Tag Archives: death

The Rocks Will Cry Out

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I wake to consider the things of the Living God’s Holy Son.  No matter where I look among the things of God’s Holy wisdom, I find no fault.  Yet why should this amaze me?

To the things of man I look, and I find no righteous faithfulness.  And isn’t this the cause of my amazement?

Consistency abides in the Living God, toward life and all things good.  Consistency abides in the camp of Man’s horror, toward rebellion and all things wicked.

What has God done but we should despise him so?  What has Man accomplished that we should revere him in fear? 

How is it that the people who call themselves Christians suppress the beauty of the One who offers them life; those who give God praise in secret yet seal their mouth when they walk among the dead.

“I have riches”, they say.  The faithfulness of God in his promise is that sure, yes.  But don’t the rocks along the Way of Glory also have the blessing of God to lay unmolested?  There they are lay, prepared to do his will. And surely if the people had not given praise to the Living God’s Holy Son, the rocks themselves would have cried out the words.  Are we no better than rocks strewn along the path of life?  Are we like rocks which adorn a valley of death, fruitless and simply a nuisance ( dressings which mark the barren land).

“If God will touch us, we will serve him.  If God will drive back the wicked we will speak and walk among them.  If he will drive them back beyond a stone’s throw, we will proclaim the words of life.  As long as there is no threat we will be brave.  Yet if he will not cause the wicked to recede, we will continue to praise him in secret.  I will leave the fearsome work to those who desire to die.”  Is this what we say by our actions?  Will not God protect those the march ahead in faith?

But clean yourself.  Primp and prune your feathers.  Lining every hair in its proper place.  let every thread of clothing be presentable and immaculate.  Let your life be dressed with all the things that cause Man to nod in appreciation.  If you hide the Light of Christ,  you are no different than the rocks along the Way. 

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Is it too much to ask? 

Is it unjust to require us to join Jesus in his suffering?

Is the shame of righteousness too much to bear? 

Is the Cross of Christ too heavy to share? 

Then what can possibly be our lot? 

When we appear before He by whose Blood we are bought?

The Now.

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A man doesn’t look at his watch to see what time it was.  His watch can only tell him what time it is.  It doesn’t tell him what time it’s going to be.  It tells him what time it is.  You can’t lay hold of the past.  And you can’t lay hold of the future.

Regret reminds him of what time it was.  Perhaps we regret that we cannot have the good times we had.  Or we may regret that we have destroyed joy, for ourselves or others.

What is regret but a knowledge of what is right.  A knowledge of appropriate restraint.  Truth restrains us in “the now”.  You’re not going back my friend.  And as you reach the future you bring the old man with you.  What you did back then, you are doing now. You need a change of heart, not a change of time.

We may look at the past desiring some pleasant time.  Or we may look at the past, regretting abject folly.  But we can only do this looking from “the now”.  The man who lives in Nostalgia does not know what time it is.  Regrettably, this is to his constant loss.

Nostalgia will always be beyond our grasp.  But regret can happily thrive in our house.  All the while, truth says something imperative.  “I am here.  Come live with me.  I am here to offer you life.”

It is impossible to fix a misdeed.  The best we can possibly do is offer reparation.  And the cost of repair is vastly more than a man’s resources will ever afford.  You can’t undo anything, whether good or bad!

Man thinks that by paying for his horrible mistakes, he becomes a righteous man.  Perhaps he thinks if he regrets his past enough, there is some reparation made.  As if suffering  produces anything of value.  But no action on our part undoes the death we have born.

Christ Jesus is in the now.  No matter what clock you look at, there is the Lord holding out his hand to help stop the engine of regret.  Will you reach out and take his help?

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One thing I will say about regret, it is a useful tool.  It teaches humility.  And in an odd way, it gives validity to the warnings we offer to those who are as blind as we. 

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The man who climbs out of an open cesspool is happy to warn those who are walking toward disrepair.  Blinded by the darkness of their mind, they stagger toward loss.  And isn’t such a man rather frantic as he tries to help his brother?

Their response doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter if they hate him.  It doesn’t matter if they give him some superficial glory.  He knows from experience they are about to encounter regret.  He busies himself to remind his brother of the now.

Christ is in the now.   And he alone is The Living pure truth.  Listen to him.  His wisdom and strength are ever-present.

As the blind are walking toward the pit.  As they are falling into it.  As the shock of their disrepair dawns on their dull minds.  As they thrash about to release themselves from their present aberration.  As their hands lay hold of solid ground.  As they pull themselves out, covered with stench.  And as they sit perplexed on the edge of the pit, wondering what to do next, or how they could possibly have been so stupid.

Christ is in the now.

Christ is in the now.

He is not just a historical figure.  He is the now.

If you have freed yourself from a certain pit, I promise you, without Christ there’s another one waiting just in front of you.

Answer to yourself, what time is it?

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The usefulness of this post depends entirely on the reaction of those who read it.

Interpret This

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It is impossible that anyone should write the book of another one’s life, either before it begins or as it is in full swing (not even their own).  The only accurate substance of that book might be that the individual was born and died.  Everything else in between is beyond our understanding.  Vastly distant from our grasp.  Thus beyond our ability to quantify and lay in order.  Who can even say, with certain clarity, why he has done what he just did?

John Forbes Nash went crazy trying to predict Human Nature.  We can’t even come close to predicting the next 5 seconds of our lives, let alone the injected will of God among men.

I didn’t want to become the man I am.  When I was a child, I was just like everyone else, full of fantasies to be a good man and perfect.  But my personal history is so fraught with folly; tossed about as it was, in the frothing wake caused by Humanity’s struggle.  Ignorance appeared to be my best friend.  The wisdom of God was to me nothing more then falling and glowing embers raining all about me.  And righteousness seemed to hide just behind every coming corner.  Still Jesus is King and able to save.  He is the singular reason this fool has hope.

But who can predict where chaos will go?  Who can deny that man is loaded to the Grave with chaos?  And why would we waste time with tears of remorse, when we are fully destined as food for destruction without Him?  It is useless to pine away and cry for the things that cannot be changed.  Far better to seek the perfect place.  Far better to seek with all the strength we own!

It is awesome how we are misunderstood.  It is as if every man is an entirely different language all his own.  If I could summon a string of pure and perfect words, deliver them with absolute integrity, and sit to wait for the response, no doubt I would be blown away by what came back to me.  “Oh, now I see what you mean.”  And they would deliver to me a perfectly wrong interpretation.  The words of Man, by himself, are uselessly full of fault.

Salvation belongs to God and to the worthy lamb, Jesus the Christ.  Man does not own truth, because our ways are so very full of chaos and destruction.  If a man wants help, it is impossible that he should turn to anything man-made.  It is only through the power of God in Christ that we affect any eternal good at all.

In the way of religions:  if you want to know the truth about the object of unfailing faith, I advise you not to fall for the things that make human sense.  God is utterly unlike us.  His ways and his salvation will, by His very nature, be more than we can imagine.  There is no chaos in God.  There is no unfaithfulness in Jesus.  Death has no place in the  personnage of God and His Holy Son.  The power of God’s Holy Spirit among us is the only source of Truth.

I say these words: Christianity is the only means to eternal life.  But I know these simple words will be interpreted in such a variety that no one could possibly count the variations.  I shrug my shoulders.  What is that to me?

You don’t have to believe me.  Simply do what God has said, “Humble yourself before me, seek my face, and I will be found by you.  But keep your pride and your desire for autonomy and you will die.  Sacrifice and offerings I have not desired.  But I prepared a body to be sacrificed on your behalf I have delivered among you.  He has appeared among you and done my perfect will. My salvation stands ready to receive you.  Therefore come and let us reason together.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as wool.”

God has loved us with a perfect love.  He is not a man that he should change his mind.  He has written his promised salvation in the very blood of his Holy and Righteous Son.  God’s promise you can predict, because he makes no mistake and he cannot lie.  Man you should suspect.

How this is received by anyone is not my responsibility.  But to have spoken these things is a distinct privilege.  It is forever right to offer hope to my brothers and sisters of flesh.  It is also forever right that every man, woman and child should consider such things as these as indelible truth.

Dignity

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No one digs a grave for the broken rotting tree. 

Exposing its inward parts, it lays exposed for all to see.

Though it gave shelter and shade, and a break from the troubling winds, dignity in its trouble escapes its mortal grasp.

Gone unnoticed all its hundred years, it goes unnoticed by the caring hands of its benefactors.

How long has this been true for man?  Like a cow shot among the herd, the rest go about eating and drinking as if their fellow had never been.

Are we but animals?  Are we not designed to live in God’s image?

Then where is mercy?  Where is godly compassion?  Where is patience among the days expectations?  Where is dignity if we gather it only for ourselves?

Is this indeed, what Christ showed us?

Shall we honor a man only to cover him in dirt?  Or at best, shall we attribute sayings to the things he did among us?  Or will he carry testimony that a few cared deeply?  Deeply enough to give what no one can take.

Dignity is a living cause.  Many take it upon themselves to receive such from others.  But you cannot snatch dignity from the air.  If it is contrived it is apparent and useless.  Dignity must be given, and that by humble hands.

Define Accomplishment

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They say:
I’m a good dancer.
I know how to make lots of money.
I can do cartwheels.
I know how to drive fast.
I know all the fashions.
I know why everything works.
I can predict a storm.
I know human nature.

They say, an endless bevy of useless accomplishments.  For certainly age and death will come to take them all away.

Can they say:
I know how to dance with the Living God in the Gospel of His Holy and Righteous Son.
I know how to trust that God is in control, no matter what comes to me, no matter my expectations, no matter my understanding.

Can they say: death and old age cannot rip away from me the hope that is displayed in every corner of my life!

Can they say they see Christ in you?

Beginning of the End

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Think hard about the following.

Right now I don’t care what the theologian says.  Right now I perceive far beyond my perception.  I write this for my sake (whatever the years may bring).  If it is at all useful to others may the Lord bless as his wisdom dictates.
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It began as a joke; a singular break with eternal love.  A demeaning of another’s position; that which was given to every creature according to the wisdom of God for the fullness of life.  Laughter filled the air in a certain place.  Perhaps, even the one that was demeaned saw the humor for a moment.  But division was born.

A small distortion of truth began the dissension of unity.  A lie gave birth to death.  And didn’t death give birth to laughter?

Who did this?  Didn’t Jesus tell us?  “. . .He is the father of lies.”  Eventually 1/3 followed him.

Do you want to see his handiwork?  Take a good look at humanity.  See how prejudice rules with an iron fist.  See how ridicule is so dearly beloved.  Sarcasm is a breastplate of shining jewels, and how proud is the one who weilds it with a deft mind. [Don Rickles the king of demeaning]

Color, culture, history, ability, social position, economic status, political affiliation, nationality, and doesn’t the list seems endless.  Love does not do these things.

We laugh at one another’s faults because every man is full to overflowing with them.  But how quickly the laughter turns to murder.

BEGINNING OF ETERNITY

See how “the ones” go back to the things of a baby.

See how the colors of red and blue are new.

See how innocence begins to develop.

Because they heard the whisper from You.

Discord dissipates.

Acceptance is embraced.

And how the faithful hateful lie,

Is by Love replaced.

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4)

By His grace;
By His grace,
By His grace!