My hands rattled the cage of time, my eyes swelled with tears knowing that I would be trapped inside for ever holding no inkling of hope.  My dreams had been fulfilled, my mind’s eye appeased, I lived and savored momentary conquests and prayed they linger.  The money I made bought me shade, and rest and a broader waistline, but never lasted past the point of gluttony or hangover.  I had achieved Man’s desire, wealth, prestige, fashion, fancy and maintained my polished pride, even at the sake of losing every worthy person I loved.  Yes, I had lived to the fullest, fast lane-success available to man.  Peeling the skin from my fingertips as I grasped for the last magic, elixir drops drying into the concrete under the noonish sun.  Sitting on a curb, I leaned back closed my eyes and prayed that somehow today it would  end.  How could I possibly be begging God to take away something to which I had dedicated my entire existence, time and talent?  Can time be truly wasted if lessons are learned or does regret somehow ruin victory?  All I know is that I was set free and there is nothing that could ever convince me to return to such foolhardy pursuit.

What is time to us?  Do you wish for days to go slower or faster and what does that say about living in this precious moment?  Father I don’t know when you will return to gather your Church.  I do not know if I shall be here or passed beyond the gateway to eternity.  I do not know what awaits me in glory.  I only know that You are at the end of this road and that is enough for me.  Yes, I continue to get this wrong because being right is not so important.  Just being is enough, being and believing in the one thing that is pure, holy, great and untarnished by tyrannical time.  Father let me depend not on my understanding, direct me to the words that I must use today, the wisdom I must demonstrate today to overcome the obstacles that face me today.  Let me not agonize over yesterday or obsess on tomorrow.  Breathe with me Father.  Let my heart be at peace in service, love and prayer.  In Your Holy Name King Jesus I pray this day I have been freely given.  Amen.

Discernment is about listening not seeing.  Listening to the heart of God, the voice of God, the Divine direction of the Lord.  Do not let me speak in Your Holy Presence Father, but listen.  One whispered word from Your Lips is worth all the weight my entire life of speech may bring.  I have spoken for You without hearing, answered for You without consulting, told of You without inquiring.  Redeemed but not set free of the poisonous prison I’ve constructed out of yearning to be acceptable to a dying world.  Please don’t let it be about me, for that would be Unfulfilling to a world that craves release from emptiness.  None of us have what it takes to complete ourselves or anyone else, we can only be made whole in Jesus Christ.  Wisdom is not folly well spoken, but the Lord’s bidding well delivered.

In agony I hear your words, Brother’s and see the mystery revealed.  We share in our frailty, for it matters not one golden word, soaked in honey delivered with angelic pretense.  All that I possess worth anything, God created.  I am a stick figure without His brush stroke, a garbled sentence without His penmanship, a leaky vessel without His shaping hand.  I am made to carry The Living Water.  Nothing I have made is worthy of salvation.  The crafts of my hands, the thoughts of my mind and the words of my throat are folly unless Blessed by His Will.  Do not look to me and say there goes a good man who knows the path for I see only one light in this perpetual darkness and His name is the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Almighty God, The Bringer of Light, Truth and Judgment, the Giver of Spirit, the Redeemer of the World, The Word.  Amen.

I pray that the Lord forgives me for all those things that were done in my own name, not for His glory.  The times that I would be seen in favored light.  The days when I stepped forward to take the reins only to demonstrate how proficient my skill set.  The nights I told stories dedicated to the King of Glory only to accept the accolade of a listening populace.  The priceless moments of testimonial share time that I completely missed because I was too busy making a salient argument.  The chances to forgive and ask pardon of those and for those who would either wise have gone through life with guilt and shame.  The days I sought my own sustenance and not the appetites of the starving, undernourished, unloved and disenfranchised.  The years of using my God-given gifts for my personal edification and not to direct hearts to the Cross.

It is an honor, joy and life fulfilling process to serve You Father.  Let me do so without shame or regret.  Let me cast my whole heart, mind and soul into my efforts for the Kingdom.  Let me leave no consideration for the flesh or worldly position.  Let me live this life and the next for You and Your Will.  In Jesus’ Name I pray.

Willingness, is entirely different than dutifully performing assigned tasks, though one may be willing out of a sense of duty.  Joyously carrying out the works that God designed for each Christian is a state of heart appealing to the Lord.  Think on it.  Even in your worldly work, it is significantly easier to go to a job each day when you “want” to go.  The days don’t seem arduous when you willingly accept the tasks set before you by your earthly authorities.  There are three perspectives, resist the yoke, accept it because you must then gripe and whine or willingly look forward to doing the work set before you.  God is looking for volunteers, not those attempting to hide in the masses hoping to never be picked.

We are the leaders of mankind.  We are the royalty, the salt and light, the holders of God’s wisdom and the world looks to us for direction.  It truly becomes problematic when we have no personal direction.  We should not be standing around saying, “I wish I knew God’s will for my life?”  This and other “excuses” are clear attempts to avoid what we know that God has already told us in His word and what most Christians already have heard from the Holy Spirit whispering in their ears and hearts.  If you don’t know what God wants you to do then how about this, learn His word, pray and go out and spread the Good News of Christ and coming judgment.  Sound familiar?

Everyone wants some special duty but they are unwilling to be obedient to their worldly masters and do the work of evangelism and prayer to which we have all been directed.  This outlook violates reality.  Even in the world you get promoted for special work or more responsibility by demonstrating a unique willingness and capacity to carry out the normal tasking of any job.  In fact I have seen more people be promoted by a willing spirit than by a demonstrated gift to complete their work.  Leaders want to surround themselves with people who want to get the job done.  Just as in material blessings where by the Lord seeks those who make the most of what they have been given before giving them more it is same in work.  Lord take from my heart any rebellion and pride.  Allow me to be the first to step forward and accept your yoke, for I know that it is light.  Let my example cause others to step forward willingly to the plow and never look back.  Give them the willing heart of service to Your Will.  God bless Your Holy Name by Christ Jesus I pray.  Amen.

Joy, one of the deepest three words in the English language.  http://thesaurus.com/browse/joy?s=t .  Think on it, three simple letters that evoke mirth, merriment, satisfaction, solace and rapture.  To the world joy is multifaceted, to the believer deeper still.  For to us joy is strength, power, example and authority.  If joy is not present then the Spirit is distant.  Joy, just as supernatural peace and discernment is evidence of the presence of the Almighty God in a believer’s life.  Look for joy and you will see the Holy Spirit.  Find it and you will live with Christ in this world.

Awry, twisted, tortured, manipulated, contorted, bent, misshapen, mishandled, dysfunctional, wobbly, off-center, unbalanced,untrue.  Don’t you feel that things are a bit out of whack?  Do you find yourself having to argue just on normal principle, somehow feeling that if you don’t have a view that askance of reality that you are a fringe personality?  The time has arrived when true Christians have begun to stand out against the common place background of acceptable wickedness, conformity and ethical relativism.  Even if you stand out for truth now you will be condemned for not being tolerant.  Right no longer matters as much as ritual, tolerance and appearance.  Listen to Jesus words about those who live on appearance without truth.

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother and Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.;  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a a gift to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it.  Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.  You hypocrites:  Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:  ‘These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’

Matthew 15:3-9

The Earth teeters, wobbles and threatens to keel over.  Look at this article.  In their own words, the supposedly “peace loving Muslims” proclaim their intentions.  The peace is folly, the charade a hoax perpetrated on the innocent, naive and cowardly.  Hope is not in an achievable peace between the Arabs and Israelis.  Peace is only possible when it is a common objective, but neither side wants peace, they want conquest or liberty, neither of which is achievable through peace.

http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3431.htm  Read “first hand” information, this is not what someone said that they said but rather what they say that they’ve said.

The Prince of Peace shall come and liberate Israel for His own purposes and His own Glory, because He said that He would.  What is there to depend upon in this chaotic world, but the Word’s and Promises of God.  Everything else is in flux.  As it gets further from rest people will begin to display erratic behavior in an attempt to establish their own security.  Justifying unacceptable behavior out of supposed need for protection from “Them”.  The only resting place is in the shelter of the Lord.  He is the only truth, the Rock of Salvation.  The immovable, unchanging righteousness outside both time and space.  He loves us but will not tolerate our behavior forever.  So my advice, Get Right With God by believing on Christ the Messiah who gave His life to take away the sins of the world.  Repent of your sin and surrender to God’s plan, purpose and will for your life and stop living for service of self and the devil.  Take the free gift of eternity through Christ.  Amen.

Reflecting upon Paul’s wisdom, knowledge, power and dedication causes one to a desire to emulate his walk.  Seeing how John and James spent days upon end sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening, praying and working makes me wonder how I could be after such time with Christ.  Elijah’s fealty, Isaiah’s truth, Moses’s strength all give me pause seeing how inconsistent my walk, frail my breath and short my arm.  And I weep to be faced with the opportunity to express courage as Joshua or faith like Stephen.  Oh and father Abraham to believe so deeply in the Lord’s promise that he would offer up his precious son.

These thoughts make me shiver and drive me to my knees but what quickens me and takes the breath from my pride is the thought that nothing else matters but Jesus.  I am to imitate Him and learn from the mistakes, victories and trials of His disciples but I am not to try and be like them, but like the Lord.  All these men, and women had one thing in common they tried to be like Him.  They trusted Him, loved Him, worshiped Him and followed Him to that one death which faces each of us on our path to the everlasting.  They had the unique understanding that there was nothing else as important, no other challenge as grand no other pursuit worth every ounce of spirit.  They wanted to be like Him and some made a pretty strong stand wouldn’t you say?

It does not matter what others believe, what others fear, say or accomplish.  It matters only that I do what the Maker of every universe programmed into my spirit.  That I fulfill my quest, not that it measures up against someone else or that there are two brothers that are better than I at being compassionate, patient and gentle.  I just want to be like Him.  To know that what I have done needs no explanation.  I want to be true, right, honest and pure because that is what He is like.  I want to defend the weak, pick up the discarded and pray for the misunderstood.  Though I love you my Lord’s Saints that love began when He first loved me and I understood how to love Him.  I wish for you all the success that the Lord may bestow upon you in this life and the next, but I could give a hoot if I am doing a better job than any of you.  I just want to be like Him.  For me that is Holy Grail, my quest, my wish.  Praise the Almighty God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob in the Glorious name of Jesus Christ the Lion of Judah, my King.  Amen.

Why do those who perform acts look to Christians for condoning or condemnation?  If they understood the commitment to which we find ourselves allied, they would understand that we can provide neither.  We are not the world’s judge nor do we have the right, power or freedom to condone sin and wickedness.  To those who would have me encourage their salacious behavior I tell you that the Lord has directed me to love you but revile your sin.  And for them who would ask of me condemnation for their acts I tell you there is only one Judge, one Law, one King, one Righteous Maker who presides over all.  He is so clear on this edict that He will not even let me judge myself, never mind project that condemnation upon others.

Why is it so hard for people to make the mutually exclusive analysis where my love for you is separate from my abhorrence of your sin?  I can love you and hate what you do.  They are separate thoughts on my part.  This desire to lump them together is merely used to condemn me while somehow providing mild catharsis for your wounded constitution.  Remember receiving condemnation from me is neither something I am capable of providing nor can I tolerate, condone, permit or honor your wicked behavior.  These are two things you must receive from someone else.  As Christians our opinion is clearly written within the covers of the inerrant, infallible, Holy Spirit inspired Word of God known as the Bible.  I recommend you read it and you will find, love, acceptance, fairness, righteousness, peace, wisdom and eternal salvation from the condemnation of your own heart.  I want to help, aid, support and encourage people not condemn them, but that is exclusive from my responsibility to avoid and where necessary point out self-destructive action.

I give to you warning and encouragement both born of love, my love for my Creator and my love for you.  Do what God commands because He commands it and has the right to do so.  Do not look to me for condemnation nor provision for your sin, because I can provide neither.  Come to the Lord Jesus before the time to do so has passed.  Please don’t condemn my fellow Christian’s because they cannot give you what you seek.  Praise God in Jesus’ Name.

Talk about it.  As in intimidation and victimization, avoidance is just another instrument in the ill-prepared, man’s bag of conflict resolution tools.  Similarly effective at shutting down relevant or undesired conversation, dodging unpleasant subjects, and by stretching out the posterity of personal ignorance.  Though this never really solves anything it is a classic mechanism for delaying maturity.  Unfortunately, this ploy is tantamount to proxy condemnation for the believer.

The LORD does NOT allow FENCE sitters where the Truth of Christ is concerned.  Avoidance of acceptance, surrender and direction for a Christian brings the same punishment as will an out-right disbeliever.  In fact, I propose that an unbeliever, mocker or wicked man possesses exponentially more dignity in his resolve to stand for what he believes in, which just happens to be nothing but his own interests.  Whereas a Christian who avoids relevant conversation and duty is a turncoat, liar and more the snake than any other.

Here is the irony of the week; I asked myself yesterday, “What are the questions that I don’t want to be asked”?  The answer was disconcerting to say the least.  I confess my sin, I do not pray, do not give, do not love, do not forgive and frequently do what I know to be wrong just to suit my own desire.  I am rebellious to those the Lord has placed over me, disobedient to the Word and frankly have more energy for serving my flesh than I do the tasks to which God has designed me.  I speak flippantly, walk rashly and trample the sensitive cares of many of God’s children.  I ask forgiveness where I have none to give and expect God’s blessings where I have operated under poor assumption.  In the short of it, if not for the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, I myself would be nailed directly to that rugged cross for crimes of which I AM GUILTY.  Praise God He has provided a sacrifice to buy back my unworthy soul from eternal separation and agony.

Avoid avoidance like the plague that it is.  Be of good courage and strength as the Lord bids us.  Take the high ground and fear not those who can kill the body.  Speak the truth, to yourself first and then it will be easy to be honest with the world.  Love yourself enough to take your own medicinal criticism and encouragement.  Stand and He will fight for you.  Do not sneak, do not run, do not waver, dodge or relinquish your commission.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul as you love no other and love your brother as you yourself would want to be loved.  Standing on the sidelines is a coward’s method for admitting guilt.  We love you Lord Jesus.

The Holy Spirit placed something on my heart today while reflecting on the circumstances surrounding our Lord’s last moment on Calvary’s Cross.  The two thieves represent the two sides of humanity with Christ their intercessor hanging between them.  One man accepted his fate, knowing himself rightfully condemned and seeking no forgiveness for his actions nor release from the inevitable separation from God.  In fact he was already distanced, veiled and lost, not being capable of cherishing the opportunity to speak directly to his Maker.  The other understood and without baptism or ritual found entry into paradise by his repentance and belief.  Yes, even on the Cross the Lord taught a perfect lesson of choice even to the last breath our fate is not yet determined.  However, some will look upon this and call this fatalist or predetermination in that one could see the other was blind.  Just because the Lord stands outside of time and knows what I will do before I choose to do it does not mean that He made the choice for me.  I am free to choose life or eternal separation from those that I love and await me at the Lord’s Patient Throne.  The Lord will not bear with humanity forever, so I pray that as the thief on the Cross you lay down your pride, ignorance and stubbornness and ask Him for salvation.  You will not be denied nor will you be disappointed.  Paradise lives here and is coming nearer each day.  Praise God in the Holy, Mighty Name of Jesus Christ the King of Everything.

This no precise machine designed for statistically programmed functionality.  This is no piston, cam driven appliance hewn for calculated work.  We are not silicon fashioned plasma factories prepared to produce data or spew unrefined information.  You are not a repository of closely permuted variables and malleable characteristics.  We do not somehow get life right or do it “correctly”.  This thing called life “is its own meaning”.  The messiness, the imprecision, the inherent fallibility within the human paradigm is exactly what makes beings so loveable.  God could have created machines but that was man’s imperfect work.  Instead He made Madge and Bill and Tom and Tess, oh what a glorious representation of His glory, each of us.

Delight in their frailty, take heart from our strength.  Reflect on his wisdom and learn sympathy from her sensitivity.  Be provoked by the incessant questions of the young and rebuked by the unavoidable truth of the aged.  Love, because that is what sets us apart from metallic componentry.  We are grand because of our relationship to He who made us.  A God so infinite in His understanding that he constructed us beyond mere machinery into mysteries of organic chemistry coupled with engineering mastery.  We the anomalies of this universe in our resemblance to Majesty and our affinity for sublime.  In our choice we demonstrate our efficacy.  In our kindness we demonstrate sacrifice and ponder the origin of our internal prompting.  In our freedom we understand allegiance.

You could have made us into anything, but you chose this glorious combination of imperfection and wonder.  Thank you Father for letting me be a human and allowing me for the briefest of moments to delight in the miracle of birth, living, decision and passing.  This gift of Your Living Breath, breathed into what may have been naught but dirt at its beginning but promises to become something refined in its conclusion.  Praise Your Holy Name Father in the Glorious Name of Jesus the King of All Creation, thank you Holy Spirit.  Amen.