Tag Archives: Prayer

Slow Dance with a Dead Body

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It’s a really weird title, isn’t it. It draws a mental picture that probably shouldn’t be in our head. But think about the following.

Don’t we get kind of miffed if when we talk to someone they absolutely ignore us? And what if someone came to you like this: looking at the ground they mutter your name numerous times, appeal to you to listen to them, then repeat those two actions 20 times. At some point you just give up listening, turn away, and leave them as they are. It’s not that you despise them, you despise what they’re doing.

Do you think the Lord Jesus is different then we are about this? Effective prayer is real conversation. Ritualistic words are pretty much useless. Either he is our friend or he is just God.

Consider the Robin

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In the quietness before dawn, the Robin wakes to consider. Rested, healthy, feathers to preen, hunger to notice, thus a hunt to enjoy.

Following his musings (taking stock of who he is):

Publicly, loudly, shamelessly, he gives thanks to God before the hunt begins. The open window has been our seat midst the symphony.

He cannot hide his heritage. Never does he consider the miracle of flight. He is a Robin.

Can the Christian hide his heritage?

Does the Christian consider the miracle of belief?

Can the Christian desire that he were not a Christian?

Remember the Robin before he is gone for the season. He has been a faithful and radiant display of how Man should treat his own place and the God who made him.

Remember the Robin while he is gone, that faithfulness may attend your winter days. When HE returns will he find you having been faithful?

Consider, the Robin cannot be an Aardvark.

Beyond Us

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We all know that it is easy to sing praise to God when the good things are in our hands. Blessed is he who sings when his hands are full of trouble. For such is a kin to Christ as he bowed to sweat blood drops in the garden.

Wealth has its own reward, but faith in The Promise of HE WHO IS exceeds the vocabulary of Man.

Our Violent Preoccupation

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No man is capable of doing the things we say are expected of him, anymore than we ourselves can produce a crop of pure righteousness.

Why then do you ridicule your brother? Why do you say he is worthless? Isn’t it because you yourself can’t have what you want? Isn’t it because, in your own wicked eye, you perceive that he has taken something from you?

Have you been to truth? Have you been to the truth that devastates every man? Have you tasted your own condemnation? How many things have you denied your fellow man? How many things have you robbed from others simply because you exist?!

I propose your mouth would slam shut at the revealing of your own sin! That day is most assuredly coming.

The truth of Christ calls out in the streets, in your home, and in your own soul. Yet who will listen voluntarily? Who will listen until he rocks back-and-forth, recognizing his own helplessness?

Do not say you love God while you bash your brother’s soul against the rocks!

I write this as one of you. If Our God had not convicted me of my sins and taught me what is true, like you I would have nothing to say. But because I have seen what is true, (and am devastated) I am compelled to join Him in crying out in the streets. I am nothing, Christ is ALL.

Go to God in prayer. Confess your own failings. If you think you have none, ask him to show you. He is happy to reveal as much as you can stand.

I guarantee, any man to whom his sin is shown will drive his own face to the dust with remorse. His boasting, his hatred for his brothers, his sense of self righteousness, and his expectations of perfection from others will diminish radically.

Stop your ridiculous onslaught against your brother, humble yourself before God, and receive the truth.

If not today, when? Our days are numbered. The sum of them will come. Who do you want to be? Stop being preoccupied with your brother’s failings. Take a long hard look at your own.

Moments

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Sometimes in despair, a moment can seem like an entire year (perhaps even having its own particular seasons; beginning with a drought of summer yet ending in the joy of spring).

A moment owning seasons similar to a year seems a ridiculous thing to say. But then I am reminded of the faithful continuity of God. And that it is written, “. . . to everything there is a season”. From the Glories of heaven to the tiniest circumstance on earth, God’s Holiness and Glory and Righteousness are revealed.

To crown this thought with awe, this is the nature of Christ Jesus. Nothing is beyond his knowledge. Nothing is beyond his grasp. His people are forever in him. And he is always seeking to heal the wounded.

Let the seasons come and go. Let the moments be what they will. Christ Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

If you are in despair, having read this, listen to “what IS”. Christ is as near to you as your soul calling out to him.

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.