Press On

It seems that we are our biggest obstacles to experiencing the "new life" in Christ. I take great comfort that the All Powerful and All Mighty God who spoke the universe into existence, will certainly conquer any obstacle that may reside in us. He who has begun this work in us, will complete it until the coming of His Beloved Son, in whom we are accepted, sealed and kept. Then the life of Christ, who has made His abode within us will break through all the darkness and like the dawn, arise in our hearts.  We've been conditioned to interpret reality with our 5 senses, and these have been the masters over our lives. But then, we who were blind, suddenly see.  We recognize the truth, as the Spirit of the Living God quickens our soul imparting His life, and then we go through that painstaking process of "renewing our minds".

Thank God for the Word of God.  This is the tool that the Spirit uses to retrain our brain.  We read it, we correct our thinking, and the Lord Himself brings it to fruition.  He has given us eyes to see, a heart to perceive, and a discerning Spirit as we bring all matters to the sifting enlightment of the Holy Spirit.  What a glorious experience when the truth of God's Word, breaks into our daily lives and we see a glimpse of the Creator as He passes by.  Oh for a pure heart to see God! I thank God for His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, who reveals the Father to us.  We may see in part, but each day a greater opportunity to know Him more. Let us repent and set aside all sin, all transgressions and endeavor to walk uprightly.  If we do not hunger and thirst for righteousness, let us ask the good Lord to give us that hunger and thirst.  Be sure that He desires that we come to the truth. He desires that we be transformed.  We need not come to him ashamed of our lack, but only as a child confessing that lack.  He does not stir the heart with need, unless it is His intention to fill it. Whatever our struggles, give it to Him.  He is faithful in all His dealings with us. 

Discouragement is of the devil.  We dare not give into it even for a minute.  We all must stand against discouragement, and recognize it's source.  It is one of the first enemies of Faith and like the foot-soldiers, must be defeated.  Let God arise, His enemies be scattered. Find that scripture that speaks to the problem, and claim it for your own.  If there is anything the Lord brings to mind that He would like for you to forsake, be obedient.  We must first examine ourselves, lest we become disqualified as a rebellious child who refuses to be chastised. He is faithful and just to forgive us of any sin that we have repented of and confessed.  The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ was an enormous price to pay for our sins, and more than enough to cover any that we may have committed and repented of.  We don't have the kind of time to play games with God. Trust and obey...that is as an obedient child coming to a loving Father who enjoys providing for His children.

  We haven't all had the experience of a loving parent and so it may seem foreign, but the Lord will even heal those injured places.  He is near the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.  Let us go to God with our wounds, and find our healing in Christ.  As Christians, we are in a foreign land and have many spiritual enemies...but we are not left as orphans.  We must trust Him, obey Him, and study to show ourselves approved to rightly divide the Word of God.  We are living in perilous times, but Jesus Christ Himself saw the travail of His soul, and was satisfied.  He will have a Bride to return to, and it is His intention that we be among those who overcome.  He Who promised, is faithful.

Secret Faults and Presumptuous Sins

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me of secret faults. Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins. Let these not have dominion over me, then I shall be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression (Ps.19:12-13) 

Secret faults, or “hidden” faults are only hidden to ourselves. These are the matters that are more of a “heart” nature, rather than outward deeds.  These secret faults are so ingrained in our corrupted nature that they lay hidden from our eyes, “our perceptions”, and continue unnoticed for years.  Though they may be hidden, they are influencing us and our perception of ourselves and others.  Our ego justifies these hidden qualities and as a result, these faults remain in darkness, deep within us, resisting God and ensnaring us. 

Only God can expose them, and when He does, how grieved we are to discover the depths of corruptions and sin that yet remains unyielded to God.  These faults are most often camouflaged, and we are skillful to keep them hidden.  Who can understand his errors?  Who among us can see so objectively into our hearts to hand select those faults, and tease them out from what has been the better part of our personality?  All that is of the flesh, that is, that which has not yet been circumcised, encrusts our hearts making it impossible to truly love others, nor fully love God. 

If we are honest with ourselves, we find we must admit that we may love others, but only up to a degree that certainly falls far short of God’s standard…putting the needs of others above our own, thinking they are better than ourselves, and can we honestly say we love our enemies?  Those who continually do us harm? 

It is a fruitless to exercise ourselves to love others in our own strength, we will only come so far before realizing we’ve not the stamina to keep it up, and we find our hearts become burdened with resentments and self-preservation for some people exhaust us.  After numerous failures to meet God’s standards, we discover the impossibilities and throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus saying “this is impossible with me, but nothing is impossible with You”.  Jesus the Christ is the Great Physician and He is ever willing to address those places in our hearts that obstruct the flow of His Holy Spirit of love.  Not only this, but to release our hearts from their contracted prison.

No one finds the key to this prison door and the keys to heaven who have not yet put away known sin.  Often we are quite skillful in engaging in sin and justifying ourselves in the process.  So-called “white-lies” violate God’s standards as fully as any other lie.  Our actions borne of desperation testifies of our lack of faith and everything that is not of faith, is sin (Rom.14:23).  Every sin justified by ourselves has not been confessed and repented of and as a result, disqualifies us from the blessings we seek, for we stand at enmity with God whenever we yield to the flesh and sinful behaviors.  Integrity is so vital in our Christian journey.  We must bring everything to the light of God’s judgment and humble ourselves, being ever teachable and yielding to the potter’s hand, lest we be found to be dried up clay, useless to the potter.

We must utterly forsake sin and stop justifying it in ourselves.  Justifying our sinful attitudes and behaviors only damages us and renders us useless to God and leaves us struggling against darkness.  No true Christian should ever feel comfortable in sin that is knowingly indulged, a true born again believer will sense the charge of “hypocrite” and have a sense of dread for his outlook knowing how Jesus felt about hypocrites.

But we have a patient and merciful God who empathizes with our struggles and is ever willing to help us in our walk and sanctification, so if when we sin, having been convicted and then repent in response, confessing our sin to God, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.  Never presume that this is a license to sin, for being a hypocrite puts a person in a whole different class of people.  Let us examine ourselves and invite God to expose to us those sins we have long embraced if we are to be fully surrendered to God.

Citizen of Zion

What ‘ere you were before your birth

Is drowned beneath the sea

‘Tis who you are in Jesus Christ

And who you are is free

‘Tis Christ alone, exalted King

Who reigns with God above

His justice satisfied in Him

Who gave Himself in love

Forget the lies the devil tells

He only seeks to steal

The victory we have in Christ

Who crushed him with His heel

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice

Of Zion it will be said

This righteous soul was born in her

The flesh is reckoned dead

The Fatherless Generation

Among the fatherless and loveless world,  You alone are our hope.  A wasteland of broken hearts and dreamless futures-You alone are the light of Truth.  For such as these, flower petals drift in the wind, and their fragrance unnoticed.  The edge of life cuts deep and scars obliterate what sunlight passes through, O tough exterior and tender longing soul! 

Do you not know the love of God? Ever-present, tender and full of pity? What has become of His first family? Brother murders brother and the heart-retching anguish of mother and father for having lost two sons.  Such self-centered islands battered and eroded over time.  But You, O Lord, are a safe haven in the midst of the storm.  A friend to the friendless, a father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, a comfort in covenant.  You heal the broken hearted and bind up our wounds.

O, Love of God, gather us for we are cast adrift in this heartless world.  But You, Emmanuel, are with us.  You will never leave nor forsake us.  Your steadfast love endures forever.  We were abandoned by mother and father.  Our families’ were ravished and homes destroyed.  Our tender souls found no comfort, yet You were never afar off. 

Healer of our souls, O sweet Lord, speak the Word and we each shall be healed. Our enemy bound the strongman and trampled our homes.  In the gail and stinging hail, You drew us to Yourself.  You spoke these words to our hearts “Though mother and father forsake you, I will never abandon you, I will take you up as My own. I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you. I am the Lord Your God, I have redeemed you and have made you Mine.  See, you are engraved in the palms of My hands.  You are the apple of My eye.

Then joy found a place in the misery.  O Father God, rebuke the adversary, the accuser of the brethren who accuses night and day and shrouds Your children in shame and guilt because of the sense of abandonment and sin.  May the accuser be weighted down with the very cloak he uses to obscure our sight. May the enemy be ashamed who seeks to afflict Your children, may he in proportion bear that same affliction and see that Your heel overshadows his head.

Such taunting godless voices, heaping mire upon Your children.  Have mercy upon us, O God!  The accuser of the brethren plays upon the damage emotions of Your children and plagues them with unrest.  Cast off this enemy once and for all!  Speak peace, speak life, speak joy to our hearts.  Let us know Your warm embrace.  Let us know You, O God of Love.  You have made us accepted in the Beloved, You have done this wonderful thing, no one can snatch us out of Your hand!

The enemy supplants and grieves us saying “it is never enough…you must keep trying…you will never be accepted by God…”. But You, O Lord, bid … “Draw near, My children.  No one ‘earns’ love, this sort of earned idea of love, is not from God.  I Love you, and have chosen you and all the soil of the world is cleansed from you, for in Christ, you have been cleansed and reconciled to Your creator.  I have loved you with and everlasting love.  Even before you were born, before time itself, I have loved you.”

The enemy targets the children of God, for he is envious of their place in His divine Love.  The enemy hates the children of God, yet his hatred cannot overpower God’s love.  In fact, his hatred is like the scorching heat of the sun in drought, driving the roots of the tree ever deeper into God’s love.  As a deer panteth for the water-brooks, so our soul panteth after God Himself. How our soul thirsts for God in this dry and thirsty land!  The lies of the enemy cannot supplant the truth, but drives the thirsty soul to drink from it.  O thirsty soul, hear the Word of Truth and drink its life giving water.

God loves you.  From the beginning He had a plan to rescue you and sent Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem for Himself, a people of whom He would call “My Children”,  “My Chosen”, “My Elect”, “My Redeemed” and the blood of His only begotten Son eternally testifies that we are His, and His alone.  O soul, how true this is that your Father is the creator of all things in heaven, earth, and sea- visible and invisible, and His redemption is eternal.  Your inheritance, soul, is in God.  You are sealed, you are secure in Christ.

Know this, that the love that you could not find in another battered soul, you have found in Christ.  Open the gates and let the King of Glory in, the Lord of Hosts, so that He will make His abode in you.  Not that you have done anything, nor will do anything deserving of such honor, but because of what Jesus Christ has done. Even while we were yet steeped in sin, Jesus Christ laid down His life, and died for the ungodly and then called us individually, by name.

Why do you doubt, O you of little faith?  It is you He is calling.  Step out of the boat, and He will uphold you.  He is calling to you…yes you!  None of that insecurity and shame is from God,  that is a lie designed to keep you from God.  Ignore the accuser, God does.  Your spotless wedding gown is in Christ.  In Him, you are reconciled without having done anything at all, but to have placed your trust in Him.  Leave your life of sin, and have new life in Him.

Social Justice

The latest buzz word of our time is “Social Justice”.  It is a concept that appears to have a noble theme, the idea of taking from the well to do, and giving to those who have little, but in actuality it is born of a desire to create a peasant class and breeds nothing but envy and a sense of entitlement.  It is not “Social Justice” that Jesus speaks of when He tells us to share our bread and clothe the naked, but “Social Mercies”.  Justice implies that what is taken from those who are financially better off, and given to those who are in need, is deserved, simply by the nature of their need, regardless of their circumstances.   It is of interest that those who push social justice on the working class, are themselves extremely wealthy and could with a stroke of a pen, write off most of the world’s poverty simply by giving of their excess without hardly a notice in their standard of living.  But rather than do that, they “guilt” the working class, or in other words,  the middle class, that already is burdened by taxation to cover social entitlement programs, into thinking that they should not keep what they earn, but must give it to those who do not have through even greater taxation. They add burdens without lifting a finger themselves to offset the burdens.

Ironically, what I’ve observed is that those who wait tables for a living, tip others who wait tables better than the rich, and those who work for a living, contribute more to those who have need, than do the rich.  We have already begun to see the emergence of a two class system…the mega- rich and the poor…as the middle class is being stretched beyond measure and burdened beyond what it can bear.  But what is obvious is that our political system is now run by the mega-rich, and none can even run for office, unless they have come from wealth.  There is no consideration among these who spend millions of dollars of our hard earned money to take vacations, to entertain their friends and to give away money to other countries’ governments,  while adding burden upon burden upon the backs of the working Americans. 

It is hypocrisy when I hear politicians chastise the “rich”, when they themselves are wealthy. It is likewise hypocritical that these same politicians invent ways of keeping the poor, dependent upon a system where those who work to earn wages must support those who do not, and the wealthy politicians with their corporate sponsors skim from the top of the treasury bag for their own use, much like what Judas did.  Additionally, God does not receive the glory for their relief, nor does the working class who earned the money, but the politicians themselves.  As a result, they garner the votes from the ever increasing population of poor who have become addicted to receiving something for nothing. It is a self-perpetuating system which eventually enslaves everyone except those in political power.  This is not the Biblical model of caring for the poor among us.

The Bible states: “If a man does not work, neither shall he eat”.  How many able body men are not working simply because they are being rewarded not to? How many able body men are drunkards, and rather than seek deliverance and healing, they have their alcohol addiction labeled a handicap, and collect disability? How many “poor” are there who have an expectation that they should be taken care of by the working class, simply because they exist? How many feel entitled and therefore have absolutely no gratitude for what they do receive?  Few are thanking God, in fact, many of these expect more than they already have been given.  Some believe because of their ancestors’ slavery, certain classes of people, by virtue of their skin color, “owe” them restitution.  They never give a thought to how God uses the evil acts of men for good, as He did with Joseph, who was sold into slavery. He was then later in a position to save the entire nation of Israel from famine.  They also do not regard the historical fact that most every class of people has been enslaved at one time or another, and in fact, slavery is still rampant in this day and age. In their mioptic view of life, they remain ignorant of their sin of envy and presumption, and help further an agenda for the manipulation of the population.  

 No, social justice is not “ just” , it is the seed of envy and entitlement and is divisive of the community. Jesus said “The poor you will always have with you”.  He did not envision a time in this age where everyone lived a utopian existence.  It is not possible as long as there is sin in the world.  Where there is sin, there is selfishness, and lust, and self-centeredness.  Those who are in positions of power, will not surrender it for the sake of equality, and those who are self-centered, care nothing for the poor, but how they can take advantage of them to further their own lust for power.

Social Justice is a tool of the so called elite and the politicians to manipulate others into giving them what they earn.  If they truly cared for the poor, they would not take lavish vacations, throw lavish parties and buy luxurious items from the treasury that is collected from hard working Americans. 

 The Hollywood rich would not spend thousands of dollars to have their eyebrows plucked, or to fly here and there on a private jet, spending obscene amounts of dollars for a pair of shoes or a purse.  They will not suffer the slightest inconvenience, but will happily give a free performance if it means gleaning even more from the hardworking American worker, and give them free publicity.  How much money was gleaned from the pockets of compassionate Americans for the devastation of Haiti, and yet, none of it went to the need of the people of Haiti. They are still living in poverty and rubble. How much food was sent to Myanmar after their calamity, and rotted in the ports because of a corrupt government?  How many have been oppressed by a power intoxicated political body?

We are to put on bowels of “tender mercies”, and to be sensitive to the needs of those around us.  We are to be in prayer for those in the world who have not Jesus Christ as their Savior, so that they are in a position to be blessed of the Lord, so that they may know God personally.  Our work is not one of fixing the world’s injustice, but of pointing the way to Christ, the Great Physician.  Where there are the hungry, we are to feed them. Not through government programs, but through the church.  Where there are the naked, we are to clothe them, not through government programs, but through the various ministries that serve the poor, and in circumstances where we ourselves might be able to personally help.  Not for “justice” sake, but for “mercy” sake. We give, because God gave to us, not because anyone “deserves” it.  If a man should refuse to work, he should also be refused financial assistance so that the resources might supply for the needs of the widow and orphaned.  Sadly, these are the ones most often neglected in government programs, while these are the very ones that God has instructed us to help.

The widowed (and abandoned mother) and orphaned are prevalent in this fatherless generation, and find themselves in a predicament not usually of their own choosing.  We should do all we can to help feed, clothe and house them.  However, the Bible qualified the term “widow” by calling them “widows indeed”….suggesting that if there were family members, that they should show piety at home and supply for their need. God demonstrates that He is interested in our welfare, both for those in need, and for those who have something to give.  He desires that we be free from the bondage of poverty and free from the bondage of self-centeredness and selfishness. Social Justice does not do this. It merely takes and redistributes, so rather than deliverance from bondage, there is further bondage added.  People become enslaved to envy, greed, entitlement, and resentment.  That is the fruit of the “world’s way”.  It is divisive and perpetuates a corrupt system.  It is what has propelled atheistic and demonically inspired communism into power creating a system of the powerful so called elite ruling over the dispensable masses who serve them.  

Only Jesus Christ can save the world. We are to serve one another in reverence to Him and in observance to the Word of God.  Anyone who collects a treasury under a pretense of “Social Justice” extorting for their own agendas, will one day truly understand what “Justice” means when they stand before the only Judge of mankind and are called to give an account for what they have done. Justice without mercy is given to those who have shown no mercy…I would not want to be that person.