Tag Archives: God

The Resilient Church

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The persecution of the Christian Church does not work.  It’s been proven through the generations, that the more you beat Christians, the more Christians there are.  There’s a very logical reason for this.

It’s like a man who was brought before the judge for social disobedience.  When he refused to mend his ways, he was sentenced to 30 lashes.  When the lashing was completed he was sent with his bloody back to sit in a jail cell until he healed.

Two months went by.  He was called again before the magistrate.  “Did you love the lashes?”   The prisoner was asked.  The reply was matter of fact, there was no defiance in the man’s tone.  “No sir, I did not love the lashes.”

“That’s a good reply.”  Said the magistrate.  “Are you willing then to return to society and never repeat your wicked behavior?” 

“Sir, with all due respect, I did nothing wrong.  I was speaking the words of the Living God in public.  Many took offense at the words and the disturbance came up.  I was arrested as a social dissident.  But I did nothing wrong.”

“Then you will receive 30 more lashes and spend time in jail to heal.  Perhaps then you will change your mind.”   The judge’s sentence was firm.

“Your honor, I must confess.  I did not love the first lashing.  I will not love the second.  And I will refuse to capitulate with a society that is so corrupt, and hold so highly such unjust laws.”

My friends you cannot stamp out Christianity by violence.  But you have obviously learned your lesson.  You could not make us join your corrupt society.  So you have sent your corrupt society in among the family of God.

These have feigned allegiance to the Christ, long enough for the family of God to love them.  Then with heartbreaking stories they appealed for inclusion.  Willingly denying the call for holiness.

Now the family of God in Christ is bewildered.  They have loved you are corrupt people.  They do not desire to send them back outside.

You are succeeding in corrupting the church where beatings offered no profit.  But I will tell you this.  Christ Jesus is busily planting his crop outside your corrupted churches.

You thought you had finally succeeded in what beatings could not accomplish.  The church had become located in a prominent and conspicuous place.  But the Lord has anticipated and responded to your wicked behavior.

Christianity is on the rise!  You failed once by violence.  You will certainly fail by corruption.  No matter what you do, you will never stamp out the Church of Christ Jesus!

By His Grace

Toward Easter

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Much to my surprise, evidently there is conflict over which day of the week Jesus was crucified.  Ok fine.  But the day does not matter as much as what God has done.

Those who should have known him.  Those who should have been able to embrace him.  These became the instrument of His glory.

It is not ours to hold it against them.  I have often been reminded that men will do what they do.

But as it was true and Joseph’s words, so it is true in Christ.  It was meant for evil, but God has used it for good.

By His Grace

War Up! ( the Law of Christ)

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Okay.  I’m going to do a little war hoopin here.  But you likely haven’t heard this for a while, so you might think I’m being kind of mean.  But on the other side of “takin it right” is all the peace and stability you can handle.

From the day of God’s blessing to Abraham until today, Israel has been in a state of war.  Whatever tiny moments of peace they found in that time, were short lived.  And the ensuing battles became worse and worse.  (I’m including the Holocaust in this.)

In the meantime God sent his only Son, and the battle did nothing more than get really personal.

Today’s church knows virtually nothing about this as a whole.  And this ignorance has given rise to a great influx of Tares. 

Well if you’re willing to listen, there’s a fix for this.  If not, may the will of the Living God be done in the advent of the end.

Look at what Jesus said here.  He came to take away the “National” concept (not that it was ever God’s intention).  But he distinctly replaced it with a personal burden. 

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10) 

I have found this to be blazingly true!  If you love the Lord you will be hated.  And this to the extent that I will push the envelope a little farther:  if you are not hated you might want to do a little pocket check to see if you love the Lord.

See how the war was intended to come home.  But he hasn’t left any one as an orphan.  Not only has he sent the Holy Spirit to help and to guide every individual,  but the law of Moses remains among us as strong as it ever was.  What was spoken in Moses’s day is not removed from anyone. 

Not that we should be legalistic in our approach to God, but the fire of his words ought to live in every one of his people as a great raging holy fire.

One small portion of that entire law is one of the greatest encouragements to man ever to be spoken.  It may ring out rather often from the pulpit.  But it is rarely taken home.  If it was obeyed, we would see an entirely different church.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6)

Since the war has become a personal issue, by a straightforward challenge from the Living God’s Holy Son, each individual has become his own house. 

Binding God’s laws on your hands does not necessarily mean a bracelet, but that everything our hands find to do should have the marks of our God on it.  Obedience leaves a distinct holy mark.

And if we have the words of the Living God in us, our entire perception will be as if we wore a little case between our eyes which is filled with holy and good words.

As many as we can rally to understand these things, to that extent the church is transformed. 

And I will add this:  If you start to speak with every member of your church as if these things were alive and true, with all expectation that they agreed with you, the tares would not think it a gentle place to live any longer.  The Christian social club would have to disband.  And O the war would come home!

By His Grace

Silly Little Quibbling Lips

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There is a frantic quibbling among frantic men.  Busy little lips accuse God of murder. 

They cite the examples of Israel entering the promised land.  And oh how upset they are, that the peaceful little groups who lived there were viciously torn down.

And now they blame Israel.  “She has no right to exist, nor to defend herself!  She is a bloody blight to the human plight!”

And now they blame God.  “He’s the one that put two trees in the garden!  He is the one who was first to shed blood!  He is the one who did not protect Able!  How dare he blame us for murder!”

My silly friends of flesh. 

How is it that you never look up? 

You see the sky up there? 

Go ahead,
Tear down the air.

But you complain to one
another with a lofty stare.

When the body is rent,

Where goes the soul?

If you know these things,

Speckle the sky!

When you do these things,

I’ll grant you applause.

Then I’ll say there is
Wisdom in your eye.

By His Grace

Corrective and Punitive Action

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Dear world:

Will you be patient and righteous for a moment?  Will you let a prisoner speak to you? 

You have placed me in chains, I can do you no harm.  But will you entertain the words of this man you have accused and imprisoned?   I ask you no more than that.

By the necessity of survival, you have made laws against such men as I.  And it doesn’t matter if your laws are just.  They are your laws and you enforce them just the same.

So I have been accused and condemned, before the Society of men, as one who does not play well with others.  For the sake of propriety I speak softly among you.  But propriety is the steel you have forged to enclose me in my cell.  But if I must speak to you for the sake of understanding, I must speak to you in the language of propriety.

Propriety is a shifting mechanism; it changes according to the fashion of men in every generation.  And so men like me are forever jailed by your own laws.  You do not seek to rehabilitate me.  Your accusations, condemnation, and imprisonment are sufficient to please you.  The horrors of your prisoners never enter your mind as you celebrate at your feasts.

I do not hold this against you.  You will not change, and it does no good to accuse you.  But I must begin this message with what is true.

You have tattooed my forehead with the word “MEAN“.  And you were not wrong to wield the branding iron.  At first when you accused me I was angry.  And I gathered what truth I could and slung it back at you.  So your accusation was confirmed among you.  And you rightly confined me.  And this according to your own laws.

But in my confinement your accusation has become unfounded.  For since you would not let me be a one with you, in my confinement I searched for what is true.  And I have found Him!

Your own laws of confinement speak of corrective action.  But this is the purpose which you ignore.  For if one who is confined by your laws turns away from violent behavior, you do not accept his change.  You do not offer corrective action!  You simply seek to rid yourselves of what you do not approve.  Anyone who is not profitable to the ways of men is cast away forever.

By this foolish standard you are the ones who are jailed.  And the brand you have placed on my forehead has become my glory.  So I am right in releasing you from any accusation concerning me.  You have meant it for evil, but God has used it for good.

The One I have found, while imprisoned in your social standard, is the pure standard you think your yourselves to be.  He is not limited by death, as are we.  He is not limited by a tidal wave of lies.  He is the absolute truth.  And he teaches all his people to be bold among you.  Thus I have written this message.

He is the standard by which every man will be judged.  For he has walked among us with perfection.  And God the Father has placed Him eternally as FIRST.

While I have been imprisoned, he has come to set me free.  Even while your bars of social standard are placed squarely between you and I.  I range freely in the open space of forgiveness and love.  And from this place I warn you.  Your ways which you hold in such high esteem are wrong.

Were I to gather a crowd of a million people, and speak these things to your face, you would no longer desire to jail me from your celebrations.  You would, in fact, desire to kill me.  Even as the men of a generation, which saw the Christ walk among them, murdered the Holy One of God.

You would see a man who is just like you.  And this man would proclaim that you are wicked and worthless, as one.  I do not make the proclamation on my own.  I speak only what the Living God has said.

Yes I am a man like you.  Yes I was trained in the volume of your lies.  Yes I was violent toward you, both in word and in deed.  For you yourselves trained me!

But the Christ has come to set us free!  And any who believe this message, can have this freedom.  We need not be chained in the volume of teaching that is a lie, any longer. 

I stand boldly and tell you, “Man can become holy”.  I stand boldly and proclaim that we need no longer to live as liars.  God is willing to teach us what is true and faultless.  And his teaching is full of power to overcome the lies of this place.

Most of you will balk at this message.  For you love the volume of lies more than you love the volume of truth.  And you will not put up with one who calls your ways wicked.  But I will call your ways wicked just the same.

I was mean when I did your will.  Now you count me mean when I do His will.  You see how your corrective action is at fault.

But I have not written this for the sake of meanness.  And I have not straightened my back before you as an act of defiance.  I have appeared before you as one who is not ashamed or afraid any longer.  And it is love that straightens my spine.

Love makes me turn around.  I had been kneeling before the One who is love.  With awareness of what he has done for me, I have remembered the people from which I came.  I have returned without fear to give you this message of truth.  God will see, how many of you respond.

These words belong to God.  They are only mine, in that he has given them to me.  Yet they are not mine, for I give them to you.  I have come as a messenger and nothing more.

By His Grace

How to Start Your Soul

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A few years ago they gave me a tractor to drive that was rather odd.  In order to start it, you had to push two unmarked switches simultaneously while turning the key to start the engine. 

Anyone who was not trained how to start the tractor, could not possibly steal it (unless of course they towed it away).  Fortunately for me, the company wanted me to drive the tractor so they explain the process.

I know a man who is convinced that God has lied.  The man has a certain tendency toward sin.  He has heard what others have said.  They speak about freedom in Christ.  They speak about forgiveness and the power to overcome.  But in his search this man did not find either.  So he assumed that Jesus has lied.

God wants us to live a life of overcoming and freedom.  And he has written a manual as to how we can accomplish that.  But the man I spoke of does not read the manual.  How then can he know?

He refuses to believe the testimony of others.  He refuses to believe there’s something he doesn’t understand.  He cannot start his soul.  So he blames the one who made it.

Now, the way I explained it doesn’t sound reasonable at all.  But it makes perfect sense to this man.  And I will say he is not alone. 

There are millions who have not been able to grasp the freedom of forgiveness and strength to overcome.  Perhaps they are not as bold as this man, in that they do not call God a liar.

But if God has promised the freedom of forgiveness and the strength to overcome, their actions speak louder than their lips.  For they have ceased struggling for what is expected of them.  And they quietly wait their turn to be judged by God.  I really can’t imagine what they’ll tell him.

Let’s sum this article up with what is simple and obvious.  If you want the freedom of forgiveness and the strength to overcome sin, all you have to do is read the Bible and pray.  Yep.  It’s that easy.  (Did I mention you have to believe?  Yes those two unmarked buttons work just like they said they would.)

By His Grace