Tag Archives: Religion and Spirituality

What God Promises Comes to Pass.

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English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, A...

English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, Article VII, “Of the Church”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What God has promised to do will be done.  Though man counts time in days and years, God’s promise to transform His people cannot be broken.  We look at our lives and worry attends our thoughts.  We have come to believe that we have stepped over the line and now stand counted as an enemy of God.  How can that be so?

Look back.  How easy was it to believe when you first heard the Gospel?  What has changed over the years?  You heard the call to righteousness and holiness.  You allowed yourself to believe the message that those who live in sin can’t expect eternal life.  Your soul shook with fear and your responded with confession.  Remember how you felt that first touch of freedom from a guilty conscience when you embraced the promise of God to forgive?

We all know what has changed.  In our struggle against sin we have fallen to temptation.  At first it was a mistake to allow ourselves to be fooled into death.  But when we turned to God for help, didn’t help arrive?  He no more desires us to die now than He did when we first believed.  As long as you are in this bag of flesh hope remains.  What has changed is a gradual dulling of our hope, which is a direct result of a learned disobedience.

How do we reclaim that vibrant hope?  Refocus your efforts to believe.  It’s not something we can actually manipulate with our hands.  We simply give up our own struggle, confess our lack, and wait for His response.  The struggle will resume soon enough.  And you will be tested again.  But the renewal of our time of confession, and subsequent receiving of hope, will give us a strength we did not have at the start of our journey.  We will have proven to ourselves, once again, that God’s promise is stronger than our failings.

I do not say these things as a novice.  Over 25 years God has proven His ability to save me.  Though you have no need to trust the word of a man, the testimony I give here comes from a myriad of testings regarding this hope we share.  I testify, as do all who remain hopeful, that God is able and WILLING to cause us to live.  If you give up it is because you choose to stop believing.  Simply make the choice to believe again.  It’s really that easy, my friends.  You need not wallow in pig slop any longer.

“Do-Less-Ness” is Not a Gift of the Spirit

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My Work Bag

My Work Bag (Photo credit: pennuja)

One of the hardest lessons for the chronically poor to learn is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done.  I know there are many who are poor yet are very diligent in what needs to be done.  But it has also been my personal experience (and observation of others) that a certain “do-less-ness” attends the daily routine of many.

Perhaps it’s fear of confrontation that blocks dutiful behavior.  Perhaps it’s just that they focus on matters they deem more important.  Perhaps there are other reasons.  But the bottom line is that when we know what we ought to do and do not do it, we encounter a guilty conscience.  This guilt leads to introverted behavior in many fashions. And, in the end, we own a large portion of “sucky life”.

This is a truth that should be embraced by every Christian.  We expose our faith by our living habits.  And we often drag down the Beautiful Lord Jesus’ reputation by allowing our own to become soiled with neglect.  I can’t imagine what this place would look like if God took on that same “do-less” behavior.

I’m not chiding anyone with this post.  I’m pointing out a truth we should all consider as we serve the Lord.

Stupid Intelligence

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Stupid signs

Stupid signs (Photo credit: pkevinconnell)

I cannot understand us.  How do I put this?  I guess I’ll start with what we all know.

Men love selfishness.  And I guess that’s natural.  I’ve often said that we are born defensive.  After all, we can’t get outside our vulnerable skin.  So we are on the defensive from the moment we notice we have fingers.  Ok, I got that.

Now I know that this selfishness lends itself to rebellion against manipulation of any kind.  Even if we try to help another man understand his responsibility to others, it’s like pulling teeth without pain-killer.  Isn’t that what we face raising teens?

And what if a teen has not learned responsibility when it was due to learn?  He becomes an adult full of selfish and childish attitudes about life.  In this way, we see rebellious adults all over the place.  So we know about rebellion first hand.  Yea?  I think we can all nod about that.

Now we don’t really know a whole lot about pure good and perfect responsible behavior.  We all take stabs at it as best we can.  But we all know we fall short of purity in one way or another.  Again, I think we can all nod to that.

Here is what I don’t get:

Perfect isn’t a word that lends itself to interpretation.  Perfect is perfect.  That also means perfect is eternal by nature.  So why do we find men trying to water down the word “perfect”?  Why don’t we find them, instead, admitting that they are far less than perfect?

I am astounded that certain men, who know better, believe and teach something other than the whole Gospel.  Some how they have been duped into something far less than the perfect message of the Gospel.  And they seem to think that it’s ok to just kind of tear away at the concept of perfect.  I’m sorry.  I’m just amazed at us!  In the end we have to say this (as it was said by that wonderfully deficient character), “Stupid is what Stupid does.”

“You Didn’t Build That. . . “

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Walk through a grave yard and no one waves hello.  Smile at a blind man and he has no idea you even looked at him.  So it is with those who live in the land of the dead.  Though you introduce yourself they have no idea what you’re saying.  And even if you offered them the bounty of the King Jesus they would simply laugh.

With that introduction, we turn to the picture.  What business is it of the world if we prefer to do our Father’s bidding beyond the eyes of the dead?  And if we explained what we are told to do they would not understand it.  So they turn to insults against the King of Kings and His people.  Is this the best they can do?  Of course this is the best they can do.  They haven’t heard the Lord’s voice direct them in the things of the Father.  So they naturally think no one else has either.

Just as an aside:  The response to Chick-fil-a was more a matter of support for free speech than it was a Christian response to an unjust accusation.

JOY!

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christmas 2007

christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi)

Little Brenda and Thedore get their gifts for Christmas.  How delightful to watch them focus all their joy for a while.  But soon that joy finds another object of focus.

Right now is Christ Mass for the believers whom God has raised up.  Something so precious as the gift of eternal life should initiate such a focused joy as to never lose that first love of wonder.  He is so full of amazing beauty!

Lord, please renew my amazement and joy for who You are and what You’ve done here.  Please don’t let me act like a child at the giving of gifts.  May my joy increase.  May my amazement and wonder abound.  For Your Beauty is Astounding!

The Living Library

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Author Fair 2007

Author Fair 2007 (Photo credit: Homer Township Public Library)

We are tablets of clay in the form of a body and soul.  Apparently endless information is written upon us as we live our life.  We are witness of others.  We are testimonies to ourselves.  And if we are blessed to come to know Jesus, the Son of God Most High, we also contain that testimony of eternal life.

In this way we all write a book.  And though, from time to time, we find some who have something useful to read, we are not primarily written for man’s benefit.

I was considering this truth when a conclusion to this thought dawned within me.  There is nothing more precious about owning a book than to have met the author, conversed, and received his autograph within the binding.  The “dawning” is this:

How I desire to become one of The Author’s books in which He autographs His work with a name only He and I know.  There is a purpose to this life which reaches far beyond sky, ground, water, and blood.  And to that place we are destined to be shipped.  We are living tablets of clay which the Father will deliver to His Son as a beautiful bride.

While many are busy writing “trash rags” with their lives, there are a few who lay themselves down on the Lord’s writing-table.  They wait to be inscribed with marvelous words of living testimony.  How astoundingly beautiful it will be to read what each has brought to the wedding.  And we will have eternity to enjoy each other’s company as we read about the Lord who paid so much to purchase His Library of living books.