Category Archives: Encouragement

From Heaven’s Banks

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What is a desert,

But a place unlivable.

A place where even water

Is forbidden to thrive.

A place where food is:

Quicker than man’s hands,

And acid to the stomach.

A place where a man is:

Destined to die,

And in horrible disarray.

No man passes through

Such a place,

Without desiring the things

Of life.

All this,

Yet God sustains.

The son of unrighteousness beats heavily

Upon the desert of men.

He mocks them

In their plight;

Offering useless promises,

Reminding of delights.

How they make his day pleasant,

To remember roasted pheasant.

While they chew away on cactus,

Malnutrition is their way!

All this,

Yet Christ sustains.

Forced to die and suffer loss;

Of the way of man this is the cost.

Yet there are those who make their way

Fed well by Christ,

And everyday!

You know what I am speaking of,

That healthy banquet from above,

A table in the wilderness

Covered with delicacies of love.

What right-minded man would pass it by?

The jars of water.

The meat is fried.

The succulent fruit from lands afar.

And Holy welcome

From servants of Fire!

But a great traipsing mass

Walks by everyday,

Spurning the offering

Of “The Way“!

Yet of those who sit

And gorge themselves,

How many give him rightful thanks?

By convincing others to come and eat

Of the fruit from Heaven’s banks.

By His Grace

Defining Appropriate Passion

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The Cobra sways so beautifully to the music of his master.  The master can even reach out and pet the Cobra’s head.  To its master, the deadly animal is tame.

But do not think you can tame the Cobra.  Do not think you can pet his head.  For you will find out something about Cobras.  They absolutely adore using their fangs.

If a creature is considered as enemy, the cobra will bite.  If the creature looks like food, the Cobra will eat.  He is simply built to be that way.

Define for me, the appropriate passion for the Glorious Lord Jesus.  In my perspective, we absolutely adore him.  At the same time, in our adoration for the Righteous One, we find ourselves abhorring sin.  We learn to hate it in our selves.  And we learn to hate it in the world.  It is an obvious enemy.

The question lays out before us as this: do we dance to the music of the world, or to the music of Christ Jesus?

By His Grace

“Made for Profit”

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Companies are not ruled by insane men.  They create a product for the sake of making money.  For instance, they don’t make diapers just so they can store them in a warehouse.  No, they find the parents of poopy babies and advertise their product to them.

No automaker makes cars just so he can warehouse them in some underground bunker.  They selectively advertise their products so they can sell it.  They’re in business to make money folks!

The church is set aside to serve the Living God in the manner of saving souls.  To speak in the vulgarity of man, the church is a business.  The machinery is the people of God.  The output is called godly transformation.  Evangelism: the advertising campaign designed to bring in profit.

But isn’t the church so unlike the reasonable men of the world?  For only in the Christian Church do you see the warehousing of product with no intent to sell!

You know what the problem is?  You don’t believe in your product.

I’ll leave this to stew in your mind.

By His Grace

The Holy Friend or Foe: Time

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In the beginning of Creation, God created all that is.  The hands which formed all things belong to the Heavenly Lord of all, Jesus The Christ.

One moment following another, the Lord of All moved to accomplish the Holy, Holy, Holy, Will of the Father of all Life.  Faithfulness and Duty, beyond words to describe, obeyed and accomplished.  Time was invented and produced.  The intention of Eternity has sustained each second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, and century.  Yet make no mistake, He who has created time will remove it.

This created time has dictated the ways of all men.  With this time, has come choice; the very essence of God’s will to display the heart’s intent of every man.  “Will each heart desire to worship the One who has obeyed and made it?  Or will each heart desire to remain in rebellion?

What do you do with your moments of life?  When sin beckons, do you yield?  When forgiveness and instruction are offered, do you receive?

Time is God’s gift to man.  But it is far too often used to remain in blindness to His Holy, Holy, Holy Will.

They spoke the ultimate wickedness.  They said, “God is dead”!  And oh how welcome were those words to many.  “Finally!   Time belongs to us!  We free all men from obligation to serve out their moments according to the Holy Law of God.  Our mouths have spoken.”  What is the state of affairs for those who spoke such abject folly?  Their precious time has run out.

They will rise up from the dead in great terror.  They will be ushered into the presence of the One they have spurned with such violent words.  The smell of fear will come up from their souls with visible vapor.  The stench of their hatred for Righteousness and Holy intent will cover them as a mist.  And they will perceive their utter destruction.

What are you doing with your moments of time?

Do you seek the face of the Living God?  Or do you continue in your unholy way?  You need make no choice at all.  You are free to reek from the stench of fear on that Holy Day.  But you are invited to encounter the Holy war against the wickedness that lives within you, with binding strength.

You can remain bound to rebellion and unholy blindness.  But you are also invited to be released from your ungodliness.  You are invited to become holy.  Seek out the Gospel of Christ Jesus!  Or die, having lived a useless and unprofitable life.

God can release the humble from their bindings.  He can open their eyes and ears to understanding.  Your very next moment does not have to lead you to eternal regret.

What will you choose?  Choice belongs to the lazy.   Choice belongs to the diligent.  See how you choose, regardless your response to these things.

The War Against “Bloody” Rebellion

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God raises up whom He chooses.  Such a man will not be of those that Man might perceive as worthy.  Such a man will be a horrifying, misshapen, miscreant of humanity.  How should this be a surprise?  Is God like man in any fashion?  (The answer, my friend, is “no”.)

Shall the war between what is Holy and what is unholy be a soft fluffy battle field?  Show me a war between men that is like this:  The warrior sharpens his sword.  He gathers with his comrades to speak of victory through blood.  Together they embolden one another.  Around the camp fire, in the night before the battle, they eat and drink together to prepare for the most excellent strength.  They conspire regarding logistics of battle.  And the stage is set within their hearts to accomplish VICTORY in the coming morning.

Now should a warrior enter the bloody violence with compassion?  Shall he apologize to his foe before he swings that sharpened sword?  Shall he ask permission to dismember that body?  Does he not swing without mercy?

Yet, consider this.  There is mercy in the forward violence.  If the warrior swings with any compassion, there will be double the suffering when his steel finds flesh.  The strike will induce suffering, not death.  In his desire for compassion, the warrior has done harm to those who have come to do battle.  And in the delivery of violence with compassion, the warrior betrays his fellow warriors in their dedication to victory.

What am I trying to say here?  I am saying that there is a vast difference between the things of heaven and the things of this world.  Those who go out among men to bring heaven to the rebellious must retain a certain mercy.  But they cannot allow themselves to be “powder puff” Christians.  We must be bold!  We must be sure of the message we bring.  We are not bring peace.  We are bringing war.

The peace we offer is like a small flame.  And we do not intend to warm the rebellious as they remain in their unholy way.  We come to burn their ways to the ground.

The woodsman goes out to cut down a tree.  He does not wield the ax with mercy.  Though the tree has only ever desired to grow and be strong, it will yield to the ax!  The man will keep his family warm.

After he has gathered the wood into his house, shall he make apology to the wood, as he sets it ablaze?  Shall he mount the wood on display only?  Shall he not set it on fire without the slightest mercy?

You who say you are Christians, yet offer the Gospel with apology.  Why do you apologize to man for the Holy Things of The Living God?  You are like the warriors who fail.  You are likened to the one who yields his sword with mercy.  You do more damage than good.

Strike!  Speak what is true without relenting or apology.  Bring the Truth to man as it was presented to your soul.  Remember the war that rages within you, as you yourself read the Holy Scripture.  Perceive the outcome of man’s unholy way.  And remember the price that was paid by the Holy Son of the Living God; that He should deliver the fire of Truth to your ragged soul!

If you are not bold, you will certainly lose the battle.  If you have mercy on sin, you will certainly injure those you speak to.  You will be an unworthy warrior in the battle for souls.  And those converts to your brand of Christianity, will further your delinquent way among men.  They too will fail to deliver the essential blows against what is unholy.

Did you know that Winston Churchill was a ruthless man?  He is held in high esteem, because of the outcome of his service.  But he was no beautiful, soft, compassionate man.  Yet look who he was raised up to fight against, Hitler.  Shouldn’t this be an example of what I’m saying here?

Hasn’t God raised up the “least” among man to fight and war against the rebellion of  man?  Hasn’t he raised up the wicked to fight against the wicked?

But I will speak, for a moment, of what the Church has done.  They have taken in the wicked, that they might be part of the “family of God”.  They have told them that they are not allowed to speak against the wicked ways of man.  They are to separate themselves and become a most compassionate and lovingly soft being.  They are to deliver a tender blow to the sins of man.  How does this compare with what I have written above?  Let the reader decide.

In the Draft From Eternity

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A truck passed me doing nearly 70 miles an hour.  I watched a little bird swoop down behind his trailer, and fly in the draft of air behind the trailer.  I didn’t know they could fly so fast.  I didn’t know they could be so bold.  I didn’t know they were wise enough to choose their toys.  But now I do.

I can be more than a man.  I can be bold.  I can be wise enough to choose my Master.  For I will follow behind him in his blazing train; caught up in His Majesty, which he leaves along “The Way”.

The truck went by with good speed.  So Christ Jesus walked by John the Baptist in the same way.  Then we see John play in the Holiness of Christ like the bird in the draft of the trailer.

“This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'”

Let us too be wise.

By His Grace