Love in an egregious sense, overwhelming, inspiring, frightening in its purity and conscience.  Something beyond my senses yet understandable, enviable, multiplicative through source and spirit.  We traveled unnoticed, or so we thought, all the while not only perceived as an insect in periphery, but substantially, completely, totally identified, created, purposed and loved.  How marred my comprehension once enlightenment revealed my relationship to God.  No longer simple, ignored, forgotten or moribund, now a thing reviewed and cared for by the Creator of all waves, light, pulses and plasma.  In His recognition of my kinship I am now defined.

What then does that definition portend?  With which responsibilities does it weight my character, my loyalty, faith and performance?  How may I act as this new creature, gone the suppositions of prior existence?  Does this unquenchable, immeasurable love grant me freedom to act out of whim or craving?  Or is this love a cage threatening my own sovereignty establishing itself above metaphysical laws and passion?  Would I be forced to come to reckoning and forgo my own wisdom, self, taste bud and reactionary provocations?  Is this a Man’s god or must I become God’s man?

Seeing as I didn’t know before I knew, then it was not a thing self generated, whether by conscience, clever-thinking, self magic or wizardry.  What I have been given is given by one who loved me enough to raze shadow and offer cleansing light.  How then may I own and thus control that which I have only been given through act of care and kindness?  We relish this line of inquiry for it leads to one inevitable, stark, astonishing place, surrender.

Worse than this is the truth that without what I have been given I was helplessly, hopelessly left compromised, owned, shackled by dark things of wanton wisdom.  Deceived, destined, declined entry to things eternal, left, a wet hat, or stray cat in the cold, dark forest of self-sustainability, leading to eventual decomposition.  What praise then shall I offer the one who saw through this abomination?  What song shall I trumpet at the joyous knowledge of my having been set free?  What reason or excuse will suffice why I do not declare my  gifting as opening sonnet or closing prayer to each discussion?

To them who avoid or try to explain away God for fear of judgment, this is not some hopeless Russian play leaving us weeping in the inevitable, inescapable thrust of overwhelming oppression and loss.  This is a love story that drove angels to their knees in wonderment as God put off His glory to come and save the children He loved so dearly.   They saw God become man to right a wrong for which He had no culpability, to drink the rotten filthy poison of man’s wickedness to overcome its slavery of mankind.  This is that greatest story, one in which we all are participants, choosing our roles and relationships, through acts of will or surrender.

There are only two parts, one sides with light the other with darkness, but there is a hitch, the darkness has the power to deceive and disguise itself as light for them who are not familiar.  But for the price of belief each and all of us might be set forever and completely free from the power of deception and disguise.  Logic, systems, cellular complexity and even the inexpiable faith that lives within each heart declares the Glory and Majesty of Almighty God. But it was His love that won my heart, a power over which neither death nor my own foolish thinking could contend.  Death was mastered, I surrendered, both sworn allegiance to the righteous and true Lord of Lords, King Jesus.  All will come.  I pray that you enter Heaven by faith, surrender and salvation, because He loves you so much.  In Jesus name.

Does my interpretation or willingness to debate, argue or rehash God’s Word matter a smidgen?  What if I were the smartest man in the room, would it further God’s Will one centimeter if I were to provide the most convincing argument?  Yes, I am supposed to study to show myself approved, but that is in order to properly dispense or relate God’s Word, not boast about my eloquence.  Yes, I must be ready to give an account of my faith, but again that relates entirely to pointing others to Christ or familiarizing them with the process and benefits of salvation.  My eloquence is often an obstacle or potential enemy to my growth for none will be saved by me, through me or for me, but through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God by belief in the Gospel of Good News of Christ.  I am a messenger and let us remember that Angel means messenger.  We must not forget that the most blessed Angel fell through a quest to see his own elevation to importance.

The Lord could do everything He wants to do through me by using an empowered squirrel.  It is a blessing that He has freed me from my prison and an even greater blessing that He allows me to carry His Word of Salvation to the World.  I don’t deserve this work nor can I sit on my comfortable stool in church and neglect its blessing.  I am a creature of purpose, meant for no other reason than to point men toward the love of God through Christ.  I challenge to show me any rival purpose for my life.  Look if I were to succeed at every plan I ever concocted, reaching the pinnacle of worldly success I would still remain below the level achievable by clumsily attempting God’s purpose for my life.  Because God empowers me to achieve His successes where my own are done as labors of my own skill, work or worse yet chance.

I want God’s Blessings upon my life and yours.  I want the power of the Spirit to gift me to do things that are beyond my capacity, authority or gifting.  I want His fulfillment to be seen in my service toward something that may or may not benefit me in this life.  I just want to be with Him and know that I have believed, lived and walked a life of faith that pleases God.  I would not shirk or dispose of wealth but choose to see it as access toward greater successes for the Lord’s Kingdom.  I would not ignore talent that could waken hearts and minds but use it wisely and at precise timing to bring others to Christ consciousness.  I would not forget great relationship brought on by the opportunities presented me by my station but use them to further His agenda and bring others into an eternal relationship with Almighty God.  We have a righteous Father, I can only serve Him honestly if I too attempt to live righteously, knowing this impossible without His indwelling.  My efforts matter little except as confirmation that I believe, trust and Love God.  For my efforts are the dutiful works of a beloved child attempting to please His Father.

We love you Lord, Bless Your Holy Name Lord, King Jesus.

We were made for God’s Glory.  Is it being revealed through your walk with Christ?  What has been sacrificed on the altar of your willingness to suffer with the Lord?  Have you given all, some or none?  I do not like being the sharpening stone, but it seems we are content to languish in our own piety of inaction.

The power of Christians is prayer.  Dedication to standing alone with God, listening, absorbing, surrendering to His Word for each of us.  Each of us has purpose.  Have you investigated your own or left it in secrecy hoping that God will never call you count for non participation?  We all know that time is short.  Christ died almost two thousand years ago and was resurrected in preparation for His return.  Just a reminder that was circa 33A.D.  How long will it be before He returns to rule and reign for one thousand years before the white throne of judgment?  Have you taken to heart what His imminent return means to everything you have currently chosen to serve to ignore His call?

The day is short, night is coming.  The battle rages against an enemy who is executing a fourth quarter playbook, while we sit upon the bench, hoping that the coach doesn’t put us in the game.  Get in prayer, join with other Christians in support of God.  Even if you don’t get off the coach sit there in silent allegiance to Christ and the church.  Make a difference, tell the truth, serve God and quit serving everything else that fancies your attention.  Tell the lost about salvation.  That is each of our job yet few still do it.  In Jesus name i pray for today.

Is He answering your prayers?  Do you think He has heard them?  If He isn’t answering and He has heard them, what may be delaying His response?  Is it timing?  Are we simply asking for the right things at the wrong time or is there perhaps a deeper, more elusive understanding?  If what I have asked for is consistent with His Will what possible rational would delay His execution?  Is He training me in patience to understand that He alone determines when I receive a blessing?  Is He temporarily denying my petition so that I build faith muscles in continued request through prayerful fellowship?  Or has He determined that whatever thorn or poverty I am experiencing is actually His intention for my betterment to the enrichment of His perfect Will?

Does the enemy still have the wherewithal to delay God’s answered prayers?  What is the extent of a raging battle in the heavenly realms?  Does the enemy still maintain plausible resistance having lost the potency of sin and death?  What differs in our prayer lives now that we have Grace, now that we have the Spirit of God living within our fiber, now that we are made of Holy mettle?  Do we remain helpless against the enemy, knowing that somehow he and his fallen may battle to delay or forestall our blessings given in answered prayer by Almighty God?  Are we still to expect that each of our prayers rises to God’s review and that He alone determines what shall be given through Grace and Divine Provision?  What do you believe, for as you believe you will live.

Am I still asking for things born of my own self-interest?  Why of course I am for I remain trapped in this fleshly dominion.  Can I differentiate through Divine Discernment those prayers which are consistent with His Will and those that are of my own volition or desirous enrichment?  Must I continue to waste the precious moments I have alone with God, before His throne, asking for riches, glory, healing or relief when I go into the process with the knowledge my requests are inconsistent with His Word and His Will?  Come on at some point I must grow up in my faith and understanding.  I know what God wants for me and I know those things that are born of desirous craving, covetousness or self idolatry.  Must I then hold my breath, beckoning God’s angels to fight their way through enemy lines to deliver these selfish wants?

My prayer life is not my own.  I am instructed, guided and led even in prayer by the Holy Spirit’s masterful teaching hand.  Even now I find myself changing my tone, my delivery, limiting my words and listening intently for God to speak, where I used to whimper, beg, wander and utter voluminous petition before a Mighty God.  God knows what I need and what is good for me and He will get me to where He needs me to be at the precise time He needs me there for His good purposes.  Certainly there are things that I want for myself, but I must not insist as a wanton child that an all knowing God deliver according to my precise request or demanding ploy the wants of my villainous heart.  Perhaps the very thing I want is the obstacle set before me blinding me to the true and glorious intended blessings of God.  Maybe He is waiting for me to surrender that want in order to open the door to a broader horizon.  Should it trouble me that I may be my own greatest obstacle to unrealized blessing?  Isn’t this the most rational explanation for unanswered prayer?  Must I want what I want when I want it even when doing so prohibits me from receiving what God wants for me?

It is time for us to wake up as a body.  The work is out there.  God commands he doesn’t simply ask politely, though He does allow us the stupidity of exercised free-will, disobedience before He resorts to discipline.  This is the time, we are the people.  The work is out there.  What am I doing today to spread the Gospel, to lead people to a cross where they will be saved from sin and death by a Righteous Saviour for Eternity?  Am I praying that someone else catches fire when I am utterly unwilling to accept the zealous flames within my own heart?  The work is out there.  Am I looking toward the daydream of revival when there are no seeds of rebirth within my own spirit?  Am I a changed man become a man of change.  Am I bringing the world into the church or am I bringing the church into the world?  Am I so eager to extend my own petitions to God that I refuse to listen to His commands upon my life?

What am I?  A man making His own history or a man revealing the mystery of Christ to a dying world that so desperately needs my loyalty to ambassadorship.  He is the great “I am” and if I reflect Him in any small measure than what “am I”?

I wept for you.  Not because some ill issue had fallen upon you, but because you were forced to withstand my criticism, my scholastic review in all its gilded glitter and sanctimonious acidity.  My words are of little affect whether meant in constructive pride or tempered with positive intention.  I am and never will be your teacher, guide, principle, confidante or uncle.  It has been so easy in my ill equipped state of self dependence to believe myself adequate to the task of showing you the light of God.  I am not a failure for at this task I lacked requisite authority by which to succeed.  My fool’s errand.  I only hope that you remember my love for Him, His Words I took the time to repeat and His sermons preached from my country lips.

Father, I know that you will forgive, but I thank you for bearing with me and patiently awaiting my awareness of a lesson I resisted so confidently.  I do so love you.  Let that simple truth be the ember to flame all future ministry.  I hear them, but I listen only long enough to say something brilliant enough to sustain my own wick.  Must I remain this wretched, this hopelessly unencumbered by true Christian wisdom?  I sit at the bottom of a narrow well of my own construction making hand puppets at the sky, hoping to be clever enough to show someone the way to Jesus, as I languish in the chains of my own self-righteousness.  It is great wonder how I managed to assist in even a small proportion.

Does intention matter, does heart, do dreams and kindness or prayer?  Then I shall stay in prayer, silent of my own festering, leaving the waters untainted by my spots or coloring.  If I may say anything let me say Christ, Him voluntarily sacrificed as culmination of a divine plan, so astounding that it amazes every angelic conversation.  I would speak of a church standing, preparing, being knit together and spliced into the natural olive tree with its predecessor the Jewish nation, bound together as one body in Christ, with Christ, through the Love, power and authority of Christ Jesus the King.  Born for one purpose to glorify God.  Would these words matter.  yes, but only in their inspiration, their leading away from attention upon my inadequacy, but used as breadcrumbs leading to the skinny path toward eternity.

I will certainly fail as this is my destiny, but in my absolute, assured failure, He will find success for the Kingdom, reborn from my poor intent, covetous heart or self-guided intention, remade into miracle and greatness.  We serve El Shaddai, Jehovah Rafah, the Master Potter of Creation who will prove that my purpose was perfectly unmistaken.  He will have His success in my greatest moment of helplessness and utter loss for that is the mystery of my making.  Born to serve a King I don’t deserve with limited skills and child like understanding.  May His Will be served even in my destruction.  Jesus be praised Amen.

voluntary leprosy, death of the natural nervous system response to pain through any route of escapism.  This life hurts and it was designed to be so.  The pain causes discomfort, movement, growth and an internal desire to cry out to God for relief, shelter, succor and assistance.  Desiring detachment from the hurt associated with pain is the quickest route to a meeting with the enemy, promising, deceptively momentary relief from what God has intended for our growth.  Do we as Americans have a monopoly on pain, do we suffer more than those in other countries?  Of course not, yet we have cornered the market on the accommodation of depression and its subsequent medication.  The enemy has won a major victory in our nation through convincing that treatment of symptoms is adequate replacement for cure.  If pain causes me to seek cure, especially if the illness is terminal, as with my captivity by sin then that pain is justified, heaven sent and good and any efforts to avoid its provocative aspects is a sin more grievous than the original.

I cannot ignore my own illness, hoping to somehow find accommodation or escape from the pain of facing my own inevitable truth.  Facing my own reality may be the single greatest impetus for my salvation.  Therefore, beyond the disastrous contagion of pride, prohibiting or forgoing that cataclysmic moment of my collision with that absolute truth of my need for salvation is the greatest single successful enemy effort against humanity.

Can I expect to enter battle with courage and continuity expecting to escape any wound?  This world drove me to an inevitable meeting with God and I am therefore grateful for those wounds.  It was not my health that brought me to God but my illness, my desire for answer, my sin.  For that is how God uses even evil for His Good purpose, as a catalyst for a reunification with His Holiness in that moment we seek salvation and receive His forgiveness and peace.  Again my pain is not sent from heaven but produces the exact effect God desires for my eternal existence.  Used for Good, as all things it serves God.  And who among us can deny God’s Word, promising chastisement for those whom God loves?  My pain signifies God’s love for me as He continues to prompt me toward righteousness and an eternal relationship with Him.

I do not understand your pain, for it is uniquely yours.  I merely understand that it within that pain is a blessing if you are conscious enough, mature enough, hopeful enough to seek its intention.  Do you trust God?  Do you?  Well here is the opportunity to transform that mustard seed of faith in a bushel.  Let go of trying to escape the pain and embrace it.  Not masochistically admonishing yourself for failure or inadequacy but knowingly realizing that the pain’s intention of driving you closer to a Holy God who loves you.  He is there waiting for that precious moment where you trust Him with your pain and its eradication or nullification.  Perhaps you will be blessed as greatly as Paul and even have God tell you that your pain is the thorn in your side toward realization of His plan for your life.  I do not like pain, but I love what it produces in each of us when placed in subjection to a Sovereign and Loving God.  Trust Him, and forgo any attempts to dull the precious catalysts He is using to get your attention.  Look to Him for relief and you will find peace.  In Jesus Holy Name I pray for you this day.  Amen

Revealed in my joy, understood in my pain, your love for me evades my time of luke warmth.  My quickening, this blessing, my soul siphoned through a fine mesh.  Dross no longer able to make the horrible man I have always been.  All that is good, you did in me, none of my efforts account for substantiation.  Why then should I fear this crucible, a removal of imperfection?  I dread being this man forever, thankful beyond reason for the opportunity to be cleansed, purified, remade into something I could never alone become.  Please don’t leave me in this present state or I am certainly doomed to loose every relation worth treasured enumeration.

What then is this joy in the middle of excoriation, stretched beyond elastic limit, fearing collapse, snap, brokenness and finding after a time, only repair, rework and that blessed peace given by You, to those in You?  Pitied, harangued, forgotten, misshapen and misused, my eyes are led back to the Glory this journey shall produce.  I must not be such the waste of time I appear, if the Lord of Glory would even consider tolerating my foible.  What then Lord is the purpose for this exclusion, this loss, this stripping, this humiliation?  What will it produce that may be of value to Your Good and Honest Will for my life and that of others.  I am tired of being someone other than what you created me to be.  I face the weariness of being someone different to humor their own wickedness, a pawn in someone’s prison, joining them in captivity instead of leading them to freedom.

Father I have failed and yet I remember success upon success, doing the work for which I have been fashioned.  I am thankful that man is only mist, a vapor, for I doubt that I could withstand a greater term of quickening.  It is difficult to see what you see in me and even more rigorous to imagine that in my short remaining time you will somehow find the way to prepare me for eternity.  You simply are amazing.  This pain is amazing in awakening my obedience, my passion, my loyal love and understanding.  I miss them Lord.  My only hope is that what is given will be far greater than that I have lost in the learning.  I trust in You.  I will follow, serve, believe and find joy even if my path leads to tragedy.  I am truly sorry for being such a difficult task.  You are loved greatly, my King by one who has nothing but his love to give.  In Jesus Name I pray.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. 

Hebrews 1:1-4

I hear, recognize and understand the arguments for simpler text, a more seeker friendly version of God’s Word.  However, looking upon the above passage I am instantly decided that no other versioning would properly depict the gravity and the depth of its Holy Spirit inspired construction.  Simply observing that the above is one sentence, immediately makes “simpler” texts suspect, for each clause above is dependent upon the previous statement for structured understanding.  In man’s desire to make it easier for himself he divorces himself from dependence upon the Holy Spirit for discernment.  This text is amazing.  Let us look into what the Holy Spirit shows us within this tiny tract.  And I trust that you will investigate your favorite translation to determine, like the Barean God commanded you to be, if I am correct in my declaration.

What is in a name that its utterance or recognition could make someone more excellent than an entire segment of creation?  What does it mean to obtain a name by inheritance?  Is Word more powerful than thought?  Remember we are to meditate on God’s Word day and night, why?  What is so powerful that if I were to contemplate an idea over and again it would somehow become written upon my heart?  How does the “Anointed One Savior”(Jesus the Christ) properly describe a King of Kings?  Why is Jesus the “Word”?  How can someone be made so much better than the angels and not be God?  Doesn’t sitting at the right hand denote equality to a capitalized word, “Majesty”, which is the LORD God Himself?  This passage states that Jesus himself, purged our sins and upholds all things by the word of his power.

This passage says that Jesus is the express image and the brightness of God’s Glory through whom God made all things.  It pronounces Christ heir of all things that have been made, and as God’s appointed heir has been conveying God’s Word to faithful as God previously had done through prophets in sundry times and diverse places.  And the most amazing thing about this passage is that God is clearly the subject at the beginning but the passage miraculously changes subjects to Jesus midway without changing any descriptions.  And what completely knocks me over is that the Holy Spirit, also God, is conveying this entire description about Himself from a seemingly external perspective.  How then am I, a simple man to understand word of this complexity.  To be honest I can’t.  But I know who can and He is my teacher, friend, guide and counselor.  The Holy Spirit who lives in each of us that believe, God with us.  Praise Emmanuel for all His Glory, Devotion and Kindness in leading me to His side through His Word.  The Good Shepherd.  Amen.

Godsman, the man where saying what I will do and how I will do it, no longer adequate.  I am left with what I am and what God wants for and the space between the two, a space that I may never traverse, but God will reach regardless.  Regardless of my inadequacies, my bitterness, lack of hope, regret, remorse, doubt or prowess.  We want His greatest blessings and yet are unwilling to surrender to His commands, knowing fully it is the only way to reach our desire.

I must not strike the rock taking the quarrels of those around personally, forgetting God’s direction.  I must not rest for a moment, a moment of indulgence, allowing my sinful flesh to entice me toward adultery.  The kind of mistake that assures I will never achieve God’s greatest blessing in this life. God’s intended blessing for my existence may look like crucifixion or death by hungry lion, perhaps it will mean fame, fortune and ease.  Will I throw my hands in the air, giggling as gravity tests my resolve or will I scream in horror, clutching for handholds?  We all know I cannot and do not wish to get off the ride.  Isn’t it then joy that differentiates my passing?

Am I committed to reaching and embracing that blessing with joy, the joy of knowing I am serving God’s Plan to my greatest potential?  God is, regardless of my perception, reaction, obedience or attitude.  Will words convince you that I rejoice in God’s plan for my life even if it means martyrdom, most certainly not?  Faith is a robust discipline.  It may not simply be defined, appreciated and understood in its conceptual or theoretic form, though these are deeply satisfying.  Faith must be lived, for the living of life is its own meaning and may not be understood simply via observation or contemplation.

The new dilemma of the convicted Christian is to do it without simply saying what must be done in self-conversation.  We must not convince ourselves that we are doing what God wants we must give ourselves to the Potter’s Hand and allow the shaping to define the result.  Although, I have hints about what God is doing in my life and where He is taking me, I truly don’t know, arguably don’t want to know the destination He has prepared at the end of my edification.  For if I project it then I somehow maintain the deception that I may somehow bring about or sway the outcome.  The Holy Spirit lives in each of us, the House of God.  He will have His way.  Is God’s result my objective?  Then it is His power, authority, direction and miracles that will make it happen.  For example, what if I resisted God, refusing or dodging His every direction?  Do you think that would prohibit His success?  Isn’t that satan’s thinking?

He is my God, but that statement implies some manner of ownership on my part.  I am His, I belong to Him and am grateful/extremely fortunate to have His name and my own associated even the same book.  That is enough for me.  I prefer to throw my hands up high and yell whee!!!, enjoying the ride, not knowing to what glorious end it takes me.  It is simply enough that it is His end and that is the greatest blessing that I will ever enjoy.

By Grace, not by works, but works reflect a thankful, indebted heart.  I am useful to God, but I doubt that He ever needed me.  For what benefit does God receive for my righteousness, my piety, my performance?  None.  God defined righteousness so that when we encounter it we might name what we have seen.  He gave me His righteousness, as propitiation for my own lack thereof.  I do not breathe except that He created air, and lungs and autonomous nervous system reactions.  What He gave me was freedom from sin and death, a death I deserved for the sin that I committed, in violation of His defined terms and law.  He told me do a job, He allows me a choice to obey but obedience requires a command and a consequence.  I am to be Holy because that is what He wants me to be and here’s the kicker, He is the only one who can make that happen.  So, it’s His life, His definition, His rules, His righteousness, His power and His authority by which it gets done.  Where in that equation do I see any action for which I may accept glory for or criticism of acts for which I have no other impact but surrender and obedience?

What then is my part if I may accept no commendation for action or reward for self-help well performed?  My job is to want to be changed and know that God is faithful to complete that transformation.  My job is to love Him with every fiber of my being/reality and reason.  My job is to joyfully accept what He has given, including difficulty and obstructive circumstance for those are the exact moments at which I need Him most.  Those are the moments when I will truly see His hand upon my existence and know completely that I had no part in the miracle.  That is when I am a victim and victor of Glory.  My job is to love you enough to forgive you every time you ask and spend every ounce of the knowledge, sweat, cash and energy God has given me to make sure that you join us in eternity.  I must care enough to act and in so doing demonstrate my faith in God’s Plan.

The enemy serves God, the Lord Jesus rebuke Him if He so chooses.  He drives me to God for protection, love and direction or repentance as reaction to  discipline.  I cannot fight the battles to which God’s enemy’s goad me.  It is not my fight, it is not my power that the enemy fears, they fear Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit inside me from which they run, their only hope to get me into my flesh, denying my fealty and entering in to skirmish that I may not win.  My weapons are prayer and use of God’s Holy Word, none of these emanate from my authority.  I shall not be cajoled, prodded or deceived into trying to fight where I may not win.  I will remain victorious in Christ, standing in courage and the knowledge that my God fights for me.  Bring me the giants, for they cannot stand on the field my God prepares before me.  This is my task to bring Glory to His Name in a life well lived for Him, in Him, through His power, Grace and authority.  In Jesus Name I walk.  Amen