A wealth of knowledge cannot earn me love.  My best laid plans and cleverness are impotent in manipulating adoration.  The respect that I gain from a job well done does not guarantee the love of my colleagues.  My monetary wealth simply assures that I have something which must be constantly attended, it does not make me eligible for the love I have been missing.  A wonderful physique, personality or astounding beauty fails to enhance my chance of being loved by one iota.  A loving Father does not demand love from his children for he fully understands that love is a choice on the part of the giver.  That is the nature of God’s gift to humanity, that we may accept His love for us in our darkest moment and “choose” to love Him back.

If you hate Christ then you will also choose to hate me.  If you cannot forgive then you have chosen to hate.  If you cannot love God for who He is then you have chosen to love your own view and understanding.  If you cannot believe the truth of the Gospel message then you have chosen out of skepticism or rebellion the need to make of yourself a graven image acceptable for your particular worship.  A child does not love out of duty but out of choice emanating from a open heart.  I want them to love me, but why?  Is it truly necessary for them to love me in order to serve their need, to sacrifice my time, treasure and talent for their comfort, health and safety?  Or may I love them simply to honor God?    Do I fully understand the inherent foundation of choice built into true love?  For if my wife, kids or family love me out of duty, obligation or relation do they truly love me?  If I love them and they never love me what then should be the price, if any, for this absent love?

Can I build and maintain intimate relationships where there is no bond of love?  It is unlikely that intimacy will ever be present in a relationship where the choice to love was declined.  If someone, out of free will choice, determines that they do not love me, can I, should I or could I ever change that circumstance in the affirmative?  Again it is unlikely, as that would again require love to be something that may be earned by my own performance.  Since, love is a choice on the part of the giver it may not be given as a reward for effort.  Doesn’t that mimic salvation?  We cannot earn salvation for it is freely given and thus accepted out of choice.  Odd isn’t it that love and salvation share this similarity?  Or is it odd at all that God’s Grace and Love are entirely the same thing?  He loved us so much that He gives us the choice to accept His Grace and Love Him in return and that freely given love leads to an intimate relationship.

We know that there is a major difference between asking someone for a favor and demanding that they do something on our behalf.  I love God because I choose to Love Him.  He certainly is worthy of my love but that is not why I love Him.  I serve God because I have chosen to love Him and feel that this is the greatest demonstration of that love.  God showed me the meaning of love.  I can love my family fully completely, sacrificially, just as Christ Loved us.  It is their choice to love me back.  Those who do not love God will never get to know Him intimately.  I loved my Earthly Father but once I got to know him better my love increased.  That is the enhancing nature of intimacy, fellowship and relation.  Love grows as we give ourselves to its shaping hand.  Oddly again that sanctification shares this similarity, that it grows over time as we volunteer to the Potter’s Hand.  For intimacy with God is sanctification through Love, the love of God for us and we for Him that transcends the limitations of this world.  I choose to love you and I hope that you choose to love me back, for if you choose to love me then it is highly likely that you have already chosen the Love of God.

May you be blessed all of your days by the Loving Grace of Almighty God through Christ the Saviour of mankind.  May the Holy Spirit fill you with love and good will toward men giving you power to aid in setting them free from worldly bondage.  May God’s Word tumble from your mouth as you seek to plant seeds for the Kingdom.  May you always be filled with knowledge of God’s steadfast love and the choice that you made to follow Him.  May those around you choose to love you, giving you the gift of intimacy with those you love.  In the precious name of Jesus.

The nose ring, tugging, pulling, dragging Russia into the Middle East.  Those eloquent, prognosticators always predicted it would be oil.  Yea, that will be it Russia will be sucked into the fray by black gold.  We never thought it would be provocative terrorism or perhaps political puppet building.  What we are seeing is that evil only matters in the hearts of men for God simply uses what they intend for evil’s sake and turns it to good, the Good Will of His Plan for humanity.  Let the wicked join with their wicked colleagues, plotting, twisting reality and frightening people with rhetoric and devious deed.  We know that Russia and all the enemies of God’s commands will have to find their way to Israel.  The group that brings them into the region through the tools of terror or those who seek to prop up fallen regimes in order to protect warm water sea installations shall all serve God’s Purposes.

That must frighten unbelievers, atheists and those directly aligning themselves with the prince of this world, for they cannot escape serving God.  When everything is said and done, no matter the awfulness of their attempts, no matter how many innocent they kill, they will not forestall the return of the Lord of Lords by one instant in time.  For like it or not the fallen are subject to time’s constraints, where God is not.  He may wait as long as He wishes to wait, desiring that precise moment when all who will choose Christ have had the opportunity to do so.  Where the wicked have to succeed now for time draws to close, when no one pure or wicked may do further work.  That must frighten God’s enemies, it only strengthens me, for when He comes He comes and I hope to be found doing His work when He does.  It is not God who chooses hell for each of us but of our own volition.  We may equally decide to accept His offer of grace and avoid that horrible separation from God, but all this serves God, that we cannot escape.

I must love those who hate me, while hating their sins and evil deeds.  Men are not my enemy but the wicked spirits that drive their hearts to consume, kill, contort and contaminate humanity.  For all men who design their own reality must control the thought of all around them, so that no one, even accidentally shines light on the illusion causing their house of cards to crumble.  For sin wishes to convert all those around a sinner so that they too may join in the poisonous misery.  For sin may not be enjoyed if there is even one person around who loves you enough to tell you the truth about your frailty.  The numbness of ill company that will never call you to restraint or repentance.  I cannot stand bye while you destroy yourself and keep God outside the sphere of your illness.  I understand that you must subsequently reject me from your life, but that is okay.  I pray you shall never forget the one person who loved you enough to tell you the truth of the Gospel and of your life.  Maybe some day you will remember and seek me out.  That will be a glorious time for the both of us.  In Jesus’ Holy Name.

My own understanding got me to the wrong location, situation or standing in relationship.  My desire to control a spherical environment leads me to exercise undue influence, rules and regulations upon those whom I love.  My lack of control over the circumstances in my own life leads me to pressure those around me to keep their P’s and Q’s in order, thus vicariously making my life somehow more tolerable.  None of these statements puts God first, none allows me to try God’s way and see that it is always the best and none gives me time to trustfully sit at the feet of the Master.

Do I trust God enough to let go of this false perception of control.  Have I fully realized that it is a defense or coping mechanism that is somehow socially tolerated while all other addictions are frowned upon.  That is why I do it because no one calls me to accountability, except of course the people who have gravitated away from me over the years to save themselves the onslaught of my enforced standards.  My way doesn’t work.  Certainly I have the best of intentions but intentions don’t heal wounds, time, care and medicine close open sores.  It is time to trust God.  What does that mean, I don’t know, but it will absolutely produce a more significant result than my own dis-proven efficacy.  My will or His, my will or His?  Do you hear the mantra of the internal conflict of a man wanting desperately to allow God yet holding on to the last string of self actualization?

Did I develop my own purpose or are all my dreams grown from the programming He placed within my DNA from the outset?  We know the answer.  I have wanted to be what He made me to be yet it is unreachable simply through my own talent and acquisition.  Becoming what God intends takes God’s action in each of our lives.  It is not a thing of self as the enemy would have you convinced.  My free will calls me to volunteer to or deny Christ.  That is the power of choice, but once having been made there is a significant price to fighting against the yoke.  I no longer wish to pay that price.  I no longer wish to set standards of performance for those around me when all I really want is their love.  Lord, teach me to choose your path first and settle upon it never varying, walking away of straying even in the slightest from Your direction.  Let my steps be true and in line with Your growth plan for this life.  Let me love them enough to set them free from my own imposed bondage.

Thank you for once again showing me the next thing that You will work upon in my life.  It is painful but it is freedom.  I must first see my chains before they may be broken.  Thank God I am set free from all bondage and servitude to this world and sin.  Thank you Jesus.

In truth and resemblance to His image what am I to create?  Distress, adding potential to the stresses of the saints or arguing doctrine with the unconvinced?  Challenge to the harmonious community of believers through dissent and words ill chosen?  Isolation, calling myself and those whom I hold dear to seclusion from the false words and tickling doctrine of today’s godly marketeers?

What then shall we cling to in this moment of declaration?  Shall it be independence akin to the logical resolve of the founders?  What environment do I feel is most hospitable to profit in dispensation of God’s Holy Gospel?  Is it one of childish love, where everyone and every behavior is accepted or acceptable?  Or is an adult understanding of the power living internally, leading me to challenge wickedness, hunger, disease and poverty?

Since the Gospel is foolishness to them who perish, may I politically regard their blindness as sufficient excuse for inclusion?  What then of men who have ignored, disobeyed, denied or mocked the truth of God, given so that none shall have excuse?  Shall I continue to banter, offer my breast for rapier wit, making myself a fool through refusing conflict?  What then has God called you to do?  Stand in the face of overwhelming enemies, odds and consequence, seeking capture of the High Ground or simply recede refusing to vie for the lives in balance?  What then is my position as a prince and priest in the order of Melchizedek?  Is there anything worth fighting for or have we been transformed by the world to believing that nothing is worth ultimate sacrifice?

A leader who stands bye as those around him perish is committing the sin of complacency.  We have been given talents, position, authority and Spirit’s Power to embark and complete the work to which each of us is assigned by the Master.  If ignorance is no excuse for them who will not accept God’s Truth, then it shall provide less solace and justification for them who should trust and obey.  We are slaves to righteousness and so commanded may not simply decide to ignore the weight of God’s expectations.  It is not the doing which earns us heaven but having been freely given heaven we have been filled with the desire to do as we have been told out of reverence for God.  The choice has been made.  What shall I create.  The same thing that the Lord did as He wandered Israel, inquiring hearts, desperately seeking freedom from bondage through the one available path for all men.  Seeking that which has been lost and delivering them the Gospel so that they might be redeemed to God through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

If I must fight then let it be to save those precarious few peering into the abyss or in defense of the innocent or maybe even so that my enemy may see through sacrifice that there really is one true God.  If I must argue, let me argue for the righteousness of God among the saints keeping them Holy and Pure for the day of our completed betrothal.  If I must be complacent then let me stand silent when I have the right of unforgiveness, forgiving them who have wounded me worst.  Let me create an environment of trust through truth and dependence in my character over time.  Let me be like Christ in my devotion to His Will and to loving them especially when they are fallen.

It is the Creator I serve, so let there be light.  Let me be salt water of healing to them who are wounded or overcome by putrefaction and sin.  Let me preserve the tiniest hope in them who have been overcome by despair.  Let me lead them even in my last step or breath to the foot of the Cross of Christ, so that they might find rest.  Let me be like Christ.  Praise you Lord God for the opportunity to create that which You would have me produce.  In Jesus Holy Name.

Lord God, I love you.  Let my life be a testimony to your Glory.  If I must be in pain or trouble then allow me to reside in the strength and knowledge that those viewing my circumstance will see Your Hand and be edified.  May I use the gifts, talents and assets given me, not to comfort or build up a monument to self, but instead to warn, prepare and plant seeds of Your Holy Word that the captives might be set free from sin and death.  Guide my life, my words, my choices and my steps that I may find good soil into which I might plant the Seed of Your Gospel message.  May I be filled with Spirit, Love, Power and Courage throughout my walk for Your Kingdom.

Where shall I walk?  What fears may I dissolve?  How shall my mettle be measured in the coming days of trial, turbulence and testing?  What may I do beyond your healing, comforting, protecting hand?  The relevance of my perspective becomes evident and I find that what I think, feel or interpret is of little consequence.  This victory is not of my planning, my effort, my personage, my cleverness, my talent, treasure or intelligence.  I will have effectively added nothing but my surrender to all things God.  The impossible before me is equally irrelevant for if I may not achieve anything, then I am also free of this constraining envelope.  Miracles, feats, displays of valor and victory have never been mine to achieve for I am but a vehicle by which Christ may be brought into the fray to declare “it is finished”, so that the enemy may drop the illusion and flee His Majesty.

What then is proper exhibition and alignment to purpose, a God designed raison de etre?  Am I to find comfort in being Holy, remaining pure for the Master?  Am I to take faith from diminishing fear?  Am I to find solace in offering love for those like myself that never deserved its warmth and comfort?  Am I to find some answer to my shaping by following a God who continually shows that He Will provide and that His Word is True?  Am I to forgive this world for the pain it delivers me and my family as we desperately cling to trust, hope an faith?  Am I to know that my battles whether ending in my favor are all pieces in God’s Plan to redeem all men to relationship?  Am I to know in this moment that when my last breath here is expired I will be forever in the presence of God?  Yes, the answer to all these questions is “I AM”.  Praise His name for it is the right thing to do for such a loving and Holy God.  In Jesus Name I pray for all of you this day.  May you find peace and blessing offered in the cleansing blood of the Christ of God, Jesus Christ the King.