Category Archives: Encouragement

Billboard Hysteria

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Two women were complaining about all the Bible billboards down south. One said she was tired of being inundated about sin, Jesus, and condemnation. She made some remark to excuse herself for being callous to the words. Something like, “I know the gospel is important, I’m just tired of it being in my face all the time”.   Surprisingly, her friend agreed.  

Are you tired of hearing about God? You might want to get used to it. He owns eternity, you know. And the conversation about his glorious Son Jesus is never ending. Such people as those women are not likely to have a good time.

A Profitable Life

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The beautiful stories in the Bible, where God displayed protection for his people, are not just stories. He is willing to save his people of faith from anything in the world can deliver against them.  

Years ago, there was a video of a man on an island carrying a cross toward flowing lava. He was hoping that a symbol of God’s majesty in Christ would stop the destruction of his town. The man was set on fire from the heat.  


Do you expect God to rescue you from everything? He will. But the word “everything” includes a whole lot more than this world can hold. There are the things of heaven, compared to which nothing in this world can hold a candle.  


Death, turmoil, confusion, and violence are the nature of this place. You’re bound to get some of all of it. Trust him anyway. He has a place in his kingdom for all who put their trust in the Son of the Living God. It is written, “they will never be put to shame”.


Try hard to remember, God’s desire is not to give you a pleasant life here. That would make a mockery of his kingdom. His desire is to prove his love to you so that you can have a rightful place in glory. See what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 11.  


32 “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning;e they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.”

True Peace

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Interesting to me: people know about what they’re going to read here.  But how many still chase after things it won’t last, only because they want to avoid God.   


The definition of true peace does not lend itself to the opinions of Man. True peace is not the absence of turmoil. Therefore you can’t buy it with ignorance.  

True peace does not come to us by diligent ritual. Even if all things went well for the perfectionist, what peace he thinks he has can be destroyed by a speck of dust.  


And the one who thinks they will gain peace by not involving themselves in the difficult things of God, is undone by the simple miraculous beauty of a butterfly.  


True peace has one origin and one substance. To gain it we must appear in the fire of condemnation that radiates from the Living God’s throne. True peace will always come dressed in the humiliation of our own eternal weakness.  


True peace can only be had by learning to trust Jesus in everything. Every other opinion regarding peace will be shattered.  


There is no institution on earth where you can go to begin your journey into true peace. In this, even the church can’t help you. The Church can only point to the One who is willing and able to give you Life.  


Where you need to go is the last place you want to go, but the absolute place you will arrive; the throne of the God who made you.  

Broken, Not Destroyed

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I don’t know what value this is. Maybe it’s only valuable to me; to let my heart speak the words.  

What is Christ to me? He is a painful love. Yet, it’s not that he is painful but that I am from destruction.  


I see his love. I feel his love. I strive, with everything I have, to do his love. Yet the culture of the place where I am from often interferes with peace.  


The pain is not because of his love. Pain does not come from there. It comes from the store house of memories; wrapped around every thought like a leaching vine on a dying tree.  


I remember I did this to someone. I remember I failed to recognize someone else’s pain. Missed moments. Murderous moments. Distracted by selfishness. Wasted times, Times spent trying to survive, encased in a body full of greed.  


Sigh. So it is. But I would rather live this horror, with his love as my target, than to spend another moment living that useless life I have come to regret so deeply.  


Let this be an apology where no words can repair. Let this stand as a testimony to true Christianity.  


The Spirit of God calls, provokes, leads, and encourages toward what is holy. The unholy part of me must succumb. And I am gratefully thankful to my God that his promise is to destroy the destroyer. He is the rock upon which we are broken. Yet woe to those upon whom it falls, for they shall be utterly ground to powder.  


Be glorified Holy Father, for the work of Your own hands in the souls You have chosen to love.  

Proper Respect 

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“Respect your elders.”So we are told.  


“But they’re not right;

Wisdom comes not from ‘old’.”


“Well, didn’t God make them

Fore He made you,


And isn’t His Wisdom 

Greater than ‘new’?”

Worms Made Human!

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David, the king of Israel, the benchmark for the people to show them a relationship with the Living God.  

He saw another man’s wife bathing on a rooftop. He commanded that she should be brought to him. He did what is unspeakable before God. Then to add to his sin, he commanded that her husband should be murdered on the battlefield.  


He destroyed the wife of another man. He destroyed a family. He had a husband, father, and honorable man murdered. He was consumed with his own desire, mindless of the lives of God’s people or the sure consequences. Let your mind put the story on the streets of today in America. See it for what it is.  


What is the story to us? It is proof of salvation. It is proof of God’s will to impart life to the dead. In the account, David shows us who we are.  


Do you feel sometimes that you were not worthy to go to prayer? Read the story and understand.  


Do you feel sometimes that there is no way God can save you; you have gone too far, your sin is too great? Read the story and understand.  


The salvation of any man is a miracle. That any of us can believe the promise: that God has made a place for us for eternity other than the grave. This is a vast, boundless, wondrous, and unspeakable miracle. Amazing that what is unholy should believe it has a place in what is utterly Holy.  


It is God’s will that you believe this. It is God’s will that you come to him. We do not go to him because we are worthy to be received. We go to him for the sake of his honorable and righteous Holy name. Remember how he sealed his will with his own Holy blood. We go to him because we believe.  


David has received eternal life. Believe and receive the same.