The Coming Consumption


Inheritance is the wine.
Social order is the aging wine skin.

It’s nearly time to pour out the contents.
Lest the wine skin burst in a great torrent.

Grapes do not drink wine.
It is the caretakers who consume.

The wine does not know it is contained.
It only perceives itself as preeminent.

Still, the delicacy of human tradition will be poured out for consumption.
Each caretaker to consume his portion.

Who, among men, give this considerable thought?

Formation


With decades ahead of them, praise in their hand,

The young folks will seek the good of the land.

What could they know of what lay ahead;

How sorrows will drench their unkempt bed.

They’ll grow old soon enough when wisdom comes home,

When abandon comes knocking; leaving them all alone.

Everyone’s salted with fire, you know.

Oh, how paleness replaces that once youthful glow.

But who can advise those who simply won’t die,

To replace youthful lust with Eternity’s eye:

Tell them once, tell them twice, tell them three times, why more?

Your words can’t draw pictures of what lay in store.

Pray for them deeply.

Love them through Christ.

Pray they’ll live meekly.

Lest their hearts turn to ice

When Morning Comes


It’s time to wake,

To do and to be;

Property of my God –

Exclusively.

By His Grace

“Made for Profit”


Companies are not ruled by insane men.  They create a product for the sake of making money.  For instance, they don’t make diapers just so they can store them in a warehouse.  No, they find the parents of poopy babies and advertise their product to them.

No automaker makes cars just so he can warehouse them in some underground bunker.  They selectively advertise their products so they can sell it.  They’re in business to make money folks!

The church is set aside to serve the Living God in the manner of saving souls.  To speak in the vulgarity of man, the church is a business.  The machinery is the people of God.  The output is called godly transformation.  Evangelism: the advertising campaign designed to bring in profit.

But isn’t the church so unlike the reasonable men of the world?  For only in the Christian Church do you see the warehousing of product with no intent to sell!

You know what the problem is?  You don’t believe in your product.

I’ll leave this to stew in your mind.

By His Grace

Growth in Christ (recovery from chaos)


No one sins all the time.  That’s just not physically possible.  Every man has a lucid moment from time to time, at least.  And because of the weakness of the body, sleep must come.

When you have those lucid moments, make the best of it.  Search out the message of the Gospel, and do it quickly.  Just as the chaos of sin cannot last forever, our lucid moments pass even quicker. 

Just as a man who wakes after a night of heavy drinking finds himself pondering what happened and why, such thoughts are signs of a lucid moment.  Treat them as a welcome friend.

Raise whatever faith you have to the surface of your conscience, and believe.  You may not have the answers.  But then is the time to approach the One who does.  And if growth is to become a part of our experience, the answer must be found in the Christ of the Living God, Jesus.

Every man is like a disturbance at the bottom of the sea.  At birth the seafloor rises in a certain place.  Then as the man grows and does the good things of God, his disturbance becomes a mound.

If the man will train his soul to listen to the words of God, eventually the nature of what he, is breaks the surface of the waters.  This “breaking forth”, lends itself to all manner of Life.

Dust in the air settles between the cracks of rock.  Storms whittle down the sharp edges, causing the filings to fill in the gaps.  The birds of the air come and deposit a few seeds.  In time, the man becomes more then a disturbance in the sea; by his nature he lends himself to the utility of the heavens.

The growth at the bottom begins when the lucid moments of a man are captured for “Good” intent.  I will admit that there are far more mounds that never break the surface of the sea, than are those who become useful to God.

And don’t we see this played out in creation, in the fact that there is more space of water on the earth than land exposed to the air.  More places for slime and few places of dazzling beauty.

But now in the emergence of the man above the surface of the waters, there comes many a travail.  Parts of the exposed land occasionally break off and fall back into the sea.  Part of the work is wasted.  But that should not stop the land from taking its rightful place.  And what broke off was not firmly committed to what must become.  Good riddance, c’est la vie.

If the use of your lucid moments has allowed you to rise above the nature of man, use them all the more as you aspire to become a place of Life.  Why remain a desolate island?

Do not let your failings cause you to plummet down under the waves.  The target here is to work diligently to produce more lucid moments than moments of chaos and decay.

If you will apply the forgiveness of Christ, as it is found in the Bible, you will find your self overcoming guilt, and far more quickly.  This does not erase what was lost.  But certainly provides more vertical growth.  And every square inch of attainment offers more potential for Life.

If you believed at the outset, if that belief has caused you to break into the air, why can’t that belief cause you to reach for the heavens?

Those who shrink back because of the storms of life, will not find themselves pleasing the soul of Jesus.  But those who believe that he cannot lie, will prosper according to the wisdom of God.  Lucid moments of righteousness will begin to grow in the place where before was nothing but chaos.

Think diligently on these things.  Apply this with diligence.  And you will find yourself growing in Christ exponentially.

When you find yourself having sinned before the Lord, in the ways you had learned and the habits you had developed, grab a hold of your belief which you had at first.  And do not delay!  When the next lucid moment comes to your mind and heart take hold and grow!

I could have held the following for another post.  But it fits so seamlessly here.

Many think that they should punish themselves after a moment of insane chaos, called sin.  Such self abuse may or may not be useful.  And I have come to understand that sometimes self abuse is only a continuance of the sin we have just committed.

It is necessary to let Jesus be God.  Who could possibly know better what is necessary and useful after restoration of lucid thought?  Should it be the one who is prone to moments of insanity, or the One who knows the very elements of righteous eternity?

I cannot speak about this to those who have not developed a relationship of communication with the Holy Lord.  A man cannot rely on his own heart to determine what should be done next.   It was, after all, your wicked heart that caused the sin and decay to abound.  Is it reasonable to trust your judgement now?

And what has been the outcome for others may not apply to you.  Prayer is necessary.  With a calm heart full of belief, wait and listen.  In reverant prayer, confess your situation to God.  Ask Him to show you what you must now do.  He will certainly respond.

Be careful not to let anxiety overwhelm you.  Anxiety is a form of self abuse.  And the best of lucid moments teach us to be at peace and trust the Living God in Christ.

If you want biblical proof of these things.  Read the story again of what David did following his sin with Bathsheba.  Take special note of how he received the judgment of God against him for his child of sin.  How is it possible that we should be any different?

By His Grace