Tag Archives: expectations

The Perplexing Question

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My God, you are so sweet.  You bring me a perplexing question, to which I have no answer.  But now I strive to provide an accounting to your tender truth.

“Why do you pay attention to these things of the flesh, and come to Me for wisdom?”

You do not ask without expectation of answer.  Draw up my will to answer.  Summon my soul to answer.  Seek what is faultless and true.  Condemnation is perceived.  But growth is offered.

Why do I listen with my eyes of flesh?  Why do I allow perception to appear from my fleshly ears?  Why do I allow division to exist, when fullness is offered so freely?

For surely, there is a place where I do not allow these things to divide.  There is a place where Your wisdom abides, as freely as it is offered.

Shall I blame the condition of limit, in which man is forced to live?  That is no answer to Your earnest question.  That is to seek an excuse.

I shall ponder this with willing heart.  For You call me to “All”.  And there is “All” for the taking.  Holiness beckons.  The fullness of Stephen awaits.

I stand between fullness and want.  I stand at the door of “becoming”.  Why hesitate?  For now, I can’t answer.  What a shame to me that I should not be able to give an immediate answer.  What a shame to me that You should have to ask.

Yet what possibilities for Your Glory are present!  What service remains undone.  What rekindling of flame demands too much time.  What a raging story is yet to be written.

By Your Grace we prosper, and that for Your Glory’s sake.  Direct my mind.  Direct my will to hear.  Regardless the surroundings, Your people should endure with great vigor.  This is so.  This is true!  Show me how to endure, according to the power of You, O Christ of God.

Quench or Stoke

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The fireman does not offer the fire the things it loves.  Gasoline, kerosene, synthetics ,wood and cloth are kept away from the battlefield.  But water, or a smothering foam annihilate his enemy.  The greed of destruction is brought to nothing.

There is a raging fire of expectation among the world.  How desperately they want to see God’s people fail.  Look what glee they display as they devour even their own.  Salivating to destroy, they welcome the rumor of failing.

They do not seek out faltering.  They are looking for raging sins.  The Christian’s refusal to obey is like gasoline to a fire.  Even the liberties God has allowed us, are flammable in the eyes of the world.

What are we teaching?  What are we doing?  Do we wear a sash of compromise on the clothing God has given us?  Do we often forget what is holy?  Do we forget who we used to be?  Do we forget our calling?

Does our testimony fuel the fires of hell?  Or does it quench, and restrain by living water?  Do we smother the world’s ambition by a display of holy behavior?

By His Grace

Victorious in Loss

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Among people, who are those who suffer well?  It is those who own nothing of what they own.

These are prepared to lose everything, even while they have it all.  It is the one who is determined, while in wealth and health, to die penniless and miserable.  This one cannot be held hostage to expectations full of error.  If prosperity of possessions continues to a peaceful death in his own bed, such a one will have lived his life without fear of loss.

Though all he has is taken.  Though sickness viciously tears at his body.  Though the wicked greed of man rips his belongings from his control.  This one will prosper.

Yet is it enough to be stoic in our life?  Is it necessary to pass by the loaf of bread while you have money and hunger?  Is it right to purchase the rust bucket chariot so that you will suffer the pains of upkeep?  Is it required of us to live under a pile of leaves in a part of the forest we don’t, and can’t own?  Such people are not being responsible with what has been given them.

What provokes the Responsible life?  Is it the desire of a man to become completely humble among all men?  That mind-set is produced from the pride of life.  Pride can’t, by its very nature, produce humility.  Such a man might feel pretty proud of himself, after all, he has forsaken what other people crave.   But his humility is crushed by a whisper of pride.

Jesus provokes the true strength of life.  His strength in a man is beyond ALL the things of this world.  Because His teaching and “in dwelling” comes from Heaven; a place which has never entertained the temporary wealth of this place.  And NEVER will.

If we want to be strong.  If we want to endure with stellar conviction.  If we want to live that “over coming” life, we will have to appropriate the teaching and character of the Lord Jesus.  While we live in relative peace, it is best to be prepared for the worst.  Let us not compile “things” so that we will be able to endure hardship.  Let us prepare our heart to be God’s champion, even if the entire world comes after us.

How does cancer become a trophy to be desired?  How does molestation become a crown of joy?  How does losing our job, or place in the family,  become a stepping stone to eternally born victory?  All these things, and the myriad of things that can happen to a person, become glory when we embrace failure.  We love our weakness, because it gives us an opportunity to overcome!  Even our own sins can become trophies of Grace.  Such things  can produce a certain kind of humility that cannot be manufactured by the desire of a man.  Nor can it be purchased by any of our possessions.

We encounter hardship for the sake of Christ.  We encounter hardship for the sake of testifying that God’s love and promise are vastly more, and true, than anything the world can provide.  We testify that life can be lived, even while this world has strapped us to a post in the middle of a raging fire.  We can clap our charred hands, even while the skin of our bodies walks toward becoming a lump of coal.  Thus, we encourage others to love the God who bestows such incredible strength.

Let us testify that God in us, is greater than all things.  Prosperity, health, wealth, sickness, persecution, joy, poverty, alienation, or fame,  cannot take away the riches of Christ in any man!  It is the man who counts any of these things as more valuable or stronger than the promise of God.  This is the one who will likely lose it ALL.

Embarrassing

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At times I am embarrassed,

That I am what I am.

For I am of humanity;

That fault filled breed called man.

For as my brother’s wayward,

I too have filthy hands.

Let separation be too long,

And I need reprimand.

My brothers of flesh, are just a mirror

Of this God provoked hermit.

Staring at the Son too long,

Anoints with traits but counterfeit.

Attributing His righteousness

To all the men I meet.

I’m often disillusioned,

By filthy wayward feet.

Severity of sin not counted,

I am just like they.

By their mouths and actions;

Their refusal to obey.

Then let this shame provoke

my earnest, thoughtful hope;

And let me remember well.

As I was once like they,

Upon this revelation,

Difference is:

Much harder apart to tell.

By His Grace

The Swinging Doors

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I have made a great deal of noise about our calling to holiness.  There is certainly nothing wrong with pressing one another to such a high calling.  And every Christian is called to the highest possible standards.

But I have never preached the gospel to a robot.  It’s not likely I ever will.  The gospel is not made for automated consumption.  The gospel is made to be consumed by frail, and even rebellious, people.

Too much talk, however, about our necessity to gain holiness can leave many with a broken heart and destroyed faith.  Not to mention that many people will simply stop listening,  because they know they cannot, or are not willing to, reach to the greatest of Christianity. 

I cannot retract one article or word in regard to our high calling.  The Lord Himself told us to be holy, even as our Heavenly Father is Holy.  So I cannot retract what the Holy Lord has spoken.

So in view of the audience, which the gospel intends to command, there must be a doorway of relative ease by grace.  Such a doorway does exist.  In fact it is a double swinging door.  That is to say, two doors which can open independently, yet are side by side.  One is made of spirit, the other is made of flesh.

The first door was built by Jesus.  It was hung, and operational at the speaking of these words by Isaiah the prophet: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. . .”.  Christ Jesus, being the full mercy of the living God, is the door of grace.  This is the door made of spirit.

You would think this is enough proof for anyone who is struggling.  But God has supplied a second door, due to the weakness of man. 

Often, in a man’s frightful plight, he needs a human example.  As the little boy was reported to have said to his mother, “Sometimes I need a Jesus with skin on”.

God has supplied the second door through the Apostle Paul.  We will call this one the door made of flesh.

As he worked out his own salvation, he fell upon a place of concern.  Though the desire within him to “become” was great, he found the flesh drawing back his upward momentum.  So he spoke to the people to explain his view.  (Failure visits every man.) 

Because of the grace of God he could continue without interruption.  But continuing did not mean he needed to start over, as some are persuaded is true of their own faith.

He intended to forget what was behind and set his mind firmly on what lay ahead.  But he also understood that if he was trying so very desperately to “accomplish”, what would become of the weaker Christians.  That’s when the Lord gave him a door to hang.

The Apostle Paul’s door of mercy hangs right next to the door of grace.  It simply says this: “Only let us live up to what we have already attained“.

Strive as hard as you can, but let God be God.

A great deal more can be said in regard to this.  But I’ve already used a whole lot of words.

In every job there is the craftsman as well as the apprentice.  Each continues to do what he has learned.  Each one adds daily to what he knows.  There are different levels and skills.  But the craftsmen and the apprentice own the job they are given.

Apply this as you will.  Only learn that God is Holy Love.

By His Grace

How Comes Failure?

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The Lord came to me, in the Promise to all men: “I will be with you, teaching you what is right and good to do and be”.  And so I grew in His Holy wisdom.

Misunderstanding dressed me, as He offered His pledge.   “He has made me a righteous man; by knowledge, He has lifted me from sin to righteous doings.”  But days passed.  Years came and went.  Though knowledge came, I found sin and folly were bound up in me still.

Perplexity confronted me.  In my days and nights I pondered.  “How can I know these things, yet do the abhorrent?  Where is the fruit of purity?  Where are the things, among my belongings, that pleased Him so in His Holy Son?”

Desire to become, rages within me.  Yet I find mistakes.  Where I expected to find clarity of truth, I found only sparadic (as if by mistake) “good works”.  How can such desire, diligent desire, produce such shoddy a crop? 

How could it be, that I should set my hands upon a sturdy and well honed plow, hitch it to such a strong and well trained work horse, set my eyes on the singular oak at the end of my field, yet plow such a crooked line?

And if I had reached into my bag of seeds, placed each one by careful measure, covered them with tender fingers.  Why does my field produce bitter and wicked fruit?

Wisdom brings the answer, two fold.

I had not emptied my bag of seeds; that only good seed might remain.  My balance is not perfected.  Knowledge, within me, lacks a studious audience.  And my expectations are those of a child who puts his tiny feet into his daddy’s giant shoes: “I see him walk well in these.  I will also use them to do the same”.

And wisdom speaks from far beyond the ability of man: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder builds in vain”.

“Be patient, my frail and tiny child.  I hold your promise in my Holy hand.  When I call you to be an eternal man, you will have your desire in full.”

By His Grace