Daily Archives: March 17, 2014

Total surprise

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I stepped outside to get a breath of fresh spring air.  Such a pleasure after such a long winter.  Flowers blooming, trees coming to bud and that old familiar freshness came to me.  Filled with gladness, I took in what I could.

I heard a faint rumble of thunder.  I don’t remember hearing anyone say there was a storm coming.  So I went around to the back yard full of expectation.  Who is not entranced by the spectacular?

What greeted my eyes was fully unexpected.  It looked like one gigantic single cloud.  Black as pitch it hung close to the ground.  And as I looked up its height the blackness did not fade.  It appeared as a tower of obsidian.

At the top were white wispy fingers stretching my direction.  It looked as if the column of blackness was swimming in the sky.

The cloud was a long way off.  I felt no compulsion to hide.  It was a magnificent sight!  All I wanted to do was watch it change.

What happened next can only be remembered.  I can’t say I saw it coming.  But it traveled such a long distance that, in my memory, I could have drawn the very place in the cloud from which it came.

Angled toward me through the sky as if bouncing off invisible walls.  Though I perceived its direction, there was no possible way to think it was coming to me.

A split second later I found myself over 50 feet away from where I had been standing.  Laying crumpled on my side, it took a few minutes to remember I had legs.  Abrasions decorated my body in strategic spots.

With my balance regained and my mind refocused, I began to remember what had happened.  I looked to where I had been; trying to make sense of a lost 3 minutes.

The cloud still made an eerie backdrop for a useless light pole.  It had been my close companion as I marveled at the cloud.  The metal pole was shattered.  It looked like some Picasso drawing of steel fire.  I guess that was a little more voltage than the engineer had foreseen.

With my senses regained, I found myself tearing at curiosity.  “Into the house. Go into the house.”  I had to keep telling myself out loud.

Once inside the house I went to the desk to write.  This was not something I wanted to forget.  But as I wrote, a thought kept dancing like a candle in my mind.

Something about the West.  Something about lightning.  Then, as if I heard a voice,  I understood the crystal clear meaning.

“As lightning flashes from the east to the west so will the coming of the Son of man be.”

By His Grace

Patience

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If one of the fruits of God within us is a godly patience, I find it curious how millions of people pursue patience and miss the mark horribly.  Frustration is all they get for their hard work toward peace.

Good money is spent on poor trainers.  The inept teach the inept.  Religions are built around the concept of patience.  And while the cost of impatience is high, most people figure it’s just a part of life.  “Get use to it”, they say with a great sigh.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  The Lord asks us, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.”  How deeply the world suffers for lack of willingness to go to God.  But that’s the way it’s going to be, isn’t it?

I can write until I am dead.  I can teach until I cannot speak.  I can display the fruit of my God until he takes me home.  But unless an individual takes the initiative to go and seek the face of God, the woeful lack of godliness will cover everything they do.  And they will find themselves willing partners in a destruction of all those around them.

Perhaps you were not aware that there is a remedy for impatience.  Well now you’re no longer ignorant.

By His Grace

Death

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He always gets his way.  If he ever announces his approach he does not invite debate.  He is charged to render helplessness.  And there is not a fiber of compassion within him.

Often he sends out his emissaries to prepare the way before him.  Sickness and Chaos do his bidding.  Their love for their Lord is unswaying.  Singing their own special songs, they move through this world with dedicated heart.  Despite their cleverness, no one ever stands against them.

The sins of man have ushered in the power of death.  It is the will of the Sovereign God that all which is unholy will cease.  And death has come as an obedient servant.

Let all men be aware.  There is a place in eternity where death will be given great power.  For now, his power is limited to a few everyday.  But at the end of his existence he will slay countless hordes.

With one fell swoop of his power he will destroy all the wicked.  Not a one will go unattended.  As Sampson was given the strength to kill more Philistines in his death then all in his life, so death will bring down the house of God’s enemies.

Did you not perceive these things?  Have you really thought you would live a life of peace forever?  Did you honestly believe you could do as you please and escape the power of the second death?

There is no escape from death but by the power of the One who made him.  The name of this One is Jesus.

By His Grace

Unquenchable desire

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There is a desire in me that I did not put there.  I did not gather the fuel.  I did not strike the spark.  I had no means to fan it into flame.  But an unquenchable and immense flame rages in my soul.  The roar of it threatens to explode my body.  The desire to share the Gospel will not cease. 

One day I said I will bottle it up.  Fear that I was misled, misled me.  “I will give it no street on which to leave.  I will lock closed my lips.  And I will restrain it with all my might.” But it burst through my bonds as if a hurtling ball of iron through tissue paper.  I am helpless to contain it.

So I said I will give it all room, all help, all speed and all attention.  But I find it is not enough.  Where are those who hear?  Where are the changed lives to dance through this world before my very eyes?  However, even while I ask, understanding blazes forth with a great and unmistakable roar.

The unquenchable desire of God to save souls is not concerned with the appearance of one or two.  He desires that all should be saved.  He will not subside the blazing inferno within until I leave this place.

Then let me rest in discomfort.  Let my soul be disquieted with desire.  Cause my will to explode, O Lord!  By all means may the Holy will of God be done!

By His Grace

To live in the body

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To see all things from flesh requires a life of severe limitations.  You are at the mercy of everyone else’s desire.  You live in fear of your own feet and hands.  If you swallow you may choke.  You must conform to survive.  It is a life lead in utter hopelessness.  And you find only strength enough to survive.

Your belly dictates your day.  Sleep interrupts your productivity.  Pleasure is your god; a god of complete unpredictability.  One day you want this.  Another day you want that.  And most days you find yourself craving things that contradict one another.  At the same time you are enticed to things you cannot have.

With life so full of demands, and your body so inept to provide, you are helplessly tossed in every direction without the slightest recourse.  Full and irreparable destruction awaits you if illness attends your days.

If someone says to you, “We must!”, you are forced to obey or pay dreadful consequences.  Nothing in life is for you.  Everything and everyone is against you.  You must consume to survive.  While billions are forced to do the same.  Your only resource is lies.  “I deserve and need this!  Stand away from my desire!  I am more important than you!”

With all of this against you, you submit.  But submission is not what your god demands.  “Conquer for me.  Supply my desire.  I am your god you will do my bidding or you will die.” 

What hope is there then?  You cannot please yourself and you cannot please your god.  He does not supply.  Yet he demands all.  You can barely supply for yourself on certain days of your life.  Why would you continue to serve in such a life?

All the while you struggle in a futile embrace with poverty and death, there is a hope you have ignored.  Some have even considered their god to be the living God.  How should they conclude otherwise?  It is all they know and they do not look for more.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Ask of us and we will tell you what it is like to live outside the body.  With all that presses upon you why would you let pride stop you from asking?  Why would you let ignorance stand in the way?

We stand among you and testify that there is a life of freedom from oppression.  And if you are not able to swallow your pride, then read for yourself.

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  (John 7)

By His Grace