Tag Archives: pride

Can You Explain?

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We say with some semblance of a surety, “God cannot lie”.  If that is true, then how can you explain your lack?  How is it that so many have a form of religion but deny the power of it?  You have agreed that God cannot lie!  How then are you weak, O’ Church of the Living God?

You are like those who entered near to the land of Canaan.  You testify that God will fight for you.  But you make not one step toward the war!  With proclamation of great and glorious words, you live a lie

You agree with the Holy words of Christ, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”.  But you are bound up in fear.  Are you able to explain this?

If a man buys a new car, he is filled with pride and tells all his friends about his beautiful possession.  He washes it and waxes it, parks it in a safe place, and takes great care of his great possession.  (Isn’t this true among so many of you?)  With confidence he drives it, for he trusts it with all his heart.  His heart is full of pride and joy as people see what he has.

Great big church buildings!  High-tech fills them.  The seats are plush.  The ornaments of religion are carefully and artistically drawn.  You have agreed with this construction and spent good money to accomplish your desire. Yet every Sunday, without fail, they are filled with people who do not believe!  Can you explain this?

You leave evangelism to those who are professionally trained to do.  Why?  They urge you and urge you to do the same, yet you fear to speak His Holy Name.  Can you explain this?

The power of God’s Holy Spirit and His people has become forced to hide.  There is no difference between those who say they are politically correct and those who proclaim they are Christians.  Those who worship the creation and deny the Holy God his Holy place, are the same as those who proclaim they are eternal beings!  Can you explain this?

I will tell you why these things are so.  But what is done about it is up to you.  You have exchanged the Glory of God for the glory of man.  It is as our truth-filled God has spoken.   “You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter”.

It is true, God cannot lie.  Will you take the time to believe his promise toward those who do not love him?  Are you willing to fear God and stop fearing man?  Are you willing to sprout legs and stop being a worm?  Are you willing to soar on eagles wings, abandoning your hole in the ground?  Isn’t the choice entirely yours?

By His Grace

Baby “Man”

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Here we live and die in obscurity.  How utterly unpalatable for Man!  “I refuse to live in obscurity I will be recognized as vital!”  So screams Man.

Everything the heart of Man does is focused on recognition.  The way he moves, how he dresses himself, the words he uses as he speaks, the friends he gathers to himself, and all the things he buys with what money he can make.  These are but a loud cry of complaint.

Scream and cry and kick like a baby.  Beat your brother about the head for the things he has, you will gain absolutely nothing.  It will gain you nothing in the end.  As you lived your life in obscurity, so you will die.  Though you strive to “keep up with the Joneses”, amasing similar trinkets, you still remain obscure.

The pride of man is futile and pure folly.  But humility before God in Christ Jesus His holy son, this is renowned.  This is to become “someone”!

By His Grace

“It’s Not Fair!”

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What a horrible and wicked plight is man.  Caught up in the pride of his own things, he is destined to be destroyed.

You complain against this saying: “It is not fair I am valuable!  Why should I be destroyed?  The words you just spoke are not possibly true!  God is love he will not destroy me.  If I am to blame because I cannot do what is perfect it must be understood I am only a man.”

What you say is true, you are only a man.  But you use this as an excuse.  When it should be the very engine that causes you to fall to your knees in humility.

But look at how pathetic your plight is.  Look how far away from truth your response stands.  Your response is full of pride, not humility.

It is easy to be proud, isn’t it?  It is easy to blame anything but yourself.  When you say, “I am only a man”, aren’t you blaming someone else for your fault?  And who might that someone else be, but the very One who gave you life.

Do you know about the Gospel of Christ Jesus?  Do you know that he has prepared a place where you do not need to be a pathetic creature?

I won’t take up this space with explanation of the Gospel.  You can find the entirety of it in the New Testament of the Bible.  And if you are not willing to read that, what good is it for you to read my explanations of it?

By His Grace

The First and Basic Truth

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I am sorry for you, men of the world, for you willingly reject the authority of man in the things of God.  God Himself has chosen to speak through men.  But you cannot stand such a glorious authority.

You gladly give authority to other men for lesser things.  Frankly because you know you can tear these men down at will.

You can restrain the men you elevate, by the strength of popularity, financial subsistence, or even by death.  But any man sent by God Himself rises above your filthy hands.  And for this you despise such men.

I am sorry for you because you dismiss the possibility of eternal life.  All the while you elevate the liars and the hypocrites to the places of honor.  I am sorry for you, because you will continue to do this until these things are taken away from you.

I am sorry for you, because you do not know the beauty of the things you dispatch so willingly.  By this proud strength, you think you have freedom.  But this proud strength restrains you as slaves to unrighteousness.

I write this to the men who are of today.  But you are no different from the generations who have passed before you.

I do not say this to accuse you, but to expose what keeps you blind.

Every man gives account of his own life.  Do you desire freedom?  Do you desire eternal life?  Or do you find yourself content to live a life of slavery to everything that is false?

It is an easy thing to live in lies, for we are, by our nature, liars.  Even forced by the nature of things around us to live a great lie.

And we are lazy slugs.  Desiring peace and tranquility, we strain to retain our own wickedness.  Our soul knows, that if we are wicked, the Lord will be kept far away.  To our shame, we call this peace.

But our soul also knows that we will be caught up to Him, regardless our state of affairs.  Yet men prefer to live in ignorance.

The Lord has established His Holy way from forever.  But every man is born in this place of time and wickedness.  Before he learns to speak, man is taught the authority of pride.

Are you willing to learn the authority of humility?  Are you willing to entertain the Holy Fire of the truth of God?  Every man will certainly entertain it on that great day of judgement.  But the gospel has been sent to us that we might escape The Horrible Flame.

This Gospel has been handed from God to man once and for all, and this by the Holy wisdom of God; that he may test the heart of every man.

There is a question written in the fabric of creation, and every man can read it clearly.  “Will you humble yourself and seek the face of He who is Holy, Holy and Holy?  Or you will you retain the freedom to be proud?

You will gladly accept the authority given to a man by the schools of men; that machine of men which produces liars.  Plumbers, electricians, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, and every occupation of man, receives your respect.  Are you willing to listen to those who are the product of the eternal Holy Spirit of God?

You reject them because they are taught in a school which you are not allowed to control.  Wouldn’t it make sense that such men are more reliable than those who are taught for the sake of financial gain or pride?

Are you willing to receive the painful transition from wickedness to righteousness, before the painful and horrible Day of God arrives?  Are you willing to entertain eternal truth?

The lies you currently embrace are death.  Are you even willing to embrace that first and basic truth?

By His Grace

True Pleasure

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If sadness does not accompany us on our waking.  If what is first in our desire, is to be full of joy and laugh.  If we find we can look back at our past with great pride.  If there is no fear within us for the things we love to do.  I submit to every man (Christian or not) , that such a life may not have the Living God within it at all. 

(By using the phrase “may not have”, I mean the odds are 99:1.  For those of you who know nothing about gambling or other games of chance, such odds are not even worth playing.  What sane person loves to play a game he knows he can never win?)

What is pleasurable in the flesh, stands at odds with the desire of the Living God.  There is a joy in the Holy Spirit.  But it is not like the joy of man.  Man is full of joy at what he has.  The Christian is full of joy in The Promise.

There is a history in every Christian that is worthy of peaceful contemplation.  But the world would not recognize it as peaceful.  The world would perceive such a life as a desperate insanity.  For the Christian finds that not one single thought of his own was worthy of thinking.  The Christian’s only moments of sanity, are those places where he obeyed. (And this in direct conflict with the desires of his body)

The Christian may carry a great pride, but it is not for the things he is, nor the things he does or has done.  The Christian’s pride is exclusively in the Lord who has purchased him.  Thus the vibrant testimony, which the world hates, thrives within the man of God.  The man of God will find it impossible to keep his mouth shut.

There is a trembling in fear the man of God owns.  But it is not a fear that restrains.  It is rather a fear that provokes.  It is the very engine of godliness.

The man of God will find that he loves to do the things the world hates.  He will also find that he is full of hatred for the things the world loves.  The people of the world are like a high maintenance woman; they must be entertained 24/7.  But the man of God is full of joy to do the simple things.

To those who stand outside Christianity, I testify that Christianity is not just another religion.  Christianity is always a becoming.  And to those who consider themselves Christians, yet find entertainment their highest priority, I suggest strongly that you reexamine your faith.

While the man of God lives on this earth, he is never at rest.  And the closer we get to the Living God in Christ Jesus, the more dynamic the separation appears.  The closer we get to Him, the less we are in turmoil.  But the journey is easily compared to a bloody and protracted war.  What man can endure such a life on his own?

You can have your life of joy, and peace, and pride.  I would much rather live the life of humiliation before the Living God.  I would rather own no righteousness, than to be full of self praise.

For when I find my own ways abhorrent, then I know I agree with eternal ways of the Holy and Loving God.  And this, my friends, is peace eternal.  This, my friends, is Christianity.

My brothers and sisters in Christ: Check the boxes.  Where has your faith agreed with these things?  Do you find yourself afraid to testify?  Are you fully absorbed in the things the world loves? 

How could you possibly be at peace in godly testimony?  Such a fear testifies that you agree with the world; “Jesus is an embarrassment to you”.

You may think this is a very harsh statement.  But remember that Jesus was not ashamed of his Heavenly Father.  Even to the extreme humiliation of beating and death, he knew he was at war with the things of this world.

Every hero in the Christian faith has lived his life in a desperate war.  If you find yourself living a life of peaceful joy, as you pursue and mingle with those things of the world, how could you possibly be a disciple of Christ?

Any man can call himself anything he pleases.  But there is a line of demarcation.  God himself has drawn the line, in the bloody body of His Holy Son.  And there are far more who straddle that line than those who cross it.

I wrote this to describe the radical difference between Christianity and any other way of life.  But as I came to completion, I began to realize that Christianity has been so watered down that it is almost unrecognizable.

If you consider my last few words to be an attack, you are reading with the glasses of pride, proudly poised on your upturned nose.  The man of God takes instruction where he finds it.  He may not yet be humble, but he knows that is the desired place to live.

I am finished writing this post.  I realize it is not only an instruction, it is also a declaration of war.  So be it.

By His Grace

Righteousness Silenced

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There is a roar in those nations referred to as “advanced”.

A quaking of souls, massed together in humiliation,

Each one buzzes with desire.

Together a thunderous volume of hatred roars.

Against the Holy One they mummer.

For the love of sin they whisper their joy;

Now shouting with their unholy practice.

Do they think the din of unholy noise will not reach Heaven?

Adoring the parade of wicked desire.

Propriety is forced to hide;

That brilliant, lovely, gentle dressing of soul.

“Get away from us!  You have nothing to offer anymore.”

So they turn to perfumes to hide the stench.

They turn to guilded eyes to hide the darkness within.

Rich clothing, consuming of wages gained,

Adorning rotting bodies.

“Propriety is dead!  ‘Proper living’ is useless.

We will celebrate gain!  This we will elevate to holy worship.”

Chaos fills the desire of man.

Unholy things fill his unholy temples.

While the body rises to the strength of proud legs,

His soul slithers on the ground.

As the sharpened blade glints in the sunlight,

So his practices, unholy, glint in the Majesty of God.

As the blade sinks deep to cut off life,

So the practices of unholy men rest on their breast bone.

A tiny shove and life is over.

Let surprise show on their faces.

Let the Holy Lord of Life press truth against the handle.

Let temptation, enticing, lies, and desire,

Be pressed away from Him.

Salvation is offered.

But the One who offers is relegated,

To the shadows of a darkened alley.

Who will dare approach?

Who will brave death to embrace Life?

The Holy One’s promises are eternally true.

One is for death.

The other is for Life.

Rise from your drunken stupor!

You die the Death unrestrained.

How will you stand on that Horrible day for sinners?

What strength will your legs of flesh find,

When He rises to judge?

So be it!

Let your soul slither on the ground!

It is in proper posture already.

For every knee will bow,

Every tongue will confess,

That Jesus, the Christ of God, is King,

Lord,

Master,

Glory,

Honor,

Righteousness,

Faithfulness,

And Truth.

Amen, Amen, Amen!