A startling understanding has lit up my mind.  I ask you Lord, that it will not leave.  It is impossible that I am the first man to rest upon this thought.  But I do not recall reading it before.

Creation as we know it is not the first of God’s works.  Countless ages preceded us.  What was created, it is not possible to know.  But the only ones of us who will walk among these creations of God are those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

We arrive, in the timeline of God, at the moment when he is purging the ranks Eternity forever.  Therefore it is not wise to think that God will allow any rebellion  to gain eternal life.

By this understanding my soul is sparked to strive toward holiness all the more. I pray it has the same effect on those who read this.

By His Grace.

By His Grace

The astounding power of Christ.  He who can hold up the universe with one hand.  He who alone can fulfill the entire law of God.  He who is willing to weep with those who weep.  Yet he is humble in heart.

The astounding power of Christ Jesus!  Though the full measure of him is unspeakable.  He has determined to share his holy and perfect work with We who are sinners.

Lord Jesus, you are beautiful by every possible definition.  Surely you will receive praise forever.

By His Grace

We spend a whole lot of time encouraging Christians to act, live, and worship as Christians.  And it is appropriate to do so.

It is also appropriate to hear such encouraging and strive to do it.  Ignorance of the Christian life  is not bliss.  It is ignorance of wicked behavior that becomes a blessing.

Learn to love God.  He is love.  As you learn of Him you will find yourself becoming like Him.  Refrain from the folly of “interpretive religion”.  Such things are merely a mimicking of what is a true relationship with the Lord.  Strive to develop your own relationship with the Living God.  Read, pray, act out what you learn, then read, pray and act again; all the while listening to what is pure and good.  Bottom line:  If you call yourself a Christian, do the things that Christians do.

What we experience in any one day is not the sum of God’s creation.  Take heart.  What we experience in this fallen world is not the sum of God’s creation.

Look to Jesus!  He desires to love us into His Kingdom.  He is love.  Any who have found His tender embrace will testify the same.

Gossip abounds.  Slander paves the roads of man.  Lies are grease to  financial prosperity.  Power is wielded without tenderness.  And order is kept at the point of a gun.  The way of man appears before us gilded by violence.  Little wonder many support the accusation that there is no God.

What little peace a man might grasp jostles in his hand.  In his clamor to attain, he will grasp at anything above him.  Not caring whose skin he tears, his hands claw to find release.  This is the way of man.

All this he does while he broadcasts that he loves.  But the love of man is  thoroughly conditional.   “I’m a nice guy till ya mess with me.”  Then, kind sir, you are no nice guy at all.

God is Love.  In His love He willingly reaches into this chaotic slime of man’s “best”.  “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)  But who will endure His message?

Hundreds and thousands of men (perhaps millions of millions) have shunned His offer.  “His law is too high for us”, they complain.  So they turn again to their vicious clamoring.  They do not realize that this law is God’s personal law.  He is subject to His own ways.  If the law speaks of mercy, then God is merciful.  If it speaks of righteous behavior, He is righteous.

It is so curious to me that we tend to throw away His law because we realize we can’t fulfill it.  All the while we miss the fact that the law of God is perfection and love.

Those who know the Father through the Son, soon realize that this law which condemns us is the very vehicle which saves us.  How I desire to be able to speak plainly into the heart of man.  “God is Love.”

The chaos of the morning news is no place to seek the Lord of Life.  On the other hand, such chaos might jar a wayward soul into looking up.   If in that looking up, the wayward soul finds salvation, I guess we could give thanks for the absolute horror that is man.

“. . . the people living in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

a light has dawned.” (Matt 4: 16)