JANUARY 2026

Ever precious greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is my great honor and high privilege to share my heart with you once again! Debbie and I will quickly concede that we are not the most technologically adept couple in the Kingdom.😏 We do get things done though, but it would never be said of us, “My stars, they really know what they are doing!” Remember, when I was locked up in the early nineties, there were no cell phones nor the Internet! Now, 35 years later and over four years of being joyfully free in this new world of technology – I guess I’m coming along. But Debbie and I always need help. . .

It is written, “But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase.” (Daniel 12:4 NLT)

I have observed much during this world’s season of technological growth, the very increase of knowledge as it were. Knowledge is finite for man, but God knows all things exhaustively, eternally, and simultaneously. For man though, there is an incremental dripping of knowledge from the hand of the Lord according to His good pleasure and will. All timing is His. The very knowledge that man so adamantly lusts for will ultimately be his very demise. Man does evil with God’s good knowledge even while God uses man’s wickedness for his own higher good. I Am is apart. He is ontologically distinct.

I have quietly observed this increase of knowledge from the inside out. My sin had set me apart from the world behind the deep darkness of 30-foot prison walls. Quite sovereignly, once saved, He allowed me a very unique perspective. One of the frustrating things for me when I first got out of prison was that everybody wanted to help me with my new phone by doing it for me. But nobody seemed to have the time to explain it to me and show me how to do it for myself! They were quick and happy to do it for me, and bing-bang-boom, it was done. But, to sit down and explain it to me so I could understand it for myself – that was another story! There was no time for that.

For those who have lived through technology’s incremental development with its intentional infusion into the mindset of society, they cannot fathom someone who doesn’t know it. As the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling water cannot not grasp his lethal condition, so also man’s ultimate demise is in his pursuit of knowledge. To the world, the “smart” phone is now just a natural
part of life. It has become an appendage. Quite intentionally, on the enemies dole, people have just grown right along with it and have become inseparably united to it, and that with great joy! There is no thought of life without it, nor will there be Life through it. The enemy has dangled this shiny object before man, and the natural thought of where it’s ultimately leading has been lost in its luster! I wonder – who is getting the glory?

When I got out, people were just going a thousand miles an hour without even knowing it. I saw it, but they could not. The phone had become them, and they knew it not. Technology had put man on another level. I am still discerning what that level is. Perhaps, to their own demise, they envision it as a higher level. Are we now building our own tower of Babel to reach the heavens, all the while not perceiving that the world’s heads is God’s tails? His ways remain, not ours. There is no doubt in my heart that fallen man, unbeknownst to himself, innately gropes to be like God. How could he not? Self sits upon the throne of his heart daily usurping the Lord. He who rules the heart, rules the
man.

People looked at me as if I had come from another planet! I was an alien in their world. Technology, the cell phone for example (albeit there are innumerable flavors) has become, for man, another appendage. It is quite beyond his control while controlling him. It drinks time. It facilitates lives with
no thought of good or evil. I personally thought, “I am going to guard my heart; I will not become as such.” Alas, that which I feared the most has come upon me, and now – I am he.

I muse as I examine myself, “Am I really better off now with my new appendage?” It is very demanding. I know an angst that I never knew before. What is its source? I am keenly aware that “it” (whatever that “it” is, as if personified), seeks to unseat my peace that passes all understanding. It calls, in all it’s ungodliness, with an alluringly warm and friendly voice. It demands an answer. It must be attended to because man without Christ is insatiable. Desire, wealth, power, and lust never say “that is enough.” Yet it is encapsulated in said “smart” phone, indeed – that which makes us dumb. If you doubt the spiritual stronghold your phone has over you, just observe your current
Pharisaical denial. Try to go three hours without it, and count how many times it calls you. Who’s voice is that – demanding your attention?

It is written, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not Bread? And your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” (Isaiah 55:2)

A thorough musing done by the Spirit of the Living God, introspectively, will quickly remind us that only the Lord provides true satisfaction. He has done it for Himself and for us in Christ. Our phone, the appendage by which the world attaches to us, leaves us as a dangling participle, never satisfied and always needing more. It’s as a nefarious pornographic rabbit hole of which we need – just one more look! It’s a siren song without resolve of which godly repentance is the only resolution. It is written, “But they mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works; they served their idols, which became a snare to them.” (Psalm 106:35-36)

Beloved, it’s good to examine oneself. It’s good to sit quietly before the Lord. Maybe you have never experienced a paper bible. My bible is my appendage, and one day they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hand! I cannot be without it. In the volume of the Book it is written of Him! The written Word is Living; it’s not from Earth. Earth’s highest sweetness is to sit before the Lord slowly turning through the pages of Hope.

Have you mused concerning yourself? Have you sought the Spirit’s guidance in bringing your phone into submission? There is no water in that well. Who’s really controlling who? The phone is fake fellowship. It’s not your friend. Truth is your Friend. I offer you Jesus Christ afresh today. It is written, “And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger;
and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35) Beloved, there is Another that calls you afresh. . .

“LET US COME UNTO HIM ANEW!”

JOYFULLY IN JESUS,
LOVE, PHILIP