Category Archives: Encouragement

For sale. OBO

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The sign at a car lot says, “Stay alive don’t drink and drive!”

I see it as I pass by.  But I wonder, do they really care?  There is a slight chance of sincerity.  But there is a greater chance of a marketing ploy being played.

Many liars are selling the world for any price.  What they desire is power, money and fame.  So they will lie about the integrity of those who have integrity.  They will dishonor those who are honorable.  They will say there is no truth, it is all relevant.  While they disallow the true and only God his rightful place.

Everything is for sale.  Everything has a price.  Nothing is revered or kept sacred.

So it is with all the world.  But it should not be that way with the people of Jesus the Christ. 

Are there for sale signs on the gifts that God has given you?  Is your fidelity, righteousness, loyalty, patience, kindness, love and honor available to the highest bidder?

It would be good to go to the store house of your heart and inspect each gift of God.  If you find papers of assessment leading to sale, rip them off and burn them.  Remember how the inheritance of one was sold for a small bowl of soup.

Heaven or now

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A man may I ask, “What awaits us in heaven?” 

Let it be that the Lord’s people are far more concerned about what awaits us now.  Let our desire not be for the promise that cannot be spoken.  But let us desire Desire for the things that please the Most High God in Christ Jesus His Holy Son.

Psalm 50

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16 But to the wicked person, God says:

“What right have you to recite my laws
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 You hate my instruction
and cast my words behind you.
18 When you see a thief, you join with him;
you throw in your lot with adulterers.
19 You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You sit and testify against your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
21 When you did these things and I kept silent,
you thought I was exactly like you.
But I now arraign you
and set my accusations before you.
22 “Consider this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:
23 Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me,
and to the blameless I will show my salvation.”

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I will confess before him and before the Great assembly of all men.  The Lord is faultless and true.  The Holy One remains and will never be moved.

How can I make my soul hear His Holy words, which stand as blazing fire against my evil ways?  If I thought I could stand, I find myself guilty.  What shall be said of this fool?

How shall I escape when none have before, nor will?  I say to my soul:

“You know what is right to do.  Appeal to the Holy One for mercy; that he may teach you his way and you will walk in them.  Appeal not once, but a million times.  Wear yourself out before his Holy Face!  Strive to cause a rut with the knees of your begging, in his Holy throne room floor.

Consider the cost, as you have heard him speak.  He will suffer no loss at the demise of the wicked.  For he does not count them among his things.

But you, you soul of a foolish man!  Go and present yourself before the Most High that you may live!  This flesh must die!”

Beyond the Veil

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Just beyond the veil of your weakness and fear lay all the strength and promise any man can have.  No man can remove this veil, anymore than plucking out his own eyes will cause him to see better.

The eyes you now use to perceive your weakness and fear are useless in the gaining of this magnificent strength and promise.  To gain what is more you must receive.  Yet how can a man receive by taking from what he already has?

This is how many Christians live.  They strive to obey from their own resources.  But that does not come from the message they first heard.

They realized they were helpless so they turned to look for an answer.  But when the answer was provided, they turned back to their old way. 

How can they “become”?  How do they think they can now provide what they were not able to achieve before?

If peace was delivered by believing the power of God to transform, how is it we now turn to our own strength to do what is more?  By this error, born of pride and folly, many have shipwrecked their own faith.

The answer remains where it was found in the beginning.  Humble ourselves before the living God.  Ask with earnest and continuous prayer.  Read the Bible again and again; that you may learn the language of salvation.

If you will not do these things how can any man help you farther?  The sad part is you may not want what you think you want.

The Search

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I am not an accomplished professor of all things.  There are vastly more things I do not know than what I do possess.  I am not a smart man, as men would call one smart.  I am vastly more a fool, than wise and elderly.

The time I have left, to be among the things of this world, is far less than the years I have already seen.  And my time to become what men speak of a “special” is passing quickly.  If it has not passed already.

But I will impart what I have learned.  Perhaps there is benefit to some.

I have examined the world from the perspective of sin, and found it utterly lacking.  In the way of sin, I have walked more vigorously than most.  And so I can testify with surety.  Life is not there.

I have examined other religions from a distance, as I sought release from my pathetic state.  I did not have time, nor inclination to immerse myself in their teachings.  To do so would have required pledging myself.  I did not possess such earnest intent.  Nor would time allow.

But every religion established by man is full of fault and worthless tripe.  None of them held sufficient truth to remedy my plight.  They said “do”, but I could not.  Therefore life is not found among them.

I examined the law of God and found it true.  I speak of the law of God as found in the Holy Bible, not as men say is the law of God.

I found the law of God in the Holy Scriptures to be founded on eternity.  But one does not need read far, to realize the Holy Law of the Living God is more than man can accomplish.

In the law of God I found life.  But by the law I found I was put to death.  At last my struggle is over.  But what should I do, am I to die?  Is that the summation of this struggle?  I still had desire to live.  So though law of God is life, I found myself dead in its reading.

Now I will testify of what I have found. 

There is one who has fulfilled the law of God on behalf of all men.  He is willing to enter a man’s sin and drive it out.

Now this is life!  All he asks is that I am willing.  Having searched what is, of course I am willing.

I have proof in my soul that he has come and made drastic change.  I have proof in this testimony that he is true and able to save.  I find that I believe.  So I proudly wear that name.  I find myself doing the things I thought were too hard for a man.

If I had last words, these would be it.  Search for all you will, you will not find anything greater than Christ Jesus.  He is Life!

Earnest Heart

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What man has an earnest heart?  No man is fully earnest.  When the Lord Jesus prayed in the garden, his sweat became as drops of blood.  Holy and full earnestness filled him!  What man has shed his blood in such a manner?  There is not one fully ernest man in all of men.

You have.  But God, in his wise mercy, divides between what is and what is not.  He sees with perfect eyes, and grants with perfect wisdom. 

None will ever rise above his Holy Son.  It is enough for the student to be like his teacher.  Yet who has aspired to such a place?  Who has attained to the measure he will grant? Their names fill such a short list.

This list is written by the Holy Lord Himself, kept securely in his Most Holy Temple.  He alone knows the true definition of “earnest”. 

A man can only do what he knows.  Beyond that, he seeks for help; that he may be taught by the one who is greater.

Many have taught, that we are to “become” by our own volition.  “If you can read you can do.  If you can hear you can accomplish.  All you lack is the doing.” 

Such words are akin to asking someone to make a beam of steel by using only his hands.  Where is the furnace and the forge; those indispensable helpers who are vastly more than we?

“To perfection there is a limit.”  For God has placed things as they are.  If we would reach the summit of his Holy expectation, it will be done only by the strength of God himself.  Even the Holy One has overcome by this same help.

Let us reach in prayer, earnest as we can.  Then let us believe, to receive, that we may do.

Unwillingly and unwittingly, the world awaits the testimony of those who “become”.  They say, “Come and teach us what we do not desire.  Come and teach us what we do not know.”

Even now the world waits.  Even now it is still waiting.  How long must it endure waiting?