Effort, struggle, determination, trying so hard that I am crying yet decay, filth, mildewed rags, filling God’s nostrils, these are the product of my very best.  Man, I can’t even brag because the stuff I have done really has been meager.  I’ve got no proud mansion, no quiver filled with sons and daughters with whom I might project my impact into the future, I’ve got few friends, no measurable treasure and a reasonably steady work.  No accolades,  notoriety, no fame, grand talent or history.  Truthfully, on my own behalf I probably have more failure on which to speak than successes.  Considering this unimpressive resume, how could I possibly consider myself fulfilled or complete?

In one moment filled with His Spirit anointed by the oil of His authority I surpass a lifetime of worldly achievement.  I have loved greatly, especially those who knew no love or deserved contempt.  I have fed the starving, clothed the naked and edified the downtrodden, with the magnified provision of the Lord.  I have loved God with all my heart and all my strength, each time renewed, refreshed, refashioned for the next mission.  To His Glory, he deserved the surrender of my life that would have amounted to very little had it not been for His purpose, His Gift, His intention.

My treasures are in heaven.  They are the people I have made disciples, the people I have spent the time to acquaint with Christ and the people for whom I showed love when otherwise they would have never known its blessing.  What I have done for the Lord remains.  All I know is that when I find myself trying to impress someone with my worldly resume I begin to feel sickly for that man is gone and I really don’t care how much the world approves.  I live for Christ, in Christ and through Christ, the best part of this life and the next.  In Jesus’s name I pray to you Father thanking you for all that I have been graciously given.

Don’t really care to know the day and the hour.  This world already possesses enough shiny objects to capture what is left of my attention.  I don’t need to feed the engines of conspiracy, sycophantic siphoning of my focus upon Christ.  I do love you so, but I cannot complete the tasks of God while fully engaged regarding our loss or wealth in this world. When my work is done I will be gone until then that is the reason I remain in this plane. What I have or don’t have here is governed fully by the Will of God, I ought not have an inkling regardless.

That considered, what next?  The Lord said, my sheep know my voice and another they will not follow.  It’s pretty clear.  If we belong to Him then we know when He is talking and we listen.  We also know those voices that are foreign, impostor or false and we clearly know that we shall not follow their direction.  So, if I follow flesh, the enemy, my neighbor and the voices of improper doctrine, then I know clearly it has been by choice.  My own choice, with none to blame but myself.  Additionally, the most difficult part to disciplined service is immediate and complete response to Sovereign dictate.  If I know what He wants me to do, which I do because I know His voice and to which direction I am being compelled, then to do nothing is contempt for Christ.  My love is found in my obedience.

If He has given me extra funds then there is something for which they should be expended that is Kingdom conscious.  If there is too little funds then there is work and faith that need be expended to produce the crops of His harvest until the ministry is fulfilled.  If I am set from a position, relationship, ownership or service then there is another door either readily waiting or one which shall be opened in due time for my entry.  If He has yet to give me a family then I am too be educated through the aspiration and desire of a man given to serving God entirely.  If I have been given a family that continues to sharpen my manhood, then I must commit myself fully to this perfect service.

Although, I am not fully emptied of self, I am finding that to remain such is similar to a comatose patient on life support.  I have so little energy when I am in the flesh that I never seem to get my sin programs off the ground.  You see the Lord is right, that which I have fed has gotten stronger and that which I have starved is slowly dying.  The end of this perfect program He has me on will result in my being like Jesus.  I can help it through obedience and surrender.  I hamper it when I try to inject my own energy, thought, time, reasoning, logic or righteousness.  If I ever could have done it He would have never had to come in the first place.

Will you honestly say, like Isaiah, “Here I am Lord send me”?  Do you know what that means to be ready to do whatever it is the Lord is asking of you?  Being honest requires that you understand the position of your heart when you say something like, “that depends on where he is sending me”.  His Will, His destination, His promise, His responsibility to deliver, His servant, My wish, My command.

Sitting here thinking about me, praying for me, wanting a little more time to get you to understand the pains inside of me, while I follow a steady dictate of worrying about what I need, don’t need, don’t have, won’t have and probably shouldn’t even consider having.  My expectations built upon what I have previously determined that God has promised me in my idea of a name it to claim it religion.  I know that my dreams have nothing to do with God’s will but isn’t this about the desires of my heart.  The God of my imagination keeps me from all pain, redirects all the rain that would fall on my parade and spends his time marshaling angels to watch over my every movement so that the entire pink party can be played over and over again in our minds.  This is supposed to be the Kingdom of God where my troubles are all gone, my tears are washed my unhappiness forgotten.  How dare he determine that I should be one of those that must sacrifice for his purposes.  Leave that pain stuff for martyrs, me I’m just here to love.

Oh, there are going to be some pastors paying a heavy price for leading so many astray.  Unfortunately, at the same time weeping and gnashing of teeth will be heard as the Master closes the door and many are left behind, wondering where they went wrong.

I died roughly two-thousand years ago on that cross with Christ.  Sharing in his suffering from that glorious day is what has set me free for eternity.  This is His life to live as He wishes, but I have the pleasure of surrendering to that idea and hopefully getting out of the way so that He may increase in my diminution.  What if he hasn’t scheduled me for one of those uplifting tales of victory that play well at family time on Sunday’s.  What if He has me intended for martyrdom or persecution so that in my resistance I demonstrate His Will to overcome for those who have not yet found their faith?  Am I then a loser?

It’s all about you and what I am going to do to get your attention when I mention how much I love my Saviour and my God.  And if I perchance begin to feel pity for myself or sorrow for the inclined or obstacle ridden road I must traverse, then remind me of the orphans who will go to be alone tonight with out my appropriately timed visit.  Remind me of the widows who struggle to just get around town while I rest comfortably in Christ.  Yes, lest I forget them who suffer from disease, sickness, poverty, hunger and death considering my own wants while them that truly need pray in silence to the God of Peace.

The measure of a man is his character, reflected in the ordered action of rational discernment.  Choices, decisions, actions, stances all taken as explicable reaction or commentary consistent with worldly circumstance or logical deduction.  Chances are that if the world has never seen you lie, cheat, steal, murder, waiver in your stance upon the foundations of Christianity then you are a person of good character.  Let us leave room for the caveat of those things which may only be seen by God, thus declaring human judgment a less than perfect method of character judgment.

If a man may safely be declared of good character, what then is the probability/possibility that a prophet would be equally well judged through this process of public scrutiny?  I would venture to say that it would be less likely for a prophet with blemishes or discrepancies to escape negative public judgment than a man of shady character.  For it is much easier to hide errant character than it is to hide faulty predictions or disproved words that were attributed to God.  We as humans have been warned of false prophets so we reserve a set of particularly cruel punishments for them who falsely prophesy.  We must then accept Jesus as a Prophet, for nothing he ever foretold failed to materialize.  Certainly there are outstanding prophecies attributed to the Lord but them not having yet occurred we must first wait for them to happen before proclaiming judgment.  Yet we are now confronted with logical quandary, for if Jesus has uniquely told the truth regarding prophecy and we have seen no character flaws, our assumed position must be one that accepts him as truthful.  And in so doing we must accept the fact that He proclaimed Himself God, one of the Trinity, equal, one and coexistent with the Father and Holy Spirit.  Certainly we may proclaim it false but not until we have seen evidence to the contrary which heretofore has yet been produced.

The atheist’s or scientific evolutionists only hope is to construct doctrine consistently challenging, condemning and proving Jesus to be a liar.  This practice, attempted by the Pharisees, would result in coupling Jesus with the prince of the power of the air, whom we know to be a dissembler of supernatural composition.  However, none of their attempts to label him such was effective.  Certain, accusations and emotional fist raising allowed the Roman’s to stir up the mob to label him false, none of the accusations stood against truth.  There was no other relevant position for the legal authorities to take, thy could not have proclaimed him of good character or esteemed him as a truthful man while mollifying the mob.  So, Jesus was labeled false without supporting data a close-minded practice that defies all the rules of effective case law and scientific experimentation.   If by nature, I exclude the possibility of some idea being true then I have effectively prohibited it from ever having a fair, honest, discerned debate and subsequently opened the thoroughfare to it having been proclaimed falsely false.  Jesus has never been shown to have lied about anything.

What does it mean to us that Jesus is our King?  We then are subjects within his realm of authority.  Hereditary, pre-eminence, authority, Sovereign, ruler, judge, monarch, these are the words that describe the character of any King.  Jesus was the rightful and prophesied messiah of God, sent at exactly the time in history to which he was ordained.  He fulfilled the law and the word of the prophets in over 100 completed predictions.  Jesus forgave when it was His right to Judge  Jesus loved when all that He was offered had been hate and He stood silent offering no excuses, mercy or explanation for His honorable behavior.  We have established that to be pronounced a good man we must demonstrate those characteristics consistent with good behaviors.  To be a prophet our predictions must be proven correct and to be King we must have the family rights to the inheritance and subsequent authority.  Jesus, is a Teacher, a Prophet and a King and nothing he said did or didn’t do can ever equate him with having been a dissembler.

Unlike in worldly Kingdom’s Jesus’s authority does not arise from our belief in that said authority.  It is not like a fiat currency that only has worth because we believe in that worth.  Jesus is King because He has always been King.  His Sovereignty does not depend on our reliance upon that righteous authority.  He is who is and that is all He ever need explain to any of us.

Do you remember when you first believed?  How did you know it was your time to be moved into the Kingdom of God?  Were you in trouble, like me, did your life depend upon Jesus saving you?  Or was it a subtle salvation, one borne of a good family, church attendance and scriptural understanding?

For me it was Him.  I couldn’t imagine someone so unselfish, someone who had no cause to love me the way He did, giving all so that I might live.

Do you remember that boy, girl, man or woman you were?  Where are you now?  How glorious the transformation in the Potter’s Hand.  Who have you become?  Someone totally different or can you still see the rough edges.

Have you yet found purpose, practiced your spiritual gifts or brought someone to Christ? How are your Bible Studies?  Have you shown yourself approved, ready to rightly divide the Word or give a solid defense of your faith?  Or have you dawdled, leaving the bulk of the work to your brethren?  What keeps moving you or have the fire in your lamp also dwindled?

What would rekindle that light or have you cast a basket, blanket or curtain of excuse upon it?  Jesus knocks.  He loves each of us completely, waiting for that moment when we reach out to Him for relationship.  I don’t know about you but I cannot run, avoid or willingly stay away from someone who loved me enough to die for me.  Especially, a God who waits even now for the time when we might spend eternity together talking in the cool of day.  Come King Jesus, if you must tarry for my younger brothers and sisters, I understand.  Perhaps it will give me the opportunity to show you how much I love you, while I am here.

“I very much like when we walk together each day, Sir.”  “What may I call you?”  “You may call me Abba”, He said, and his eyes smiled upon me with the knowledge of every fiber of my being reflected.  I followed His steps wondering which wonders He would show me today in the garden of His gifting. He taught to name things, showed me the patience of my hands as I walked the animals in and out of the garden and told me of one tree of which I must not eat or else I would die.  I loved my Father, because He loved me.  I could not imagine displeasing Him for He truly cared for me in a kind, considerate and sovereign way.

What has changed?  For you and I.  Is God different?  Are we?  Can we still imagine anything outside of our total obedience to His command?  Have we forgotten His kindness, His Sovereignty?  It is that knowledge that separates us isn’t it?  That confounded tree from which we could not abstain?  Oh, that the seeds of regret would blossom in to an ointment that would repair my innocence.  Can a man forget his sin? I pray for that wonderful day when the memory of my disobedience is cast from my mortal soul.  He may have forgotten but my miserable flesh continues to remind me of my tentative footing, upon the slippery slope upon which I remain.,

I pray for you.  That you love Him too and covet those moments spent together simply refreshing your spirit.  This Earth is hard, it too groans from the sorcery, the slavery to a master with no kindness within him.  We all wish to be set free from captivity, from the limited programming our producer gone mad.  There is no guessing how this turns out but there is suffering, difficulty, tumultuous times on the road to glory.  What then shall I remember to get me round the bend so to say?  What mantra may I repeat in my mind leading me to victory within apparent defeat?  What dream may I reside upon that will supersede all the anguish incumbent to this venue?  Why that He is my God and He loves me and someday, someday very soon, we will walk together in the cool of the day for eternity.  In Jesus’s Holy Name I pray.

Involuntarily descending

https://youtu.be/dy5xLVx2NGY

That saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, thy foundation shall be laid.  Isaiah 44:28  

Isaiah historically prophesied between 740 and 681BC.  

Ezra 1-4

Now in the first year of Cyrus King in Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all the kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus King of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.  Who is there among you of all his people?  his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.  And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth let the the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.  

* Having been in captivity for 70 years in Babylon and now Persia, beginning in 586BC  the Jews are called by prophesy to rebuild Jerusalem.  If you continue to study in depth through Daniel you will find that this is a key date in Daniel’s prediction of Christ’s triumphant arrival in Jerusalem.  Isn’t it unique of the Holy Spirit to place the rebuilding of Jerusalem physically in the Book of Ezra, before the Isaiah, where he predicts the rebuilding through Cyrus’s commission?

I don’t know God’s ways but I have learned to expect them, look for them and delight in them as His will is played out before my eyes.  I don’t do this service like some member of a cult waiting upon some human reward, having had my thinking compromised by some deceiver, mind-dissembler or some silver-tongued poet.  I am in love with an Almighty God, who is worthy of my praise, my loyalty and the gift of my life through service.  He has told all of us, all humans what is expected of us and that there will be an eventual price associated with our choice.  Yet we still quibble with the idea that He has not exacted that price to date, having fully declared that He alone will determine the date for all judgment.  Yes, there is evil in the world, heck I am proof of that with my wicked thoughts, my feeble heart and my unwillingness to love him through obedient trust.  But none of us can trifle with the fact that He told us He will correct all that has gone awry at some chosen point in our future.

As with the above prophecy it simply should shake us to our roots, leaving us in awe of His authority, majesty and grace that He considers us worthy at all to told in advance that He will save those who will cry out to Him for salvation.  I didn’t write this story, in fact when I attempt to rewrite, add, take away or deflect the script in my own direction, serving my own wicked delights or proclivities, I am instantaneously reacquainted with My Sovereign God and King.  The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob be praised in the Mighty name of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed King of Everything.

If I don’t love you and feel an urgent sense to inquire of God’s mercy on your behalf then I don’t love Him, because you were why He came.  This is not a small thing that God loves you so much He separated himself from His beloved Son and then His beloved Son voluntarily drank the world’s sin to set the condition where you might be forgiven and redeemed to God.  Don’t tell me that you aren’t moved at all when you hear that God loves you so much and desperately wants to fulfill the purpose for your creation.  I have already seen the tear in your eye when I reminded you.

Why does man so desperately run from God.  Cold, naked, hungry, tired and alone, people are simply afraid.  They already loath themselves to the point of doubtful forgiveness.  No wonder they would be afraid of standing in front of angry God’s criticism.  Yes, remember, they don’t know God so all they hear are the rebukes, put downs and recriminations of the enemy telling them that they will never amount to anything.  How then are we to tell them about God utilizing the same criticism employed by the enemy.  I am not in charge of the hearts of my Christian Brothers and Sisters but if I hear one more person tell me that they are not obligated to help a homeless person with money because that person is just going to use it for booze or drugs, I am going to pull out the two edged sword of God’s Word.  We were told to give and also told if we hold back when our neighbor asks that again we sin, so stop trying to justify your disobedient behavior.  Stop trying to be the counselor for the poor, disenfranchised or addicted and love them as Christ would have you love them.  Oh, so you say Christ would not want you to give them money because they will potentially just hurt themselves.  Well, let me put to bed.  If Christ told you that this unbelieving homeless person was going to die tonight without the gospel message if you didn’t take the opportunity you’ve been given to show him/her love, how then would your determination be transformed?

Stop justifying your behavior and obey Christ’s commands.  Stop holding up your own self-righteousness as something other than the filthy rag that it is and show God you love Him enough to do as He had directed.  If you knew that each person you meet was going to die tonight or that God was coming back tonight for His Church, you would conduct yourself differently.  That is the mentality He directed us to maintain, a sense of imminency and urgency of purpose synonymous with a belief that He might come back tonight.  You see it changes you to think that way.  It makes each bite of food a little better tasting, each handshake a little bit more important and increases the gravity of every action or inaction.  He loved them enough to die for them and that is enough reason for me, I don’t need my own justification.

Simple; God loves me and provided his own death as a sacrifice to redeem my unforgivable act of sin so that I may be in His presence where unholiness may not exist.

Complicated; God is angry at mankind and the only way to heaven is by living a life that may be qualified as “good enough” to earn my way to paradise through self-redemption.

Simple; As an adopted child of God we are now blood kin and are washed clean by the omnipotent blood of our savior given as a perfect, voluntary offering to more than cover our original, sin offense.

Complicated; My sin leaves no stain or offense upon my life and in fact the more that I practice my sin the greater reward, relief I achieve.  After all since this life is all I have I must maximize its pleasure value by achieving every act of self-actualization I may possibly complete.

Simple; There is a God who clearly built His image into creation so that it is evidenced in reviewing nature, confirmed in prayerful contemplation and reinforced through Living directive in His Holy Word given for our edification.

Complicated; Everything we see, taste, smell, hear, touch and are was brought about by happenstance when a void of nothingness suddenly created all matter and launched itself omni-directionally throughout the universe to inexplicably coagulate in an ordered fashion to form every object, life and molecule with purpose, structure and understanding.

Simple; Prideful servants rebel, forcing holy leaders to pronounce judgment upon them in banishment from the lands’ bounty, the love of comrades and the peace which arrives from being a member of the King’s Family thus removing all promised rights, authorities and inheritance.

Complicated; Unholy, prideful, self-serving characters will arrive at the pinnacle of man’s existence through treachery, debauchery, cleverness and manipulation to be rewarded with everlasting existence and holy bodies for their dedicated self-service in a needy and broken world.

It just isn’t that hard folks.  Constructive blindness, justification and denial must be employed in order to make sense of this calamity.

What could perhaps be a greater offense then messing with God’s DNA for man, animals and plants?  Are the products of such manipulation resultant abomination, unmade from perfection, mutated for the purposes of man’s own foul heart?  No wonder God reserved many of the fallen for judgment, captured in tartarus for that awesome day.  What could be of greater offense to God than our attempts to alter what he called good?  Isn’t that the enemy’s intent, even from the outset he sought to convince us that we could become more than just man, being like God, becoming gods.  Is it coincidence that most of the heretical religions or cults follow this same prideful paradigm of man becoming one with God or being god in some evolutionary transformation.  Men of renown, isn’t that what the fallen produced on earth, semi-humans with altered DNA capable of slaughtering men while corrupting the blood line of God’s human seed?

Could perhaps the mark of the beast genetically alter human DNA so that the infected humans become something other than God created them, therefore damning themselves to eventual judgment?  What is the preoccupation with evolution if not to produce an urge, a call for an enlightened jump to the next stage of humanity?  Isn’t that what the globalists, one world, humanists await a jump to a higher level of consciousness? Wouldn’t a visit by say, friendly extra-terrestrials promising to have the catalysts for said evolutionary push, be accepted as somehow a scientific answer to prayer?  What if these seemingly helpful beings were actually the fallen, masquerading as comrades in order to implant a DNA altering “mark” under the auspices of global unity and perfection they desperately crave?  What an awful and harmful deception upon which so many lives would be condemned to separation from God. You see if you aren’t protected by God you may fall pray to a deception that would fool even the most educated in our populations?

Don’t you feel it.  The worlds’ leaders herding us toward some desired end state, some Utopian outcome?  Calamity is used to indoctrinate.  Technology is used to create addiction.  Authority is used to deconstruct historical truth.  We must ask ourselves as Christians, knowing fully that satan has a plan, what shape will it take that if God did not intervene it would even collapse the elect?  Such a plan must look like the answer, such a plan must provide the glimmer of hope that will cut through worldly depression, such a plan must appear to be God’s intention or it would never achieve that success.  The enemy will falsely proclaim himself the most high God and be believed in so doing.  Doesn’t it make sense to indoctrinate our children to trans-humanism, trans-sexualism, trans-formative evolution, knowing that they will be perfectly teed up to receive the lie of enlightenment he has been promising man since the garden?

Be careful, be prayerful and be ready.  Write His Word upon your hearts and the oil of His Holy Spirit in your lamps.  Keep your eyes heavenward, let him guide your steps on that skinny path to everlasting life.  In Jesus’s name I pray.