Tag Archives: prosperity

Equality?

by

0


Holy Father, Righteous Sovereign God, I hear what they say about you.  They say they are like you; that all the qualities of God reside in man.  Such are the ruminations of darkened minds, distant from your Holy Throne.

How can we possibly be like you, O’ Holy One?  But the sea imagines itself suspended above the earth.  Men glorify themselves but they give you no place to reside.  In the desperate weakness of imagination, men bring you down to equality.

But your Majestic Holy Throne, Glorious Father, blazes with perfect intensity.  For eternity you have been, with not one misstep through countless ages.  You alone are Life and Good!  Not even the smallest grain of dust exists outside of your knowledge.  Still men seek to bring you down.

Lazy souls who will not rise, they imagine you kneeling before them.  They imagine you giving them excellent praise for their good and sound ways. 

Darkness covers them with the greatest of covering; a thick sheet of black slime covers their unholy eyes.  Not one sliver of your Glorious Majesty penetrates to their perception.  Yet they announce their great knowledge, with a vast joyful pride.  They have learned to roll mud into a ball, and they praise one another as if they are gods!

They have dispatched the Living God to obscurity.  His Holy and Righteous Son they ignore.  For eternity he has been your very mouth.  Your every desire, Holy Father, has found excellent willingness to accomplish in your Holy and Righteous Son.  He alone have you elevated to the highest place of honor.  For in all things he is, you are First.

But he too, men relegate to obscurity and uselessness. “Leave this Jesus to the children and to fools, we must establish our place and make a profit.  For now, we have no time for the Son of God! 

Perhaps when we are aged we will give him some consideration.  He will have to wait, for the things of men are desperately important. 

The volume of men has spoken, God and His Son are useless in this glorified place of man.  But we will retain the beauty of angels, for as servants they make no demands of our time. 

Let God and his son come and walk with us.  Let them put their hands to work that they may be useful among us.  Cause us profit and feed are aching bellies! 

Be useful and help us in our times of need.   Retain your place among us, as we have prescribed, and we may give you glory when we have time.”  With this they render you blasphemy instead of praise!

You have seen all these things Holy Father.  And you have prepared a place to encounter them.  There they will be fully ashamed, and you will sweep away their frail hope with the beauty of your appearance.  There they will realize the folly of their useless imagination.

You have raised up a people for yourself by your own perfect desire.  You teach them how to love you.  Your Holy beauty and wisdom, righteousness and patience, provokes them to obey.  Because of this, kneeling before you with humble hearts of praise is first in their mind.  Equality with God is not an option!

By His Grace

Bring Out the Will

by

0


Where is the astounding fruit of the Most High God among us?  It is hidden in our unwillingness to obey.  It is as if we have secreted His Holy Words into the thicket of our rebellion. 

Too many have hidden His treasure away, as if a thief might come and steal their riches.  As a result, many stand guard at their doorway; judging others as they perceive from their own darkness.  Where is the freely flowing Gospel of Peace and Joy?  Where is their vial of Living Water?

Who will go retrieve the Holy things he contains?  Who will reach into his thorny will and bring his obedience out of hiding?  Who will bloody his own hands to retrieve what is best for all?  Who dares “become”, that he might lead his siblings in Christ to what is best?

What is the will of a man in Christ Jesus?  What power does it receive if it is brought out of hiding?  What blessings are the Holy Lord of Life willing to bestow on the man who diligently gives Him what is rightfully His?  As obedience comes, so the prosperity of God appears.

In case my words are not clear enough to provoke specific action, let us read what the Lord has spoken to all who desire to serve Him.  Let us remember: the generation that serves the Lord with faithfulness, is the generation that passes down what is good and valuable before His Holy Face.  It is the blessing of their “children” to inhabit the better land. 

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 5)

Victorious in Loss

by

0


Among people, who are those who suffer well?  It is those who own nothing of what they own.

These are prepared to lose everything, even while they have it all.  It is the one who is determined, while in wealth and health, to die penniless and miserable.  This one cannot be held hostage to expectations full of error.  If prosperity of possessions continues to a peaceful death in his own bed, such a one will have lived his life without fear of loss.

Though all he has is taken.  Though sickness viciously tears at his body.  Though the wicked greed of man rips his belongings from his control.  This one will prosper.

Yet is it enough to be stoic in our life?  Is it necessary to pass by the loaf of bread while you have money and hunger?  Is it right to purchase the rust bucket chariot so that you will suffer the pains of upkeep?  Is it required of us to live under a pile of leaves in a part of the forest we don’t, and can’t own?  Such people are not being responsible with what has been given them.

What provokes the Responsible life?  Is it the desire of a man to become completely humble among all men?  That mind-set is produced from the pride of life.  Pride can’t, by its very nature, produce humility.  Such a man might feel pretty proud of himself, after all, he has forsaken what other people crave.   But his humility is crushed by a whisper of pride.

Jesus provokes the true strength of life.  His strength in a man is beyond ALL the things of this world.  Because His teaching and “in dwelling” comes from Heaven; a place which has never entertained the temporary wealth of this place.  And NEVER will.

If we want to be strong.  If we want to endure with stellar conviction.  If we want to live that “over coming” life, we will have to appropriate the teaching and character of the Lord Jesus.  While we live in relative peace, it is best to be prepared for the worst.  Let us not compile “things” so that we will be able to endure hardship.  Let us prepare our heart to be God’s champion, even if the entire world comes after us.

How does cancer become a trophy to be desired?  How does molestation become a crown of joy?  How does losing our job, or place in the family,  become a stepping stone to eternally born victory?  All these things, and the myriad of things that can happen to a person, become glory when we embrace failure.  We love our weakness, because it gives us an opportunity to overcome!  Even our own sins can become trophies of Grace.  Such things  can produce a certain kind of humility that cannot be manufactured by the desire of a man.  Nor can it be purchased by any of our possessions.

We encounter hardship for the sake of Christ.  We encounter hardship for the sake of testifying that God’s love and promise are vastly more, and true, than anything the world can provide.  We testify that life can be lived, even while this world has strapped us to a post in the middle of a raging fire.  We can clap our charred hands, even while the skin of our bodies walks toward becoming a lump of coal.  Thus, we encourage others to love the God who bestows such incredible strength.

Let us testify that God in us, is greater than all things.  Prosperity, health, wealth, sickness, persecution, joy, poverty, alienation, or fame,  cannot take away the riches of Christ in any man!  It is the man who counts any of these things as more valuable or stronger than the promise of God.  This is the one who will likely lose it ALL.