Tag: Obey

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.

 

 

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

 

Midnight Halls

March 21, 2016

All night long, I walk the vast halls of worry, that deep circular labyrinth within my mind.

This is my vain, desperate attempt to find a way to prevent more pain.

The thoughts kept at bay during the busyness of daylight, band together against me at midnight.

Each breach of faith brings a surge of hot pain from the belly into my throat to startle me wide awake!

Helplessly, I pray and ask God yet again, to take this years-old heartache away…

But somehow and for some reason I can’t comprehend, He’s left that choice in the hands of another.

I search for hope even though those I love most and want to protect seem doomed to disaster.

Trusting God is the only way to escape anxiety’s trap of despair but I can’t pull trust out of thin air!

Father, what I need most I just don’t have! It just isn’t there! It isn’t in me!

Please Father, give me the security I must have to close my eyes in this dreadful world and sleep.

Let your peace over-ride my lucidity; help me look above and beyond the past-current-future threat…

Keep my dear ones safe, change their tumultuous hearts, don’t take them too far from me…

Hear this mother’s worry-prayer, though it be long, often repeated, and worn out…

Father, carry me by your Spirit’s tranquility and free me from midnight’s halls of worry!

 

 

 

 

 

“Do not go beyond what is written.”

March 11, 2016

1st Corinthians 4 This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.

6 Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. 7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

The Bible is a sure guide to right living for every believer. There is no substitute for God’s personal guidance available to each of us in scripture. A Christian who skips over personal study is a weak, undernourished Christian and finding even a strong, human leader to follow in place of the Bible is only, a form of spiritual fast food that can’t deliver the kind of healthy nutrition every believer needs. Every born-again believer in Christ needs to look to Jesus for themselves and look to God’s Word for themselves in order to become strong in faith and immune to being led astray by the sinful weaknesses that exist in all men and women. Without personal Bible study, there is no way to be able to only, follow others as they follow Christ.

My prayer for the church is that each of us would look to the head, which is Christ, and spend more time reading and studying the Bible. A healthy community is made up of healthy individuals. Each of us must take responsibility for our own spiritual health if we desire a more effective church. No new programs, or changes in worship services, or a revamping of methods can revitalize an ailing church. The church today, has gone far beyond “what is written” and is very diluted as a result. The power to change that lies in each believer’s personal choice to first look to Jesus and then seek His guidance by spending time studying the very Words that Jesus lived. There is no other Way and no other map to follow but the Bible.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

The Door to Joy

March 2, 2016

Near the end of a harshly-cold, long, black night, when the explosion comes and personal worlds come crashing down. Everything known shattered and scattered lying on hard-packed ground. These moments are Death but the victims are left breathing to suffer the carnage. Wait for the morning light! Every ray that glints from each broken shard enlivens an old memory with the sorrow of loss. Grief’s overbearing moment, a debt payable only in defeated tears. A specified time to cry out to God in anger, then remorse, and finally repentance; cover the mournful head with dust and ashes, then submit, face into the wind and be made clean! Everything passes and none are able to hold onto the good or the bad, all things arrive and fade according to their pre-set season. The obedient bend to endure all seasons, the disobedient are broken; but neither achieves personal glory by their chosen effort. It’s not about us, it’s all about Him and all people before God are equal in value. Our individual days rise to fade as our dreams are formed to vanish in the same mist; as our lives blend to form the greater whole. This that we are a part of and have no hope to escape is beyond individual or collective understanding. To be human is have instinctual, conscious knowledge that is divine but hampered because we are carnal. Truth is something we know but can’t fully apprehend. Born to imitate the Creator, we seek to control, to bend, to build, to master, but night shortens our day; and the eternity we reach for remains beyond our grasp. Death descends and we suffer loss, again, and again, and again; until the final night falls…

There is but one way out of the futility called the Human Condition. Only, one Door by which all may enter to find life, hope, and freedom, along with the strength to rise up on weakened legs from the ashes to life overflowing into the eternal. It is open to all in every walk of life, to people of every gender, and every color who are willing to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man. To all who on their sad day of dust and ashes understand that He laid down His life to save them as they then, reach up and grasp the Mighty Hand reaching down to receive faith within that strong clasp. In that broken, dire moment when human wisdom is revealed as lacking, as foolish and all useful knowledge boils down to one Name: Jesus! The power to rise, live again, with a new purpose claimed. Though in this world there will still be Death to face every day ( with losses, suffering, and grief to bear) Jesus is the open Door into eternal life, with lasting purpose set beyond Death’s border. Though everything in this material life is broken, in Christ find seven-fold restoration for all kept by faith. Don’t refuse this gracious offer that costs nothing but the release of human pride. If you are mournful, grieving, and sorry, let it go and enter the Door to joy!

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

 

 

The Source of Genuine, Indestructible Joy

February 22, 2016

My joy isn’t dead, no matter how I feel. Even though everything on my plate is seasoned with pain, Jesus lives! Though the boot-heal of oppression bears down in an attempt to grind me into dust, my hope is un-crushable. Even when my happiness shatters and all those I love move beyond my embrace, love isn’t carnal or mortal. When my body is broken, then passed around as bread and my blood becomes a drink, a sacrifice consumed but unrecognized, Jesus is my validation. He walked this path before me. He set the standard. True sacrifice isn’t made in hopes of personal reward. Though I fall and the weight of this cross I bear is too much for me to lift again to carry, God’s ultimate plan remains. When my eyes are blind with the tears of sorrow and agony causes me to no longer care, a new blast of His breath enters me and by His strength I rise to move forward. Though the sting of sin poisons everything I see and touch by the fulfillment of His Will, not mine, I will press beyond Death’s boundary and reach the ultimate prize. In Jesus I possess indestructible joy which He bought by His obedience and blazed the Way predestined for me to follow. This narrow path I must walk despising all worldly gain. I am nearer now to the finish than I was yesterday. Though in this world I endure suffering and can’t always feel my joy, when I finish this race, my agony will melt away. When my body dies to become ashes and dust, I know Death has no power over my soul. Though this present night is deepening, soon the Son will rise with healing in His wings! When morning comes, my feet will rest on the eternal shore. I will forget the effects of sin’s painful sting and cry no more. Jesus is my eternal joy.

Job 42:1-6 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Testify!

February 16, 2016

Father, touch me with your Spirit!

Stir the stagnant waters of my soul;

Lord, I pray, lift me so far above it!

On Spirit’s wing, transcendent goal;

Help me live beyond mortal limit!

In this life and beyond Death’s toll;

Here, now, in my eternal minute?

Cleanse my lips with a burning coal!

Let my words be blessed benefit,

To all called to the tally of Your roll.

Those the Father called to acquit;

Mercy gratis pays final Death- toll!

By Grace I’ll stand that final audit;

Testifying Jesus! Lover of my soul!