Focus on the changes that are being made in each of us. The law has been an awesome mirror to show me my sin and how far away from the Lord’s holiness I reside.  But I no longer receive condemnation because the Lord paid for these sins, and although I am trying my very best to avoid each and every one before they occur, when I do slip up the Lord is faithful and true to forgive me and forget them.  However, over the years I do see the evidence, the fruit, the benchmarks, so to say of sanctification by the Lord’s hand.  Each year he takes away from me those old habits, verbal patterns and reactionary devices replacing them with noticeably improved methods of dealing with catalyst with wisdom, understanding and grace.  It is good to see those changes though I still weep at how easy it is for me to mess up.  Did you mess up this week?  I hope that I extended to you the same grace, encouragement and understanding that the Lord continues to give me.

Where to next?  Well that is the joy of our walk with the Lord, we just don’t know but unraveled in the revealed mystery are the contents of the things beyond our own performance.  For in his power, authority and abundance there are treasures, discoveries and works beyond my current imagination.  I don’t want to continue on the same track, being handed the same lesson time and again because each time I fail to get it the Lord returns me to that same starting gate.  That is not acceptable to me, my own limitations will not be the obstacle that keeps me from reaching the pinnacle of God’s plan for my life.  Oh, you thought I would say that it is someone externally that is causing me to falter, well that just isn’t true.  I am the obstacle to my own understanding, my sin the barrier to my holiness, my rebellion and lack of obedient love the prohibition of my righteousness.  The enemy just knows my frailties and offers me the same lust that tripped me up the last 47 times.  If it worked those times it will continue to work, until the Lord takes that away from me, removing that desire for some more grand.

This life is nice, sure it has some great joy and abundance, but there is also significant heartache, separation, agony, grueling tribulation and yes my great reservoir of sin.  Those are things that I will not have to deal with beyond this life, so yes I am getting ready for the next round, my new life, in the country in which I have been a citizen since accepting Christ.  Do I crave it, no I do yearn for Him though.  I am content with being content in the knowledge that I am here because He has not yet seen that I am ready to move on from this crucible.  So, I ask Lord that I at least get the lesson you have been hoping that I would have gotten today, so that tomorrow I might graduate to a new set of trials and learning experiences on my journey through preparation to be in the presence of a Holy and Righteous God.  After all that is the objective isn’t it?  In Jesus’ Name.

This dance your own, combined steps and the rhythm in your head producing a set of footprints in the sand to remember.  Can they know your dreams without you demonstrating their creation?  Captured and controlled by your own aspirations of fear, doubt and courage.  Will you let the world see the inside of your philosophy, so modern, precise, egalitarian and economic or reason with yourself the causes meant for darkness?  The exacting question one of light or dark, which only each man may answer.

Lead on into the nightmare, fantasy or daydream of romance, money, power, heroism and glory.  These are the inner workings of your creation, to find that personal answer to question only you have been given.  Plod on diverting your attention with the things of other people’s pleasure, searching, seeking, counting, treasuring or measuring the content of wisdom, power and purposelessness.  Whilst internally the machinery groans, the components agonized, twisted, made for other work mis-employed for dally’s justice.  Arguing with conscience the only battle that may never be won by two, for it is singular this quandary.  What will the reckoning be in this diminished ambition?  What if you should be king, will that be easily weighed, balanced and forgotten?

There is no time limit but life, no practice field but the same, where achievement is what it becomes.  Why is life only left to the living?  Are those the rules or may a man imagine his afterlife effective course for correcting the errs and mis-steers of manhood? What you say it must be played, paid or constructed here, to stay here, recorded here for only those left behind to hear in it’s retelling?  What if I imagine a new world, where my own reason, my own imagination controls sound, ground and air?  Shall I dare become that kind of empire to my own existence, wishing the world into something more or less than it is, into what I believe it should become?  The machine is the machine and shant be manipulated by man only escorted, expected, massaged and twirled to the tune of your own volition, for it is the dance that makes a man.  The dance in which each of us wins at being well, you.

In Jesus’ Name.

Biblical understanding demands that I acknowledge our current state of affairs on Earth.  Not wanting to accept that satan currently, rightfully holds the title deed to Earth is insufficient option when considering the methods by which we may be extracted from the chaos surrounding us. The enemy knows that we want to escape oppression.  The enemy also has the authority, the power, the cleverness and the control of all those who have not yet accepted Jesus.  That requires that we accept the fact that he is going to use all of those hearts and minds susceptible to powers and principalities of the heavenly realm to keep us under his thumb.  Now the tough part, based upon that understanding we must NEVER consider any other option, President, Pope, Q or King as the effective resolution to our circumstance.  They cannot save us from the fallen who rules and reigns, the only power that overwhelms and trumps that current understanding is the rightful heir and King of All the Earth and Creation, the Lord Jesus Christ the King.  He alone has defeated the powers and principalities of satan and his minions.  Therefore, unless Jesus intervenes we would never prevail.  However, the Bible does say that we win and that the victory was secured on the Cross some two thousand years ago.  So, what then am I getting at.  Come on Eddy, out with it!

The Return of the King and any movies made about that subject are either made to foster our understanding of that awesome foretold event or to indoctrinate us to an idea that will be submitted, swapped or offered in the place of this truth.  Let us never idolize a king or agent of God as God himself.  Our current circumstances may only be dealt with by Jesus.  For example; the enemy killed Lincoln, Kennedy, and some others and tried to kill Reagan.  What happened to our demeanor and resolve when those assassinations took place?  The same thing that happened throughout history when satan’s human assassins killed any inspirational leader, the people fell into depression and lost their resolve.  Why is that?  Because they had placed the hope, faith and trust in something that was insufficient solution to the current predicament.  Our problem is not the deep state, the pope, the empire, criminals or otherwise our problem is that Jesus has not yet come again to take back rulership, remake all of this, place the enemies in chains and do away with this evil plaguing humanity.

Any, I repeat Any attempts to raise up a human leader in the place of the position reserved for Christ alone.  ANY attempts to place our faith in human means to save us from the mess in which we find ourselves.  ANY attempt to predict that America will be returned to its former glory and remain free of the hand of tyrants, is false as it is inconsistent with Biblical understanding.  The only way back to an America that lives free, is worship of the King who blessed us through answered prayer with a Nation that represented the idea of His Love For Us.  If we are hanging all our faith on our current leaders, President or otherwise to deliver us from this circumstance, I must ask; what makes us believe that Satan who rules here now is ever going to allow that to happen?  Do you think you can stop him?  Pride continues to be foolish no matter the century or the individual preaching it.  Jesus, the Way the truth and the Life and NO ONE comes to the Father but through HIM.

Falling into line like the fresh picked olives from the crooked vine.  Still don’t know if these are yours or mine.  Into the morning of apprehension I stick my weary head too encumbered by last night’s concerns to turn my thoughts to ward any other way. Pristine water mirrored in the gray windswept formations overhead. The tear in my eye yearning to be one with the water, misty mud laden gladness of the dew.  Am I to make sense, unraveling this mysterious conglomeration of worldly events or leave them be, buzzing, chiming, spinning, turning, wiggling like the worm on the warmer side of morn. They can’t help but catch my eye, Red and white, then augury blue, testing something deep inside, remembering for what we stood, Still.  Four-thirty and dawn happened. Standing as older men, pressing forward, a little closer than I’d care to be, smelling of too little attention and three day old shirt.  Soured to the things of pleasantry grumbling, stumbling, lacking the balance of a baby boy, fumbling for completed sentences we stare in patient expectation.  He don’t know Jesus, only the accumulation of things, the years washed away. people gone, memories too, nothing to hold on to but the thoughts of a tomorrow that may never come.  I want to say I love you, knowing that will be dismissed by the wave of a spotted, left hand intent on forgetting something he cannot remember.  Decay, rapid decay of thought, wishes and good manners, nothing left but pain but yet the pain helps it drives, it clears thought, it gives at least, well something to hold onto. Pestering aside I’d truly wish some reason, some reason to try to break through the decades of defenses built to keep out people who would have you feel something about something, don’t they know that I just want to forget it all and move on.  But there is something left worth saying.  Ed, do you know where you’re going when you leave this painful life.  Is Ethel there or is even that enough to get you talking, listening, accepting of prayers, smiles and kin? I ask about the war, no answer, about children, still the same.  Then I stop to ponder what he always discussed at the quiet suppers where nothing much was said or remembered.  For him it always was the lake, the Lake He said, “It’s wider than the river and deeper by a mile”. “On this side you can barely see Montana, and over there a sterling rainbow Christened the birth of our new yearling”, so I leaned a little closer and whispered of the winter touching its windy tongue on the dock of Farther’s Crossing. One stern fueled eye turned to me, reviewing me curiously as a giant views a talking fly.  The tight sewn corners of that beaded old mouth curled in what could pass in most parts as the beginnings of a smile.  He held it a while and then his eyes looked up to the light passing through the window and he pointed as if we would see what he had recalled. And on that winter’s lake was the moment I met Jesus, He was there and I think he shared my thoughts.  For in the boat that day we both saw him resting on a pillow in the bow, settled against the misty, icy breeze.  Then with a tear in the side of his eye, He turned his head right to me and said to me, “Sweet Jesus Bring Me Home”.             ,  

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him.  Wow, nonanonacontanonactapentalia, a word which has simplistic meaning yet in immediate review appears odd, lengthy, verbose and foreign.  Consistently we hear the opposite reaction when considering the word of God.  You might hear it is so complicated, so complex, hard to read or difficult to interpret, when in review the Word is rather straight forward and clear.  What then confounds?  What then stands in the hallways of knowledge delaying, obscuring, convoluting each passage?  Let’s take a moment and look at the simplicity of the previous  passage.

If you withstand temptation for the duration or a long time you will find personal increase in a Godly fashion: as when a man has passed through the crucible, he will receive a physical crown of life for having made it successfully through the test, and this is guaranteed and based on a promise from God to those who love him and endured that test.  Pretty simple, straight forward, no complexity, clouds, mysteries in Greek or otherwise.  Why then should I feel the desire to remain separated from such easy deciphered wisdom?  I don’t know why do you think you don’t want to spend time in the word?  Do you find yourself using the same excuses or is your most effective Time or the lack thereof.

Making time, marking time, maximizing time, managing time, some of the time, none of the time or only half of the time I ought to be watching the time.  Time itself is part of that test referred to in this passage of scripture, for endurance dictates that time is the measure of that effective completion.  Just as with money. time is a variable in the equation of life, you cannot escape it, buy it, reduce it, exchange it, justify it or ignore it.  Money is the same way.  Can you explain away the fact that you have no money yet you wish to purchase a home with nothing?  Try that one and you will find out what laughter and disdain look like.

Money is a necessary function of life again, part of the equation, yet these two factors are used more frequently to explain away lack of commitment to ministry than any two other concepts.  Why? Because we have to deal with them, no I believe it is much more simple.  These are the measures of a man’s life, the time and the  money you spent, because where your time and your money reside there your attention lay.  So, if you spend all your time and your money on things other than God, guess what the above passage will naturally indicate with regard to your endurance or temptation avoidance?

Great man you have hit me in my wallet and my watch, but what does this have to do with temptation?  Fair analysis, you’re right, but let us remember you were the one that said the above passage was too difficult to understand until we reviewed it together, right?  So, please don’t blame me for thinking I need to break things down to their basic components.  What are temptations?  I mean to you.  Do they involve drugs, sex, gluttony, entertainment, magic, theft, adultery or maybe following false gods?  Whichever one, tell me which one you could do with no money in your pocket or no time off work in order to do them?  Oh, you see, factors of the equation.  Where you spend your time and your money will indicate your resistance to temptation.  If you spend all your time in the Word and all your money is saved or put to issues as a good shepherd or steward of your household, then the temptations you face will the type that you may more readily resist.  Equations.  It is mathematics this Christianity, because I am willing to bet that the time you spend in the Word and the Money You Give to God are indirectly proportionate to the temptations you face and directly proportionate to the outcomes achieved for God.

So if you wish to have the crown of life “at time of judgment” for enduring temptation because or if you love God then concentrate on the factors of the equation and put your money and your time far away from the sirens of this world.  Act with your wallet and your watch, two tangible controls of the temptations you face.  But remember we can do none of this without God, this is not a doctrine of works trying to be good enough to get to heaven, because heaven may only be achieved through belief, belief in the gift of salvation and sanctification through Christ’s payment of our sin debt on the Cross.  Why endure, because he did for you.  In Jesus’ Name.

My heart goes out to those who either struggle with the definition of truth or think they have a complete handle on this precise discipline.  For example is it true that capitalism is the best form of social structure?  The arguments for and against would be near endless.  Is it true that women like the dangerous guys.  Again, this is left to the interpretation and opinion of broad spectrum of females, finding it either true or false.  Is it true that people can be spiritual without worshiping the one true God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob?  Well considering that more than half of the world’s population consider themselves to be something other than Christian, this seemingly must be true.

This is where being a Christian is not easy.  Challenging the ideal that the world does not  know or more importantly, cannot know the truth is a seemingly impossible process.  But the truth is a gift from God that he makes available to every person, but only few accept.  Asserting those things which are true requires an obedience to God’s Word, yet this world has been convinced the truth is free.  Satan continues in his attempt to twist the word of God into something that enables all faiths to proclaim themselves righteous and headed for heaven.  We cannot even understand heaven without knowing God, in fact most have an unrealistic idea of heaven when they have a limited Bible understanding.

There are enemy’s of God and of his people by relation.  These enemies wish to elevate themselves above the Throne of God’s Sovereign authority and although they are created beings just like us, consider themselves capable of this impossible eventuality.  Unfortunately, those enemies are currently in charge here are the Earth, until the appropriate timing when the Lord will reassert His Sovereign Authority over Creation.  For that purpose the Truth is a foundation with which some would have you believe they may adjust, modify or completely rewrite to their intention.  So deception is prevalent and since these enemies are extremely powerful, influential, beings of the heavenly realm, they have the overwhelming power to delude, persuade, cajole and deceive man.  Have hope, those who wish to be sheltered or protected from this delusion are completely protected by the Holy Spirit when they repent of their sin and believe on the life, death and resurrection upon the Cross of Calvary by the Lord Jesus Christ.  At that point the truth is available to them and will be given that we might be set free and remain free from the wiles of this crafty enemy.  God’s enemy.

If you want to study this information and make a decision for Christ, please turn to John 8 and read there.  And as it says in John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever shall believe shall not perish but have everlasting life.  This is the truth that protects us, armors us, prepares, provides and protects all who will choose to believe in God’s gift of mercy and grace given that we might live free.  I praise him for the opportunity to speak with you and thank him for what he has done for each of us.  In Jesus’ Name.

 

 

Have you been caught by the frenetic feeding frenzy of the fantastical force fed digital indoctrination and fascination with the chaotic?  Let go of the remote, step away from the screen and just stop posting aggravating videos or pictures of those in power parading in their pantsuits intent on producing such a furious wave of ridiculousness that our head’s explode.  To be content and at peace we must accept the reality of those pursuits; being peaceful requires being at peace.

This world is a two sticks of dynamite wrapped in plastic explosive, soaked in nitro glycerin and doesn’t need much impetus if any to explode into a cacophony of phantasmagorical chaos and concern.  It is built on the compulsion that feeds disorders.  The only method to detach from this mess is to frankly shut it off and allow that drive that mental compulsion to resolve, diminish and settle to a point where peace and tranquility may once again be tended.

If you feed this monster it will continue to eat and require that it be fed by your attention, concern, effort or participation until it leaves you a lifeless husk at the other side of tomorrow.  Those of you who have this progressive participant disorder in the Chaos of Tragic Media may need to remember a time when there was peace in the world, as this idea will seem alien and ridiculous at first.  But given time you will see that there are so many glorious colors, smells and pleasures to life that are not found on a screen of whatever diameter.

It is getting faster.  It’s heartbeat pulses to the flashes of simulated light pulsing within the pixels and plasma of man’s imagination.  It simulates, it retells, it mimics and it creates fantasy or electronic representation of the life from whence it captured you.  Return to your real life and listen when you need to listen in order to gather the information necessary to task accomplishment or proper orderly conduct of business and family.  Don’t venture to the edge of the abyss of the transcendental where you are enslaved, projected a legal person within a make believe realm of information, dimension and superstructure.  It exists, just not here, and here is where you need to be to connect with God and the people within your sphere of purpose and conductivity. Step back from the edge, take a breath and remember what it felt like to take a breath free of the concern brought on by knowing too much, too soon and for too long.  May the Lord Jesus set you free from all the prisons of this life gone awry.

Have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord.  The indications surround us, call to us, awakening us from transient dream to find the reality of God’s approaching return.  What does that justice, that power, that appearing entail, I mean how do you view it?  Do you rise with apprehension, the nervous Nillie, preparing for guests getting everything in order?  Are you the nonchalant believer, taking it easy, chilling, not so surprised at it all, refusing to demonstrate emotion to the onlookers?  Are you the man who has forgotten and proceeds with your day as a succession of perpetual, ritualistic tributes to self, oblivious to the signs and symbols of his imminent return?

Your position of reference will be clear in how you view our current transformation with regard to the President and the attempts to rescue this Constitutional Republic from enemy attempts at fire sale.  Are you engaged, involved, red-pilling others to the knowledge of the Q uiet revolution occurring around us all, thanking God for intervention before expiration of this nation dedicated to your honor, glory and good will?  Are you vaguely aware that something is happening, but take little interest in what that really means, perhaps because there is associative fear of taking a stance and being recognized as one of “those” guys?  Or are you completely in the dark, serving your coming paycheck and the hope of a fat 401K upon which you will lovingly reside in relative comfort of old age and folly?  How do you see yourself.  Are these descriptions adequate or perhaps you would like to add a level that I have missed or is in between these categories.

Things are happening.  If you would take the time to view your faith with the same curiosity that you view this seasons premiere of your favorite show, you would rapidly discover that we are standing at the door post of Christ’s return.  If you would look around you at the changes taking place in this country, once the greatest historical example of a Judeo Christian nation, dedicated to and blessed by the hand of God.  If you refuse to see those signs and would rather be concerned with the things of this world then don’t you feel that I should be delivering a general caution or perhaps a loving wake up call to pay attention to the things happening around you?

Christ’s return is upon us.  I don’t know if that means fifty years or fifty minutes but that is the nature of imminence, because we aren’t supposed to know for just that purpose.  Those who know it is near and watch out for it shall be rewarded with being ready for that return.  Those who are disinterested, non committal or perhaps doubtful, will probably be in a lesser if any state of preparation and will most likely miss the return.  Those who are worldly and concerned about everything they have accumulated for their retirement which may never arrive, have determined that they would rather be in this world than the next.

It is after all a choice, just like involvement in praying to the Lord and taking a stance to turn this nation’s face back to God and save our Republic.  The choice has always been yours because the consequences of what you are doing now will be solely yours at the day of our coming judgment.  I don’t say that to be cruel, but rather alarming.  I will accept the reprisal if any, because the consequences of this choice are eternal, glorious or painful.  I have accepted God’s Call to be one of those people who get to warn, love, wake up and comfort all who will come to the knowledge of the Truth.  So help you God.  In Jesus’ Name.

A particular lens required to see the fruit of my own perspective.  Come look upon the world from this view, my view, the only one which matters unless perchance I stop to reflect upon thoughts of another.  But why must I see the world in their way, their fashion and style foreign to my understanding, difficult to dawn in the dark and much less capable of making “the argument”, my argument the only one worth pursuing?  What?  You require that I entertain the ideas of madmen?  Where was this requirement to look upon this menagerie through such indelicate mental foundation as found in the cast of characters called human?  Why wasn’t my input considered.  Clearly there was inadequate preparation taken in its determination, having not for a moment considered, entertained or found it paramount to review my thoughts in the matter.

How must I tolerate that two may look through the same glass and view completely differing events?  Isn’t that time wasted, having to weigh, measure, reflect upon and eventually win over all other mind’s present to superior thinking?  What pride, it is not wrong to lead into the fray when to entertain or follow the counsel of others would find us lost and withering.  I truly counsel you to refrain from contemplation, I will think for us and produce collective understanding through experiential revelation that my way was the best from outset.  It is best to capitulate now rather than struggle with your limited capacity for understanding.  Be at peace in the knowledge that you are well led.

Do you hear him, spoken as if there is no innocence, no temperance, no ill in the disregard for those precious voices around us?  There is no joy in singularity, no joy in existence except that which is found in relationship to the world into which we proclaim ourselves, Alive! We are not kindling for some superior technological monarchy, to be used in stoking the fires of their own self-worship.  You are the craftsmanship of God, something He found worthy of His Own Sacrifice to pay the price that none could afford but Him.  How may I simultaneously consider my own life superior, my own thinking somehow advanced, the only worthy thoughts of this or any conversation and in the same instant honor your precious value to Almighty God?  I cannot.

So, You Think, Please for I long to hear the words of your unique perspective.  You Paint for the pictures in your mind may never have fallen from my own dreams.  You Write in the words that God provides from a Spirit born within You.  You lead or follow for the gift of life is choice.  The choice to respect God, one another and encourage growth life and individual purpose.  Not purpose guided my my or any collective societal design or governmental mechanism, but that purpose programmed within by a Holy God.  There is nothing I may do to diminish something crafted within the hands of God because in its crafting it is a thing beyond my critique.  I respect your making and ask of you to show me God’s reflection in your thoughts, dreams and plans.  You are the greatest gift given to me in this life.  And I look to venture in to the next eagerly at your side.  In Jesus’ Name.

 

That quiet waterway, with supple leaf, freshly posited rain falling from the brim of my cap, dirt and forest watching me back as I wander on bye.  Night was fractured and dispersed by dawn, divided then conquered in the emerging and cleansing power of light.  What brought memory’s route Lord?  There must be something I am meant to rehearse once again in mastering the role for which I have been handsomely prepared.  Perching upon swollen, damp granite the moss disquieted by my rest, I trust in this moment as it reattaches me to days, nights and trials ended, seeking the one event intended for this teaching.

Lord, life is emerging, not coming forcefully onward as a headwind forcing me to check stance, but awakening, clothing me in the raiment of today’s tapestry.  No emergency, no threat, yet my heart sweats as it responds to reminded emotion, smells and history better left untended.  What is the fear of past fury?  Can it force me from hiding, facing this moment in the truth of things gone historically astray?  Or is it a bridge connecting all the disjointed parts of a man assembling before us, becoming, simply becoming.  Is this that quickening to which each man’s soul and spirit bid respond?  That stretching, adjusting, shaping and reforming sanctification that strips, dips, builds and remakes?

Don’t let them see is my only thought, embarrassed instantaneously by my dependency.  What cannot be given by free hands nor action but the surrendered will costs more coin of different dimension, leaving me unspoken, uprotected, yet safe within the Master Grasp of God.  It is good not to be that which has been but to become that which is capable of being so much more than has been.  This gift shall be accepted by few and understood even less than the outstretched hand of God’s mercy and grace in salvation.  This one is a thing of legend, kings and those things lying outside of this dream called time.  What does it mean this glory we receive?  How do you embrace something you do not nor ever could understand, something made by someone beyond you for purpose beyond comprehension with materials unknown within current or probable reference frame?

Shall I hang on to the present Lord in fear where this venture leads me, past then now then to the beyond of dream?  Or truly consider what you’ve chosen for me as the right decision, one which I was had always planned on making, but only just knew that it existed?  The quandary, the rub, the wrinkle, the apprehension without mention in the waiting hand of God’s Glorious Touch on everyone to rise.  Do you see, do you know, do you quest for the that Twinkling Moment?  Skyward, Onward, Returning as a bride, wed to the Righteous King of All to rule and reign in peace, power and truth.  Amen.