Tag Archives: Lord

The Orphaned Altar

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During an exquisite time of visitation from God this morning, I fell upon something that gave me the child’s belly laugh for a while. Though I tried to sober up and stop chuckling, it kept coming back. Much like a living cartoon from the Far Side.

Today’s times are not what they were in the day of Abraham. Such visitations from God inspired those beautiful men to lay an altar of stones in a place here or there. They were a testimony to HIS love and faithfulness. And people well respected them as long as they understood the reason for the pile.

But after this beautiful visitation from our God, shall I gather a few stones and make a small altar to his love? He came upon me in a truck parking lot. Yeah, let me just do that.

There is no place for understanding what is holy in today’s world. A man will come along and see a small pile of rocks on his pristine blacktop. “What kind of a fool would do a thing like this!”

Busying himself with some kind of tool, the small pile of rocks would quickly be moved back where it came from. No understanding. No sense of holy. No one does these things today. And the irony of two different days is a joke before the Holy Throne of He who inspires souls to give endless thanks for His love.

This picture of futility stirred me to pure laughter. Go ahead, someone tell me modern man is closer to God than he ever was before.

He IS

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Consider the Lord Jesus.

From the beginning the Living God spoke Living words.

This is the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God.

He IS.

Consider His testimony among us. Faithful,

He IS.

His crucifixion is not what He was.

He IS.

The machine of our sin had no hold on Him. From the Living God,

He IS.

Of the Living God,

He IS!

Billboard Hysteria

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Two women were complaining about all the Bible billboards down south. One said she was tired of being inundated about sin, Jesus, and condemnation. She made some remark to excuse herself for being callous to the words. Something like, “I know the gospel is important, I’m just tired of it being in my face all the time”.   Surprisingly, her friend agreed.  

Are you tired of hearing about God? You might want to get used to it. He owns eternity, you know. And the conversation about his glorious Son Jesus is never ending. Such people as those women are not likely to have a good time.

A Profitable Life

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The beautiful stories in the Bible, where God displayed protection for his people, are not just stories. He is willing to save his people of faith from anything in the world can deliver against them.  

Years ago, there was a video of a man on an island carrying a cross toward flowing lava. He was hoping that a symbol of God’s majesty in Christ would stop the destruction of his town. The man was set on fire from the heat.  


Do you expect God to rescue you from everything? He will. But the word “everything” includes a whole lot more than this world can hold. There are the things of heaven, compared to which nothing in this world can hold a candle.  


Death, turmoil, confusion, and violence are the nature of this place. You’re bound to get some of all of it. Trust him anyway. He has a place in his kingdom for all who put their trust in the Son of the Living God. It is written, “they will never be put to shame”.


Try hard to remember, God’s desire is not to give you a pleasant life here. That would make a mockery of his kingdom. His desire is to prove his love to you so that you can have a rightful place in glory. See what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 11.  


32 “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning;e they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.”

Proper Respect 

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“Respect your elders.”So we are told.  


“But they’re not right;

Wisdom comes not from ‘old’.”


“Well, didn’t God make them

Fore He made you,


And isn’t His Wisdom 

Greater than ‘new’?”

Hope and Help

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As a child it is not difficult to find someone who believes in you.  The only difficulty is proximity.  Are those who can believe in you close enough for you to touch and receive.  

But let childhood pass.  Let the people begin to notice your faults, and those who believe in you will quickly dissipate in number.  Now let the person become an adult, full of fault, like a filthy glass filled with reeking mud.  We will find no one left to believe in our potential [frankly, this is not an aberration. We simply don’t have any more potential to love] but those who require a payment of some kind.  The love we need, we have to buy.   Isn’t it said that the world loves the rich, while the pauper remains ignored; destitute of adoration.  

Now we see destruction run rampant in every heart.  Woe to the rich man when his money runs out.  Woe to the poor man who cannot buy love.  And especially, woe to the man who has used his mind to be loved by so many.  For the mind will surely waste away to nothing.  

You will say to me, that’s what a strong relationship is for; someone who will love you regardless your faults.  But what should you say if no such relationship comes?  And why should you hope in something that everyone knows is incredibly rare?  How many fables revolve around “true love”.

Who are you then?  You were nothing more than an empty body; hated and despised simply because you need to draw air.  Your station in love will not increase.  You will become less and less and less.  How many old folks waste away with no one left to love them?  They enter the grave poorer than they were when they were born.  

Do you think this is too harsh?  How many live like that for the majority of their life?  How many become invisible even while they are here among us?

Here I must say that Christ is enough.  He can reclaim and love and make you valuable.  But even in that love, despair returns from time to time.  We find they did not love the Lord when he was here among them.  And even God has said they have hated me for no reason, he is righteous in Christ and full to overflowing with love and potential.  How much more will they despise the unrighteousness within us?  

Most people come into this world greatly loved. But also, most people leave this world despised and empty.   Do not be fooled by the plenitude of beautiful stories.  

I could leave it like this and most people would say amen.  And I confess that today I do not have many more words in regard to this.  But I look to my own soul to find the hope of Christ that lays for us beyond the grave.  If he has proven his love for us while we are still filthy, how much more will we know his love when he takes away our mechanism of sin forever?

To the non-Christian I say, believe and experience The Hope.  To the Christian I say remember, dig deep, struggle hard against the sorrow in your heart, remember his promise.  It is enough.  When there is nothing left, he is that part of our soul that refuses to be destroyed.  

Today I do not have much strength.  I have proofed this with half my heart.  Perhaps I will come back a little while later and look it through.  But what I had to say is written here, not hard to decipher past the mistakes.