Daily Archives: February 14, 2012

Compromise

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Chinese depiction of Jesus and the rich man (M...

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Wicked men compromise.  Jesus, the Righteous Man, never compromised.  Would we expect the Lord of Life to be anything different?  And should He expect less from His holy people?

Eternity will move away from the judgment filled with the ones who love God without a shred of compromise.  It is written, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever . . .”   Do not be fooled into a lazy sleep.  Compromise with sin is to hand yourself over to punishment and death.

Though there must be a place of transformation for those who love God, do not rely on that place to become what God has created you to be.  Excel in your way before the Most High God.   Excel according to the grace, strength, wisdom, and hope the Lord is willing to give you.  To rely on the Grace of God alone in your salvation is to miss the abundant work the Lord is willing to give.  Let us not approach the throne of God, on the day of His judging, empty-handed of the fullness He is willing to allow in our “days of flesh”.  To compromise between flesh and Spirit is to misunderstand the “Calling” of God to all His people.

Led to Hope

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The Transfiguration Lodovico Carracci 1594

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We are often led astray by the teachings of men.  Drawn by the promises of glittering greed, we wander off the path to seek the things we learned were precious from the time we were born.  But that is not the teaching of God to His holy people.

Let us be led astray from the ways of this world to the path of God.  Drawn by the promise of things that never fade in their beauty, let us wander into the path to seek the things precious that are the things of the godly wise.

Let us allow ourselves to become enthralled at the lovely God we serve through Jesus, our Lord.  May we consider that everything held precious by man will rot before the Holy Fire that is God.  And may we learn to love sitting midst the consuming flame that is the law of God.

The Great Gift!

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Christ Healing the Blind Man c 1640

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Two blind men heard that Jesus was passing by.  They shouted, “Son of David!  Have mercy on us.”  The people told them to be quiet.  Evidently the people wanted a ceremony of pomp and revere.  Perhaps they were thinking, “Silence, a great teacher is passing by.”  But the men with no sight knew their only hope for working eyes lay in the man who had done such greater things than anyone before him.  So they shouted all the more.  For if there was any hope, this was the moment!  How could a blind man hope to chase after the man of such power?  This slice of time was all they were going to get.  Hope was NOW!

Have you any hope from the moment of time when you shouted to the Lord for sight?  Do you now know that Jesus is the Christ of God?  Do you believe that Jesus is Glorified and Lord of all things?  Is your life laced with a particular hope that non-believers cannot own?  Regardless how much faith you have, it is as if you have received working eyes.

The two blind men received their sight.  Now they saw shapes, colors, shadows, and light.  What did they do in response to this great gift from the Lord?  They followed Him.  They considered that they had nothing before He touched them.  Now they had all they had ever wanted.  They didn’t consider that they could now go out and earn a living, create a household, and perhaps marry and have children and a social purpose.  They left behind all the things the people around them craved.  They forsook this world and all it offers and bent their will and lives around the Son of God.

Far too often, people who receive an understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven receive this gift as if it is owed to them.  Many are indifferent to the gift given them in the Gospel.  They receive this gift as if it is some kind of social rite of passage, not realizing that this gift is precious and glorious.  The gift of salvation is the beginning of the central reason for life here.  But it is not often perceived as such.

What have we forsaken after receiving our sight?  I recognize that not everyone is called to forsake their households, land, income, social status, and position in life.  But surely, before we received our sight we held dear the things the people in that crowd desired.  It should not be that the Gospel makes no permanent and radical change in our lives.  It is not a rite of social passage.  It is a soul shattering change from death to life.  It is not religious ceremony and a particular belonging to a social club called the church.  It requests and requires a vibrant following after the Glory of God in Jesus the Christ.

Christianity is Not a Religion

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Detail - Glory of the New Born Christ in prese...

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The foolish look on Christianity as a religion; just a single example of man’s contrivances toward pleasing his version of God.  The wise, those led by the Spirit of God, encounter Christianity with a fearful and understanding heart.  They know that they are approaching the Living God.  And they consider their ways with great trembling; aware that they will certainly give account of their lives to the Lord Most High, Jesus.

I have pity for those who live as foolish men.  I was one of them.  I have pity for those who consider religion simply a contrivance of man.  In one fashion they are correct.  There is but one way to the Father in Heaven.  While there are thousands of religions toward gods who are not gods at all.  The religion of man will worship anything from a rock to a cow, from a snake to a star.  But God calls us to the Holy and consuming fire of “The Faith”.  This faith is not born of the mind of man.  And should not be considered as part of the definition of the word “Religion” which man holds so very dearly (either with a loving embrace or with a drawling hatred).

We serve the Living God through Jesus the Christ.   We are not of those who worship God through a religion.  Our religion is the spawn, or child, of The Faith.  It should never be the other way around.  The Faith is first, as it is given and not contrived.  Religion is our response to this gift.  This is the sum of the dynamics of Christianity.  This is how it works.  Yet man would confuse the issue by reversing the blessing.  They contend that religion spawns faith.  They morph the truth of God in Jesus into something evil.   And this should not surprise us.  For the eye of the evil one sees everything as evil.  While the eye of he who loves truth seeks to envision everything lovely, true, wholesome, and vividly alive.

May God grant insight into what has been said here for everyone who reads these words.  Your soul is at stake in understanding this concept.  We do not believe so that we can be saved.  We are saved so that we will believe.  Faith comes from God so that no man can boast.  And it is because of that gift that we come to believe.

Foster Love for the “I AM”

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English: Scroll of the Psalms

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The end of a man’s life is the greatest point of importance.  Regardless what he has done in his life, what he grasps to do according to the will of God for man is far more important.  We take our lessons from the Lord Jesus in the days of His flesh.  We read the Psalms and see that He loved the law of God more than anything on earth.  And we see that God raised Him up to Great glory because of His love for God’s ways.

This is the sum of our lesson, to learn to love the ways of God more than the things of this earth.  Whether this happens at the beginning of our days, or comes upon us in our last years.  To learn to love God and His law is of the utmost importance in the end.

Strive with regret.  It is appropriate.  But also strive to learn to love God’s ways in that you learn to do them.  In this way our days are ended in a holy striving.

The Tested Stone

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Holiness unto the Lord

Holiness unto the Lord (Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews)

I have come to refer to the world as a “place of testing”.  Once a woman said to me that she didn’t agree with that.  I forget what she offered up as an alternative.  But what matters is that God also sees this as a “place of testing”.  How do I know that?  Isaiah 28:16 refers to Jesus as a “tested stone”.  Where was this Mighty Lord tested?  Why, in this “place of testing”, of course.