Category Archives: the gospel

Home?

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The Lord, The Sovereign Lord, the Source of life, ever-present Righteousness, Glorious mercy and justice.  He has all things, doesn’t he?  He lacks nothing, how true.  That’s what Sovereign means.

But let me speak to the rich man.  Let me speak to the perverted drunk.  Let me speak to the beautiful woman.  Let me speak to the greasy whore.  Let me speak to all those who have a place among Man, whether glorified or horrified; those with clean hands and those whose hands are covered with blood.

God has all things for he is all things.  Yet what he does not have, he has poured out his life to gain.  He does not have your love.  He does not take first place in all your days, though he is first in all eternity.  All creation honors His Holy Name, except here.  His name is Jesus the Christ, look into it.

“You ask too much of us!  You sit in your religious Chapel, carved of pure Ivory, and judge us.  You have forgotten the demands of life that are far more then we can bear.  We cannot put God first we must defend our home!”

Your home?  Your home is a soleless pair of old shoes.  Your home is a worn-out pair of jeans filled with holes, and leaving your buttocks bare.  Your home is an umbrella missing it’s purposed fabric.  Your home is a cave filled with Wolverines and poisonous snakes.   The floor of your home cannot be cleaned!   Why can’t you smell the stench of your household enemy’s feces, which lay in the crags you can’t reach?  Precious place, isn’t it, this place you call your home.  The place where you fear even in what you call solace.  You light a lamp, but still darkness pervades.

8 “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6)

He is your potential friend.  He is your potential Guardian.  Already he provides what you call your home. 

Who causes the lava to harden?  Who plants the seed of a tree in its craggy niches?  Who brings the beautiful erosion to cause a paradise?  Who gave you this place?  Who dressed you with skin?  Yet you would fear and keep him far from you?

Trust him and do the things that belong to him.  Then you will have a home that is not filled with stench and death.  Your home provides you no pact with death.

The Rocks Will Cry Out

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I wake to consider the things of the Living God’s Holy Son.  No matter where I look among the things of God’s Holy wisdom, I find no fault.  Yet why should this amaze me?

To the things of man I look, and I find no righteous faithfulness.  And isn’t this the cause of my amazement?

Consistency abides in the Living God, toward life and all things good.  Consistency abides in the camp of Man’s horror, toward rebellion and all things wicked.

What has God done but we should despise him so?  What has Man accomplished that we should revere him in fear? 

How is it that the people who call themselves Christians suppress the beauty of the One who offers them life; those who give God praise in secret yet seal their mouth when they walk among the dead.

“I have riches”, they say.  The faithfulness of God in his promise is that sure, yes.  But don’t the rocks along the Way of Glory also have the blessing of God to lay unmolested?  There they are lay, prepared to do his will. And surely if the people had not given praise to the Living God’s Holy Son, the rocks themselves would have cried out the words.  Are we no better than rocks strewn along the path of life?  Are we like rocks which adorn a valley of death, fruitless and simply a nuisance ( dressings which mark the barren land).

“If God will touch us, we will serve him.  If God will drive back the wicked we will speak and walk among them.  If he will drive them back beyond a stone’s throw, we will proclaim the words of life.  As long as there is no threat we will be brave.  Yet if he will not cause the wicked to recede, we will continue to praise him in secret.  I will leave the fearsome work to those who desire to die.”  Is this what we say by our actions?  Will not God protect those the march ahead in faith?

But clean yourself.  Primp and prune your feathers.  Lining every hair in its proper place.  let every thread of clothing be presentable and immaculate.  Let your life be dressed with all the things that cause Man to nod in appreciation.  If you hide the Light of Christ,  you are no different than the rocks along the Way. 

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Is it too much to ask? 

Is it unjust to require us to join Jesus in his suffering?

Is the shame of righteousness too much to bear? 

Is the Cross of Christ too heavy to share? 

Then what can possibly be our lot? 

When we appear before He by whose Blood we are bought?

Seeing and Hearing

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I said to a man, “I have prayed often that the Lord would cause you to see and to hear”.  What is his best response?  “I see just fine.”

I know the man meant to be truthful.  And I don’t doubt that he does see.  For he was asking me questions in regard to the Living God.  But what does he see?

Earlier he referred to me as a religious man.  He does not yet make the distinction between religion and faith, lawful and holy.  He does not yet see any differently than any man who ever lived.

We have spoken together about the things of Christ hundreds of times before.  But he has not heard my words.  He still thinks he is a religious man.  He has not yet comprehend it the Eternal meaning of righteous.

Jesus heard the Father clearly, for he is the very Word of the Living God.  And he saw all things from the perspective of Eternity.  For he was sent from eternity into time.  There never was a man who could be said to have accomplished that in his life. 

What locks us in such a place that our eyes and ears can only see and hear the things of man?  Simply put, it is the pride of man; that somehow he is able to save himself.  Perhaps we estimate by percentage; “I am more good than evil.  I am as compassionate as I can be.  And I give to others what I think I can afford.  I strive hard to restrict judgement of others within myself.  All of this because I know God is watching”.

Is that how we find ourselves perceiving the things of salvation?   Is that how we see and hear?

The Now.

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A man doesn’t look at his watch to see what time it was.  His watch can only tell him what time it is.  It doesn’t tell him what time it’s going to be.  It tells him what time it is.  You can’t lay hold of the past.  And you can’t lay hold of the future.

Regret reminds him of what time it was.  Perhaps we regret that we cannot have the good times we had.  Or we may regret that we have destroyed joy, for ourselves or others.

What is regret but a knowledge of what is right.  A knowledge of appropriate restraint.  Truth restrains us in “the now”.  You’re not going back my friend.  And as you reach the future you bring the old man with you.  What you did back then, you are doing now. You need a change of heart, not a change of time.

We may look at the past desiring some pleasant time.  Or we may look at the past, regretting abject folly.  But we can only do this looking from “the now”.  The man who lives in Nostalgia does not know what time it is.  Regrettably, this is to his constant loss.

Nostalgia will always be beyond our grasp.  But regret can happily thrive in our house.  All the while, truth says something imperative.  “I am here.  Come live with me.  I am here to offer you life.”

It is impossible to fix a misdeed.  The best we can possibly do is offer reparation.  And the cost of repair is vastly more than a man’s resources will ever afford.  You can’t undo anything, whether good or bad!

Man thinks that by paying for his horrible mistakes, he becomes a righteous man.  Perhaps he thinks if he regrets his past enough, there is some reparation made.  As if suffering  produces anything of value.  But no action on our part undoes the death we have born.

Christ Jesus is in the now.  No matter what clock you look at, there is the Lord holding out his hand to help stop the engine of regret.  Will you reach out and take his help?

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One thing I will say about regret, it is a useful tool.  It teaches humility.  And in an odd way, it gives validity to the warnings we offer to those who are as blind as we. 

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The man who climbs out of an open cesspool is happy to warn those who are walking toward disrepair.  Blinded by the darkness of their mind, they stagger toward loss.  And isn’t such a man rather frantic as he tries to help his brother?

Their response doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter if they hate him.  It doesn’t matter if they give him some superficial glory.  He knows from experience they are about to encounter regret.  He busies himself to remind his brother of the now.

Christ is in the now.   And he alone is The Living pure truth.  Listen to him.  His wisdom and strength are ever-present.

As the blind are walking toward the pit.  As they are falling into it.  As the shock of their disrepair dawns on their dull minds.  As they thrash about to release themselves from their present aberration.  As their hands lay hold of solid ground.  As they pull themselves out, covered with stench.  And as they sit perplexed on the edge of the pit, wondering what to do next, or how they could possibly have been so stupid.

Christ is in the now.

Christ is in the now.

He is not just a historical figure.  He is the now.

If you have freed yourself from a certain pit, I promise you, without Christ there’s another one waiting just in front of you.

Answer to yourself, what time is it?

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The usefulness of this post depends entirely on the reaction of those who read it.

Interpret This

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It is impossible that anyone should write the book of another one’s life, either before it begins or as it is in full swing (not even their own).  The only accurate substance of that book might be that the individual was born and died.  Everything else in between is beyond our understanding.  Vastly distant from our grasp.  Thus beyond our ability to quantify and lay in order.  Who can even say, with certain clarity, why he has done what he just did?

John Forbes Nash went crazy trying to predict Human Nature.  We can’t even come close to predicting the next 5 seconds of our lives, let alone the injected will of God among men.

I didn’t want to become the man I am.  When I was a child, I was just like everyone else, full of fantasies to be a good man and perfect.  But my personal history is so fraught with folly; tossed about as it was, in the frothing wake caused by Humanity’s struggle.  Ignorance appeared to be my best friend.  The wisdom of God was to me nothing more then falling and glowing embers raining all about me.  And righteousness seemed to hide just behind every coming corner.  Still Jesus is King and able to save.  He is the singular reason this fool has hope.

But who can predict where chaos will go?  Who can deny that man is loaded to the Grave with chaos?  And why would we waste time with tears of remorse, when we are fully destined as food for destruction without Him?  It is useless to pine away and cry for the things that cannot be changed.  Far better to seek the perfect place.  Far better to seek with all the strength we own!

It is awesome how we are misunderstood.  It is as if every man is an entirely different language all his own.  If I could summon a string of pure and perfect words, deliver them with absolute integrity, and sit to wait for the response, no doubt I would be blown away by what came back to me.  “Oh, now I see what you mean.”  And they would deliver to me a perfectly wrong interpretation.  The words of Man, by himself, are uselessly full of fault.

Salvation belongs to God and to the worthy lamb, Jesus the Christ.  Man does not own truth, because our ways are so very full of chaos and destruction.  If a man wants help, it is impossible that he should turn to anything man-made.  It is only through the power of God in Christ that we affect any eternal good at all.

In the way of religions:  if you want to know the truth about the object of unfailing faith, I advise you not to fall for the things that make human sense.  God is utterly unlike us.  His ways and his salvation will, by His very nature, be more than we can imagine.  There is no chaos in God.  There is no unfaithfulness in Jesus.  Death has no place in the  personnage of God and His Holy Son.  The power of God’s Holy Spirit among us is the only source of Truth.

I say these words: Christianity is the only means to eternal life.  But I know these simple words will be interpreted in such a variety that no one could possibly count the variations.  I shrug my shoulders.  What is that to me?

You don’t have to believe me.  Simply do what God has said, “Humble yourself before me, seek my face, and I will be found by you.  But keep your pride and your desire for autonomy and you will die.  Sacrifice and offerings I have not desired.  But I prepared a body to be sacrificed on your behalf I have delivered among you.  He has appeared among you and done my perfect will. My salvation stands ready to receive you.  Therefore come and let us reason together.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as wool.”

God has loved us with a perfect love.  He is not a man that he should change his mind.  He has written his promised salvation in the very blood of his Holy and Righteous Son.  God’s promise you can predict, because he makes no mistake and he cannot lie.  Man you should suspect.

How this is received by anyone is not my responsibility.  But to have spoken these things is a distinct privilege.  It is forever right to offer hope to my brothers and sisters of flesh.  It is also forever right that every man, woman and child should consider such things as these as indelible truth.

Hate me, blame me, please

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I have learned that if something goes wrong for me , in some measure it’s my fault.  Even if there are valid reasons why I made a mistake, I’m still involved in the mistake.  Damage was done and I had a hand in it.

People blame one another all day long for various things gone wrong.  And let’s be truthful, men seek out a scapegoat regardless the blame. 

But why shouldn’t the Christian receive blame willingly?  The Christians are the only ones who are forgiven for their sins.  So then let the blame fall on me, so that the entire matter can be done away with before the Living God.

Isn’t that the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ?  The Lord Jesus was the only innocent one to bear all the sins of men.  I am by no means innocent.  How much more willingly should I receive the blame for things done wrong?

The question is, do I believe.