed.  It is my whole life.  I am presenting myself as a part of the gospel…according to “my” gospel.  The word of the Lord came to “me”.  I have to describe the gospel through me.

Satan today has taken on a beautiful mask.  It all sounds so good until they show their hand.  Their “god” is not a “Who”, it is best understood as God is the universe.  The lie is that you shall be as god.  They speak of love as an impersonal force.  Christian preachers join their programs and it sounds like they are all saying the same thing, but there is a glaring absence of the person, work, word and name of Jesus.  It is the seduction of the woman of Proverbs and Revelation.  She says and gets “us” to say that love is god, but the truth is that God is love and his name is Jesus.

Spend your life meditating on the holy Trinity and all your questions will be answered.

If you believe that Jesus came to die then the gospels are very long introductions.  He came to be and live as one of us.  Jesus is not he way to heaven, he is the way to the Father.

Once you get the worldview of God’s kingdom, then you will begin to see it and start to look for it in all things.

Jesus lived our lives, but he refused to be Adam, but to be his Father’s son.  He lived among us for 30 years and all he was to them was a carpenter.  He gets his parables as life unfolds all around him as he is growing up as one of us.  Jesus goes into the OT scriptures and reads about the servant of the Lord and sees himself (they speak to him what the Father speaks) and then he goes forth to confess and live out what he sees and hears.

You can only pray for what is yours.

Joy is the outcome of seeing the mystery of Christ.

Eucharistic faith has no past history, but only a ever present vibrating now.

The gospel is the whole message for the whole man.

See yourself the way the enemy knows and sees you and you will be bold.

Texting is taking away from us our unique ability to be able to speak (humans are the only God creature on earth who can talk).

Compassion is the fermentation of God’s love.