Today I have been reminded of the old Christmas song that says but hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on Earth Goodwill to men. Then rang the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead nor does he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail. With peace on Earth, Goodwill to men.
When you are hated openly for being a Christian on the same sites that promote everything else, from witchcraft to pride parades, you can’t help but wonder. Why just me? I will go out and see these people and they will ve nice to my face but they show their true colors when hidden behind a laptop. The thing is, they hate your light because it shines on their darkness and these people cannot handle that. They are promoting bills that will make public Christianity illegal and instead of being fired for public religous discrimination, they are patted on the back. It is easy to see this and feel hurt and abandoned. But the Bible speaks constantly about not letting yourself get down when you see those who have declared themselves your enemies prosper. If you were a Christian who never felt hate and who never saw cruelty simply due to the fact that you were a Christian, then you wouldn’t be living as a proper Christian. It hurts. It makes us angry. Yet God told us these days would come and these things would happen. He also told us to keep on the Narrow Path and to fight to win the race, to keep the faith, and someday we would see right prevail and wrong fail. Hate maybe strong but God is always stronger. God is not dead and he does not sleep he will save us.
Category: still fighting
Dear Fathers
Dear Fathers.
Recall in the horse and his boy by CS Lewis? All the things that saved Shasta in the end, Aslan (the Jesus figure) says. Those were me.
The cat who protected you from the jackals in the desert by the tombs. The Lion who scared you away from the cliff edge. And the Lion who gave you strength of fear to run the last few miles. And the lion you do not recall, who pushed the boat to shore when you were a baby. That was always me. – Paraphrased
This makes me think of a story of Papa. When I got my first horse at 13 years old, I thought I knew everything. Papa knew an awful lot about horses and was constantly trying to help with him but you know it teenagers are like. In an old video I found of when I first had River and was saddling him, you see me put on all of his tack and then you say papa very quietly step up behind me and tighten the saddle. I never knew that he had done it until I saw the video. We don’t always see the things you do for us dad’s, but we will see it if they ever stop, because we have taken for granted a lot of your protection and your caring. Sometimes we don’t thank you for the times we woke you up a quarter to 1:00 because we had heard a big noise in the house. Sometimes we don’t thank you for taking time out of your meetings to help us figure out how to multiply decimals. Sometimes we don’t thank you for the days off work you took to take our pets to the vet’s appointments. Sometimes we don’t think to thank you for all those Christmases you lifted us up so we could put the star on top of the tree, a spot we could have never reached without your shoulders. Like our fathers quietly and constantly protecting us and caring for us we don’t always notice that God is. He’s always there protecting us guiding us comforting us and we don’t always notice and we don’t always remember to thank him but we should remember to thank him.
God is called our good Father because that who He is. He loves us enough to direct and discipline, but He also loves us enough to protect us at all cost. It takes a strong man to be the imitation of God as Father within the home.
Rise up men, daddy’s of courage, strength and Valor! We need you! And if we haven’t said it yet. We love you, thank you for all you do.
A whale of a time
Jonah 2:4, 7-10 NIV
[4] I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’
[7] “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. [8] “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. [9] But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’ ” [10] And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Okay. I know we all have read Jonah probably several times over. But tonight I read it and learned something new.
Jonah said that he felt God had banished him from his sight because he had run away. He thought he had gone so far that God had actually turned His back on him. Don’t miss this. His answer to that feeling was to pray. He called out to God. Even though he though God had cast him from His sight, Jonah’s answer we to pray. What faith!
Here’s the best part. When Jonah prayed, God answered. He heard Jonah and listened even though it had take a storm and a giant fish to get Jonah to pay attention to Him, as soon as Jonah turned his heart to God, God responded.
It doesn’t matter how far you feel, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. God will listen when you repent. He is not angry with you. Even if you’ve made it so He has to put you into the belly of a whale, God is still with you. He hears you. He loves you. All you have to do is call out to Him.
No turning back part 1
I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. I do not believe that once you say I’ve decided to belong to Jesus you can then just go off and live however you please and when you face God at the bema seat you will be as saved as you were the first day you confessed it. Once you’ve made a choice to follow Jesus your life has to change. We love that whole God loves you where you are statement. And He Does. But he also loves you too much to leave you where you are. If you remain the sinful, worldly person you were when you first accepted Jesus, then you have not truly accepted Jesus because when you accept Him He changes you. We have tried to make God soft and panda like. Rolls with the flow and doesn’t care. But God loves you 💯. He did not die so you could stay the old man. He died so you could be changed.
The stupidest thing I have heard recently was a person who claimed that now that they had accepted Jesus he no longer saw their sin. That now that they had accepted him they could live however they please and the blood of Jesus blinded him to their sin and it was not sin in his eyes anymore. There is nothing more ridiculous on the planet than that. You think Jesus can’t see your sins? You think he doesn’t see what you’re doing? If you give your life to Jesus then you are going to change to live for him. Does that mean we’ll never sin again? No of course not. But it means that like Paul said I beat myself daily. Does that mean that Paul stood there and took a bull whip and flogged himself physically daily? No. It means that daily Paul beat down his sins, he rejected them he prayed against them and he fought them all to serve the savior he had learned how to love. Just because there was blood over the door of the house did not mean that Jesus didn’t know who was in that house. When the spirit of God swept through Egypt and killed off the first born child, he didn’t simply look at the blood on the door and go oh well I don’t know who lives there but there’s the blood on the door so that’s all good. He saw the blood on the door and left the house alone but he knew fully who was inside and what kind of people they were. Jesus forgives our sins. But we have to be repented, we can’t just stand there and go about our lives sinning and go oh well I belong to Jesus now I raised my hand one day in church so I can do whatever I please. Today at my church we’ve had a baptism. And baptism is the public Declaration of a person who does decided to follow Jesus. A person who stands there now and says I wash away my sins I Repent of the person I was and I reject the person I would be without him, and now I will live according to God’s word. Being baptized is kind of like being knighted. You watched the other Knights in their flowing robes and shining, dented armor amd wanted to join them. Now you have gone through part of your training and have been knighted by the King. Now the real work begins.
God always keeps His promises
God always keeps His promises.
Genesis 8:6-12 NIV
[6] After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark [7] and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. [8] Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. [9] But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. [10] He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. [11] When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. [12] He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
I love ravens. I love ravens because of my friend ravens who live in our yard and I love them because of the raven on the ark. No one ever remembers the raven. We all like to smile and think of the dove. The dove is lovely and soft and small. The dove brought back the branch to Noah. Everyone remembers the dove.
But what about the raven? Ravens are big and black and people call them omens of bad luck and accuse them of making terrible screeching. But really, ravens are blue and black and purple. They don’t mean bad or good luck. They make many sounds, some are very beautiful, and they will talk with you if you speak to them. They follow people the like. And as Phallen (my dog) found out, they will chase those they don’t appreciate. Most importantly, a raven was the first bird sent out from the ark. But because it was not time yet, it did not find anything. Due to that, it is forgotten. (Also recalling that the dove took several tries before it found land)
When we have been waiting a really long time for something amazing to happen, something God has promised and it keeps not happening, we lose hope. We eventually give up and move on and leave our dream behind us. We forget the raven. We chase doves that fly around with answers in their beaks and never remember the raven again. Until one day. The raven found nothing to bring back because it wasn’t time. But eventually he too got to fly over green fields and feed on olive trees. God will bring us to shore. If He has promised it, then it will come to pass. We just have to wait on His timing. The dove’s time came sooner than the raven’s, but the raven’s time was on its way. He just had to be patient. So do we.
Trusting God is hard. Especially when all you see around you is water, but His promises are true. And then, a rainbow.
Genesis 9:13, 15-16 NIV
[13] I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
[15] I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. [16] Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
The rainbow has lost it’s meaning in society. But you will often find a rainbow in the church. On a wall in the Sunday school usually. Why? Because the story of Noah is amazing and a favorite for many. More importantly it’s because the rainbow was and is the sign of God’s judgement followed by His grace. He destroyed the earth because of its sin. But He would not destroy it completely because He still had one man who served Him with all His heart. Rainbows in the skies show God’s promises are true.
They always have been.
So when things are dark. Turn on your headlamp and follow Jesus.
When the answers seem impossible, keep marching and blow your horn!
When the water swells around you and the raven is still flying back and forth finding nothing, wait for your ark to hit land.
When you doubt because of the storm, look for the Rainbows because God keeps His promises. Trust Him.
1 Corinthians 6:20 NIV
[20] you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
I have enjoyed many novels that are historical fiction based on the open sea. Many of which cover a big thing back then. Slavery. No, not the kind Martin Luther King was against, on the ocean, depending on where you were from and what station you were in slavery was a thing that didn’t hold to just one race or color, anyone could be a slave. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were grabbed, if you belonged to a poor family who sold you, if you were willing to sell yourself because you had no where to go and no money, and so on. Slavery was just common place. Your value as a slave, your price, depended on a few different things, depending on where you were headed. Good looks helped, a strong build, healthy teeth sometimes, if you had a special talent or skill. The better your quality the higher the price.
Now imagine. There you are standing before the block. The slave master close at hand flexing his powerful shoulders and waiting with a bored look. He was once a slave too, but he bought himself out. Yet, he still had to serve his old masters, so freedom was not his possession. You look down the line cautiously. It’s a scraggly bunch. Some strong and young, some bent, some wounded, some with limps or disabilities. You look up the line. The clever, attractive and healthy slaves were selling fast and to good jobs. The ones that looked like you, they sold for next to nothing and went to the one week jobs, one week because you rarely survived longer than that. It didn’t make a difference to the buyers, your type was cheap, they could always buy more.
Hard hands grab you shoulders and lift you into place as the next to be bid on. You know where you’re going. You know what your worth. Then a soft voice says, “I’ll take that one.” You look up at the hooded figure. A shudder runs through you. What is this feeling? It’s something greater than fear.
The auctioneer pauses, “again? Mr. You should wait until I call a price, you keep on paying too much for these.”
The hood nods. The slave master sighs and lifts you back to the ground and you are shoved into a group.
The next in line is placed on the block, the same soft voice, “I’ll take that one too.”
Finally the head of the outfit steps forward and shouts, “ENOUGH! Let us see some coin before you buy the whole lot with nothing but your own skin. We deal in money here, not delusions!”
The hood nods and the man pulls out a small coin purse. You hold your breath. The purse looks pretty flat to you. You past master takes the one object out of the purse and drops it. He steps back. You strain to see. It’s a gold medallion of some type, there’s an insignia on it, but you can’t make it out. The hood steps forward and unveils his head, you cry out, so do all with you. There stands the King. He steps onto the block and lifts his medallion with his crest upon it. “I purchase them all, including you.” He looks at the slave master, the one who had tried and failed to free himself. The big shoulders shake as he falls to his knees. The owner of the auction and all his people flee. The King touches the slave master’s shoulder, “go, release them all.” The big man jumps to his feet and rushes to free each slave from his or her chains. When he gets to you and takes your bonds in his hands you find that they are shaking, he is crying and smiling, your chains drop as he moves to the next person.
You look at the King and He turns, “you have a question my child?”
Your voice cracks, “Yes your majesty.”
He smiles, “and?”
“Why? Why buy us at all when we were yours to do with as you please?”
“To show you your value, and to set you truly free. I do not rule a land where free will is illegal, due to that people are free, but some choose evil. I have to rectify that evil and to free those captive to it. You are free child. Will you come and serve me in my kingdom?”
“What happens if I say no?”
“Hmm, you will be free to live your life as you choose, but you will he on your own and when the day comes when I take the evil fully from this world and bring my followers to my Kingdom, if you did not choose me, you could not come and would be left behind with all those who will die with this world.”
“It’s my choice?”
“Yes.”
“Then of course I choose you.”
The King smiled. To your shock, many did not go with the King to follow Him that day. They loved belonging to themselves too much to belong to anyone else, even to be taken to the castle as the King’s child.
But you went with Him, and so did the slave master. You went because you were bought with a price beyond your worth, now you would always live to serve the one who set you free.
You were bought with a high price, so serve God with your bodies.
The blood, part 2
Hebrews 9:20-26 NIV
[20] He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” [21] In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. [22] In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. [23] It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. [24] For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. [25] Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. [26] Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[28] so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
I wanted to start with this verse because it sums it all up. It sums up the difference it made to have Jesus come, it sums up the way it effected the church and the way things were done, it sums up the importance of the blood being spilled. Billy Graham once said that people want to avoid the cross because they are offended by the blood. It bothers them. Not just because it shows them their sins, but because blood itself is offensive. So people do away with the blood and gore of the cross and try and make it lovely and reverent, where in fact it was gruesome and vile. The only thing that makes the cross anything but horrible and gross is Jesus’s blood on it. This makes me think of the story of the three trees. The one became a small fishing boat, the other the Manger and the last one became the cross. All had big dreams and goals. All thought their drrams had been destroyed by what they had been carved into. All were proven to be of high value because Jesus was part of them. Two had happy connections to Jesus. One had the worst connection possible, and yet it was the most necessary one out of the three. Jesus’s sacrifice is what makes the cross something to love and strive after. If Jesus had died any other way, the cross wouldn’t matter, it’s because HE died on the cross that it is special and valued and important. We are like the cross. Only through Jesus’s blood on us and His Holy Spirit in us are we special and valued. He values us. We who beat Him and mocked Him and killed Him. Only through Him are we worth anything. He is the final sacrifice. His blood is the only thing pure enough to wash us clean. He changed everything, because we just weren’t getting it. The Law had been put there to help us and guide us but we were missing it. We weren’t able to keep up with it, many ignored it, some had contorted it and we needed an answer, someone to give us more than the rules, someone who would make it so we could be forgiven when we fell short of the rules. We needed Jesus. We still do.
The blood part 1
Hebrews 9:14 NIV
[14] How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
Sacrifice. It’s something we hate as people.
We love it when someone sacrifices for us, but we don’t enjoy doing it for others unless we really love them. Jesus really loves us. We remind ourselves of that over and over and over again. But it’s hard to remember. We talk of God’s love and we seek to feel His heart close to us, but in no time at all we forget all He did for us and why. Because of that sacrifice we are no longer required to give God blood, but now are to give Him our hearts and to serve Him as living sacrifices, this is a privilege even if we don’t see it as one. We get to be clean before God because we are seen through the lense of Jesus’s blood. IF. We have given our lives to Him. Now our sacrifice looks like avoiding sin. Helping others. Obeying God’s laws. Sharing Jesus with others. Gifts to God because He gave us the greatest gift of all through Jesus. How much more than the sacrifices we give to God, will the sacrifice His son Jesus be in His eyes. Our gifts are like a sprinkling of sand in the desert. Yet God still loves our offerings because He loves us. We come to God broken, sinful and some days even insincere, and we lay our dirty, blemished offerings before Him. And He accepts them and loves us. Like a child who brings a sculpture of mud to her mom and the mother smiles and takes and says its beautiful, because she loves the heart of the child who made it. That’s what our offerings to God looks like. And His love of us and His love of what we do for Him makes our mud beautiful.
If our dirty offerings can be seen as beautiful. Imagine how much more so the spotless, blameless, pure sacrifice of Jesus is to God. Beautiful beyond compare. The only truly worthy sacrifice.
Cleanse us Jesus from actions that lead to death, so that we may serve the LIVING God!
Feet part 5
2 Samuel 22:10-11 NIV
[10] He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. [11] He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.
[17] “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. [18] He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.
This is one of my favorite verses. I only used part because it’s a long one. Here in 2 Samuel we here the prophet speaking on God’s vengeance for His people. David also quoted this text, the whole thing. Every. Last. Word. That shows how loved this verse was.
We don’t often think of God as vengeful. He’s the guy who tells us to love right? Right. But He also says that vengeance is His. The world that accepts that God is real has a big portion of it that feels like God is all daisy chains and sunbeams. But He is the one true King. Lord of all. A King is always a warrior if He is to be a good king. Loving and benevolent, yes. But powerful and fierce too.
I love that God mounts the cheribem and rides out against our foes with fire coming from His nostrils. So. Cool! I also wonder if we envision the cheribem wrong. If they can be ridden then the human bodies we put on them is probably not accurate. However, that is a topic for a scolar and we will move on.
We often feel like our enemies will win. We get to a place where we feel like we will always be under the thumb of those who oppose us. Yet that is not true. God comes to our aid wearing dark clouds on His feet and riding powerful angelic creatures. He knows the name of our true enemy and will throw the evil one, someday, into the lake of fire. We not see those who strike us and mock us be struck down, but the evil spirit that causes the behavior of our enemies will be destroyed. God will lift us up in His hand and save us from our enemies! Just hold on and wait to see the dark clouds roll in, the ones God’s feet stand upon. The pain won’t last. The evil won’t last. God will avenge and save us.
He knows
He knows
Those battles you fight. Those problems and pains you go through that you tell no one about. Those needs, fears, desires, fallings, sicknesses, screams in the back of your mind, dark pits that circle, boxes you can’t climb out of, endless nights, days that won’t go away. All of it. Jesus is there. You may tell no one. You may never ask for help or sympathy, but He knows. It’s the moment when you feel you have been fighting alone all night long and you suddenly feel an arm around you. You look and see no one, then you realize, it’s Jesus. Those days when you felt like no one could hear or see you, but He hears and sees you. You feel like you scream alone, but He holds your hand and screams with you until your screaming is done and you feel like you will make it. He will make it so you can make it. You fall, but never hit bottom because He catches you.
No matter what. Jesus is there. In all my circumstances- But God.
Carried in the cross 