Monthly Archives: June 2014

Are We Finished?

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All of this place will disappear.   Nothing we have known will remain.  All of this creation will be blown away like a puff of smoke in a hurricane.

All the vain glories of this place, gone forever.  The names of the wicked, forgoten.  The places they have held by violence, removed.  The strength of men and the enticing beauty of women, wiped away forever.

Greed and malice, vanity and pomp, the glories of victory and the tears of defeat, financial gain and poverty, the difference between health and sickness, and all other things men now know, will never appear again.

The wailing of a perfect loss will take their place.  Unventable seething anger will rise up from some.  Blame will find no finger to point.  Fists of violence will find nothing on which to pound.

Loss is near.  Starless night is coming.  No moon to rise.  No dawn to break.  No friendly pets.  Not even the hope of death will remain.  Hell will open its mouth and receive all who have despised the Lord’s love. 

For now they go about life as if these things were not true.  Ignorance is closer than a brother.  The lure of pleasure consumes them.  All for the sake of joy that never comes.

I consider my testimony in word and in deed.  Have I truly done all I can?  With tireless mind, I search with vigor.  The Lord has often heard the despair of my heart for the sake of the Lost.

So such things as this are written.  The laws of men obeyed.  The righteousness of Christ requested and given.  The wisdom of God hungered for in longing.

Have we done enough, my brothers and sisters in Christ?  Have we truly believed the extreme loss to come?  Have we crained our necks to listen for the promised wailing?  Truly, have we done all we can?

Get Rich or Die Trying

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Dear man:

The cute girl has become a nun.  With your mouth you say it is a good choice for her.  But with your heart you ridicule her ways.  She has removed herself from the pageantry of lust.  And now you must strike out her name from those you desire.  A great burden for the lust of young men.

A man has started going to church.  You call him to come attend your party.  But he says he has more important things to do.  With your lips you say he has become a good man.  But your heart looks forward to the joy of drunkenness.  And you are at a loss to explain this change in your friend.  You think you have lost him.

The world does not know, understand nor ask.  They are like a child whose friend has moved away.  All they know is that they will have to rearrange their days to maintain the pleasure they once had.

Young men go on adventures together.  To the water or to the mountains they seek out the joys of curiosity.  They speak together in peaceful places about the things of life.  Then one gets married leaving the others to themselves.

Such things are expected in the world.  Though his young friends don’t appreciate their loss, they do understand.  They too are expected to marry someday.  So with that loss there is some knowledge and understanding and asking.

But when a man or woman retreats from this world to marry the sovereign God in Jesus, men consider it an anomaly.  I have heard many refer to the Lord’s people as Jesus freaks. 

If the man had gone to Islam or become a Hindu or some other worldly religion, men seem to understand willingly.  Such religions base themselves in the teaching of men.  But Christianity bases itself in the teaching of God.  And men fail to be able to answer.

The world thinks it odd that they do not run into the flood of dissipation they once enjoyed.  Christians chace after the unseen with apparant abandon.   The world cannot possibly understand.  So it counts Christians as vile people.

But what the world misses is more important than what it has.  They live by the rule of this world which will be destroyed; a life built on perception of tangible things.  The people of the Lord live by the rule of heaven which is of eternity; the beautiful and incorruptible things of God.

I write this to the people of the world, to show them that Christians understand.  I find it curious that we understand you, for we are from you.  But you do not understand us, for you have never been from us.

We have moved to the place of life.  You continue to walk blindly in the place of death.  It would be a pleasure if you would even ask.  But you seal the door between us, giving yourself no edge toward life.  We care.

You fear losing the things you have been told are most important.  We testify that we too received the lie in regard to the world.  We testify that life in the Lord Jesus is the fullness of truth.  But you consider Christians misguided.   How curious that the lie becomes more important than the truth.  Ask yourself, which was here first, God or the world.

This is all I can do for you.  I continue to live as the Lord prescribes; by the life he gives me I testify to you.  I continue to listen to him and do what he says.  I write these things as often as I can find ways to tell you.  But in the end, the choice is yours to ask.

Those who live in the land you love will die.  They will not see eternal life.  Those who live with the Lord of love will live forever, though they must pass from this place in a death of the body.

The life you lead now is under your own rule.  You do not consider the rule of God to be important.  Yet you think you will be received for your honorable ways among men.  Or worse, you do not think about these things at all.

Any man may appeal to God, with earnest heart, and become a Christian.  I am not speaking of the “acceptable Christianity” of this world.  There is a distinct and vibrant difference my friend.

The Christian is taught, by the Lord Himself, to give up the things of this world and follow after the ways of Christ.  The world accepts going to church as the fullness of Christianity.  Therefore they are amazed at those who follow after what is true.

You do not ask but you are being told.  You do not seek but it comes to you everyday.  What will you do?

Weariness

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Why are you tired?  You are not tired from lack of sleep.  Your soul is weary and longing to belong.

You have spent all you have on enticements.   Yet you hope to find meaning for the next breath you take.

Sleep is what wears you out; that never ending sleep of ignorance.  You do not know the things that give men strength.  So you wear yourself out searching through things that cannot give peace.

What sleep you gain is for the body.  But the soul is near delirium for sleepless days and nights.

Worry consumes you, even though you smile and laugh.  When you cry there is no release; your tears become only futile vapor.  And when you ponder the greatest of things, you find no understanding.

You purpose in your heart: “I will embrace the highest of laws; righteousness shall become my habit.  I will do the things of eternity, then I will find peace.” 

But the work is too great, habits too fleeting.   Soon what was gained is tarnished by weakness.  And no sleep has come to your soul.  You have only added more work to a weary soul.

Where then is rest?  Can any man tell you where it is found?  You search and ask and listen, but you hear no faithful sound.

Hear, my friend, I’ll tell you.  The strength to live each day lives beyond impenetrable Mountains.  A craggy mount no man can climb, bars peaceful rest for your soul.  But he who lives enthroned above, will come to help you stand your ground.

Read the words of centuries past.  Let sobriety fill your ears.  Humility sees what pride cannot.  And gains that  comfort through the years.
__________________
“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
    Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
    my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.”  (Isaiah 40)

Eyes of the Soul

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I wake this morning to remember that God IS.  Eternity is the “now”.  A pastor once said to me, “This life is not a dress rehearsal.”

Men think there will be a place where eternity begins for all men.  Some to own disgrace and punishment for the life they have willingly led.  Others to receive the completion of the promise of God to transform into perfection.  Truly, there is such a  place.

But is this place different; this place of testing and “Work”?  Is not the Glory of God among us?  Isn’t that the meaning of Immanuel?  We wake to serve as servants of the Most High God through Jesus His Holy Son.  We have slept to hear in dreams the things of Heaven.  We have slept through the night to “see”.

The soul is tied, till death, with the weakness of the flesh.  Which man can find the seam between his flesh and soul?  Blindness covers us in this place of flesh.  But faith has eyes for the soul to see.

Those who love wickedness, love wickedness.  They are relegated to the eyes of flesh.  But those whose eyes of faith are opened are relegated to eyes of faith.  I am not speaking of the faith of men; the faith that hopes without knowledge and does not know “The Way”.   I am speaking of The Faith which is from the Glorious Throne of God through Jesus, His Christ.

Allow yourself to use the eyes given by Holy Grace.  How shall a man walk The Way without stumbling?  It is far to narrow for the flesh to continue in.  The wakened soul alone can walk The Way of God.

My eyes do not work very well.  One eye is far more powerful than the other.  One eye looks slightly up and outward from the other.  When I need to see clearly (not perceiving as vagaries; a meld between the two directions of vision), I close one eye and perceive without deviance.

So it is with the meld between soul and flesh.  Let us close our fleshly eyes by selecting the eyes of the soul.  Let us focus our intent on what is Holy and brings Glory to our Father in Heaven.

Bring Glory to The Son of God.  Bring joy to our brothers and sisters, who belong to the promised redemption.  Let us witness to the world by walking through this place with the eyes of the soul.  God has opened what was before sealed.  Let us use those eyes with deftness.  Let us walk in The Way.

Love

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How many books are written trying to describe that simple word?  The number is well into the billions.  If a man took time to read them all he would forfeit his time to love.  And no man will do that.  Even if all he loves is his self, he will make time for the one he loves. 

No one needs the opinions of others when it comes to love.  Every man is aware of the urgently viable power of love.  Even though there are those, we say, who are void of love.  We assess in error.  They love themselves or death.  Life, even though horribly deviant, is born of love.

Love is not open to opinion.  In this world we see shades of love because of the wickedness of man.  But love itself is pure.  Love is not diluted or diminished because we don’t understand it.  And love is not tarnished because we abuse the word.

Love is beyond common sense.  Love is beyond every other yearning we have.  It is a word that has its origin at the Holy Throne of God.  Love is from eternity and will never cease. And no man lives long enough to describe it in full.  It requires eternity to fully describe love.  It takes eternity because love is faultlessly eternal.

Love is something we believe.  For not one man is capable of a full description (Proven by the billions of books written).   If a man could write the full description he would no longer be a man.

What we do for love is part of our description.  And we keep on doing to describe what we know of love.  To turn a man away from a love for sin requires the infinite power of God.  This is why psychology is absolutely futile.  Psychology only diverts a perverse love to something less than perfect.

People love their babies.  A strong mother and father will give their life to protect the child they love.  Those who are void of love for others will give their life to protect their pleasures.  Love relentlessly demands attention! 

Love is not desire.  Perfect desire is born of perfect love and tempered with holy wisdom.  Men may refer to lust as love.  But this is desire born of love, yet void of wisdom.  Their debasement is summed up by saying, “Sex sells”.  Love is not for sale.

God is fully love, he is the origin of love.  And not the love of man, as man describes it, but the perfect and irrevocable love of the Living God.  God’s description of love is his Son, whom he gave into the hands of his enemy for the sake of love.

Jesus is purely love.  And he will never cease.  Therefore death has no hold on him.    Temptation could not bend him, even as it cannot bend love.  He is the very Living Word God uses to describe love.  By this the unity between the Father and the Son is forever.

Reject the Lord Jesus and you reject love.  Reject the Lord Jesus and you reject the Father. Reject the Lord Jesus and you keep your own tiny version of love to yourself. 

The love of man is not pure.  Therefore it cannot continue.  It is not eternal, therefore it will cease.  And the grave has every right to hold it forever.

May God have mercy on my attempt to speak of things far greater than the mind of man can grasp.   And may God have mercy on he who reads, that understanding may provoke love.

Is Jesus Trustworthy?

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It is impossible for God to sin.  To sin is to deviate from perfection.  Such an action can only be done by anyone who is not God.  God himself is the standard of perfection forever (a redundant phrase for perfection and forever are synonymous).

There is one who decided perfection was too high to hold.  Both in word and deed, an accusation was made against God: “You demand too much of us.  You do not provide what is necessary for us to obey.  Therefore sin is our only alternative.  If not now, it is only a question of when.”   (Isn’t this what man is saying even today?   And by saying this aren’t we questioning the trustworthiness of Christ?)

By this he shattered the love of God.  By this pride he spit in the face of the one who made him and granted him his place.  (You can read of his demise in Ezekiel chapter 28)

The result of that choice is chaos and death.  This “other” fell from glory and took one third of the angels with him. Anywhere you find the creatures who willingly fell from perfection, (or man who has never known perfection) you will find chaos and death.  They were banished from heaven and now make their place among us.

This is the reason for the decay of the world.  Wickedness was born long before the birth of the first man at the hands of God.  And it finds its display among our words in the temptation of Eve.

But the gospel tells us of One who cannot sin.  This One has been with the Holy Father from the very beginning, and will never deviate.

How do we know we can trust Jesus?  Because he has been tested and found faultless.  He has been with the Holy Father from the beginning.  Perfection has been the mark of his character.  Unlike “the other”, the Lord Jesus has never questioned his Father’s will, nor had pride in his glorious position.

This One who is from eternity, has lived among us in this place of testing; the place where the hearts of men are tested to see if they will love God or self. 

In obedience to his Father’s desire, Jesus took on a body of flesh.  If you read the account of the gospel you will find him tested viciously in every possible way, yet it was found to be without fault.

Pride in his glory is the instrument of condemnation for the “other” who fell.  But no one will find pride in the Holy Lord Jesus, the Christ of God.  Instead we find him full of humility and obedience.  Even though he has been with the Father from the beginning.

Unlike the adversary of God, you will never find fault in the Son of God.  The test for “the other” was his life.  The pride of his own glory destroyed him.  But the test of the Son of God was in his death.  In this he arrived at a place “the other” could never hope to attain.

We can trust the Lord Jesus because he was beaten viciously by he who cannot be trusted, yet was found faultless.  Even man was incited to add his own blows to the Holy Son of God. 

He was sent to his creation to speak of the love and righteousness of God, and to endure the ultimate testing.  But instead of being received, he was horribly abused.  Still no pride rose up in him.  He submitted to their accusations, hatred, violence and rejection.  And by this his faithfulness to the father was proven.

By His love and righteousness God has granted him all power and strength and glory and honor.  “The other” will die but Christ lives on forever.

Yes you can trust the Lord Jesus!