Category Archives: Encouragement

SERIOUS

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Stupid might be funny to watch.  But nobody likes it happens to them.  No, serious is the preferred lifestyle.  Stupid doesn’t seem to know this world is out to kill him.  Serious is better armed to defend his turf.

So we look for serious stuff.  We gather a bit here and a bit there.  And the guy goes about with a serious look on his face, thinking he has defended himself from all possible attack.

In your gatherings have you gathered SERIOUS?  I know you found it while you were looking around.  SERIOUS made this place.  SERIOUS it’s never worries when the storms assail.  SERIOUS has it all covered from before you were born to after you are gone.

When you stumbled across The SERIOUS, what was your reaction?  If you were like every other person who ever lived, you’d be better off to go and find it again.  Reassess its value.  Take as much of SERIOUS home with you as you can carry.

That’s my advice.

The Reason for Faith’s Necessity

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2 questions:
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1. Why do we need faith?

2. What does the voice of God sound like?

Beginning with the second question:
The voice of God is life.  When the Israelites were released from bondage in Egypt, God displayed his voice in a thunderous noise from the mountain.  But this was for the sake of the people, that they may worship Him and obey.  As he spoke with Moses, however,  he used no such voice.  Rather, God treated Moses as a friend.  (What does that say about those to whom he spoke as a thunderous noise?)

The voice of God requires faith to hear.  God is thoroughly life.  Everything he is, everything he says, everything he does, is life.  Ask yourself then what does life say, what does life sound like, what does life look like, what does life feel like?  Look carefully at the situations and things that come to you. 

Please don’t consider that God is like a man.  The life I am speaking of is Purity, Holiness, Righteousness, Justice, Mercy, and in the end Grace to us through sustaining toward the same things.

He would prefer that we gain his wisdom to perceive with our eyes and ears, mind, heart and strength.  Isn’t this why the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength and with all your soul?  Then you will begin to hear his voice.  How do I know this?

Romans 1:20 tells us how we know this.  “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

(And we have the testimony of those who do hear his voice through faith.  The one who writes this testifies.  And some who read this testify.  The voice of God, one may say, also comes from those who know him.  Perhaps better said, those God knows in Jesus His Holy and Righteous Son.  The people would find advantedge listening to the words of such people, instead of pre-judging them as worthless.)

He speaks to us from what we can say “IS”.  Because life “IS”. 

And we must inject another slice of information here.  God does not demand too much, for he gives us everything we need to accomplish his Holy will in our lives.  To say he does not, is to join with satan in the primary accusation that has caused creation of this place of testing in the first place.  We find the second slice of information in the following scripture.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1)

Rejecting this promise is a sincerely precarious place to choose to live!  For if we do not receive his wisdom, that God is so willing to give freely, we will surely lack precious gifts. (Even, perhaps, finding death in the end.  For not a single one of those who of those who heard the Thunders from the mountain receive the promise of God.)

Having read this, it is now your responsibility to act.  Though having said that, (it sounds like a threat) the Wonders that God is willing to give to any man is far worth the struggle to suppress our rebelion (That which is crouching at our very door, desiring to have us. But we must master it. [Taken from Genesis 4:7])

Think about this deeply:  we need faith because it will never cease to be necessary.

Go and see if what I have said is true.

P. S.  The voice of God is called Jesus.  Think about that for the rest of your life.

Storm

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I sat in a darkened corner of the bar.  All alone and stupefied by the things I’ve seen.  Nursing my fourth drink, my mind was nearing numbness.   Ah, that familiar and welcome place.

My eyes were obliviously staring toward the front door.  The door opened and the shadow of a ragged man filled its frame.  “Ah, something to watch”, I thought to myself.

He walked straight to my table, and just stood there.  It takes a little longer for a fuzzy brain to process information.  Eventually I stop staring.  The blurry figure took focus.  Since he appeared to be in no hurry, and nowhere to go, I let a moment pass before I offered him a chair.  With lazy movements he sat down.  So the tone was set, an easy-going lazy, easy conversation.

He put his arms on the table, not taking his eyes from mine.  With an Indescribably steady voice he said, “What are you doing here”.  I told him I was drinking to numb the pain of life.

“Do you know why it hurts?”  Kind of a curious question.  It made me reach a little deeper than the surface.  I told him no.  “I really don’t have the slightest clue.”  But he didn’t offer anything more.  No answers, no reflections, no Nothin.  So we sat there in silence for a few minutes.

I was the one to break the silence.  “It’s like I live in a hurricane.  Everything I do, everything I am, everything I say, gets blown away and tore to pieces.  And I can’t seem to find shelter.  So I come in here to numb the pain of being tossed against the wall.”

He looked down thoughtfully.  It didn’t look like he had anything to say.  It seemed he was just waiting for my mind to listen to his words.  Like getting used to silence just before the Big Bang.  He started speaking before his eyes began to rise.

“Life is a storm from birth to death.  Most people prefer the depths of a cave.  But there are some who dare to wander about.  These are better fed.  These are far stronger and more able.  Frankly, these are more useful.”

He had set the tone so, again, I followed what he did.  I lowered my head and watched the top of the table stay still.  I thought about what he said.  I thought about how odd it was that he opened the door and came to my table to say these things.  I thought about the storm of my life.  Then I thought about my weakness; how he came to me in my cave.

“If this is the storm that comes into my cave to batter me against the wall, what is it like outside?”  I was sincerely curious about these strong people.

He didn’t pause this time.  “Outside is death.  What is it like inside?”  It seems like my answer came from somebody I didn’t know.  But I was sure it was my own lips that said this, “It’s useless, it’s mundane, it’s tedious, it’s insane.  In short and in truth, it’s a slow painful death.  But somehow it seems equitable, to be distant from the rest.”  (A poem?  Really!)

Now the conversation took a bit of a faster pace.  Without the slightest hesitation he shot back, “Do you want to work?”  I really don’t know how, but I understood what he meant.  My stomach convulsed and made me say, “Yes”.  (Alright, I thought, we’re having a conversation, and I’m really weirdly involved.)  “Then go outside and die with me.”

I know my eyes got wide.  I could feel it in my soul.  Could this man be the answer?  There wasn’t a shred of apology in his voice.

“No one has ever stayed with me.  How do I know you won’t take me outside and abandoned me in a worse place than this?”  His reply shut my mouth.  “Because I said so, and I cannot lie.”

Why should I believe him?  But look how strong my want-to is.  I looked down and thought again.  What’s the difference?  Die in here or die out there, what’s the difference?  Then I knew what to say.  Then I knew what to do.  I didn’t say anything.  I simply got up and put my coat on.  Within a few moments we were silhouetted against those in the cave.  We left.

I’m writing this, aren’t I.  Yes I’m still alive.  I have weathered the most magnificent storm my mind could possibly imagine.  He has never left me.  He has guided every step I took.  He has healed my wounds.  He has taught me how to fight.  He has encouraged me to take risks that men in their caves don’t even know exist.  And there ain’t no way I’m going back!

By the way.  His name is Jesus.

The Unpopular Desire

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The antonym of adultery and greed is faithfulness.

I don’t want their bodies.  I don’t want their possessions.  I don’t want their accolades.  I don’t want their love.  I want their souls to love God eternally.

To Desolve an Impasse

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I am so consumed with the things of God and eternal life for all men that I cannot compete in the expectations of the world.  Likewise, however, the world is consumed with its own expectations so that it cannot compete in the things of God.  Thus an impasse.

Because of the lovely blessings of God I cannot go to the world’s ways.  And because of their perverted definition of the word love, the world cannot come to God’s ways.  God’s love constrains me.  Man’s pride constrains them.

One of the rules of man’s pride is civility.  Because of this rule, they retain me in the social position of my birth.  But they have no regard for my open love for The God who is saving me.  I cannot hold this against anyone, for wasn’t I just like them.  But how shall this impasse the broken?

It needs first to be said that the pride of man will find an end in the grave, while the love of God goes on forever.  But this cannot be an acceptable break in the impasse, while God and myself (Because of his love for me) desires so many to be with us in Paradise.

Jesus told us that many are called but few are chosen.  “But no my Lord, they will surely die.  Truly, can nothing more be done to save their souls from your promised destruction?”  Yet does he not desire willing hearts to love him?  Thus the impasse continues.

Speak, lead, display, love, and groom.  Who knows, perhaps they will see and live.  How many of the Israelites that were released from bondage in Egypt entered into the Promised Land?   Though they saw magnificent sights, heard wondrous thundering sounds, ate of Mana, and enjoyed such marvelous blessings, still they all died apart from the promise.  The impasse holds little hope of rending here.

Yet what other hope is there?  The Living God cannot allow rebellion and pride into eternity.  And no member of The Eternity desires that God should forsake purity.  No, rebelion belongs destroyed.  And pride must be crushed, eternally reduced to nothing.

I surmise that the impasse belongs to Man.  It is man who demands to have his own way honored by the Living God.  Yet it is God who sent his only Son to be murdered for the sake of Man’s salvation.  Yes, the impasse belongs to man.

I love my brother’s of Flesh.  I do not want to see them destroyed.  But the choice is not mine, is it.

Since God in me is contemptible by those who know me, it is given to me to write.  Doesn’t familiarity breed contempt?  “We know where this man is from.  We know what a fool he has been.  How can he now think he knows God better than we?  How does he dare presume to teach us!”  And so pride loves contempt in the presence of familiarity.  (and by their contempt they prove they do not know God)

There is so much to say.  But I confess my writing is somewhat curtailed for the lack of apparent audience, why speak if no one listens.  I imagine that I could well have written twice this blog’s volume of words, if only I had perceived that some benefited.   But don’t statistics defy imagination?  Almost seven years of writing have produced a virtual flat-line statistical range.  Perhaps you can see why I have wondered about the productivity of his words in me.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not complaining for a lack of audience.  I simply see a lack of inspiration to increase the pace of this work.  Yet isn’t that lack within me.  And isn’t it then my duty to seek out inspiration from my God?

By his grace I will find the strength to write.  For haven’t I determined here that there is no other means to break the impasse?

There is an article I was allowed to write two or three years ago called “The Craftsman”.  No, I haven’t forgotten it’s premise.  It is impossible to forget something that is with you everyday.

At Their Throat

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See how people go about their day as if the will of God does not matter.  But hasn’t he put death in place to end their so-called freedom?

Yes.  Even while they smile and dance and laugh and sing, the hand of God is poised before their very throat.

God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.  And those on whom God’s mercy rests will receive his endless Grace.  But to those who think this place of testing it’s simply a place of merriment and pleasure:

“Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.”

Should I lie and offered you sugar-coated words?  The Living God is Holy.  So is his Holy and Righteous Son.  Amen.