Charles was walking through the forest when he met a man who was going the other way.  The man was carrying a dead rabbit, a dead raccoon and the dead Fox.  Now you gotta understand they weren’t just dead they were rotten.  The stench finally caught up with Charles’s his nose.

They were to passed by each other far too close to avoid or ignore.  So Charles was first to say, “Hey neighbor how’s it going?”   The reply was cordial enough, but there was a sadness in a man’s voice. 

Charles was curious.  Before he could stop himself he found his lips blurting out, “what’s with the dead critters?”

The man’s fuzzy eyes focused on Charles’s face.  “I’m sorry I killed em so I just pack them around to remind me.”   Charles would tell you he was stunned by that remark.

Charles couldn’t speak he just looked at the man in amazement.  Sensing the conversation was over, the other man just walked away.

You think that’s a stupid story?  Well how many people do you know carry their sins with them?  They walk around well enough but they’re carrying the stench of death everywhere they go.

BELIEVE!  GET FORGIVEN!  GET OVER IT, FOR THE SAKE OF CHRIST!

Ahaha!  You atheists are a pretty slick bunch.  All the rest of the non-believers are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  With the best of what they can muster they try to disobey with a clean conscience.

But you, why, just look at you.  Nip the entire problem in the bud.  You simply refuse to believe he exists.

All people who stand against God are in the same bucket.  You just got a slightly different twist to you.  Every city slicker has a bit of a problem riding a horse.  It doesn’t matter how they are dressed.

You wanted to be free; be anythng you wanna be.

Well how’s that workin out; as you exercise your clout?

Look there down the road; that broadly stretching road.

Can you see that misty haze; the end of all your days?

When you reach the end of your life, who have you become?  All that freedom to live as you choose.  What next?

Now you appear before the One who never changes.  Have you given any thought as to why He doesn’t change?  Could it be because He lives the life that never fails to matter?  Hmmmmm.

You think you can come up with “something different”.  Yeah, that’s what man needs; an answer to the age old Christian concepts. 

Right about now is where I used to laugh.  But the reality of your folly is quite apparent to me.  You’re headed in the wrong direction.  There will be no peace for you where you are going.  You have decided you know better how to live your life than The One who never dies.  DUDE YOU’RE INCREDIBLE!   For now.

How shall it be called labor, these things I do for Him?

These hands too soft, my legs too weak, my back too fragile, my mind too small and my faith too tiny to perceive.   How shall it be called labor?

For this all glory belongs to Him.  Jesus has done the work no man could do.  How can what I do be called labor?  Yet His generous heart is willing to let me share in His beautiful name.

By His Grace.

With everything laying in the balance.  Still finding ourselves here in this place of testing.  What a great folly to allow ourselves to be lazy, fearful, uncaring and unproductive.   Worse than all those is the sin against those we love that they will not know where we have gone.

Man will debate the Fate of these people.  The sorrowful thing is these lazy folk provoke the debate themselves.  By their uncaring attitude they waste precious time on behalf of those who care.

For this reason I try to ignore them.  Though with what we have we must drag some along. The focus must remain on the message.  Even now.

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is forcefully advancing and forceful men they hold of it.

Encourage the lazy but search for the diligent.  If you’re going to cause the lazy to become diligent you will need an army of diligent christians.

If you read this and consider that you are of the lazy, take heart look where you find yourself reading. Such awakenings belong to the glory of God.