If you want evidence of God I will show you sinners transformed into saints.  The work done by a Loving God, who promised this result to them who believe upon Him.  I pray and pity those who must be good enough in their performance in order to gain/earn admittance to the paradise of God.  For how may I know that I am intended for glory, if the definition of my acceptance is based upon my “acceptable” deeds?  How may I ever have assurance if the criteria for entry is based on me, for we have all determined that there is nothing certain in this world except death, taxes and change.  I can imagine their despair as they seek each day to be “good” enough for God.  God wants perfection, I cannot reach perfection, therefore I will eventually fall prey to utter depression in the personal attempt of works.  I that I may hope to be is past the bar of “good” enough, every one above the line being included and below, excluded.  How do I know my standing against this measure?  The answer is I don’t, so I have to continue to strive to be good enough and “hope” that on the day of my death I had somehow “made the cut”.

I don’t care how good you are, all of us continue to sin against the mirror of God’s Law.  Remember God’s bar is perfection, so any performance below that line is disqualified.  Since, one hundred percent of us fall short of this mark, it is miraculous that God offers the Grace of Salvation, freely to them who will repent and believe.  This provides the opportunity for the assurance of salvation while removing the burden of earned entry to paradise.  Christ paid the price of my imperfection, substitutionally providing me His righteousness in exchange for my utter hopeless position in sin.  Although God still expects me to live a pure, righteous and Holy life, He has now allowed for the fact that I am incapable of doing so.  It is God who will perfect me, God who transforms, God who makes it possible for me to be in His presence throughout eternity.  What a relief, I don’t have to try and be good enough anymore and I can accept the assurance of my entry in heaven when I die.  Do you know where you are going when you leave this life?  Don’t you want to know or would you rather continue to hope, guess or live in despair?

How shall we ever access overwhelming or abundant joy if we continue to worry about being good enough for heaven?  My heart is filled with thankfulness for the great gifts God continually gives me, my eyes well with size seven tears when I realize the wonderful friendships with which I’ve been blessed.  I cannot begin to tell you about the number of people I’ve encouraged with a smile, a reminder of love or just the authentic will to listen and share a bit of their burden.  I could have done none of that without the assurance of my salvation and the knowledge that I cannot sanctify myself.  God did the work of conquering sin and death and He continues the work of transforming my life to resemblance.  Lay down your burden at the cross, be forgiven for every sin and be transformed by a renewing of your mind.  That is the free gift each of us is offered.  It is ironic that the only way to be found good enough for heaven is to give up on trying to be good enough at all.  Find rest and truth in Jesus.

The yearning in your heart, can you name it, or does it just pester you anonymously?  Is there a place to which you feel drawn, a task that begs your completion an idea or word you are compelled to author?  Do you know and have you acquainted yourself with the indwelling Holy Spirit of God?  You being a believer are the tabernacle of God’s Holy Spirit on Earth, the Holy of Holies in fact, where God dwells among men.  Are you afraid to ask God’s Holy Spirit to guide you, counsel you or show you God’s Will?

The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our salvation, according to Ephesian’s 1, sealing us for our inheritance in Christ.  So, if the Holy Spirit is not present, then there is no seal, no salvation and no inheritance.  Wouldn’t it be logical at this point to inquire as to the evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit?  Have you ever asked God to assure you of salvation, to show you His indwelling Spirit?  Have you seen His fruits in your life, your rebirth, your transforming or renewing of your mind?  That’s okay as we grow in our faith and Biblical understanding we all investigate this question on the way to established faith.  Aren’t we told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?  What is the Holy Spirit telling you and if you do not hear His convicting, assisting or guiding prompts, don’t you wonder why not?

Get close to God and He will come closer to you, that is how this Christian intimacy thing works.  Seek Him and He will always respond in kind.  Don’t be afraid to ask God questions, that demonstrates belief in His Word, for who asks questions of someone in which they have no belief?  Have you resisted the tugs upon your heart, have you ignored His correction or guidance, have you effectively silenced God’s small quiet voice in your life?  We are all made for something and that something is between you and God.  Certainly, pastors, teachers and other Christians can give you some direction but the hunt for intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit via the Door of Jesus Christ our Lord is personal, individual, specific to your course in this life.

Don’t you want to know why He made you?  Doesn’t everyone?  The fact that people avoid God’s Will confounds me, isn’t that what makes life worth living?  Of course I could fill my life with idle pursuits, utilize my gifts for my own determined pursuits or basically deny that I had any specific design, but why on Earth would I choose a lesser existence than that which I’ve been promised by my faith in God?  I delight in your making.  Let us see what God has crafted in your mind, heart and spirit.  Perhaps we will see God in its reflection and it will lead us to a deeper relationship through Christ.  Wouldn’t that be a miracle?  In Jesus’ Name.

Are you telling them what He told you to tell them?  Have you ever mentioned judgment, or does the idea make you feel as if you are being intolerant?  I know, we have been told so many times by the feel-good society that they cannot imagine a loving God could ever send good people to Hell simply for declining His offer of saving grace.  Do not make for yourselves a custom designed image of God, known in the Bible as a graven image.  God may be the most loving idea you can imagine but He has also been saving up wrath for the day of judgment ever since we chose to sin.  Make no mistake, those who ignore, decline, deny or foolishly join satan in direct conflict against God’s Will shall all be sentenced eternally to the lake of fire for their own recorded works.  He is a just and righteous God, who cannot stand sin and has warned everyone that if they do not accept redemption they will choose their own end, eternal separation and judgment.

Yes, I want to be gentle in my loving expression and relationship with all humans.  However, does being gentle require that I refuse or overlook warning those whom I love of the dangers of God’s eternal judgment?  Christ died for our sins and that is a serious thing, that God would come to Earth in order to save us from righteous judgment.  That He would go to such humbling and extensive action to provide each of us the possibility of eternal reconciliation should not be underestimated.  He obviously takes sin very seriously or otherwise He wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to cleanse us of its stain.  We cannot simply choose to teach the parts of the Bible that we feel comfortable in expressing.

The truth has this unique characteristic that it only remains the truth when it is stated clearly, completely and openly without obfuscation, illusion or contextualization.  That is why satan is so insidious and the Pharisees/Sadducees are always referred to as vipers, speaking with a forked tongue.  Take for example the Biblical Truth, stating that “the truth will make you free”, John 8:32.  Read the whole truth, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.  Taking those lines that are appealing to us out of context removes the qualifying statements that precede it thereby disseminating or warping truth for our own palatable purpose.  According to the commonly used version, “the truth shall make you free” requires nothing of the recipient and additionally all people, believers and unbelievers to be set free by truth, nothing could be further from the truth.

Jesus, is the Way the Truth and the Life and No one comes to the Father but by Him.  How can anyone wishing to know the truth, know that truth without first knowing Jesus?  The world hates Jesus and by relation Christians and Jews.  They cannot tolerate that God would hold them “Absolutely” accountable to His absolute truth.  Historically and subsequently, since they cannot hope to harm God directly, they take their anger out on those whom He loves.  Christians and Jews need not worry though they suffer in this life, God will relieve that suffering and deliver righteous vengeance on all it perpetrators.

God is God and He makes the rules in this and all His universes.  Just because I do not wish to follow my Father’s rules does not free me from His judgment, especially when I am a member of His household.  The only way that a previously disobedient child escapes a Father’s discipline is by being obedient.  God requires that we obediently choose between service as Kin to Jesus in heaven or as suffering eternal slaves to our sin in hell.  That choice does not make Him an unloving God but exactly the contrary, providing a method of salvation where no hope existed.  His judgment is coming, I pray that I have sufficiently prompted you to investigate your own decision for or against Christ.  You see I love you enough to warn you away from the edge, not just tell you the sugar coated version of God’s Word.  Read it for yourself, decide for yourself for you alone shall benefit or suffer for that decision.  My job is to tell you and that I have done.  In Jesus Name.

We seek to be different yet we crave togetherness.  How is this resolvable?  How can I seek to blend in when my DNA, my skin, my fingerprints, hair and eyes have been uniquely crafted so that I am particularly discernible from each of you?  Why create such a uniqueness if randomness, chaos and collective non-singularity are the objective?  What is the power of indoctrination, conformity and communism if not to take that which is unique and make it indistinguishable?  Why does my heart yearn and burn for something that this world desperately seeks to conceal?  Why was I made unique, because that uniqueness implies individual and singular purpose?  If that were not so I would not “be” but rather, we would exist.

The thing we reach for that is just beyond our extended fingertips, drawing each of us to tip toe, reaching out to grasp the sky.  I have a picture in my mind, one that I would love for you to see, yet I cannot paint.  I have a story that I would love for you to hear yet I am outside those that have the means to publish thought.  I am a shepherd.  The smelly part of humanity that we would rather ignore, forget or banish to our necessary fields on the untenable highlands.  We see, we protect, we love and we adore God in our quiet, windy moments spent in reflection upon the hill hoping that nothing happens outside the ordinary but preparing for those times as we know they shall come.

I do not expect that you will find my thoughts acceptable or logical or palatable.  I hope for the opposite, that you find me unique as God has made me, that my oddity inspires your need to figure it out, wondering why I am so strange.  For this is the light of Christ.  It is not like this world yet reflects Him in the world He created, for what created thing does not demonstrate the signature, aspects and insights of its Maker.  Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun.  This I believe, except when it applies to each human being that is conceived for you are uniquely spectacular to me.  There is a song in your heart that I wish to know, a building you alone were meant to construct a problem whose solution resides in your mind alone.  Do not allow the powers of this world to package, can or lump you collectively into a beige or mauve mundane torturous nightmare.  For this life is meant for joy and realization of unique purpose, leading each of us to an intimate relationship with God.  You hold the key, it is choice and the choice is named Jesus Christ, the Door, The Way, The Light, The Lamb, The King, The Good Shepherd for all men.  He resides in Glory and in each believers heart.  Reach for Him, He is waiting.

We don’t know when, we just know, at some moment it will happen.  I cannot tell you how precious my life’s moments have become for I know not their number.  What plans are a man’s when the next breath remains outside his control?  How can I prove my love to you without the time to show you?  Are all my thoughts constrained by warden Time?  Is working out my salvation with fear and trembling possible when I have no time to understand reverence for God?  All creation is on the clock, including the fallen, but for God there is no conclusion, no beginning, no measure and no pressure to perform.  Are you warming to the idea that things are not your own, for without the time to own them there is no authority.  Try breathing without breath, try farming without rain, try dreaming without thought, try planning without time to strategize or execute your action steps.  Control is an illusion, therefore the enemy can only hope to convince us the illusion has form.

My thoughts are sinful or pure, but they are nothing without the time to think them, the time to commit them or the time to ask that they be forgiven.  I am nothing without time, the time to walk through this life making choices that God gave me the time and grace to make.  I have no time, it is given to me, not owned.  What I do with the time I have been given either serves for nothing or for God, there is no twain.  For if there were no men in the forest what legacy would I achieve if none had the time to read my godless deeds?  God’s review of my life in the time He has given is the only testimony of my worth.  Just as any other created being outside of time I am nothing.  This is not true for God.  For outside of time He is still limitless, borderless, infinite.  Rejoicing in His gifts, enjoying our relationship and loving others with the love He gave me are my greatest achievements but I needed the time to experience them or they didn’t exist.  That is why life is precious for I have the time to experience the pain, the joy, the trials, the victories and the people.  Without the clock life’s precious moments have no value for we all face the determined and inevitable countdown to what faces each of us after this life.  So, time makes each of us believe in something for we either believe it ends abruptly or continues, but we all believe in something beyond the governing hands of time.

I pray that you have the time to contemplate that belief, for it is the purpose of this life.  Ironic that what happens after this life determines the quality and fulfillment in this one.  One thing I know is that I don’t know how much time I have been given.  Therefore I choose to live the rest of it for the Lord, assured, loved and determined to live forever with God.  Thank you Lord Jesus for the opportunity to join you in eternity.

Try loving someone who hates you.  Peace is at the beginning of your journey not the end.  You tell me that you cannot forgive and you want me to second a motion to see you included in the club of social occupancy.  I will never meet the cut off, never match the guidelines, never have the personal enlightenment or empowerment to somehow rise above.  For this battle was never fought by me, but by God out of love for me and you.  It does not depend upon my strength or frailty, my coordination or clumsiness, my success or utter defeat.  There is no balance of competing forces seeking influence over eternity.  There is only God and His patience for mankind until He levies absolute judgment.

Love is something I learned from Him, where the world had only given a quest for attention.  Overcoming is found in realization of truth not in repeated or mighty action.  I have won is a state of being not an episode of circumstance, effort and chance.  Romance is fine but give me a woman that will stay with me after the glamorous and spectacle is ended and you will see the foundation for real love.  I see them vomit, convulse, jones, steal, beg, lie and borrow until no one will know them and yet I see God still waiting on their every tear.  I find them gasping, hiding, creeping, avoiding, competing, faking and controlling, telling themselves that one more achievement and things are going to be alright.  But night still comes and daydreams turn to threatening nightmare as they find themselves in darkness without hope, wisdom and freedom.  I greet mockers, knowing that their fear is insurmountable, for they argue with a Holy God, whose voice is thunder and Words raise or lower the dead.

I will not talk trash.  It matters to Him who I am.  You are loved, whether you accept, understand or deserve it is simply and fortunately irrelevant.  For if eternity depended upon my performance, looks, money or skill, oh what a desperate man I would become.  I wait upon His direction because He loved me enough to wait until I broke down and cried out for help, He was simply there, just as promised.  His loyalty doesn’t miss, it follows the line of infinite slope and never wavers in the realms of fickle human dependency.  When I met Jesus I too had the opportunity to surrender and now I see in myself the benefits of His undying love.  People can now count upon me when before they had no reason.  I have been reborn, remade, chastened and set free.  Jesus is for me and I for Him.  In this life leading to the next.  Praise His name He is Glory.

What things are freely available to both rich and poor man?  Is air free, water, fuel, housing, clothing or food?  Does freedom come without cost?  How about love, is there associative cost for a Mother’s love of her children?  How about thought, are you alone without fee when left inside your own imagination?  Is there an equal and opposite reaction to every undertaking?  What are the costs associated with each aspect of life and how might some things be attained without bargaining, begging, wagering or pay?

How much of life comes without price?  It costs money to be born, to be vaccinated, to grow, to learn and to propagate.  Can one travel by foot, without gear, supply or benefactor?  Can you live in the wild anymore, without dependence upon fellow man or wealth, in whatever form for trade, assistance and store?  Can a man live free of society without conscience, without sacrificing relationships, investment and convenience?  Were we ever meant to strike out on our own, simply providing for our own edification and sustenance?  If so where in the Bible is that ever directed, indicated or valued?  If nothing is free then what are the associative costs of believing in God?

“I will provide for all of your needs according to my riches and glory through Christ Jesus”, says the Lord.  “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you”, God directs.  “What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose His soul?”  These paraphrases from the Bible point us to the source of all our gifts.  What is the price of thought, belief, commitment and vigilance, because I assure you they do not come without cost?  A rich man may not fully surrender to God without sacrifice nor may a poor man come to God without investment.  What value do we place on humility, loss of identity, ego, station, legacy or relationship?  How may a man lose his life for Christ’s sake and end up gaining life from the process?  Have you committed to paying the price associated with declared and demonstrated faith in Christ Jesus?  For nothing is free in this world, being a Christian makes you an enemy of God’s enemies.  They will not stop until you are left in despair, without joy, relationship or hope.  But they are not in charge and the price of your redemption has been paid, not by you but by Christ.  And no one, including any fallen spirit, may exact from you any payment but that which has already been given through the Lord’s sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary.

Is there anything free in life?  Yes, you are free from the price of this world to live with God forever in eternity.  Yes, you will never die, but instead walk instantly into the arms of God when this short lived mist expires.  Yes, you are no longer held down by the eternal weight of your sinful thoughts and actions.  Considering the truth of your freedom, to what then now will you spend the wealth of your present life, for God, through service to His Kingdom or to self, effectively wasting your remaining time in freedom?  The only thing that is really free on this planet is the free will choice God has given each of us.  Whether rich or poor you may live as a free man or woman, serving Christ the King.  How will you exercise your sole freedom?  In Jesus’ Name I live.