HOMEWARD BOUND

To say “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord” is to summarize in Old Testament language God’s divine plan as seen through the eyes of the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8:29-30: Those He FOREKNEW... knew before in eternity would be His, He PREDESTINED... “before-ended”, fixing their end in time, that they might be CONFORMED... changed into the nature of His Son. These same ones He CALLED... the heart of the Father calling from eternity His chosen ones back to Himself in time, He JUSTIFIED... placed into right standing with Himself, and He GLORIFIED... providing them with abundant life flowing now into eternity. This is a picture of the “ordered life” of a “good” man... one who follows God’s precepts, a new covenant metaphor for God’s elect... His time-chosen ones who chose Him in eternity. God knows His Jewels through His foreknowledge, which captures the exercise of our free will before we exist in time. The ordering of our life, our predestination, transforms us into Christlikeness, beginning our confirmation process long before we hear the call of the Father. Our response to the Father’s call declares what He already knew, that our heart would be receptive to His call. Justification is the judicial act in the courtroom of Heaven whereby God declares us innocent... acquitted of all charges, and frees us from the bondage of enslavement to sin which held us prisoner.  Now we understand that the true glory of man is the ideal condition into which man was created by God, so glorification in the human sense is restoration. Our glorification begins with our spiritual union with Christ, progresses as we cloth our Self with Christ’s nature, and will be completed when we are “CHANGED”, when we receive our immortal bodies.  God is simply ordering our steps homeward...   

HE BRINGS RESTORATION TO OUR SOUL...

WHO’S RATTLING YOUR CHAIN

There’s a significant difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusations of the enemy... a difference of both method and substance. The Word of God calls our enemy the prince of devils, diabolos, “devil”, and satanas, “satan”, his nature defined by his names:  The nature of our enemy is to slander, defame, accuse, and destroy, standing in opposition to all that is godly and attempting to separate man from God through false information... he is the father of lies. He uses the shotgun approach to overwhelm us with a sense of condemnation and unworthiness to the point of despair... even hopelessness. Within the confines of our conscience our heart sides with the enemy’s accusations igniting the debilitating paralysis of self-analysis...Self trying to fix itself. As “the accuser of the brethren” the enemy’s goal is to separate us from the enabling Grace of God by obstructing our fellowship with God, causing us to withdraw from the throne of His Grace.   

On the other hand the conviction of the Holy Spirit is always gentle, specific, and purposeful, as He shines the light of Christ’s nature on an area of our life where repentance and change is needed. As saint’s we are all on the road to Christlikeness... to more of Him and less of Self,  changing bit by bit as the Holy Spirit manifests Christ’s nature in us as an alternative to Self. As our “Comforter”, the Holy Spirit’s goal is to ignite a passion for Jesus so the Holy Spirit will always manifest Christ... will always point us to Christ... will always encourage us to approach His throne of Grace with great boldness: “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” God is greater than our heart... greater in love... greater in compassion, no less than in knowledge. We must always remember, we stand in the virtue of the shed blood of Jesus... which has never lost its power to save... to heal... to restore... to make us Christlike, it is still the way we overcome.

GOD IS GREATER...

BUT IF THE SHOE FITS...

The Holy Spirit’s job is to manifest Christ in us... to change our natural virtues, our natural traits, qualities, and characteristics, from our Self-nature of the seed of Adam to His Divine-nature of the seed of Jesus. The Spirit is a master craftsman, not a cobbler. He never just patches up our natural virtues with a little bit of Christ sprinkled here and there. “You shall be perfect”: There is no ambiguity about our need for spiritual maturity. The Son said it, the Father commanded it, and the Spirit will execute it... in willing hearts. Our natural virtues can never come close to the virtues demanded by the Godhead... our Self-serving love is not even a cheap imitation of God’s self-sacrificing agape love, yet we cling to our natural virtues, Self loving itself, all the while proclaiming Christ is our Lord. But, Jesus knows what is in the heart of man... God knows our hearts! So... we must learn to draw our nature from the reservoir of the resurrection life of our Savior, to bring every part of our nature into harmony with the implanted Christ-Life... to put on Christ. Woven within this “learning” is death, submission, and renewal... not painless processes, but so very rewarding for Self-willed stubborn folks who seem hell-bent on misplacing their love on trinkets of wood, hay, and stubble. Remember, our Self-nature is programmed to love the world, the same world we are commanded not to love... the same world predestined to burn! Be thankful for God’s patience... and determination, therein lies our Blessed Hope...

Author’s Note: As with most of the thoughts I share, this “song” is for me. I am traveling the road of Transformation at a snail’s pace, catching fleeting glimpses of what could be... should be... if I could just climb up on my cross and spread wide my arms. Don’t pray causally for God to reveal His heart to you, for we cannot see His heart without seeing our own... and recognizing just how far short of His transforming glory we have fallen. While I am most concerned about an experience... signs, wonders, miracles, the felt presence of God, God is whispering “Son, I need to talk to you about your heart.” The greatest sign of spiritual maturity... of pleasing God, is not spiritual giftings, ministries, or signs following. It is Love, Joy, Peace... the Fruit of the Spirit, obedience, passion, and sacrifice. God’s presence is drawn to Godliness like a magnet, abiding where His nature is strongest, but... Christlikeness is my weak suit. Like I said, this song is for me...  but if the shoe fits...

SON, I NEED TO TALK TO YOU

 ABOUT YOUR HEART

MOSAIC DISPERSION

No truth is founded on a single verse of scripture. The minimum requirement to establish new covenant truth is two co-witnessing New Testament verses taken in context, with three preferred (Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1; Ref. 1 Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28; type – Dt. 19:15). Truth seemly established on a single verse of scripture is either incomplete, with applicable related passages excluded, or simply is not truth. The strength of a doctrine is directly related to its frequency of mention. Conversely, doctrine must be in harmony with all topically related parallel passages, without conflict or contractions, all passages taken into unifying consideration. God teaches by mosaic dispersion, dispersing bits and pieces of a doctrinal mosaic here and there, breathing truth through the various New Testament writers. A mosaic of truth must be “seen”, perceived, in all its various colors and hues before it can be understood. The “workman” of God’s word is to collect everything God says on a subject and compile it into a comprehensive whole – complete the mosaic.

For example, there are at least 27 New Testament passages on asking and receiving petitions from God:   To take any one of these scriptures such as Jn. 14:12-15, “Whatsoever you ask in my name, that I will do”, and form a doctrine for petitioning God based solely on this one condition at the exclusion of the other 26 scriptures, is not considering the whole council of God.  In addition to “ask in my name” one must also believe (Mk. 9:23), abide in Jesus and have His words abide in them (Jn. 15:7), bear fruit (Jn. 15:16), ask according to His will (1 Jn. 5:14), obey His commandments (1 Jn. 3:22, 23), etc.  It is wise to be “slow to speak”, searching the scriptures (Acts 17:11) to ascertain the “whole council of God” relative to any truth, before sharing truth with others. Failure to consider all the relevant parallel passages when studying a topic is paramount to assembling a picture puzzle while discarding some of the pieces, creating an incomplete picture. God is obliviously serious about His command to study as a perquisite to rightly interpreting truth and to gaining His approval. This methodology is sayonara to Cherry-picking passages to substantiate pet doctrines.

Truth-Truth: Truth with a Capital “T”

FIVE PRIMAL VIRTUES OF LOVE

The First and Second Commandments of our Lord sum up, encompass... capture in essence all of the O.T. Law and the Prophets, so surely they suffice as a good definition of the purpose driven life! Imbedded in our Lord’s First Commandment is four love virtues: We are to love God with all our heart... with compassion, with all our soul... with wonder, with our mind... with curiosity, and with all our strength... with energy. These primal virtues (coined by Mark Batterson) of compassion, wonder, curiosity and energy, are at the heart of who we were created to be as humans, and are lost virtues among many saints. We need to learn what it means to love God with every fiber of our being, developing a deeper and richer understanding of the First Commandment. However, it is all too easy to slip into the veneer of heroic individualism, in which the fundamental relational focus is between an individual and God, effectively splitting off what Jesus joined together, the Second Commandment, “loving your neighbor as you love yourself” from the First Commandment to “love the Lord your God.” (Mk. 12:30-31; Lk. 10:27) Being great at the First Commandment is important but what God wants is the natural out flowing of the First Commandment through the Second Commandment, that we demonstrate our love for God by “considering others better than ourselves” (Phil. 2: 3) and imitate Christ by pouring ourselves out in love for our spiritual brothers and sisters, neighbors and all whom God’s providence brings into contact. What many saints miss, fall short of, or outright ignore is the all important fifth primal virtue of “selfless love” imbedded in the Second Commandment: To love your neighbor as you love yourself. “All important”??? Yes, all important! “He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen. (1 Jn. 4:20 Amp; ref. 1 Jn. 3:17; Lk. 10:27-37) Now this is where the rubber hits the road for we love to love, pamper and take good care of our Self... don’t we! This is sort of a modified Golden Rule: Do unto others as you do unto your Self... Ouch! God’s agape love is compassionate, self sacrificing, outwardly directed love, love that gives more than it takes... selfless love. What we need most today, in a world where individualism is as essential, common and unquestioned as the air we breathe, is not a reformation rooted primarily in personal character promoting more individualism... the First Commandment in isolation,  but an ecclesiological reformation in which we understand anew that God is calling on His Bride to embody His agape love... embody His Second Commandment by sacrificially loving and caring for others... be they family, spiritual kin, neighbors, friends, or total strangers. Only in this way can we demonstrate our love for our Lord... by our selfless love for others...

THEY WILL KNOW 
WE ARE CHRISTIANS 
BY ...

UNFLAPPABLE

Adversity, whether it is physical or financial, personal or relational, has a way of beating us up with worry, doubt and fear.  But it isn’t supposed to be that way... God wants us to be unflappable. The real issue is not our circumstances but our attitude... our mindset... how we respond to our circumstances. To be unflappable is to treat everything as spiritual... it is, and to have a heavenly mindset... a mind set on things above, responding to our circumstances with a mind renewed with the mind of Christ. We will experience good... and bad... and every shade in between. It matters not when we are unflappable. Let us keep these “things” in perspective: We are talking about a life we are warned not to love, in a world we are commanded not to love—friendship with the world is enmity with God – life that is an itsy bitsy tennie weenie little delay in route to Supernatural Life... Overwhelming Love... Supreme Happiness... Utter Joy... Ultimate Peace... Infinite Ecstasy -- I’m running out of adjectives here -- forever eternally so. Satan cannot win, he can only inflict pain while losing! Being unflappable destroys any pleasure he may derive from his inflictions. Christ learned obedience through the things He suffered... maybe we need to follow His example. Troubles, difficulties, afflictions... in a word adversity, should be met with one worshipful response... Rejoice... Count It All Joy... Be Unflappable... Praise Him In The Storm. What the enemy intends for evil God will turn to eternal good conforming to His purposes... we simply can’t lose!!! What happens to our dirt-tents of flesh on this dirt-bag planet is insignificant. We are totally expendable Kingdom vessels who must die or fly to gain access to our glorified bodies. So... set your mind on things above... set your face like a flint toward heaven... quit worrying about why and leave the “heavy lifting” to God who knows our “needs” before we ask... Be Unflappable...

Now, this does not mean we don’t pray for relief or resist the enemy’s attacks... we do, but submission to our sovereign Lord is preparation for resisting the enemy in prayer... submission precedes prayer. Submission recognizes our spiritual position: We are in Christ... in the Beloved of God, indwelt by the very Spirit of the Living God, and seated with Christ in the heavenlies. True submission will always have an attitude... an attitude of joy unspeakable... rejoicing... an unflappable overflow of heaven bound love. This comes before, during, and after we invite God’s Kingdom to invade our circumstances in resurrection power. Peace in adversity is the hallmark of an unflappable spiritual attitude, allowing joy to come forth, and joy, well... joy is our strength! Unflappability is the ultimate recognition God is absolutely sovereign... totally in control, and ordering our steps for His eternal purposes, that we are in the safest place we can ever be... we are in Christ in Him. This is the “Though He slay me, yet will I Trust in Him” attitude that declares unequivocally nothing will turn off my praise... nothing will short circuit my joy and peace... nothing will dilute my absolute trust in God. For who or what can separate me from the love of my Father... No One...Nothing! I know who holds my breath in His hands, I know where I am going, and I will rejoice and be glad... I will Be Unflappable!

LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU...

DANGEROUS FAITH, ADDICTIVE LOVE

The first century Christians lived their lives with every step moving forward and with every fiber of their being fighting for the heart of their King.  Jesus had become the all consuming passion of their lives, producing a dangerous faith, full of raw power, and capable of choosing revolution over compromise, peril over safety, and passion over lukewarm watered down religion.  They were called to live in this world as citizens of an entirely different kingdom.  The “Good News” can never be separated from Jesus’ invitation to “Come; Follow Me”. Jesus never lied about the danger or cost of being His disciple:

* “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves” (Matt. 10:1, NLT)

* “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Lk. 9:23, NIV)

* “If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it.  But if you give up your life for Me, you will find true life.” (Lk. 9:24, NLT)

* “And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process.” (Lk. 9:25, NLT)

* “If you want to be My follower you must love Me more than your own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be My disciple.” (Lk. 14:26, NLT)

* “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 9:27, NASB)

* “So no one can become My disciple without giving up everything for Me.” (Lk. 9:33, NLT)

* “A servant is not greater than his master.  If they persecuted Me, they will persecute You.” (Jn. 15:20, NKJV)

* “When the world hates you, remember it hated Me before it hated you.” (Jn. 15:18, NLT)

* “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you.” (1 Jn. 2:15, NCV)

First century Christians loved God! This is not a simple platitude but a life-changing fact. They had beheld His great love for them, and in this “beholding” they had become loving, expressing God’s love through passionate sacrifice and servant hood.  They knew that love and sacrifice are inseparable in God’s Kingdom... We need to know that too...

“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself”: We must lay aside as the world’s dung our desires and plans. We must make it our determined purpose to know Him... ever pressing toward the high calling of intimately knowing Him. “And take up his cross daily”: We must crucify our Self and Self’s self serving interests daily that the implanted Christ-Life can germinate and spread like yeast throughout our being. “And follow Me”: We must walk His narrow-gated difficult way, our face set like a flint on things above... demonstrating our love in passionate obedience... for without obedience there is no love. Deny... Crucify... Follow... This is the “meat and potatoes” of Kingdom life, a life of Dangerous Love and Addictive Faith...

JESUS NEVER LIED ABOUT THE DANGER...

OR COST...

OF BEING HIS DISCIPLE

IF I PERISH, I PERISH

I once struggled with a major difficulty for over a year. I was physically and mentally exhausted, and ready to throw in the towel and die, in fact death would have been a relief. I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me, and vacillated between pleading with God to intervene, being angry with Him because He didn’t, and condemning myself for whatever I must have done to deserve this. At a most unbearable point one afternoon I went for a walk, and as I walked my thoughts turned to a book I had purchased at least twenty years earlier, and long since forgotten. Now, one would think I gleaned some great spiritual insight from this book, and I did, but not in the way one might think, for I had never read this book. No, what I began to think about was the book’s title, “If I Perish, I Perish.”

I begin to think about Job, how all through his suffering he worshiped God, never sinning with his lips by blaming God, and declared to his circumstances and all the powers of darkness, ”Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” And the apostle Paul who suffered more than anyone else in scriptures, planting churches by the torn bloody flesh of his back,  rejoicing in adversity, infirmities, and pain, calling it all “light affliction” which brings great glory in the life to come. And somewhere in these musings I had a divine epiphany: I realized that my struggle was, in reality, a struggle with fear... fear of failure... fear of losing my “stuff”... fear of damage to my stature and position among family, friends, community and church. I realized that fear reigns where trust in God is weak. Now this is not trust in God to “fix” my problem making everything better... although sometimes He does. This is trust in Him to never leave me forsaken, even in the darkest of times... to help me through the storm... walking by my side... carrying the umbrella... comforting me with His presence. This trust is rooted in the sure knowledge that God will turn what the enemy means for evil into His purposeful good, that in the working out of my life good will emerge as sure as the rising sun, though it may very well not be that which I desired or felt I needed or even understood... God knows best. Oh, and yes, I still have the book, and I still haven’t read it; it has served its divine purpose...

FEAR REIGNS WHERE TRUST IN GOD IS WEAK

REALM WARFARE 101

We are to be in the world but not of the world... to be separated internally not externally.  As followers of Christ we live in a duel reality. Externally we are in the world... home to everything that is contrary to God, the physical realm in which we exist. Internally we are to be at all times disconnected from the physical realm and plugged into God’s spiritual realm... His Kingdom, walking in the Spirit of another realm. These two realms cannot cohabitate and will strive for dominating influence: A carnal, fleshly Christian allows the cares, desires, and pleasures of earth-life to dominate their spiritual life... what Jesus called living in the thorn bushes. A spiritual Christian allows the cares, desires, and pleasures of their King’s heart to dominate their earth-life... what Jesus called being a “Light” to a world living in darkness. Spiritual maturity, growing into Christlikeness, is the degree this influence is unidirectional – from the heart of God, through man, into the world. The mind is the arbitrator in realm warfare: “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”  What we set our mind on will determine which realm influences the other. This makes Paul’s command to set one’s mind on things above most important:  “Aim at and seek the rich, eternal treasures that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And set your minds and keep them set on what is above... the higher things, not on the things that are on the earth.  For as far as this world is concerned you have died, and your new, real life is hidden with Christ in God.” We need to remember this at the gossip mill around the coffee machine at work... When someone cuts us off in traffic... When our neighbor’s dog takes a dump in our backyard... When we avoid the eyes of the homeless person at the stoplights... When someone else gets the promotion... When our annual physical takes a detour... When we get that phone call in the night... We need to remember we are seated in the heavenlies with Christ... if we choose to be...

(Jn. 17:14-16 NKJV: Rom. 8:6 NKJV; Col. 3:1-3 Amp.)

HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD

THE WEATHER OF LIFE

God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Jesus is speaking a subtle metaphor here: Sun and rain is what keeps the earth from being a barren uninhabitable wasteland, so sun and rain represent “good”... God’s blessings. God sends good things to the wicked and the virtuous, to the righteous and the unrighteous. Sinner and saint alike receive the blessings of God, who is not a respecter of persons in His predisposition to allocate blessings to mankind. But, what about bad... evil?  “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity.” This rhetorical question came from the lips of Job who was “blameless and upright ... one who feared God and shunned evil.” Adversity and evil in these passages are both translated from the Hebrew ra/raah, which covers the entire spectrum of evil... bad in all its forms. We all know the story, satan makes a deal with God to dump evil on Job’s doorstep. The intent of Job’s remark is crystal clear in the original Hebrew: “Shall we indeed accept only good from God, and shall we not accept also adversity.” “Of course not”! (implied)

God allows satan to perpetrate evil and sets the limits and boundaries of his attacks. Let’s be clear on one vital point: satan is evil, it is his nature to kill, steal, and destroy... he is the source of evil. God is sovereign, absolutely supreme in power, dominion and authority, and in His sovereignty He arbitrates the release of evil... He allows Bad, from the “cursings” of disobedient Israel to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” God allows evil... it doesn’t just happen, He created it for His divine purpose... evil is God’s instrument: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.” Ra/raah is translated “calamity” here demonstrating evil at its worst.

Bad has a sifting effect on people, moving them either closer or further away from God, out of the deception of “lukewarmness.” And for the saints, this sifting is transformational: *Trials and tests prove our faith. *Chastening, rebukes and scourgings, metaphors for degrees of adversity, demonstrate the love of God while mortifying sin and nurturing faith. *Through reaping what we sow we learn dependence on God whose choices for us are always much better than our own. *We are “predestined to be conformed”, formed and molded by adversity, into Christlikeness... releasing His divine nature within. *Bad provides opportunities for God’s Kingdom to invade man’s circumstances with signs, wonders and miracles... manifesting the works of God, which declares His omnipotence... and brings glory to His name. *Satan’s attacks teach us to stand fast -- as Paul’s Spiritual Warfare Thesis admonishes four times -- for the battle is the Lord’s... teaching us sovereignty. God works bad into good... His good, invoking His will... creating good out of bad in accordance with His plans and purposes. So... we can and should “count it all joy” and “glory” when Bad visits, turning our heart and mind heavenward... which infuriates the enemy, knowing God is in control and transforming what the enemy meant for evil into His good.

God doesn’t deliver us out of our troubles; God delivers us in our troubles.  Our “Overcoming Testimony” is experience based. Our strength is in the strain!  Our “Light Afflictions” bring an eternal weight of glory. Life will leave proof-marks on God’s children: “For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Proof-marks may be physical or psychological... scars of life, testifying to the Lord’s ownership and our faithfulness... forming the backbone of our testimony. God sends the sun and rain, and allows the hailstorms, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, and tsunamis of life to fall on the evil and on the good, the just and on the unjust alike. For when it comes to Good and Bad in the experiences of life, He is no respecter of persons.                                                                                                                            

THE LORD GIVES...  AND TAKES AWAY...

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD

(Matt. 5:45; Job 2:10, 1:1, 1:12, 2:6; Jn. 10:10; 2 Cor.12:7-10, 11:23-27; Deut. 11:26-28;  Rev. 3:15-16; 1Peter 1:6-7, 4:12-13; Heb. 12:5-7; Gal. 6:7; Rom. 8:29; Jn. 9:3; Eph. 6:11,13,14; Rom. 8:28, 5:3-5; James 2:2-4; Job 1:21; Rev. 12:11; 2 Cor. 4:17; Gal. 6:17)

WILL WE EVER LEARN

Adam and Eve knew exactly what they could do, what they could not do and the consequences if they disobeyed. Ditto Today! Satan denied three virtues of God in his temptation of Adam and Eve: First, he denied the truthfulness of God, “you shall not surely die”, challenging the consequence of disobedience. Adam and Eve died spiritually and their bodies became mortal... God does speak truth. Second, he denied the goodness of God, “your eyes will be opened”, implying God was withholding a positive blessing of knowledge from them. The “may” of our freedom in God is still framed by the “must not” that limits it... as seen today in God’s moral law. Third, he denied the “Otherness” of God, that God alone is self-dependent, depending for Himself on Himself. Satan’s diabolical suggestion was that Adam and Eve could become “Like God”, ignoring the fact that they were already like God in every way God intended. This shot over the bow of God’s sovereignty was aimed at the fundamental way Adam and Eve were unlike God, in their creaturely dependence on Him as His created beings. Adam and Eve’s desire was not to be “Like God” but “God Like”, Self-deification as Self-dependent beings rather than God-dependent created beings. The devil still denies God’s warnings of eternal judgment and the fearful reality of a literal hell. He makes the permitted things, the ample freedom of what God allows His children, to seem boring and unsatisfying, while making the prohibited things, which God in His wisdom does not allow His children, seem attractive and desirable. Then as now satan stirs the fire of proud coveting independence in the heart of gullible man who refuses to acknowledge his continuing dependence on God... attempting in denial to become God Like. Not much has changed...

ONLY GOD HAS “OTHERNESS”

I LOVE YOU FOR...

I love You for the selfless love You demonstrated at Calvary, love that challenges me to love likewise. I love You for the call to “follow Me”, a command of submission into Your Lordship. I love You for the honor of being a co-worker in Your Kingdom, sharing in Your suffering as you produce Your life in me. I love You for allowing me to partake of You... for Your indwelling Spirit who teaches... guides... comforts... and manifests Your life in and through me. I love You for Your patient endurance... for I am so slow to learn and so easily side-tracked by lover’s less wild. I love You for calling me Your friend, though I dare not presume the same... Sir! I love You because You are for me... on my side... in my corner... fighting my battles... for me. I love You for first loving me, planting the seed of Your agape love which grows in me as I behold it. I love You for loving me too much to leave me the way I am, allowing satan’s threshings so You can winnow away the chaff, bringing forth the kernel of Your life in me... bringing forth good out of intended evil... teaching me that real love sometimes hurts... that transforming pain brings eternal glory... teaching me to bow down and kiss the Son. I love You for the blessed hope I have in You, that You have prepared a special place for me, beyond the capacity of my imagination to visualize or the power of man to put into words, that You will come again and take me to Yourself, that where You are, there I may be also.  I love You for the intimate moments we share, for the privilege of sitting at Your nail-scarred feet... listening... looking into Your face... adoring You. May I never regard this privilege casually... may I never neglect it... may I always come humbly... and come often. There really is only one thing truly necessary in life... May I be a person of that one thing... Always!!!

ALL THAT YOU ARE... TO ME

A CONFLICT REMAINS

It is foolish to think coming to Christ, entering into covenant relationship... salvation, will somehow assuage the difficulties of life. Misplaced expectations will disappoint: Our Lord commanded our perfection, spiritual transformation... godliness in thought, word and deed, the way of the Cross is accompanied by adversity. (Matt. 5:48; 1Thess. 3:3) Through regeneration we have embarked on a life-journey through the narrow gate onto the difficult way that leads to eternal life... a conflict remains. We can see this so clearly in Romans 5:1-3: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Justification sheds the oil of joy upon the believer’s heart... rejoicing in hope eternal... but a conflict remains. “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance.” (vs. 3) The Amplified Bible has it, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] Let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.” Paul is not referring here to the “Great Tribulation”, that specific end time event described by Jesus and John and qualified by the adjective “Great”, but normal everyday life... the speed-bumps on The Way... a conflict remains.

Tribulation is from the Greek word “thlipsis”, whose etymology is to crush as in a wine press, variously translated in scripture as trouble, affliction, difficulty, suffering, anguish, tribulation, adversity, in short... pressure, the word the Holy Spirit selected to describe The Way to eternal life, as spoken by our Lord: “Narrow is the gate and “difficult” The Way which leads to life.” Tribulation is the potholes, flat tires, blown engines, crashes, detours, and washed out bridges on the road into eternity with God. Justification ensures trouble, difficulty, adversity, hardship... choose your own word... the bad times of life... the speed bumps on the threshing floor of life that are meant to derail our journey into God, but are turned into God encounters that produce unswerving endurance, mature godly character, and joyful confident hope of eternal salvation. All this and the love of God lavishly poured to overflowing in our hearts by the Holy Spirit... flooding us with the assurance of God’s love for us (verses 4, 5), as God takes what the enemy meant for evil and turns it into good... His good according to His purposes.  Tribulation is the pink slip at work, the bad report from the doctor, the phone call in the middle of the night... the conflict that remains.

Yes, the covenant is ours, with the Cross behind us and eternity with our risen Lord ahead, but we must carry our cross before we wear our crown... we must endure. Justification does not free us from life’s troubles. Our sins were laid on Christ, but His cross was laid on us. We are exempt from the curse of the Law, but not from the chastisement... the scourging of sonship... not from the conforming pressure that produces Christlikeness... not from the trials and tests that purify our faith... not from reaping what we sow... not from the “light affliction” that produces an eternal weight of glory... not from partaking and sharing in the sufferings of Christ... not from the conflict that remains...                                                                                         

“I WILL MAKE THEM MY JEWELS”

STRIKINGLY UNUSUAL SAINTS

Peter, the one-legged apostle, who went about with one foot in his mouth, was instantaneously transformed when tongues of fire settled on his head. He immediately preached his first sermon, without teleprompter or crib-notes, to the multitude drawn to God’s first Spirit Flow-Down Party, followed by a sermon in Solomon’s Portico and an address to the Sanhedrin... all in a matter of days. This explains the use of the Greek present participle, denoting repeated action, in Acts 4:13: “Now when they (continuously) saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled...” A pattern of unexplainable behavior was emerging every time these Jesus Freaks came to town. Side-Bar: The word "Freak" is used here in its current common usage to refer to a person with something strikingly unusual about their behavior, exhibiting a strong obsession with a particular activity. When the rulers, elders, and scribes perceived... grasp and seized upon the fact, that Peter and John were rank bottom-feeders of their social order, with no marketable education or skill sets... literally illiterate and ignorant, they marveled at their bold confident articulate unfettered eloquence of speech...  “And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” The Greek here paints the picture of a divine epiphany: These “spiritual leaders” were astonished without explanation... literally dumbfounded by Peter’s powerful comprehensive fearless presentation of the gospel with accompanying signs and wonders, when it suddenly occurred to them that Peter and John had been with Jesus: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you... and you shall be witnesses...” The “promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4, 5, 8) is supernatural enabling power to witness, to re-present Christ, to a lost and dying world. There is an urgency... a singularity of focus... a compelling determination... an obsession accompanying this promise that is strikingly unusual, producing people of “One Thing.” Now... let’s go see what a little quiet time in the presence of the Lord will do for our “Freakiness”, and then let’s let the Holy Spirit manifest Christ in us... in our home... our neighborhood... our workplace... the Mall... the highways and byways of our life... 24/7... this is our only hope of Glory!

PEOPLE OF “ONE THING”

HAVE BEEN WITH JESUS