Stopped thinking for a second, barely time to take breath. As the wind left in exhalation I felt no lighter than before. The clocks in my head had all frozen, no chimes upon the chilled breeze of this cold, October morn. In a pause of woe and silence I remembered to inhale.

My fingers sifted through the change in my left pocket. The counting in my mind offered reconciliation with the facts so close to worry. I’d been set free of burdens beyond my station or comprehension. Too severe this life invested in things beyond a frail man’s imagination.

So I pondered forever and yet somehow the colors and silhouette of the humming bird’s wing changing in light’s reflection it snapped me out of day slumber. Moving minds are not the friend of men with shallow adaptation and narrow sense of internal equilibrium.

For the World as it egresses to external dimension is curved near perihelion, bulging sideways as if up is up and down true compass. What we think of dead center is often nearer backside. My mind, clear, I focused upon a single tree in the middle of a vast valley.

Alone, yet comfortable I rose to a single knee. Balanced upon the gravity of a thousand made up worlds, I thought my way to reason, fighting nothing but my own fear of arrival at end so bewildering that rangers call it folly. To them who know peace it swirled into chaos.

Imaginary something and a pocketful of hopes, dreams and forgotten goals, the water took me down the mountain depositing me in a clunk upon gravel and pavement. Skinned of elbow and ego I took that customary three sixty view to see if anyone had even noticed.

The weight and attachment to physics held me captive in this strange but non hostile ether. Almost as if I should have understood but could not quite figure the language they were all speaking. I assigned all faces nicknames as he gave me sense of yet absent mastery.

Into the depths I flew spiraling asunder, reaching for limits without boundary and pastures to feed forever. The sheep know the way, only to follow is more than any man considered.To branch & brook we chanced a look, turning rocks somehow knowing what lay beneath them.

Used to think I had no right to feel anything but joy. All along the pain just got bigger, couldn’t find anyway to avoid. Loves they came and loves they went, nothing ever passed anything but more time. All along I was singing the same song never caring about the rhythm, melody or rhyme. Cause the blues it ain’t a musicians guild that calls upon students of sacred craft. It’s the song of desperate and downtrodden floating down the Mississippi flat out with a paddle and raft. They got nothing on Beethoven, Elton John or Billy Joel but there’s no greater healing or music this side of the fishing hole. If I had anything worth remembering I have trouble caring about this regret, but all has been so damn painful it’s better that I just forget. See the Blues is about feeling that burns deep inside the heart. As the scenes meld as one together everything inside just falls apart. It’s sadness and spiritual brilliance with a little healing all rolled into one and when the darkness gets so vast that is when healing light has begun. There’s nothing left to hold on to, no logic, reason or rhyme all that’s left together is to follow that sadness in time. A whine, a grunt or a holler is appropriate at any point and wail a tear or a swallow as there is no discipline to anoint. See this life it hurts and then it ends and by those rules we all succeed. In simple desperation we find out all that we ever need. To sing the hopeful at days beginning and the blues upon each end and if joy smiles in the middle about a blessing, a sweet woman or a friend. Then a man can count himself wealthy for feeling the abundance of this walk. But he don’t need to explain it, wax philosophic or prepare a talk. Just live it and then sing it from your head down to the hole in your shoes for there’s one thing that common to humans we all know how to sing those Blues.

I cannot neglect you in your fury and your rest. The intelligence you’ve gathered and the things you stored up for protection from how men in this world have threatened, promised and you’ve succumbed. I too have felt the lease of people, time and money always begging you wait one more day to see the treasure they acclaimed awaited.

There is no crime in running to save ones own heart and patience. Some things are beyond this moments contention and must be retreated in familiarity with the Light to find the path less traveled into the valley or winding still above yonder mountain. To claim home to resolution and forgotten pain of defeat and forsaken triumph.

But there is Peace in Christ Jesus, much more than any deserve, an abundance of life, hope and yes reason. Thoughts compiled, collected and well seasoned, having found the beginning from the end working backwards. Some ventures are never meant for our preparation and others must be forgotten as they never led from here to there.

What chance have I this simple man to battle hearts and kings? There is no room for braggadocio no false claim of provision or character and resolve. I am solely grateful that is not the man I was dealing with these issues for there would be no reflection, no question, no analysis or song only departure and silence. The pearl topped mountain is the throne.

Far removed from threat or anger, my skin no longer crawls trying to fit the square peg into into narrow shapes that would never accept them. It is a fool’s folly to pursue a glimpse of light in the darkness when I have been standing out in noonday sun. There is no solving these equations, too many variables and all that ever matter was how well we are treated.

This too is the extra mile walked for this man in me had one purpose that of self acquisition and fulfillment. Certainly there were others involved in this episodic development whether by contrition, deception or fantasy and hope. It is hard to turn away eager applicants with wares and talent. But these are the things of mastering one’s own character of the temporary.

But cleave them melon and the halves are never perfect but they still attract equal flies and enlisted ants with sweet nectar and honey. We are neither stones or water taking shape in each container but men and women who don’t know our way in darkness hardening our hearts to be mean, impenetrable and dismissive. It is painful, realization that we were for Love.

God’s Word says that there is one thing that God appended from creation, because it is not good for man to be alone. Being a Pastor/Missionary often times I am alone with the Holy Spirit out on the road or in sequestered prayer/meditation on His Word. I can attest that the difficulties, temptations and lack of Saintly Council is itself an enduring impact upon the mind, spirit and need for fellowship. God made from ADAM’s rib a suitable helper, meaning that they were made in separate process as Adam was created in God’s handful of Dirt/Dust with God’s Spirit blown in. This difference is very rarely discussed in the Body because there are apparent taboos against venturing into the reality of God’s Divine intention for woman and man. Why then are men resorting to being alone in this day of conflict with those God made as the human influence that makes them complete?

What other issues is the Church shy in discussing, whether through tolerance, apathy or complacency and desire to keep all butts in seats to maximize profitability of the Faith Corporations the body has become? What does it mean when judgment begins not in my projection upon everything and everyone around me but in that reflection entirely upon my own walk? Can we tolerate that? The specific focus of my own relationship with God the Father and His Spirit in Jesus Christ? Can I withstand that myopic understanding of my continued failures, dangerous or self-centered thinking and a review of the Works of my Walk with Christ? Am I to avoid anything that will bring up argument or division within the Body that is clearly God’s Word? Is that prohibition codifying the mistakes of the Church allowing our defects to grow, flourish and sustain in a corrupted body that is artificial and out of sync with God’s Holy Word and Will?

Look if we were doing this right or there is no danger in being found inconsistent in these last days, then JESUS would not have made His Warnings so adamant in the Last Books of our Day. Matthew 7 is Clear, Peter is Clear, Jude transparent and Revelation 2 & 3 crystal declarations by Jesus of our apparent state and need for reflection and transformation in these last moments prior to His Return. Will any of you honestly tell me that the Church is in a HOLY and RIGHTEOUS position before God, an outcome He told us as early as Leviticus, the Second Reading of the LAW. That God would name one of His Books of the Bible the second reading means that His people needed/need a refresher as they will/have obviously departed or forgotten its Clarity. The Body of Christ as a whole needs this inquiry as is called out in 1 Peter because we are His Example to the World and if we won’t obey what is the obvious outcome for those looking to us for His Model and not finding/seeing it?

The Holy Spirit said something to me that I think I understand but I must sit quietly and allow Him to thresh out in my heart. Jesus Christ is the head of the Body of Christ, Right? When have you seen a head and a body fully alive when detached? We are to be a LIVING EXAMPLE of Abundant, everlasting, God redeemed and forgiven LIFE, as it was Jesus resurrection which provided this blessing upon us. As a model then we are also to face the coming ascension after our own Rebirth in that Resurrection. As the Body we would naturally follow the same process as the Head of that Body. Therefore, we died on the Cross with Christ to free us from the Law, we were buried with Christ Jesus those three days and through the POWER of His Sovereign SPIRIT He took back up that life in resurrection of Himself and those Dead reborn in the seed of the Holy Spirit, made new into everlasting Life.

However we have yet to ASCEND into everlasting with our HEAD, Jesus Christ, Our High Priest, Seated at the Right Hand of the Father in the actual not representative Throne Room of God here on Earth. We are that Throne Room, that Body, that Temple extended into this World. And as the Temple in Jerusalem that was filled with God’s Spirit in the Holy of Holies, we are also filled with that Spirit’s Presence, Born Again to everlasting Life awaiting Ascension to the King of Kings. That ascension is clearly represented in vision and process in Revelation 4 with John the Apostle the only one remaining in prison to pen the Book of Revelation by Holy Spirit. What then are we miss our chance to judge our works NOW as the Body of the Head? Are we to escape the self inspection that Jesus showed us before going to the Cross, calling out the Son of Perdition, the Apostles and the disciples that surrounded them? We are in preparation for our Ascension to God and a return with Him for rule and reign to complete the reunion of the Body with the Head and fulfill His set example in death, burial, resurrection and Ascension.

It would be normal or deductive conclusion that the enemy who always mimics the things of God would also declare the intention of an ascension to express his false identity as God. That ascension is upon us here on Earth as is the Coming ASCENSION to Christ JESUS. Thus the need for self reflection and judgment of those potentially prepare for that completion in Christ Jesus. The enemy will seek DNA augmentation, false beehive collective unity through information technology and extended life expectancy through artificial means to convince us of his power and coming ascension of mankind’s transhuman upgrade through forced evolutionary, witchcraft and augmentation. Do you see the deception for which are to prepare as the Body of the Head? Do you see the waxen replacement theology of the powers and principalities? Do you see that is upon us, RIGHT NOW? Why is the Church suddenly being revealed as ARTIFICIAL or believers mixed with unbelievers in the mixture of IRON and CLAY of Daniel 2? What happens to that unified Church in Daniel’s prophetic account? The CORNERSTONE of CHRIST smashes those feet. Are we ready for ASCENSION to God in fulfillment and likeness to Christ’s Example; Death, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension? Or we continue in oblivion ignoring Word and Spirit’s Call to Repentance, Readiness and Receptivity to Christ Jesus in His Word and Deed?

When a Father/Mother’s hand is removed from a child in order to allow the struggle, they learn to swim through that controlled experiment. Yet, many children are simply thrown into the pool by grandfather without the context of present help they also learned to swim. What is the difference if both produce an desired outcome then we must analyze the benefits or argument for the method. All men are created equal by God, if we do not begin at that basis then we must do as the evolutionists, nihilists and atheists direct exclude Him from our analyses. What we have done as humans is insert in that God shaped whole/hole an insufficient plug called the History of Man and Societal Norms. The current discussion is failing because we are seeing that Alexander’s Mantra, “To the Victor Goes the Spoils”, allows those who conquer to rewrite Man’s History of Man anyway they wish it to be told.

We have suffered the brutal hand of the survival of the fittest crowd for way too long, yet we struggle with those in the charge of religion as we see in them the like desire to rewrite belief in gods to aid them in their plan to control everything they can, especially other humans. God may not be manipulated yet we see it happening over and again throughout Man’s History. We see that brutal, ambitious men take control of faithful gatherings and extrude the wealth, health and behaviors of good people to their personal benefit. This morning I witnessed satanists, communists, nihilists, men who claim faith in the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and Jesus arguing without mentioning Him that they are the spokespeople for humanity. Are there benefits to a child being thrown into a pool to learn in shock and terror how to fight for their own lives? Possibly, but I don’t want those people advocating for this treatment in charge of my children or any of those that I know and have duty of care.

We view a new page. We can walk forward and write these new pages from a number of available perspectives. In the past, men and women who quested for America as a concept wanted to do so seeking God first and then man secondarily to lead us into a future that honored His Will above our own. These people had seen both aforementioned arguments and chose to return to God declaring themselves, “Protestant” standing both against the conquering hand of tyranny of Man upon Man but also eschewing and throwing off the chains of those evil men having developed and controlled a Global Church. That Church envisaged identical or perhaps greater savagery of a conquering entity of the Body, not born in the image of Christ but in that of His adversaries. They call this new page, “The New World Order” or Novus Ordo Seclorum in their empiric tongue. America is not being remade it is being redefined by the same choices which were made by our ancestors. The difficulty resides in that they knew both sides of this tyranny and made an educated decision to choose God’s Law above Man’s. Are we at that same precipice and do we have the requisite pool experience to make a decision to save our own lives and those of our children to follow or will we simply be once again conquered by those of greater ambition and might?

America, like the truth of history or not, was founded on this predicament as choice of a third path in humanity. Yet, we forgot the importance of that decision and allowed it to be historically edited by those same two parties who seek control. Thus we were easily captured by both parties masquerading as Good intentioned Governors of a Free Republic and the Roman Masters and Mouthpieces of God. We forgot not only our roots but bought the same old tired narratives of the Supreme Racers-Survival of Fittest evolutionists and the Masters of Piety according to Man. We once again stand at the choices of a nation before Revolution or Capitulation. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. For we now may determine if we must be simply thrown into the deep end to flail and save ourselves or follow gentler guides to learn with the knowledge of a waiting hand. Without God we have neither opportunity. It is predetermined by the men with the power, passion and assets to control it. This juncture demands first; FAITH a word for which we have lost understanding. Then armed with understanding we then have the duty of ACTION, a word for which we have lost the courage to achieve. Perhaps that is why Grandpa threw the kids into the pool. For we are inadequately prepared and will need both to survive this next epoch. Without faith in GOD and the subsequent courageous action we will simply arise from the pool as members of the other two conquered tribes.

Whatever you think of me it is good to my heart to see great things happen to good people. I don’t want every surprise to be about me, because God is the Center and the outer reaches of His Universe I am happy being a hockey puck bouncing around inside of it.

When I think of all the things I never celebrated because they would have seen my tears of joy I chide myself for being romantic, foolish or simply manly weak. But those are not the true qualities of man that make him different. It is the those tears that separate real from plastic.

When we went head to head you lost repeatedly. That is the nature of a man with talent who was groomed from birth to win against you, but that is not who we both may know that stands before you. For when you fell I didn’t applaud or run on without you I stopped with outstretched hand.

It has always been that way the real man in me is the one that seeks your healing not your destruction. I am the one that does those little things that go unnoticed until they are gone. That is the failure of humanity taking those valuable things for granted in this life we don’t respect.

It is okay. For the price of caring is that when there is a road that people have named for themselves that they must travel alone I cheer them to go follow it. Knowing all along that at some point they return for it is nice to have someone who loves you enough to let you go and dream.

As Pastor, I would love to have real family and I do, it is a small one and for the longest time that bothered me. You see, the greatest value in this mammon run mindset is that everyone must love you that achievement to be met. On that note I was always wrong just never saw it.

For the less people who love me and will never leave means that most are caught up in something they cannot control, especially when late at night when they are happy or truly sad it is to me they make a call. It hurts more than it helps, but that is from my perspective.

For in service it doesn’t matter in the moment what is best for me, but how God would want me to reach out to you or listen to that valuable instant. For He loves you and I do as well. However, there are only very few who have committed to travel this and the next life with me by their side and for them Just as with those who have chosen Christ, they don’t ever want to lose Him.

Me, not so much. But some day I will see Him as He is and be just like Jesus. Amen.

We always play off rejection as if we are impervious to pain, but in those moments there is favor. That last plate on each side of the bar, surpassing what you did before. Loving God more than you love yourself.

We fall from grace so simply as if gravity controls descent. Passing plumb we succumb to worship the saints of this world. In those precarious moments we find that long exhale searching for His Will in silence.

But they ‘re not lovely these stones I have cut to weigh me down. Cold and lonely as the cup of this life tasted each morning I awoke. But this is never the end, just opportunity to hold that breath and wait for crosswinds.

We have never given in the vision for tomorrow. Though the clouds and sea rage we know the Earth has a curve to deliver to the plate. And in those waiting seconds we push all our weight to the strongest part of our legs.

We wrestle with those things that never edify as if somehow they provide good test for spirit. Then as we recover from the soul pain we learn once again that there is order and center in the Universe. That it all belongs to God.

In those hurt winds we smell the fires of our own kindled upset, burning free the contempt within each of us until we are effectively preserved. Made ready for days headed our way that will test us beyond our contemplation.

We are good and this mountain shall not take our lives on this winter morn. The spinning Earth will find new pose in silhouette before next Spring. And everything will be power washed revealing the hungry waiting ground.

To write polite each day or night, remember the right and end don’t start a fight. Today, saying and praying displaying what you are conveying may only serve delaying the central idea that you have been portraying. So now in a pause reflect upon the cause shield all wounds with gauze that may limit the applause and opening jaws breaking physical laws when you ride the seesaws.

Don’t feed the loose moose while you chase each caboose filled with cackling goose no that’s geese to your niece and vamoose to police to escape paddy wagons with bushels and flagons. We are some poor lads selling spots for our ads a couple of cads with flowers and plaids with naught but a fad to make you sigh or be mad or perhaps even sad.

Regardless of provocation we seek stature and station and long celebration perhaps cross the nation increase and elevation within each creation. We will cheer on the crowd exceptionally loud to the lengths we’re allowed with all we’re endowed to plead well our case to win every race even to outer space disappear without trace to a yet unknown place where no one remembers our face that we may slow this fast pace.

Then all is forgotten the fruits dropped or rotten even the prime one’s we’ve bought and pack well with cotton that we took from a pot and doused with a wick that was waxen and thick that we flattened by brick made with straw and a stick. Days run to night so we brought down our kite and wrapped it up tight keeping it within sight then all was forgiven, restitution properly given we finally started livin after cloward and piven.

It’s teeth clenched and clanged his face lemon marangued with a chin full of cream the laughter did stream forever it would seem. Banged and it rattled as the cowboys just cattled we prittled and prattled as the children all tattled. Telling tales of great theft and great treasures bereft hidden up by the cleft where our keys had been left. The answers it seems is found in our dreams. Check each tiny box with a time on our clocks punched in and out with barely an inkling of what it had been all about.

Spread joy when you’re sad and smiles when your mad then be happy and glad as if starting new fad. Cause they don’t want the weight of will and of fate just keep it sedate to keep filling your plate. You’ll be paunched in the middle with a place by the griddle as you dance and you fiddle to bibe, beach and bibble. They’ll remember you wise with no tears in their eyes because everyone cries so give them unexpected surprise.

If I had a quest it was never for you to follow me. Once you’ve failed at this life, repeatedly and been cast out philosophically, physically by humans who find your failure irreparable, the rest is a cycle of learning that means you and His Holy Spirit. For most humans who still seek some achievement or this world goal will find you odd and unnecessary to their lasting Dreams. I get that and love doesn’t mean I get to dislike, judge or convict you for those decisions but rather thank you for the look and wish you well in your pursuits.

That does however, as I have painstakingly observed bring to an end any hope of attention, popularity or reward in your current list of expectations which match the projection. No matter how hard I struggle to fit inside the box, I unfortunately may only reside for brief moments at best for I was reborn not to fit with the confines of this world’s paradigm. I am here to have compassion on some and pull the others from the fire with fear of God’s coming Wrath and judgment of those remaining in this jungle’s law.

I wish that I could sustain both parts of a relationship but yet the rules and regulations that govern this one do not allow, recognize nor require my input. To remain I must play a role, not one of my choosing though it may be maintained for short periods. However, wax things always; melt, decay or are at some point revealed as artificial. I seek Truth and have increasing difficultly of playing any avatar role for purpose of material acquisition, relational acceptance or insurgency into camps from which I permanently departed.

You do you. I am sad that we cannot be close for the effervescence of good family, friends or mates is something desirous to soul and person. However those pursuits are false and make me feel corrupted, dirty and secondary in my role, all things which are contestable in the pursuit of God’s Righteous Reign. I don’t want to remain in the law now that I have been set free, so unless something is ORDAINED by God chances are it keeps me wrapped in the trappings of a man expired and reborn by the Seed Of heavenly Gospel/Spirit.

Will I miss all of you absolutely. Does it pain me to lose any good person who chooses other than me, sure, but the reward is Love, for which I serve Christ Jesus. I want you to achieve the pinnacle of possible existence and that is only found in the interaction, love for, surrender and continued residence in the Gospel and God’s Spirit. Why would I ever find it reprehensible to turn someone loose to follow relationship with the King, especially as Pastor when I know that He is the only one struggling with the flesh through completed law?

This is not about how many people love me in this life time, it is about the people who love me in Christ Jesus and thus can stick with me as I do with them throughout this march to eternity. That is why I don’t seek or sweat assistance in this ministry and resist those who may possibly have some Cain, Balaam or Korah objective in their pursuit to best or dominate me through works, sin or provision. That is why in my weakest moments as immature Christian God directed me to fund this ministry entirely. I was not ready.

Not to say that now I am grand measure of a greatly improved man but I have felt the pain of my own sin in grace and the subsequent separation from God it invariably produces. The reason I am no longer going to sweat conformity or acceptance is because it demands that I step outside the overwhelmingly awesome relationship I have with God the Father, Son and Spirit. I cannot trade or dishonor that gift for any other reward even the best people on the planet. So I wish you the best and if it is God’s Will His greatest blessings upon you. If it is not His Will then I wish for you sufficient conviction and separation that calls you permanently back to Him. In Jesus’ Name. I pray the same for myself every day now.

Jesus could have removed every believer at the point of accepting Grace, RIGHT? That He didn’t purports/forces U.S. to reckon why He didn’t, RIGHT? Show me one Christian that has Never Sinned Again after that rebirth? Paul explained it. Let me try as well in God’s Holy Spirit.

If I want to be called by Jesus name; I must first believe on His SAVING GRACE from the law of sin & death meaning HE died that I might be free from MY SIN redeemed to Father God. I must then repent/turn away from that Sin & follow Him in Sanctification of Holy Spirit. RENEWED. RIGHT? Perhaps you have doubt or are not fully surrendering to this call of the Holy Spirit upon your heart. So with your indulgence I will continue.

Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

¹⁸ But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

²¹ Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

²³ Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

²⁴ And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

²⁶ Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:47 What is God saying Here? What does this bring up in our understanding of the need for repentance and remission? How do we then continue in our sin if repentance and remission are to be preached as necessary to salvation/sanctification and eventual Glorification?

Why is the Holy Spirit called EARNEST/Down Payment or Promise of that eventual Glorification? Ephesians 1. Does this contend that there is an ongoing and obvious struggle confronting each new believer after acceptance of Christ Jesus as Saviour? Holy Spirit please guide us into the Truth surrounding these important Biblical Questions. In Jesus’ Name.

Free from the Law. What does that mean? Is a believer under the law or in the Spirit? We must go back to the beginning of this Chapter to understand that relationship, making sense of why they both can be present in the struggle, equally comprehending that one must and will prevail. Galatians 5.

5 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

² Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

³ For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

⁴ Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

⁵ For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

⁶ For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

⁷ Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?

⁸ This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

⁹ A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

¹⁰ I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.

¹¹ And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.

¹² I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

¹³ For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

¹⁴ For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

¹⁵ But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

¹⁶ This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

¹⁷ For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

¹⁸ But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

When we are set free, what exactly is the bondage to which we were held captive? The Yoke of Sin. A yoke bonds us to the others in the Family of God, the Body of Christ Jesus. In Matthew 11:30 Jesus tells us, For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. However what we see is that the flesh continues to struggle against service to God. We as humans are by nature curiously disobedient even in assuming that once we by voice accept Christ Jesus that this is where the struggle ends when in fact we will spend the rest or at least the majority of this life as the Holy Spirit struggles with our flesh. In fact, Paul was clear that in this struggle he often felt helpless when he found himself doing the very sin he both didn’t want to commit and was incapable of avoiding. GAL 5:1 Immediately, declares the wrestling match. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Making it clear that we are to stand against returning to the Law of Sin and Death and its bondage/yoke. It may seem odd to each of us this position of being helpless to overcome it yet being told to do all we can to stand against a return to sin. That my beloved is FAITH. For as we stand in the hope of deliverance in reliance upon God we surrender to Him and grow in our resemblance to Christ Jesus.

The exasperating part of this relationship is seeing myself time and again losing this battle. What could be worse then for the Jews/Christians to rely upon; ritual, the ancestry or their circumcision, water baptism or self piety exposing themselves dangerously once again to that bondage of the Law? However beyond that frustration of the continuing failure, I see something emerge which is a concrete vision of days in Glory that await. We will not lose this wrestling match to flesh but prevail, Why? Because God is the one doing the perfecting through His Holy Spirit, we are not so simply to stand in a light yoke plowing, seeding, fertilizing and watering the crops until He comes and completes the harvest. Most of us look at life as an often impossible task, but what if being born again allows us to see that it really isn’t that bad this work as an OX for the Lord awaiting the wonderful harvest and His return to set all things right. If we can see our way to that Hope and stand against a return to the Law in our bondage to sin remembering the very moment when we cried out to Him for deliverance, the rest is His Work that He is more that faithful to complete. In Jesus’ name.