Loyalty Supreme!


For reasons only known in heaven, God began a creation.  He spun with Invisible thread, creating something from absolutely nothing.

A Blackness was born in The Kingdom of Light.  He speckled the Blackness with fiery balls.  Appearing from nothing were little places of special interest.  They were darkened little globes that we’re not like the fires at all.

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Imagine, if you can, the wonder of the angels as they did the bidding of their Father.  And their wonder kept expanding.  The work went on for a very long time. 

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Every item in the darkness was placed precisely where The Father said to put it.  Joy and wonderment filled all Heaven as the creation took shape before their very eyes.  It was an intricate dance of tiny objects, all floating in the blackness.  A precise ballet of love.  Every item spun precisely around another.

Then, amazement upon amazement, God spoke a word unheard before.  “Let us create Man in our image”.  Adam, he was called.  The meaning of the word is “First Blood”.

In his hands, The Holy Word of God began the work of The Father.  A handful of dust took shape.  An unspeakable perfect work of art lay on the ground.  “Let the Breath of Life enter.”  The man’s breath began.  His eyes opened.  And from a perspective only capable in this creature of dust, he saw his surroundings for the first time.

Love and joy filled the servants of God as they were Witnesses to this amazing Work.  Unquestioning, innocent obedience bore the fruit the Living God intended.  And now they would watch that same obedience flow through the blood of this creation.

Blood!  The first of its kind.  Never before was there a creature with such exquisite limitation.  How unspeakably beautiful was the work of The Father.  What great tender care was given to their new brother.

But press forward in time with me.  Witness the history of decay.  See the frustrated Beauty become ragged edged and hideously vile.  Read the history of man in the Bible and weep.

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Look at the horror which we have become.  Not only have we murdered the love of God, we joyfully toss him in the cesspool of unbelief.  And the people despise anyone who speaks His Holy Name.

Dare to tell me that God has no right to destroy his enemies of this filthy place! 

But this is not the end of the story, for amazement fills the servants of God still.  As by that same innocent obedience, they reach into the Blackness of sin and create a people of light. 

For now, the tiny lights glow in the Darkness.  But the day will surely come when the darkness will be swallowed up by the place from which it was created.  That which is abhorrent to man will rule with Christ for eternity. 

Something from nothing became blackness.  But something from Blackness will become dazzling, bright and brilliant Lights of Life.

Join in the building celebration; the Symphony of redemption is a beautiful song, being played by those who love Him.  And the Beautiful song is played against the backdrop of hisses, boos jeers, wailings, screams, and violent intent.  Make all the noise you want, you hideous creatures of hatred.  Your silence is moving toward you now.

I will love the God who made me!  I will adore the one who fashioned me from nothing!  Stand with me or not, what difference can it possibly make?

By His Grace.

The Nature of Sin


Sin is a curious predator.  The stocking of its prey is sufficient pleasure.  It doesn’t kill to eat.  It doesn’t destroy to retain its property.  And it really doesn’t care whether the sinner is pleased with its work or not.  I doubt that sin is even purely selfish.  The only thing sin has in mind is to destroy purity.  And if you could ask sin why, it wouldn’t have the slightest clue of an answer.

What should be done with an enemy like that?

The Reason for Faith’s Necessity


2 questions:
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1. Why do we need faith?

2. What does the voice of God sound like?

Beginning with the second question:
The voice of God is life.  When the Israelites were released from bondage in Egypt, God displayed his voice in a thunderous noise from the mountain.  But this was for the sake of the people, that they may worship Him and obey.  As he spoke with Moses, however,  he used no such voice.  Rather, God treated Moses as a friend.  (What does that say about those to whom he spoke as a thunderous noise?)

The voice of God requires faith to hear.  God is thoroughly life.  Everything he is, everything he says, everything he does, is life.  Ask yourself then what does life say, what does life sound like, what does life look like, what does life feel like?  Look carefully at the situations and things that come to you. 

Please don’t consider that God is like a man.  The life I am speaking of is Purity, Holiness, Righteousness, Justice, Mercy, and in the end Grace to us through sustaining toward the same things.

He would prefer that we gain his wisdom to perceive with our eyes and ears, mind, heart and strength.  Isn’t this why the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength and with all your soul?  Then you will begin to hear his voice.  How do I know this?

Romans 1:20 tells us how we know this.  “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

(And we have the testimony of those who do hear his voice through faith.  The one who writes this testifies.  And some who read this testify.  The voice of God, one may say, also comes from those who know him.  Perhaps better said, those God knows in Jesus His Holy and Righteous Son.  The people would find advantedge listening to the words of such people, instead of pre-judging them as worthless.)

He speaks to us from what we can say “IS”.  Because life “IS”. 

And we must inject another slice of information here.  God does not demand too much, for he gives us everything we need to accomplish his Holy will in our lives.  To say he does not, is to join with satan in the primary accusation that has caused creation of this place of testing in the first place.  We find the second slice of information in the following scripture.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1)

Rejecting this promise is a sincerely precarious place to choose to live!  For if we do not receive his wisdom, that God is so willing to give freely, we will surely lack precious gifts. (Even, perhaps, finding death in the end.  For not a single one of those who of those who heard the Thunders from the mountain receive the promise of God.)

Having read this, it is now your responsibility to act.  Though having said that, (it sounds like a threat) the Wonders that God is willing to give to any man is far worth the struggle to suppress our rebelion (That which is crouching at our very door, desiring to have us. But we must master it. [Taken from Genesis 4:7])

Think about this deeply:  we need faith because it will never cease to be necessary.

Go and see if what I have said is true.

P. S.  The voice of God is called Jesus.  Think about that for the rest of your life.

At Their Throat


See how people go about their day as if the will of God does not matter.  But hasn’t he put death in place to end their so-called freedom?

Yes.  Even while they smile and dance and laugh and sing, the hand of God is poised before their very throat.

God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.  And those on whom God’s mercy rests will receive his endless Grace.  But to those who think this place of testing it’s simply a place of merriment and pleasure:

“Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.”

Should I lie and offered you sugar-coated words?  The Living God is Holy.  So is his Holy and Righteous Son.  Amen.

The Fancy Shell Game


I’d like to say I am baffled.  But I know that’s not true.  I understand perfectly well.

What the modern Church means when they say, “I have given my life to Jesus”, is that they have given some of it but retain rights over the majority of their desires.

They like being a social chameleon.  They think they can be a Christian and while they fit right into everything the world says is important.  That’s no different than being a filthy drunk and loving the song “Believe” by Brooks & Dunn.  Liking a popular song does not make you a Christian.

I am not confused.  I am not baffled by their shell game.  And I promise you, neither is the Lord Jesus.

Mark 8:38
(reluctant to do something through fear of embarrassment or humiliation)

The Promises


I wanted to post this this morning.  But I wasn’t sure how it would be received.  As the day passed however, it’s urgency hasn’t left my mind.

Most people, if they love to listen to the words of the Bible, enjoy the pleasantries that God has in store for us.  But when we speak of the warnings God has delivered to us, we often find a deaf ear.

Revelation 21 speaks of the beautiful promise of eternal life in the Glorious City of God.  It’s a passage one might find in a modern devotional.  But I don’t remember ever reading the words that follow that passage in any devotional.

These are the words that follow the beautiful promise of joy:

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”