Category: Eternity

THEM

April 7, 2016

What can be done about THEM? You know who I mean, those people over there who are so different from us and are messing up everything. If we can just control them somehow, or get rid of them, then things will be so much better. They don’t think right, dress right, or act right. Something has to be done about THEM!

It’s true the world is in great turmoil. Corruption abounds in a culture where evil is embraced as good and people are afraid to say anything contrary to the practice. Money rules and the recent bombshell called the Panama Papers bring home how corrupt that rule is at this present time. The world is very tolerant of evil morality and practice but highly intolerant toward human beings. The cruelty of the Narco culture seems to be permeating everything along with their mass amounts of money that fuel the world economy and line the pockets of powerful leaders. People are afraid and their fear causes them to identify with the aggressor in hopes of achieving personal safety and gaining control over others they perceive as a threat. Tribes are forming and battle lines being drawn in preparation to find a solution to THEM by many diverse groups of people. Increasingly, those solutions are violent.

The fear of OTHER and the tolerance of evil is tearing us apart and we seem to be utterly, confused as to how to stop evil without destroying each other. The stand we have to make is within. Giving into the pressure of political correctness can’t completely silence our conscience. Basic right and wrong doesn’t change and each of us must listen to that inner voice and change our personal actions. THEM is US and none of us is free from sin. None of us can control the evil in another but all of us can do something about our own evil. Ending any confusion about what is good and evil is as easy as reading the Ten Commandments. Let me assure you, they have stood the test of time and their validity isn’t likely to vanish in a generation. The generation that ignores them is certain to vanish but their truth will remain.

Old habits are hard to change but bad habits are changeable. To find remedy from sin requires that one see themselves as a sinner. God’s Law is the mirror that reveals every human being as a sinner. None of us measure up. We all break at least, one of those Laws on a regular basis; most of us break more than one. Only, Jesus lived by those Laws perfectly because God’s Law is spiritual and fallen human beings aren’t spiritual. Without Jesus we have no hope and the purpose of the Law is to show us our need for Jesus. Without Him, we stand condemned as dead to God and doomed to die a second time after final judgment. Jesus is the only one who can save us from the penalty of our sin and faith in Him is the only way to receive the Holy Spirit’s help in learning to uphold God’s Law from a heart that’s been changed.

The one thing I know for sure about THEM is that Jesus loves THEM, just as He loves me. Because He loves me so much that He was willing to die for me and save me from the second death, I am also required to love THEM. That doesn’t mean that I must go out and develop a deep, emotional bond with all people but I am to strive to treat others as I want to be treated. Everyone is part of the human family, a sinner in need of God’s grace, just like me. My love may not change anyone I encounter, or be the impetus that leads them to faith in Christ, but learning to love THEM is sure to change me. This is my only true avenue of exacting positive change in the world.

I know many people are burdened with worry and fear as to the condition of society today. Those concerns are well founded. The problems are complex but the answer is simple and power lies in the hands of the people. We can turn things around by choosing to do what we know inside is right. It won’t be easy but we have a powerful ally in Jesus. “If God is for us who can stand against us?” We have to begin by ceasing to stand against God out of fear of peer pressure. We have to cease from standing against ourselves by refusing to hear our conscience. We have to cease to deny our need for Jesus as the remedy for our personal sins.

Please, consider Jesus. Don’t deny true love and the power to become the man or woman God intends for you to be. Let’s not waste our time trying to straighten out THEM when the enemy we can do something about is within.

 

 

Early Spring Wind

April 5, 2016

The spring wind roars over the ever-grey high desert that waits for just the right amount of warmth and moisture to bloom. By gale forces the desert floor is being swept clean to prepare for a new season of life. As long as there is snow on the mountain peaks there will be wind in the warmer valleys below. This old cycle highlights the relationship between the alpine mountains of Colorado and the high desert plateau of New Mexico. This is early spring in the divide between winter-time- grey and the new green that is beginning to fill the river valleys as life-giving snow-pack in the Rockies begins to melt. The rest of the desert remains subdued until the summer monsoon. All animal life of the Northwest Plateau depends on the strength of the Rocky Mountain winter and the snow-pack that fills the rivers and streams.

I am involved in an old romance with New Mexico sunny days beneath a rapidly changing vault of blue sky. I am still enchanted with rosy sun rises and peachy sunsets. I am blessed to watch the Bald Eagle soar over the river, hear the Night-Hawks speak, and be entertained by the bickering drama of the Magpie. As I write, the deer who allow me to share their ancient home-land are just outside my window nibbling on the newly sprouted lilies they believe I planted as tribute to them. They huddle close to the house seeking shelter from the wind, knowing there’s no one here who will harm them. This is home.

I love the Cedar and sage covered hills, the Elm and Cottonwood filled valleys. The ever-changing landscape that undulates from masculine, rugged mesas and cliffs to soft, round mountains and hills that still excite my artistic eye. The utter silence of the desert is the most beautiful sound in the world. Alone in those silent places, it is impossible not to hear God speak. Left with no place to run or hide from self, in the desert one must make peace. This is my Father’s world and in it I’ve been given a place.

Here I am Lord at the foot of your mountains, the source of life giving waters. Here you have hidden me, in the cleft of the Rock, in the midst of a dry thirsty land. Make me ever mindful of your blessings. Help me trust you more, even as the gritty wind roars. As you prepare the desert, prepare my heart for a new season of life.

History

April 5, 2016

While winter still lingers,

In the reminder of icy Rocky Mountain peaks,

White memory fingers,

Warm to melt with acceptance, in truth leaks,

Flow, new life bringers;

Yesterday nourishes today; is dead but speaks!

Into eternity, it lingers!

 

Past hold; pain let go in transformative tweaks;

Learn to value blunders;

Less painful repetitions, useful for future peeks,

As winter again wanders,

In gales of cold death threatening wind shrieks!

Spreading fear as cancers!

Fools forget, to the wise the past forever speaks.

 

The Cost

April 1, 2016

I’m not a perfect Christian and I won’t pretend to be. In fact, there is nothing more anti-Christ in spirit than an exclusive, pretentious Christianity that upholds a false holiness. I sin less often than when I first believed but I still struggle with sin and I will continue in this battle with my sin until I pass from this world. The good news is that after I die, my war with sin will be over and I will enter eternity free from sin. None of this is due to my self efforts but to Jesus who bought forgiveness for my sins by giving His life for mine. Any victory I’ve won in self-control has come by surrender and obedience to God and not by my own strength. Before I knew Jesus, I lived to sin but when Jesus became the center of my life, I died to sin and began to live for Him. Jesus put a new desire in my heart, that of wanting to please God and I am no longer driven only, to satisfy myself. The inner conflict this created isn’t pleasant and each victory over my sin requires a death to self. Jesus died to set me free of the penalty of sin (the second death) and I in return, die to my selfish desire daily, in order to live for Him. When I falter and give in to my old ways, He forgives me, heals me, and sends me back into battle. Nothing about this process is appealing to a world driven toward achieving temporal perfection. I’m not a good Jesus sales-person for those seeking to package a more modern Jesus who promises to give people all that their hearts desire in the here and now. Serving the Jesus I know and love, the Jesus of the Bible, comes at a cost and delayed gratification in the world to come is the prize for which I contend.

I regret no sin habit I’ve left behind for Jesus. I’m more than grateful to be free of the drugs I used as a young person. I don’t miss cigarettes or alcohol. I am eternally thankful for all the dysfunctional behaviors God has helped me correct and the inner healing that only the Bible can give. I’m happy that I learned to live within my means, remain faithful to my husband, and live a quiet life. Trading my sin for values that work is the greatest blessing of my life but I know all these blessings will pale in comparison to living in a world free from sin. The thought of my complete transformation into the likeness of Christ is more than my mind can fully comprehend but I do love to try to envision it. The amazing thing is that the more I die to myself the closer I come to being the woman God originally, designed me to be. With each wrong-headed desire I give up, I find greater happiness and increased joy.

I know these words I write seem a bit crazy to those from a Darwinist, secular viewpoint but I’m old enough now that I don’t care about speaking anything but that which I’ve come to know as true. There is no hope in this secular culture, not even for those who are among the fittest. Our world seems to be becoming crueler each day and the most repugnant cruelties are hidden beneath a veneer of politically correct words and outright fear. Children suffer the most in this world because they are the weakest among us. They are murdered in the womb as a means of birth control much more often than to save a mother’s life but abortion is the sanitizing term applied no matter the reason. The more powerful mother has all legal protection and the weaker child has none. Children are abused by parents and bought and sold for sexual pleasure at alarming rates but little of it is even reported. Old people are next in line for abuse in this culture, where equality must be earned. The ageing must remain young for as long as possible to retain viability. Women must become more like men, men have to be more in touch with their feminine side, and children must be more adult-like in a world where equality is gauged in equal outcomes. The more the world tries to make everyone the same the more heartless and dysfunctional it becomes. Everyone is trying to earn status as one of the elite fittest but the reality is all are victims of inequality and abuse. I see insanity in the world and find sanity in Jesus. God loves all of His children despite their sin and all have equal value in Jesus no matter how diverse or lacking in power. Human life matters in God’s economy but in the world, human life is valued less every day.

Accepting Christ into my heart and making Him the Lord of my life was the most important decision I ever made. My faith isn’t magic. Faith is better than magic because it is based upon divine truth and not any sleight of hand. When I opened my mind in belief and Jesus entered, I became a spiritual person, a new creature in Christ. I received new life and a new beginning. My attitude changed and I found the guidance I needed in the Bible to transform my lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy. I received the strength needed to correct my dysfunctional behaviors and world view. Jesus turned my upside down world right side up. Without Him, I would die in my sin and carry that sin with me into eternity. I would never know anything but cruelty. Because of Jesus I know the unconditional love of my Heavenly Father even though I presently, remain in a cruel world. I will not die in my sin. I will die once and be free from sin to live eternally in Christ. What I have received from Jesus is available to all. My hope and prayer for anyone, who reads this testimony and is tired of their sin, will open their hearts in faith to receive Jesus and His gift of eternal life. He doesn’t promise to make you rich, famous, or powerful but He will give you a new desire for God that leads to a future free from your sin.

John 12: 23-26

 

My Consequence and My Pardon

March 23, 2016

I am a sinner saved by grace and in this present world, I will never be anything else. That doesn’t mean that the grace I’ve received is a cloak for evil. My profession of faith isn’t a ticket to sin without punishment. What I do avoid by my acceptance of Christ is what the Bible describes as the “second death”. I believe in Judgment Day and on that Day the pardon I’ve received through faith in Jesus will keep me safe from the final death of spirit and soul that I and all human beings deserve. Jesus didn’t die to make me a moral person. Jesus died to give me and anyone else who will accept it, eternal life. Jesus died in order to reunite God and man. Faith in Jesus isn’t a matter of morality. It is a matter of life or death. However, I am changed by having Jesus at the center of my life and my desire to sin is diminished by my greater desire to please God. The gift of eternal life is a morally transforming gift.

As a sinner saved by grace, I still suffer the consequences when I sin. Those consequences are natural and inescapable. No one is able to break God’s Law and avoid what those wrong actions create even if they escape human punishment. I have been sick for the better part of forty years now, due to a serious sin I committed against myself as a teenager. I have changed my life since then and there are those who love me and think that God is being very unfair toward me in allowing me to suffer for a mistake I made as a child. I know that if God hadn’t intervened in my life, I never would have been able to change my life, and I would most likely be dead, forever separated from God. My illness is simply the natural consequence attached to my sin and part of my cross to bear. Others doubt my faith or think I suffer needlessly because my faith is weak but my faith doesn’t come from me. It too is a gift from God and the consequences I endure prove the durability of my precious gift. Without Christ, I would be a physically broken bitter old woman. With Christ, I am a physically broken joyful old woman. All that should have embittered me has taught me empathy and opened many doors into the lives of others that enable me to share God’s love and comfort with my fellow, suffering sinners. The consequence of my foolish actions keeps me humble and in a position that allows God to work through me more effectively. I endure because I know ultimately, my healing is coming. Because Jesus died for me, I will physically die only once, and I will rise again to live with Him in a better world.

As a sinner saved by grace, I also suffer as a result of the sins of others. In fact, some of those sins are what drove me, as a child, to use drugs. However, I am still accountable for my actions as those who hurt me are accountable for theirs. The sin I committed against myself hurt me, hurt the people who loved me, hurt the people who love me now, and most of all hurt my Heavenly Father. My sin put Jesus on the cross and His physical sacrifice made it possible for me to be granted forgiveness from God. In the same way, I a sinner must forgive those who sinned against me. That doesn’t mean they will accept my forgiveness by taking responsibility for their actions. I can’t do their part of restoring our relationship. I can’t force what even God doesn’t force upon others. It does mean that I pardon them just as in Christ I am pardoned. I am unable to do this on my own but because Jesus lives in me by faith, the Holy Spirit enables me to do what is humanly impossible.

This is what the cross means personally, to me. I know it sounds very foolish to most but that is the power and the ultimate wisdom of the cross of Christ. True foolishness is to reject the free gift of eternal life by denying the price Jesus paid to obtain it and then offer it freely to all who will believe. True foolishness is to deny the fallen state of mankind and our need for God. We can never be Him and will only die trying. My prayer during this time of year when the world considers the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is that eyes and hearts will be opened to realize the need for salvation found only, at the foot of the cross of Christ. Please, accept your pardon today.

 

 

Eternal Spring

March 22, 2016

I wonder if I will ever be too old to notice the first day of spring…

The first glint of butterfly wing or the special song new birds sing.

Carpets of purple verbena woven with soft grass for hungry deer,

Wonder of long gently warm days; far removed from winter fear.

This season that comes as promised by the power of resurrection!

Experience of nature bending all thoughts to a spiritual reflection…

It’s no coincidence that Jesus died to rise again giving me new life!

This sermon nature preaches each spring cuts my heart like a knife!

By His wounds I am healed, daily revived by His resurrection power!

He bled for me, died for me, lives for me and reminds with a flower…

That I belong to Him and even though I be dead by His call I will rise!

I am merely a form moved by His Spirit eternal without any demise…

Though I crumble my soul is kept in Memory until new eternal spring!

 

Turn Back

March 9, 2016

I am an old fashioned girl, I guess.

Still a bit new to being an old lady;

I’ve lived long enough to see a few things.

I’ve learned a lot and I know what works,

And what doesn’t.

 

I remember many things that are now, forgotten.

 

I’m still quite taken with chivalry.

A man who offers me his coat when I’m cold,

Opens the car door for me.

He respected me enough to marry me,

Before I gave him a baby.

 

I still like that now discarded word, wholesome.

 

Values that stand the test of time;

Boundaries, manners, appropriate, even etiquette.

Masculine, feminine, equal but different.

Family formed to raise children,

“In the nurture and the admonition of the Lord”

 

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the nation.”

 

A mother’s job is the most important.

Nurturing a stronger nation, shaping its leaders,

Reward more valuable than money:

Respect and families that stay together,

Bound by mother’s unconditional love.

 

“Wait in your room until your father comes home!”

 

The man who puts a roof over your head!

Food in your belly, clothes on your back; honor him!

Accept his strong discipline in healthy fear.

When you grow up be like him!

Work hard, take care of your family.

 

“Fashions come and go but the classics never go out of style.”

 

Yes, I’m old now and time softens the edges.

It wasn’t perfect back then, it wasn’t like Ozy and Harriet!

But everyone knew what was right and wrong.

In our high ideals there was consensus,

Truth was upheld, good wasn’t evil.

 

“When evil is exalted the innocent become prey.”

 

In this new century there is little desire for Truth.

Free morality held in by tight government regulations on everything else.

More government requires more taxes!

Working mothers can no longer rock the cradle.

Corrupt leaders rise; sociopaths, megalomaniacs!

 

God, they say is like me, old fashioned. They’ve removed the old landmarks.

Confusion is rampant and people are angry that America’s promise is gone.

While old ladies like me pray that America will turn back and bless God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple Songs of Truth

March 8, 2016

Play for me! Strum on silvery strings!

Old golden hymns of ancient Truth…

Soul calming song, fly on Dove wings!

Remind me of all eternity’s worth!

Tell me of the miracle only Love brings!

 

Spirit’s joy, lifted by Heaven’s mirth!

Saintly song across the ages still rings…

Encircling all of history’s wide girth!

Jesus the Name a saint eternally sings…

Calling the lost home to a new birth!

 

Soft and low Jesus is calling; faith swings,

Life Door opens! Church of one Faith…

Ancient cloud of witness with us sings!

Healing words approving His Truth;

Faith transcends, Jesus in all age’s rings!

 

So strum and sing of Messiah’s birth!

Rock of Ages to you believer still clings…

Glory come down! A Pearl of worth!

Revive us again! Hope in praise springs!

Light the dark! Simple songs of Truth!

 

 

At The Sound!

March 7, 2016

One ear is tuned to hear Heaven…

Another ear is tuned to the ground.

Living souls do hang in the balance!

Eternal Breath in mortality is wound.

Divinity’s spark as light in the mind!

Illuminate hope, wisdom profound!

Either to ignite or be extinguished…

Lost souls all fall! Carnal moribound!

Faith’s seed sprouts, grows…or dies…

Hearts to open or close to the sound,

Of Jesus Name! Who died but lives!

Calls dead, “Rise up from the ground!”

This is the design for all humankind.

Jesus seeks the lost and those found,

Escape second-death into eternal Life!

God’s Breath enlivens earthly bound;

Never be separate from Father again!

Hope for all who are lost to be found!

Breath taken back when worldly ears…

Refuse to hear Jesus! Fail to respond!

Will gnash in pain when Door closes!

Please today, hear! Be Heaven bound!

Two fates for soul hang in the balance!

 

 

The Choice

March 4, 2016

Jesus loves everyone yet, so few ever think to truly love Him in return. Most refuse to believe that such a man existed as the Son of God and the Son of Man. The idea seems impossible so, they downsize Jesus into a form they can relate to and understand. Prophet, teacher, a myth, philosophical allegories are the boxes spiritually blind human beings use as a neat place to categorize and store Jesus. Once packaged and labeled, He is then stuffed in back of a dark closet of the mind. Jesus becomes another file to pull up from memory to be used as self justification or to impress another with personal intellectual prowess. In those who are bitter toward God because they don’t approve of how He governs or are mad because He didn’t acquiesce to their personal requests, Jesus becomes a weapon of ridicule to use against those who name, Jesus and are known as His followers. Jesus Christ is a favorite curse word for those who in their anger of not getting what-they-want-their-way, deny the existence of God even though, their whole angry state of being and every word they speak against God and His Son, defines them. Still, Jesus loves them and views them as equal with all of God’s errant children. Many of the religiously pious also, miss out on recognizing the power of God’s love expressed to the uttermost in Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man. Priding themselves upon adherence to traditions and doctrines, they trade in the power of God for a form of godliness and their pride inhibits the power of God’s love from transforming their lives. Yet, Jesus loves them. Still others live out their lives by instinct, following the desires of their heart that can never fill what every heart hungers for, the filling of divine love. Jesus loves these children too. He gave His life for all of us in obedience to God, His Father and also, to all of God’s errant children, as an expression of pure, sacrificial love. He poured out His blood for the purpose of covering all of our error to give us the opportunity to reconcile with our Father by adoption through Christ that we might become like Jesus, sons of men and sons of God. Though Jesus made this sacrifice centuries ago, it still remains open for an unknown length of time but not forever. This offer is available to everyone because God plays no favorites and above all things: God honors the ability He gave us, to choose. Whatever any of us decide to believe about Jesus, or the place we give Him in our life is our personal, sovereign choice and no matter the consequences, God will not take that power of self away.

Look around you, look behind the present virtual-iron-curtain of delusion, and examine the true state of the world in which you are living. The world offers many things but it doesn’t offer love. It is a hard, cruel place that entices all with exciting, temporary pleasures that generally, come at the personal expense of self and others. The world created by human beings is vicious, a place where one will become either predator or prey, and the struggle to survive over-rides any happiness derived from material gain or personal power. Into such a world everyone of us in born and also in each of us, is a void that hungers for divine love. Instinctually, we know what we hunger for is the very ingredient missing that keeps the societies we build from becoming a paradise. This realization when we allow it and then couple it by looking within to see we are like the community we live in because it is of us and we too lack divine love and are possessed by a dark void. A hole, where love that goes beyond a warm feeling or a fragile, emotional bond is absent, a cavity in the soul that only divine love can completely fill. None of us can give the world what we don’t have and the only, way we can receive the love we hunger for and the world so desperately needs is to allow Jesus to come into our lives and be made complete. This doesn’t mean we will become instantaneously, perfect but when we are reconciled to a right relationship with God, when we are adopted into His family, a spiritual training process begins and though we remain human as the offspring of man, we also become the spiritual children of God. Choosing first to accept God’s divine love by accepting Jesus as the person He describes Himself to be and personally, applying his sacrifice is the first step in learning how to love as Jesus loves. Learning to love Him back is the process of living for Christ rather than for self and then, choosing to love others with the same kind of divine love we receive from Jesus in hopes that others who are hungering for love will also, invite Jesus into their lives.

I see turmoil increasing in the world around me and the specter of it causes even this old believer to sometimes, feel threatened. It seems darkness is descending and many are actually, calling for that descent. Angry ears are deaf to love but the night enveloping the world is the void that exists in every fallen human being; a gaping black hole that only divine love can fill. Jesus is the embodiment of divine love. None of us have the power to change or fix the world but each of us retains the power of personal choice. Jesus is the answer and He satisfies our great lack, one hungry heart at a time. If you are troubled, consumed by the turmoil without and within please, take a second look at Jesus. Read the Bible and consider who He says Himself to be and use the power God gave you to be saved from the gaping need within that only, Christ can fill. In a world that seems bent on self-destruction, choose Jesus; receive true love and eternal life.