Brandon Movitz

Writing about the heart, the home, the wound, the work, and the way back.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

I used to think being loving meant telling people the truth.

If I could explain it clearly enough…
If I could solve it quickly enough…
If I could help them see what I saw…

Then I was loving them.

But love doesn’t begin when someone understands you.

It begins when they feel understood by you.

Because a heart that feels defended will argue with your words.

A heart that feels safe will finally hear them.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Some people have God on their mind.

Some people have their mind on God.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

@Adam_FaithfulM Amazing. More posts like this, please.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

@Ashleyhays2089 Amen

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Jesus is the perfect image, expression, revelation, and embodiment of our Creator.

When people look at Jesus, they are seeing what God is like.

Not merely a man with good ideas.
Not a rival to God.
Not a separate deity.

The exact representation of God’s character in human life.

He is so perfectly united with God that to encounter him is to encounter the clearest picture of God humanity has ever been given.

People have debated for centuries who Jesus was.

Prophet.
Messiah.
Son of God.
Divine.
God in flesh.
Perfect embodiment.

But Jesus did not walk around asking people to admire his title.

He said, “Follow me.”

Not study me from a distance.

Not reduce me to an idea.

Not use me as a symbol.

Follow me.

Because if Jesus is the clearest revelation of the Creator ever given to humanity, then the point is not just to understand him.

The point is to become the kind of person he was showing us how to be.

To love the person right in front of you.

To be kind to the one who has been cruel to you.

To forgive when revenge would feel easier.

To show mercy when someone does not deserve it.

To give grace when someone has fallen short.

To notice the person everyone else walks past.

To choose humility instead of trying to prove your worth.

To release your need to control everything and trust God with the outcome.

To walk the way he walked.

Jesus did not come to win a religious argument.

He came to show us the way back to the Creator.

And then he asked us to follow.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Love God with everything you’ve got, and let that love become the way you treat people.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

The Kingdom Is Near

Most people spend their lives trying to build a better life. More money. More success. More security. More control. The assumption is that if enough things around us improve, life itself will improve.

Jesus introduced a completely different idea. He taught that the greatest change does not begin around us but within us. The Kingdom is what happens when a person begins living in alignment with the Creator’s way rather than simply following the patterns of the world. It is not primarily somewhere you go later. It is something you can begin entering now.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

And this is where baptism enters the story.

Baptism is not merely a religious ceremony.

It is a declaration.

A picture.

A public symbol of a spiritual reality.

When someone enters the water, they are acting out the story of the seed.

The old self goes down.

The old identity goes down.

The old allegiance goes down.

The old way of living goes down.

The old master goes down.

The old kingdom goes down.

And when they rise, they are declaring something profound:

I am not who I was.

My life belongs somewhere else now.

I have entered a new story.

I have entered a new kingdom.

I have entered a new life.

The water itself does not create the transformation.

The water reveals the transformation.

Just as a wedding ring does not create a marriage but reveals one, baptism reveals a reality that has already begun.

The old shell no longer defines me.

The life inside does.

And perhaps nowhere is this more relevant than when life forces us into seasons we never would have chosen.

Because eventually everyone encounters the soil.

Everyone encounters darkness.

Everyone encounters uncertainty.

Everyone encounters loss.

Everyone encounters circumstances that crack the shell they worked so hard to protect.

And when that happens, it often feels like destruction.

But the question becomes:

What if some of what feels like destruction is actually transformation?

What if some of what feels like ending is actually beginning?

What if some of what feels like burial is actually planting?

A buried seed and a planted seed look remarkably similar from the outside.

The difference is not what is happening above the ground.

The difference is what is happening underneath.

One is ending.

One is becoming.

And from heaven’s perspective, those realities often overlap.

The kingdom of God is filled with buried things becoming living things.

The seed.

The vineyard.

The branch.

The harvest.

The shepherd.

The flock.

The vine.

The gardener.

Again and again creation itself becomes a teacher.

Everything around us is preaching the same lesson.

Winter gives way to spring.

Night gives way to morning.

The caterpillar gives way to the butterfly.

The acorn gives way to the oak.

The seed gives way to the harvest.

Creation is constantly reminding us that transformation often looks like loss before it looks like growth.

And perhaps that is why Jesus chose this image.

Because no one watching a seed disappear into the soil would predict the harvest that is coming.

Yet the Creator already sees it.

The seed only sees darkness.

The Creator sees fruit.

The seed only sees burial.

The Creator sees multiplication.

The seed only sees what is ending.

The Creator sees what is beginning.

And the invitation of faith is learning to trust the One who sees beyond the shell

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Jesus said:

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Most of us hear that and immediately think about death, sacrifice, suffering, or giving something up.

But the focus of the teaching is not death.

The focus is fruit.

The focus is multiplication.

The focus is transformation.

The focus is becoming what you were created to become.

A seed is one of the most remarkable things in creation.

Inside something so small is an entire future that cannot yet be seen.

Inside a seed is a tree.

Inside a seed is shade.

Inside a seed is fruit.

Inside a seed are future generations of fruit.

Inside a seed is something far larger than the seed itself.

Yet if you place that seed on a shelf and protect it forever, it will remain exactly what it is.

Perfectly preserved.

Perfectly intact.

Perfectly safe.

And completely alone.

The shell remains.

The future never arrives.

Nothing is wrong with the seed.

The problem is that the seed is trying to remain a seed.

It was never created to stay that way.

The purpose of the seed is not preservation.

The purpose of the seed is transformation.

The seed was designed to become something greater than itself.

But there is a cost.

The shell must break.

The form that currently exists must give way to the life hidden within it.

That is the image Jesus chose.

Not a king.

Not a warrior.

Not a scholar.

A seed.

Because every human being understands, whether consciously or unconsciously, what it feels like to cling to the shell.

We cling to identities.

We cling to plans.

We cling to expectations.

We cling to comfort.

We cling to control.

We cling to the version of ourselves that we have learned to survive with.

And often we ask God to bless the shell.

We ask for protection around the very thing that needs to be surrendered.

We ask for comfort around the very thing that needs to be transformed.

We ask for security around the very thing that is preventing growth.

The seed’s greatest obstacle is not the soil.

It is not the darkness.

It is not the pressure.

It is not even death.

Its greatest obstacle is remaining what it has always been.

That is why this teaching is so challenging.

Because Jesus is not merely offering improvement.

He is describing an exchange.

Not polishing the old life.

Not upgrading the old life.

Not decorating the old life.

A new life.

Something entirely different.

This is why the language throughout His teachings sounds so radical.

Lose your life to find it.

The first shall be last.

The last shall be first.

The greatest shall become servants.

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

Those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Again and again the pattern appears.

Something must go down before something greater rises.

The world says preserve yourself.

Jesus says surrender yourself.

The world says protect your life.

Jesus says trust Me with it.

The world says hold tighter.

Jesus says let go.

And at first this sounds threatening.

Until you realize He is not asking a tree to become a seed.

He is asking a seed to become a tree.

He is not leading something backward.

He is leading it toward fulfillment.

The seed does not lose its future when it enters the ground.

It finds it.

The shell breaks because something stronger is emerging.

The old form ends because a greater form is beginning.

That is the mystery of spiritual life.

The things we fear losing are often the very things preventing us from receiving what we were made for..

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

What is heaven?

Heaven is the reality beyond this world where life continues after death.

The easiest way to understand it is birth.

A child in the womb only knows one world.

Warmth.

Darkness.

A heartbeat nearby.

Limited space.

Limited sound.

Limited understanding.

Then birth comes.

From inside the womb, it may look like an ending.

But it is not the end of the child.

It is the end of the child’s first world.

Death is similar.

Death is not the end of the person.

Death is the end of life in this broken physical world.

The body stops.

The person continues.

The body returns to the earth.

The soul enters the reality beyond it.

That reality is heaven.

Heaven is life made whole.

No sickness.

No fear.

No pain.

No confusion.

No machines.

No struggle to breathe.

No body fighting to survive.

No death.

No separation from love.

The person remains themselves.

Their identity remains.

Their awareness remains.

Their ability to love and be loved remains.

Nothing essential is erased.

Everything broken is removed.

At the center of heaven is God: the Source of life itself.

The reason anything exists.

The source of consciousness, love, beauty, truth, meaning, and every good thing we only taste in pieces here.

So when someone you love dies, your loss is real.

The separation is real.

The grief is real.

But the person is not lost.

They are not trapped in the grave.

They are not scared.

They are not alone.

They are alive, safe, known, loved, and beyond the reach of everything that hurt them here.

That is heaven.

Life beyond death.

Life with God.

Life as it was always meant to be.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

The crowd gathered on a hillside expecting another teacher. Instead, they heard a message that turned the world upside down.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
(Matthew 5:7)

Someone will need patience from you today. Give the same grace you hope to receive.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

David was anointed king, then went right back to tending sheep.
(1 Samuel 16:13,19)

Do not confuse being called with being ready. God often gives the promise before the preparation is complete.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Rejoicing refuels your joy!

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

@BishopBronner This pierced me

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Grief is not just sadness.

Sadness is what people see.

Grief is what happens when life hits so hard that your mind, body, faith, and future all have to adjust to a world you did not choose.

That kind of pain creates pressure.

And pressure always finds an exit.

If grief is not given a healthy place to go, it comes out sideways.

Anger at people who did not cause it.
Distance from people trying to love you.
Control over things that do not matter.
Resentment toward life.
Disconnection from God.

That is the spray.

Pain escaping without direction.

You cannot always control what broke you.

But you are responsible for where the brokenness goes.

So do not bury it and call that strength.

Face it.
Name it.
Bring it to God.
Put words to it.
Let someone safe hear the truth.

The goal is not to become someone who does not feel pain.

The goal is to become someone who does not let pain lead.

That is not weakness.

That is leadership over your own pain.

Grief has to move.

The question is whether it moves through you in a way that heals…

or out of you in a way that wounds.

Grief will leave your body one way or another.

Choose the path before the pressure chooses it for you.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

@RyanLewwy I believe that, I am filled with hope

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Fight Darkness Differently

Most people think evil is defeated by force.

The deeper truth is that evil often multiplies when it is
answered with more evil.

Jesus showed another way.

Truth instead of deception.

Mercy instead of revenge.

Love instead of hatred.

Light instead of darkness.

That is not weakness.

That is how darkness loses.

And that may be the entire point.

Not merely believing in God.

But becoming the kind of person who reflects Him.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Most people think the spiritual life is about what you believe.

But belief is meant to become the person you become.

A way you think.
A way you speak.
A way you treat people.
A way you suffer.
A way you love when it costs you.

The blueprint looks something like this.

[Brandon Movitz @TheBrandicle]

Choose Peace

Not every battle deserves your energy.

Not every insult deserves your response.

Not every disagreement deserves a fight.

Strength is often revealed by what you refuse to feed.