Tag Archives: God

No Beast at All

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The imagination of man is a most hideous place to live.  In that realm, a man envisions his fellow man as an enemy of ghastly proportions.  Such an enemy is able to decapitate him with a Q-tip.  How much fear does that generate?

In the night, while sitting under a tree, a man hears a small noise.  Fear whelms up and fires the furnace of imagination.  Seared by an unholy fire, the man perceives that the falling of a twig is the presence of some horrible beast with glowing eyes, 12 inch razor claws, and frothing jaws.  And this beast does not wander aimlessly!  It has the very man in his perfect sight!

What we don’t know can certainly destroy us.  Not because it is.  But simply because we cannot perceive it with our senses.  How tiny are we who live in the land of the dead?

Even when we encounter the Gospel, we often turn to imagination to explain what we don’t understand.  Isn’t this the reason for idolatry of various kinds?  We strive to make “something” out of what we perceive to be from “nothing”.

With the imagination, we hate our brother out of unfounded fear.  With the imagination, we turn the Glory of heaven into the ravaging chaos of hell.  With the imagination, we dispel the hope of Truth by employing an endless volume of lies.  And all this resides firmly within every man.

We fear what we don’t understand.  We grasp with iron fist, the things of death.  For that is the only reality man has ever known.  “Certainly, if I listen to the Gospel, I will find a God who takes glee at my destruction.  For I am a wicked man who loves wicked things.  And the man who comes to me to speak the holy words of God, only desires to decapitate me with a Q-tip!”

My fellow brother of flesh.  I do bring you the Gospel.  But strive with whatever strength you can, to understand the meaning of that word.  “Gospel” means “Good News”.

I know your heart, for I have the same wicked things in me.  It is not a monster that calls to your soul.  It is the vibrant Love of the Living God that calls to you.  He has proved His Holy Love in the Holy Body of His Beautiful, Faithful, Strong, and Righteous Son.

He wants to ease your fears.  He wants to quench the flames of your unholy imagination.  He wants to replace lies with Eternal Truth.  He wants to relieve you of the drunkenness of fear, to be replaced by the sobriety of peace.

By His Holy Wisdom, He has left free will alone.  You must make the choice to accept His willingness to heal you.

As foolish as it may seem, laying down our lies is a very painful process.  But lies are death.  Truth is Eternal Life.  You don’t have the latter.  Will you endure the former?

The noise you hear, as I speak these things, is no hideous monster.  It is the foot steps of the One who has already proved that He loves you.  Will you find the strength to love Him back enough to be devoured by His Holy Promise of Love?

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.

Equality?

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Holy Father, Righteous Sovereign God, I hear what they say about you.  They say they are like you; that all the qualities of God reside in man.  Such are the ruminations of darkened minds, distant from your Holy Throne.

How can we possibly be like you, O’ Holy One?  But the sea imagines itself suspended above the earth.  Men glorify themselves but they give you no place to reside.  In the desperate weakness of imagination, men bring you down to equality.

But your Majestic Holy Throne, Glorious Father, blazes with perfect intensity.  For eternity you have been, with not one misstep through countless ages.  You alone are Life and Good!  Not even the smallest grain of dust exists outside of your knowledge.  Still men seek to bring you down.

Lazy souls who will not rise, they imagine you kneeling before them.  They imagine you giving them excellent praise for their good and sound ways. 

Darkness covers them with the greatest of covering; a thick sheet of black slime covers their unholy eyes.  Not one sliver of your Glorious Majesty penetrates to their perception.  Yet they announce their great knowledge, with a vast joyful pride.  They have learned to roll mud into a ball, and they praise one another as if they are gods!

They have dispatched the Living God to obscurity.  His Holy and Righteous Son they ignore.  For eternity he has been your very mouth.  Your every desire, Holy Father, has found excellent willingness to accomplish in your Holy and Righteous Son.  He alone have you elevated to the highest place of honor.  For in all things he is, you are First.

But he too, men relegate to obscurity and uselessness. “Leave this Jesus to the children and to fools, we must establish our place and make a profit.  For now, we have no time for the Son of God! 

Perhaps when we are aged we will give him some consideration.  He will have to wait, for the things of men are desperately important. 

The volume of men has spoken, God and His Son are useless in this glorified place of man.  But we will retain the beauty of angels, for as servants they make no demands of our time. 

Let God and his son come and walk with us.  Let them put their hands to work that they may be useful among us.  Cause us profit and feed are aching bellies! 

Be useful and help us in our times of need.   Retain your place among us, as we have prescribed, and we may give you glory when we have time.”  With this they render you blasphemy instead of praise!

You have seen all these things Holy Father.  And you have prepared a place to encounter them.  There they will be fully ashamed, and you will sweep away their frail hope with the beauty of your appearance.  There they will realize the folly of their useless imagination.

You have raised up a people for yourself by your own perfect desire.  You teach them how to love you.  Your Holy beauty and wisdom, righteousness and patience, provokes them to obey.  Because of this, kneeling before you with humble hearts of praise is first in their mind.  Equality with God is not an option!

By His Grace

Perception

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My past has brought me to a place where I should not have arrived.  Yet what shall be said?

From birth, the desire of God was not the sin I embraced so tightly.  He had plans for this soul which did not include the wickedness that covered me.  Yet today, I find myself where I stand.

Now I seek to know Him with diligence; that I might receive His Holy wisdom, that I might understand His Holy will to the doing of it.  Before His Holy Throne, He knows these things to be true.  Yet my doing is clouded with two things.

First it is clouded with the teachings of man I have embraced in the past.  Though I seek to be released from them, they obscure purity of understanding.  Thus my doings are diminished to some degree.  So be it.  What can be done with the mind a man brings to the Gospel?

Secondly is the testimony this past brings to the people who have known me while my sinful ways appeared before them.  It is not enough for me to say, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his home town and among his own people”.  This puts the blame on others.  I will not allow that before His Holy Throne.

Should we resist His teachings: “. . . do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”?  And what shall we do with the following scripture: 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5)

I search these things this morning.  I search to own His Wisdom for these things.  I find certain truths waiting for me, as I appear before Him.

I was not obedient before He taught me His ways.  I balked at those who taught the truth.  How then am I different now, than those who oppose my testimony?  Yet, how can I settle for their balking?  (The specific problems that provoke this introspection are not worthy of public display.  Suffice it to apply to the things which accompany your own testimony)

What is the answer?  How can it be anything other than continuance of the things that provoke the Holy Chasm between men?  The Gospel divides by its very essence.  There is the Holy, and there is the way of man.  They collide at the very presentation of God’s Holy covenant in the Blood of His Holy Son.  It will not be dispelled.  Jesus remains a rock of offence.  And all who embrace His Lovely ways, will become some measure of that offence.  To myself I must yell, “DEAL WITH IT!”

I have resolved, by the demands of our Lovely God’s commands, to obey.  Not because I have agreed with His Holy ways in the past, but because He provokes me to adore Him.  I will continue to display love.  I will continue to serve.  I will put on patience.  I will learn!

If they do not perceive, what is that to me?  If I make it my dedication to notice their refusal, I will fall into a certain judgment of their rejection.  That will bring this difficulty directly before the Holy God’s Holy Throne.  He will be forced to judge between us.  How can I count that as “good”?

Without trying to be self-righteous, let me expose a portion of my prayer in regard to these things.  “Lord, Holy God of all good things, do not judge between my brother and I.  Let the fault rest heavily on my shoulders.  Do not hold anything against any man in regard to me, but free them all from accusation.  No one can sin against me.

But let me embrace your Holy wisdom.  Cause me to understand what must be done.  Show me how to make things right.  Be strong with me, I beg you for mercy in Your Holy and Righteous Son, teach me your perfect way.

Let them be a fire against me.  But do not count that fire as sin.  Release them.  But ignite me.”

Can we rightly respond any other way?  We are the ones who receive eternity, at the hands of His Holy Promise of Mercy.  How should we ask for retribution for some perceived “wrong” done to us?  (Even if that “wrong” is a rejection of the Gospel we have come to adore.)

And how should I shake off the dust that comes from the lives of those I am put in place to love?  How shall I leave them?  How shall I put up a wall against them, and between us set a chasm?  The answer rings like a mighty bell on a hillside, NEVER!”

May the Holy Lord of Life grant wisdom to the doing of these things.  May His eternal freedom clothe all His people.  May we, indeed, become that brilliant light He has given His perfect Blood to secure.  May we strive to be godly and holy in all our dealings of this sort.

Glory for all Good things belongs to He alone who is Good.  We are but a shadow of His Righteousness, even as we “accomplish” His Rightful Demands.

Amen.

Holy Becoming

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Two teams of men accomplished the securing of position yesterday.  The glory of man has become theirs.  Oregon and Ohio, have established the sum of their training.  Accolades are given.  Hopes of many rise to tumult.  And a place of decision waits to see the victor appear.

But there is an accomplishing that transcends any glory of man.  There is a “sum of training” that waits to be revealed.  Accolades for such as worship the Holy Son of God await.  But it is not a tumult of pride for those who endure into “The Faith”.  It is a Holy Noise of praise for the One who bought them.  It is a life of Holy power to become His.

The victory has been secured.  The world knows nothing of it.  They worship the accomplishments of their own hands.  But we wait for the New and Holy Song to appear from within our secured souls.

Let us train now!  Let us believe, listen, obey and become today!  Why can’t we overcome and glorify the Living God with the sum of our training?  Isn’t it because we have balked at the expectations and willingness of His Holy giving?

The victory has been secured.  What is this victory?  That the Living God cannot lie.  If He has proclaimed us as belonging to His Holy Son, then we can rightly receive His proclamation.

Rise up today!  Become, for the sake of His Glorious and Holy Name!  Then the testimony of His Righteous Son will shine within us.  Then we have no shame.  Then we have no fear.  Then we witness profusely and without ceasing.  Then we do not struggle for words.  Rather, we become His Holy Word.

Encourage yourself.  We only fail to stand because we have not believed.

Well Intentioned

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This article has no intention of casting judgment.  But let who will, come and eat.  Let them come and taste that the Lord is good.

Those who keep their faith to themselves (those who fail to testify openly regarding the Lord who beckons them) have not seen what Life the Living God is willing to reveal.  These perceive from the darkness of death.  These have not perceived the greatness of distance between Life and death.  They have not yet understood that death must die.  They have not yet understood that only that which is God, lives forever.

If they had encountered the Holiness of God, that which He is willing to reveal to men, they would be compelled to share their living faith.  But the faith they own is the faith of a dead man.  It is the faith given to such as are “newborn” in Christ.

Such reluctance has been chided.  Such unholy restraint has been cast on the pile of the filth of man.  Chided and cast by those who have, yet with a limit of ignorance regarding what is true.  Men have been shunned from the congregation of well-intentioned souls for such unwillingness to overcome.

It has been perceived as weakness, this restraint of testimony.  “Fear” has been the label given to such as withhold the Gospel from men, and properly so.  Yet this is not the full.  For casting and chiding have no value in driving a man through his fear to glory.

I have been guilty of this also.  Yet I will confess, without desire to find excuse, that such treatment is done in ignorance.  Here is the fullness of inspiration:

He who climbs the Holy Hill of the Lord must have clean hands and pure heart.  His worship must be of truth and the Spirit of God.  Nothing else will ever be allowed to approach the Living God.

Yet, those who do approach, return with a distinct lack of fear for the threats of man.  They have been witness to the enormous chasm that lay between Life and death.  They have perceived to the point of testimony.  No matter how the enemy has tried, such men can not be silenced.

This is the reason why such casting and chiding is proper; it is unavoidable.  But the reason they testify is also proper.  For the Lord has set His Anointed One in place to enable all men to ascend the Holy Hill of God’s Holiness.  The ones who balk will never ascend.  They will remain in fear of man.  They will remain in fear of He who is Life.

No flesh will enter the throne room of the Most High God.  As a man draws near, his flesh is burnt away.  The purity and cleanliness born of obedience to the Living God’s Christ is all that may enter.  In short, only the living Blood of Jesus may enter the Holy Throne Room of the Living God.  What part of a man remains exposed, is denied entrance eternally.

Your fear is the direct result of your lack of will.  Your reluctance to speak openly about he Gospel of Christ, is a direct result of perception.  He has allowed all that is necessary to enter.  But who has accepted His Holy willingness to give what is eternal?

Many will continue to live in fear.  It is, indeed, comfortable to live with the “known”.  It is difficult to let go of the familiar, even at the threat of death.  Even if that “comfortable known” is death itself.  Who will persuade them differently?  The choice to live or die belongs to every soul, independent of counsel of others.

But that they might know that there is hope, I have written this word of encouragement.

May whoever will, approach and encounter the Living God.  May whoever will, ask for understanding in these things.  The Lord is willing for all to live.  He has sealed His intent by the very life, death, and resurrection of His Holy Son.  Yet who will believe to the doing?