Monthly Archives: February 2015

Habitual Behavior

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People fall because they think too highly of their feet.  While we should be considering our feet’s limitations, we place our trust in their agility.  But are feet are not sentient beings. Why do we treat them as if they are trustworthy slaves?  If you don’t watch over them, they will do the very thing you don’t want them to do. The one who rarely stumbles or falls is the one who makes it a habit to remember limitations.

Likewise, if every driver considered the limitations of his car more often than he considers its agility, there would be far fewer accidents.  If every driver made it a habit to drive as if he is driving on slick roads, he would never end up in the ditch.  He would never “swap paint” with another.  Would never donate his bumper to public disgrace.

If every Christian made it a habit to remember that he can fail, and that the source of his strength is God alone, he would never stumble.

Agility in Christ demands habitual use of Bible reading, prayer and practice.  Lack the habitual use of any of these three, and the Christian is bound to suffer loss.

To our shame, when a person falls, or crashes his car, or suffers loss in Christ, some variation of the following phrase can be heard: “I am only human”.  It is to our shame because diligent and habitual behavior could have transformed us into something radically more.  We were lazy, we were derelict, we were willingly rebellious.  What we thought we would become has escaped us.  And the fault lies clearly in our own lap.

If that is the state of your yesterdays, it need not be the state of your affairs today.  And tomorrow can be all the more secure.  All you need to do is to transform yourself into a diligent and habitual person, and this by the renewal of your mind.

What belongs to yesterday, belongs to yesterday.  Today belongs to you.  Tomorrow belongs to the one who profits from what you do today.

Don’t bother yourself with a vow.  Simply start doing the things that are good.

Write a letter to yourself, and read it when it arrives again.  Make sure you write often, you are a very lonely person.  And why wouldn’t you write back, understanding your frailty?  Its not only good social etiquette, it’s also a deed of mercy.

Begin keeping a journal or diary, and please make sure to go back and read the days before.  Do you really think anyone else will care about what you have written?  So if you’re not going to read it, why write?

Let these things become a habit and there is no need for a vow, which can so easily be broken.  Remember your New Year’s resolutions?  Haven’t you figured it out yet?  Those who have to wait for a special day to make a vow, will never be capable of keeping it.

Leave your Bible in conspicuous places.  Write down certain passages and put them in every place your eyes might go.  (On the toilet seat, on the mirror, under the cap of your deodorant, paste it on your pillow sticky side up. Do these things nightly for the preparation of the person you will be tomorrow.  While you’re at it, you might throw a few bucks into 3M stocks.) Memorize passages and think them through.  Make it a habit to do these things, and the Living Word of the Living God will begin to live in you.

When it comes to prayer you will take note that you have a distinct, “I don wanna”.  So what.  If you force your feet habitually to go to the place of prayer.  If you habitually force your knees to bend when your feet have arrived.  If you will force the first few words from your mouth, as a habit it in that place.  You will learn to adore your time of prayer.

As for practice, every man does the things he learns to love.  As our habits are, so follows our love.  And what we love is a blatant proclamation of who we have become.

By His Grace

“Have”

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The word “have” is very curious.  With that word we pronounce ownership.  “I have a car.”  “I have a coat.”  “I have an apple.” 

Perhaps there is a moment when those three things can be true.  But just like with everything in this world, “have” is destined to face a certain demise.  Three of its letters are taken away and one is given.  In the stroke of a moment, “have” becomes “had”.  (pun intended)

This being the case, it is right to ask the following question.  Does “have” own and eternal definition?  Is there a place where what we have cannot ever leave us?

And forgive me for meddling in the affairs of men.  But why do we place such prominence on the things we cannot keep?  Why do we love the word “have” and despise the word “had”, when the second reigns supreme over the first.

I’ll leave it to the reader to think it through.

By His Grace

Our Horror and Plight

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I was privileged to go on a cruise just recently.  One morning as I sat, pondering the things of God,  the nature of truth became the prominent subject in my mind.

As the Sun began to rise this picture was taken.  And a horrifying reality struck my soul like lightning.  I will try to share it with you here, but the fullness of the revelation belongs to Christ Jesus. 

Truth remains above all the thoughts and doings of man.  Regardless his reaction, truth remains firm forever.

Should he decide to ignore truth, man will be cut to shreds.  Should he embrace truth, he will find himself sliced to complete reduction.  Every lie will be stripped away.  Nothing within man can stand within God’s Truth.  If it is not from God, it will not endure the Judgement of Truth.

Some try to hide from truth. But there is no hiding.  By rebellion, willing ignorance or even fear, men attempt to hide.  Men constantly make excuses for their unwillingness to embrace truth. 

But the excuses of men are like a babbling language before the ears of truth.  They are a noise which is easily ignored.  Men think they make sense in their voicing of excuses.  They walk away confident that they have attained another day of freedom to do as they please.  But they are like those men who carried a wooden cross to toward the advancing lava only to be burned alive.  The agent of their death had no ears to hear there plea.  So it is with the truth of God.

Look about you.  Truth does not refuse the Holy Will of God.  The faithfulness of all heaven and creation obeys the will of the Living God in truth.  The Sun rises faithfully  every morning, and so the moon and stars.  The ocean remains where it is without complaint or excuse.  There are billions of items in creation that testify of faithfulness in truth.

Even now, truth testifies against us, for we are witness to all the faithfulness of creation,   Only the one who desires to be lovely before God embraces the injury and death that truth demands; injury to the desires of pleasure, and death to all his excuses.

If we embrace truth, we will suffer loss, no matter what we can reach to become.  God’s Truth is Holy!  Run, hide, rebell or hate truth, it already knows where we are.  And truth has laid an uncompassionate judgement at our doorstep.  “Obey the living God or die.  Since you have not obeyed you will surely be decimated.”

Only the willing, the strong of heart, the purposeful, and the faithfilled, will arrive with little destruction left to endure.   But make no mistake, Truth will certainly strip wickedness from eternity. 

The purging of heaven and the salvation of humble souls belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus the Christ of God.  The truth of the Living God’s words have given Jesus eternal authority.  If you want to be saved it is to Christ Jesus you need to appeal.  (Yes, the very one who is hated so vehemently among men.)

The question is poised to every man.  Will you suffer loss here, or will you let the Son rise on you and burn you away like a drop of water on a red hot slab of steel? 

Words are the only strength I have to help you in this horrible plight.  (Horrible because truth demands a verdict, and you have no excuse to protect yourself.  And the plight, because you have no desire to lay down your own lie filled excuses.)   Even so, God has commanded that free will reign among men.  He has left the choice in our hands.

Truth is not hidden.  It is blatantly obvious to everyone.  Will you find the desire to deny excuses their strength?  Are you willing to stop hiding?  Are you sick of being an ambassador of destruction.  All you need to do is humble yourself before the Living God and ask for His mercy in Christ Jesus His Holy and Righteous Son.  God will hear that plea.

Obedience to the Living God brings life.  It is not too hard to humble ourselves and ask.  The horrible shame among men is that so few will ever do it.  Most people go to the grave dressed in lies.  Will that be you?

By His Grace

Understood or Only Perceived

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A man is given a job.  What is expected of him is taught.  In many cases the expectations are written down thoroughly.  The man is tested to be sure he has grasped what is essential.  Still the question remains, has he understood.

The man who understands is rare.  Yet the one who understands will learn to do what is expected of him. Most people do their job to their best.  But there is always some lack of full understanding.  By this mistakes are made and the employer suffers loss.

Only the seriously diligent will truly understand what is expected of them.  In truth, at best, most of us can only say we have perceived the expectations.  Understanding is an entirely different animal.

The more complicated the expectations, the less the possibility that the man will understand.  Yet, as he is taught, his perception becomes more clear.  At some point, if he applies himself, he becomes a reliable representative, and perhaps one who can teach.

If this is true among the things of men, how much more so the things of God? 
Shall we stand and proclaim that we understand the Gospel?  Is not very likely that understanding has come.  If it is true that few believe the Gospel, how much more rare are those who understand?

If a man is able to do what the Gospel demands, then he may be able to say he has understood.  But more likely, truth will say he has only perceived very well.  Even in the best of us failures come and go.

The Lord has told us what is expected of us.  Do we find ourselves willing to listen?  “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.”

Sadly the majority of people grasp the beginnings of the Gospel, but fail to understand the fullness of it.  Like rudimentary students they live their lives lacking understanding.  All the while simplicity rules their life, and they find themselves falling horribly short.

Like the worker who simply shows up to perform some menial task, the manual of expectations is rarely read.  Such a man may be coerced or forced to do what is expected of him.  But he does not have the will to succeed. 

What employer will give promotions to those who are not diligent?  The productivity of the company will surely lack for the sake of laziness and rebellion.  How is the Kingdom of God any less?

The wise go back to the Bible everyday.  They kneel in prayer often.  They watch carefully to the things that come to them, striving to gain understanding.  In such men, loyalty is supreme.

Men will pay us according to our willingness to serve.  Should God treat us any differently?  The answer, in words, is obvious.  Does our performance give those words life?

The key to understanding lays in our loyalty.  Perception obeys like a servant.  Striving to understand obeys like a son.  The difference between them is the quality of love within the heart.

As a man loves the one who gives him the opportunity, the service is more beautiful, and understanding is bound to come.  Equally, as a man loves only himself his service to the one who gives him opportunity will lack.  The one who truly loves the Lord will find himself very prosperous for the Living God. 

Again, the proof of our love will be shown by the things we do.  And the things we do present themselves clearly before us, that we may determine how we love the Lord.

“If you love me, obey my commandments.”

By His Grace

To All Who Lead

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How very typically pompous of men to create division in religion, or even civil matters.  Yet by the very nature of things in creation, hierarchy necessary.  For there are things among us that are holy.  And to our shame, there are things among us that are debased and thoroughly wicked.

Regulation of rebellion is required for the simple sake of life.  For the sake of even a semblance of order, hierarchy among men is required. 

You leaders of people; hundreds, thousands, or millions, have you considered what has given you your authority?  Have you considered what seals life among us?  Or do you believe that you have attained your position by your own strength of strategy?

The will of man can produce nothing but continuous death.  How then can hope prosper among us if the leader’s only visions produce destruction? 

The ways of Man are nothing but death.  Do you know this?  Have you even considered this? 

You are set in place by necessity.  Have you taken the time to consider the meaning of the word “righteous”?  Have you considered that there is a storehouse from which all things righteous come?  Have you appealed, continuously, to the Holy One of God for help in the decisions you make every moment?  If not, how can you hope to produce anything good from the very place you have been given to inhabit?

Holy Father I ask you to broadcast this message.  Even as you have done with all things in creation: glorify your Holy Son, that Your will may be accomplished among men.  I place this message in your Holy hands.  My hands have strung the letters together.  But the message belongs to your Holy Son, Your Righteous One, Jesus the Christ. 

May Your mercy allow understanding according to your excellent will.  By Your Grace alone my God, and this through faith, may Your Holy will be done forever.

Amen.

By His Grace

It’s Still “Today”

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They say, “You are only human”.  As if that saying is some consolation.  As if those words remove the spawn of failure called grief.  We have stabbed ourselves through the heart, what can repair such a fatal wound?

In truth they are trying to show mercy.  But it is for the sake of His Mercy that grief has come.  For this reason “being human” is no consolation at all. 

He has loved us with the most inexpressible love.  And the greatest of our good intentions fall flat, like untuned strings on a well made violin, we have no song to sing.  It is impossible for words alone to give us consolation.  We find ourselves in desperate need of what this world cannot deliver.

But doesn’t He come to us very quickly?  Doesn’t he support our slumping frame?  Doesn’t he urge us to continue regardless our shame?

“This is but today my son.  The entirety of your life has not arrived.  I do not give as the world gives.  Let Me be God.  Let Me judge what is true.”  And so, in a variety of form, the Lord speaks lovingly to his children.

Our faith finds no help from being human.  Our faith finds no help in the consolation from men.  Our faith was forged in the bloody beating of the Holy Lord Jesus.  The raging fires of hell only perfected perfection.  Our consolation is delivered with a Holy kiss from life itself.

Christianity is not a religion.  It is an indescribably beautiful relationship with the Holy and Righteous Son of the Living God.  This is why the peace we have cannot be disturbed or even encouraged by man.

GLORY IS HIS ALONE!

By His Grace