Give? Give What?


Christian Cross

Christian Cross (Photo credit: freefotouk)

Could I give my all I would still feel inept.  All I have is what has been given.  What should I give that belongs to me?

Ah, I will give my desire.  But I will get hungry soon.  Thirst will come to me.  And what good is it if I die in my desire to give Him what is mine?

I will give Him my words.  Evidently, I have plenty of those.  But He already has The Word.  And one was enough to satisfy the Living God.

How about I just give Him thanks.  And put down any thought that I can offer Him something He doesn’t already own.

How about I give Him my ear.  Let me strive to hear what the Lord has already said.  Then, perhaps, I will be allowed to hear what He is ready to say to me now.

How about I give Him time in prayer.  Yeah.  That’s a good idea.  I’ll make it my desire to sit before Him and lift up my soul to His Holy Throne.  And while I’m there, how about giving Him the troubles of others.

What can I give Him?   I can give Him my very life.  From now to the end of my days in this place of testing.  Isn’t that what He has already told us He desires?

Dear Non-Believer (and other such creatures)


Funny Chinese Child Playing Boy

Funny Chinese Child Playing Boy (Photo credit: epSos.de)

You approach like a child though you’re mature in your own eyes.  You wear skin just like me.  So, by this, I know your vulnerabilities.  Yet you act as if you’ll never hurt, fail or die.  We both know better, however.  You will, like me, do all three.

I speak of God and you turn your hating eyes toward me.  If I spoke of sin you’d embrace my words.  Doesn’t that tell you something about who you have become?  When you actually were a child such things did not inhabit the dark regions within you.  But you have embraced every lie as you grew up.

Well now you’ve encountered me.  And what should I respond to you?  I will laugh at the lies you think are so powerful.  I laugh because I know the One who is truth.  If I did not know Him I would have no support for my laughter.  But there lies a rub.  What good is it to laugh at you when you are in such helpless state?  Though I know you’re not likely to accept my words, I will explain (with earthly words) the beauty that is “serving the Lord”.

He is tender when we enter prayer.  His manner is humble and accepting.  He does not accept to allow us to remain full of lies.  But His teaching is incremental.  Where we find ourselves is addressed.  And suggestions are given to guide us away from sin.  His commands are life.  But He does not chide us for being foolish.  His words are filled with hope, therefore He is unlike any earthly teacher.

He is truth.  And if we admit our lies, He is faithful and just to forgive us our lies and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  We are allowed to enter into the presence of the Most High God through the effective cleaning of Jesus’ sacrifice.  I know you’ve heard those words before and they mean little to nothing to you.  I got that.  Let me try to put them in terms you can grasp.

The forgiveness we receive from Him is real.  One moment I’m feeling particularly filthy and worthless.  The next moment my soul feels happy and free.  And it’s not for just a moment.  It lasts all the day long.

If I trust Him I don’t need to lock my doors.  Not because He will restrain the thief, though that has been true often.  But because He causes me to cease desire for the things I would normally want to protect.  He causes me to desire the things you and I can’t see yet.   He teaches His people to live as if they are already present in heaven.  And according to the faith I can muster, that becomes the life I lead.

Lots of words my friend, lots of words.  The short of it is, Jesus is worthy of all our attention and devotion.  It’s up to you to respond.   Either you continue to hate Him or strive to learn to love Him.

By His Grace.

An Appeal For Prayer


This picture was found at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius

I appeal to those who read this blog to consider a request for earnest prayer.  I know God has raised up prayer warriors among His people.  And it occurs to me that perhaps there are a few who read these words.  This appeal is directed toward the salvation of a certain young lady.  Due to propriety, it is not seemly that I should begin conversation with her as such things may be perceived as less than holy intent.  Just the same, it has been on my heart to seek the Lord’s mercy for her salvation.

Please allow me to relate how this soul has risen to my attention as a matter urgent enough to deliver to you.  During prayer one night I was presenting the Lord the list of people He has laid within my reach.  Through one of those souls this girl has been near enough to my life to make me aware of her habits. I had been praying for these souls under two requests, which I had laid out at the start of the prayer.  I had prayed that these might be strengthened in the faith, and that they would increase in holy behavior.

As the prayer moved through I perceived the Lord was willing to receive the words I had spoken regarding these souls.  But when I came to the name of this young woman the receiving was blocked.  It was as if my words were spoken into nothing more than the carpet on which I knelt.  I stayed still before the Lord for a while to consider this.

Weeks later I am convinced that she is in a position vastly different from those souls I had listed before the Lord.  I have since begun to mention her to Him in terms of salvation through His mercy.  And this petition appears to receive His understanding.  But I am still not satisfied that my prayers on her behalf are sufficient.  Therefore I thought it reasonable to appeal to my brothers and sisters for help in this matter.

The Lord has brought to my attention a story which relates this item.  The story is not as short as to incorporate it here in full text.  But I will supply a link which you can read as the Lord directs.  (You will find the story on this link in Chapter 25 of book 3.  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm ).  While I recognize that we are not a people who are used to reading many words regularly. A knowledgable approach is recommended when encountering the salvation of souls. This matter is pressing hard against my heart and mind.  Even this morning, I was wakened early by the thoughts of her name before His Throne.  Thus I have come here to appeal for help.

Specifically I appeal for one of our Family to be brought near her to teach her “The Way”.  And I appeal for prayer that she might be released from the family of death.  One without the other is an utterly useless situation.  As you will note in the story related in the link, simple prayer without discipleship or discipleship without prayer are useless in the salvation of souls.  I may pray, but I cannot disciple due, as I mentioned, to propriety.

I ask you then, by the love of Christ among us all, to hold this young soul up before our Father for the saving of her life.  I know there are so very many we could lift up to the Lord so that our time in prayer might consume every moment of our lives.  But please note that I am not in the habit of requesting prayer from those brothers and sisters who attend the words I write here.

May God grant wisdom and impart desire to whom He wills regarding this.  If you are not affected by this appeal, please do not feel compelled.  I would not want to burden anyone with the things God does not set them apart to do on His behalf.  I thank you for your time as you read these many words.  May God bless you for giving your brother a cool glass of water to drink while we travel in this land baked dry by wickedness.

By His Grace.

Learning to Be Happy With Chaos


English: Quite the happy dog.

English: Quite the happy dog. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What I am about to write is beyond man’s ability to comprehend.  How then can anyone expect that my words will do it any justice at all?  Yet it is important to voice the following.  So, with your mercy, I will form these words with all the care I can muster.  May God bless every word so that He will be glorified in them.

My little dog is a bit slow.  I can dance my hand around her and watch her try to keep up with the speed of the movement.  In this way, she is like me.  The world is far too fast and complicated for me to keep up with.  It dances around me like an angry horde of bees.  Stings come far too fast for me to predict.  Defending myself is useless.

Now you would think that my little dog would become a bit dejected at not being able to play with me at the same speed.  But the contrary is true.  She seems to delight in the inability to predict the next move.  How amazingly beautiful is her spirit.  And it is right that I should envy her ability to embrace her lack.

If God had made only three trees on a tiny little semblance of the world, the complications of keeping those three trees alive and thriving would be endlessly complicated.  But He has created billions and billions of plants, creatures, clouds, waters, and man.  Yet not one item in His creation lacks what it needs to thrive.  If the world is too fast for me to fend with, how much more is the nature of God beyond our ability to comprehend.

This would dishearten me if I hadn’t heard of His promise to embrace His people; caring for our individual needs as if we were the only creation.  Like my little dog, I am enthralled at His speed and ability.  I wait to see His next move in my life.  And I am thrilled when I hear His approach.   Another wonderful game of eternal Holiness is about to be played.  And I quiver with anticipation.

While man is so very proud of his accomplishments, he has only begun to define what God has been doing for eternity past.  Nothing we use or create on this earth can match the wonder of a may fly.  The entire mass of invention from man does not even come close to the amazing miracle of a single flower.  Man boasts that he can even create life.  But the tools he uses were already available from the hand of the eternal and Holy God who made all that is.  In this, man creates nothing.  He only manipulates what has been provided by God.  So where is the boasting?  It is everywhere, sadly.

Were man able to create a miniature universe, complete with a living breathing world within it, he would not be able to see what is on that planet.  Consider how small the earth is compared to the vast nature of the universe about us.  We don’t even know where in the universe we sit.  Yet God cares for the gnats and even germs that inhabit this place of glory.

All this, I wrote, only gives inspiration to consider the greatness of God’s work.  And to top it all off, we are promised a perfect place that we cannot even begin to conceive.  So the next time the world comes against you with a vengeance, and you find that you can’t cope with the speed and complicated mess it offers, take heart.  We are designed to be helpless from the beginning.  It is this helplessness that enables the transformation Jesus purposes for all men.  We are nothing.  He is everything.  And it is up to us to learn to dance before Him in this place of testing.

May You be Glorified by these words, O’ Lord of Life and Hope.  Your name is Jesus.  And You have caused me to be unashamed at that name.  Glory is Yours from beginning to end.  For the Father has given You this title, and endlessly more.  We who live in the Spirit You give salute You with joy filled sacrifice.  This is as it should be.

By His Grace, Amen.

The Place of Truth


Words have a power all their own

Words have a power all their own (Photo credit: Lynne Hand)

There is a place where truth, joy, obedience, order and Glory abound.  You will not find it here on earth (in this place of testing).  We may receive a visitor from this place, but we cannot locate it here.

We hear stories of those who encountered the reality of this place while they walked around in bags of blood and flesh like us.  But only a “micro-few” have ever been invited to taste that place with all their senses.  What these few men tell will bring goose bumps on the skin of any truthful reader.  And we find the wicked carefully avoiding their stories with adept eyes and ears.

Evil men speak of this place also, regardless their attempt to restrain their lips.  The words leak out in the stories they tell.  Their social structures mimic that of Heaven, regardless the corruption in any level of their structures.  Music, made by man, imitates the Glory of that place, though they surround the tones with sensual pleasure and wicked dreams.  Greedy men prepare items to sell that men have no use for.  And other men contrive messages to convince their fellow travelers to purchase these worthless trinkets.  Yet the message of God is sewn into the very fabric of all life here on earth.

The point I am making may not be plain to all who read this.  So I will spell it out clearly.

God is so completely powerful that even among a people who abhor His ways His message rings out clearly all day long, and even into the darkest of nights.  They attempt to stifle the words by dressing them in various forms of filth.  But words like beautiful, forever, love, embrace, belonging, and so much more, belong to God alone.

He allows men to contort and misuse His words for a time.  But this place of Glory has promised to utterly silence rebellion and hatred for what is good.  Even the carefully crafted wicked ways of man can’t conceal the message of God.

Look around you and listen with truthful ears.  You will hear the story of God everywhere. Whispers of His promise and Holy ways drip from the mouths of man like honey from a bountiful Bee hive. Remember these things: Even pigs end up as bacon.  And the earth renders its gifts to the vilest of hearts.  Yet dust settles back to earth.  Night comes upon all when it is time.  And everything that lives here has a place where it becomes consumed by something greater.

So will it be when He rips this curtain away which surrounds us now.  All we now know will be completely vaporized; it will meet oblivion face to face.  Then, what we have not known will appear.  Then all men will stand on ground they have never known.  That obscure story that men can’t avoid telling will ring out clearly visible; palpable to the senses and utterly unavoidable.  And accounting will begin.

I saw a young man getting a ticket along-side the road.  I looked at him as I passed by on the other side of the road.  He saw my gaze and turned his head, provoked by shame to avoid me.  He was able to avoid me by simply looking somewhere else.  And the burning sense of shame was averted by differing scenery.  This will not be available when we stand on that Holy ground of God’s eternity.  No matter where we look we will encounter His Glory.  Guilt will overwhelm every sense of pride.  And no wicked heart will be able to stand.  To their knees they will fall with a thud.  As one mass they will render Glory to the Lord of Life, Jesus.  And evil lips, which once spoke involuntarily the message of God, will remember how they tried to stifle His words.

Take heed to this message, you who hate the Lord.  When the day appears it will be as if there had been no days before.  As it is now, you live in the moment of “Now”.  So it will be on that moment of stark encounter.

And to all of us, who restrain the Love of God within us, take heed.  What you are restraining will burst forth regardless your will to restrain.  On that day we will give up what we did not use.  Perhaps we will witness it leaving.  And we will be abjectly ashamed that we held back the message here.

This message is to all men, Christians, worldly religious, and the willful sinners.  For no man will escape that moment of confrontation.  It is a place in time that will not be taken out of the way regardless man’s willingness to believe it.  Look on the horizon of your life.  See that glow at the gate of your departure?  See how that light glows in a curiously pure light?  It approaches because time is forcing you to move toward it.  Prepare now!  Clean your life and subject yourself to His Holy message.  Do not embrace folly.  Embrace truth!

Amen!  Many men will die the death of eternal shame.  A handful will live. Those who submit to the Lordship of the Son of God, washing their lives with His Holy commands and leadership, will live.  All others will encounter a horribly deep shame.  Silence will embrace wicked lips.  The backs of the proud will be broken from their stiff ways.  Hands which took what was not theirs will fall limp to the hips.  Heads will bow low for inability to gaze at perfection.  And bodies will quake with fear at the unveiling of Blazing Holiness.

This message has been delivered from the moment of creation, and is faithfully delivered even today.  The Spirit of God will not contend with the pride of man forever.  There is a day of completion.  And it will appear violently on all men.  Even so, Lord Jesus, come.

By His Grace.

 

Explain This.


Crashed Toyota Matrix

Image via Wikipedia

A man was in a multi-car accident.  It wasn’t fatal for anyone involved.  But the incident rattled the very soul of each survivor.  Parts of automobiles lay in every direction for 50 yards.  Air bags deployed now lay like fading mushrooms.  Doors sprung open display the vulnerability of the flesh of man.  Tears on the faces of the women, and the wide eyed faces of the men, testify to the shock.

The miracle is that no one was hurt.  Not even a scratch on any of them.  The wonder of their situation began to sink in.  And, as they stood together, one by one they began to laugh.  Six people stood among carnage laughing.  When the police finally arrived, the scene was a bit macabre.  The ambulance and fire crews had no work. Officially, the only work was cleanup and writing.

Later in the month those six people gathered at a café to share their joy at being alive.  As they sat around the table and recounted the possibilities, they began to slowly notice something.  There were no words to describe their encounter.  Each of them could tell their story but what words could describe the shock, horror, fear, and anxiety in those fateful moments?  Language was the barrier which could not be surmounted.  And they eventually sat silent.  Each of them began to break down in different states of tears.  At this point they realized just how alone they were.  Unable to tell the completeness of the story, even to those who were involved, isolation was almost a tangible element between them.  Such violence gone silent.

Though their experience is unique, we all understand the limits we face each day.  I want to tell someone something.  But the words don’t always come out quite right.  And there is always need to clarify.   Yet, the clarification itself isn’t clear!  What frustration!  Yet, what a common bond between lay us all.  Even if we say, “Here, let me show you”.  The message is filtered through the mind and heart of the receiver and the sender.

With this foundation, I present the reason for this entry:

I have warned about the reality of God’s promise to the wicked.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been there to see it happen.  And even if I had seen it with my own eyes, how could I relate it to anyone?  But I believe with a fever that such things are going to occur.  I have also spoken loudly about the promise of God to those who accept the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice.  Though I haven’t received it in full, I believe it with a severe passion.

Like those in the accident, how can I hope to explain what I know to anyone?  Even other Christians are hard pressed to share their experience of Jesus with each other.  And these people have a common bond beyond this world’s perception!  We use words like glorious, joyful, peaceful, amazing, and such.  But none of them can hold even one sliver of a moment in His presence in prayer.  Nor can they relate how amazing it is to experience the reality of His forgiveness after we have knowingly sinned before His very face.  How can any of us hope to convince the wicked of their plight?  It has to be a God thing, this conversation about what is coming.  It is God who communicates the completeness of His promises to each one of us.

Hell is real.  The promise of God to utterly wipe out the very souls of the wicked (history, name, hopes, and work) is true!  But these are just words, aren’t they?  If you don’t believe, what can be said to you?

This post is a venting of frustration.  Because I know that if you don’t believe, there’s nothing more I can do for you.  You will, indeed, experience a horror far more real and lasting than those possibilities of the accident I spoke of. And, if any of them had died, they would still face the Most High God.  There is a “second death”.   Yet, those promises of God to those who believe are to be like the six who survived without a scratch.  There is eternal life!

Consider that story.  If those people realized they couldn’t even share among themselves, how could they hope to explain it to others?  A life shattering miracle happened to them.  But that “happening” is uniquely theirs alone.  Salvation is absolute and real.  And, to those who are actively living under the rule of Jesus, life in the Lord is more real than the things of this world.

Please consider my words.  The accident coming on the unsaved is going to be no accident.  If you’ve read this, it is much like someone having a vision before the drivers left their house, office, ball game, or wherever they began their fateful trip.  And the one who had the vision warned the driver to stay a moment longer.  Would any of those drivers listened to the one who had a stern face?  Would they have stayed a moment longer?  Please consider the promises of God in Christ Jesus.  Come!  Come share in the reality of the forgiveness of God in His Lovely Son.

By His Grace.