Parrots and Pigeons

“And He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”’”
— Isaiah 6:9

A man walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender was concerned and asks, “Is he trained?” The parrot responds, “I am, but I’m not sure about him.”

1 John 4:1 warns us, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Yet, we don’t. It takes time and effort to test the spirits. It takes study and dedication to “work out your own salvation” (Philippians 2:12). It takes courage to KNOW where you stand and what you believe.

It is much easier to be a parrot or a pigeon.

Parrots, for all the value they have to produce amusement and jokes, don’t actually know anything. However, if you spend enough time with them, they can learn to mimic words and phrases. They can immediately respond to prompts with coined phrases that elicit wonder at their abilities. But question them further and you will descend into a babbling chant without substance. However, at least they have to learn to speak the phrases.

Pigeons on the other hand (homing pigeons, I mean), don’t even have to learn the words. They simply fly to their point of origin with a message strapped to their leg. Not knowing what it says, much less what it means.

We are a country filled with parrots and pigeons, and more pigeons than parrots. We are a people who “keep on hearing, but don’t understand.” We want a hero. We want to echo someone who says things we agree with in eloquent ways. More than that, with social media, we revel in the fact that we don’t even have to figure out how to say the message ourselves. All we have to do is hit the share button and carry the message home to our friend group. No understanding. No perception.

I speak and write often. Never do I feel more insecure than when someone quotes me. I often feel they missed the point. I strive not to provide the answer. I work diligently to raise the question in hopes that God will provide a greater answer in their life.

Over the past week, it has become obvious to me we are building roosts of parrots and pigeons rather than disciples. People who do not think for themselves. Who do not search diligently for their own understanding. People who at best parrot what others say or, even worse, become the flying rat of a pigeon and transmit a message they don’t understand nor truly believe (but it sure gets the “likes”).

Great teachers will never teach you what to say or how to say it. They will challenge you to ask great questions and develop understanding. As 2 Timothy 2:2 says, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit this to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” It is way beyond agreeing with a message. Understanding is not memorization or parroting quotes. It is developing a knowledge base which enables you to teach others.

We were not called to be parrots or pigeons. For them, all the world is a toilet for their deposits. We were called to be men and women who think. People who struggle for truth and contemplate. Cherished individuals who strive to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

In the end, the only thing you say that matters is what you fully believe in your heart. Everything else is bird poop! As Romans 10:10 states, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Right before this Paul stated in Romans 10:2-3, “For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

In others words, we should all take account of the words we are sharing with others. Are they formulated from an understanding of God’s righteousness or are they an attempt to create an image of our own? Do we truly believe what we share? Or do we just think what others share is “right”? Have we found our own voice which is built on knowledge and led by God?

We are called to share the Bread of Life. However, far too often, Poli- just wants a cracker (poli- here meaning the public or city). May it never be so with me.

I pray each of us would grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ today. That we would earnestly seek knowledge into who He is and who we are called to be in Him. That we would not be content to share the thoughts of others. No matter how great they are, they cannot replace who God called you to be. Rather, I pray, we would fall at the feet of the Great Teacher, be open to learning, and have the courage to share only the knowledge we find there.

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

Forgiveness is a Decision

"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."
— Ephesians 4:32

Aesop’s fable “The Laborer and the Snake” warns of the limits of human forgiveness. It shares the story of a Snake who builds his home near the door of the Laborer’s house. One day, the Snake bites the heel of the Laborer’s son and the boy dies. In anger and out for vengeance, the Laborer waits to ambush the Snake when he emerges from his hole. In his haste, the Laborer misses and cuts off the Snake’s tail. Then he becomes fearful that the Snake will seek vengeance and bite him. So, he begins to feed the Snake and tries to befriend him.

He finally gets the chance to ask the Snake for peace. The snake responds, “There can henceforth be no peace between us. For whenever I see you I shall remember the loss of my tail, and whenever you see me you will be thinking of the death of your son.”

The moral of the story: “No one truly forgets injuries in the presence of him who caused the injury.”

Forgiveness is hard!

True forgiveness, lasting forgiveness is not a choice. It is a decision. And yes, there is a difference. To make a choice is to select an option available. A choice can be changed. A decision is something completely different.

The word decision has the same root word as incision. Incision means to “cut into” something. Decision means to “cut away” something. In other words, when you make a decision you are cutting away all other options except the one you select. A real decision carries the idea of leaving no options on the table to change your mind later. You have cut them away from consideration.

There are times in our life where we do not need to make a choice, but we need to make a decision. Placing our faith in Christ should be a decision, not a choice. Entering into marriage should be a decision, with all other options cut away. And forgiveness must be a decision.

You will rarely feel like forgiving someone. Forgiveness is most often a decision that goes against everything you are feeling. But we are to forgive as Christ forgave us.

He did not feel like doing it. Read the accounts of him in the garden before his crucifixion. He was in agony to the point of sweating blood. But he made a decision. He forgave. He cut away our sins and removed them as far as the east is from the west. He remembers them no more. And we are forgiven not by anything we do, but by what He did. It was His decision.

We are to forgive the same. We are to make a decision and cut away all other options. We are not to leave the choice of dredging up past injuries against others. To forgive is to cut those away. Take them off the table. Not because the other party deserves it, but because we make a decision to forgive. It is not easy. As I said, forgiveness is hard.

It is too easy to make a choice to forgive and keep the injuries on the table for later. However, true freedom from injury only comes when we make a decision to forgive. It empowers us because it removes us from being a victim of someone else. We take back the power by making a decision over which they have no control.

We are to forgive as Christ forgave. We can’t truly do that without Christ. Our forgiveness rests on His finished work and is extended as we allow Him to work through us. I don’t know about you, but I certainly have some decisions that need to be made. Forgiveness is a decision.

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

Confessions of a Nearsighted Man

“He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?”

— John 21:17a

I am the master of the confession. I can utter a confession that will acknowledge my part in the scheme and acquit me at the same time. Call it what you will, but I am not alone. Nor is it anything new. We have all honed the skill of confession unto acquittal since childhood, and social media has exacerbated it.

As a child of 10 or 11 years of age, I ran with a ragtag group of ruffians. I was the youngest. My brother was the leader of the gang. We found a caliche pit in which to play. As it was an active pit, there was a dozer and front-end loader in the pit. One day we crawled up into the loader and to our amazement found a collection of “adult” magazines. Needless to say, we returned to explore this discovery several days in a row. Until we got caught.

The operator of the loader didn’t appreciate the significance of our discovery and took offense at the trespass. He drove towards us in his pickup with horn blazing. We quickly scattered and began our assent out of the pit. Unable to catch us, he pulled a gun from the gun rack in the back window of his truck and began firing over our heads. He fully intended to reform our ways for good, not to harm us.

However, rather than reform, we declared war. We returned a couple days later to add to the fuel tank all the sugar we could procure from our homes. Sugar in a diesel tank will certainly clog filters and shut down an engine. It didn’t in this case, but that was not from a lack of effort but rather a lack of supplies. And the fact that they noticed all the sugar around the tank. I’m not proud of this, and I’m even more ashamed with what happened next.

When questioned outside of school by his boss about the episode, I took the lead. I readily confessed to being in the caliche pit with my friends and climbing on the loader. I was guilty and didn’t try to hide it. However, I also spun the tale that we had been shot at and in that telling I felt the bullets were awfully close to hitting home. I didn’t think my dad would appreciate the attempt at our reform. I wasn’t sure where the sugar came from exactly, but perhaps if the operator had spent more time taking care of his equipment and less time looking a his magazines it might help. I confessed and blamed.

However, in retrospect, I didn’t really confess. Confession by definition is “saying the same thing as.” To confess to a crime, you have to admit to doing what the evidence says you actually did. If you don’t say the same thing as the evidence, then you didn’t confess. You might have admitted to doing something, but it is only a confession when what you admit agrees with the evidence.

The same is true in Christianity. To confess means to say the same thing about your sin that God says about it. There is no evading or waffling. It is not about simply admitting guilt. It is about saying the same thing as He does about sin.

Namely, it is acknowledging what you have done. Understanding why it was wrong and the destruction it brings. But it is also acknowledging and thanking God that the sin was in Christ on the cross. It was crucified with Him. Removed from the record. Forgiven! Until we are able to acknowledge all of this, we haven’t confessed.

Peter was confronted with the need for confession face to face with Jesus. After denying him three times, the resurrected Lord confronted Peter (John 21:15-17). Peter, like all of us, could only think of himself and his failure in the moment. He, like all of us, was nearsighted. Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” He didn’t ask him what he did, how he felt about it, was he remorseful or did he understand the ramifications. He simply asked him, “Do you love me?”

Jesus was asking Peter for a full confession! A confession that agreed with the facts. Facts that not only included his betrayal but ended in His embrace. He was asking for a confession of love.

If we understand what true confession is meant to be, we will always end up in the arms of Christ. It doesn’t end in guilt and remorse (although those are mile markers on the road). It ends in forgiveness, grace and love. Never cut your confession short. Follow it into the arms of Christ.

There is much I have done in my life I wish I could take back. However, life doesn’t work that way. I’m left with a very simple choice: carry it the rest of my life with guilt and shame, or carry it to my Savior and lay it down at His feet. True confession always leads to God’s grace.

Anything else is just the confession of a nearsighted man who can’t see beyond himself. One who can’t let go of his own importance. One who trusts his own judgment over that of His Creator’s. 

What is it that you need to confess today? I don’t mean admit to doing, because He already knows. I mean confess — say the same thing about it that God does. To bring it to Him; acknowledge what was done, take responsibility, lay it at His feet, understand it was in Him on the cross, it was forgiven, and rest in His grace. You haven’t said the same thing as God until you realize all of it. You haven’t confessed until you rest in His grace!

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

BB Guns, Haystacks and Anger

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?”
— James 4:1

“I double-dog dare you, chicken!”

That is all my brother had to say and I was in. We had gone out to Lexi’s place. He and Dad were taking care of business. My brother and I were climbing on the haystack. We found a spot where the bales of hay had been stacked loosely and there was a tunnel through the 20 foot wide stack. We discussed the possibility of crawling through the tunnel when my brother issued the challenge to me. My pride would not let me back down.

I crawled into the tunnel. The square bales were not perfectly aligned, thus the tunnel. But as I crawled through the space, it got smaller and smaller. We could see light through the other side, but my ability to judge perspective failed me. I finally came to the point where my arms were stretched far in front of me, my head barely able to move and I was stuck. I couldn’t go forward, but had gone far enough I couldn’t go back. I was trapped.

The heat inside the haystack was stifling. My heart pumped furiously as my mind raced to dreadful conclusions. In the end, I panicked. I screamed with every breath I could draw. I had crawled into my own coffin. Then, Lexi and Dad pulled me from the stack.

Lexi had a grand time making fun of me once pulled to safety. He mocked me (good heartedly, but what is that to a 8-year-old boy). He accused me of screaming like a little girl. My anger broiled and then erupted. I went to my Dad’s truck and pulled out my Daisy BB gun. I looked him in the eye, then leveled my gun at his pride and joy; his new truck.

I knew better than to shoot the metal, as that would leave a mark on it that would heal faster than the mark my Dad would leave on me. So, I aimed at his tire and threatened to shoot it out. He laughed again and said, “Go ahead. Give it your best shot.”

I squeezed the trigger and time slowed to the pulse of a snail. I could see the BB in flight. Leaving the gun and getting smaller as it traversed towards the tire. My aim was perfect. It hit the tire’s side-wall exactly where I aimed. Then, the BB began to get bigger and bigger. It bounced off the tire and retraced its track to the point of origin. It struck my right hand, my trigger hand, right between the knuckles. A couple inches higher and it would have caught me in the eye.

I ended that day with a twice wounded pride (failure of the mission with my brother and Lexi), a wounded hand and a wounded butt.

So goes my dance with pride and anger. I’ve always had a short temper. The passion I communicate on stage doesn’t turn off when I step off the stage. I am passionate about everything, or I just don’t care. There is no in between.

Another time, about the same age, my brother and I took the advantage of both my parents being gone from the house to play “Cowboys & Indians” with our unloaded BB guns. It was based on the honor system. I would call out when I believed I shot my brother and vise-verse. However, my brother always claimed that I missed. So, in furious anger, I loaded my gun with a BB and let him know my aim wasn’t as poor as he thought.

He threw his gun and ran into the bedroom to collapse on the bed. I walked into the bedroom and definitively stated I had got him. The BB had pierced his shirt and his skin to the bone right in the center of his chest. In a panic, I pulled up his shirt and popped the brass pimple to get the BB out. As it was recovered from his chest, all I saw was stars. My brother caught me with a right hook to my jaw that was by far the hardest he ever gave me.

My brother carried that scar the rest of his life. However, we suffered no parental rebuke for this as neither of us could accuse the other without issuing a confession of our own. It was years later before our parents learned of this incident.

Anger is something I have struggled with all my life. I am incredibly passionate about everything I do. This is why the verse in James 4:1 speaks so loudly to me, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?”

I believe this with all my heart; anger mostly comes from an unfulfilled desire. The Bible does not tell us to not be angry, but rather to not sin in our anger (Ephesians 4:26-27). This has been a constant challenge for me. To take those unrealized desires to my Lord. To lay them at his feet.

My challenge today is to lay all the wrongs I feel others have committed against me at the Lord’s feet. To let go of the anger I have from not having my desires fulfilled from others, and seek how He desires to fulfill those needs in my life.

Anger is like the BB I fired at Lexi’s tire, once released it always rebounds and hurts whoever pulled the trigger more than the target. I challenge you today to consider the anger you harbor towards others. Consider what is the true desire of your heart driving that anger. Then, take it to the Lord and ask Him to fulfill that desire. If we don’t, we will find ourselves in a worse trap than I found in that haystack!

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

I Don't Agree With You!

"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”
— John 5:39-40

I can be a little controversial (okay, sometimes a lot) in my writings. Every time it happens, I lose people from my subscription list. I can’t tell you how many messages I have received over the years which included this line, “I don’t agree with you!” And then, for the most part, they disconnect. To those who stick around, my response is always the same, “Good! I’m okay with that…now let’s talk about it.” Those conversations are where I learn and grow the most.

I recently gave a devotion at an industry event. I sent out invitations with the title of the devotion being “God Never Called You To Be Normal!” I received a response back which I shared with the group and it was confirmed by all as valid. The response was, “…you could be an expert about not being normal.” I consider it an honor that I’m not seen as normal.

If you are doing great, have all your theology worked out and have no doubts about your faith, I thank God for that peace. However, you might find that you don’t always agree with me, because I’m not normal. I don’t always play by the rules. My thoughts are not neat and tidy and wrapped up with a bow. Sometimes they are messy.

If you are broken, struggling, have doubts, seeking for answers, lost in life, desiring to grow but just feel crazy from time to time; join the club. That is me at times. Just a simple man striving to work out His faith in Christ. After all, what good does it do for Christ to be the answer if we have no questions?

I only hope and pray that every piece I write points you to Christ as the answer.

As 1 John 2:27 states, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.” I’m NOT a teacher. We have a teacher in Christ. I want to challenge you to go to Him to seek, ask, grow and never settle.

Everything I write is simply what I’m being challenged with in the moment. For some reason, God has given me a passion to share my quest publicly. I have been amazingly blessed by others who have walked that road with me in various ways and it includes you in this moment.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have it all figured out. I’m on a quest…and I know where that quest leads. I don’t know the path it will take me down, but I know where it ends; at the feet of Jesus!

It never ceases to amaze me, when a theological disagreement begins, how quickly the conversation usually turns from one about Christ into a conversation about us. What we believe, what we do or don’t do, how well we know the Bible, how well we know history, and on and on. But it tends to be all about ourselves.

Jesus said in John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

I have often been guilty of this snare of ego. The idea that I can understand Scripture well enough on my own to define and achieve spiritual life. That I can figure it all out. The ego of certainty.

Don’t get me wrong, I am certain about one thing—Jesus Christ. I am certain my life is in His hands. I am who He says I am. I am saved because of what He has done. I’m a child of God because He has made me so. Not because I know a few verses, but because I know Him!

If you live in an echo chamber where you only listen to what you already agree with, I believe you are on dangerous ground. At the very least, you are not being challenged to grow.

I don’t have any answers, but I know the Answer. And I pray that everything I write is never consumed as an answer in itself. Rather I’m throwing down the gauntlet in the hopes you, dear reader, will be challenged to grow. And I pray everyone is clearly focused on the goal of the quest—Jesus Christ. My path might wander from time to time, but my focus, desire and hope is Christ.

It doesn’t much matter to me if you agree with me or not. However, I care deeply about whether or not you know Jesus! He is the teacher we are seeking. And I hope we can walk this road together for a time to get to know Him even better.

So my challenge today is simple: are we only looking for affirmation of what we already believe, or are we accepting the challenge to grow in grace? May we all rise to the challenge and seek the Lord today.

© 2025 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.