The word, “works” implies something fake to Christians.  In fact, we have become so adverse to the image it creates, placing our salvation in question, that we have stopped doing any “works” at all.  Most churches are null, void, dead, reclined or simply disinterested in doing the work to which we have been commissioned.  For much of the Christian family there will be no harvest for there has been no planting, fertilization, weeding or watering.  Church ranks once burgeoning with “On Fire Christians” have diminished or been replaced with a new brand of indifferent, uncommitted or dare I say, “Luke Warm” bodies.  We have become the church at Laodicea.  The worst of it is that we don’t even deny it anymore, we accept this position without the minutest fear of the Lord’s admonition.

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.  I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about the spit you out of my mouth.  You say, ‘I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve for your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.  So be earnest, and repent.  Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  Revelation 3:14-21 NIV

This letter, an epistle from the Lord Jesus Christ himself delivered through the committed Apostle, John, is written to each of us.  How am I luke warm?  How have I convinced myself of my wealth and safety denying the truth of my own frailty and weakness.  How can I repair what I have altered and return to the road of authenticity and surrender to Christ?  How can my “Works” be real and produce bounty for the Kingdom of God?  How can I receive the blessings of an overcomer and sit with Christ upon the throne?  How can I take to heart the warnings of God and be what He sent me to become?

This is difficult word, but I receive it in the Love by which it was intended.  I must rejoice in God’s correction for He disciplines those whom He loves.  Father, let me have the ear to hear Your Spirit’s proclamation to the body.  Let us individually and collectively do that which was predetermined before the beginning of time.  Give us clarity in faith.  Let our “works” match the abundance of our hearts.  In Christ Jesus I pray to You Father.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/the-perils-of-watered-down-christianity/?cat_orig=faith

Motivation; catalyst, incentive, stimulus, encouragement, desire, hunger, suggestion.  What a word, conjuring immediate investigation of motives and analysis of action.  Why do we do what ever it is that we do, each of us different, and how many different roads to we traverse in those pursuits?  What sponsors my thoughts, leading to emotion, eventually converted to movement, purpose and result?  And can all these aspects truly be captured in this one word?  This is a microcosm of God’s depth, that moments spent in His Word may lead to a lifetime of contemplation.  The Word lives but it does not change, it is we who revolve around its infinite Glory, each revolution taking in new facet, new perspective, even as we are changed mid orbit.

How can I judge?  For what I perceive with absolute clarity of the moment will by my nature be transformed in my next review.  As I have changed to contemplate it with new cells, new learning, growth and perhaps humility.  How may I test motive of another man’s heart when I possess not omniscience nor the understanding to fully comprehend my own drives, depths and weakness?  Why should I even dally upon such folly unless to somehow deflect the true introspection in review of my own thoughts, actions and repentance?  Taking my eyes off the road even for a moment to review your intentions puts me in danger of trespass, falter, failure or hazard.  I am not your keeper nor you mine, perhaps if we walk hand in hand we may avoid the pitfalls of singular focus.

Where are we headed?  I truly do not know the path or travails of this life but I know the destination.  I cannot take my own inventory even in as much as I will fool myself to thinking that somehow I have stumbled upon a recipe for success and suffer miserably.  This pursuit is simple, stay on the path, look for His light, read and write His Word upon my heart so that it shall direct me to righteousness.  That is not difficult but totally impossible.  So simple yet sublime in detail and intricacy beyond mortal reason.  I shutter to think that some day I will understand and for that I am relieved, because right now, I know but a smidgen.  Praise You Lord Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord of Glory, who was, and is and is to come.  We love you so much Father.

Had enough.  Of the social manipulation, pitting one group against another to deflect focus.  Enough of the wannabees and the have not’s, being bated by the envy as they are told the only way out is to take what the haves have got.  Weak commitments, nothing worth wagering everything, taking a stand unless its for a moment of glory where I can be immortalized for bad behavior.  The easy way out is all that anyone has the courage to pursue.  Wherever the water flows, the gang leads or the money sprouts is what we’re choosing.  Aligning with daydreams to stave off the nightmares, romancing about the undead or the invincible, because anything has to be better than just plain living.

When did we give up so completely?  Acquiescing to the liars and usurpers, trading anything good for a taste of what everyone says is important.  None of it has been worth the trade but we keep on betting, all in, for a piece of a charade that hasn’t helped one single soul.  We see the madness, the sadness and the unfulfillment of saint and sinner alike but we cannot seem to see past the advertisement.  I bought it and rather than bring it back I have to play it out, suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse that strips all that is good from the experience.  Must we accept the band aid, or perhaps can we see our way to bravely accepting the cure?

This world deals in moments, flashes, flares and fizzles.  There is no everlasting, though girls are sold the dream of happily ever after and guys immortalized in self sustaining glory.  Why don’t they want to tell you that pain is a wonderful part of being alive, that learning and discipline are expected variables in this equation of life.  No memory can sustain man.  Sure vengeance, revenge and quests for recaptured instants, may produce drive for satisfaction, but none of it is real living.  Why are we all so uniquely different?  Why is happiness self-defined, self maintained and self perpetuated if we all quest for the package full of buzz words, that we are sold by each new multimedia muse?  How can that be that we are so different yet the obtaining the same dream will bring each of the happiness that is so uniquely defined by each of in singularity?  It doesn’t make sense, just as the feeling in my chest that I know God is watching and yet they say I must deny Him in order to achieve liberality of thought and action.  There is no freedom without God.  No freedom from the massive hypnosis that beckons us to follow lemmings in to Hades.

Enough of this dream.  I want to wake in the arms of God, learning the answers to puzzles my mind has pondered for a lifetime.  Enough of the guessing the worrying the wishing and capitulation, complicity and complacence.  The is the test and it is enough, because this is where He sent me to be prepared for our meeting.  But when I have had enough schooling I will be released to truly live and enjoy that which is truly enough, The Lord My Jesus, the Christ of God.  The end and beginning of all things.  Enough choice, enough voice, enough tears and what is left is pure, kind, gentle and full of hope and love.  I feel as if I have had enough but even that is folly, for I am not in charge.  My life is not my own and I am unwilling as many others to fool myself in to thinking that somehow that this is my plan.  This life is lived for Him, by Him and through Him, for the realization of His everlasting Glory and my seat of in the congregation at the foot of His throne among the beloved of God.  I am surrendered to a Will greater than my own and that is enough for me.

The Narrow Door

Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.  Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”  He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.  Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside, knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’  “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’  “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’  “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.  Away from me, all you evildoers!’  “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Issac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.  People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the Kingdom of God.  Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”  Luke 13:18-30

He did not tell them to remain on their couch, nor did He prescribe a specific performance sequence through which to enter the narrow doorway.  He simply said make every effort to enter through that doorway.  Does this mean we are to struggle in our quest to be found worthy?  That is what the world would convince you, for they too have been blinded by manful ways.  This is not easy Word to ponder, it requires relationship with Holy Spirit in order to grasp fully what may seem as contradictions to the unwise, but are clear to those who have ears to listen.  No we cannot find our way to heaven through our own efforts, but we must still make an effort to enter through the right doorway.

This lesson is for all believers to remain steadfast to the Right Path, the skinny road that leads to the narrow doorway reserved for the faithful to the end.  There are ample diversions, countless opportunities to be waylaid, forgetting our duties and sacrificing our inheritance for a soup trade or a fistful of dollars and sin.  This is a reminder, one of the innumerable calling us to be ready for when the time comes it will already be too late for decision making, sacrifice, surrender and change.  The Lord has spoken and consistently tells us that those with ears to hear, let them listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.  Now these warnings don’t specifically come until the outset of the Book of Revelation, but is that not the time to which we find ourselves committed?

I want to be known by the Lord on that day.  I want to be found with oil in my lamp.  I do not wish to weep and gnash my teeth standing outside a door that no one may open but the Lord.  I do not wish to see the prophets from a distance and fall anguished that my opportunities were mistaken and forsaken.  I do not wish to be part of the many who try to enter but cannot and are denied by the Risen Lord.  I would plead to You now Lord for my inclusion in the Kingdom and ask that You remember me on that great and glorious day.  Praise You in Your Glory, have mercy upon me in my fleshly insignificance.

What is so frightening about an iceberg?  It is the part that is unknown, that which is unseen that presents a threat or terror.  It is the same thing with truth, all must be revealed, for it is the omission which damages trust and faith.  Deception has no part in truth.  If the truth is contorted, rewritten, warped, thrashed, overlooked or redacted it removes that which makes it priceless and pure.  God’s Word tells the truth, wholly, plainly, perfectly, not mincing words or leaving out what makes people uncomfortable in its conviction.  That is why we have become jaded in this country as of late, because we fear that the behemoth below the surface is far more dangerous then the idyllic, pristine structure visible on the horizon.  It is not the lies that disturb us so much as what the lie portends.  First that there is no cause for trust and second that if they concealed it from us at the outset then the real story must be far worse then they’ve let on.

Holy Father, thank You for being honest with me from the start.  There is no elaborate hoax being perpetrated over humanity in order to gather or keep You in power.  For all the power and Glory of this Universe is Yours from the beginning.  Unlike ours or any worldly government/king we did not cede You the authority it is simply, “Yours”.  This world has become a muddied copy of what used to be transparent and pure.  We have lost faith, not in Your Glory but in this world’s capacity to fulfill our purpose.  This obstacle course, riddled with folly, falsehood and fallacy challenges us to remain focused upon the one constant, You Lord.  You are unmoving, unchanging, consistent and untainted by the sin run rampant throughout creation.  If there is a place that is free from this sepsis, let us be led to its gate.  And as Your Word states let us see the cleansing of this world from the ravages of illness, wickedness and sin.  I know You are God by Your enormous patience.  You are waiting for all that will eventually turn back to You in repentance and truth to take that step.  For that I Praise You, for loving us even though we are unlovable and lost.

Lord I pray for that day when all the world knows the Truth of Your Glory.  The day when the shroud is finally removed and even the mockers bow out of awe.  Keep everything I do above the surface so that no one fear what lurks in my shadow, up my sleeve or below the table.  Let me serve Your Children in honesty and in truth all the days of this life and the next.  In Jesus’ Name I pray.  Amen.

http://unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/?p=9474  President Obama Threatens Veto of Military Religious Freedom of Speech Act currently in the House.

Despite what the media has told us about the current administration’s warm and friendly intentions, the truth, produces an itch akin to bed bugs, poison ivy and wide-weave burlap.  Would you be angry with me if I asked you to rejoice or be thankful as we find ourselves in this present predicament?  This is the nature of persecution.  We have all expected it, looked for it, whispered about it, but we really never knew what it looked like, and now we do.  The alarming thing is that we expected to be the only ones experiencing it, that was a misunderstanding.  You see we are all in this world together.  We all must face the trials to come.  Unfortunately it will be many of the Christians who suffer the most in this life, but everyone is going to face the most difficult times in Man’s brief history.

Why is that so important, because that is why the Lord is sending the tribulation so that unbelievers will be subjected to so much stress, loss of life and travesty that they turn their faces to God.  That is the entire purpose behind the trials which must come to pass.  So will you face the loss of liberty with a sense of joy in your heart, prayer and kind words to say to your neighbor?  I certainly hope so, because this coming persecution is God’s plan not the enemy’s.  Sure there are those of the powers and principalities who will delight in the demise, pain and temporary injury that most certainly believers will face, but that suffering will be short lived and serve a purposes greater than any one of our lives.

Rejoice for the Kingdom of Heaven has come.  Many will turn away, sealing their fate for an eternal separation from God, but more people will come to the Lord during the coming days, months and years than the entirety of history.  There will be an innumerable gathering at the foot of the Throne, praising Him, sharing fellowship, worship and love in the Light of His Presence.  There is nothing here that may break our resolve.  No loss of freedom or life that can compare to what we will be given in the moment of His Great Glory.  Serve God, speak truth and let Him deal with however it shakes out.  There is only on King, One God and One Truth, do not fall pray to the deception of fear.  Love is our Guide and Jesus our King.  Praise Him in Everlasting Glory, Forever and Forever, Amen.

Lifting weights, arduously studying, practiced discipline, abstinence and regular prayer.  Nothing is completed without some work.  No crops planted, no money earned or saved, no muscles strengthened or thinking increased and no dependence upon God developed.  That it why it is called the Christian “walk” of faith, because there is a physical action or life direction involved.  Among the largest enemies to the Christian faith, sedentary life is most pervasive, silent and dangerous.  Struggling in life produces trust in God’s Word and builds hope upon His promises.  He promised us difficulty.  The only place that we can find security and rest is in God through Christ.

We have been fooled.  The bill of goods states clearly that we will find a peaceful existence on this planet where there will be limited struggle, overflowing coffers and easy relationships.  Isn’t this in fact a lie?  Despite what satan tries to sell us we all know the truth, yet we continue to buy into the deception that wealth, health, clean living and great relationships are available with little to no work.  We refuse to do situps or crunches and want great abs.  We want a strong heart yet will not stop drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and heaven forbid doing “any” regular exercise.  We expect our children to love, honor and obey us when we will not offer the same to God and lead through poor or absent example.  We expect to “know” all of God’s Will for our lives yet we will not read His Word, Seek His guidance in Prayer or learn His lessons of preparation through abstinence and Prayer.  In fact we have become so twisted in our beliefs that we know people cannot earn their way to heaven so we have rationalized that we don’t have to do “any” works at all.

Lord, give me the struggle for it shall sharpen me.  Father, teach me through discipline and hard work so that rest when it comes will be fully enjoyed.  Lord, lead me and strengthen my resolve and wisdom through prayer and leading by the Holy Spirit in prayer, mediation and a walk led by faith not sight.  Father reward my planting with growth, my weeding with unencumbered living, my tending with good relations and may Your Storehouse be filled with the offering of that harvest.  All the glory to You for my life’s produce.  In Jesus Name I live.  Amen

What should concern me?  Should I be worried for nothing, can I be worried for nothing or has recent chaos shaken even the calm cool shadow under the Wings of God?   Do current or future global circumstances stand a chance against my salvation?  Will I be rocked by the shaking which has and will obviously increase as we near the Lord’s certain return?  Shall I shake, flit, jerk, run, panic and hide the tide now sucking masterfully at our ankles?  How can a man be expected to remain calm in the midst of catastrophe?  Hold on folks these are only the first birth pangs signaling the coming delivery.

If your house be constructed on sand, right now you should not just be worried you should be scurrying for shelter.  This is not the product of someone’s ill works, this is the culmination of sin’s progressive growth throughout the age of man.  God will rid us of sin and the magnitude of calamity necessary to jar sin lose from the wheat will shake the sunshine itself.  None of us shall escape of our own strength, cunning, planning or volition.  Our only safety, security, trust, deliverance and future is found in the protection of faith in God’s loving intervention through Spirit and Flesh.  Before Christ left this planet He signaled the beginning of the countdown to His second intervention.  Those who believe and accept the sacrificial work of Christ upon the Cross shall solely be spared.  This world will see tragedy, and that may include many Christians, but they shall not suffer the second death and that reality makes fear invalid.

For those of my Brothers and Sisters for whom the testing has begun I pray the Lord’s Strength lifts you up in your weakness.  He will never leave you even when the Earth is shaken and the mountains are swallowed by sea.  There is only worldly cause for concern, but we are made of spirit and that cannot be shattered, even by the breaking of the world.  The Lord shall preserve us until such time we will join Him in Glory and truth, receiving perfection in exchange for this imperfect shell we now reside.  I see your test and I also see your faith, faith in a God who knows the number of hairs on your head.  There is no way He will allow any true harm to befall you.  Sure you may taste death, but that is inevitable except for those who are fortunate enough to be here for rapture.  Each of us shall die and in that moment find peace.  Why then now shall we fear such an outcome.  Death is at the end of this road no matter what.  The only difference is that we get to face it with joy knowing the end from the beginning.  We are headed to rejoice at the foot of Glory’s Throne, never alone, never afraid, free from sin and death for eternity.  If this is our fate and we may face it as we choose then let us choose to meet it with courage, peace and trust in the Promises of God.  Stand and The Lord God shall fight for you.

God be praised in the name of Jesus Christ the King, who came as Lamb and who returns as Lion.  I pray for your continued peace and strength, may the Spirit of Almighty God guide and protect you on whatever road you must walk.  Even if that road take you through the valley of the shadow of death, may you not be moved.  Amen.

Conclusions must be made, or is this just impatient reluctance?  Throughout man’s history religious leaders have damaged the truth through their inability to wait on God.  Many have failed to accept that there are some things He is not going to reveal until His timing arrives.  God knows that we have a capricious nature and have to fill in the blanks even with incorrect, incomplete or information that is just frankly wrong.   The Lord repeatedly, apparently and purposefully leaves important segments unknown or unknowable.  I believe that this is intended to produce faith in the Scriptural reader.  Since “hope is belief in things not yet seen”, then if I knew everything then it would produce no reliant faith.  My justifiable reliance upon the promises of God require that I accept also what He has chosen “not” to tell me.  That also is for my betterment.  The Bible states that “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”.  It is striking that the Word does not say that faith comes through knowledge, which becomes faith.  Perhaps this is because then no man can boast, as faith does not depend on a man’s ability to assimilate knowledge but rather like Wisdom it comes specifically from the dispensary of God.

This parsing out of information produces an odd effect in humans.  It drives some men, crazy with diseased analysis trying to fill in the blanks or intuit what God has “not said”.  Is this a natural reaction or utter rebellion.  Judging by the resultant effects of providing what the Lord has not made clear I would have to say disobedience.  Thus the False Teacher and misleading doctrine is born, out of arrogance, impatience and disobedience.

I am responsible for false doctrine.  The only way to control this overwhelming urge to control the uncontrollable is to develop patience faith and trust in God’s Word and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  I don’t need to know the identity of the two witnesses who will come to proclaim the truth at the “wailing wall”.  I don’t need to know the day and the hour of the Lord’s return for the elect.  I don’t need to know why America is not mentioned in the discourse on the “last days”.  My duty is to be ready for these things when they come. The enticement of being like God doesn’t capture me, I do not wish to be like God.  I prefer to leave the outcome in his hands, safe in the “faith” that whatever happens, His way is the best way.

Father, thank you for the in depth guidance Your Word provides.  You are enough for me in all things.  Forgive me for pursuing anything that is outside of Your Will.  Take me to that place where I am equipped with only that with which You need me prepared.  Give me peace in “not knowing” and do not allow my ego to become a foothold for the enemy’s tactics.  I am okay with not knowing everything.  Give me Your faithfulness when I possess none myself.  Show me the way to patience and long suffering.  In Jesus I find Truth and Trust.  Amen.

Under whose authority do I preach?  If it is the Word of God then it must come from God not from me.  I am simply a vehicle through which the eternal, saving, cleansing water’s of life are dispensed to a thirsty world.  If the inside of my pitcher is filthy does that taint the taste of these life saving water’s or do those waters have the same authority and cleansing power to wash clean my own sins in my frailty as a human mechanism?  Will the waters flow at all from a unrepentant disciple?  These are august questions with which we must struggle and frankly each of us would be dismayed if not for the guidance of the Holy Spirit .

Does my lack of gentleness, kindness, self-control and long suffering indicate that I am in fact not filled with the Spirit of God, Who seals a man for eternity?  I serve God and no man and that includes myself.  If I am doing as He has led me, in the knowledge, faith and adherence to a salvation for which I am assured then neither my sin nor the pronouncement, accusations or recriminations of any man can effect that salvation.  The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want and He shall discipline me in His Good Will when He deems necessary, and as a note He may use another believer to deliver that message of the need for re-dedication or repentance.  I respect any believer’s Spirit filled message even as it may be directed at me, but look out for the lumber in thy own eye.  I am not one that needs to be bludgeoned by those who love me, simply tell me what you think and feel, then give me the respect I have shown you, allowing me to evaluate, pray, discuss and weigh each spirit’s voice as the Word directs me.  If the message is truly from the Lord then HE will counsel, reprove and conform me to His likeness, in that I have faith and trust not in the angry declarations of other sinners.

Immature Christians, although well intentioned tend to wield the Word with a heavy hand.  As Jesus delivered the message, he did it in kindness and patience, even with the Apostles who refused to understand after spending three years in direct contact.  Where He directs each of us to which ministry He calls each of us is a personal conversation between He and each of us.  If I am in relationship with a church and the leaders of that church call me to count for some behavior then I am dedicated to accept, follow and change whatever they have directed me as an extension of His Authority.  I pray for those who feel it is necessary, in self righteousness and what I believe is ill advised manipulation of discipleship to dispense judgment as if it came from themselves.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I ask Him to protect me from the fiery darts of the enemy that may in times even be spoken by a Brother who has fallen asleep and allowed himself to be used by the enemies of God.  Forgive me for the times I have corrupted Your intentions by my own desire for control.  What the enemy or any man intended for evil let it be turned to the Good of Your Will.  Let their intentions be made evident and the truth of anything they say be extracted from any ill intent.  Let me only speak Your Truth, listen to Your Truth and obey Your Truth in faith, kindness and love as I believe You have directed.  Let me lead members to the cross and plant seeds and lead me away from destroying, breaking down or discouraging anything that You have saved.  What You have made Holy is Holy.  And just as You taught Peter let no man or spirit say otherwise.  We love You Father, for what You are, what You have shown us and for what You have given us, even that which we never deserved.  Amen.