Category Archives: the gospel

The Gospel Lay in Plain Sight

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Please allow me to speak for you, you who have known the man I was.  I perceive what you have seen in me.  I understand your confusion.  And, to some point, I am forced by righteousness to agree with your assessment of me.

I have been an ungodly, unholy, unrighteous, wicked, mean, and vicious man.  You are not wrong.  But do you know what the Gospel has to say?

I agree with you to the place I was.  But at the advent of His Holy Mercy upon me, you ceased to know me.  You retain the perception you had.  But you did not relent with wisdom to perceive the changes He has come to make in me.  How can I hold this against you?  You perceive in ignorance.  Your eyes are covered with “what was”.

The Gospel proclaims that God will transform any soul that calls out to Him in the power of His Holy Son.  I know there have been liars who have not displayed this power.  They have proclaimed that they are changed, yet no change was ever visible in their behavior.  And by these liars, you count my testimony as false.

But I know what I know regarding what the Holy Lord has done in me.  I know my testimony to you is worthless.  For your heart rightly perceives that the testimony of a man, regarding himself, is not possibly true.  On the testimony of two or three others, on this alone is a man’s behavior justified in the presence of any assembly.

God testifies for me, for my conscience is clear before His Holy Throne.  The Holy Son testifies for me, for it is He who has brought these holy things to appearance.  And the power of the Holy Spirit teaches me to inhabit the Holy things of the Living God.  And there are many witnesses to holy behavior that you will never meet.

All three of these reliable witnesses testify to what they have made come to pass in this man.  And the group of men who have witnessed a different man than you have ever known, testify to what they have seen.

But you cannot believe, for the sake of the lies, and the man I was.  Two things must be spoken here.

I will not hold your opinions against you, for your opinions are built on a faulty excuse for a man.  You are blinded to “what is”, by the power of “what was”.  God will not judge between us, nor on my behalf (as if to defend me).  Let your accusations be stricken from the accounting on the Holy Day of Judgment.

The Gospel lays in plain sight.  You, like me, are invited to believe.  I release you from any accusations.  But you are not released to remain in ignorance.  For I have testified these things before you:  The transformation of a man is True!  And that God, who cannot lie, has offered the sacrifice of His Holy Son, that all who will, might taste the power of God to heal their wicked heart.

These have been accomplished among you.  I have not arrived at this day (this “place”) unscathed by unholy behavior.  But, my dear friends, neither have you.  You will be held accountable, on that Holy Day, just as I will.  But I will be clothed by the Holy Blood of Christ Jesus, the Holy and Righteous Son of the Living God.  What will be your case, is determined, not by my prior behavior, but on what you do with the Living Testimony that speaks far more powerfully than any man can testify.

The Gospel speaks directly to the soul of every man!  No excuse will suffice.  I have released you.  Will you continue to use me as a shield between you and your own responsibility, or will you mount up on “Belief” to receive the power of God to become transformed?  Now the choice lay squarely in your own hands.

Toward Easter

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Much to my surprise, evidently there is conflict over which day of the week Jesus was crucified.  Ok fine.  But the day does not matter as much as what God has done.

Those who should have known him.  Those who should have been able to embrace him.  These became the instrument of His glory.

It is not ours to hold it against them.  I have often been reminded that men will do what they do.

But as it was true and Joseph’s words, so it is true in Christ.  It was meant for evil, but God has used it for good.

By His Grace

Not From Man

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Let it be known that the Gospel of Jesus Christ belongs to God.  In his Holy wisdom God has disseminated the Gospel unto men, for all men are of the same language of flesh.  But the entirety of the Gospel belongs to God.

The world looks about them and complains,  “How can there be purity and the Gospel?   Everything man touches comes to nothing”.

There can be purity and the Gospel, and surely is, because it did not originate among men.  The entirety of the Gospel is from God and belongs to God.  It cannot be touched or destroyed by any man.  And the Gospel is sustained among men by the power of the Holy Son of God.

If the Lord has given the Gospel to one man, and that man destroys it, the Gospel itself is not touched.  God will seek another man and give the Gospel to him.  By the strength of the Holy Living God,  the Gospel will not cease from among men until the last day.

This proclamation is true and faultless.  How it is received is not up to me.  What is in my care is to uphold what has come to me from God.  And even this the Gospel says, is not of my own it is a gift of God, lest any man should boast.

The world is correct.   Everything it touches becomes destroyed.  But the message of God moves through men untouched and unchanged.  If a man waters it down and destroys it, then the judgment comes upon him alone.  But if he keeps the Gospel that is given to him, then he becomes a pleasure to the Most High God and is given more.

This should be taken as a warning to all who are in Christ.  But it is also a vast encouragement.  Christ Jesus will lose none of those the Holy Father has placed in his hands.  But let us live with great caution in our soul, for the charge we have been given is Holy.

By His Grace

Love Him?

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Mary Magdalene loved the Lord, because she had nothing left to lose.  The Apostle John loved the Lord, because he had everything to gain.

Why do you love the Lord Jesus?  Or do you?

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

By His Grace

Corrective and Punitive Action

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Dear world:

Will you be patient and righteous for a moment?  Will you let a prisoner speak to you? 

You have placed me in chains, I can do you no harm.  But will you entertain the words of this man you have accused and imprisoned?   I ask you no more than that.

By the necessity of survival, you have made laws against such men as I.  And it doesn’t matter if your laws are just.  They are your laws and you enforce them just the same.

So I have been accused and condemned, before the Society of men, as one who does not play well with others.  For the sake of propriety I speak softly among you.  But propriety is the steel you have forged to enclose me in my cell.  But if I must speak to you for the sake of understanding, I must speak to you in the language of propriety.

Propriety is a shifting mechanism; it changes according to the fashion of men in every generation.  And so men like me are forever jailed by your own laws.  You do not seek to rehabilitate me.  Your accusations, condemnation, and imprisonment are sufficient to please you.  The horrors of your prisoners never enter your mind as you celebrate at your feasts.

I do not hold this against you.  You will not change, and it does no good to accuse you.  But I must begin this message with what is true.

You have tattooed my forehead with the word “MEAN“.  And you were not wrong to wield the branding iron.  At first when you accused me I was angry.  And I gathered what truth I could and slung it back at you.  So your accusation was confirmed among you.  And you rightly confined me.  And this according to your own laws.

But in my confinement your accusation has become unfounded.  For since you would not let me be a one with you, in my confinement I searched for what is true.  And I have found Him!

Your own laws of confinement speak of corrective action.  But this is the purpose which you ignore.  For if one who is confined by your laws turns away from violent behavior, you do not accept his change.  You do not offer corrective action!  You simply seek to rid yourselves of what you do not approve.  Anyone who is not profitable to the ways of men is cast away forever.

By this foolish standard you are the ones who are jailed.  And the brand you have placed on my forehead has become my glory.  So I am right in releasing you from any accusation concerning me.  You have meant it for evil, but God has used it for good.

The One I have found, while imprisoned in your social standard, is the pure standard you think your yourselves to be.  He is not limited by death, as are we.  He is not limited by a tidal wave of lies.  He is the absolute truth.  And he teaches all his people to be bold among you.  Thus I have written this message.

He is the standard by which every man will be judged.  For he has walked among us with perfection.  And God the Father has placed Him eternally as FIRST.

While I have been imprisoned, he has come to set me free.  Even while your bars of social standard are placed squarely between you and I.  I range freely in the open space of forgiveness and love.  And from this place I warn you.  Your ways which you hold in such high esteem are wrong.

Were I to gather a crowd of a million people, and speak these things to your face, you would no longer desire to jail me from your celebrations.  You would, in fact, desire to kill me.  Even as the men of a generation, which saw the Christ walk among them, murdered the Holy One of God.

You would see a man who is just like you.  And this man would proclaim that you are wicked and worthless, as one.  I do not make the proclamation on my own.  I speak only what the Living God has said.

Yes I am a man like you.  Yes I was trained in the volume of your lies.  Yes I was violent toward you, both in word and in deed.  For you yourselves trained me!

But the Christ has come to set us free!  And any who believe this message, can have this freedom.  We need not be chained in the volume of teaching that is a lie, any longer. 

I stand boldly and tell you, “Man can become holy”.  I stand boldly and proclaim that we need no longer to live as liars.  God is willing to teach us what is true and faultless.  And his teaching is full of power to overcome the lies of this place.

Most of you will balk at this message.  For you love the volume of lies more than you love the volume of truth.  And you will not put up with one who calls your ways wicked.  But I will call your ways wicked just the same.

I was mean when I did your will.  Now you count me mean when I do His will.  You see how your corrective action is at fault.

But I have not written this for the sake of meanness.  And I have not straightened my back before you as an act of defiance.  I have appeared before you as one who is not ashamed or afraid any longer.  And it is love that straightens my spine.

Love makes me turn around.  I had been kneeling before the One who is love.  With awareness of what he has done for me, I have remembered the people from which I came.  I have returned without fear to give you this message of truth.  God will see, how many of you respond.

These words belong to God.  They are only mine, in that he has given them to me.  Yet they are not mine, for I give them to you.  I have come as a messenger and nothing more.

By His Grace

How to Start Your Soul

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A few years ago they gave me a tractor to drive that was rather odd.  In order to start it, you had to push two unmarked switches simultaneously while turning the key to start the engine. 

Anyone who was not trained how to start the tractor, could not possibly steal it (unless of course they towed it away).  Fortunately for me, the company wanted me to drive the tractor so they explain the process.

I know a man who is convinced that God has lied.  The man has a certain tendency toward sin.  He has heard what others have said.  They speak about freedom in Christ.  They speak about forgiveness and the power to overcome.  But in his search this man did not find either.  So he assumed that Jesus has lied.

God wants us to live a life of overcoming and freedom.  And he has written a manual as to how we can accomplish that.  But the man I spoke of does not read the manual.  How then can he know?

He refuses to believe the testimony of others.  He refuses to believe there’s something he doesn’t understand.  He cannot start his soul.  So he blames the one who made it.

Now, the way I explained it doesn’t sound reasonable at all.  But it makes perfect sense to this man.  And I will say he is not alone. 

There are millions who have not been able to grasp the freedom of forgiveness and strength to overcome.  Perhaps they are not as bold as this man, in that they do not call God a liar.

But if God has promised the freedom of forgiveness and the strength to overcome, their actions speak louder than their lips.  For they have ceased struggling for what is expected of them.  And they quietly wait their turn to be judged by God.  I really can’t imagine what they’ll tell him.

Let’s sum this article up with what is simple and obvious.  If you want the freedom of forgiveness and the strength to overcome sin, all you have to do is read the Bible and pray.  Yep.  It’s that easy.  (Did I mention you have to believe?  Yes those two unmarked buttons work just like they said they would.)

By His Grace