“The Faith”


“The Faith”

Teaches what is Holy;
What is unknown,
How to understand,
How to endure,
How to “become”.

Temptation must come;
In the form of ailment,
In the form of beckoning toward sin,
In the form of fear,
With the threat of destruction,
Yet with the opportunity to glorify the Living God’s Holy Son.

Do we understand these things?  Of course we have.  The question to us all is this:
Why do we not apply what we know we understand?

Endless Majesty


I could hold a straight pin in my fingers on one day.  For a moment, I could describe what I perceive.  It is an object for specific use, and has certain provable dimensions.  Then, I could hold that same pin on some other day.  With the Majesty of God within me, I could perceive an entirely different description of that same pin.

Endless is the Majesty of the Living God.  To say His beauty is rich in variation is to speak like a little child; not understanding the fullness of those words.  But here is what He provokes His servant to say this morning.

Will any man or woman dare to say they have understood all things?  Will the sum of your own religion (understanding the meaning of the word, religion) be the true sum of what God is willing to give?  Will “you” be satisfied with such a trivial basket of truth?

Do we perceive that God is endlessly Majestic?  Or do we gladly keep what we have, without desiring what is More?  Will we ignorantly restrict the Living God’s testimony to a world that knows absolutely nothing about the Sovereign One?  How can that be proper.

Yesterday morning, I was considering the saying, “What would Jesus do”.  I could not give that saying the same quality of respect that others have done.  For I perceived it to be more incomplete than true or useful.  A man might perceive that saying as if it were a guess from the history available.  If that is what the saying comes to mean to a man, he will live his “life” with such restraint as to be a useless life.

God IS.  He is not the history of being.  He is the current moment.  He is all moments to come.  And, in the history of moments, He is so richly dispersed with Glory that no one can live long enough to decipher His fullness.  Even with written record of history in the man’s hands.

Is the Majesty of God, that which He holds out to us all, truly summed up in what we have become?  Or is He willing and desirous that we should become something astounding here.  Will we wait for the promised dawn of transformation?  Or are we willing to take what can BE today?

A Word From My Flesh


As I stand and praise God, receiving majestic revelation I am lost in the beauty of eternity.

Then a shadow catches my attention.  Someone has come, begging to be heard.

I turn to look.  It is my flesh!

With his mouth held open in awe, he speaks to me.

“Don’t you realize that what you are doing and saying is insane?”

I look down at him, and who can explain the look on my face?  What reply can he possibly expect?  What reply lends credence to my incredulity?  I speak the only words appropriate to the moment.

“Don’t you realize that you don’t understand what sanity is?”

Man’s Personal Court


Today is the court of Man.  There is a singular case on the docket: who is true and who is the liar.  Who is the accused?  Who is the plaintiff? 

It’s a shell game of two.  When they walked in, did they take their proper seat?  Every officer in the court is one man, you. 

Today, you get to be the law.  Today, you are the judge.  There is only one verdict possible.  Choose fatal condemnation for one, and eternal freedom for the other.

What’s at stake?  One of the two who sit before your examination is vital to the security and welfare of all.  The other is an eternal mass murderer.

Today, judgment belongs to Man.  Assess correctly.  Be wise in your questioning.  Choose wrong, and extinction is set free!

“Be silent before me, you islands!
Let the nations renew their strength!
Let them come forward and speak;
let us meet together at the place of judgment.”  (Isaiah 41: 1)

By His Grace

The Process of Christianity


There is a lot of confusion regarding Christianity.  Granted, there is outright hatred for anything that belongs to God.  But there are also many who simply don’t understand.  I write this for the latter.  The former will remain beyond my reach.

Christianity is not a religion in itself.  Christianity spawns, or gives life to, true understanding.  It is undeniable that there are many corrupt variations of Christianity.  But the one with an honorable heart will divide lie and fiction from truth.

The process of becoming a Christian, for the most part, takes a rather predictable course.  There are great variations in means, but the mile markers are not hard to to denote.  Let us begin.

The man recognizes his lack of ability to conquer the onslaught against him.  This world is full of chaos and unknown difficulties.  Added to the physical violence he perceives, comes and almost subconscious awareness of perfection. 

With an earnest chasing after wisdom, the man begins to perceive the vast nature of perfection.  If anxiety was provoked by the chaos of this world, the nature of perfection compounds the man’s concerns.  The man has reached a milestone of understanding.  Now he is ready to encounter the next mile marker.

As his years slip by, death becomes more real.  When he was young, death was only some imaginary trouble.  But now, with the same chasing of wisdom, the man begins to examine his own end. 

Futility looms heavily over the path he knows he must walk.  How deep the chasm of his futile life becomes, especially while he has begun to examine the nature of perfection.  One aspect of perfection rises very tall;  “If there is life, why is there any death at all?”

At this mile marker the man is forced to make a choice.  Will he resign himself to obvious oblivion, or will he seek that perfection he is coming to desire?  Wisdom says, There really is no choice son”.

This is the very place where many fall away to pleasure; “Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”.  But a few will press on, for they know there is something more to be had.   Exactly how they know this, they cannot explain yet.  But it is these few who will proceed to the next milestone.

Again, the man is faced with a choice; should he swallow his own observations and simply join the crowd, or does he dare to step away from others?   Though his soul cannot agree with them, the temptation of his body is to remain included with humanity.

It is exceedingly difficult for anyone to say that God began a work in a man’s life at a certain place.  But regardless when it happened, there is a marked difference which a man can perceive.  Such a man does not think like the masses, and he knows it.  This sliver of knowledge is found as the man approaches the next milestone.  Metaphorically speaking, that awareness shoves the man through the door.

It is the diligent, honorable, and earnest heart that decides to encounter the obvious best solution.  Nothing has changed regarding his futile life.  His death still looms vibrantly before him.  And the nature of perfection has more clarity than ever before.  Whether others perceive these things or not, the brave will enter in.  Welcome to isolation.

Now God moves to introduce perfection.  The Holy law of God is introduced to the man.  Here many perceive the height of expectation, and run back to the crowd for solace.  But the man with an earnest and true heart will kneel before the Living God in prayer. 

The standard of perfection is too much for him to bear.  But so is the futility of his life.  With no place to turn, he has dropped to his knees to seek mercy.  “If God is real, he says to himself, “he will show himself to me now.  I have encountered the absolute impasse.”

The man has examined his life and found fault.  The man has examined the world and found the same.  But with his earnest heart, he cannot find fault with the laws of God.  Now the specter of his death is set ablaze with a Holy Fire.  There are no more choices left for him to take.

The only possible choice, to avoid the inevitable, is to turn away from this search completely.  But with all he has invested, that is no choice at all.  Willingly, the man rises to his spiritual feet and walks into a firestorm of the unknown.

His faith has come alive, but not for no reason.  The mutual work between the man and God has produced obvious conclusions.  It is time for God to make an eternal choice; at this point it is righteous to introduce the man to the Holy Son of God, Jesus.

The man has reached the first milestone of heaven.  he has become a Christian.  After this, there are thousands markers more to attain. 

But it is at this place where I will cease this writing.  This sessation comes, because beyond this place, the predictability of the man’s encounters with spiritual milestones belongs to the invisible God.  Where God will take this man is absolutely unknown.  What service the man will supply for the Holy Son of the Living God, is up to God to decide.

Beyond this milestone, the choices of the man matter very little.  It is the intent of the Living God that will drive the man from here on out.

I have written this for the sake of those who argue against Christianity by the use of the human experience alone.  To some degree, the human experience begins the search.  But our experience on this earth is not capable of grasping the fullness of God’s Grace, or will.

I know there will be arguments against these things I have written.  But there will also be honest questions.  I publish this, willing to receive either.

I have not written this to challenge secular mindsets.  And I cannot say that what I have written is a blueprint for every man.  But I have written this that it might be seen, there is a relatively logical progression to be taken between the mind of a worldly man and the mind of a Christian.

I will finish this writing with the following thought.  True Christianity is not a product of any man’s personal choice.  It is produced by a mutual willingness between God and his people.  Christianity is a living experience in which the truth of eternity is revealed, to whatever extent the Living God is willing to reveal it.

With what relative innocence I can muster, I have written this without a desire to judge, chastise, pigeonhole, or destroy.  There are battles to be had.  But let this stand as an offer for peace.  The Spirit of God within me is quite capable of waging wars of words and ideas.  But such things will present themselves when they do.

May God grant understanding to anyone who reads these things.  For without his help, no understanding will rise to the surface.

By His Grace

The “Foolishness” of God


The power of salvation is not found in man’s explanations about heaven and eternity.  You will come and question me in regard to my testimony about Christ.  In me you will find fault, but in the message of the cross you will find no fault.

You will look at my life and see some form of chaos, for I am but a man.  But in the salvation of God you will not find chaos.  For God’s promise is true.  God’s Holy Son has been sent into the world, that he may become the salvation of all who put their faith in him.

There is no grafication of man before the Holy Father.  There is only glorification of Christ Jesus.  What a horrible offense this is the pride of man. 

18 “For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. 19 For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject.'”  (1 Corinthians 1)

By His Grace