Tag Archives: Learning

Honoring HIM, Thus Entering IN.

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The Lord Jesus spoke His Holy Father’s name by doing His eternal will.

As the Word of God has done, so will do His faithful few.

Let us pray.

Let us learn.

Let us praise Him.

Let us sing to His Holy Honor.

Let us remember, as if we reattached an arm.

But above all things, let us speak His Holy name by the “doing” of it.

The Lord says,

“These people come near to me with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me

is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Isaiah 29: 13)

It is not profitable that we should speak His Holy name by the use of our lips only.

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”  (Matthew 7)

Why should those who read the words of this servant, not see his face on that Holy Day?  Why should we not congregate around the Holy One with joy?  Is it right that anyone who hears the words He gives me, not be with me in eternal joy?

He does not ask too much.  He provides everything we need to enter into His Holy joy forever.  If we do not have, it is because we will not retain.  But if we will become diligent, we will enter in with an inexpressible joy.  Fear nothing!  He is willingly with you.

Knowledge and Doing

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If you want to receive the blessing of God.  If you want to become a real Christian.  Then set your mind, and very will, to do the things you know he requires.

Where many stand confused, is that they misperceive knowing for doing.  A man may know how to drive a car, but never start the engine.  The transforming power of knowledge comes in the doing of it.

God will surely bless the one who does what he is told to do.  There is no other path to the blessing of God in Christ.

By His Grace

No Time for Prayer

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I know what men are saying in their hearts, “There is no time for prayer”.  I know this because I have not only heard them say it, but I have said it myself.

But a different season has come upon me, and this by the loving mercy of the Living God.  A time when prayer lengthens.  A time that is not only filled with requests, it is also filled with a lingering.  And it is in this lingering that I begin to understand what I did not know before.

But as to what men say, that there is no time for prayer.  Let me ask a question.  How much time have you spent in your life retracing your steps from things you knew you could have done?

I have heard people say, “There is no time to make a list!  I must go and do what must be done”.  And in their anxious haste, they spend more time trying to remember than it would have taken them to make a list.

That is the life, comparablely to prayer.   Do you believe this yet?  Are you at least willing to try to prove me wrong? 

By His Grace

Losing the War

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I have made complaint, over and over, as to how the world is plummeting to destruction.  I have said, over and over, it is because they denied the truth of the living God among them.  But this morning, understanding comes, as to the mechanics of this plummeting to destruction.

No doubt this subject requires a rather lengthy book.  But I am forced by the willing restraint of the reader to keep it short.  Keeping it short however, will mean a loss of important trains of thought.  So I will leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks.

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I do as my daddy taught me.  His teaching is like a shadow lurking in my mind.  I listened to him speak.  I watched him act.  I gathered the trains of thought in his mind and made them my own.  So also, was the influence of my mother. 

To some extent, their example remains within me.  No matter how I try to shake it with the truth of God, I cannot completely undo their influence.

This is true of every man and woman.  The better the example of truth, the more readily truth is received when we mature. 

But let us now look to the larger scale of things.  Adam and Eve could have told us what perfection was like.  Not so our parents.  And if the destruction of truth was made apparent in Cain, their son, how much more so is it today?

On and on, through the generations to now, the truth has been obscured and forsaken.  If perfection was squandered within one generation how much more so now?

The miracle of change is not the destruction of society.  (The constant pulling away from what is real) The miracle is that truth even remains at all.   The miracle is that the human race is not destroyed already.

What has prevented complete and catastrophic failure in humanity?  The power of God has restrained destruction among us.  As it is written, “Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 1:9)

The world speaks of truth as it applies to society at the moment.  But God has raised up men and women who know the truth according to Eternity.  They have lived among us and taught what they knew.  Those whom God inspired, listened to them and did likewise.

If we want to know why we continue to fail, it is because of the unseen shadow of lies we were taught as children.  Add to that, our natural proclivity toward rebelion, and destruction will run rampant in our streets.

To whatever degree we find ourselves willing to obey the Living God in Christ Jesus, we will become shining examples of what is true and faultless.  But to whatever extent we agree with man, that truth is relative, we will remain filthy examples of rebellion.  (Of which, by the way, are vastly more than those who teach the truth.)

A man’s response to these things, is determined by his desire to love the living God.  Will he allow himself to be used as an agent of truth; helping to sustain life?  Or will he continue in his fellowship with the agents of destruction?

The Lord Jesus is able to change a man’s perception.  Many things we were taught as children remain.  But they are subdued by His holy words that live within us. 

The choice belongs to every man to accept or reject this message.

I will add this final note.

The world will be destroyed. 

The moment will come when God will send His Holy Son take all of his people from this place.  Along with the absence of these people will be the absence of His Holy Spirit among men; that Great Spirit of influence that saves humanity from utter, and catastrophic failure.

Consider this, if you are willing.  When the Lord returns, this place will plummet to destruction.  Violence, chaos, illicit and immoral behavior, will become the norm, within a day. 

Within 24 hours blood will fill every street.  Hatred and violence will rise as the preeminent behavior of all men.  Add to that, the horrors God has promised to unveil in that time. 

We live as a people under duress.   By compulsion we are forced to grapple with these things.  We want to live.  But by ourselves there is no eternal life in us.  We are only wicked animals waiting to devour one another.

You, like I am, are forced to make a choice.  Receive the Lord Jesus, and obey Him, or die a most hideous death for eternity.  The wicked nature of man has no place in heaven.  And without the restraint of God’s Holy Spirit we are nothing more than wicked animals.  Those who think otherwise are convinced of the lie they were taught as children.

The Lord Jesus will return without notice.  It could be today.  It could be a hundred years from now.  It will certainly be when you die and leave this place. 

We are under duress let’s make a choice.

By His Grace

The Invisible Bridge

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I have found something interesting, something I have known, but not fully understood.  The elders talk about it.  The Deacons point toward it.  The world denies it with frothing lips.  It remains, however, before every child of God to encounter.

The majority of our walk before Christ Jesus is spent in discovery.  We cannot use excuse, before the Holy One, for our disobedience.  Yet there are reasons why we falter as we do.  Discovering these reasons comes hand in hand with growth toward maturity.

We learn not to blame anyone for our fault.  Yet we recognize that the whole of humanity has caused every sin.  And in this way, the Lord Jesus teaches us to sacrifice blame for personal responsibility.

But what shall a man do when he understands this as fully as his mind is able?  What shall we do when a man finds himself repeating offenses yet finds no one but himself to blame?

Here a man comes face to face with the fullness of the gospel.  No longer perceiving as a child.  Now he perceives as a man.  The fullness of blame rests on the one who has sinned, rests heavily.

From here one can receive the forgiveness of Christ with renewed interest.  From here the glory of God takes a prominence in all his thoughts.  The man no longer tosses about the subject of blame or innocence.  Condemnation becomes exceedingly personal.  Here the glory of God rages even brighter to consume his enemies.  Here the glory of God’s mercy blazes even brighter within the flame.

I have come to discover: the Glory of Christ Jesus is stronger than our sins.  Not only in his teaching, but more so in our learning.

If you continue in the way you will discover this also.  It is the crossing of an invisible bridge.  And I speak of it so that when you yourself encounter this, there will be memory within you.

It is a difficult place to encounter.  For here a man is starkly naked before the Holy One.  But having reached the other side of the bridge I can testify, “Even in this he is able to save”.

It may well be you do not understand what I’m saying.  But the time for every man will appear.  I will try it with one example to express this in understandable terms.

As a man goes to a school of learning, he learns enough to do his trade.  But he has yet to enter the workforce and apply it.  Often the world will scoff at the little bookworm who seems to know all. 

But one day he goes to work and understands why they laughed.  He presupposed his importance.  And difficulties have proved his knowledge insufficient.

Now he grapples with humility.  Now he is faced to join them in their derision of the novice.  Yet even while he makes fun of pretense, he is forced to remember that he once also walked in that way.

What comes from this place I do not know.  It is not as though these things happen among men.  But this has come to me before the Holy One in all its brilliance.  Stark and true, it shines a light within my soul to illuminate every possible miscarriage of righteousness.

May understanding come in due time.  I enter into this place in full view of those who have gone before me.  And I speak of this with the humility that knows others have understood this long before I arrived.  And I have to confess the question, “Do I yet understand as I should?

By His Grace

Truancy

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Society is less when a child refuses to go to school.  What he may have become is stunted by rebellion.  There may be extenuating circumstances, but there is loss just the same.

A man is commissioned to go and find such children.  It is his sworn duty to send them on their way, back to where they belong.

He discharges his duties according to the rules of all men.  It is not his duty to consider the reasons why child is not where he belongs.

Thus it is with those who proclaim the Gospel.  Men are not where they belong, and must be sent back.  It is our rightful duty to proclaim.  And so we discharge with faithfulness and boldness.

We are sent by the Great Teacher.  To turn back, or to be timid in our duties, is treason.  And so we continue despite the grumbling of the truant children of God.

Heaven is less by their truancy.  What they may have become, what good they could do, and what joy they may own as true citizens, is squandered in their rebellion.  There may be extenuating circumstances, but there is loss nonetheless.

Turn yourselves in.  Go and confess your responsibility for the loss you have caused.  Then be prepared to sit and learn.  It is your rightful duty to do so.

There is a law from the Holy One.  Those who disregarded will pay a serious price.

There is a desire from God, written in the very blood of His Holy Son.  He desires to include all men in eternity.  But those who remain steadfast in their rebellion, will most assuredly be cut off.

I speak these things to send you back.  My duty is accomplished.  From here the duty is yours.  Discontinue your truancy before the Most High God or die.