Tag Archives: Holiness

Mr. “No-Name” (Who’s that?)

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Imagine living your life without any name.  It might be impossible to us to imagine that.  For we are named from our birth.  And even at our death, out name is placed on our grave.

But unless you receive the Mercy of God in Christ Jesus His Holy Son, your name will be utterly blotted out of eternity.  You will not be mentioned or thought of ever again.  You will cease to be of any importance at all.

For now a man might be important by causing trouble.  If he is incapable of any righteous behavior, at least he can be known for wickedness.  How many wicked men have bragged that others will remember them by their violent behavior?  But that “name” will be taken away.  Even your opinion will not be honored with thought at all.

This is the promise of God toward the unholy, unrighteous, rebellious, those who love false religion, those who love pleasure of the world more than the Righteousness of God, and those who worship anything other than the Living God.

Perhaps you have not considered this.  It is likely.  For it is impossible to imagine living our entire life without a name.

You may say, “I don’t believe any of what you’ve written here.  You’re simply a self-righteous bigot who hates the freedom of man.”  What is such boasting to me?  If you continue in that way, your name will cease.  You will find your end.  You won’t cease because I have told you these things.  The Holy Lord will establish His eternity.  No wicked thing will be allowed to continue past that point.  A new “age” of righteous men made perfect will appear.  And all who have despised the Lord will simply vanish.  “You will look for them but they will not be found.”

The Lord has prepared a staggeringly beautiful place for all who love Him.  Do you seriously think you will be of any importance at all when His people enter the place the Lord has prepared for those who love Him?  No.

You will know your own death.  You will cease to be.  What will that be to those who serve the Living God forever?  Why would you point your finger at such as me?  Why would you chose to blame others for the unholy faults you now embrace?

 

Warnings vs The Power of God

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Christians are warned, all day long, to abstain from a variety of worldly delights.   “Don’t watch questionable movies.  Don’t listen to ungodly music.  Don’t read the books printed by godless souls.  Don’t dress to entice or to display your wealth.  Don’t purchase necessities that are ornamented to promote your position in life.  Watch your tongue, lest you speak filthy words.  Love everyone with a godly love.”  On and on it goes.  Warnings are spouted day and night.  And even I have warned against many such things.

But do the warnings work?  Or do they do more harm than good?

Take a look at the members of your church.  Consider those you know who profess themselves to be Christian.  I’m not asking you to judge them.  I’m asking you to assess the viability of warnings.  Do you see holy living appear in most professing Christians?

There is a distinct difference between obeying the words of another, and becoming obedient yourself.  If you are doing simply because someone told you to do, you are falling short of the possible height to which God can raise you.

Those who warn you are doing so from two possible sources.  Either they have heard or read that such warnings are useful.  Or they have come to understand the Christian life personally.

To read about the life of a saint is a good thing.  But to use the writings to create your own Christianity is not a good thing.  “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder builds in vain.”  Don’t only emulate what is good.  Come to know the Living God through Christ Jesus yourself.  Then you will begin to see His Holy hand create the things of Christ within you.

When He is your God (and you cease from allowing the understanding of others be the power of God within you) you will see a transformed life that requires no work from you.  For now, you work hard to remember how to act and do righteousness.  But when the power of the Spirit dresses your soul, your heart becomes transformed to emulate the Living God.

Warnings no longer apply to you.  Now you see possibilities.  Your mind is freed from concentration on the words and lives of others.  Now you become one of those whose life can be an example of all that is holy among men.

Yeah but, what about what’s up?

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Flock of barncale geese on autumn migration.

Flock of barncale geese on autumn migration. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was waxing the car and my little dog was standing near me.  I heard some geese approaching.  I told her to look for the bird.  She got busy lookin.  Problem is, she kept looking straight ahead.  She never did see the geese.

Later, as I was driving, the incident helped me in a rather startling way, to understand something from an entirely different perspective.  She help me understand salvation from a dog’s perspective.

The sea is not teeming with animals.  Neither is the sky.  The teeming happens on the ground.  I have heard there are plenty of times you could be underwater and never see a fish.  And more times than not,  I can look up at the sky and not see a bird.  But the bugs and germs and animals and humans and birds and snakes……..  It just goes on and on, on the ground.

There are evil man who never touch the ground, in a manner of speaking.  They do they’re evil deeds out of the sight of men.  They are more of the demonic than human.

The majority of men however live their life in full sight of one another.    These folks just strive to survive.  They are neither overtly wicked nor coveting holiness.  These are the type that if you told them to look for God they would not look up.  They would look for a miracle.

But like the birds, there are a few who inhabit heaven. The majority of these men get their subsistence from the earth but they are not bound to it.  Their natural habitat is the sky.  They do not own the neck of a dog.  To look up and to go up is more natural for them then to remain on the earth.

As for hope for the others: the Lord Himself has made these people who inhabit the sky. And he is quite able to transform any who ask.  Finally, let us remember that there are such things as flying fish and flying squirrels ( not to mention bats and such.)

Pure

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In the early days of Christianity the word pure did not have the same definition as it does today. Today we might think about pure sugar, pure water, pure chemicals and the like.  These things are edible or usable because they are pure. But we say “pure” from our own perspective.  We who are impure call something better by a word that does not apply to us.

We all die and we will all appear before the Pure God.  Most people are aware of this truth.  But few give the concept the priority it demands.  To clarify what I’m trying to say let me play with a concept for a minute.

Let’s say I had a disintegrator gun and it was set to simply remove impure attributes. You consent (by signing 437 consent forms) and I begin to remove from you the things that are impure.

First the ray works on your clothing for it was made with impure thread.  Then the dirt on your skin is its object, for the dirt is impure.  When it reaches the end of the dirt it find your skin but your skin is not pure, it is removed.  Next your bones and organs until finally all that is left is your soul.  But will the ray stop there?  Sadly no.  Now it goes after lies of every sort.

When the ray is finished we take note of you that you are a micro- scopic speck of existence. That’s all of you that was true.

While I’m finishing up this article someone says “wait”! The scientists who were wielding the gun come running to me.  “Sir I’m sorry we have to admit to an error. The speck of life form we detected is not the person we begin with. Apparently the speck is simply the essence of life.  We have determined that the speck belongs to God.  Sir there is nothing left of the person we begin with”.

My bad,………………

The Command of Yearning

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It has been popular to attribute the entirety of salvation to the work of God.  In one fashion this is absolute and true.  For He alone is to be desired.  He alone is Righteous, pure, and eternal.  What lacks, quite often, in this formulation of thought regarding the entirety of salvation, is the work of man.

It is reserved by the Rule of God that man should play an essential part in his own salvation.  It is given to man to yearn for God.  This is the part we are commanded to play in the salvation of our souls.  And this is the very part that is horribly lacking among men.  If it is commanded and is lacking what shall be the outcome of those who rebel against this commandment of God?

Men prefer to yearn for the things of this world.  These are lazy in their approach and shall not receive blessing.  And because of this worldly yearning heaven will not be granted to them.  The Righteousness of God does not inhabit the wickedness associated with the things of this world.

Therefore let us put aside all the yearning after the things of this world and fall on our faces to learn what it means to yearn after the Holiness, Righteousness, Purity, and Godly Love which waits to embrace every soul who will humble themselves and seek His face with that commanded yearning.

Learning to Be Happy With Chaos

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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.