Living Mystery


Billions of things I can’t explain or understand.  But the most mysterious are those things that are in our hand.

I look at myself, I look around at all the people, I listen to my heart, I listen to the fears of others.  The mystery rises up when I look at those who call themselves Christians (even in myself).

Someone needs to explain to me why those who believe in the love of God in Christ to save us, fear so many things.  We fear sickness.  But didn’t he sustain his people for forty years in the wilderness?  Curiously, they perished for their unbelief, yet we seem to carry on their tradition.

We fear economic loss.  But didn’t he command Peter to go catch a fish, that he may pay the tax?  And didn’t the widow of Zarephath find that she had plenty to eat for her and her son while she gave residence to the Prophet?

We fear our sins and failings of the past.  Yet a single drop of the Holy Lord’s blood heals the sins of billions.  How much more his dead body?  And didn’t he say that as far as the east is from the west our sins are cast from the memory of the Living God?

What is the power of Christ if those who say they believe refuse to receive?

Yes, of all the things I can’t understand, the greatest lay our unwillingness to believe.  It is as if we say, “You will get no glory from me!”

The Storehouse of Determination


The house of light.

The storehouses of hail and snow.

The place where lightning and wind are cast abroad.

The father of rain and dew.

The womb of winter, with its ice and heavenly born frost.  (Reference job 38 for more.)

Only God knows these places and ways.  They are marvelous concepts to ponder.  Beautiful words that beckon understanding.  Yet who among us can hope to grasp their full meaning.  The fullness of them belongs to God alone.

As marvelous as they are, there is one more mystery I went to present before the Living God and His Holy Christ.  And in my presentation, I found a similarly mysterious quality.  So I write it here.  Let my fellow man ponder it while I wait for an answer. 

(Shall the answer come from the Holy Spirit of God, directly to my soul?  Or shall he send the testimony of a man, to humble my soul?  I will know I have received, when I see it appear in my will to obey.  Regardless its source of arrival, there will be joy and praise to God.)

“Where is the storehouse of determination?”

With righteous expectation, the Holy Lord commands all men to become holy before his sight.  And he does not ask too much!  For he willingly gives the strength to overcome the wickedness of this place of testing.  Let us be willing to confess, that it is we who do not provide his rightful expectation.

He has promised that a man may go to him for wisdom, with full expectation of receiving.  By this he provides the tools to accomplish His Holy will among men. 

But I find a mystery at work in this.  Why do so few accomplish his rightful expectation?  And what strength do those who overcome employ?  The answer has come to me in the form of a question.  “Where is the storehouse of determination?”

The Holy Son of God knew where it was.  And from it he drew consistently.  For he was found fully pleasing before his Father, the Living God.

It is as if each man lives in a spacious place.  It is as if his own land.  God Himself commands us to farm this place and to keep it in good order.  It is His righteous and Holy expectation that we obey.

But what should a man say if he finds a task he cannot accomplish?  Perhaps a rebellious tongue abides on his own land.  Perhaps his besetting sin grows weeds faster and taller than the righteous crop expected. 

Frustration attends the man’s land as if a rebellious servant.  What hope does such a man have to accomplish the righteous holy will of his God?  Such a man needs another tool.  Such a man needs determination!

He has seen that others have it.  He has also perceived his own lack.  Yet he knows that God is faithful to provide.  So he has searched among his things to find determination.  Still his farm proves his lack.

With the little time God gives us in our life, do we have time to search the vastness of our own land?  And what should we say, if in our search, we have not found the means to obey?  Time grows short and we are bound to appear before him.  “Do I dare appear with a lack?”

God has required it of him.  God is just in all his expectations.  But where is the storehouse of determination?  And it must be a storehouse for it is not a singular tool!  It is a constant, overflowing, and endless resource.  Therefore there must be a storehouse of vast potential.  But where is it?

Who has found this place on his own land?  It is he who has succeeded to give the Living God his rightful expectation.  It is he who can be relied upon with excellent faithfulness.  It is the kind of man who receives all the excellent titles, both from God and man.  It is he, of whom it can be said, “This one has accomplished”, or “Well done thou good and faithful servant”.

So I ask again, with a hope of mist around me, that some man may answer me.  Or that God himself will lead me to it.  “Where is the storehouse of determination?”

By His Grace

Worthy Words


As is always the case, “soul supply” correctly nails the vibrancy of Christmas.  Below is a worthy read for all men, but especially for the faithful brothers in the body of Christ.

http://www.soulsupply.com/m/12908?contact_id=2544382&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailflex&utm_campaign=Making_Sense_of_Christmas_from_the_New_Testament&utm_content=view_in_browser&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailflex&utm_campaign=Making_Sense_of_Christmas_from_the_New_Testament&utm_content=Click_here&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailflex&utm_campaign=Making_Sense_of_Christmas_from_the_New_Testament&utm_content=Click_here

By His Grace

The Family of Seeds


The Majesty of God is first.  And there are endless reasons why.

There is not one seed man has, that he has not received from the generations past.  From before Adam, God created.  And what we have today has been sustained by the Holy Lord Jesus. 

He has brought with us, to “today”, all the things necessary to survive.  And here we find ourselves living in a time that is “today”.  Glory belongs to the One who has brought us here.

Let a man stop and consider.  What is placed on his table at dinner time comes from seeds that passed through the hands of billions.  Countless men and women have planted, and you receive their benefit.

When spring comes again, and the garden is planted, let a man take a close look at the seed he puts in the ground.  Try to imagine where this seed’s family has been.

Did Noah touch its ancestor?  Did Cain plant what you now hold?  How far back, in the time of man, does this “passing down” of that little seed go?

As it is with the food we eat, so it is with the Holy Word of God.  Yet even more so!  For God created all these things we have from what was not.  But his Holy Word is delivered to us from eternity; more than trillions of centuries before the creation of anything.

Let us marvel at the things we can hold in our hand.  But let us allow ourselves to be stunned by the age of the Word of God that comes to us. 

No man can pronounce the years that God has been.  There is even great debate over how long man has been on this planet.  What is the generation of the seed you hold?  What is the generation of the day you hear God’s Word?  What year of God does man live in now?

Yet, this Holy One, in his great wisdom, has made this place that does not know his beginning.  How can man know?  He rarely thinks of the lineage of the seed he holds.  It is to his shame, he does not think of the lineage of the Word of God.

If we do not appreciate the creation in which we live, how can we appreciate the vastness of God?   Yet the opposite is also true: What shall be said of the man who looks to see these things?

By His Grace

Describing vs How


The bush limbs grow.  What man can say how?  There is a stick in the dirt.  That one only rots away.  But the one from which it was broken off grows longer and taller and thicker.  Buds appear, then the bloom.  Finally it is a joy to behold.  All in due time life appears.

Men may describe the phenomenon.  But no man knows how it is done.  And, despite the claim of science, it cannot be replicated by men.

God is life and generously gives to all, both in heaven and on earth.  No one lives who can search the deepest of God’s thoughts or intent; neither in heaven nor on earth.  Even the Holy Son of God admits some things are things that are in the hands of His Father alone.

What folly then does man possess that causes him to believe he knows?  Judge for yourself.  Which is better: to assume we do not need God’s salvation, or to humbly accept that he is all and singularly able to save?

Shall a man and say, “I have sinned therefore I am unworthy to go to God in prayer.”  Or should he rather except that God is the only source of repair?

The man of humble understanding will let God be God.  The man who is ruled by pride will choose salvation or destruction for himself.

Regardless a man’s choosing God remains God.  The man of pride does not steal from God’s glory.  But he robs God of the right to give.

I write these words.  They are true and life.  Those who accept such things will say, “Amen”.  Those who do not we’ll seal their own fate.

Salvation is like the bush.  Men may be able to describe holiness as it appears.  But not a single one can say how.

The Mystery of Testimony


Jesus has left us to our own.  But He has not left us on our own.

Men speak as men know.  Yet there is provoking from Above.

We translate a rose, seen by the eye.  Telling of our vision by words of limit.

Yet we know of things our tongues cannot pronounce. 

No eye has seen these things.  So how is it that we proclaim what we cannot speak?

God has done this.  He has created a place where rumors abound.

A great lie has gone forth from ages past.  And God has made a place for it to live.

It is as if a puddle of mud has a drop of milk added to it every moment or two.

What fantastic mysteries is this place of testing!

By His Grace.