Unprepared, I wet my lips hoping that the right words, the just words, will somehow force themselves past the roadblocks in the labyrinth of my paralyzed thinking.  One of those unique moments that come so infrequently where you should say something lasting.  That instant when your Son asks you about God or what it feels like to be truly loved.  You may have spent years, decades avoiding this opportunity.  Perhaps you have been praying that when such a moment confronts you the exact, appropriate combination of phrases will magically present themselves to a captive and waiting audience.  I stand before such a crowd, listening intently, waiting for me to project august wisdom or fathomless insight.  All I get is dust and a vacuum, threatening to asphyxiate me.  Then He speaks through me.

My finger points in a general direction but each person at the end of its accusing tip feels the ominous pressure of the Holy Spirit, as if I had poked them in the heart from a distance.  “What would you have me say”?, I declare into the dimly lit auditorium.  There is something in your heart, on your mind, nattering at your senses.  Some penitentiary from which you wish release, some cause you wish to venture, some wrong you wish to right.  Silence meets me as for a moment humility presents the King to His people through the vessel of an ill-equipped herald.  “You want me to tell you what is going to happen for you”.  You want the whole story.  The entire book of this world has been laid out for all to review, but none believe without feeling those spike pierced hands or feeling the spear shaped wound of His side.  “Where would you have me send you, when this place has run out of safe passage”?, I say, as the tears begin to flow down my saddened visage.  “I have no miracles to prove my witness, only the truth that is unavoidable from which all men hope to flee”.  “I cannot give you more time to ponder your position, to consider what you believe, for there is none left to give you”.

Come to Christ in faith or come to Him in judgment, it is a choice for you alone.  Every other decision that you will face in this life, is rooted in this single determination.  I can tell you that I love you and know that you are capable of extraordinary bravery.  Yes many of you when given the chance will extol His name and magnify His glory at your passing.  What would you have me tell you?  I may not know, but this I do.  I love you and pray that His hand guide you, protect, equip you and comfort you throughout whatever it is you must face in this life.  Don’t search the tabloids, the airwaves, academia or the dark looking for the answers you seek, Ask Him.  For He alone knows the secrets of your making.  Praise God, in all His glory.

Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped.  Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.  Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.  The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.  In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. 

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.  The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.  No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there.  But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return.  They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.  Isaiah 35 3-10

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.  Let the redeemed of the Lord say this-those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle.  They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.  They they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.  He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle.  Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the hungry with good things.  Psalm 107 1-9

Lord my words are but wooden arrows to a speeding locomotive and I am no giant slayer.  Though I paint myself the warrior, I sometimes peer from safest perch while others stand against the throng.  Turning with eyes closed to stem the tears, my hands wringing finger holes in my shirt and all I can muster is prayer for the dying.  I hope that you can make something of me, this lumpish clay, destined to conform to whatever pressures it most.

I hide my colors, for they reveal the truth internal, telling of my tin shield and store-bought  safety.  While they should be raised to honor God, I seek stealth of assassin, burglar or snake.  Show me to be of the fiber which called the universe to be and it could do not but answer.  Let me command, not just myself but the wicked to retreat.  Give me a story that depends on You for its entirety, where I am a recipient to joy not my own, but jubilant none-the-less.  Let me pass the first veil with a smile and Your name upon my lips and heart at my passing.  Let me be a man who become a son to God.  Praise Your Glory for time immemorial.  Amen.

Take a look back at this new life.  One year, five years, ten, it is almost indescribable the distance the Lord has brought me.  Whether being carried, cajoled, prodded, assisted or chased, He has delivered on His promises to make me a new creature and conform me to His likeness.  There is no doubt.  I also have the grace-filled benefit of having watched hundreds of other babes in Christianity, become Spirit filled believers and subsequently become completely different people in Christ.  Family members, friends, business colleagues, people I have been blessed to minister to have over a relatively short period of time have become joyous, active participants in the Kingdom, their families and communities.  I do not deserve such a gift but once again God showers me with undeserved benefits.  What a loving Father.

There is no where else I could contemplate going but forward in this new life.  It is like watching new babies being born, which I could imagine must be the coolest of medical professions.  Their is something about watching things grow that prohibits the denial of God in the process.  Being witness to the life changing effect that the Lord Jesus Christ has on the lives of once dead people is all the testimony that we need to evidence the truth of the Gospel.  I will take this truth to all who will hear, for He loves them so much He wants that all should come to Him.  Praise You Lord for this awesome gift.  Let me use it wisely for Your Kingdom and Glory.  Amen.

What is the truth to you?  Can you effectively describe it, recognize it and do you actively seek it, even though it makes you unpopular?  Where does honesty rank on your list of most-important characteristics found in a healthy marriage, friendship or business alliance?  There is an all out assault on the truth these days and if you perhaps stand on the side of its resounding importance in the construct of human interaction you better prepare to be assaulted.

I really dislike quoting him, so I won’t, but I an going to refer to a psychology ideology practiced by hitler to demonstrate how those who are evil, view and manipulate the truth.  Germany’s strategy, designed to justify their extermination of “all Jews” involved a propaganda scheme called the “Big Lie”.  hitler believed, and was justified in doing so that if you say a big lie long enough and loud enough that people will eventually believe you.  He also believed that a large lie was easier to believe than a small one and used the technique when attacking enemies through the media to discredit them by a message that was outrageous yet eventually assimilated by the general public as truth.

Evil must discredit, warp, avoid or rewrite historic truth in order to have their ways made generally acceptable, otherwise the truth defines them clearly as “wicked”.  God help us this seems to have been adopted by our current administration.  Those who propogate untruth serve the father of lies, satan himself, may the Lord Jesus rebuke him.  I pray that they will turn from their unrighteous rule and embrace the truth so that we may quickly turn our faces back to the Lord and heal this once blessed land.

Your consistent discernment is essential to victory in your household.  The Lord warns that even the elect would be deceived by the anti-Christ’s upcoming worldwide illusion.  We must gird our loins with the belt of truth and protect our hearts and minds with the full armor of God.  We will not prevail in and of ourselves.  We must rely on the Holy Spirit of God to seal us and guard us from the coming climate of deception.  Pray for truth, the eyes to see and the mouth to speak it.  Do not cower from the ominous assault upon what is right, just and true.  We will overcome through the power of the Blood, our testimony and our Love for Christ Jesus.  God be praised.

More greedy than the boatman, she craves payment at each oar’s dipping.  Arrogance, her unwed Brother, gloats his pleasure at her absence.  She holds the key to prayer closet and waits in silence at the feet of God.  Never forcing, never asking resting in wait.  O the life where she lays barren, unfed by haughty spirit, whiskey-ed pretense and pomposity.  Resolved to isolation, she needs no accompaniment but is filled with joy when asked politely.  Frequently seen sitting quietly alongside her sister, Wisdom, discussing the depth of God’s understanding.  She does not call to man but answers to the Master’s bidding and typically costs the kitty, the satchel or skinned knee for the summoning.

I pay her daily, lacking remembrance of last advice, being blinded by ambition, self sanction or folly.  Each time recalling something familiar, friendly, an ease of blameless acceptance.  Why must I dine alone, when she would gladly my nightly partner be?  Am I condemned to repetitive fatuity, unmoved by weather, experience or circumstance?  She is so demanding of obeisance, shunning discourtesy and I admire it so.  Yet each time we meet it is as if at first where she must remind me in perpetuity of the same offenses to reason, rhyme and King.

She stands wealthy though she would rather be starving contented.  Her dress soaked with the tears of broken spirit, childless Father or disciplined Daughter.  Her lessens never unwisely suffered, her suitors withdrawing in consolation, briefly closer to enlightenment.  How I crave tandem travel where we could share berth, and I full access to God’s pleasure.  Time’s twice over I am reminded of His Glory in that He provided her in my necessity.  She waits there for me, even now at the Throne Room of Glory, beckoning gently pay homage to the King.  Praise You Lord in All Your Limitless Majesty, Power, Love and Truth.  In Jesus’ Name.

Whose responsibility is it for me to learn the Gospel?  And again who do I blame if I am unable or unwilling to go out and attempt to perform the great commission?  Or better yet why do I have to contemplate these questions at all?  Can’t I just rely upon grace and salvation to cover my lack of motivation, accountability and that dirty word called disobedience?  Isn’t that what grace is all about that as long as I believe, put my faith in Christ and repent of my sin all is forgiven?  Is there really some sense of responsibility or is that just something that was made up by the Church to make me feel guilty?

Why did you go to school all those years?  Did attending regular education give you the necessary tools to get ahead in life or was it just an exercise in futility?  Did you have to learn disciplines like English in order to communicate well enough to get a job that pays your bills, or do you think that you could have accomplished the same without an education?  Why did you pay for college, because you first “believed” that it would provide you access to opportunities not currently available without that education?  It is not about guilt but there has to be some form of recrimination from the Holy Spirit for not doing what you know should be done for the Kingdom.  I would be seriously concerned if you are not feeling the promptings of conscience.  Lack of input/feedback from the Holy Spirit for non performance may indicate a seared conscience or worse yet an absence of the Spirit altogether.

Let us be real, if you do not feel compelled to go out and create disciples for the Kingdom to save all those in your sphere of influence from an eternity separated from God then what does that say about your heart?  “I wish I knew God’s Will for my life”, is the most common statement I hear from undetermined Christians who are unwilling to search for that Will within the pages of God’s Word.  Additionally common is that statement, “It is just not my spiritual gift to disciple”.  Yes it is a choice, but those who are unwilling to share the Truth of God’s Word have not been convinced of its importance to this lost world.  Stop with the diatribe, if you knew that you had the antidote to someone’s poisoning or illness to keep it from them would be accessory to their demise.  Not telling them about salvation is tantamount to the same.  So please stop trying to justify your disbelief by having a true believer justify your disobedience.  We are accountable to the same God that you are, the only difference is that we revere Him and thus we take our first meeting seriously.

Learning the Bible is a gift.  God wrote us a guide book for this life and the next, giving us careful instruction, guidance, direction and example for us to closely follow His will for our lives.  If we will not take the time to learn what He has already shown us then we don’t deserve the revelations, miracles and Glory that would come as further gifting.  Yes pastors and other Church members are accountable for feeding the lambs within the Body.  They will be held to account for what they did or did not teach within the Church.  But that does free each member of the Body from personal accountability for their own edification.  If a student does not wish to learn, then a teacher cannot teach that student.  It all comes back to us as individual’s making the necessary choices to edify the Church, encourage others and bring Glory to God through our good works in this world.  All of this done voluntarily, commensurate with the wonderful gift of grace and salvation we were given.

Whose responsibility is it for me to learn the Bible?  Mine.  Although others may encourage, assist and edify it is inevitably me who is accountable.  Who is held to account if I do not tell everyone that I can about the Good News of Christ?  Me.  I dread that moment when I stand before Jesus and He shows me the people I was supposed to meet and guide to the Cross yet I never showed up or didn’t speak up.

I look forward to meeting people in heaven that I never met on earth who tell me that they are thankful to me for helping them reach eternity.  I will cry and laugh for joy when they tell me that it was someone to whom I testified that showed them the cross and I was proximately responsible.  If you don’t know the Bible and want to know, let me know and I will do everything in my power to help you get there.  If you don’t know how to disciple or you are struggling with understanding your responsibility to evangelize, ask me and I will help anyway that I can to clarify, edify and direct you to the answers.  I am accountable to Christ for what I do and do not do for the Kingdom.  I accept that awesome blessing of responsibility and hope that you will help keep me accountable for that blessing.

May God be honored through all that I’ve said and done.  I love you so much that it hurts to see when you are powerless, as it is an illusion.  Praise You Father in the Name of Christ the King of All.

Psalm 33 8-22

Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him.  For He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.  The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.  But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. 

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for His inheritance.  From heaven the Lord Looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth– He who forms the heart of all, who considers everything they do. 

No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength.  A horse is a vain hope for deliverance despite all its great strength it cannot save.  But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. 

We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.  In Him our hearts rejoice for we trust in His holy name.  May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.

I love that men want to resolve our own difficulties.  That human characteristic is loveable, if not, evidence of our divine beginning.  There are those who want so desperately to review the plight of the unrepresented in a quest to do something about those who are “suffering”.  Noble ideals fostering generations of good deed done for this or that group to promote a “special interest” or coddle public sympathy and opinion, in a campaign to raise awareness, volunteerism and Yes, MONEY.  We have forgotten the general well being of all to employ the assets of the many toward the few.  We have shelved the endearing and founding principle that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Let us not be led astray, the Framers of this document crafted that opening line such, that if you proceeded no further into the document that you would understand the overwhelming impact of their following statements through the richness of its very first line.  All men, not just some, a few or a select segment.  So this document and its principles were intended for everyone, with the specific premise that we all came from the same CREATOR from Who we have been endowed.  And not just that we have been endowed by the Creator but that we were given a gift that is unalienable, something that could not be extracted or taken away by anyone, Rights.  I speculate in my review as to why the word, Rights was capitalized?  And the only conclusion which can be drawn is that these same Rights which came from the same Origin must be in themselves Divine.

We have ventured so far in our attempts to become and remain a great nation that we have journeyed too far from the Light of its inception.  So far that we need to be reminded of the brilliance of our beginning brought about by a people yearning to be free in their governance by and for God.  Returning to the first line of this document, just as the first line of the Bible immediately confronts us with our Founding Ideals.  That God is at the beginning of every good thing.  I pray that we remember where we’ve begun and where we will finish and that we hold dearly to those ideals that make us worthy of any love at all.

Praise Jesus in His Mighty Return of Revelation to His Glory and Honor Forever.  Amen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vyyHegP255g#!  Dr. Benjamin Carson’s recent audacious speech on recovering America,  Worth the time, Check it out!!!

Let me bring to life only those things that Your Spirit wills.  We thought the embers darkened beyond rekindling, but I have felt the warmth and know that the hearth lays dormant, not dead.  They will remember You Lord at that moment when light flickers, as unconsciousness beckons rest.  They are the reason for such strenuous attempt at deception.  Without people no one but You Lord could be king.  The enemy needs subjects that is why he contends so vociferously for the souls of men.  For we are made by the Hands of the Master Potter, crafted for eternity and without dominating man, the enemy can have no victory.  God does not need us but oh how we need Him.

His plan, His understanding, His Glory.  Though it falls beyond each of my limits it is still somehow within me.  This destiny to rise above the fearful gods of this world and dismiss the length of their influence.  We have been crafted for the Work of the Almighty in His likeness for His intention, destined for Glory.  I am a happy vessel, carrying to those in need the Water of Life.  Planting seeds for harvest that I will witness in delight.  Father I am overwhelmed by glimpses, the entire picture will steal my breath.

I too cry with you Brothers and Sisters at the loss of hope, the essential surrender to the whims of human desire.  Though my tears speak of sadness they do not abnegate my Triumphant Hope in Jesus and His Promise, His Peace, His Strength and His Sovereignty.  I have seen the brilliant tarnished, the old frightened and the young intimidated or coaxed to wickedness.  But I will also see the light which sponsored life glow brightly in their wakened hearts.  I will see them stand in Joy even as the stone melts and the air burns.  I will see them gleam as the veil is pulled away, revealing their true nature.

When time is fully grown, they will remember that the fires are His and He uses them to purify, separate, mold and clarify.  Yes we will stand His judgment and many will welcome that day without fear or repercussion, because they first believed.  There is no victory without conflict, but ours has been won by Sacrifice so Grand.  Though we may be forced to walk the fields of battle, plague, pestilence and storm they are just acts which must be played out.  Do you believe in Victory?  Do you hold fast to this life in fear or remorse?  Do you strengthen those around you preparing them for that moment when they recall their origin?  They will surrender to righteousness as deception shrinks from the Glorious Light of God.  Yahweh be praised in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vyyHegP255g#!  Dr. Benjamin Carson’s recent audacious speech on recovering America,  Worth the time, Check it out!!!

Trust like patience is a discipline that requires time to master.  If you are like most people then you have been let down throughout your life by those around you.  Repeated abandonment, betrayal and disappointment condition us to dampen faith and perpetuate a cycle where reliability can never be tested.  We withdraw, avoid or over test relationships in a desperate attempt to find someone that we can depend upon and heal old wounds.  Others follow a path of achievement to prove themselves worthy of another person’s love, hoping to find someone that they can trust by proving themselves deserving.  Unfortunately we bring this experience into our relationship with the Lord God, projecting and expecting the same human characteristics of Christian faith and of the Lord Himself.

We walk by faith not by sight.  The Lord is not looking for performance if that were the case He would only accept the most talented, the truly gifted or those prone to over achievement.  He actually looks for the opposite.  He finds either those who have limiting deficiencies or those who would be highly successful at “worldly” disciplines but are completely oblivious of spiritual understanding.  Folks much like myself.  People who have talent but continually try to earn, force or perform their way into heaven.  The irony of Christianity is that we are expected to change, to be recreated, to conform to the Image of the Most High God and then go and achieve “great things” for the Kingdom.  Yet it is a Divine process that cannot be achieved through human effort.  We are transformed by surrendering to the Masterful Hand of the Craftsman, who deftly molds and shapes us to His Good Pleasure.  What this requires is “Trust” in His ability to finish this work.

We need to stop trying so hard or blaming God for not working things out to our own understanding and instead rely upon the “heart” knowledge that He always delivers upon His promises.  So many in this world speak of empowerment as the spark that leads to their desired state of self actualization.  They orate colorfully about “wholeness”  and being “one” with those governing influences and forces of the universe.  Let me be clear this is satan, once again attempting to contort, distort or change course for those who would otherwise find the right path to faith in Christ.  The Lord rebuke him in his attempts to waylay the beloved.  We learn to trust God by reading, understanding and practicing His Word through the Holy Spirit of God, in the name of Christ through Faith in the Infinite, Unchanging Father.  He gives us the will, the energy, the money, the answers, the strength, authority and the opportunity to do whatever it is He has set before us.  He is Worthy of my trust and has nor will He ever fail to fulfill upon His promises.  The tasks set before me I could not achieve in and of myself.  Thank God they are not mine to overcome, but His.  I have already overcome them, by surrender to the Almighty, by my testimony of what He has done for me through His Blood and His love for us all.  Please Trust in God rather then trying so hard.  He already loves you more than you will know in this life.  Holy Spirit please convey my love and thanks to the Father in the name of His Son Jesus the King of Kings.  Amen.

My eyes capture hourly sights that I hoped to never see.  Occurrences, changes and episodes that I truly hope would never come about.  Things that strike all of us as unnecessary, shocking, tragic, avoidable and yes plain wrong.  Images of children dying as either collateral damage, neglect and/or hunger are abundant and unfortunately, regular.  God help us if they ever become so commonplace where they cease to produce outrage in our hearts and minds.  Gatherings of once respectful community members shouting at each other in an opinionated display of bullying and aggression where there used to be attempted understanding and cooperation.

Natural and man-made disasters, increasing in severity and frequency as if somehow an alarm is sounding in crescendo as we fail to pay heed. People caught in the speed of technological change losing focus, energy, humanity or control in their struggle to simply keep pace.  What is producing this logarithmic/exponential increase in the perceived episodic normative?  You would probably doubt me if I say that I know, perhaps a review of the prophet Daniel’s predictions about our time will provide some evidence if my words seem incredulous.

Wars, rumors of wars.  What used to be “hot spots” with potential for battle have been replaced by a general unease.  There are no longer quiet, peaceful and safe spots on our planet, violent tensions, economic instability and social rigor have now spread to the four corners of the globe.  The Earth is no longer a harmonious blue pebble spinning in space, having been replaced by a raucous rock where onlookers wait for, applaud or attempt to avoid the next expected calamity, outbreak, clash or eruption.  The climate has changed, global warming is truth. Not the general progression toward a hotter weather pattern, instead the palpable escalation of kinetic energy toward an eventual or repeated episodic release.

This week there was an 8.0 earthquake in the Santa Cruz Islands, by any measure this is a memorable and dangerous event.  However what followed that tragic event was significantly more troubling.  You see that same area had dozens of following earthquakes, most measuring over 4.0 every five to ten minutes throughout that entire day.  That original tectonic event triggered some sort of cascading repetition where the tremors would not resolve as if some tipping point had been crossed.  This episode is emblematic of our current stasis in man’s march through time.  I know you can feel it because I get feedback from believers and unbelievers all stating the same observation, that the environment is pregnant for sporadic outbreaks instead or regularity and normalcy.  It has somehow become an experiment more highly prone to chaos, with what once were manageable occurrences now spiraling out of control.  Man is no longer in the “catbird” seat but has become the unwitting pawn in a drama spinning out of normal centrifugal parameters.  Regardless of which model you subscribe to or utilize, whether the merry-go-round going too fast or the figure skater spiraling faster and faster in a spin, both end in implosive or explosive devastation.

There is a fence separating all of humanity and this energetic flux is creating a polarity where it is increasingly more difficult to remain in the center of the orbiting construct.  Bodies are being forced to the polar aspects through our push against the axis.  There is nothing substantial upon which to adhere at the diametrical way line.  The fence will be evacuated, not by choice but through overwhelming influence, pushing all the positions along the frontier’s circumference.  There are after all only two halves to the whole.  Try as we may persist, we of ourselves are incapable of escaping the laws of physics and time.  The only way to escape the cruelty, inflexibility and finality of the Law is through the forgiveness of redemption by the Blood of Jesus Christ the Savior of Mankind.  I accept my place in God’s unfolding plan for humanity, and I look forward to and welcome my new place in the Kingdom of God, as this world shatters and is reconstructed by the Power of His Word.  Praise King Jesus, Amen.