Tag Archives: Righteousness

Set Yourself Toward Him as a Sharp Flint

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Flint knife from Barajevo.

Flint knife from Barajevo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Open your heart to the Lord.  He has said, “I am not angry.”  Toward all who sincerely desire His friendship, His arms are wide open. But to all who think they can bend His will to theirs, his face is turned.  Men call on Him in times of trouble.  As soon as trouble is past, two faces turn in a dance of simultaneous rejection.  Steady your gaze at the One who can teach purity and righteousness.  It is demanded of us. It will not be taken out-of-the-way.  Nothing impure or unholy will ever enter His presence.  Do not mistake His mercy in times of trouble for His intent for you.

He set His face like flint to go toward His death on a cross.  This is what He is looking for in all of us; that we should set our soul toward Him with complete abandonment of all the things of this world.  He is completely LORD.  His people will be completely His.

Consider how flint was used to cut.  Cut through your rebellion and the temptations of this world.  Get sharp, by His Spirit, and remain sharp.

Take IT!

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Sarah Trimmer

Sarah Trimmer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To my brothers and sisters:

A question was posed to me.  And in truth I was asked to answer.  “Have you taken all that the Lord your God is willing to offer you?”  What was proposed is a consideration of His promise.  And the question is raised as an answer to prayer.  This question is poised every time we enter prayer with the God who cannot lie.

What has He promised His people?  Isn’t it true that He has said that all who enter the Kingdom of Heaven will do so without sin?  Isn’t it true that no man will see the face of the Father without holiness?  Isn’t it true that it is God’s will that no man should perish, but that all should find eternal life in His Son?  And isn’t it true that those who believe will know that they have eternal life; that this joy of truth should abide in them so as to cause laughter, joy, love, mercy, wisdom, understanding, and a certain doing that belongs to the holy family of God?

Each of us answers this question with truth, no matter how we lie to ourselves.  God sees all.  God leads His people in power and truth.  We do not serve Him out of a silly religious practise.  Religion is what we do as a result of His blessings.  But we yearn to approach Him with the same dedication to truth that He presents to us.

I urge us all to consider where we stand in our belief.  And I beg that we all consider that we serve the Living God who raises the dead.  Take His promises!  Enjoy forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.  But let us not leave anything on the table as we march into eternity.  Let us consider what He offers to all His people.  And let us allow Him a great bounty from His patient labors.

Amen

A Necessary Evil?

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May God grant to the living _ Westminster

There is such a thing as “honor among thieves”.  In full, we can consider all man’s intentions without God to be such.  But there is an honor among the holy.  And this can only be owned by submission to God’s Righteousness.

I mention this because all of us face temptations to gain what is not to be gained.  James put it this way:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 So then, if you know the good you ought to do and don’t do it, you sin. (James 4)

What shall be said regarding this? We who worship the Living God through Jesus MUST strive to be a honorable people.   In the end, we must ask ourselves two questions.  Are we willing to admit that we are chasing after something that should never belong to us?  And are we willing to lay aside this “chasing” in order to do what is right before the Holy eyes of the Father in Heaven?

Since we will give account of all our actions, it is wise to become ready to abandon any evil chase.  This is a hard thing to accomplish.  And sometimes it is a hard thing to know what is purely good and what is called “a necessary evil.”  May God grant us wisdom to know the difference.  But above all, may we be willing to accept loss for the sake of what is pure and good.

He Is . . . . What Man Cannot Speak.

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StJohnsAshfield StainedGlass Baptism

Image via Wikipedia

I want to write about how beautiful it is to know the Father through Jesus.  But there are no words.  I want to show what He means to His people.  But what action can rightly display the Love He is?

We are saved by God’s Grace, through The Faith; and this is not our own, it comes from the Heavenly Father lest any of us should boast.  A man might walk into a cathedral and marvel at the works of art he sees.  He might feel his heart melt with the music.  And he might even fall on his knees in reverent awe at the inspiring envelope of “sacred” symbolism.  But all this pales into oblivion compared with the glory that God reveals in 5 minutes of silence before the Throne of the Most High God.

Forgiveness is the beginning.  A removing of our recognized guilt.  This is a real experience.  But there is vastly more.

He is peace.  And when we rest before Him through the sacrifice of Jesus, this peace becomes ours in some tiny measure.  He has been peace from ancient days.  And He will forever be that same peace.  He is peace to all who obey what they know about Him.  No matter how slight our understanding might be.  To obey is to enter in.

How wonderful to know the blazing Glory of God through eyes blinded yet full.  What words are there to describe what the Spirit reveals?  Even in our prayers, we are told we do not know how we should pray.  But the Spirit utters to the Father the things of our heart.  And the answer comes to us in words we cannot speak.  Yet, somehow the Spirit of God interprets for our tiny minds.

Oh God, our God of Love, Hope, and Righteousness, praise is Yours everlasting!  For You alone are peace and life.  To You we offer all we have.  Please come take what we thought was ours.  Replace our treasure with that which is Yours.  May Your Holy and Good will be done forever!  Amen.

“The Faith”, Fuel to Drive into Eternity.

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Petrol Guage

Image by drocpsu via Flickr

When the Son of man returns, will He find The Faith?  My soul is given pause to consider the meaning of this.  I take note that it is not called faith.  The Lord was speaking of “The Faith”. 

The Faith is not the faith of demons or the wicked men of this world.  To them, faith might mean anything.  Or it might mean an awareness that there is a God.  The Faith, however, is not like that.  The Faith we have in Christ Jesus teaches us to do the will of the Father in Heaven.  It teaches us all things good (The Good of God).  It teaches us to abstain (that is to “not do”) the things of this world; it teaches us to say “no” to sin and “yes” to the Righteousness which comes from God.

Don’t let the world fool you into believing that Jesus will receive everyone because they intended to be a good person.  Only what is God will survive the judgment.  And to whatever extent God’s will lives in you and is accomplished through you, this is the part of you which will survive the coming judgment. 

So I am given pause to consider the things of God within me.   Jesus offers, we receive.  One without the other is no faith at all.

By His Grace.

Dress Yourself, For Your Shame is Exposed.

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Mediaeval (early 14th century) stone carving o...

Image via Wikipedia

In our prayers we learn that certain phrases are good to speak.   And often these phrases become understood as we continue to use them.  Though we don’t understand their significance at first, they come clear to us as we make them part of our pattern of prayer.  I’m not speaking of using words or phrases over and over so that our prayer will be heard.  I’m speaking of such things as this:  “Father, dress me that I may serve You and those who witness my life.  For one can not serve naked.”

I’ve often brought that to the Lord with a limited understanding.  I know that He is dressed in Glory and Righteousness.  And I know that those who had been beheaded for the sake of the Gospel, those in the book of Revelation who reside under the throne of God and wait for a moment of God’s wise choosing, were given white robes to wear and told to wait a little longer.  Even these souls were given appropriate clothes to wear.

Then it struck me.  When Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden of Eden, the Lord killed animals and prepared clothing for them to wear.  Thus it has been so from the fall of man.  That our nakedness, that is to say our sin must have a covering.  And wasn’t this also so when those two recognized that they were naked?  Do we now see the necessity of the fig leaves which they used to cover themselves?

It is appropriate, even absolutely necessary, that man must be covered to hide his shame.  And what covering should there be that we should wear as we serve the Living God?  Only the righteousness of Jesus will cover us before the eyes of He to whom we must give account. 

He who desires to serve the Lord without the covering of Jesus will only end up serving himself.  He remains naked and his shame is exposed before the Most High God.  And he should not think that he will receive the blessing of God.  Dress yourself with an understanding of your sinful tendencies.  Even the most battle hardened saint will require the covering of God when he goes to prayer.  How should we who struggle to understand the basics be any different?

By His Grace.