Daily Archives: March 3, 2015

The Ladder of Truth

by

0


A man saw a ladder in the distance.  Perceiving correctly that it was the ladder of truth, desire burned within him to climb.

And as he climbed, he saw that the ladder raised him above his fellow men.  So with gosto, he began to proclaim what he found. 

He saw that the people were shocked by the things he said.  So he spoke all the more boldly.  And with good intent.

In his great boldness, however, he did not pay attention to his footing.  As he neared a place of difference in the ladder, he lost his grasp and tumbled down.

The fate of the man need not be mentioned.  But the reason for his fall is most profound.

If a man tries to scale truth, while still carrying his pride,  he will not climb long.  He may survive the fall, for the Lord has promised to keep his own.  But it is strongly advised that we should shed those things that destroy.

By His Grace

Clarification

by

0


I have written, and rightly so, that God is able to make us holy.  But we should not assume that it is a one time accomplishment.  Rather the holy I intend, is a continual cleansing.

The truth of God approaches a man.  It catches him where he stands.  And the holiness, of which I speak, is the humility to receive correction.  He teaches us to humble ourselves before His Great Majesty.

Because I am still locked in the flesh, you may catch me at an inopportune moment.  If such is the case, correct me.  It is not seemly that a man of God should refuse correction.

But is it is neither, that any man should refuse the truth simply because it come dressed in a fellow man.  God has given the gospel to men.  Perceive this and we should all prosper in his holy way.

By His Grace

Corrective and Punitive Action

by

0


Dear world:

Will you be patient and righteous for a moment?  Will you let a prisoner speak to you? 

You have placed me in chains, I can do you no harm.  But will you entertain the words of this man you have accused and imprisoned?   I ask you no more than that.

By the necessity of survival, you have made laws against such men as I.  And it doesn’t matter if your laws are just.  They are your laws and you enforce them just the same.

So I have been accused and condemned, before the Society of men, as one who does not play well with others.  For the sake of propriety I speak softly among you.  But propriety is the steel you have forged to enclose me in my cell.  But if I must speak to you for the sake of understanding, I must speak to you in the language of propriety.

Propriety is a shifting mechanism; it changes according to the fashion of men in every generation.  And so men like me are forever jailed by your own laws.  You do not seek to rehabilitate me.  Your accusations, condemnation, and imprisonment are sufficient to please you.  The horrors of your prisoners never enter your mind as you celebrate at your feasts.

I do not hold this against you.  You will not change, and it does no good to accuse you.  But I must begin this message with what is true.

You have tattooed my forehead with the word “MEAN“.  And you were not wrong to wield the branding iron.  At first when you accused me I was angry.  And I gathered what truth I could and slung it back at you.  So your accusation was confirmed among you.  And you rightly confined me.  And this according to your own laws.

But in my confinement your accusation has become unfounded.  For since you would not let me be a one with you, in my confinement I searched for what is true.  And I have found Him!

Your own laws of confinement speak of corrective action.  But this is the purpose which you ignore.  For if one who is confined by your laws turns away from violent behavior, you do not accept his change.  You do not offer corrective action!  You simply seek to rid yourselves of what you do not approve.  Anyone who is not profitable to the ways of men is cast away forever.

By this foolish standard you are the ones who are jailed.  And the brand you have placed on my forehead has become my glory.  So I am right in releasing you from any accusation concerning me.  You have meant it for evil, but God has used it for good.

The One I have found, while imprisoned in your social standard, is the pure standard you think your yourselves to be.  He is not limited by death, as are we.  He is not limited by a tidal wave of lies.  He is the absolute truth.  And he teaches all his people to be bold among you.  Thus I have written this message.

He is the standard by which every man will be judged.  For he has walked among us with perfection.  And God the Father has placed Him eternally as FIRST.

While I have been imprisoned, he has come to set me free.  Even while your bars of social standard are placed squarely between you and I.  I range freely in the open space of forgiveness and love.  And from this place I warn you.  Your ways which you hold in such high esteem are wrong.

Were I to gather a crowd of a million people, and speak these things to your face, you would no longer desire to jail me from your celebrations.  You would, in fact, desire to kill me.  Even as the men of a generation, which saw the Christ walk among them, murdered the Holy One of God.

You would see a man who is just like you.  And this man would proclaim that you are wicked and worthless, as one.  I do not make the proclamation on my own.  I speak only what the Living God has said.

Yes I am a man like you.  Yes I was trained in the volume of your lies.  Yes I was violent toward you, both in word and in deed.  For you yourselves trained me!

But the Christ has come to set us free!  And any who believe this message, can have this freedom.  We need not be chained in the volume of teaching that is a lie, any longer. 

I stand boldly and tell you, “Man can become holy”.  I stand boldly and proclaim that we need no longer to live as liars.  God is willing to teach us what is true and faultless.  And his teaching is full of power to overcome the lies of this place.

Most of you will balk at this message.  For you love the volume of lies more than you love the volume of truth.  And you will not put up with one who calls your ways wicked.  But I will call your ways wicked just the same.

I was mean when I did your will.  Now you count me mean when I do His will.  You see how your corrective action is at fault.

But I have not written this for the sake of meanness.  And I have not straightened my back before you as an act of defiance.  I have appeared before you as one who is not ashamed or afraid any longer.  And it is love that straightens my spine.

Love makes me turn around.  I had been kneeling before the One who is love.  With awareness of what he has done for me, I have remembered the people from which I came.  I have returned without fear to give you this message of truth.  God will see, how many of you respond.

These words belong to God.  They are only mine, in that he has given them to me.  Yet they are not mine, for I give them to you.  I have come as a messenger and nothing more.

By His Grace

Befuddled Buffoons

by

0


image

Does anybody remember this guy?  What a beautifully befuddled buffoon.  Of all the characters on Green Acres he was always my favorite.  Maybe that’s because I’m a lot like him.

I never was a seriously smart man.  And I was caught up in some kind of weird third dimension.  Every time I thought I knew what I was talking about, another tidbit of truth would cross my mind, leading me down some obscure path.  And people always had that pained look on their face when I talked.

The character, Hank Kimball, just had this beautiful way of questioning everything he ever said.  Truth was his worst enemy.  Or was it?  Actually, Hank was the only reliable one on the entire show.  You could always count on him for confusion.

It appeared like he didn’t know anything.  But he was full of information!  His only difficulty was, he couldn’t get past truth.

I have learned that the more intense our scrutiny of truth, the more debatable the things of this world become.  And at some point, for self-preservation, we sort of beg out of human encounters.   Conversation with others gets really uncomfortable.  Most folks don’t question what they say.  But I always did!

God’s truth has really settled into my heart.  So that finally, I’m pretty sure of what I believe.  But it wasn’t always that way.  And the memory of my fragile mind plagues me.  Frankly it’s about the only fear I have left.

This is why I’m not a public speaker.  This is why I love to write instead.  I might get excited about a post and upload it way too early, leaving all kinds of errors in spelling or punctuation, but at least I can be sure of my intent.

Are you a Hank Kimball?  Then why not settle on the truth of God?  The world is so full of contradictions.  By now I’m sure you’ve been driven near crazy.  But by prayer and Bible reading you can become very sure of what you know.

God is the perfect solution for every human being.  Even more so for the Hank Kimballs of this world.

By His Grace

Christian Marketing

by

0


Last night I got passed by two 53 foot trailers.  There’s not a whole lot remarkable about that.  My company truck is held down to 62 miles per hour.  I get passed by a whole lot of product.

But these two trucks grabbed my attention.  It’s fairly rare to see two trucks from the same company at the same time, especially travelling late at night.  Usually trucks that run in tandem carry some relatively important product.  I hadn’t classified this one as that important.

“Well!”  Said my mind.  “There aren’t a lot of products in the world that I would consider that important.  But I’ll give it to these, carrying Christian merchandise for a Christian store rates them pretty high in my book.”

Then I started to think about the inside of a 53 foot trailer.  About 8 feet wide, and 10 feet tall.  That’s a whole lot of room!  And there were two of them!

You would think that would make me happy.  But it didn’t.  Instead of thinking about all the souls that would be saved by that merchandise, I started thinking about how we have monetized Grace.

Leave it to the cynic, huh?

I understand it takes money to produce Bibles.  And it’s only right that a man should pay for the work of another.  But I’ve been in Christian stores.  And the Bible section is relatively small. 

So what is in those trucks?  And why is Christianity so profitable?   Is the power of God among Christians multiplied because of the merchandise being sold?  Personally, I don’t see that.  They might be selling a whole lot of stuff.  But I am witnessing old school Christianity being pushed off to the side.

I wonder what the Lord’s perspective on this is.  If we begin with the following phrase, “Freely you have received freely give”, I perceive a difficulty, albeit small.

There are a lot of products produced that have changed lives.  Refrigerators, stoves, sinks, plumbing supplies, building materials, warm coats, automobiles, and the list seems endless.  But I don’t see Christianity changing the face of America.  I see America changing the face of christianity!

For the big business it has become, Christian marketing has very little impact.  Yet every day, except Sunday, they are raking in the bucks.  Does anyone else smell an oxymoron here?

By His Grace