Category Archives: the gospel

That Peculiar Brand of Fear

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Sin has its own distinct pleasures.  There’s no reason to lie about it, sin is fun.  Preferring to live in sin is to live a life full of joy and laughter.  It’s kind of like being drunk with abandon instead of alcohol.

But there’s also no reason to lie about the following.  Sin has its own particular brand of fear. 

The one who lives a life of sin fears everything.  He can’t trust God to watch out for him, so whatever is unknown becomes a potentially destructive enemy.  And the volume of unknowns is endless.

The sinner may say he fears nothing.  He may make great bold statements of his ability to cope.  But as Shakespeare wrote, “Me thinks thou dost protest too much”.  The bold proclamations of a sinner, in regard to his fearlessness, are nothing more than a golden blanket covering the thumb sucking child within.

The sinner knows he stands in a very precarious place.  God has promised to rip him apart at the judgment, and the sinner knows it.  By sheer will and deft ignorance the sinner simply puts it out of his mind.

On top of the coming promise of destruction, is a very curious fear.  They call it bad luck.  It’s also called Murphy’s Law. 

The sinner is always looking over his shoulder to see what’s coming to bite him in the butt.  He’s absolutely sure God has it in for him.  In the sinners mind, God is always trying to cause him trouble.  But such thoughts are only a mirror of his own evil heart.

The sinners fear is equal to his pleasure.  All the while he goes about trying to secure his next joy, he worries and frets that he will be assaulted in some peculiar manner.  Perhaps a broken bone, perhaps severe sickness, perhaps he will be caught doing what he should not be doing and end up in jail.

It’s ridiculous the measures people take to avoid thinking about God and the judgment to come.  But even more ridiculous is the ease with which his fearful burden can be lifted.  All it takes is a tiny measure of humility.  But humility isn’t fun, so it’s given no place on the sinners agenda.

God will not despise the humble heart.  And God will teach the humble man how to be fearless. 

Forgiveness from Christ Jesus provides a distinctly different joy.  While apparently the body is cast into sorrow, the forgiven sinners soul is laughing in the language of heaven.  While the sinner’s joy ends when his current preoccupation is taken away, the joy of the forgiven sinner never leaves him.  Little by little that peculiar fearfulness is replaced by a gentle confidence.

Serving God in Christ Jesus is pure and true freedom.  Pursuing sin and joy of the body will always result in slavery to fear.

The forgiveness of Christ Jesus is not just an arbitrary phrase.  When it is received, the soul knows it has been set free.  With forgiveness from God comes peace and hope.  Two things the sinner cannot possibly attain and retain.

By His Grace

Without Regret!

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I cannot know the fullness of the Life that lives within the Holy Power of the Holy Living God.  But I can know in part.

What I perceive is beyond the expectations and dreams of man.  If man says something is worthy, God is more.  If man says an action is righteous, God is more.  If man speaks of a life that is worthy to live, God is more.

I can rest assured that the Living God in Christ Jesus is infinitely more than anything of man.  And I can rest in knowing, with great boldness, that the Living God’s Christ is willing to lift me into His Holy Life.

I may not know the fullness of the Gospel.  But I can proclaim with great confidence the things I have heard.  I cannot “do” the Holy Life my Lord Jesus has done.  But I can do the things He speaks to life in my soul.  For His Holy words are living.  They give and grant life wherever they appear.  If I survey my soul’s proof of “Doing”, and find clarity of conscience before the Living God, then I can rightly surmise that I have known Him.  And doesn’t this “knowing” provoke proclamation?

From this wellspring of holy Life, that beauty He has extended within me, I can proclaim with excellent boldness and fearless determination.  It matters not that I am void of full understanding regarding the things of God.  What matters is that I open my mouth and allow the Holy Spirit of God to use my tongue, and this to the Glory of Jesus the Christ of God!

Glorify the Living God, all you who know of His Good News.  Yield up what rightfully belongs to Him.  Give what belongs to God, even your entire life, body, mind, strength, and soul.  What reasoning should we use to excuse our partial and unwilling service?  What regret belongs to us if we hold back?

There is a day, and a day which is fast approaching, in which we will give full account of the willingness we offer today.  Shall we provide regret in that moment, by refusal to serve Him today?  Shall the eternal soul, which belongs to us, despise the choices we make today?

Wouldn’t it be so beautiful if our soul should be able to stand before the Living God’s Holy Son with a fullness of accounting, full of joy, boldness, and surety of accomplishment?  Wouldn’t it be so lovely a moment to hear the words, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.  Come.  Enter into the joy of your master.

How is your soul’s stance not your responsibility today?  What excuse stands well before the Living Truth of God?  Regret is a monster of monstrous proportions!  Why would you capture him and try to make him your household pet?  Don’t you know that a “Regret” will surely consume, without mercy, anyone who desires to tame him?  If this is the case with a single regret, what of an entire herd?  They will surely raze your entire house to the ground!

“I Am God”

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Peace, every human wants it.  But not a single one is capable of grasping it.

In the struggle for peace:

Some try to fill their lives with their desire; amassing to themselves all manner of trinkets.  With what commerce they own they purchase peace.

Some use anger to control the world around them; driving others away, lest desires clash.

Many turn to drunkenness, sexual immorality, and drugs; subduing their perception of reality lest they perceive anxiety (Peace eluding them once more).

Most turn to a form of religion; encasing themselves in a structure of belief in God mixed with social righteousness.  They find they have the acceptance of man, but they are still void of the acceptance of God.  Peace eludes them even while they reach to grab.

Still a few turn to a life of obscure devotion to an obscure god; wasting away with self abuse for the sake of the god they make in their mind.  The fruit of the peace they seek is death itself.  A wasting death, void of peace, and filled with anxiety.

There is nothing on the face of this planet, nor all creation, that can give peace.  If man makes it, or has anything to do with its production, it is immediately laced with chaos.  The very peace they seek is wasted by their own efforts to attain or produce it.

True peace must come from a place of perfect Peace and Truth.  This entire creation is but a shadow of that place.  At our very best we can only manipulate lies to form what we call truth.  Because of that, anxiety is king over all humanity.

It is written in the Bible, “Then they will know that I am God”.  I never really grasped the full meaning of that until now.  Yet by the very definition of Truth, can I say I have grasped its entirety?  (I write this while I am on the earth.  I have not yet arrived in heaven.)

God the Father, His Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit; these are Peace.  They are from eternity and they are life.  They alone are Truth, for the Father alone is Truth. 

Peace is given not contrived.  Unless we receive what He offers, we will have no peace at all.

And let a man rebel against God’s commands, while he is in the process of receiving, he will find peace removed from him by degree.  With the stark difference in his soul, the man will perceive the words, “Then they will know that I am God”.  (Let the reader understand, I am writing this from experience not conjecture.)

Anything that is extended can be retracted or cut off.  Anything that is given can be removed.  For the one who has given is more blessed than he who receives. 

It is fortunate for the Christian, that what he has received is regulated by perfect loving wisdom.  The very purpose of the regulation is to “draw” the Christian to Truth. 

If this article provokes anything, let it be this:  anyone who is drawn to Truth must go where Truth lives.  God alone is True. 

It is in this drawing that we begin to understand the words, “Then they will know that I am God”.  If you seek Truth, with diligent and humble heart, you will come to understand those words.

Read what God said through Ezekiel.  “I will turn you around and drag you along. I will bring you from the far north and send you against the mountains of Israel.  [He who struggles with God.]  I will strike your bow from your left hand and make your arrows drop from your right hand.” (39: 2,3) 

God himself will lead us to himself, and this through Christ Jesus His Holy and Righteous Son.  Anyone who is drawn to God will lose his own perception of truth.  In its place, Christ Jesus becomes King.  Progressively, chaos is decimated.

It is not possible for man to manufacture his own peace.  But True Peace comes with a price.  The cost of redemption has been paid.  But the cost of Truth is very steep.  A man is forced to pay everything he has. 

Who, among God’s people, is willing to pay that price?  I suggest to you there is not a single one.  But it is God who comes to us all to give what we are neither willing or able to pay.

God provides the place where understanding of these things is far more than academic.  It gets quite personal!  Isn’t that what he means when he says, “Then they will know that I am God”.

By His Grace

No Beast at All

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The imagination of man is a most hideous place to live.  In that realm, a man envisions his fellow man as an enemy of ghastly proportions.  Such an enemy is able to decapitate him with a Q-tip.  How much fear does that generate?

In the night, while sitting under a tree, a man hears a small noise.  Fear whelms up and fires the furnace of imagination.  Seared by an unholy fire, the man perceives that the falling of a twig is the presence of some horrible beast with glowing eyes, 12 inch razor claws, and frothing jaws.  And this beast does not wander aimlessly!  It has the very man in his perfect sight!

What we don’t know can certainly destroy us.  Not because it is.  But simply because we cannot perceive it with our senses.  How tiny are we who live in the land of the dead?

Even when we encounter the Gospel, we often turn to imagination to explain what we don’t understand.  Isn’t this the reason for idolatry of various kinds?  We strive to make “something” out of what we perceive to be from “nothing”.

With the imagination, we hate our brother out of unfounded fear.  With the imagination, we turn the Glory of heaven into the ravaging chaos of hell.  With the imagination, we dispel the hope of Truth by employing an endless volume of lies.  And all this resides firmly within every man.

We fear what we don’t understand.  We grasp with iron fist, the things of death.  For that is the only reality man has ever known.  “Certainly, if I listen to the Gospel, I will find a God who takes glee at my destruction.  For I am a wicked man who loves wicked things.  And the man who comes to me to speak the holy words of God, only desires to decapitate me with a Q-tip!”

My fellow brother of flesh.  I do bring you the Gospel.  But strive with whatever strength you can, to understand the meaning of that word.  “Gospel” means “Good News”.

I know your heart, for I have the same wicked things in me.  It is not a monster that calls to your soul.  It is the vibrant Love of the Living God that calls to you.  He has proved His Holy Love in the Holy Body of His Beautiful, Faithful, Strong, and Righteous Son.

He wants to ease your fears.  He wants to quench the flames of your unholy imagination.  He wants to replace lies with Eternal Truth.  He wants to relieve you of the drunkenness of fear, to be replaced by the sobriety of peace.

By His Holy Wisdom, He has left free will alone.  You must make the choice to accept His willingness to heal you.

As foolish as it may seem, laying down our lies is a very painful process.  But lies are death.  Truth is Eternal Life.  You don’t have the latter.  Will you endure the former?

The noise you hear, as I speak these things, is no hideous monster.  It is the foot steps of the One who has already proved that He loves you.  Will you find the strength to love Him back enough to be devoured by His Holy Promise of Love?

You are Invited!

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It is possible (Very possible) that someone might think to themselves, “I will wait until I am able to consider myself holy before I testify about God’s things”.  When will that be?  What sign, within yourself, are you expecting to find?

Isn’t the Lord of Life worthy of proclamation?  Isn’t the consistent nature of creation testifying about God’s Holy Son, regardless how men use it?  Dirt is still dirt, whether it covers a corpse or builds a brothel.  The stars remain in their place, though no one has embraced one with a massive hug.  Sinful men testify about what is godly every moment of their pathetic life.  Yes, the Gospel is that replete among men.  What right, then, do Christians have to hide the holy word within themselves until they receive a “certain” sign from heaven?

The testimony goes out regardless how His people keep their mouths shut.  And didn’t He testify to this when it was written, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Why would you let the Glory of God emanate from what is ungodly?  Have you no respect for the One who bought your worthless soul?  Why would you relinquish your place to proclaim, knowing that the proclamation will come from those who display no godly attributes?  Have you forgotten the phrase: “I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”

Grip your fear and unwillingness by the adams apple.  Choke it till it gasps to proclaim.  If fear has you, then go in fear.  If you are unwilling, then drag your worthless butt there.  Proclaim or lose the honor of it.

Listen, my brothers and sisters, we dance before the King of kings.  We live before the Living God.  So what if we’re not worthy to carry holy words!  Neither are they who would so accuse us if we spoke them!

The Gospel is an offence against the pride of man.  How humble would a man be who can’t obey the will of God, yet proclaims His Honor anyway?  Wait for that “something more”, and you will be waiting far past the closing of the banquet door.

Let it Do Its Work

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People pay all kinds of money to attend concerts.  They endure all manner of inconvenience to go to the movies.  And it used to be, that people would trudge miles just to attend an hour or two speech by someone important.

But the sweetest rendering of a song, is played in the memory.  The visual effects of a movie come to life in the imagination.  And the words of a great orator are best heard when they combine with personal experiences, unique to each one who heard, and delivered in their proper time.

As it is with the life among men, so it is with the things of Heaven.  We should not fall to manipulation as we hand out the words of life.  It is better to let the one who hears stew as the heat of his soul allows.  If there is a boiling over to occur, it is best to be done by a direct source of heat.  We don’t put the pot near the burner.  We carefully place it centered above the heat.  Then, we leave it alone to do its work.

All things in creation tell the story of Christ Jesus.  Even the sins of a man speak the testimony of the Christ.  Let the Glory of God do its work.  Deliver the Gospel, and then step aside;  as if all we do is turn on the switch to the burner.  Show me a man who keeps his hand on the knob while the food cooks, and I’ll show you someone who lacks any reasonable judgment.