It is with deliberate intent I try and be gentle in relaying the material within my heart.  However, no matter how intently I endeavor to adjust or modify my grammar and word selection, there is always someone who takes offense to what I’ve written.  Forgive me, if I have said anything untoward, froward, impermissible or potentially heavy handed. Though it is not the intent, I do understand that there is a saying about paving the road to Hades with good intentions.  Please understand that often times I am writing from a place of spirit and can barely force my fingers to keep pace with the word disbursal from my brain.  I truly wish to live in harmony with folks.  In so doing I must also keep balance with the things that are being conveyed by the Holy Spirit and find it difficult to apply a governor to that relationship.

This world hurts, Christians should not be considered as those piling on to the burden already placed on us by this world.  I do not seek nor do I want to harm anyone.  If I have done so please forgive and I will repent and move on attempting once again to be open to the goodness, kindness and gentleness of God’s Holy Spirit.

I am simply trying to listen to the one Master each of us should have, that special relationship with our Creator who designed us for specific purpose.  Mine is to tell people about Jesus and to spread a general sense of urgency to get about the work that he prepared for each of us to do before His return.  People don’t want to hear it, they want to capture the energy that behind it or they simply want to label me some kind of simpleton who is not worth the listen.  Oh, but there are the few that are prompted by His spirit and get about the work.  That is okay with me.  I am done with false agendas. If you want something from me tell me what it is so that I can be honest with you right up front as to how I can assist or that I cannot assist in its achievement.  If you want glory, you want me to tell your story, you need some help with a project, pain or plan, then give me the respect of letting me know.  I am no longer going to tolerate manipulation if you want something then you have to tell me.  The first part of this paragraph told you my purpose and I pray that your agenda is consistent with that for if it isn’t I will recommend who to look to for help, especially because it won’t be me.

I have failed at relationships time and again because I have tried to fulfill them at the cost of my purpose.  I don’t want to be your friend if it means that I don’t get to wear the hat I was ordained to wear.  I don’t want to be your husband if it isn’t for the purpose of living together for the honor and fulfillment of Christ’s Glory.  I don’t want to be your pastor, your teacher, your com padre or your team mate if we aren’t working together for His Glory.  If you have some other agenda than that, I am not the right choice for whatever team it is that you are designing, in your head.  Let us be entirely honest, the enemy, you know him I know him uses those buttons in our lives to paralyze, dissuade, deny and destroy our efforts for the King.  Mine is love, mine is a bit of the sense of fear of abandonment, mine is lust for the intimacy of a good woman.  So, the enemy uses these, my “weaknesses” or access points if you will to effectively divide my focus and thus stop me from achievement for the kingdom.  Well, I will have you know that I have surrendered these to the Lord and they will be removed, deactivated or pull out by the roots if need be in order to make me more effective for His purposes.  I must deny self, it is after all the only way to gaining Christ.

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

I get it that you need to make sure that everyone knows that there is great evil being perpetuated daily all around us.  I understand that you believe it is incumbent upon you to discuss all the tragedy and bring into the conversation every pain, train wreck, disaster, fire, murder, ritual and deluge.  It makes sense that people need to know what is going on around them especially as the children go missing for the lustful purposes of the wicked.  However, let us remain ever mindful of the Lord’s Direction.  The Light lives in each of us and we must speak His Word Bringing Him into the situation not sit there mesmerized by the wicked deeds of the dastardly.

Focus on Christ, walk on the water to join Him, forgetting the storm, forgetting your form held rigidly by the limitations of the world.  It is His sleeping form in the boat that should transfix our gaze.  It is His timeless purity that should capture every facet of my diamond hard focus.  It is within Him that I find deliverance, protection, holiness and truth, not in this corrupted world.  Don’t get so worried that the worry becomes your master.  Give praise to our Glorious God that we have that capacity to put aside the pain, suffering, sickness, pestilence and chaos of the war torn world and step away from our chat with God renewed in the Peace that surpasses this insanity.  Certainly be vigilant and diligent to point out wickedness that we may stay free from their snares and sinfulness, but don’t get so transfixed by their wickedness that you allow that impurity to capture your attention from Christ.

Go with God into a holy and righteous day, shining the Light of Christ upon the darkness to preserve, free and separate all that is good from the wickedness of the evil doers.  I pray for all good things for you and that these wicked deeds only capture your vision for long enough to reveal them in the light of day.  In Jesus’ Name.

Am I presume that I will be consumed in this process of fire, fury, lies and deceit?  Should I give in to the certain and sustained cries of “give up” or “you can’t do it”?  Shall I lose this barrel of joy because the fallen seek to devour all that is right, good and pure?  Or maybe I should laugh just to laugh, dance because I’m saved and sing at the top of my inexhaustible lungs to Praise My King. I will not go lightly when expected to whither and blow away, for I am made of the stuff that constructed the heavens, the Breath of Almighty God.

What then should I say to them who would be depressed, unforgiving and forgetful of the Mighty, Righteous, Omniscient God who calls us His?  Should I help you wallow in the miry clay of your own remorse or drag you through the sadness of past episodic nightmare?  Maybe I should agree with the fallen that you never could, should, would or have the stuff to rise above your own inadequacy? Perhaps I should encourage your tears, fears and watch as you consume beers to buy your way out of the reality to which you find yourself frozen?  Then again, NOT!

You my friend are heaven bound.  Yes, it sucks some times but this short test will end and you will be set free into a life without sin, pain, age or time.  What then of your suffering, your poverty, your filth and despair?  Should we honor it, dwell in it, perhaps place it upon the shelf in the living room that we never forget the cruelty of our past, that we might gather pity out of our victimization?  I am not making short of this world’s capacity to kick our butts, leaving us dirtied with tire tracks over both sides of our bright white shirt.  I am not forgetting, diminishing or belittling the damage or pain you have suffered, the road you have traveled or the misery you have endured.  I honor your pain, I honor your travails, your worries, hurts, disasters and loss.  I welcome talk of how much it used to hurt, but we have been healed and shouldn’t the discussion then turn to the joyous transformation and the joy we have found through Christ?

We must be born again to stand in the midst of trials beyond our own will and authority to conquer.  We have the Spirit of Almighty God living inside, we are imbued with power, RIGHTEOUS power, to move mountains and laugh in the face of certain destruction, because at that moment we would enter our true lives as Citizens of the Heavenly Realm.  This is the fight that we voluntarily entered when we accepted Christ’s payment on that Cross.  Now is the time to realize your true position in the Kingdom and stand in the knowledge that we belong to and are empowered, protected and provided for by the King of All.  What is courage, I don’t know but I think that should give us courage.

Lord I love you and am excited by my trials as they sharpen, empower and shape me for my real life with you.  In Jesus’ Name.

Surprised, heart racing, breath shortened captured by my fearful chest I tighten my grip, with gaze aloft, focused.  They moved my heart to the point where I remembered Christ and his tears for them.  Hosannah, Hossanah they cried yet failed to understand the portent of his arrival, the steel of his resolve or the pain of that week’s proceedings.  Could I carry that weight for you Lord, would that I had a chance.  I did not get that opportunity that I may carry my own now.  Lord, I can see a vision of you on that tragic surrounded by torrid sky, ground shaking, the Earth crying out at the death of the perfect Lamb. My clothes torn, soaked with my own tears as my heart was torn from top to bottom leaving nothing between it and You.

That pain motivates me to do those things beyond exertion.  Tomorrow resides around the corner of my perception, that point at which this world brings it to the material.  Does it exist in some realm, predetermined, written, cataloged for release into the now?  Or is material based upon choices made, the base tincture, the stem component determined, then brilliant colors fed as mix to create the emerging mystery? Or is it all chaos left to chance, happening as an infinite series of computations in probability?  What evidence have you but sense?  What word have you but that which has been given us over time?  What proof have you of the coincidence, the deja vous, the memory of the brief whisper of purpose?

Christ died, he didn’t need to, but gave his life on a specific day, at a specific pretold place at the appropriate time to complete a task that had been sitting around the bend of time awaiting his arrival.  He died which is evidence that he had to in order to set us free.  We know the truth of it, certainly each of us is free to explain it away in order to deny our need for surrender or ignore the upcoming judgment facing each man.  We all see the order in the chaos, that something is controlling the flow in to and out of this material dimension called life.  Whether determined, planned or happening instantaneously what faces each of us is always just around the bend.  Are you ready?

In Jesus’ Name.

What is Truth?  Do you know it, do you love it or do you play fanciful in its proper delivery?  Do people ask you to fill in the gaps for them or avoid you suspecting they may be led astray?  Do you believe something absolutely without doubt, without consideration, confusion or ponderance?  What has the absolute truth upon which you stake your reputation given you in exchange for that dedication? Oh you didn’t know that you received by believing in some absolute understanding?

What is achieved in salvation without belief?  Nothing, we answer resoundingly!  That’s it without a truth upon which we may confer our kinship there is no belief and we have just established without belief, there is no salvation.  So we must first establish our truth claims to provide catalyst for eventual reliance.  Without reliance there can be no sacrifice and without sacrifice there is no legal understanding, so the sacrifice must be the Truth.

Therefore Jesus was SACRIFICED.  That is the truth, and since a sacrifice requires a beneficiary who then was that person?  You.  That sacrifice bought you back from your slave master, SIN.  Okay so we must establish that you were owned by sin and that the sacrifice was adequate payment of your debt in order to establish the sacrifice sufficient to the requirement.  Romans 3:23 says that all have fallen short of the glory of God and have sinned.  So, in order for this statement to be adequate proof, we must establish the ABSOLUTE TRUTH of the Bible.  Is the Lord’s Word 100% true?  Would you stake your life on that, okay maybe not your life but your reputation, your wealth, health and friendships? Again with Truth there can be no belief without belief there can be no salvation, so, I ask again emphatically is the Bible True?

Cannot have one without the other.  To believe we must have truth upon which that belief is based.  What is that Truth?  Is it up to you to decide for yourself, it is your debt for which He was sacrificed.  Do You Believe or Just Pretend?  In Jesus’ Name.

Obedience to God is the greatest freedom and coincidentally demonstrates to him my overwhelming Love. The burdens I carry are typically associated with my unwillingness to follow God’s direction, let go of the things He has been asking me to forfeit or forgive those with whom I have reserved anger. Please forgive me Lord for constantly offering excuse when I knew all along what it was you wished of me. I love them and never wish to let them down but in that enablement I transfer the leadership of my life to people instead of You. I cannot follow two masters especially when so doing is adultery to God.

Lord help me with perspective, for it is the perspective that defines the day.  Leaving judgment to You, for it was never my job, allows me to see each day in a fresh perspective. I don’t know what is going to happen, but isn’t that exciting, isn’t that abundance?  Must I imagine difficulty, poverty, depression or divide? Am I discounting the capacity to imagine wealth, health, provision and prosperity? Truly the life dedicated to following your lead is the grandest probability available for it makes the impossible likely and the adventure certain. Embracing this truth is the freedom we seek.

Lead on Father, to foreign lands or language, to new ventures in building or reconstruction, to healing and the ensuing peace.  This mystery excites, it provides, confounds and forces, yet reinforces my dependence on You, My King.  What comes next?  I certainly do not know, but it will be well lived, leaning forward either with the fair winds or walking easily against the winds designed to build my resolve. At the end it is sufficient to know that whatever occurred will be absent regret for I lived fully dedicated to the purpose for which each of us has been created.  I am content with this life as You provide it for me.

In Jesus’ Name I walk this world in search of the person yet to hear His Word.

I have been struggling with telling the truth about the organized business called the Church.  Which is ironic as many of them have dropped the word Church from their names determining that it limits the breadth and depth of the marketing reach.  “People don’t like to come to Church,” they say, “People want to come to a community”.  I love you my Brothers and Sisters, but as Jude, Jesus’ step Brother clearly stated we have been infiltrated by men and women who have nothing to do with God, but with mammon.

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.  Jude 1:4

The enemies of God are deceivers, deniers, dividers and infiltrators.  They join those righteous efforts sporting good intent but bring in the corrupting poison of lust for the world.  We were never meant to be non-profit, we were told to render unto Cesar that which is his.  Pay the taxes, do the world and wait on God to provide for our needs, but that wasn’t good enough we had to get special exception from the government of man.  What have we to do with the world, we are “the called out ones”, called out from what, the world of course?

But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.  These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.  But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep your selves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

The enemy has always determined that it is much more effective to join us to break us up than it is to persecute the Church, which continues to make it grow.  So, the enemy has come up with the perfect plan to make the Churches just like the world and have them comfort and complacent waiting for the injured to come in the front door seeking a salvation they know nothing about.

So, we can ignore the fact that we were told that the enemy would come in and nest in the mustard tree finding it comfortable or we can be vigilant, ware, prepared and spirit filled as the Lord told us to be.  You decide.  I pray my greatest prayers of hope, encouragement and protection for my Catholic Brothers and Sisters as in this time, this crucial time they are finding out the truth about their organization.  Many have written me and lost hope and faith in their denomination.  It is understandable as they have a long history of wars, sexual immorality, nefarious government relationships, greed, injustice and even now are being associated with the acts of the fallen.  This is not what the Lord intended.  Father shine your glorious light upon their wicked deeds that they might be seen in the public’s eye and have the opportunity to repent and turn their faces back to you before it is too late.

To those believers who have become jaded, don’t blame God for what men do.  Love Him with all that you are as He loves you.  He will deliver you.  Make some choices that are guided by the Holy Spirit in preparation for the King’s return.  Don’t waste your time, your precious time of harvest associating with false believers.  Share the Word of God and if they choose to remain carnal then stay away from them, remaining unspotted by this world.  The Lord will sort this all out, keep the faith, keep your eyes skyward awaiting His glorious return.  My comfort is a small sacrifice for the glory that awaits us in the Kingdom.  I love you so much and pray for you the strength of Almighty God, a filling of His Holy Spirit of Power and Truth through the Path of Jesus Christ our King.

What is love?  An operative phrase about the passionate drives to follow to the ends of time those qualities we find undeniable?  The mooring, tethered to another heart, lashed tightly enough to stand a mid-deck through the great Nor-Easter?  The cumulative sacrifice to time, tenure, talent and treasure for the sake of those for which responsibility resides?  The agonizing yearn for return of the spark which kindles the brightest flame?  The petrifying, fear having lost something breakable for not having valued gentility or having crushed it by a clutch too firm?  Or laying down Glory to come to Earth, giving every ounce of blood, tears and life, so that every man and woman has the opportunity to be set free of the power of sin and death, cleansed of life’s poison to spend eternity with a Holy and Righteous God.

My concepts, my words fail me.  Ensnared by my throat, saving me, putting a stop to my inability to express something beyond my understanding.  How can I love when I cannot even comprehend?  I am capable of puppy’s affection nothing more.  It is through His love for me that I even have a basis for expression.  Having never felt the unconditional treatment I was offered for simply believing, I was awestruck from the outset, perpetually humbled in the Light of God’s Transforming Love.  Even now in the telling, the recount, the explanation, I am strangely insufficient to relaying my own history.  How can this be that I am too frail, too simple, lacking the complexity to even relay the wonderment of God’s Provision?  Laid Bare.  I point to God and know you will find Him the same.

How then am I to love these humans, simple creatures like me, who have a frail but wonderful understanding of that precious endeavor, love?  They waste it, playing fickle, acting as if its power is some how mastered by the frivolous, yet knowing all along that those who taste it superficially have never known its truth.  In depth, in the waiting, in the patience of a lifetime, learning to love is savored.  Remembered each time and craved, but honored as a warm house, a cool drink or the smile of a contented child.  Love is not the sinful thing of black knighted conquest in horror tales.  It is the moment when something finally becomes important enough to give us for its continued freedom.  It is Life’s Meaning.

In the words of the wonderful Bible Hymn, “I love you Lord and I lift my voice to worship You. Oh my soul rejoice, Take joy my King in what You hear, let it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.”  The rest I will leave to the foreign cries and moans of my unknown heart as its words are translated by You, Oh Holy Spirit, the Majestic voice of God that lives and Loves Within each of us.  I cannot express my Love for You Lord.  May I love them in the way You have commanded.  In Jesus Name.

And when he had called all the people to him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile the man.  If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.  And when the was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.  And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also?  Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out in the draught purging all meats?  And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within and defile the man.  Mark 7:14-23

Jesus said it, I listen, remember, believe and follow.  We cannot blame this world for our corruption.  It is out of my own imagination that come the sinful measures that taint my own existence.  There isn’t a single one of those evil things of which I am innocent, except murders though the Lord says that being angry with my Brother without cause is the same.  I hate because I have chosen to pursue that perspective that arose as an idea, then grew to an emotion which rose to retributive thought and then to action.  This world may be wicked but it is not the wickedness of the world that colors me wicked, it is the blackness and evil precursors within my own soul that label me corrupted.

Lord, I am undone, by the works within my person.  Free me from my evil thoughts, ideas and actions before I hurt someone or defile myself when I am supposed to be a vessel for your glory.  There shall no sign be given unto this generation.  

Father, I don’t need a sign to see that I have been blaming the things, people and situations around me for the darkness within when it is by my own heart that I have been made wicked.  Cleanse my heart of its unrighteous proclivity.  Give me freedom from the evil that resides dormant or active within.  Set me free from those influences which seek to produce wicked behavior that I might remain free from perpetual sin.  Lord I give my heart to you and ask that you protect it from my own propensity to spoil.  Let me remain clean that I might give powerful witness of righteous living in this life and the next.  In Jesus’ Holy Name.

What happened to my friends who started out in love with Christ and have either slowly or suddenly lost interest in that love?  What drew them away, as the Kings of Israel and Judah begun to do the things that pleased God and then suddenly began worshiping idols in high places?  The initial presumption must be that they knew the things that pleased God because they evidenced that through primary action.  What then did they forget, did they rebel against or did they get somehow led astray of those things they knew to be right?  With my friends the original indication that something was wrong was indicated by the extended length between communication or the sudden absence thereof.  They had at some point stopped or slowed to a leak the spigot of their service for the Lord so I became a reminder of that diminished relationship, they didn’t want to hear from me or see me.  It seems personal but it actually is a sign of blessing, that they would so associate me with the Lord that having a relationship with me is a conviction.  Yes, it hurts when friends divorce you but it hurts worse to imagine them back slidden to the point of quenching the Holy Spirit or worse blotted from the Book called Life.

None of us imagines ourselves back sliding.  None of wants to be away from God, but we must first admit that all are in the danger of reclaiming our space in the world and take preparative steps to prevent this drastic and abominable occurrence.  What, it can be prevented?  Of course most disasters can be avoided or at least the damage done minimized.

Are you staying in the Word, not just a casual read but everyday opening it up looking for the answers to our hurts, desires, riddles, puzzles and dreams?  Are you staying in relationship with the Lord through prayer?  Since this is your greatest privilege of salvation, audience with the Creator, don’t you think that ought to be valued and protected as vital for your secure and prosperous living?  Finally are you spending time with other Christians, doing ministry, counseling, learning, encouraging and enjoying the joy of other saints? We were given God’s Glory in one place and that is the unity of the Saints that we might be one in Christ Jesus and press down against each other set beside the Cornerstone (Christ) and fortify our collective mortar.  If you ain’t seeing Christians then you ain’t achieving the Glory available here on Earth.

I have lost so many family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances to the world that I have to try and stop this constant siphoning of Saints.  I miss you and what is more important the Lord is sitting there with open arms awaiting your return and will run to you as he sees you afar.  Let us all rejoice at your return to the Lord and your return to the Body of Christ.  I am missing big toes, a nose, an arm a hand and heart.  Please bring them back so that we might be whole again.  We are not the same without you.  In Jesus’ Name.