Category Archives: Encouragement

This Day

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What is this day?  What name shall we give it?  Shall we call it Tuesday?  Shall we make a gold plaque and hang it on the wall ascribing numbers to the day; a month a day and a year?

Shall we call it our birthday?  Shall we use it to count down to celebration?  Is it a day to prosper in the things of our desire?  Shall we name the day according to the desire of someone else?  Shall we observe the day as a socially acceptable holiday?  (Understanding that the word “holiday” was originally set to mean holy day.)

This day has no number.  This day has no name that man can pronounce.  This day is void of specific celebration.  This day does not exist separate from all other times. 

Man has said these things are false.  Man has divided time into day and night by compulsion of the nature of things around him.  But before the Holy Lord God Almighty everyday comes without break between.

Name the day as you will, each according to his weakness of understanding.  But let us also strive to give glory to the Most High.  For the Holy One IS.

As we walk in the Spirit, the things that denote this place fade.  We begin to see more clearly, that the labels and understanding of man are insufficient to describe eternity.  Eternity must be lived.

Strive to see.  Strive to desire.  The flesh and this world captivate.  But the Lord has come to set us free. 

God alone can grant what is God’s.  No man has on his own.  May God grant understanding, in the beautiful strength of Jesus his Christ and our Lord.  Amen.

Climb With Confident Faith

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Do not be deceived.  He who practices righteousness, that man is righteous.  And he who practices sin and wickedness, that man is a sinner and wicked.

Do not hang your heart to death in a deadly tangle of those three words: righteousness, sin and wickedness.  Rather be merciful to yourself, and see the point.

Practice!  Practice!  Practice! 

Grace abounds for those who do “practice”.  Just as a doctor is given a certificate of training, that he may go and practice his work.

How many have fallen away because they see the mountain is too high to climb?  They will never know to what rock, or outcropping they may have been able to ascend.  The glittering hope of those who gave up, litter the foothills of the mountain of God.

Consider perfection.  But you have no right to wear it.  If you let the expectation of perfection ruin you, then the fault is exclusively yours.  Perfection belongs to God.  The practice of it belongs to man in Christ.

It is highly likely that even the master musicians will occasionally make a misstep with their fingers.  When their shock dissipates, you will find them practicing that unexpected failure over and over and over again.

A dear brother in Christ once put it this way: “You have heard people say practice makes perfect.  I tell you that’s not true.  Rather, perfect practice makes perfect.”

He who mixes sin and righteousness in what he practices, cannot possibly accomplish the latter.  Yet he who is found practicing to the best of his utmost, is rewarded.

This is the reason for grace.  Climb with confidence!

Demise of The Faith

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The Spirit of God moves among men with great strength and determination; holy and pure.  One he raises up, another he lowers to the depths.  The will of God has been and will be forever.

One man lets evil consume him.  While another is driven to what is good.  Evil rests upon the mass of men, still the man who desires what is good presses on.  The grace of God has gripped him.  He will do and become.  Holy desire is granted to him.

Be encouraged.  Be greatly encouraged that you may stand fast in the holy places granted you to stand.

It is like a man to do so, but it is not good that a man shall say to himself, “I will serve the Lord with great willingness as prosperity comes upon me”.  God Himself endures the wickedness of this place in his creation.  Yet with excellent patience and wisdom he waits.  How is wickedness in his creation prosperity?

With the mind of Christ within us, we perceive.  We endure as we are willing to receive.  Let poverty or even abuse assail us, the willing embrace what is.  

Shall we leave the great endurance to our Lord, and the holy men of before?  Shall we escape unscathed?  Isn’t it proper that we should take our place among the hated of this world.

Let the natural things come against us.  Let the Evil One and his minions attack for purpose of destruction.  We are called to stand firm.

Let us not say, by our doings, that God is unjust.  Let us not testify that he asks too much and provides too little for us to overcome. 

Strength to my brothers and sisters: let your soul look up.  We are not victims or pawns in a great horrible war.  We are called to be holy and kings in the beautiful kingdom of our God. 

Donning the patience of the Holy One we will stand.  Those who do not stand well will find their desire corrupt, should they even find desire to look.

Look to what is.  Understand the holy desire of God for all his people.  Count the things you have; those things of uncorruptible nature.  Embrace them as treasure and polish them to shining.

Let today become the beginning of becoming.  As our Superior Lord has done, let us set our face as flint toward overcoming.  As we look back we lose.  But as we purposefully strive forward, God is pleased and his bounty grows.  To he who has, more will be given.  And he will have in abundance.

I cannot help myself.  It is within me and I will speak it:

How desire rages within me to see God’s people full of fruit and maturity.  How I desire to find many wise men.  But they are few and difficult to locate.

When there is to be decisive division between the world and the people of God, I find a glass mixed with dung and pure water.  If a man would not drink such a thing, how is it we expect the Holy One to ingest our service?

No one has but that he has received.  Let us not think that God is not willing to give.  Those who lack, lack because of their unwillingness to ask.  They have loved this world more than the Holy One.  And their ways are known even now!

By this letter I am not asking too much.  God is willing to give!  Should we think his desire is less than holy and perfect?   Is it as many testify, “Salvation is but an evil trick among men”.  If the answer is no, how then should we remain as the Church is found today?

Where is The Faith?  Where is the power of God to save?  Where is the blazing testimony that is willing to die?  Sadly it has been siphoned off by the will of man in his evil intent. 

The form of religion has overtaken this people.  They have spurned The Faith and continued on in diluted fashion.  Their way is known.  And their appearance before the Holy throne of God is expected and demanded!

The work of man’s hands has attracted the attention of God’s people; all the glistening to the eye, all the enticement of the ear, and the aroma of all sins that lead away to death.  They have forsaken him for the pleasures of the day.

Is this truly the end of The Faith?  If so, we are very near the end of the day of grace. 

Let your heart understand.  Let fear race through your blood.  Cause understanding to consume you!  The time of death is at hand. 

If those first ones had said, “The day has appeared and the night is quickly vanishing.   Therefore let us walk as sober minded men.  Let us live as if in the daylight”.  How much more is that today?

May the will of the Holy One be done forever!  Those who desire to live, will live in righteous patience now.  Those who desire to serve, will serve with great faithfulness and endurance.  Let all else falter and fail. 

Even so, Lord Jesus come quickly.

The Chasm of Difference

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John the Baptist (poverty-stricken, feared and faithful) :

“Repent from your sinful ways or die!  Seek God’s kingdom and live.”

Silk tongued preachers  (wealthy in the things of this world, beloved and accepted, and full of abomination):

“Jesus loves you.  Do as you will.  He will save you in the end.”

Notice any difference?  Take note of the kind of people they are, who pay attention to the message of each.

The kingdom of God is real, so is hell.  What God’s people say to the world matters.

Alive in Christ

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We speak the words of condemnation.

Do you listen?

Can you do what you know is right?

We speak the words of Purest Hope.

Can you perceive?

Can you imagine a life without sin?

 

Man is not flesh.

He is soul dressed in flesh.

The world knows this.

The soul has understood what the body denies.

Do they not avert their eyes from one another?

The eye is the window to the soul.

And by these tiny balls, one soul can see another.

 

What if you could live your life without sin?

What if you could drive your flesh according to the will of the soul?

This is not what man does, on his own.

Man allows the things of flesh to direct his soul.

But there is a life, in Christ Jesus, where we learn the inverse.

 

Mysticism teaches about such things.

They call it an “out-of-body” experience.

They perceive the key, but fail to accomplish.

They know that living in the body cannot produce true life.

They speak of leaving this place to experience “more”.

And they will tell you that man can do this himself.

 

Christians will tell you that is a lie.

Christians will speak of living an “in body” experience.

Christians will tell you that there is a place,

Where God will grant a man’s soul to be driven by the Holy Spirit of God.

Christians learn to drive the flesh into obedience to what is Holy.

Christians will testify that the body can become slave to the soul’s holy desire.

 

And Christians will willingly testify that this ability does not come from their own ability.

It is a gift of God in Christ Jesus, the Holy Son of God.

Transformation comes, in time, and the believer becomes the intent of God for man.

All the while Christians learn to obey the Holy Laws of God.

I am not speaking of those who call themselves Christian and go no farther.

I am speaking of those who believe to the “doing of the will of God”.

 

Can you hear what I am saying?

Is there understanding emerging from your soul?

I am not speaking down to you.

I’m trying to wake you to the truth of our life here.

Men go about providing for the flesh all day long.

But what about the, more important, soul?

 

Do you yearn to be free from the wicked things you find yourself doing?

You will not be free if you continue to allow your flesh to dictate the day’s doings.

Condemnation abounds against us for such things.

For your flesh desires only the things of this world.

It knows nothing of heavenly things, nor desires it.

And we all, all men, know better.

For we ARE soul.

 

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.   8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

9  “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?   10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?   11  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7)

Unchained Desire

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Today we will encounter

What is vastly marked with “Good”.

What we will do, accordingly,

Is rarely what we should.

To become the man intended,

Let desire rage and burn.

The good to be accomplished

Is given to those who yearn.

Is it wrong; is there a limit

To the promise of God for me?

“Good” demands a doing,

Its retreat will never be.

Aspiration closes in;

Refines my very name.

Let then rage within me:

Desire to Holy flame!