Tag Archives: Lord

How to Make Friends?

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Some days are clarity.  Some days are a fog of stupidity.  These are three posts I made on facebook this morning.

Like getting little children to eat what’s good for them (and worse), it is impossible to convince most people that serving the Lord Jesus is the very best of life.  Try to force, if you want to, but you’ll end up simply smearing the Gospel in places where it’s not welcome.

Look to do what the Lord has placed right into your lap.  We are told to do good for the family of God and to live such good lives that even if we are accused our lives will prove otherwise.  But if our lap is covered with materialism and selfishness, how can we see what the Lord has put there?  Stand up. Empty your lap.  Then you can see what remains.

Why are so many transfixed on the body?  It is as though their body is the ultimate religion.   Don’t they realize that in just a very little while that body they love so much will be a rotten stench and food for worms?  The priorities of man are so very trivial and foolish.  It is the soul that should get all that attention.  That is the part of you that will remain forever.  Either to your horror or to your great joy.

Listening to Glenn Beck panic.  He thinks America can reverse the current direction by uniting as a people.  I doubt that he will recognize that it is God who is allowing this degeneration of America.  The only way out is to individually unite with Jesus.  This might not stop what is happening.  But it will ensure that we have a distinct hope where others won’t.

 

Are there rumors about you being spread?  Are they bad?  Personally, I have no doubt that rumors have floated about regarding me.  And likely many of them are bad.  I find it easy to shed the burden of this plight.  For if those who spread the rumors knew the truth about me, they would kill me.  What power, then, does any rumor have that the truth hasn’t already supplied?

You judge for yourself how they received.  I didn’t expect to make friends by posting them.

Do You Have the Courage to Live?

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Symbol: alpha omega

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In any confrontation there are men who will endure what comes toward them.  We call them courageous men.  We admire these men.  The wise soldier will admire that same trait in his enemy.  I don’t mean that he agrees with all that his enemy believes.  But the courageous soldier will give proper respect to the potential of that enemy who has no fear.  To lack respect for such a man is to commit yourself to death.  Because that enemy will kill you.

We do not encounter God without ultimate respect.  He never lies.  He is always ready to receive as well as punish.  He is absolute love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope.  But respect of the Holy One also tells us that He does not allow ANY sin to come before Him.  This is the nature of the Gospel.  We do have a High Priest in Jesus who is able to bring us before the Father with clean clothes, heart, soul, and mind.  But being able has a restriction.  The will of man will not be circumvented.  If you wish to live in sin, in sin you will be allowed to live.  If you wish to be free of sin, then free from sin the Lord is able to cause you to be.

I wrote this post to bring up a subject that is rarely heard.  We all know a list of sins that God will not receive in His people.  But there is a sin that rarely gets mentioned anymore.  Revelation tells us something wonderfully, and fearfully beautiful.  Along with all the things we know aren’t righteous, God states one more.

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”  (Rev. 21)

Cowards will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!  I won’t bother to go much farther with this.  I simply wanted to make that point.  However, I will mention that man’s perception of God (that is to say how man without the Spirit of God perceives God) sees Him with fear.  This is much like a wall of fire that stands between God and man.  We are forced to believe in the power of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice in order to walk into that fire and find the embrace of the Most High God.  A coward will get close to the flames and turn around.  It takes a courageous heart to believe in what God has said regarding His Son.

By His Grace.

Remember!

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The saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  I don’t believe this is true.  But it’s a good place to start this entry.

What have I learned from a recent battle against unbelief?  I’ve learned to pray for wisdom the very second I realize that I’m up against something “not quite right.”  I’ve learned to look for certain phrases and catch words that liberals use in the traps they lay for those who promote the Living God in truth.  I’ve learned, also, to look at the words surrounding those expected traps.  This might be called listening.  I’ve learned that there is such a thing as what I will call “sugar watered gospel”, which is no gospel at all.  I’ve learned that there is a “bitter truth” attached to the Gospel of Jesus.  The sugar and the bitter collide on the tongues of the proud and the humble.  Sugar is for those who remain in pride as they search out the things of God.  By its very nature pride waters down and sweetens the message of God so that the man of pride might remain proud.  This is a horrible plight for those who embrace false teachings.  Everything they learn gets filtered through the “broad way.”  The bitter, on the other hand, causes a man to fall to his knees with reverence to the Holy Law of God.  These things I have learned.

And one more thing I have learned.  I say I have learned it but . . .  I should have remembered it, for I knew it before.  Perhaps it was the heat of the battle that caused me to forget.  Perhaps it was the awe in me that men could be so very stubborn and wrong.  Perhaps it was that I was cast out by reason of the truth they would not accept.

What did I learn (again)?  I learned to pray for those of that encounter.  I too was once in utter darkness.  I too groped around like a blind man seeking “The Way”.  Even now I find that my forgetting is a sign of blindness.  I should have known.  I should have had mercy on those who bantered their way with His.  Though they thought that I was simply an obsticle to be absorbed or thrown out of the way, it was not my duty to remain their enemy.  They are enemies to themselves by opposing the Lord.  So was I, at one time.  I have learned to strive to remember.  I have learned that when the sweat of battle has evaporated, when breath slows to normal, when the blood has caked on my skin, PRAY for mercy.  Pray that their eyes would be opened.  Pray that they would read the Bible.  Pray that when they do read the Bible, that they perceive the Living God among the words.

I should have remembered.  But the Lord, in His marvelous kindness, reminded me.  Tossing on my bed all night, unable to sleep, He reminded me.  For this I give Him praise.  Not that there was a battle, not that I knew which side I was on, and not that I walked away having left a legacy of the TRUTH.  I praise Him for being merciful to me.  I praise Him that He was gracious enough to remind me to pray for those who oppose The Way.

I apologize to those with whom I fought.  I do not apologize for bringing the truth to bear on the false hood they embrace.  I apologize for not remembering that it is God alone who opens the eyes of the Blind.  May His Holy Will be done forever, for He alone is Good.    Amen.

English: The Mercy Seat, illustration from the...

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The Weight of God

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Heavy hearts, heavy clouds

Heavy hearts, heavy clouds (Photo credit: dhammza)

A heavy heart is not always a bad thing.  Knowing the Lord can cause a man to regret time spent idle when he should have been growing in understanding of the things of God.

Because of this heaviness, I find myself desiring to grow.  A desire rages inside that heavy heart like the center of a seed.  The shell of a seed is hard because it has to be.  It is protecting what is inside it.  Ain’t that why we call it a shell?  Perhaps that heaviness is a shell under attack from the soil.  It begins to rot so that the interior can burst forth.

Regardless, a heavy heart is not always a bad thing.

Why Write?

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English: The Psalms scroll, one of the Dead Se...

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This morning I am wondering why I write these things.  Few read them, less care, most are irritated that I would point a finger so often and intently at sin.  Then I have relationships in my life to deal with.  There are many who do not subscribe to the harsh elements of the Lord’s teachings.  They would desire that the Lord simply save all mankind, regardless each man’s standing with sin or holiness.  It’s a puzzle to me why I continue to write.

One reason to write is that there are very few who will take a serious and active stand against the wickedness of man.  I would guess there are many reasons for that; shame, fear, unbelief, ignorance, and even a hatred for what is good.  So I write to fill the gap that they leave.

Another reason I write all these things is because they are true.  God has spoken all that man needs to know to be saved.  There are blessings to be had for those who listen to His warnings and obey.  And there are promises for those who remain in wickedness, unbelief, and hatred.  I will face Him soon enough, as will all men, and I don’t want to say, “I didn’t because . . .”

I write these things because of Elijah, Moses, Enoch, Gideon, Chuck Swindoll, Herman Wilson, Peter, Luke, Matthew, and the list can go on for a very long time.  They gave their lives, reputation, and earthly places for the Gospel.  Surely they pondered why they would risk everything for the sake of a message that few would hear, let alone respond favorably.

In the end, I write because the Lord Jesus is worthy of these words!  I do not write for me.  I write for the sake of my Lord, commander, and God.  May He bless the words with fruit as He sees fit.  In the mean time, I write.

Matthew 25: 1-13

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Antique bronze oil lamp with the "Chi Rho...

Image via WikipediaOil lamp (Photo credit: ralphunden)

I found this at http://www.redskyatnight.com/oil.html  “Adjust wick so that it shows just over the top of the wick tube and make sure it is level and straight. Trim with sharp scissors is necessary.”

Oil lampThey are talking about how to best use an oil lamp.  I know that our oil lamps are not quite like those in the days of Jesus’ ministry here on earth.  But it does give us some helpful advise.

Adjust your testimony so that it shows just over the top of your head.  This action causes you to become less and the Lord’s will to become more.  For, after all, this is the place of Light.  Make sure you’re walking a straight life before the Lord.  And trim with the sharp sword of the Word of God, if necessary.