Those days, where you don’t have to even try and everything seems to flow toward rightness.  Had one of those and it was delightful.  Not that I would seek to capture that moment, bottle and repeat it each and every day, but it sure is nice when things work out.  Don’t want to be facetious so I’ll just say that today was excellent because I was working His plan not my own.  The joy in consequence of such activity is that my cup ran over.  I saw three young men of their own volition attend bible study, solid, scriptural-expository preaching, food, fellowship and family fun without compulsion, bribery, only prayer.  Thank You Lord for such things do not happen these days without Your intervention.  I am overjoyed to have been selected as Your ambassador to offer invitation.  May Your Word strike a harmonious chord within their hearts, mind and spirit.  May they surrender to the call of Your grace and find salvation, purpose and remain in the light throughout their days.

On something which may seem totally unrelated, but in fact is perfectly aligned, I have several words of inquiry.  Why must every causality in the world of politics, war, weather and economics be devoid of God’s will as explanation?  For example the Republican party lost this past election and pundits volley every possible genesis for such a failure except that of the most obvious, that the Republican message requires that every member eventually have a discussion about absolute truth, ethics and morality.  And let us face the facts people do not want to talk about GOD.

As God’s Word predicted there has arisen a generation of Americans who do not know the Father, nor do they want to.  Besides, having that conversation with them requires that they have to face the fact of personal accountability for their actions and that God will personally judge those actions.  This is something that the now majority of Americans desperately do not wish to face and they have proven that they will demagogue, insult, threaten, avoid and eventually persecute anyone who suggests that there is an absolute moral code or that there is an enforceable requirement of behavior established, promised and adjudicated by an Almighty, Sovereign authority.

Any person who says keep your hands off my right to have an abortion, cannot know the Father.  Any person who says that it is their God given right to marry someone of their own gender does not know the Father.  Any person who believes that it is okay to have extramarital or premarital sexual intercourse with any and all partners of their choosing does not know the Father.  Any person who pursues money at the cost of the poor, the disenfranchised, orphaned, widowed, foreign or handicapped does not know the Father.  They form churches who warp God’s Word so that they may justify every wickedness.  They form clubs who demagogue believers as intolerant or unloving.  They castigate  Christians who faithfully proclaim God’s commands.  They avoid at all costs or demonize any discussion which rightfully points out that there is only one way to the Father and that is through belief in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ as propitiation for the sins of mankind.

Yes what I saw today is an anomaly.  Young men, with sharp minds and free will make a choice that not only seemed right to them, but arrived as logical conclusion based on their analysis of the truth of God’s Word and the evidence of this fallen world.  You may proclaim them foolish, but that does not make it so.  You may question their judgment but that does not make it unwise.  You may mock them and castigate them as hypnotized by folly, but that does not diminish their decision.  The truth may be mercilessly bludgeoned, pursued by horrifying enemy and twisted by vile tongues in an attempt to lessen its potential, but in the end the truth prevails in its purity.  This country is suffering so because we will not face the truth of our rebellion to the requirements of our maker.  We are going down the wrong path, because we have asserted our selves as gods or worship false demonic idols.  We continue to practice immorality with abandon and that is the shift in our cultural behavior which has brought loose men into dominion.  We have gotten what we have pursued and we will enjoy or suffer the effects of our pursuits.

God be praised, His Truth is unavoidable, unalterable and eternal.  Not a yot or tittle will pass away though all things fall into the sea.  Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the closer we get to tribulation the louder it will be proclaimed.  in days to come the conviction of many courageous young men will become as impenetrable as the armor of God.  I pray that God reinforce their courage, resilience and steadfast pursuit of righteousness and truth.  For there are only two sides.

Is it you that knows all the answers?  If the mind is given rein it will ponder unending.  What sponsors your restraint of thinking or are you perhaps delighted in the process of constant query?  Why does God conceal wisdom, hiding the marrow of logic deeply inside conundrum, puzzle and riddle?  Is it really that hard to gain relief to the pestering questions frustrating the contemplative?  Perhaps it is God’s greatest irony and a masterful reward for those who will not just hear but listen and respond to His direction.  That the answer to life’s seemingly most difficult questions is freely given for the asking.

Proverbs 2 is a specific path to wisdom and understanding.  This simple road map is a step by step recipe for discovering answers and comes with neither ambiguity nor deception.  I often hear people exclaim that do not seek the Word of God because it is so difficult to understand or that there are so many interpretations.  I think these arguments are “smoke-screen” for the true root of the problem which is that we are at our nature, rebellious.  If you seek answers the following is a direct path to answer, but comes with a caution and that is at the end of the path you will find a Loving Father that you have barely if ever really known.  If you follow this visibly illuminated path you will come to knowledge and then you will have the fortunate choice of converting that information into power by applying it to make solid decisions about past missteps and future direction.

My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
² turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
³ indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
⁴ and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
⁵ then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
⁷ He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
⁸ for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.

The time has arrived for the real change.  Not the version of renewed prosperity for which most are wagering, but a reckoning.  Should we be fearful as the surge passes fulcrum, no longer balanced but teetering toward correction?  I don’t know.  Do you have the subdued unpleasantness in your core, because past this point there is no return?  Quite exciting isn’t it to think of something new, even if it displays tragedy at its foundation?   Man holds too much faith in the realm of possibility, deploying the same old rhetoric, ambition and resources to get up the same, previously unconquered hill.  This is the point at which our nation became something different.  Want is the new logic, desire the new morality, platitude the new currency.  What once was held sacrosanct will now be foolishness.  The foundation has been forgotten for a parcel full of loam.  The path is now salted for open persecution.  We are the last foothold of restraint, we cannot be left untrammeled.

Soon, what once was seemingly idle mockery will shortly become open contempt, followed by slander and pointing fingers.  For that which seeks the darkness cannot tolerate the light.  The time has come for national accounting, we will not voluntarily be humble it will be thrust upon us as reward for our disregard, self service and collective unconscious.  Our dessert has arrived and eat we shall,  though it will be bitter to the taste and sour to our stomachs.  What we’ve asked for has come in recompense for our lack of care in asking.  There is hope for all mankind, even now that we have become the prodigal nation and that hope resides in humility, repentance, prayer and forgiveness.  I suspect we will not accept the hand of mercy until it is the only method of avoiding the precipice so evident.  Lord grant us mercy in this our greatest hour of need.  Bring hearts to You so that they may be circumcised and saved.  Save this nation if it be Your Will to do so.  All praise, and glory and honor to You Father God in the mighty Name of Jesus Christ the king. Amen.

Where were we?  Arm in arm, heart to heart, sealed in common thought and a bond that surpasses this lifetime?  Are we waiting rhythmically to join the dance, joy spilling out our pores at the chance to spend time with our family?  Carrying our children who have never been so peaceful, content and yes happy.  Are we in harmony or dissonance, agreement or discord, speaking solidarity or dissent?  Who have we not forgiven, even for the things that were deserving?  What have we put above that love which calls us care and defend each other?  Where did our paths diverge?

He would have me love you.  Not out of spite, I told you so or I can be bigger than you, but because you are filled with the breath of God.  It shouldn’t be that hard, you are amazing, even in those moments when you get my goat by knowing me too well.  I have no ammunition in magazine, no more powder in the keg, no more reason for my unyielding resolution.  I surrender to His love for me and lay at the mercy of His commanded grace and forgiveness.  We cannot alone become the victor as the body must be one.

Soften us Lord.  Give us tears followed by stout hearts and merciful hands for the suffering or forgotten.  Let us take to heart this charge proclaimed before the ages to rise above mere image.  Let us stand against all challenge whether formidable or false knowing that our outcome is deliverance.  Give us strength in weakness, temper our emotional response, give us the collective peace in the knowledge that our path is right and true.  Let this be Your victory in which we are familial participants.  May we rise above and find the meaning of love through shared sacrifice, faith and work.  Make us strong to the plow and tender to those entrusted to our care.  Show us Your face at the dusk and in the morning.  Let us be truly together in Your Hope.  Praise You Merciful Father, Your judgments are correct.  Lord Jesus we love You.

What is achieved if I allow the enemy or any discouraging voice to convince me that I am unworthy?  Does it mean that I have to stop my good works and sit on the sidelines until I once again am convinced by external or internal forces of my qualifications for the job set before me?  The Lord is the only one who can take me out of the game without my approval.  Sure I can let comments, recommendations, ridicule, spite, attacks and of course my own actions temporarily remove me from the field of honor and efficacy, but again the control of this falls in my own hands not that of another.  The largest damage I can do to myself is to distance myself from the Father, His Blessing and His guidance through my own sin.  This is the way to hamstring myself within my ministry.  I do not hate myself for sin, so I do not hate any other sinner but I sure do wish that we could live more holy lives.

I hope and pray that on just one day I will look back in review upon my actions and see that I didn’t do anything that could be found offensive to God.  I have to tell you I cannot remember such a day, but this consistent failure does not stop my perpetual attempt.  I have to assume that since Christ has chosen me that at some point the Spirit will overcome this wretched flesh.  And for that day I strive.  For that day I ask your forgiveness for this another day of humanness.  Lord Jesus, please come when the Plan of the Father wills it, but please forgive me for asking that it be soon.  I hope that all mankind would have a collective consciousness moment of revelation of the need to respect Your Sovereignty, repent of their sin and seek to glorify Your Name.  It is a Holy, Righteous and Glorious Name that should grace the lips of all created things as they cry out to You in humility and reverence.  Oh that all would come to you and accept the gift of eternity forsaking all false treasure, faith and idol.  You alone are God, You alone are Truth, You alone are deserving of my praise.  I love you God the Father, Son and Spirit.  Praise Your name King Jesus.

Jockeying for some type of personal or ideological win on the back of human tragedy.  Truly deplorable, the process of photo-opping one’s way in to the media through in-authentic compassion for a group of people because it makes us appear engaged.  For shame those who would use any person or family’s downfall as leverage for personal or appearance manipulation.  Especially those Christian’s who would support the downtrodden or tragedy stricken to elevate your position this practice is unacceptable and by the way you have received your reward.  There will be no reward waiting for you in heaven.  Help those in need because it is the right thing to do.  And this argument can be carried into all the other facets of life for the individual and for this great nation.

Stand up for the poor because God said to do so.  Don’t borrow or overspend because the Lord says that it is wrong to defer your personal financial requirements to anyone else.  Don’t seek personal gain or allow greed to guide your decision making because God warns against this behavior.  What’s more the Bible actually precludes the man practicing these behaviors from  church leadership.  Love people, not because of the benefits it will bring you by doing so publicly, but for the joy it will bring your Father in Heaven when he sees you care for His children.  Do not justify any sin as necessary or acceptable because someone in the Bible did so and was beloved of God.  Do not support, defend, promote, condone or gloss over any practice that is abhorred by the King of Kings.  Do not seek personal gain through works so that you may ingratiate humans to your endearment.  Do not lose your position as salt and light or you will have become worthless and worthy of nothing but being cast underfoot.

For those who have millions of dollars in their bank accounts and can stand bye while people dumpster dive for food, struggle for fuel to get to work, remain unprotected from the elements and sit in despair wondering how to care for their families, your heart is misaligned.  Mayor Bloomberg, out of his own “EXCESS” finances could purchase necessary fuel to overcome the deficit faced by his constituents.  Bruce Springsteen, Hilary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and many others who have been blessed by God could personally finance these suffering people.  Yet instead they have spent over a billion dollars in pursuit of a job that pays four hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year.  The reasons are obvious.  To say that you do something because that is the way the game is played is surrender to the world’s rules.  We are called to rise above and perform to the standard of the God who have given us existence and saved us from the maw of eternal damnation.  Give because it was given to you.  Love because you were first loved.  Fight because in so doing you may provide the opportunity for someone else to make it to salvation.  Speak Word’s of Righteousness, Truth and Peace because those are the words provided you by your Maker.  Serve God and in doing so lead men to salvation.  Christ be praised.  Honor God, not yourself.  Amen.

The anxiety is palpable as the body of America’s populace struggles with weighty burdens.  The underpinning disquiet of humanity reveals a movement in plate tectonics.  There is only one conflict, there is only one disagreement, there are only two sides to the same argument.  Some would turn this to a conversation of politics in order to misdirect the true dilemma, “From where does our provision come”?  The enemy would have us concentrate on any other source than God the Wellspring of Life in the Universe.  These travails are deception, misdirection and disinformation.

I am not called to preach self-help, psychology and the benefits of social ascendancy.  My task is not to codify the foundational righteousness of one political affiliation and the hollow frailty of another.  I am to preach the Coming Glory of Christ Jesus the King and to that heraldry I remain rigidly aligned.  I come with a two-edged sword that, “cleaves soul from spirit” because that is the true battle.  The soul, man’s own desired fulfillment of worldly passions or the Spirit, man’s eternal-nature, perfectly aligned and residing in, with and through the works of God.  Who does any man or woman serve?  You either find your hope in pursuits and victories of this world under the umbrella of a variable, one-hundred year time limit or you place your hope in the eternal Truth, Perfection and Achievements of God.

Have you noticed that during each election cycle the “undecided” group of voters gets smaller as a percentage of the population as a whole?  Here is hypothesis which I know to be truth as it resides in God’s word.  There is a direct correlation between the undecided vote and the undecided gentiles who have yet to make a proclamation of faith in Jesus Christ.  There are only two sides to this argument, either man believes that he is entirely capable of solving his individual and all the worlds problems himself or he understands that he has never been capable of such an act and ascribes his hope of deliverance and salvation to God.  The two-sides reality of global politics further supports the imminence and nearness of Christ’s return for His church, judgment and rule.  This is God’s countdown to the moment when His patience will have been fully exercised through grace.  At some point in the not-too-distant future this world will have been given the time to make a choice and there will come a shout not unlike that of an Arch Angel declaring the return of the king for love and reign for all time.  God be praised in the Mighty name of the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ the King.  Amen.

I saw a young believer weep today, remembering a lost friend.  His pain was audible, visible and understandable, but his joy was absent.  The ever-present joy of knowing that he and his friend will live their true life in eternity, together, with no more tears.  I wanted to remind him of hope, a concept that along with joy is one of our strongest weapons against despair or thoughts of loss and defeat.  That indescribable joy knowing that his friend is with the Lord, safe, out of pain and free from the destructive, corrosive influences of sin, sickness and death.  I doubt any of my friends that have passed on would have me worry one bit about them.  I would imagine that they would counsel me the opposite, to rejoice for them in their triumph, delight in the peace, find comfort in the knowledge that they have gone to be with one who loves them more that I ever could.  This life, after all is just dress rehearsal for the real eternal romance between a Groom and His bride.

Fear should be an alert mechanism to tell us of impending difficulty or danger, not a crippling device threatening to steal our joy and paralyze our actions.  We were not designed to be afraid and we have been continuously told to be of “good courage and know that the Lord is our God.”  We are the ambassadors of hope to a world that has been battered by and immoral onslaught of secular relativism.  If we lose our joy by ceding this opportunity and authority then those who look to us for a vision of the Righteous Savior will find only more of the same.  The secret to this loss of hope is the enemy’s successful campaign to alienate us from God’s Word.  We as Christians are Biblically illiterate.  We don’t know that Light, Truth, Righteousness, Faith and Love prevail, not only in the end, but throughout God’s Prophetic future.

Satan, the Lord Jesus rebuke him would have us concentrate and magnify our fear of martyrdom, our selfish desire for abundant worldly existence and by mischaracterization of the yoke by which Christ calls us to good works.  Evidence of this is when that same weeping believer asked me how I get through the labor of bible study.  My only answer to him was that it is the greatest joy of my life to spend time with the Lord in study, prayer and fellowship.  These are the riches of this life and they belong only to believers.  Remember the enemy had fellowship with God and gave it all up for a pocketful of self-service.  Will you mimic this insanity or delight in the fact that you have a one to one relationship with the creator of the universe, the Lord Jesus.  My hope is in Jesus and that same hope is the fuel for my faith in things that must come to pass.  I look to the future and encourage those who cannot see past today.  Won’t you share your heart of hope and enthusiasm with someone who doesn’t have a solid understanding or relationship with Christ.  It will make you stronger.   Amen.

http://youtu.be/bc8S87sSo-8

I have shame.  For the things I knowingly do that are not consistent to God’s demands of my life.  For the things I haphazardly create, circumstances where I cause hurt to the unsuspecting through off-hand words, spite or misdirected frustration.  I am culpable for that which I do not say, when knowing as I do that to remain silent allows confusion, misses priceless opportunities to speak the Gospel Truth and for those times when my silence or inaction allowed evil to win in the absence of my Godly opposition.  I am a prince and priest and I should never forget that especially in the moments when I may be used for forceful impact to God’s Glory and Eternal Plan for humanity.

For shame teachers and pastors who are fooling themselves into neglecting their accountability to the God they represent within the flock for which they have accepted responsibility.  The authority to speak God’s Word and direct believers or those seeking the Truth cannot be misconstrued.  This authority comes only from God and therefore requires a daily accountability review as to the lessons taught, the actions taken, the treasure employed and the words spoken.  I see rampant misuse of Christ’s Name to benefit churches that have nothing more to their name than worldly entertainment and social experimentalism.  These leaders have ignored Biblical warnings toward allowing the enemy a seat within the Body or spreading speculation in exchange for real Biblical Doctrine.  The Holy Spirit is the Counselor, the Guide, the Helper and the evidence of eternal salvation.  A lesson plan can be academically perfect, inspired in delivery and received with the cheers of all present and still be nothing more than the idle prattles of an over educated, false-teacher.  Without the Spirit you got nothing.  Check Acts 8:16 if you must disagree.

We are in the last days by faith, not by sight.  Certainly the world matches much of which the Bible predicted but I do not consider worldly facts as the true evidence of the nearness of Christ’s return.  Neither do I look to my emotion to tell me that the harvest is ripe and the sickle near.  It may be rare coincidence that the outwardly evidences and the inwardly emotions match the Biblical discernment which tells me time is near, or perhaps it may be that the Truth is always true, no matter in which direction it is reviewed.  All I know is that false teachers/teachings abound, lackadaisical faith is predominant and the birds of the air have found warmth and acceptance fellow-shipping with the righteous.  The clouds come  over the horizon in morning, distorting the sun and concealing the darkness and I know the storm this portends.  I have seen mans love grow cold, the steadfast grow greedy and weary in pursuit of their own reflection and the mighty grow fat when the battle nears.  This is a time for diligence, so AWAKE my sleeping watchmen.  This is a time for preparation of heart, mind and family, so ARISE my girded shepherds.  This is a time for fulfillment of the great commission, so ALARM the masses of God’s coming judgment and the hope of salvation and safety in Christ.

I want to be that which I can become with the provision and blessing of the Lord.  I live for Glory and the knowledge of what my actions will help to usher in.  God could have chosen a donkey to do my job, but he didn’t he gave me the choice of obedience and rebellion.  I would rather go down in flaming failure after committed attempt than suffer the shame of victory by default.  He loved me enough to come down to this in order to pull me from  the jaws of damnation.  I will not sit on the sidelines when I see the enemy declaring empty promises of false grandeur that our children are accepting as just pursuit.  I live for Hope, the glorious Hope of God’s intervention in the eternal future of mankind.  What a glorious Hope I have found in Christ Jesus.  The savior of humanity, the Lamb of God, the Word, The Beginning and the End, God incarnate, Jesus the King of All.  May His name be Glorified and Praised and may the mockers be silenced.  Amen

Are current events aligning with Biblical prediction, are they disjunctive or do you have to plead ignorance to inquiry?  Do you know what the Bible says about Syria, Egypt, Iran and other nations like Libya that are currently reported upon daily in national news?  Are you aware what it means to see, as we did two days ago, the Likud and the Nationalist parties of Israel joining as one?  Contrary to reports by our administrative leaders, what military assets are currently residing in the Middle East area of operations?  If I were to demonstrate to you that prophecy is unfolding before our eyes as evidenced by these events would you feel the need to become educated, get right with Jesus and prepare for His imminent return?  Or perhaps would fear and denial force you back to a position with your head below the sand?

The old Testament with its predictions of God’s visit to Earth was translated into Greek in roughly 270B.C.  Why is this important?  Because the enemy will always try to deny the truth of the Bible.  The Lord had the predictions of the prophets translated into common language of the world in that day so that no one could deny that those predictions existed prior to day when the Lord walked the Earth.  Greek also has the unique characteristic of being a highly specific language.  When a word appears in the Greek it can only be translated one way unlike other languages of that time that may have had several meanings for each term.  The Lord’s plan accounts for all occurrences.  Let us remember that the Lord created hell for the fallen angels.  Man was never meant to go there, but the Lord knows that many will because of their rebellious nature and unwillingness to confess, repent and accept the truth of God’s sovereignty.

Lord don’t let me be an ostrich Christian.  Give to me a hunger for Your Word, discernment and understanding of the preparations which must be made and actions that may be taken for the completion of Your Glory.  Let me be true and free me from the deception of my own errant thoughts.  Let me look for You in all things.  Let me see Your plan in all that takes shape around us and act accordingly.  Give my Brothers and Sisters a clear view of the Truth of the Holy Spirits word given by the prophets.  Call them to preparation for Your arrival.  Make us battle ready for the peace to come.  In the Mighty Name of Jesus the King.  Amen.