I love you.  This requires that I refuse to say that which would tickle your ears.  Even at the price of your avoidance I do not come bearing more of that numbing salve to alleviate the sting.  If you are avoiding me then you must truly be going out of your way not to read the Bible.

Don’t be so serious, try to be tactful, don’t be so passionate, don’t thump the bible, love them and they will come around.  These are counterintelligence marketing lines fed to the faithful to distract their attention from what is really going on.

Folks if you haven’t taken a recent look at the standard state of affairs on Main Street, USA, I invite you to go spend an hour or two in your local town/city center.  If the common, openly-accepted use of profanity does not shock you then take another pill and return to that warm comfortable place you reside.  If the standard female practice of dressing like loose women does not radically effect your sensibilities then sin is ready to take you back as prisoner.  If the lack of Godly knowledge, the lack of smiles and the lack of kindness to your neighbors doesn’t stand out to your joy-filled countenance, then put the blinders back on and stay in the wagon ruts.

We are notably, self-proclaimed as the most Christian nation on the this planet.  If the state of affairs here is so worldly, how do you think it is in other nations?  If we are avoiding knowledge of and adherence to the Word of the Lord, who else is holding firm?  Recently, the pressure has been mounting, pleading with me to be more politically-correct and lenient as not everyone believes the same way that I do.  This is deception, for there is only one scripture, there is only one way to believe, only one path, only one God, only one way to a relationship with Him, only one baptism, only one church and only one perfect man who died for the sins of all upon the Cross of Calvary, Yeshua Hamashia.  The work He did is finished, He is not still upon the Cross as the Catholics depict Him, but seated at the right hand of the Father awaiting that coming moment of the Great Day of Our Lord.  He came as a lamb to atone for “all sin” but will return as a lion to judge people and nations for their belief and actions/non-action.  We better get it right in our minds, hearts and footsteps as to where we plan to stand when He comes back.

I care what you think, but I can neither decide for you nor join you if you choose incorrectly.  I can only decide for me.  I am doing what He has placed upon my heart to do within His will for my life.  I will be found doing this work when He returns.  Join me, condemn me or ignore me, the decision and results are entirely up to you.  Praise His Holy, Righteous Name.  Jesus the Messiah and King.

What are my worldly goals?  What are my heavenly goals?  Are they in harmony or conflict?  Am I naturally the same person twenty four hours a day or do I have to tell someone (including myself) the occasional lie to justify inconsistent behavior?  What will I tell Him on the day when “All” will be laid plain?  Do I love and seek accountability or use it as a membership card.  Am I including Men in my life who challenge me to be what the Lord intended or am I avoiding them to seek my own comfort?  Will I expose my own lie?

I still cannot believe that He chose to extend grace to me.  Yes I am saved and headed for eternity, but am I realizing the fullness of His blessing in “this” life?  What could possibly be of greater value than the things of God’s intended destiny, “His Will” for my life?  Fleeting vs. eternal, valuable vs. priceless, now vs. forever.  Lord reconfigure my thinking so that I may instantaneously make this valuation at all decision points in my life.  I want to maximize the potential for Your will in my life.  Let me achieve those things for which I will have “no” regret on that great day of our formal introduction.  Let me be at peace with my surroundings, my choices, my reputation and my history.  Increase my territories greatly and walk with me daily, keeping me from evil so that I cause no one harm (Jabez’s prayer)  Walk with me.  What a wonderful thought.  Praise His name.  Amen.

They will remember at the moment when the iron nearly touches skin, the joint socket nears hyper-extension, when the funnel cloud comes into view.  Being insensitive and standing by doing nothing are both damaging in their own methodology.  Crisis does not breed courage it reveals what lay within a man’s heart.  I have seen the heart of this country when provoked, when faced with wounded children or the suffering innocent.  They arise and give help.  They arise from seclusion and introspection to champion the cause of the vulnerable.  They recall, in crisis, their divine creation/resemblance and achieve glorious things in His name.

The coma has been too long upon us as a Judeo-Chrisitian civilization.  We have capitulated to the kind sounding, peace promising, achieve nothing philosophizers, hoping against dread that somehow this world could solve its problems collectively.  But, in the moment of crisis we are confronted with the stark foolishness of our perception.  The stage is being choreographed in divine perfection, so that at the moment of the Lord’s choosing the “entire” world will know that He is the One, the Almighty, Creator of the Universe.

For now we have mockers, feeling cocky, laughing at things that they do not understand.  God, family, the solidarity of the United States of America and its free people are open targets standing apparently unprotected to the cruel tongues of naysayers.  I say to them, “enjoy this moment of your fleeting glory, for it will be short lived”.  This country was made upon a sturdy foundation and although most claim that it is beyond hope they continue to err.  I give you the Lord Jesus, and for those who believe in Him all things are possible.  My faith is in the Lord, but I have always delighted in the courage, kindness and mercy of which His children are capable.

Just as Napoleon and Hitler made the same fatal strategic error upon entering Russia, our enemies have always made the same mistake of underestimating American heart and resolve.  When the fires are evident they will remember who they are.  Praise His mighty name.  We Christians celebrate this day to commemorate the birth of the Jewish Messiah, prophesied by the Lord and the Prophets, born to a virgin, walking among us, dying for our iniquities, taking up again His own life and seated in the Throne room of Heaven awaiting the time of His return to rule and reign, forever.  Won’t you join us in blessing the Mighty name of God.  Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Amen.

The most frequent prayer request that I receive from Christians is the following:  Pray that God reveal His purpose for my life and that I follow that purpose.  I have struggled with the discomfort that this request produces in my stomach.  Traditionally, people who make this request of me admittedly are not; reading their Bibles daily, praying in devotion frequently nor are they being obedient to the universal commissions to which the Lord has directed all of us.  This culminates in a Christian who wants revelation but is unwilling to walk “the way or the path” upon which enlightenment finds us.

Consequently, we have a bandwidth of Christians that remain in a “passive” mode, waiting for some type of miracle to occur somehow directing them to destiny.  This is entirely inconsistent with scripture.  I challenge any Christian to read the opening chapter of Ephesians and remain passive.  That would require a disobedient nature in which grace and subsequent revelation will forever be “absent”.  The Lord will give us discernment to understand the steps which must be taken to fulfill His will for our lives and for some of us the Lord has predestined us for “specific” works.

Do we trust Him enough to perform those works to which He has directed all of us and subsequently find ourselves at the moment when our specific purposes are revealed.  For example, if He has planned for me to accomplish some work for the Kingdom in Philadelphia and I ignore His prompting to go to Philadelphia preferring to reside in California, until supernaturally whisked to Philadelphia, then it is improbable, nigh impossible that I will ever fulfill that work to which He has predestined me.  Jonah is a fine example, Jonah would not go to Nineveh but he did “go”, just not in the direction God directed.  His disobedient action brought on God’s guiding action in the sea, leading Jonah to that which he was predestined.  God knew before the beginning of time those of us who would obey His prompting.  We have to be willing to be “active” in our walk and demonstrate the willingness to go out and find our destiny.  Are you willing to “Walk”(by its nature this implies faith is active) on the path and discover His will?  He will reveal to you, at the perfect time the works He has prepared for you.  Go out and find them.  Praise King Jesus, Almighty God, the Father, Son and Spirit.  Amen.

Cry out to the Lord for mercy upon our country.  We have legalized abominations and called them tolerance, liberal thinking or social justice.  We refuse to support missions, rather supporting our collective girth, worth and festivities.  We have forgotten the power of prayer for the underprivileged, persecuted and hungry.  We look away unless there is some personal glory or convenience.  This nation was constructed on principles which promise beneficence to the obedient but in our prosperity we have conveniently forgotten the equally important prophetic caution.  We can be grain or we can be grapes.  One is crushed now to separate it from unusable chaff, the other is crushed later by the wine-press of wrath.  For those who see our predicament I beg of you donate your first fruits of prayer toward beseeching the Lord’s mercy upon our beloved country.  The circumstances are evident.  Once the Lord writes it upon the wall we will have already been measured.  Now is the time for intercessory prayer.  Father have mercy on our sinful and willful disobedience to Your Word.  You are Right, Just and Fair.  Although, we deserve Your swift and final judgment I pray that You will somehow turn aside Your anger from our nation.  Make us anew.  Create in us a fresh hunger to obey Your Word and remain vigilant.  It is in Your precious Name that I pray Lord Jesus.  Amen.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=472  What is a constitution, by Scott Ott

Wonderfully made.  Can a vessel hold both health and poison?  Am I capable of horrendous behavior while filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord?  What is the appropriate balance of awful and excellent?  A painted, tainted-saint.  Is that like tarnished silver that just needs a good polishing to shine or is it perhaps beyond recovery?  I do not know the answers to these questions although the scripture appears clear on them.  How is such a thing possible?  How can question remain where effective answer has been provided?  I am left with a reality which I am not lithe to accept.  That it is me, who maintains a grasp upon residual wickedness.  I do not wish to see it go, as if it were some piece of memorabilia, independence or identity that held me to a glorious past.  The paradox of a man who wants eternity yet yearns for this world is a tragedy beyond comprehension.  The two cannot coexist, but perhaps for a time they can dwell together until one achieves dominance.  I am that resistant factor.  Father this truth strikes fear and awe to the heart.

Pondering why the husband carries the bride across the threshold?  This is the point of “new beginning”, a point where the husband joins his bride in a life “unachievable” alone.  The tipping point, the point of sufficient stimuli to produce change, the limen (conspicuously pronounced Lay-man) which means threshold.  To thresh – to separate the grains and seed by beating a plant with a flail or trampling.  I am sorry that definition gives me one of those epiphany moments that we can only get from a brief glimpse of the Almighty.

I get it Lord, this is not something that I can do myself.  Although I must first choose, just as any bride or groom, to entry the commitment of matrimony.  I have chosen Father.  Carry me across that threshold into my new life.  Separate the wheat from the chaff in my own life.  Bring forth my offering which may be acceptable in Your eyes.  Let all things previous pass away.  I yearn for that moment when this body becomes insufficient to contain the life within.  Praise Your Mighty Name, Lord Jesus.

The word for rejoice is not familiar in today’s idioms.  Celebrate, perhaps comes close enough as it embodies the theme of action, but it still connotes a party atmosphere rather than true spiritual declaration.  The 14th century interpretation says “to be full of joy to the point of overflowing”.  This implies a filling of something so grand that a person is forced to tell or share it with others.  That truly captures the principle of the “good news” of the gospel.  Do we truly understand that type of joy with a capital J?

“For the Joy of the Lord is our strength” is a line I commonly hear Christians singing at the top of their voices on Sunday.  Is this a true filling which compels and controls all of our actions or perhaps an emotive, fleeting happiness which must be recharged when emptied?  What do we have to be filled with joy about?  Perhaps that we are saved, that we’ve been reborn into the kingdom and family of God the Father through belief in the work of His son Jesus Christ,  that we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that we enjoy joint inheritance with Christ, we possess freedom from slavery to sin, we will obtain glorified bodies, we will spend eternity with the Lord, unmerited blessings, unlimited forgiveness, abundance, health, wealth, emotional stability, Family, friends, a purpose, unconditional love from a Father who knows all our hidden thoughts and deeds.  Please pray for Joy.  Let your cups overflow onto this world that so desperately awaits the revealing of such rejoicing.  Thank you Jesus.

Falling short is only something that I can do in my own, power, authority and flesh.  I cannot fail when performing God’s will because it is not “I” who accomplish it.  This man that I have been reborn to become is a direct creation of the Father through rebirth from the son of Adam I began.  The Word says, “All things have become new”.  There is nothing of the old remaining but an illusion, a mist the shadow of a forgotten ego.  Abraham — The earthly Father — Issac the Earthly son and Jacob — the Earthly spirit.  We were made in His image even from the sinful outset.  Although seeking to find alternate routes to creation as most atheistic/scientific spiritual-fornicators, Freud successfully confirmed the reflection of the Trinity in his (Id, Ego, Superego) psychological divisions of the mind.  The evidence is compelling.  You must see the mockers, the false teachers, the tolerance of all manner of wickedness, the legal death of the innocent, the increasing disasters, the rising enemies of Israel.  The crop is overly ripe and awaits harvesting sickle.  Please calculate these things in your mind and understand the “imminent” outcome.

These truths are inescapable, since our exit from the Garden humans have either run away from God, run to God or vacillated between the two states.  The stakes are indeed elevated as we near the return of Jesus.  Soon the “double minded” man who chooses neither side will have his freedom of choice removed.  The Lord abhors fence sitters, Luke-warm believers and worldly Christians. I am only to tell everyone the Truth of God’s Coming Judgment, beyond that, my culpability terminates.  I have lost the will to convince anyone.  If you don’t see it that is probably because He has blinded you to truth and you have elected tribulation or judgment.  You do what you do and that is between He and you.  I pray that you receive the discernment to choose wisely when the opportunity compels you.  My prayers continue for His Grace, Glory and Peace upon your lives.  Praise the Almighty King of Glory.  Jesus my Lord.

Therefore encourage each other with these words, 1 Thessalonians 4:18.  What is encouragement?  How do we give it to each other?  What are we to be encouraged about?

Encourage — to INSPIRE, with COURAGE, SPIRIT or CONFIDENCE.  Courage – the quality of mind or spirit that enables someone to face danger, pain and difficulty without fear.  WOW!  You mean there is a way to inspire other people with courage so that they may not be fearful, AMEN.  This world is rife with fear and shadows.  The enemy seeks to lead my brothers and sisters in to captivity through fear, deception, in-forgiveness and sin.  The answer is the hope which comes from the Lord’s return for His church at the moment of rapture.  Self question— Am I inspiring courage in my fellow Christians?  Am I instilling confidence through the Lord’s Word to those who might otherwise fall prey to fear and false teaching?  Do I have my eyes on the workings of heaven or are they transfixed upon the fearful circumstances of this world?  We shall see, we shall see.

In my opinion, Christians who dwell upon the words of this passage and the preceding verses will receive hope and understanding unavailable to post tribulation believers.  For this speaks directly of the rapture, the removal of the church, escape from the “Great day of the Lord”.  I don’t know about anyone else but the great tribulation is definitely something that I want to miss.  I recommend the Chuck Missler studies on Revelation or the Rapture.  Also Tim LeHaye wrote an excellent study entitled; Revelation Unveiled for those seeking a deep understanding of the rapture, revelation, the Glorious Appearing, the Millennial Reign of Christ, the White Throne Judgment and Eternity.  If you don’t have a solid understanding of prophecy then you will be ill prepared to ENCOURAGE those around you.  Get ready, stay prepared, Keep your eyes expectantly to the Heavens, Jesus is coming, SOON.

http://youtu.be/vRm0NV88bbA  Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Christmas Greeting to Christians around the world 2011

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/10/19/world/1248069187877/ezekiel-s-tomb-in-iraq.html  Muslims worship Ezekiel’s Tomb south of Babylon in Iraq

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/01/02/arts/1248069440724/babylon-ancient-site-modern-problems.html  Babylon being rebuilt with our tax dollars and skills.

When you are just passing through a place how does it change your behavior?  Do you notice more, take things less seriously, perhaps be a little less cautious or encumbered?  Do you establish lasting relationships or keep your roots shallow because you know that they will be pulled up at some near term?  How peculiar our circumstance as Christians, we are to play nice but not get too involved.  We are to love everyone but remember to keep a little distance from their mantras, behaviors, rituals and vices.  We are to serve only one master even if that means losing your job, wife or land over a boundary which should not be crossed.  We are to step aside from our own desires, aspirations, ambitions and treasures when directed by our Father, Lord and Spirit.  It must seem so odd from their point of view this thing to which we ascribe our future.  I no longer expect them to understand, because that knowledge comes from the Almighty and is beyond them without His willing it so.  I regret that no one caught them before they made that terminal decision and were turned over to their wickedness of depravity.  When I spend time in the malls, halls and libraries I see that they know something is going on that they can’t quite put their finger on.  They look into my eyes or look away suddenly as if fearing the truth, wanting to know but somehow fully aware that the knowledge we possess will pry their death grip from the things which give them succor.  Oh Lord how tragic and piteous.  You were made my sisters, my brothers, my family and have chosen exile.  How can the Father bear this excruciating reality?  I am so sorry for ever hurting you Lord.  Forgive me and please have mercy on them.  Alas I know that even to see Your face they would still deny Your existence, Your grace, Your authority.  I cannot grasp the depth of Your love, anger and justice.  Teach me–lead me, bring me home to Your comfort.  Praise You, Jesus.

http://youtu.be/aZrlFmSK5_g  Our United States of America “A Nation adrift”