Tag Archives: confidence

Living Mystery

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Billions of things I can’t explain or understand.  But the most mysterious are those things that are in our hand.

I look at myself, I look around at all the people, I listen to my heart, I listen to the fears of others.  The mystery rises up when I look at those who call themselves Christians (even in myself).

Someone needs to explain to me why those who believe in the love of God in Christ to save us, fear so many things.  We fear sickness.  But didn’t he sustain his people for forty years in the wilderness?  Curiously, they perished for their unbelief, yet we seem to carry on their tradition.

We fear economic loss.  But didn’t he command Peter to go catch a fish, that he may pay the tax?  And didn’t the widow of Zarephath find that she had plenty to eat for her and her son while she gave residence to the Prophet?

We fear our sins and failings of the past.  Yet a single drop of the Holy Lord’s blood heals the sins of billions.  How much more his dead body?  And didn’t he say that as far as the east is from the west our sins are cast from the memory of the Living God?

What is the power of Christ if those who say they believe refuse to receive?

Yes, of all the things I can’t understand, the greatest lay our unwillingness to believe.  It is as if we say, “You will get no glory from me!”

Deeds Done in the Body

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The Hope of Christ causes we who believe to agree:

God has placed us among His belongings in Christ.

6 “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”  (2 Corinthians 5)

How much of this does each of us believe?  It is easily determined, how much of this we believe, by an assessment of our “doings”.

May sobriety tend to us as a caring nurse.

Quiet Please

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“Hey!  Keep it down over there.  What are you trying to do, raise the dead?”  So says the social gospel to those of The Faith.

What comes back, as an answer to all?

 

YES I AM!

“Keeping” our Brother

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Have Christians coddled one another to the point of eternal death?  Have many gone to the grave destined to suffer eternal loss?  And has the reason been, that no one confronted them in regard to the seriousness of rebellion?

let every man do what he knows the Gospel demands.  If our brother displays a weakness that is inherent from his former life, then let us encourage him towards strength.  Let us fill his mind with the promises of God for those who are faithful.  Let us continually remind him of those who have gone before us through great sufferings.  Let us strive to point out how trivial our sufferings of this day are, compared to that which is to come.  By all means let us encourage such a one.

But let us make a distinction between weakness and rebellion!  Is Christ in us not wise enough to make the distinction?

Coddle weakness in the hopes of overcoming.  But confront rebellion for what it is!  Even our unwillingness to distinguish between the two, is rebellion in itself.  For God has promised us the gift of wisdom, given freely and without judgement.

We do well to point out rebellion as an abomination before the Living God.  We do well to encourage such ones with Holy Terror.  Let us bring a simlatude of the Judgement Day before their eyes.  Let us help them perceive their destiny as eternal death. 

We will most assuredly regret our fear of confrontation.  Gather together the boldness of Christ that lays dormant within you.  Strike out with confidence, and Christ will bless your way.

Jude said these things best.  22 “Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

But I must also add this.  Do these things with the utmost of godly care.  If the beam in your eye remains, you will not weild the wisdom of God with reliability.  But if you are submissive to the will of God in Christ.  If you have endured the purification offered by the Holy Spirit.  If your own life begins to depict the righteousness of Christ.  You have an obligation to apply these things. 

The putrid reply of Cain is unacceptable.  Yes we are our brothers keeper!  Yes we will be held accountable the death of many.  If you are not willing, then prepare yourself for the rebuke of God.

Amen.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.

By His Grace

The Exceptionally Few

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Always considering the eyes of men.  That’s how most people live out their days.  It takes an exceptionally confident man to do his work in a crowd without notice of the eyes that watch.  And oh how few they are!

The fear of man pervades our every thought.  “What will they think?  What will they say?  What will they do to me for my failings?  Have I been successful at hiding my nakedness?  Do they still see my weakness?”   And so, fear is given a place to live.

Do you want freedom?  Do you want to live with a confidence that rises above the fear of men?  Do you want to become a member of the exceptionally few?

Then seek out the Christ of God with every fiber of your life!  No man can possibly rid himself of this kind of fear.  He has to develop an unshakable belief in the love of God for himself.   That’s when confidence arrives.

It’s not enough to say that God is love.  That’s not enough to dispel the fear.  You have to let your soul live in heaven, even while your body lives among men.  Then there is no fear.

Christ Jesus can do that for you.  He can set you free of every fear, even death. 

You can trust this message.  It is faultless, and will find full acceptance before the Living God.  It is in fact the message he has been preaching since the day of Adam and Eve.

By His Grace

The Telling Average

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I just wrote an article about the popularity of the Gospel.  And out of curiosity, I went back to sum up the total average of visitors to this blog.  Sometimes we have a sense of things, but when we quantify, we are often even amazed at the least possible expectation.

Over the last 5 years, this blog has averaged 4 visitors per day.  There are well over 2,000 posts here.  And one would think that even the worst writing would gather more than 4 people per day.

I will gladly admit I am not a good writer.  But I have seen some people’s writing, that has become very popular despite the horrendous value of it.  So then in the pondering of this, I have come up with three possible answers.

The first is obvious, I am a horrible writer.  How could I not agree with that?  I’ve reread my posts enough to know that I am ignorant of grammar and too presumptuous to be careful.

The second possible answer is that the words that I write are so foreign to the joy of men that I am willingly placed into obscurity.  This is a great possibility, for I have never been known as one who plays well with others.  Why and how should that change now?

And the third possibility is full of ponderous contemplation (Redundant yes but it sounded cool).  Perhaps God Himself has placed me in a “cave”.  Greatly distant from the eyes of man.  And I wrote concerning this in the post called “The Craftsman”.

I have seen others that write virtually the same things as I.  And the numbers on their blog are well into the two hundred and five hundred thousand views, and this in far shorter time than I have been writing. 

I could surmise rightly that I am a lousy writer.  I could surmise rightly that the way I write is so abrasive, few have the palate to eat.  But I very much like the third.  For it gives summation to the other two.

The reasons why God has done what he has done to his servant fit into a variety of explanation.  And there is no need to expose them here. 

It is impossible to take pride in obscurity.  Such a man would be considered fully insane.  Yet there is reason to be proud of the Lord Jesus.  For he is God incarnate.  And in the eternal wisdom of the Holy Father he dispenses God’s will in all creation.

There are many who will sit and count their numbers with great joy.  I recognize that is a broad assumption, but I have no reason to think otherwise.  Every Church that I have attended counts their numbers regularly.  Most of them have even displayed a little plaque at the back of the chapel to honor their victory; “Number in attendance this year 4000, number in attendance this month 400, number in attendance last week 6”.

But God has left me to count scraps from the dinner table.  He is Glory!  His wisdom is pure!  He is faultless in all his Holy judgments.  And rather than give praise or regret to myself,  I will give praise and honor to the one who lives forever by the precious blood of his Holy love for Righteousness!  He is Jesus the Son of the Most High God and the Son of Man!

May the will of God be done forever!  God alone is good!

By His Grace