Tag Archives: Christianity

Zeal

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I will speak as one of you, for isn’t that the case?  I have spoken harsh words in a zeal for the will of the living God.  Accusations have come from my lips.  Challenges have been sent out.  Yet you have not heard the full of what I have to say.  I have restrained my words for the sake of your faith.

You do not know it, but no one has responded either good or bad.  But how should that be of any concern to you?  What is of concern to you, is what I have done.  Isn’t the question put forth, “Who is this who speaks such vehement words against his brothers”?

I am simply a fool who is coming to adore the living God in Christ Jesus.  My eyes are beginning to see clearly that he alone is worthy of praise. 

I was like you, listening to those words.  We sang all the praise songs.  We prayed good words before our version of the living God.  We even hugged one another now and then.  Yet all that worship left me empty.

Sermons were preached, but my ears would not receive the words.  My life drifted into religion, just like those who live the life I have condemned.  I found myself no more than an empty cup, abandoned on the corner of the sidewalk; alone and worthless for the will of my God.

But God has been merciful to this man.  He has struck me with isolation.  He has filled my heart with a desire to learn about his Holy Way.  He has been patient and merciful to show me my failings.  And through his lovely fire, condemnation has come strong.

He accepted no excuse from me.  His truth hovered over me.  I could not sleep, I could not wake, I could not eat or enjoy, without that the knowledge that condemnation was sure.  Curiously enough, all my waking days, I provoked his appearance all the more.  Echoing in my heart is the concept of refining gold by fire.  May it never leave me!

This is the man I am.  I am a Christian, because he has made me into one.  And he is far short of finished.

I speak to you as if I am a new Christian.  You know the zeal of those who suddenly understand.  But I am beside myself to explain why this understanding of zeal diminishes!  I cannot explain why my brothers pat such children on the head, and nod with understanding.  “You will soon settle down.  So we will put up with your words for now.”

They should not be settled down!  They should be joining a band of elders who are the same as they!  The wisdom of a child is greater then the wisdom of a domesticated elder!  This child is not joining a band of warriors!  He is encouraged to take his place among those who live at peace!  All the while the world dies around us!  And the will of God suffers for our lack of zeal!

I have simply determined to believe Him.  I am no great prophet.  I do not part the waters.  I do not heal the sick or raise the dead.  I have simply determined to believe the words of my Lord.

Will you ignore me, or join me?  Truly, will you come and pat me on the head?  Will you secretly read my words and roll your eyes?

With that said, this article is finished.  For my heart perceives the answer.

By His Grace

Sheep for the Slaughter

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Does a sheep wake in the morning and decide to provoke his wool to grow?  Does he consider man his friend and even a beloved one?  Does he say, “I love the people.  Come wool grow”?  Isn’t it true that the sheep’s, wool which provides for man, grows without the consent of the sheep?

Even the muscles on his bones, which provide meals, grows without the consent of the sheep.  Never once does the sheep consider the boiling water.  He is content to live and to eat.

In Christ we are as sheep for the slaughter.  How many Christians remember this?  Isn’t it true that we love the promise of eternal life, yet despise the nature of who we are called to be?  Haven’t we developed our own religion, labeling it Christianity?  And in this, haven’t we set our own expectations from God?

How quickly and easily the following Scripture is despatched from our memory.  But let us try to remember.

36 “Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.”  (Hebrews 11)  All of this because they obeyed the will of the Most High God.

There is such a thing as faulse persecution.  The place where we perceive others are against us, while no one pursues us for the things of God.  By our pride and greedy ownership, they come to take away what we have. 

But have we appropriated what is good from Jesus?  Have we gained so much from his willing hand that we are worthy to endure such great opposition from sinful men?  Or have we simply remembered the good promises, and like ghostly religions we have melded into society?

Now is our day to be as those for whom the world is unworthy.  Who is willing to step forward and claim such a place?  Who is willing to live that they may die?

They will not kill you because you are religious.  They will kill you because you are of God.  It is the truth of God men hate so much.  Sincerely, they couldn’t care less about a religious man.  Such a man may be an irritation,  but the truth of God is abhorred.

Jesus compared us to sheep.  But we should not be like wild sheep, free to roam anywhere they please.  We belong to a certain flock.  And of that flock man it is currently permitted to harvest.

By His Grace

“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

Miming Christians

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Not one man can “do” Christianity.  If they could, we would call it religion (man’s ways of pleasing his version of God).

Christianity is not a religion.  It is the outcropping that appears from the will of God sent to a man.  It is, for the most part, an involuntary attribute.

Ask any vital Christian why he refuses to shut up about Jesus.  He will tell you that he simply can’t.

We don’t mimic Christian ways.  We become them, regardless our worthless desires to remain among men.

Give Me Knowledge

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Tell me you don’t believe that you are saved by faith alone.  Tell me your faith has produced a doing.

Give me solace in this place of testing.  Confirm your viable Christianity.

Tell me you do not rely on association for the hope of your salvation.  Tell me you do not attend church because you think that will save you.

But display the Living Faith in the Living God and His Christ.  Let the overflow of Life giving water be evident.

Do not cheat me of hope for you.  Do not rob me of joy.

Do not make me guess about the end of your days.  Do not make your loved ones cry hopeless tears of sorrow.

May the brotherhood of Christ praise the God who has saved you.  May your name find association with holy doing.

Otherwise you are only a noise.  Otherwise you are only a dispelled shadow.

By His Grace

Dressed Robes of Procurement

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What is the disparity between nothing and something?  The starving man knows the difference between what is food and what is hunger.  The man who is freezing to death knows the difference between frozen wood and a blazing flame.  The one who lay on a sweaty bed of hopeless sickness knows the difference between health and approaching death.

But what is the disparity between what is Holy and what is unholy?  What is the disparity between a doing of the Holy will of God, and a life that remains subject to all that is not?

Let the starving man eat, and understanding of that disparity blazes clearly in his mind.  Let the one who is freezing to death be taken toward life-giving warmth, and he will testify of what is “good”.  And let the hopelessly sick be healed.  They will proclaim the wonders of health and ability.

We have received the promise of the Holy One.  We know He who is of the Righteous Father.  The starving, the ones who are freezing, and the hopelessly sick, know of the vague promises of life.  How should we who know the Holy Promises of the Living God, LACK?

He said to us, “You can do nothing without me”.  But isn’t the knowledge of that statement like the hopelessness of the dying, if indeed we do nothing to procure that Holy Something?

Today comes to us, dressed in the doings of those who went before us.  There are very few who became living testimony of the Life God stands ready to dispense.  Will tomorrow see the same lack of dedicated souls?  Isn’t it our responsibility to procure?

If a man of God will say, “I found no more strength than I did from Him”.  If he will say that, he says what is true.  But looking at the volume of those blazing testifiers, I am appalled.  Can we gather together as one to determine to look into these things?  What will it take to produce a powerful people of “today”?

I will not rise into crescendo for the sake of inspiration.  I have appealed with what is true.  Let the crescendo appear because each one who reads this determines in his soul to do his part.  No man can make another do what is right.  Prisons keep turning out wicked men.  Few who endure the force of men take hold of what is proper.  How has Christianity proven to be any different?

No, the force to do and become, continues to lay squarely on the will of each of God’s people.  Singly, we stand here.  Singly, we will appear before Him.  And singly, we will see redemption appear from the mass of men.  If a rekindling of determination to be a holy people appears, it will be because we turned, one by one, toward what is Good.