Category Archives: Hope

Lessons From Creation

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Will you do as the world demands, “Cast the past away”?
Will you join with them in the frenzy of NEW?

When it comes to explaining the person you are,
What, under heaven, will you do?

Take a lesson from creation.
Abandon that fruitless libation.
Visit that place where your roots dug in deep.
See all your sins . . .
And weep.

Now Look to Him;
The Great Wondrous Dawn!
Look to the place
Where your horror is gone.

What is Christ to us?
The Eternal Great Hope,
Toward which we long.

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What is the heat of summer to me?

The cold of winter cannot freeze.

Winds will blow and threaten me.

Calm presides my royalty.

What sounds I’ve heard.

Nests of little birds.

Moss and bugs to me absurd.

I stand my ground unnerved.

At dawn I wave to light yet born.

Come color me, Eternal Morn.

“Wake with me, sleep to scorn.

And stand your ground with darkness torn!”

Trouble?

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The Christian can get in trouble for saying certain things.  Frankly the Christian is in trouble all the time.

But what does that matter to me?  If they find me sitting in a pile of poop, they’re not likely to pick me up and put me in a pile of poop.  I’ve been in trouble since the day I was born.

I take a certain comfort in that.

The Sad Songs, Sans-Joy

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THE SAD SONGS:

Listen to the pace and the melody of a sad song.  As far as I can tell, I am not educated in music, all the notes are arranged in minor scale.  I suppose there’s a technical name for that, but it escapes my mind.  For it escapes my desire to learn.

It is a melody slow and deliberate.  It is a melody that defies dance.  It is more a melody of atrophic limbs.  It is not a melody that gives our legs that leap you see in those who are presently joyful.  It is far more a malady to our body than a melody.

But the soul.  The soul stands still.  The eyes of the soul are not shut, while its ears listen attentively..  It looks around with longing.  It looks around for eternal hope.  The soul sings along with sighs and groanings, imperceptible to the ears and eyes of man.  And if it could be heard, Man would not understand the sounds.

The response to sad music is in full light of God’s eyes.  No man can see that response.  No one dances lightly down the street to a dirge.  They plod along with careful steps.  Introspection, for a time, is their king.  Balancing their lifeless frame atop helpless hips.

From point A to point B, that is their only need.  Sadly and deliberately, we live in point A.  Point B is too far removed from our perception even in the best of days.  How much farther when trouble attends our every waking moment?

The sad song is not the solution.  It is a manifestation of the symptoms.  Christ is the solution, my friends.  He is the One who watches for the broken hearted.  The joyful often elude his sight, even while they receive his sustaining.

Are you broken hearted?  Then listen to a sad song and let your souls eyes look up.  From the hills comes to Redemption.  Upon the Great Hills is the glistening White Hope.

By His Grace.

Times of Sobriety

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Food for thought:

When life goes well, people feel strong.  But such strength always leads us to a false illusion.  For the bad times do come.  What right then did we have to feel secure?

The wise man remains sober even while he laughs with joy.  The bad times then have no effect on such a man’s perceptions.

But see how the bad times devastate those who live for pleasure and joy.  As if such people have a right be at peace in this world.

Perfect strength is sobriety in Christ, it will not be found anywhere else.

Confusion Blooms

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“Settle down old ragged beating heart.  Remember the Truth He spoke to those who are His.  Visit the testimony within you.  “Glory and peace belongs to the Glorious One alone.”  His name is ALL Good things.   His Holy name is Jesus.  

Presently, it’s our time to suffer and die.

Look to His Day!   The Promised Consoling is traveling to you, even now.  See how you remember this.  WORK!  You untrustworthy, broken, unrighteous, and chaotic mess of tangled thoughts; errant miscreant that you are.  REMEMBER!”

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.  (2 Corinthians 4)

Worthless Powers

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The superstitions of Man are so abundant and deeply rooted that we often live in endless trouble determining what is false and what is true.  The Living God alone is true.  He has glorified his Holy Son as the only source of Truth. 

We say we know this.  How is it then that we continually turn to superstition as a testimony of what is strength?  “I hope luck will be with me.”  “Maybe Fortune will smile on you.”  And I won’t name the kind of so-called gods people use to bless one another.

Why do we beat around the bush?  Why do we call on every “power” but Jesus, when we speak to one another about prayer and the power of God?  Why is the name of the only true God so hideous that we are ashamed to speak it with confidence?  Are we truly afraid that others will laugh at us?  Is that all it takes to make us cower in the dark shadows?

Whose opinion matters?

You are all greater than I.  You are all reasonable and trustworthy people.  You have not done the things I have done.  But add this understanding to the things you do.  Then you will be the people you say you are.