Tag Archives: God

Learning to Be Happy With Chaos

by

0


English: Quite the happy dog.

English: Quite the happy dog. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What I am about to write is beyond man’s ability to comprehend.  How then can anyone expect that my words will do it any justice at all?  Yet it is important to voice the following.  So, with your mercy, I will form these words with all the care I can muster.  May God bless every word so that He will be glorified in them.

My little dog is a bit slow.  I can dance my hand around her and watch her try to keep up with the speed of the movement.  In this way, she is like me.  The world is far too fast and complicated for me to keep up with.  It dances around me like an angry horde of bees.  Stings come far too fast for me to predict.  Defending myself is useless.

Now you would think that my little dog would become a bit dejected at not being able to play with me at the same speed.  But the contrary is true.  She seems to delight in the inability to predict the next move.  How amazingly beautiful is her spirit.  And it is right that I should envy her ability to embrace her lack.

If God had made only three trees on a tiny little semblance of the world, the complications of keeping those three trees alive and thriving would be endlessly complicated.  But He has created billions and billions of plants, creatures, clouds, waters, and man.  Yet not one item in His creation lacks what it needs to thrive.  If the world is too fast for me to fend with, how much more is the nature of God beyond our ability to comprehend.

This would dishearten me if I hadn’t heard of His promise to embrace His people; caring for our individual needs as if we were the only creation.  Like my little dog, I am enthralled at His speed and ability.  I wait to see His next move in my life.  And I am thrilled when I hear His approach.   Another wonderful game of eternal Holiness is about to be played.  And I quiver with anticipation.

While man is so very proud of his accomplishments, he has only begun to define what God has been doing for eternity past.  Nothing we use or create on this earth can match the wonder of a may fly.  The entire mass of invention from man does not even come close to the amazing miracle of a single flower.  Man boasts that he can even create life.  But the tools he uses were already available from the hand of the eternal and Holy God who made all that is.  In this, man creates nothing.  He only manipulates what has been provided by God.  So where is the boasting?  It is everywhere, sadly.

Were man able to create a miniature universe, complete with a living breathing world within it, he would not be able to see what is on that planet.  Consider how small the earth is compared to the vast nature of the universe about us.  We don’t even know where in the universe we sit.  Yet God cares for the gnats and even germs that inhabit this place of glory.

All this, I wrote, only gives inspiration to consider the greatness of God’s work.  And to top it all off, we are promised a perfect place that we cannot even begin to conceive.  So the next time the world comes against you with a vengeance, and you find that you can’t cope with the speed and complicated mess it offers, take heart.  We are designed to be helpless from the beginning.  It is this helplessness that enables the transformation Jesus purposes for all men.  We are nothing.  He is everything.  And it is up to us to learn to dance before Him in this place of testing.

May You be Glorified by these words, O’ Lord of Life and Hope.  Your name is Jesus.  And You have caused me to be unashamed at that name.  Glory is Yours from beginning to end.  For the Father has given You this title, and endlessly more.  We who live in the Spirit You give salute You with joy filled sacrifice.  This is as it should be.

By His Grace, Amen.

What God Promises Comes to Pass.

by

0


English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, A...

English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, Article VII, “Of the Church”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What God has promised to do will be done.  Though man counts time in days and years, God’s promise to transform His people cannot be broken.  We look at our lives and worry attends our thoughts.  We have come to believe that we have stepped over the line and now stand counted as an enemy of God.  How can that be so?

Look back.  How easy was it to believe when you first heard the Gospel?  What has changed over the years?  You heard the call to righteousness and holiness.  You allowed yourself to believe the message that those who live in sin can’t expect eternal life.  Your soul shook with fear and your responded with confession.  Remember how you felt that first touch of freedom from a guilty conscience when you embraced the promise of God to forgive?

We all know what has changed.  In our struggle against sin we have fallen to temptation.  At first it was a mistake to allow ourselves to be fooled into death.  But when we turned to God for help, didn’t help arrive?  He no more desires us to die now than He did when we first believed.  As long as you are in this bag of flesh hope remains.  What has changed is a gradual dulling of our hope, which is a direct result of a learned disobedience.

How do we reclaim that vibrant hope?  Refocus your efforts to believe.  It’s not something we can actually manipulate with our hands.  We simply give up our own struggle, confess our lack, and wait for His response.  The struggle will resume soon enough.  And you will be tested again.  But the renewal of our time of confession, and subsequent receiving of hope, will give us a strength we did not have at the start of our journey.  We will have proven to ourselves, once again, that God’s promise is stronger than our failings.

I do not say these things as a novice.  Over 25 years God has proven His ability to save me.  Though you have no need to trust the word of a man, the testimony I give here comes from a myriad of testings regarding this hope we share.  I testify, as do all who remain hopeful, that God is able and WILLING to cause us to live.  If you give up it is because you choose to stop believing.  Simply make the choice to believe again.  It’s really that easy, my friends.  You need not wallow in pig slop any longer.

What is the Power of The Gospel of Jesus?

by

0


Power Lines

Power Lines (Photo credit: shaundon)

What is the power of the Gospel of Jesus?  How does it manifest itself among men?  What is its target?  And how do we know we have entered into the envelope of salvation?

The power of the Gospel is that The Sacrifice necessary to gain The Holy Father’s smile has been paid.  We are now free to live our own interpretation of the “Good Live”.  We who believe have gained a confidence to live that others cannot own.  Not only eternity is promised, but guidance and protection is extended from the only One who can give it without reservation.  So the power of the Gospel of Jesus is a powerful peace, confidence, freedom, and hope that cannot be taken away by anything.  It is God who gives it.  Who can strike His Kingdom and rip away what we have?

The manifestation of this Gospel among men is a violent love.  It does not care what others think about what we do.  Those who love as God loves are not bound by the laws of men.  Social norms of men are but a shadow of a tree in the darkness of night, while the norms of God’s rule are like blazing explosions of good in the streets of the city of blind wickedness.

God’s good works among His people cannot be hidden.  But they are never announced with pride.  The Gospel does not announce itself to men, as if to say, “I am about to do a good thing.”  The good work begins and comes to completion; power displayed and unrestrainable.  Do the clouds announce that the sun is about to rise?  Doesn’t the sun simply come up every morning?  While men will praise their light bulbs, they also complain that the sun is too hot, that there are too many clouds, or that it came up too early.  But the Gospel moves forward despite the desires of men.

This is the target of the Gospel:  That God should receive all praise for what has been established.  Men will contrive many means to manipulate what He has ordained should be.  They will build houses to shield themselves from the elements.  Men curse the night.  They curse the day.  They curse the cold and heat.  But the elements are established by God.  And it is praise that is due what He has caused to be.  Many other elements of life here in this place of testing are cursed by man.  But it is those who trust Him completely that find release from this cursing. They learn to accept what comes upon them without murmur.  This is the target of the Gospel of Jesus: that His people should learn to live with God as their leader, no longer listening to their complaining desires.

This is how we know we have entered into the envelope of salvation; that we no longer perceive our life as a victim.  Through belief in the message of hope we are transformed from hopeless men to partakers in God’s lovely scheme of transformation.  We endure without complaint.  And when we find our hearts complaining we also hear a restraining voice within, compelling us to reconsider our attitude.

Violent love attacks all sin in the heart of the believer of the Gospel.  As if someone were to step in front of our folly and push it back, while pulling us forward to trust at the same time.  Refinement of thought toward what is good grows.  Restraining of stupidity holds us back from the things that lead to death.  And, in the end, the believer of the Gospel of Christ grows from a walking dead fool to a semblance of a righteous man.  We know we are His as we witness this occur in our very bones.  It does not announce its presence.  And there is no written word that appears on our forehead, marking us as those who are being transformed.  Yet the transformation will be obvious; first to the believer, then to all who know who we were.

The Place of Truth

by

0


Words have a power all their own

Words have a power all their own (Photo credit: Lynne Hand)

There is a place where truth, joy, obedience, order and Glory abound.  You will not find it here on earth (in this place of testing).  We may receive a visitor from this place, but we cannot locate it here.

We hear stories of those who encountered the reality of this place while they walked around in bags of blood and flesh like us.  But only a “micro-few” have ever been invited to taste that place with all their senses.  What these few men tell will bring goose bumps on the skin of any truthful reader.  And we find the wicked carefully avoiding their stories with adept eyes and ears.

Evil men speak of this place also, regardless their attempt to restrain their lips.  The words leak out in the stories they tell.  Their social structures mimic that of Heaven, regardless the corruption in any level of their structures.  Music, made by man, imitates the Glory of that place, though they surround the tones with sensual pleasure and wicked dreams.  Greedy men prepare items to sell that men have no use for.  And other men contrive messages to convince their fellow travelers to purchase these worthless trinkets.  Yet the message of God is sewn into the very fabric of all life here on earth.

The point I am making may not be plain to all who read this.  So I will spell it out clearly.

God is so completely powerful that even among a people who abhor His ways His message rings out clearly all day long, and even into the darkest of nights.  They attempt to stifle the words by dressing them in various forms of filth.  But words like beautiful, forever, love, embrace, belonging, and so much more, belong to God alone.

He allows men to contort and misuse His words for a time.  But this place of Glory has promised to utterly silence rebellion and hatred for what is good.  Even the carefully crafted wicked ways of man can’t conceal the message of God.

Look around you and listen with truthful ears.  You will hear the story of God everywhere. Whispers of His promise and Holy ways drip from the mouths of man like honey from a bountiful Bee hive. Remember these things: Even pigs end up as bacon.  And the earth renders its gifts to the vilest of hearts.  Yet dust settles back to earth.  Night comes upon all when it is time.  And everything that lives here has a place where it becomes consumed by something greater.

So will it be when He rips this curtain away which surrounds us now.  All we now know will be completely vaporized; it will meet oblivion face to face.  Then, what we have not known will appear.  Then all men will stand on ground they have never known.  That obscure story that men can’t avoid telling will ring out clearly visible; palpable to the senses and utterly unavoidable.  And accounting will begin.

I saw a young man getting a ticket along-side the road.  I looked at him as I passed by on the other side of the road.  He saw my gaze and turned his head, provoked by shame to avoid me.  He was able to avoid me by simply looking somewhere else.  And the burning sense of shame was averted by differing scenery.  This will not be available when we stand on that Holy ground of God’s eternity.  No matter where we look we will encounter His Glory.  Guilt will overwhelm every sense of pride.  And no wicked heart will be able to stand.  To their knees they will fall with a thud.  As one mass they will render Glory to the Lord of Life, Jesus.  And evil lips, which once spoke involuntarily the message of God, will remember how they tried to stifle His words.

Take heed to this message, you who hate the Lord.  When the day appears it will be as if there had been no days before.  As it is now, you live in the moment of “Now”.  So it will be on that moment of stark encounter.

And to all of us, who restrain the Love of God within us, take heed.  What you are restraining will burst forth regardless your will to restrain.  On that day we will give up what we did not use.  Perhaps we will witness it leaving.  And we will be abjectly ashamed that we held back the message here.

This message is to all men, Christians, worldly religious, and the willful sinners.  For no man will escape that moment of confrontation.  It is a place in time that will not be taken out of the way regardless man’s willingness to believe it.  Look on the horizon of your life.  See that glow at the gate of your departure?  See how that light glows in a curiously pure light?  It approaches because time is forcing you to move toward it.  Prepare now!  Clean your life and subject yourself to His Holy message.  Do not embrace folly.  Embrace truth!

Amen!  Many men will die the death of eternal shame.  A handful will live. Those who submit to the Lordship of the Son of God, washing their lives with His Holy commands and leadership, will live.  All others will encounter a horribly deep shame.  Silence will embrace wicked lips.  The backs of the proud will be broken from their stiff ways.  Hands which took what was not theirs will fall limp to the hips.  Heads will bow low for inability to gaze at perfection.  And bodies will quake with fear at the unveiling of Blazing Holiness.

This message has been delivered from the moment of creation, and is faithfully delivered even today.  The Spirit of God will not contend with the pride of man forever.  There is a day of completion.  And it will appear violently on all men.  Even so, Lord Jesus, come.

By His Grace.

 

“Do-Less-Ness” is Not a Gift of the Spirit

by

0


My Work Bag

My Work Bag (Photo credit: pennuja)

One of the hardest lessons for the chronically poor to learn is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done.  I know there are many who are poor yet are very diligent in what needs to be done.  But it has also been my personal experience (and observation of others) that a certain “do-less-ness” attends the daily routine of many.

Perhaps it’s fear of confrontation that blocks dutiful behavior.  Perhaps it’s just that they focus on matters they deem more important.  Perhaps there are other reasons.  But the bottom line is that when we know what we ought to do and do not do it, we encounter a guilty conscience.  This guilt leads to introverted behavior in many fashions. And, in the end, we own a large portion of “sucky life”.

This is a truth that should be embraced by every Christian.  We expose our faith by our living habits.  And we often drag down the Beautiful Lord Jesus’ reputation by allowing our own to become soiled with neglect.  I can’t imagine what this place would look like if God took on that same “do-less” behavior.

I’m not chiding anyone with this post.  I’m pointing out a truth we should all consider as we serve the Lord.

Stupid Intelligence

by

0


Stupid signs

Stupid signs (Photo credit: pkevinconnell)

I cannot understand us.  How do I put this?  I guess I’ll start with what we all know.

Men love selfishness.  And I guess that’s natural.  I’ve often said that we are born defensive.  After all, we can’t get outside our vulnerable skin.  So we are on the defensive from the moment we notice we have fingers.  Ok, I got that.

Now I know that this selfishness lends itself to rebellion against manipulation of any kind.  Even if we try to help another man understand his responsibility to others, it’s like pulling teeth without pain-killer.  Isn’t that what we face raising teens?

And what if a teen has not learned responsibility when it was due to learn?  He becomes an adult full of selfish and childish attitudes about life.  In this way, we see rebellious adults all over the place.  So we know about rebellion first hand.  Yea?  I think we can all nod about that.

Now we don’t really know a whole lot about pure good and perfect responsible behavior.  We all take stabs at it as best we can.  But we all know we fall short of purity in one way or another.  Again, I think we can all nod to that.

Here is what I don’t get:

Perfect isn’t a word that lends itself to interpretation.  Perfect is perfect.  That also means perfect is eternal by nature.  So why do we find men trying to water down the word “perfect”?  Why don’t we find them, instead, admitting that they are far less than perfect?

I am astounded that certain men, who know better, believe and teach something other than the whole Gospel.  Some how they have been duped into something far less than the perfect message of the Gospel.  And they seem to think that it’s ok to just kind of tear away at the concept of perfect.  I’m sorry.  I’m just amazed at us!  In the end we have to say this (as it was said by that wonderfully deficient character), “Stupid is what Stupid does.”