A Runner's Blog of Parables

The Rat's Don't Have to Win

2010-03-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. (Ps 18:1-2)

   I have heard it said more than a few times in my life that it is rare for a man to have in his possession during his lifetime more than five or six good friends. Think about it, of the countless thousands that we meet in our lifetimes, only a handful can be truly counted as friends. We live in a time when people are surrounded by a multitude of other people and yet so many remain lonely and feeling alone. There are people everywhere. Faces in every place. Images of great star-studded people blink over screens of all sizes and shapes. Their names are broadcast over the many multifaceted mediums of exchange. Still, in the midst of so much, so many stand alone and aloof from all that goes on around them. Lonely and desolate of heart in need of a true and faithful friend. Though they are ‘apart’ of all these earthly happenings, their heart is distraught and in desperate need of a shoulder to cry on or a sensitive ear.
     One might say or think that this is crazy. How can so much be available to us and yet so many people feel so alone? How could there be over three hundred million Americans and there be a problem in finding or considering someone to be a true friend to confide in. Surely there must be at least one person in the ‘land of the free’ to open your heart to and pour out your soul’s dreams and wishes. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me, sad to say, that it is a rare to find a good friend anymore, let alone someone to even say ‘hi’ to you as you pass them on the sidewalk. The neighborly way of living has seemingly died under the torrential downpour of technological advances of our society. The technologies that were once touted as making our lives easier are now suffocating the things that matter most...an inextricable need to have human contact with one another. The innate need to be with one another. To hear, talk, laugh, play, hug, listen and cry with one another is being obliterated by this technological onset that is taking over most every asset of our lives. It is much easier to sit in front of a glowing blue flow of light coming out of a tube than to communicate with your neighbor or even your wife for that matter. Where at one time in America the best family event of the day was situated around the dinner table, but such are rare events in this our modern, hectic life. Our cars are not like the wagons pulled by oxen of old, but enclosed instruments of multimedia effects. Wrapped in metal, sealed in glass, and consumed by what’s going on inside. Our automobiles seem to be a good natural picture of ourselves! We drive in our enclosed cars, go to our private homes, and step into our multimedia attention garnering gadgets. On any given night, you can drive down the street that you live on and observe nothing but the blue flourescent glow of televison tubes escaping into the darkness of each home. (And they think they are not controlled!) Most every person in America is doing the same thing at the same time! Watching the TV or something like it! With all this, who needs people? With all this, who needs anything outside of themselves? Who needs a preacher? Who needs a Pastor?
   The scripture says that in the last days...’the love of many shall wax cold’. Could it be that all these things help our culture to wax cold against God’s Word? Could it be that the lack of desire to know God has been drowned out by all these ‘things’? The preacher was once the center of the American culture. When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock the first thing they did was bow their knee and thank God for their deliverance. And what was their first building erected? No, it wasn’t a home to shelter their family, but the first building that they raised was a church. When a problem would arise, it was the preacher that they called upon to help them resolve their differences. Hence the laws that remain this day on the books that are almost identical in word to the scriptures came from the counsel of a preacher! Laughed at as archaic today, but were the laws of the land during the colonial days when the preacher was held in high esteem.
   Good is being called evil and evil is being heralded as good! Pleasures are being loved more than God and men’s imaginations are heading toward the flood stage of Noah’s time. Groping in the darkness, people are racing too and fro, frolicking to the tune of fables and the pied pipers of deceit. While the merchants are waxing rich because of her delicacies, the voice of the God called preacher is but a faint echo in the backdrop of the myriad of sounds and visions of a world gone mad. The sad thing is most people really talk as though they have it all together. As though they have it all figured out and are in no need of any understanding. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
     Yet, in the midst of all this tumult and turmoil, the inner man of every person is crying out for a human touch, a shoulder to cry on, or just an ear to hear. In the midst of all we have, we are dying. In the deluge of all these so called freeing technologies, we are dying of loneliness and despair. We are losing the rat race and no matter what we do within ourselves or no matter how many new technological advances we purchase with our money, we seem to fall further behind. The rat’s are winning. While our families suffer, our relationships suffer, our homes begin to fall into shambles, and the world collapses around us...few stop to hear the still small voice of God. The cry of one in the wilderness of hurt and despair. Looking for an ear to hear and a heart to prepare. “Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and wonderful works!”
   You see, the rats don’t have to win and in the end the race is not given...to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Eccl 9:11) There is a way out of the race of the rats and God gives all men a chance and day of visitation to step out from the helter-skelter entangling’s this world’s affairs. He told the Laodicean church what to do...I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. (Rev 3:14-22)
   There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother! There is a God who can and will personally see you through the race...BUT who will let Him!

The Outside In Upside Down Gospel

2010-03-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

From the beginning of our nation’s existence, men of God stood upon the belief that they came to this New World to be a model for the Old World. That God had chosen them to create a new nation in His image...a city on the hill...a beacon of hope to all the inhabitants of the earth. When these men landed on these shores, they did not build their own homes, but they first built a church to praise God to give Him the glory. Even today, though somewhat murky, there is still this great ‘feeling’ that sheds its light abroad to the world that America is the place for the tired, poor, and restless. Here, in America, a man could enjoy the fruit of his labor because true freedom reigned. Somewhere along the way in America’s history there was a turning point. A place of profound change in how we conducted our affairs. This turning point can only be rooted within the spiritual side of our culture. It is people who make up a nation and how those people think, naturally and spiritually, will produce how that nation functions. Somewhere along the line the gospel was turned upside down and inside out. A basic tenet of the gospel was perverted and in this perversion our entire world view has changed and not only has it changed it has been flipped upside down and turned inside out. But what changed? What could have caused such a monumental shift in our cultural mind set?

What once was seemingly a basic understanding of the nature of man has become the exact opposite. Clearly the nature of man, at one time in our country, was deemed to be in a fallen state and in need of a Redeemer. This simplistic understanding of the nature of man was the underlying principle that compelled the colonists to stand up against the greatest nation on earth. This basic understanding of the nature of man was ingeniously grafted into our Constitution as a continual check against human nature. It is possible to even ‘see’ the evidence of this belief if one only takes some time and traverses through a pictorial review of American history. It is easy to see through the myriad of pictures that a certain standard and way of life was upheld. Most denominations at one time understood this elemental point concerning the nature of man. It can easily be observed in the pictures of the times. Women looked like women and at least upheld some form of modesty. A woman not only looked like a lady but acted like one too. Hard working men are pictured in their full clothing. Speedo’s and tank tops are no where to be found. Just where did these values come from? Since this was before the advent of the lamestream media and all the other distractions, there is no doubt (at least in my mind) that such morals were preached from a pulpit. Yes, there was a time where moral convictions were preached from our pulpits. But early in the nineteen hundreds a subtle change began to take place. Many may blame and point their fingers at certain movements that were occurring in America at the time. Such as the feminist movement or the Scopes Monkey Trial, but these events were really only symptomatic of a deeper spiritual illness, which can be traced to the perversion of the gospel.

When the gospel is preached...by this I mean the true gospel. The same gospel the Apostle Paul preached and said men would be accursed if they preach any other. The same gospel that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. If and when it is preached it will first confront the nature of man. The gospel stands flat footed and looks that old adamic nature right in the eyeballs and tells it to REPENT. The first step toward God is rooted in the understanding that this creature is in a fallen state. Yet, somewhere at the turning of the twentieth century the gospel was turned upside down and inside out. It became a popular notion to preach that man was not in despair nor innately evil but within him resides this abundance of goodness and virtue. If we would only fan the flames of man’s heart, nothing but sugar and honey would flow out of his being. No longer was there just one path to God, but now there were a million paths to God and all a man had to do was follow the goodness of his heart. Yes, we are living in a day where we are at the receiving end of the harvest of this gospel perversion. Most denominations don’t preach much against the flesh or the wickedness of man’s heart. How a man can stand in the pulpit and contradict the enormous amount of scriptural evidence concerning the nature of man is beyond me. When looking up the word ‘heart’ in the concordance it comes up 830 times! And that is just the one word, heart and not any of the words that may be connected to the heart. Most every book in the Bible has a scriptural reference concerning the heart of man. Where men like to cloud issues and create their own gospel, God does not mince words when he speaks.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart , I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (Jer 17:9-10)

What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? (Job 15:14-16)

He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. (Prov 28:26)

This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. (Eccl 9:3)

And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me: (Jer 16:12)

Most want to refuse the authority of God’s Word because it gets right down to the nitty gritty. God’s Word is quick and powerful, cutting straight to the bone, discerning the thoughts and intents of a person’s heart. No wonder people hate the name JESUS. Where the law left room for the flesh to find it’s own glory and the outter man to shine, JESUS narrowed everything down to it’s originator and that was man’s wicked heart! And he said (JESUS SAID THIS), That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. (Mark 7:20-23)

A gospel that does not confront the wickedness of man’s heart is not a gospel at all. A gospel that preaches the goodness of man’s heart (whether that be literally or by omission) is a gospel that has been flipped upside down. A gospel that does not deal with the issues of the heart is a very shallow gospel and has been turned inside out. Focusing on the outer man rather the inner man is not really a gospel at all.

No wonder our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ compared the last days to the days of Noah! When man’s heart is set on a course to fulfill itself then the fruit of such pursuit will not be good. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen 6:5) Today, in these perilous times it almost seems impossible to reach this lover of pleasures generation. It is a generation that is founded upon the fruit of a shallow gospel. It is a generation that claims victim hood rather than responsibility. Far be it from us that the problem resides in us, it must have been someone else's fault. The mantra of this victim mentality is even found in the claim ‘The devil made me do it!” It is far easier to blame someone or something outside of ourselves then to be completely honest with ourselves. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.(James 1:14-15) Though some would like to blame the devil and his imps for their troubles, the Apostle Paul took full responsibility...Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1 Cor 9:24-27) Blame some flying demon in the air if you want to, but Paul said he wasn’t fighting or beating at the air but he kept his body, with all it’s appetites and lusts, and brought it under subjection to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today, I thank God for men of God who are not afraid to preach the true gospel that was once delivered to the saints. The same gospel that pricked their hearts of men on the day of Pentecost is still the same today and if rightly divided by a God called man, it is still able to pull you out of these perilous times and any of the heart’s devices.

A Dirty Four Letter Word

2010-03-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile." - Roger Staubach

America seems to be losing something that was once instilled into its cultural mindset during its colonial beginnings. Birthed out of her rugged beginning, America came into being through nothing but hard work. The idea of 'take from the haves and give to the have nots' was first repudiated over 400 years ago in the English settlement of Jamestown. The first year of Jamestown revealed the repercussions of living under the guise of a 'community store house'. Half the men were of the gentry class and did not or would not work. Yet they could receive freely from the common storehouse. The winter of 1607 brought forth the fruit of despair, only 38 out of the original 104 settlers had survived. It wasn't until Captain John Smith 'forced' everyone to work, allowing them to enjoy the fruit of their own labor, did things begin to turn around at Jamestown. American history is littered with stories like these, from the Puritan work ethic to children stories like, 'The Little Engine That Could'. And don't forget the The Tortoise and the Hare and the many Aesop fables and their morals that touted basic principles of 'little by little does the trick.' The American dream was founded upon such rugged individualism and idea if a person worked hard, no matter the social class or place of birth, an individual could rise up and fully enjoy the fruit of his own labor. This idea is easy to observe if you just take out a history book and purvey the litany of pictures that house the image of the American Dream. Men and women, full of blood, sweat, and probably many tears, diligently at work in pursuit of what America offered her...freedom to use your God given gifts and talents to become whatever you desired to become.

Today, the word 'work' is a dirty four letter word. Many people have seemingly lost the understanding, value, and even the advantage of what it means to work. The principle in scripture unequivocally states! "If you don't work, you don't eat!" (2 Thessalonians 3:10) As it has been quoted and said, the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Yet, there seems to be this growing movement within the American mindset to get something for nothing. That somehow someway everyone deserves the benefits that only comes with hard work! This recent generation has been branded with the label as 'The Entitlement Generation'! It seems that corporate America is receiving many college graduates who believe they deserve ALL the entitlements that only come with years of hard work. The twenty-two year old, fresh out of college graduate actually believes he should be given a contract full of the benefits only a fifty to sixty year old achieved after years of sacrifice and labor.

As a teacher, I have also witnessed this in the younger generation. There is a certain attitude that has crept in amongst the youth concerning laboring and work. Many, if not most, seem to want good things but don't see the connection that work has to getting those 'good' things. These youth want jobs, but don't want to work hard on their education. They want nice houses, material possessions, and riches, but they refuse to restrain themselves. They don't see the connection between denying themselves for the moment in order to obtain greater things down the road. They have 'pie in the sky' dreams, but refuse to get their hands and feet grounded in some good old fashion down and dirty work!

And God forbid if you ask someone to 'go the extra mile'. To be asked to do anything outside of one's job description is, as the cliche goes, 'like extracting blood from a turnip'. To many, the extra mile is tantamount to a marathon! Yet, this idea of work and not only working, but working through trials and tribulations used to be the 'bread and butter' of the American psyche. NOTHING could not be achieved if one were to put your mind to it and get too work. Once again, the myriad of inspirational stories of our Founding Fathers, to the early American inventors, are ripe with the wisdom of what a made up mind, backed up with hard work can achieve.

Charles O. Finley said it this way, "Sweat plus sacrifice equals success." There is no way around it, success comes through work and the idea of having to labor toward one's aspirations and goals. Not only does sweat plus sacrifice bring success, but within the bosom of this principle lays those elusive principles of character and self-esteem. The ideas of character and self-esteem are elusive because they can only be captured through that dirty little four letter word called, WORK! It is the continuous effort, doing a little more each day, and going the extra mile that will ultimately produce the fruit you so desire. And there is no pleasure on earth like eating the fruit of one's own labor.

About ten years ago, I began to take up running as a form of exercise. I was gaining weight and saw the beginning stages of what I deem 'furniture disease'. My chest had done fallen down into my drawers! I began to move to do something about the problem. I bought a treadmill only to find it became a very expensive coat and hat rack. And like the fig tree that spoke to Jesus, the treadmill laughed at me. Every time I walked past that treadmill, it taunted me! The point being, the treadmill did not and could not do the work for me! It took about two years before I finally got the revelation. No matter how I sliced and diced it, or how much money I spent, it was still up to me to put my body in action and get to work!

Now, ten years later, I have crossed the 10,000 mile mark. Wow! TEN THOUSAND MILES! That's about fifty pairs of running shoes, and over a million calories of energy burned! Its days of getting up early in the morning when I didn't want to. Its training for weeks on end for a yearly marathon. It was work and most of the time, there wasn't an immediate reward in the effort that I put forth. But its even deeper than just the plain number of 10,000 miles. If someone would have told me ten years ago that not only would I run over 10,000 miles but also run in eight marathons, and finished all eight marathons, I would never have believed it. It is only now, when I look back, I can see the benefits of all my hard work. The fact that I am writing this to you, is a benefit from what I have learned while running. I have learned many things about myself, naturally and spiritually. I have accomplished things I never dreamed I could or would accomplish. I have had the pleasure of taking a nice juicy bite out of the fruit of my labor. "Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you." (William James)

Marvin Phillips said , "The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!" Its time to put the 'umph' back in your dreams. Don't be deceived, as the scripture admonishes us, if we sow sparingly, don't expect to reap bountifully! As Percy H. Johnston said, "It is the height of absurdity to sow little but weeds in the first half of one's lifetime and expect to harvest a valuable crop in the second half." Its time to stop looking for a handout and waiting for 'your ship to come in'! There is no way around it, and that it is WORK! "No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined."(Harry Emerson Fosdick) What are YOU waiting for...??? GET TO WORK!

The Price is Right

2010-03-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

What we obtain too cheap we esteem too little; it is dearness only that gives everything value. - Thomas Paine

Over this past year I have been trying to create a new ministry/business, where I am able to reach out and help others with the knowledge I have learned about health and nutrition. I am a people person. I enjoy being able to help people in any and all areas of life. I have always felt life is not about what I can get, but what I can give, and once the Lord called me out, it became obvious that I wasn't too far off in my thoughts. In the past twenty years or so, I have learned much about life. Health and nutrition have been at the forefront of my learning, of which, I thoroughly enjoy. So toward the end of last year, I launched something I called, 'Abundant Life Coaching' (www.beyondthemoment.org). It is a ministry created to provide help to people in all areas of life. From health to weight problems, from exercising to overcoming depression, the Lord has blessed me over the years with knowledge and information, if learned by others, they would be freed from the strongholds that have them bound. Now I don't claim to know everything, but what I do know, is what I know, can help people get on the right path to victory.

Since starting this ministry, I have struggled with the idea of what to charge for this kind of help. Some say it should be for free and to be honest with you, I sincerely struggle with making or even asking people to pay for these services. Most of the time, I look to the Lord for my help and believe He will touch others to give because they 'see' the value of the information I am able to give them. To help an individual come out of sickness, whether it be a mental stronghold or a dis-ease of body, one would think, would be of high monetary value. But I have learned and continue to learn that this seems to be a two edged sword. It seems, for the most part, if it doesn't cost a person something, then they are less apt to respond to the information given to them. Let me explain. I have found on a continual basis, if I don't charge the client anything, if I don't extract some kind of a cost from them, most of what I say goes unheeded. I can give them hours of my time, exercise plans, books and notes to better health, and if it doesn't cost them anything, within days, they are back to their same old habits and brought back into the captivity of the same old strongholds again.

Adam Smith said, "The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." It is becoming quite clear to me, if it doesn't cost you anything, then you will not value it. To me, the information I give is very valuable. The Lord has blessed me with many great and wonderful experiences of life! After working and putting myself through college, I graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. in Social Science and a secondary teaching degree. I have sat under an anointed preacher for over twenty years learning far more than a psychology class professor could ever offer me in secular knowledge. I was principal and high school teacher of our Christian school for twenty-one years. I have been married for almost nineteen years and been blessed with two wonderful children. It has cost me years of laboring to gain information and insight concerning health and the body. I have spent a lot of money on books, programs, and supplements. I have trained for eight marathons and learned about the benefits of exercise. Its not that people who know me don't respect me, because they do appreciate the information I have gained, but the principle still stands true, if it doesn't cost them anything to gain what I give them, most people will not do anything with the information I give them. The ole cliche holds true...'No pain...no gain!' If there is no pain in the wallet, then there is no value attached to the information. If the information doesn't cost anything, then there seems to be very little motivation to follow through with any of the information provided.

On the contrary, I have witnessed the opposite to hold true. If the client pays a certain amount of money, the value of the information goes up because it is costing them something and if they are spending their money, then they will get the most out of the value they have now attached to the information. No wonder a psychiatrist charges so much per hour and no wonder people give the psychiatrist so much credit for their 'healing'. Could the relationship of the psychiatrist/patient be based on the value or the cost of the counseling session? I have no doubt some of this plays into the dynamics of such a relationship.

I don't think any of you who are reading this article today would argue the fact that the things that are freely given to you, as Thomas Paine said, you esteem of lower value than the things you toiled to gain through hard work and/or purchased with your hard earned money. When I was a youth, my first car was given to me by my parents. Yes, I appreciated it, but there was nothing like the value I placed on the first vehicle I bought for myself. I can remember feeling quite upset the first time I saw a scratch in MY car in a parking lot! Why? Because I was making the payments! It was costing me money to keep that car on the road, and its value was intrinsically connected to any cost I had to pay for that vehicle!

I would perhaps venture into the arena and say this is not just an individual problem in America, but it is an American problem. Our freedoms have not cost us anything. Prosperity, like Israel in the Old Testament, has blinded us from the true cost of our freedoms. Many times Israel stood in a similar place of decision. "And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word." (1 Kings 18:21) "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 1:18-20) George Mason said, "As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this." Now we, as a nation, stand at the crossroads of life and death, or as Patrick Henry, in terms of value, said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" What value is there to life if we are to live as slaves? What value is there to the lives of our children if they are straddled with the economic debt of this generation? Only now, after years of laziness, slothfulness, and ignorance are the American people beginning to wake up!

There is no doubt what you risk truly reveals what you value. The Founding Fathers, when they signed the Declaration of Independence they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Most of those who signed suffered dire consequences, but they esteemed their God given liberties higher than life itself! Thomas Jefferson said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Our slack has cost us our liberties and now we must make up our minds... As the individual deals with the sickness in their own body, and must put a worth or a value on the information I give them. So must our nation put a value on her God given liberties...are they worth it?

A Defining Moment

2010-03-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

I believe there are moments in people’s lives that help define who they are and where they end up going. These moments are not many but few. These moments not only impact a person’s life, but help to shape that person’s life from that point on. Sometimes they are intellectual and sometimes they are physical events that occur in a person’s life. They are sometimes moments of tragedy or sometimes moments of inspiration…glimpses of a better way or insight into a deeper understanding. These moments can propel people to greater heights or send them over the cliff to destruction. When these moments come they don’t last long…they appear for your grasp and if you don’t take advantage of it you may never retrieve it to your mind again. These defining moments are not just restricted to the individual but can also be seen in the a more broader historical sense.

Throughout history one can observe moments in the history of nations that for better or worse defined that nation. Our nation’s defining moment came with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The moment those signers penned their name to that document they were labeled traitors. And though they knew this, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Though I am sure there were many individual moments within that moment, as a nation, it defined who we were and even to this day is woven into our makeup as a culture. To the victor’s of the ‘Civil War’, the Union points to Gettysburg as their defining moment when the tide’s of war changed, yet to the Confederates, the defining point of the war came at the moment that friendly fire took out their great general and leader, Stonewall Jackson. When Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were together the Confederate Army could not be defeated. Therefore, Gettysburg was lost because Lee had to count on generals who could not match the military genius that Jackson had obtained too. American history is littered with such moments…’the day that will live in infamy’ is a quote by FDR that stimulates images of Japanese planes surprise aerial at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The ‘turning point’ in WWII can be found on the beaches of Normandy. Here thousands of U.S. soldiers stormed the beaches in a back breaking assault into the heartland of Nazi control. The ‘war on terror’ will forever have the surreal images of two planes crashing into the World Trade Center Towers as it’s defining moment. Germany is forever riddled with the image of Adolf Hitler and his campaign to conquer the world and create a super human race. The Catholic Church, though not a nation in itself will always be remembered for her leadership of the Inquisition. The blood of the martyr’s voices still testify of her quest to quiet their voices.

Israel had a few defining moments, one of the most obvious was the exodus from Egypt. With God as their head, Israel was moved by defining moments one after another. From the plagues to the Red Sea, these were forever embedded into the mindset the Israelites, which they still cling to in claiming to be special chosen people of God. What about the moment that Jesus stood before the religious order of that day and opens up the scripture of Isaiah, he finds the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:17-21) Wow! What a moment! This was a ‘God’ moment! One of those ‘declaration of independence’ moments, yet too Israel it was the first swing of the axe at the root of the tree.

And what of those individual’s who defining moments not only helped to shape a nation but also define who they were and forever forge their mark on the annals of time. Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” was an act of treason. Napoleon’s Waterloo forever vanquished him to defeat and an ultimate exile outside of his own country. The success of Jamestown owes it’s historical significance to a man by the name of Captain John Smith who abolished the communal system of taking from the haves and giving to the lazy have not’s and establishing the biblical principle of ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat’! And what of George Washington’s amazing survival against all odds as an officer, under General Braddock in the British army. As they marched toward Ft. Duequene they were ambushed by the Indians who knew that their only way to victory to was to kill every officer. Two horses were shot out from under him and four bullet holes were found in his jacket. Fifteen years later an Indian war chief compelled George Washington to meet with him so he could meet the man that God protected. He told Washington of him personally taking seventeen shots at him and finally stopped shooting because he realized he could not kill him. Washington writes not only of this account, but of ninety seven defining moments in his life where the hand of God protected him and directed his path. King David’s life has a few moments that determined his destiny. Samuel stepping past eight of his brothers and asking David’s father if he had any other sons had to have been quite a moment. Imagine the astonished look on David’s eight brother’s faces as Samuel poured the anointing oil over their little brother’s head. An obvious one is in the Valley of Ellah. Here the young God chaser was brought face to face with the giant Phillistine, Goliath. Though Bathsheba comes too mind, David’s defining moment wasn’t really that he sinned, but was truly captured when his sin was revealed. Here is probably a universal defining moment for every inhabitant of the earth. How you respond to a preacher who tells you the truth is an eternal moment that places you at the proverbial fork in the road.

Historically, I could probably go on and on with this list of ‘defining moments’ that have transpired throughout the ages. In part two (next article) we will bring the examination of this idea to a micro level and step into the dynamics of defining moments of the ‘inner man’ in each of us. Though it is easy to look at history or the defining moments of those around us, it is a little more difficult to ’see’ how our own personal experiences have defined who we are and how they have shaped us.

In this day and age some people’s ‘moments’ may take place even before they even take their first breath. With the pollution, toxins, and addictions that have overtaken the land, could it be possible that a child’s life has been shaped in womb? Today there are babies that are born already addicted to the drugs of this world. Though these are no defining moment’s of no choice, just as genetic moments of definition come into play in our lives, these cannot be discounted as superficial or without merit. Though I am unsure nor do I remember anything from my own mother’s womb, I am sure there were a few of those moments that have affected me to this day.

There are not many moments in my life that I can remember before the age of two. Born in New York City in the boroughs of Queen and then moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, my ‘recall’ of any such moments at this age in my life are only from the words of those who are able to tell the stories. Whether they are actually still residing in my mind or just repressed I do not know, but they are there and are still affecting my life right now. Though I don’t remember this moment for myself, in my own life, I know that my parents divorce was a deep and defining moment in my life. Although just a baby, there is no doubt that this separation of my parents helped to define who I was too become and who I am now. Many go through life not realizing how family ‘moments’ like these actually help to define who they are. They search their whole lives looking outside of themselves to solve the broken riddles of their lives when in reality all they need to do is examine their own lineage and upbringing. For me, such a moment occurred when I was five years old…standing in the kitchen hearing that the man my mother was with was not really my father at all, but he was my step dad and the man that was coming to ‘visit’ me the next day was my real father. I remember crying and not really understanding what was going on, but it is obvious to me, the fact that I am writing about right now, over forty years later, tells me that it impacted my life from that point on. To grow up in a home and feel that kind of separation and division within your own family is not only confusing but painful. The mental torment was overwhelming at times…especially when a child is born from the new marriage, which then leaves you (and your brother) out of the family because of the natural bond at the birth of a child.

In these perilous times, those that are born within a broken home live in an inner psychological torment that never leaves them. When your hero’s fail, there’s not too many other faces or places to turn too. Your life revolves around those broken pieces. Some end up living a life of unfruitful frustrations, desperately trying to put the pieces back together again. Full of anger, resentment, and guilt, they try to undo the defining moment’s of those around them, not knowing they are allowing their life to be shaped by other people’s defining moments and not their own. Obviously, no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. All of us influence and are influenced of others, yet some choose to (yes it’s a choice!) to let those around them define who they are and what their lives are all about. These are those truly defining moments. Moments that forever shape your life and mold your being and affections. To me, though easily shrugged off by others, my parent’s divorce affected me deeply and still impacts me now.

Today I can look back and ’see’ it’s shaping affect upon my life. To hang around my friends and hear them call their father’s ’dad’ when I couldn’t go home and do the same affected me. To know that the man that my mother was married to was not my father and my real father was out ’there’ somewhere never left my mind. Now looking back, all of my actions were infused and framed within this moment.

Though my step-father was a decent man and took care of us, there is nothing that compares to the love that one feel’s when you conceive your own child. And this was definitely felt when my sister was born to the new marriage. All love…if any…was to be shown in our family went to her. Back then, as a young boy, I could not understand the connection. But today, now that I have experienced the love that prevails and overcomes your spirit at the birth of your own child, I can now understand the ’whys’ and no longer frustrated. Therefore, a moment in my life that was created by someone else no longer has any more control over my life, because I understand the ’why’. When one is no longer confined behind the bars of ’I am a victim’ prison, then the possibility of true growth can be obtained. We are the choosers of our destiny…these moments come and go…but it’s what we do with them that counts. Stepping stones or stumbling blocks. Victims or victors. Welfare or wealthy. They either weigh you down or stimulate a desire to rise above them.

Today, rather than wallowing in the despair of divorce and it’s impact upon my frail psyche as a child, I can now see the blessing that it brought to me in it’s entirety. From the emotional instability of these broken pieces came a deep desire within me to truly find out ‘what life is all about’. From a young age I began searching. Yes it may have been in all the wrong places, and in all the wrong faces, but there was a yearning in me too know the truth about life and it’s meaning. Though this yearning took me on a far journey, it allowed me opportunity, if you will, to seek things out for myself. The rejection of my upbringing, though rebellious in nature, was a blessing in the long run. For I developed an attitude to seek things out for myself. To question the status quo and look for the deeper answers. The Greek philosophers of old said, “Reality hides behind appearances” and I refused to accept things at face value. It breed within me a desire to know…so I read, I wrote stories, kept a journal, wrote poetry, took philosophy classes, and traveled abroad…in search of these all elusive answers to the truth of life. Instead of being a recluse, too me life was about living each moment as fully as one possibly could…with gusto I would live it and with all I had, and in this, I would find out the truth. When I think about it, this attitude was birthed within me because of that one defining moment that I had no control over.

Now looking back, it is truly a wonder to see how God orchestrates a man’s steps if he is truly seeking an answer. Though, in my mind, I rejected anything that had to do with religion or God, I was seeking Him and I didn’t know it. God’s longsuffering was wrapped in mercy as He waited for the end of my dabbling in the transgressions of this world. Worn out from chasing the empty promises of my carnal senses, God saw me. Though my searching could easily be placed into a category called stupid or absurd, God waited for me. Though I despised those who claimed to know Him and religions that mocked Him, God knew my heart. He knew that the gospel would one day be delivered to my heart by a God called preacher, by a man sent of Him. And once I entered His sanctuary of praise, heard the gospel truth of my salvation, He knew I would not reject it, because my searching’s had brought me to the end of the road. A long road of abrupt stops and painful harvests of wrong choices. But He was always there, drawing me ever so closer to His will, His ways, and His light. Step by step, choice by choice, the ironic thing is the defining moment of a painful divorce ultimately led me to a defining moment at an altar where I met the Master of all moments, and the God of the spirits of all flesh. It was here, at a literal altar of repentance that the God of the universe encamped upon the tables of my heart. As the one hundred and twenty basked in the defining moment of Pentecost, I too, stepped into the eluded questions of my life and fell into the answering embrace of His mercy. Oh what a moment! What a defining moment! Though my soul longed for answers, my rest came when my soul found Him who it had longed for. Oh what a moment! What a eternally defining moment!

The Witness Tree

2010-03-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Recently I was blessed to be up North and had the opportunity to run the trails in the wood’s of Kalkaska, Michigan. I have a few set courses that I run and there is one course that I call the Kalkaska Figure Eight. Well as I came upon the intersecting part of the trails, I looked up and saw this very prominent sign next to a large tree. The area around the tree had been obviously cleared for this ‘special’ sign. As I approached the sign I noticed that the heading made this statement, "The Witness Tree". Below the heading was a paragraph describing what they meant by the heading, "The Witness Tree". Apparently, on September 26, 1850 a large sugar maple tree was planted as a witness and a testimony to future generations. On that day, back in 1850, they had a ceremonial planting commemorating the event. It stood for a past that had long ago disappeared from the face of the earth.

As I read the sign, I thought about those who had gathered around this tree one hundred sixty or so years before me. What must have gone through their mind? They knew that the tree had the potential to live way beyond their years and they would die long before the ‘witness’ may ever become a witness. Yet now, in the middle of this vast acreage of woods, here stood out a huge sign commemorating this ‘Witness Tree’. It had survived 160 years after the ceremony. It’s planters were long gone, but it was still here proclaiming that they had once existed. That there was a people who looked to the future and though they would not be there they wanted the future to be able to take a moment and acknowledge the past. To remember them, their toil, and their labor.

Immediately I thought about God. I thought about the past and I thought about the future. What kind of a ‘Witness Tree’ am I? What does the future hold? I thought of the many times when people who once were in church, whether it be student or adult, and they would come back to church. I am not sure what excites me more; the fact that they have returned or whether I am still here. That I am still a ‘witness tree’ standing in the midst of a crazy world commemorating a planting that took place over twenty years ago. As that tree endured 160 years of seasons, so I have endured a few years of changing seasons. Although the number of seasons are not as high in number, as a human ‘witness tree’, whose year’s of life are not as long as that tree, yet I have remained planted. Who knows what that tree may have endured over the years. Fires, droughts, competition for the light of the sun, pollution, and human encroachment. If one could open up the trunk of that tree and look at the seasonal ring lines, it would be possible to ‘see’ what that tree had to endure over the last 160 years. The amazing thing is I had run that road countless times over the past four or five years and I never knew that there was anything different about that tree. It was crowded out by other trees. It was nothing but a tree standing in the midst of the forest. Funny that I couldn’t see the tree for the forest, isn’t it! Yet, there it was, 160 years later standing as a ‘Witness Tree’. Grown up from a sapling to a full grown adult tree proclaiming victory over the natural course of this world.

In the instant I saw this tree my mind raced both to the past and to the future. From the natural to the spiritual. Life is but a vapor and how quickly it passes by. There in a moment I saw the Lord Jesus Christ. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Rev 3:14) The TRUTH still stands and has withstood the test of time. Seasons come and seasons go, yet God’s word stands true. Though carnality tries to drown the truth out. Though the world seemingly makes the truth look insignificant IT STILL STANDS as a witness against it. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. (Mark 13:31) In the midst of a carnal Roman Empire God birthed a Witness Tree of victory. The ceremony was the day of Pentecost which declares that all who are willing can be a testimony of victory over the past and into the future. Trees of RIGHTEOUSNESS in the midst turmoil and death.

There is something about the past that emboldens me! Although I cannot go back I don’t have to repeat it. There are many in this life who have horrible pasts. Seasons of dismay, hurt, abuse, and pain. Yet to some the pain becomes something they live in, dwell in, and cast a bleak vision of their future in. But there are those who use their past to become springboards of a future witness of victory. It has been said that there are trees who only after the drought become stronger and there are trees who become more susceptible to disease because of the drought. There are trees that need fire, because it is the natural lightening strikes of fire that activate the cone of a pine tree to open up and release the seeds of the future. Oh Lord, help me to endure the fire that my life may release the seeds of victory and eternal life to my family and those around me!

It was the faithful and true witness of Jesus Christ that spawned saplings of victory in the Truth. Paul ran to the guillotine, Peter was crucified upside down, and the rest of the Apostles faced an similar fate! Leaving us a past as a witness to this Truth. Signs pointing to a clear evidence that the Truth existed before us, it still stands today, and it will still be here long after we are gone. Help me Lord Jesus to be that Witness Tree! To stand boldly in the midst of opposing forces proudly proclaiming my heritage and boldly standing as a witness in the present. Enduring the seasonal temptations of the flesh and lifting my hands up high toward the Sun of Righteousness, in faith, that the future will bring all that the Truth is empowered to give us!

The Truth About Freedom

2010-03-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Most of us have heard the often used cliche that ‘Freedom isn’t free’ and it will cost you something if you truly desire to be free. The world quickly looks upon us and immediately categorizes us into a group labeled ‘bondage’. The religions of the world (even many within our own so called Apostolic groups) call us ‘legalists’ because of what they deem as unnecessary constraints or rules to living for God. We are in bondage because we can’t (or won’t) do the things they get to do. We are legalists like the pharisees, they claim, because we live for God by rules (as though there are no rules because Jesus already paid the cost). Although these two accounts are somewhat shallow in depth concerning their ‘views’, in a nutshell, they summarize their vicarious perspective of what they ‘see’.

Over the years while teaching US History and Government classes to my high school students I have tried to pound a certain point home concerning the truth about freedom. It is a saying that most of my students hear over and over and over throughout the school year. It is something our Founding Fathers understood. It is something that generations of Americans understood for many years until just recently. It is a principle that most religions understood until about hundred years ago or so. But somewhere along the way, combined with the dumbing down of the American mind and the advent of a pleasure seeking generation, we lost this basic understanding....There is no such thing as an immoral free man!

I’ll say it again. There is NO such thing as an immoral free man. The more that a person is left to himself and allowed to follow his appetites and lusts, then the more laws have to be passed to make sure his lusts are kept in check. Therefore with the creation of more laws comes the creation of more government agencies to make sure those laws are enforced. The creation of more government agencies means government gets bigger and when government gets bigger the people become oppressed and lose their liberties and freedoms. These things do not happen by accident, but all these things happen because of the immorality in the people. This inability of the people to discern between good and evil leaves them laying in a bed of unbridled passions. The more unbridled their appetites become without restraint, the more oppressed society becomes with an overbearing burdening system of government regulation. Solomon said it this way, "For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged." (Prov 28:2) The way of the transgressor is not only hard for the individual but also for nations who turn their backs on God. George Mason said it this way, "As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this." Sadly enough, usually the punishment involves the gradual growth of an over zealous and burdening government.

I want to try and back up what I am saying here by quoting some of our Founding Fathers, so bear with me here as we step into their world and their mind set at the time of the American Revolution and a few years after:

Noah Webster

"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." [Noah Webster. History. p. 339]

James McHenry– Signer of the Constitution

"Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience."

Jedediah Morse:

"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

Charles Carroll

- signer of the Declaration of Independence
" Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." [Source: To James McHenry on November 4, 1800.]

Thomas Jefferson

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever." (excerpts are inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the nations capital) [Source: Merrill . D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson Writings, (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), Vol. IV, p. 289. From Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.]

Governor Samuel Johnston

"It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans (Muslims), pagans, etc., may be elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high office, [unless] first the people of America lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves. [Elliot’s Debates, Vol. IV, pp 198-199, Governor Samuel Johnston, July 30, 1788 at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention]

Thomas Paine:

" It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author."

" The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal." "The Existence of God--1810"

Benjamin Rush:

"I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism." "By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds." [Letter written (1790’s) in Defense of the Bible in all schools in America]

George Washington

Farewell Address: The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion" ...and later: "...reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..."

James Madison (Federalist No. 51, 8 February 1788)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."

What powerful words and understanding of the necessity of having a nation flowing with moral principles that can only be derived from the Word of God and Christianity. As James Madison said, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary...." but seeing that men are NOT angels and governments are made up of men, there is of a necessity to create checks and balances to check and balance the passions, appetites, and lusts of the men who will obtain any office of political power. The beauty of the Constitution is not that it is so concise and well written, but within it’s make-up is this eternal understanding that permeated through all the minds of the men who wrote the document: It is of a truth that government is made up of men and if left to himself, with no checks on his lusts, he would oppress his fellow man and enslave him. The true beauty of the Constitution is that it incorporates this fact. True freedom can only be derived when human nature is checked and controlled. This is the inherent genius of the Constitution; it was written by our Founders with the intent to maintain a vigilant check upon human nature. John Adams said, "Power must NEVER be trusted without a check." Why? Because when a man gains or acquires power, history shows that in the end, he cannot be trusted to maintain that power or office with purity. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. (Prov 29:2)

The cliche that ‘freedom isn’t free’ is clearly true and in the end, if we truly desire to be free it will cost us something. As a matter of fact, true freedom will cost us our lives. Which, sadly, is a price that many will not or are not willing to pay. We talk a good talk, but our actions do not match our speech. We enjoy great conversations about the Holy Ghost, but discussion of discipline and constraint is kept to low roar, if even discussed at all. The Apostle Paul said it this way, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;" (Phil 3:10) YES! We want to know Him in the power of His resurrection, but we fail to connect these two ingredients. There is no resurrection without a cross. There is no power without stepping into the fellowship of His sufferings. And there is no freedom without a cost.

Most seem to disregard the words of Jesus or let’s just say, they may hear them, but to do them is a whole different story. "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross , and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt 16:24-26) Too many of us are caught up in saving our lives rather than losing our lives for His name’s sake. We find the Word of God too constraining in a world that is so liberal and seemingly ‘free’. We are so apt to shun any preacher that preaches a standard or doctrine that warns about what we put before our eyes and ears. Our images are more important then His image. The image of Jesus on the cross is too painful of an image. In agony He hangs there, looking forlorn, forsaken and all alone, with no one to help Him. We think to ourselves, ‘There is NO WAY that all that blood, guts, and gore will bring freedom!’ We have a hard time seeing beyond the cross. We have difficulty seeing beyond obedience. Our senses create images of eminent death and we buy into the pictures of despair. The voices inside us cry, " I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?" (Gen 25:32) "This is bondage not to have my desires fulfilled! This is crazy that I can’t go here or do that? Who does that preacher think he is telling me what I can or cannot do?" Edmund Burke said, "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."

In our inability to see beyond the cross, we cave and give in to the appetites of the flesh. When I run, going up hill is always a battle but when I go downhill, there is a momentary reprieve and a certain exhilaration. Like the back slider who walks away from the Truth...it’s exciting...but the excitement is just that... fleeting and brief. That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment? (Job 20:5) Momentarily, we ‘feel’ as though we have obtained true freedom, when in essence we have unlocked the proverbial pandora’s box of bondage and enslavement. Soon we are encompassed with chains of darkness and our eyes have been plucked out by our enemies. I am sure that there was a sense of excitement in Lot’s bosom when he walked away from the oversight and rule of Abraham in his life. The ‘well watered plains of Jordon’ looked like real freedom. No more mountainous terrain to deal with. No more answering to his Uncle Abraham. But about thirteen years later, after being vexed day and night, by what he saw and what he heard, the freedom Lot thought he had obtained was really darkness disguised as freedom. A wolf in sheep’s clothing if you will. I don’t really believe in the beginning that Lot thought he would end up offering his virgin daughters to the queers of Sodom, but these are the things that happen when you don’t understand the truth about freedom. Another Founding Father said it this way, "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

The scripture says that ‘a good man’s steps are ordered of the Lord’. A man who follows after God cannot afford to believe that his appetites and lusts are in any way shape or form the pathway to freedom. A man’s whose steps are ordered of the Lord knows that sin always paints a pretty picture. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth , that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2:10-12) This man knows if he gives into his appetites, he might as well put a knife to his throat. Because somewhere down the road, a good man knows he will reap what he has sown. He understands it is a walk by faith and not by sight. His passions and lusts must first be screened by the Word of God and he can not maintain this walk without a preacher. He must have a God called man in his life that will preach what God has sent him to preach. Benjamin Franklin said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" I am glad the the Lamb of God came to contest the vote! While the religious wolves of Jesus’s day divided and conquered Israel for their lunch, there came a well armed Lamb who kicked open the sepulchers of death and deceit. The Strongman came, He conquered, and He showed us the way to true freedom. Today, in the midst of this untoward generation, we still have an opportunity to truly be free. The promise is still being poured out and if you feel bound today, maybe its because you have not yet examined the truth about freedom. Besides, what has that pottage of lentils really gotten you anyway???

The Zone

2010-03-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

There is a place that a runner can get to when he runs. Some have called it the ‘runner’s high’. Others call it ‘the zone’. It is a place where everything seems to mesh together. In this place everything is right and nothing is wrong. The body and the mind meet and become one. They move into a realm of helping each other rather than fighting each other. Everything is in sync and nothing hinders the run. The lungs are breathing easy. The leg muscles pump with vitality, and the heart is beating at a healthy rate. It is a situation where the mind has conquered matter. A place of no pain and a peace pervades the body. It is a habitation where every runner would like to find himself in with every run he makes. Though it does not happen often, a runner looks for that place and welcomes it when and if it arrives. Nothing can hinder or stop your progress. All systems are go. All communication between the matter (body) and the mind are one. It is a powerful and euphoric feeling. When you are in ‘the zone’ it seems as though you can run forever.

Such is the place where I love to get in the Spirit. A place where the flesh is no longer fighting with the Spirit. Where the body is subservient to the will of God. When this happens, and it doesn’t happen often, a peace that passes all understanding is able to envelop me and my walk is not burdened but I enter a zone that leaves this world behind. A habitation of ‘at one ment’ with the Spirit of God. One with the Word. One with the preacher. One with the ministry. No wonder King David said he felt like he could leap over a wall and run through a troop. No wonder when he took six paces and the Spirit overcame him and he danced before the Lord with all his might. How could he not praise Him when he saw the ark was moving and he knew that God was pleased? How could he not dance, shout, and sacrifice when he got a glimpse of the bigger picture? The ark was returning to Jerusalem. The glory of the Lord was ready to return! My God, I get excited just thinking about it! Perfect love casteth out all fear! When you are able to overcome the deceptions of the devil and step into to sync with the moving of God’s will, the anointing overtakes you. Nothing seems impossible. No person can hinder you. You feel like you can and want to run for the Lord forever!

There is one thing for sure. You do not just enter into the zone without working to get there. Though ‘work’ is a terrible four letter word in the new millennium, it is still the only way to get anywhere in life. There is no way around this simple principle. Nothing in life is free! If we are to enjoy the fruit of our labor we must first labor to get the fruit. It is a simple calculation. No labor; no fruit. Paul said if we sow sparingly, we shall only reap sparingly. A farmer would be one weird fella to sow one seed of corn in his field and then be resentful when a whole field of corn does not come to harvest. But if we sow bountifully, then we can expect a bountiful harvest. Pretty simple. If you feel like you lack in God, you must first examine your efforts, because your harvest is only a reflection of your efforts. The reason many people cannot find rest is because there has been no labor to bring forth rest. Sure they are always busy, but not busy in the things that bring forth true rest. He said to labor that ye enter into the rest. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30)

Our culture has made life so easy and labor free that it has impacted the mind set of the masses. This generation expects things that their forefathers worked hard to achieve. This spirit of a welfare society has infiltrated the mind set of our society. Where all this technology was once thought to help set us free, it has actually stolen from us the blessings that come from hard work and labor. Automobiles, telephones, televisions, instant communication, internet, computers, microwaves, etc. have made life so easy that we expect life to work like these gadgets. But life is not so. Nothing of value usually comes easy. There is a saying, give a man a fish and he lives for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for life. I can remember the difference between the time my parents bought me my first car and the time when I bought my own car. There was a big difference between my attitude toward the car that was given to me and the attitude I had toward the car that I worked to make the payments toward. It didn’t bother me as much when I got a ding in the parking lot on the car that was given to me as when the car I was spending my own money (time and labor) to purchase got a ding in it. I wanted to wring the person’s neck who nicked it. Why? Because it meant more to me because I was making the payments. It was the fruit of my labor. I wanted to protect it. Sure you can get a revelation from the Pastor and this is a great possession to have, but there is something different about studying for yourself and in your labor, you get the understanding of a principle for yourself. It’s one thing to watch someone go through a trial, it’s another to labor through your own trial. As you go through the trial you gain from your labor and experiences that no one will ever be able to take away from you. When you get it for yourself, no one can take it away from you!

The gospel is not just a one time event of obedience. It is an on going daily repudiation of this flesh. Death, burial, and resurrection. We always like to discuss the resurrection. How that we shall be like Him upon His return. We imagine how we will have glorified bodies and will no longer be pulled by the appetites of the flesh. The power of the resurrection! Yet, we will never see the resurrection without fellow-shipping in His sufferings. The servant is not greater than his master. If He suffered, we must also likewise suffer. If Jesus put the enmity on the cross we must also put that same enmity on the cross of suffering. I noticed the other day that I had to put the same principles into action in order to reach ‘the zone’ of a runner. The alarm clock went off and the body went to crying and whining. ‘Turn the alarm off. Go back to bed!’, it cried. I had to rebuke it. I had to tell it to shut-up. I had to look beyond the temporal feelings of the flesh. I went down stairs to run and the flesh complained all the way. Yet I still maintained my vision. I had to tell myself that it was for my own good to put this body through some vigorous exercise. It was for my good that I got up early and made this body scream and break a sweat. So here I found myself (of course in the natural) suffering from the labor of exercise. The flesh screamed for the first three miles. Muscles cried out. Aches said bad things to try and get me to stop...then...at around the three mile mark something happened. The aches stopped aching. The cries began to dissipate. The pain and suffering that the body was magnifying seemed to just disappear. I had stepped into ‘the zone’; the ever so elusive ‘runner’s high’. Yes, it was here that I felt like I could have run a hundred miles without stopping. All systems were go. Everything was working as one. The mind and the body were unified as one. Though I was running at a high level, I felt incredibly awesome.

I took a moment of contemplation to remind myself what it took to get to this place. That without the suffering I would have never felt the benefits of ‘the zone’. Without enduring the momentary whims and pain of the flesh, I would have never entered into this place of rest. If I would have listened to the matter of the body, I would have never entered the ‘runner’s place of rest’. As it is in the natural, so it is with the spiritual. We cannot expect to experience the power of the resurrection without enduring sound doctrine that crucifies the flesh. We cannot enter into His rest, if we refuse to pick up our cross. There are times in church that we enter into His rest. The Holy Ghost comes down and sweeps through our service and the pains of the flesh are put in check. It is as though we enter that ‘runner’s high’ in the spirit. Where the body of Christ and the Head of the Body become one (mind over matter) and in this place, a feeling of invincibility overcomes us. A place of peace and rest. But this does not come every service and it is a place that only comes when the body is able to be pushed through it’s carnal circumstances until the benefits of this place can be experienced. We need not lightly esteem it when it comes, but we need to cherish it.

There is one thing I know, I enjoy reaching this place in running so much, that I now have a vision to work toward it. I pray that we as a body can also work toward that similar place in Christ. Where we are laboring together, speaking the same things, and being of one mind. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit so that all of us can enjoy the peace of His rest in our services and also in our services and also in our lives.

When Will We Ever Learn

2010-03-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

When all the waters turned to blood and began to stink with the corruption of death, they turned to the god of Hopi and sacrificed before it’s carved image made with hands and Hopi did not answer. When the land was overrun with frogs and began to stink with the smell of death, they turned to the god of Heka and sacrificed to the carved image of a frog made with hands and Heka did not answer. When out of the dust came the plague of lice, they turned to the earth god, Seb and made sacrifice to it’s carved image made of hands and Seb did not answer. When the land was filled with devouring flies and their crops were destroyed, they turned to an image made with hands and made sacrifice to the god of Khejra and Khejra did not answer. When all the cattle of the field fell ill and the land was filled with a great pestilence, they turned to the god, Apis and made sacrifice to a carved image of a bull hewn with hands and Apis did not answer. When all manner of living things were plagued with boils and blains, they turned their hearts toward the god of Neit and made sacrifice to the image made with hands and Neit did not answer. When hail, fire, rain, and thunder swept across the land, they turned their hearts to the gods of Shu, Iris, and Osiris and made sacrifice to the hewn images of carved rocks made with hands and Shu, Iris, and Osiris did not answer. When a mighty swarm of locust swept across the lands making even the ground invisible to see with the eye, they turned to the carved god of Serajia and made sacrifice to this image hewn with hands and Serajia did not answer. When the sun was blotted out and darkness engulfed the land for three days, they turned to the supreme god of Ra and made sacrifice unto an image hewn with hands, and Ra did not answer. When the agonizing cries of the firstborn began to spread across the land, they turned to the god of the underworld, Apophis and gave sacrifice to a piece of rock hewn with hands and Apophis did not answer. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat . They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. (Ps 115:4-8 KJV)

But somewhere beyond the cries of pain and death, having ears to hear and eyes to see, there sat a people in softened obedience to an Almighty God, eating a lamb under the covering of it’s blood. Patiently awaiting the passing over of a night of terror and looking toward the dawning of a new day. Ye are my witnesses , saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses , saith the LORD, that I am God. Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? (Isa 43:10-13 KJV)

When will we ever learn? When our marriages go astray, we turn to worldly marriage counselors, and we get no answers. When our children turn their hearts toward evil, we talk lectures upon emotional ears too young to understand, and we receive no answer. When New York and Paris flood our closets with their fashions, we turn to the talking pundits of godless media, and we receive no answers. When Hollywood calls and the fads demand we march to the tune of their beat, and we receive no answers. When we burn with lusts we surf with unfettered frenzy the world wide web of deceitful fancies and receive no answers. When anger rests in our bosom, we turn to alcohol and we receive no answers. When the wounds of the past rise up to declare their place in our lives, we turn to drugs (both street and pharmaceutical), and we receive no answers. When our nerves are shot we smoke a cigarette to soothe our tensions, and we receive no answers. When we do wrong we look at others and compare our choices, and we receive no answers.

When will we ever learn? I have heard it said and it is a true saying, that it took forty years to deliver Israel out of Egypt and then it took another forty years to get Egypt out of Israel! There is nothing new under the sun and as it was for them it is for us. Though we have been delivered by an Almighty God, we are yet consumed by the habitual habits of worship to false gods and their demands. When will we learn that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal? There is no intellectual way out of this and there is nothing that we can create ourselves that will be able to deliver us out of the hand of the fowler! There is no literal thing on this earth that we can bow down to and give obeisance and sacrifice to that can render us from the harvest of habits. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? As Naaman walked away in frustration at the simplicity of the message, we too seem to be looking for something outside that will soothe our hurts and pains. There is no doubt that Namaan, a captain of the Syrian Army was inundated with the customs of his culture. He was use to the great ceremonies given to his gods. He was used to the pageantry associated with the sacrifices around his gods. The drum beats, colors, orgies, and the sacrifice of virgins and children to the gods of Syria were elaborate displays of glory to their gods. This was Naaman’s picture he brought with him to the door of the prophet’s house. In his polluted expectation there is no doubt his mind swirled with a vaunted anticipation of what the prophet would do to bring an end to his demise as a leper. Surely, he thought, some great colorful display would take place before his eyes and the prophet would glorify his abilities as a prophet bringing the glory of his God down upon him and heal him of his leprosy. But it was not so and Naaman’s expectation was cut short and in his rage he walked away... but he was still a leper. How many times have we been entangled by our own imaginations and knowledge that exalts itself above the knowledge of God? How many times have we missed the call of God in our lives because of pride? How many times have we missed doing the will of God because of how we felt or what we thought should or should not have happened? How many services are going to go by before we allow ourselves to give God the glory and simply place our will into His hands? How many times are we going to walk away mad at the preacher, mad at a saint, and mad at God? When will we ever learn that God will not allow flesh to have any glory? Ever! That somewhere beyond the clamoring noisome pestilence of the gods of this world and the man made attempts to deliver a needed peace, there is a quiet place to simply eat the lamb under the merciful shelter of it’s blood. And it’s there... there in the faint cries of the first born... there in the meekness of a grateful heart... we can learn and find the true answer.

The Hope of the Weary

2010-03-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Over and over the scripture pulsates through my mind…like a beaconing light from a distant shore…be not weary in well doing…be not weary in well doing…be not weary in well doing…for in due season…in due season…we shall reap if we faint not. Each word springs out like a an individual star shining in a midnight sky. BE not weary in well doing. BE…BE…BE…one of the verbs of being of which there are eight…be, being, been, is, was, were, are, and am…I AM…Jesus said he was THAT I AM…the I AM that spoke from the burning bush and hushed the four hundred year’s of tears of bondage. The I AM that spoke to the Pharisee’s reasoning hearts. The I AM that raised the dead, healed the lame, and opened the blinded eye. The same I AM that promised to be with us always, even unto the end of the world. The great I AM…He is not just an adjective of descriptive phrases, but he is the verb of life and being. A God who is not passive but a God of action and omnipotence, glory, and power.

Be NOT WEARY in well doing. NOT…a negative adverb used to form structures indicating that something is to no degree or in no way the case or conveying the general notion "no." It is often used to express refusal, denial, or the negation of a statement just made. WEARY…tired, especially in having run out of strength, patience, or endurance . Be NOT WEARY in well doing…yes…don’t get tired of doing right. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Don’t lose your patience and allow the flesh to dictate your ways. Don’t be enticed to take the path of least resistance. Eschew evil and run from it. Be not enticed of sinners or deceitful lusts, but hold fast to the Lord. For it is in my patience I am able to possess my soul. The ability to wait upon the Lord and His timing, because the Lord makes EVERYTHING beautiful in HIS TIME. As a marathon runner hits the high’s and low’s in every race, there comes a time when he hits the wall. A place where everything in his body says to quit. All energy in the muscles are zapped cleaned. All nutrients of energy have been depleted, and the fuel gauge is below empty. This is where your vision is your only fuel. It is here where your vision must be tapped into. It is here where you find out what you are really made of and where you really stand. Will the mind overcome the matter or will the matter overcome your mind? Will the body bring your mind under subjection or will you raise up the determination and strength to bring your body under subjection to the will of your mind. Be NOT WEARY in well doing.

Be not weary in WELL DOING. One can get things done just to get them done or they can be accomplished with quality of effort. My wrestling coach used to tell us during practice that a ‘perfect practice makes perfect’. How you practice on the mat is how you will wrestle in a match. You can not be lazy in practice and expect perfection against your opponents. Learn and practice a move wrong in practice, then you will hit the move the same way in a match. Weariness causes laziness and slothful living. Weariness of the mind and spirit can create wrong ways of thinking. But there must be something within you that transcends the momentary feelings of weariness. WELL DOING brings right results. Anyone can be lazy. Anyone can get weary and quit. As a matter of fact, there are not too many people anymore who make it past their moment’s of weariness. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. Using weariness as an excuse not to do your best is an easy mind set to commit your ways too. But to continue to do well when everything is contrary, this is where life hangs in the balance. Here in this balance is that proverbial fork in the road. Give up or go forward. The whole world and many of your peers would give you the sympathetic pat on the back and say that they understand how you could not endure. But can you live with yourself? How many times have you quit too soon? How many times have you allowed the weariness of the moment too beat you down only to find out that your prize was just around the corner? If only you could have held on just a little longer your season would have come.

For in DUE SEASON…in DUE SEASON you shall reap if you faint not. To everything there is a season. A season to laugh and a season to cry. A season of peace and a season of war. Just as the season’s change from summer to fall to winter and back to spring again, so do the season’s of our lives. As we who are now adults have learned that we did not stay young. The season of our youth has long passed and we have traversed through different season’s of our lives. A season of singleness gave way to marriage. From being with no children to having children. Soon, the children will move on and our season will change. Within those season’s we have different trials and temptations, coupled with days in the valley and mountain top victories. Hopefully, with the passing of time, we have learned the law of the seasons. That in every situation of life…whether it be good or bad, in the valley or on the mountain top, rags or riches…it is but a season and it will come to pass. As the cold bleak days of winter give way to the colorful days of spring, rest assured that whatever season your life may be in…it is but a season. There is a harvest and the season will yield it’s fruit when it is rightfully due and then recycle itself again.

You shall REAP if you faint not…REAP…Be not deceived God is not mocked. What ever a man sow’s so shall he also reap. Every seed brings forth it’s own kind. A cherry seed will never produce an apple tree. It is programmed to only produce a cherry tree. I don’t care how much you wish it too be different or how much fertilizer you put on that seed. It will only produce what it was created to produce. When you sow sensual, carnal seeds of lusts upon the ground of your heart, these will NEVER produce good things in your life. How can they? Just as the cherry seed will only produce a cherry tree so it is the same with the thought seeds of our lives. Bad thoughts do not produce good thoughts. It doesn’t matter how much the world says differently. It doesn’t matter how much Hollywood tried to make evil look good and glorifies the life of the party, these seeds will only produce more evil. Here lies the scary part, that when the seed is planted it produces another plant just like itself, but within the makeup of that plant is the genetic code to survive and the only way too do this is too produce and abundance of seeds just like itself. One kernel seed of corn does not produce a cob bearing one seed on it, but it produces a cob with an abundance of seeds. So not only will evil thoughts (seeds) not be able to produce good thoughts, but they will exponentially reproduce themselves.

Herein lies the hope of the weary…be not weary in WELL DOING…it doesn’t matter if all the world is doing evil. It doesn’t matter if all your peers are living a life of drunkenness and debauchery. A day is coming where the seeds of well doing will bring forth a harvest…not of evil but of victory. Victory is the only thing that can spring up because well doing will never bring forth a harvest that is contrary to the seed. Though you may get tired and the plow becomes hard to push. The ground may get brittle at times and it is possible that all the good you seem to be doing looks for naught. Don’t faint. Don’t give up the fight. For in due season YOU shall reap if YOU faint not.

Outside the Box

2010-03-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

King David felt at ease. Everything seemed to be running smoothly. All seemed in good order. All was well, so it appeared. The ark of God was back in Jerusalem, David was reigning in the holy city, and his generals were a well regulated fighting machine in the hands of the king. A break in all the action was well deserved. There is something about the flesh that wants to let up when you’re on the mountain top and this is what King David did. In the time when kings were to go forth to battle, David stayed back and tarried in Jerusalem. Why not? Everything was under control and he was the King. What would be so wrong with taking a little break from all the pressure that a king must endure day in and day out.

Funny how the flesh makes us feel. The mountain top experience can create a false feeling of superiority and invincibility. We become cocooned within it’s entrapment's of security. Soon we are enveloped in a fog and though we see, we really can’t see as clear as we need to see. The fog shrouds us within a veil of dimness causing us to lose our true sense of connectedness to the world around us. Soon, everything we say and do is interpreted through the reality of our foggy vision. Anything outside of the fog is foreign and is immediately rejected because it doesn’t fit within the dimensions of the feelings that are on the inside of that comfort zone of safety. The unknown is a fearful and scary thing to those who live within the box. Inside the box is safety. Outside the box is too unstable and controversial. To step outside the box is nothing but a step in faith. Even more so, it would be at the risk of losing all your ‘friends’ and political connections. To those trapped within it’s enticements the box seems like it is the only thing of value.

Who knows why King David made his original decision to stay back while all the others went forth to battle. Maybe the taunts of his brethren created wounds of anger and pain. Maybe it was the rejection he felt at the hands of his father Jesse who didn’t even recognize him as a son while Samuel looked to anoint another king over Israel. Or maybe, it was just power and position that clouded King David’s decisions. Whatever compelled him to stay back helped to set a course of pain that would haunt King David for the remainder of his days on earth. The harvest of one wrong move brought forth layers of lies and deceit, and when a parable was brought to him by someone outside of the box, King David couldn’t even ‘see’ the parable was directed right at him. I believe one of the reasons King David is remembered and cherished as the greatest King of Israel is because of his response to the man of God who called him out of the box. When Nathan the prophet looked at him and said, ‘Thou art the man!’ Rather than having the prophet killed, King David chose to be purged of his iniquity, step outside of the box, and come clean.

To a great extent, all of us are trapped within a box. All of our feelings, emotions, attitudes, and experiences are housed in this fleshly tabernacle called our bodies. Filled with appetites and lusts, this fleshly box tries desperately to get us to conform to it’s image. Every day it hounds us with perverse thoughts and wrong judgement. It accuses the brethren with evil surmising's. Jealousy, envy, anger, sexual desires struggle within to make their voices heard. There is a war within our members. Factions of forces fighting for control. We know to do right, but sin is always present within us.

The danger of living in this human shell is that we can become snared within so many of its entangling packages. As a matter of fact, like an onion, the layers of boxes that move from larger to smaller, we can also become so imprisoned in the tentacles of emotions that it becomes almost too difficult to perceive the dimension of how lost we really are. Just as we open one box, we look inside to see there is another box, and then another, and then another, until we finally get to this little tiny box within all the layers of boxes. Deep within our bosom lays the initial box that began, years ago, to define us. A wounded heart or a tragedy of life took place. Rather then confronting the wound head on, we submerged ourselves in our pity or pain, leaving us to live in the shadows of our remorse. We try to hide the pain behind an image of stoic behavior and calm confidence, yet the wound never disappears. Like a dagger in our heart, the wound is always opened whenever someone tries to step past our walls of insecurity and secrecy. Rather than opening the box and stepping into transparency and disclosure we put the wound into another box. Soon, the original wound is so layered and enamored with the cares of this life that it almost becomes impossible to remember exactly what it was that wounded us to begin with.

Age can certainly play a role in how you view the world around you. In this world of perversion and pornography, it is far too easy for our youth to get caught in the deceptive web of the world’s sexual entices. It is hard enough to be a young man going through puberty let alone having the sexual exploits of the rich and famous dangling before your eyes on a daily basis. Our young girls are inundated with the slant that the looks of a hooker will bring you a real man. Our homes are in disarray leaving our children wondering what it really means to be a man or a woman anymore. The genders are confused. Men act like prissy women and women act like masculine men. Wounded from broken homes and tormented pasts our youth marry projected images of false selves. Only to find out a few years down the road, the person they really married wasn’t the image they ‘fell’ in love with. Thus repeating the cycle of crash and burn that happened within the last few generations of their family tree. Not only is the generational role of living out of a box repeated but it is also perpetuated into the future as these youth become adults.

A place of position can make people feel safe inside their box of authority. All too soon, many in position forget that it is the Lord who promotes. He sets up and He takes down. Kings and nations are even used in His stead to bring about His perfect will. Yet, the box consumes many and obstructs their vision. Through their impaired vision they think they have arrived, yet when a man thinks he is something he doesn’t even realize how much he is deceiving his own self.

Organization is good, but we must remember that all organizations are made up of people and people are trapped within a veil of fleshly feelings and lust. Whether it be government, religions, or denominations, under the heading of their name, will be a body of people who run and govern them. James Madison said if governments were made up of angels there would have not been any need to have a Constitutional Convention, but since they are made up fleshly men, then it was their plight to enact a written Constitution that would put a check upon the nature of man. History is littered with many organizations that started with a great cause. In the beginning, these organizations started with integrity and vision, but within a generation or two, the vision is lost within a box of fleshly lust and politics. Rather then fighting to uphold the original vision that first brought the organization together, they lost the vision and became trapped within a box of their own making.

George Washington, the ‘Father of Our Country’ vehemently warned of the political ramifications of a two-party system. Two hundred plus years later we are witnessing the ramifications of an ignorance to this warning. Both parties, Republican and Democratic, only see through their ‘box’ of organized politics. Rarely is the Constitution discussed anymore and if the Constitution is discussed it is only discussed in the light of the ‘party’ or if it is at the benefit of the party. When it comes to politics anymore, both parties speak out of their concern for their party ‘box’. Both parties neglect and pervert the Constitution for their own political gain. The box of party politics shrouds their ability to consider the truth anymore let alone stand up for what’s right for this country.

Think of the myriad of denominations that no longer preach a standard or come close to even what they originally preached in their foundational conquests. Just take a quick look at some of history’s pictures of America. Women wore dresses and acted like ladies. Men were fully clothed no matter what kind of work they did. There is no doubt that this ‘modesty’ was preached from behind a pulpit. Early in America’s history, most denominations preached a standard of modesty. But what happened? Lost in the midst of a political cesspool of lust and power, the Truth of God’s Word became second to defending the name of the denomination. Truth is only truth if comes from within the box. Those in the box of denomination remain convinced that only they hold a cornerstone on revelation. To them ‘false doctrine’ is anything outside of the box. Only revelation that comes from within their box can be accepted. Anything outside of their ‘anointing’ is usually crushed with an iron hand.. Anything trying to step through the fog of their denominational scriptural perception is quickly silenced or rejected. Part of the deception that comes from living within the box, is the illusion of the multitudes that comes with it. The multitudes go to the same parties, conferences, and schools. They inter marry and mingle with each other year in and year out. There is so much comfort within the box, that there is no way that anything outside of the box can be of any aide. So all within the box rejoice and flatter each other with great swelling words as they defend themselves from ‘false doctrine’. There is no way they are wrong because the multitudes are on their side. Which again is all apart of the layering deception of living in the box.

It was the Apostle Paul who was on the road to Damascus before his conversion. He had consented to the stoning of Stephen and he was on his way to stone and kill some more of those rowdy rebellious Jesus freaks. He had all the organized religions of his day behind him. I am sure most if not all were rallying in the Saul’s corner and cheering him on as he breathed out his “threatening’s and slaughter” against One God Apostolic’s. The organized religions of his day had the corner on the scripture. They had the traditions. They had the multitudes. They had the years and years of study behind them. They had the great schools of higher learner concerning the scripture. They had so easily taken out the revolutionary by the name of Jesus, so who were these miscreants? It was Saul who had sat down and learned from the greatest teacher’s of the old testament law, including the great Gamaliel. How could he be blind? If anyone understood the law, it had to be Saul of Taursus!

Yet Israel could only perceive the world around them from inside a box. For four hundred years, Israel had not heard from the Lord. Four hundred silent years of no hope and no hearing from anything outside of the box. The harvest was predictable, because God himself told them back in Deuteronomy what would happen if they refused to hear and do His Word. "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee." (Deut 28:15, 28-29)

After those four hundred years of silence, God in His majestic greatness stepped down into this box of flesh to show us the way out of the box. As He likewise took part in flesh and blood, then He was also subjected to the same and at all points tempted like we are. Jesus felt what we felt. When He came amongst His own and His own received Him not, Jesus felt the rejection. The four hundred years of silence had wrapped His people within layers and layers of traditions and flesh. He hurt and wept inside concerning the inability to get His people to ‘see’ outside the box. I believe Jesus stood mute before His captives because He knew it didn’t matter what He would say or could say, they had already made their decision.

In 66 AD, Jude cried out and said that there were certain men who had ‘crept in unawares’. These men were corrupting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul, many times, warned of men who had left his ministry and rebelled against the truth. When these men left the Apostle’s doctrine, they didn’t just walk away, it is more likely (just like it happens today) they went out and started their own church. Today, rather than having to deal with four hundred year’s of silence, we are at the receiving end of close to two thousand years of sowing and reaping since Jude first cried out. This harvest has produced more than 1700 different sects of ‘Christianity’ and all of them are crying out of their boxes...”Here is Christ!” ”Here is Christ!” It is evident there is nothing new under the sun and the nature of man has not changed. If the religions of Jesus’s time were so shrouded in the fog of their traditions and scriptural interpretations...if the chief priest could move the people to release Barabas and crucify the same God they were purportedly studying to receive...how much more is it possible that the voice outside the box could really be ‘Christ’ and not a rebel who needs to be black balled or crucified?

Help us Lord, to have 'ears to hear and eyes to see', outside the wrappings of this fleshly box and the layers of history that have so entwined us! We cannot be deceived into thinking that the safety of remaining inside the box is worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us! We must be able to hear your voice and not follow another! When the Word is preached, we must be ready and willing to be transparent and come clean! Willing to step outside our box of protection and into the substance of His Word! Willing to pursue beyond the biases of within and without! A willing vessel of light within to be broken for a sacrifice of victory without! If we so desire to sing the praises and power of His resurrection, then we must also be willing to step outside the safety of the box and into the fellowship of His sufferings!

The True Blessing

2010-03-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. (Gen 32:24-32)

The True Blessing

Jacob’s cry, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!” upon first glance this can seem kind of confusing. Why confusing you might say? Well, if you look closely at the story, Jacob was already ‘blessed’, that is if you only look at it from a temporal point of view. Look at the list of things that Jacob had to offer to Esau as a peace offering. In those days, Jacob would have been considered to be well off. He was not in any way lacking in terms of ‘worldly’ possessions. Which brings me to wonder...if Jacob was already blessed with such goods and wealth, why then did he feel like he wasn’t? Or better yet, maybe the things that he possessed was not the true blessing after all. Maybe the temporal things we consider blessings are not the true blessing.

In the Chronicles Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. Why? Here in the midst a great list of genealogies all of a sudden God stops to take some time out to mention Jabez. Could it be that the prayer of Jabez recognized that a true blessing was not in what one possessed but could only be had in being possessed of the One who blesses. And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested. (1 Chr 4:9-10)

Solomon was blessed not because he asked of himself, but that he could have an understanding heart to judge amongst God’s people. His request pleased the Lord and because Solomon was FIRST Kingdom minded, God was more than willing to give him both riches and honor. And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. (I King 3:10-14) Once again this adheres to the principle that temporal blessings are usually nothing more than a ‘symptom’ of doing right before the Lord WHICH IS THE TRUE BLESSING. Here the devil then says that there are those who know not God yet are blessed with many temporal riches...what gives? If they are ‘blessed’ it is only because they are using a Godly principle without giving any glory to God and since God cannot lie and He is no respecter of persons, if you use His Word...sinner or not...you will reap goodness from it. Some though reap it to their own damnation while others see the blessing as nothing less than the hand of an Eternal God. When you take a stand for God and then know of a surety that He is standing for you...what more of blessing does a man desire??? If God be for us then who can be against us?

King David looked up and said, God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. (Ps 67:1-2) Look closely! Why bless us? Why should God shine his face upon us? THAT the way of the Lord may be know upon the earth! If you are blessed with ANY material blessing it is ONLY that His Glory may be shone forth upon this earth. Such blessings are given to men not for men to gain glory for themselves...BUT to only show the greatness of His mercy and the power of the Gospel in this earth. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. (1 Pet 2:9-10) Wow!!! What a powerful scripture! Here again showing that a mere temporal blessing is NOT a true blessing at all. As a matter of fact such a blessing can end up becoming a delusion if one is not careful. Yes it is great to have material possessions. It is great that God moves on our behalf to make sure our bills are paid and we have ‘things’ for our earthly enjoyment, but this alone is not the true blessing neither does it show that we are blessed of God! We were called OUT to show forth the blessings that He gives us but the blessings that we receive should only be used to point to the One who blesses and all our blessings should be used to show forth the praises of Him...the glory of His Gospel...and the power of His resurrection!

Abraham looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. Moses refused to be called son of Pharoah’s daughter choosing rather to suffer the afflictions of the children of God...they saw something that went way beyond the earthly. Both of these examples are from men who were not lacking in earthly material blessings, but were indeed blessed beyond measure if only looked at from a temporal standpoint. Although they were ‘blessed’, to them, something was amiss in their lives; otherwise why pursue after the hidden things of God? Obviously (at least to me), their blessing was not in a natural blessing, but in the realm of being in the place of the One who gave the blessings. You cannot be fed at a ‘soup kitchen’ unless you are willing to walk to where the soup kitchen is.

To leave all the riches of Egypt and a renown place of political power shows me Moses saw something way beyond the temporal. To choose suffering over the comfort of the every material need that a man could ever want is an amazing testimony. It testifies of the greatness of God’s eternal riches that supercede anything that this world can offer.
What contrariness to the flesh!!! To think that some would look at all this world has to offer and turn away from it’s riches and follow after Christ! The hypocrite nor the defiled and unbelieving can in no way understand such a view. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. (1 Tim 6:5-6)

In this day and age so many seem to believe or feel that temporal gain or worldly possessions are a measurement of a true blessing. But if you look at Jacob’s request as he wrestled with the Lord it seems to bring such a thought or idea into question. Jacob had it all, yet he felt like he wasn’t blessed. He felt like there was a blessing that superceded anything that the world could offer him. And he pursued after it with a tenacity that went beyond momentary rejection. He fought through the mental torment of his own thoughts and pain in his body, because he knew if God wasn’t for him it didn’t matter how many ‘things’ he possessed! I think Jeremiah summed it up best! Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. (Jer 9:23-24)

More Than My Necessary Food

2010-03-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. (Job 23:10-12)

After attending a health seminar with my wife the other weekend, I cannot help but to write how the Lord talked to me concerning the things that I had learned. A statement was made by a woman in one of the seminars that this is the first time in history that people have enough food to eat, but they are still dying of malnutrition. In the past people died from not having enough food to eat, but in these modern times, it seems that we have plenty of food yet people are still starving to death. We have shelves full of food and not just plain food, but food stuffs of a vast variety. Foods from all over the world grace our grocery store shelve’s. Both domestic and exotic foods. Foods that were once difficult to obtain are now easily obtainable. Foods that were once expensive and only for the rich, like chocolate, are packaged for a quick and cheap purchase at the checkout counter. Foods that nations would fight wars over to capture the lands that were able to produce an exotic food are now for our taking with hardly a struggle, except with the pulling out of the billfold. From canned tuna to Mexican food; from frozen foods to fresh produce; our diets are enticed with a cornucopia of options that tantalize the taste buds of our tongue’s. Yet, most people are malnourished. People are eating, but they are still starving. Many are plagued with diseases and are left to be guinea pigged by prognosticating strangers in white lab coats. How can this be? How can such an abundance of food be so easily at the reach of the finger tips of humanity, especially in America, the richest nation on earth, and there be so much nutritional devastation?

Immediately, after hearing this statement, my mind was moved to the sacred Word of God that brings me inspiration. The same thing that is happening in the natural world concerning our literal food is also happening in the spiritual world. The Word is no longer locked up behind the church doors of the Harlot church. It is available everywhere! From the drawers of most hotel rooms to the discount Bible Book Stores; the Word of God is easy to find or purchase. It seems that on every corner there is a church (if not a church, then a bank, but that’s another article for a later date!). Every Sunday many people go to church. A form of His Word is preached or taught around the globe on every Sunday. People of all persuasions hear some figure of His Word throughout any given week. The television and radio airwaves fill the air with programs and preachers. One would think that with all the religious organizations, programs, entertainment, ‘Christian’ musicians, commentaries, computer programs, books, Bible versions, and such like that are available throughout our American culture, that there would be a vibrant, shining, healthy revival as a result of all this ‘spiritual’ food that is procurable at one’s beck and call. As a matter of fact, one would think that America would be Holy Ghost bastion of victory and truth. YET when one looks around there is no such thing. The opposite seems to exists, with sickness and decay spreading like a plague throughout the land. At a time in history with so much ‘spiritual’ food available, there should not be such gross spiritual decay. With so much ‘spiritual’ food stuffs available how could one seeminglg be dying of malnutrition? How can this be? How could our nation seem so lost and undone?

Now, hear the Word of the Lord! As it is in the literal so it is with the spiritual. Our food supply is plenteous, but the love of money is the root of all evil. Remember this...money is not evil but the LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil. In order to obtain a longer shelf life our foods are put through processes that basically leave it void of most nutrients, enzymes, and vitamins. They are pasturized, homogenized, heated and depleted. All in the name of profit. The gummy white bread (and fake brown ‘wheat’ bread) we put in our bodies are devoid of most anything natural. They take the grain and pulverize it to death. They begin by removing the germ, which contains most of the food value, because it gums up their machinery. Next, they remove the bran because it leaves brown specks in the flour. (Crazy thing is that this same wheat germ and wheat bran are then sold back to the public in health food stores as health foods.) They then take what is left after removing the germ and the bran and bleach it (with chemical bleaching agents similar to clorox) to make it nice and white. Next, they add coal-tar derived vitamins, package it, and sell it to the unsuspecting public as enriched bread. These coal-tar derived ‘vitamins’ are very carcinogenic and difficult for the body to absorb. So what was once perfect in God’s presentation of a grain of wheat has now been so adulterated that it could hardly be perceived as even being a grain after they are done with it. All in the name of money and the pursuit of profit. Yes it is pretty. It is soft and packaged so nice. It is smooth and chewy to taste. But it leaves your body longing for nutrients. Rather than being fulfilling, it leaves you malnourished and longing for more food to ease the cry of a trillion starving cells in the body.

And as it is in the literal, so it holds true in the spiritual. The beautiful bread of heaven is first pure and easily entreated. It is holy, righteous and able to heal any that are hungry. In it’s perfect form there is nothing that compares to the healing power of God’s heavenly manna. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life!” Then comes corrupted man. He takes this beautiful word and begins to pulverize each morsel of scripture. Corrupting it a little here and a little there. He takes away it’s natural healing power by twisting and perverting it’s simplicity and making it something that it was never intended to be. And for what? For the love of money of course! The Bible does not lie and it is not wrong! Don’t let the devil fool you into to thinking anything else. The ROOT of ALL evil is the love of money. Church splits are because of the love of money. School problems and enrollment can be traced to the love of money. Disputes between brethren is because of the love of money. Don’t deceive yourself or be deceived by those around you who would seem resolved to ‘blaming’ their problems on the preacher’s faults or the church’s inadequacies. The real problem is their love of money!

False preachers have taken this precious Word and de-germed it. Ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing take away the power of the in-filling of the Holy Ghost and the necessity of being baptized in the name of Jesus. God’s original formula for success and health has been adulterated by corrupted flesh for the love of money. The basic nutrient laden principles of His Word are stripped from the gospel and then they try to make a gospel out of something that isn’t a gospel. Then after they have de-grained His Word, they try to enrich it with seminary degrees, entertainment, and Bible programs. And these ‘coal-tar’ spiritual derivatives, rather than helping the body, only lead to more sickness and decay. Instead of bringing healing to the body, the body gets sicker. Instead of feeding the hungry, the hungry eat and are still starving. Many leave church still feeling empty; still yearning for a true healing touch. A touch that no program or educated sermon can ever bring. Many are fed yet leave His glorious table still longing for a contact with a God that can only come through the unadulterated Word of God!

The sad thing is most Americans just don’t get it. The reaping and sowing of a corrupted food supply should be obvious by now when one looks out at the harvest. Consider what is manifesting itself around you. Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and untold other plagues are rampaging throughout the land. Hospitals are full, the drug companies are making huge profits, doctors are plentiful...but true healing seems to be as elusive as a sly fox in a hen house. Although, when a true answer to the sickness is delivered, most, like Naaman, get upset at it’s simplicity. Change your diet...eat live, unadulterated foods and healing will come. They storm away acting like the food they eat has no connection with the pain and discomfort they carry in their body. So they walk away with disease still reigning in their body, never ‘seeing’ that their taste buds have been perverted by foods that have been laced with sugar, salts, and fats. It’s just plain easier to stop at a fast food restaurant than to go home and juice some carrots! It’s just easier to trust the system to provide for your welfare than it is to step out of the system and educate yourself. Most look for some great magical pill to take away the problem that they have of their own will created in their body. The masses eat food that is laden with chemicals, additives, and drugs; which in turn creates dis-ease in the body, and then rather than doing what is necessary to bring about healing – like eating healthier food – they take the path of least resistance. It is so much easier to take a magic pill that is made so readily accessible by the pharmaceutical companies. So we take more drugs to ease the symptoms of our lifeless, dead food diets; therefore covering up the problem which then leads to a deeper compounding of the problem...with more affects to be covered by more ‘magic’ pills of escape!

This ‘way’ of going about business is prevalent throughout the American culture. The philosophy of ‘taking the easy way out’ or the ‘path of least pain’ is en-grained into the American psyche. Sadly, this same attitude is in the church. The world and it’s religions have polluted the American spiritual mind-set. All claim to be disciples of Him, but remain steadfast against any form of discipline! Most want the ‘magic pill’ of programs and look to the preacher to be the sole burden carrier of God’s Word. Then, when the preacher stands up, sets the table, and blows the trumpet... “We must fast!”, the preacher cries! The resounding cry heard from the multitudes is... "Hardly every or never!" “Let's cry out and pray!”, says the preacher! "Maybe when I get time!" “Its vital to read His Word!”, again laments the preacher! "Nah! Give me a book with pictures!"

Our spiritual taste buds have been perverted and the preaching of the cross is too hard and calls for too much of a sacrifice. Tell me anything, but don’t tell me I have to change! Tell me anything, but don’t tell me anything that will take me out of my comfort zone! Good food tastes terrible and bad food tastes great. I have met many who have ‘tried’ a diet based upon healthy, living foods and one of their first remarks is how terrible it tastes. How can this be? Perverted taste buds that’s how! And these taste buds have been eating nothing but wrong foods since the umbilical cord was cut! A tongue that gets to suck down 150 pounds of sugar a year will always have a hard time enjoying healthy food. Foods laden with sugar, salt, and fats will always over power the grainy texture of a whole grain piece of toast. So when a good healthy food that is not laden with all this junk, is introduced into the mouth, the tongue and the mind reject it as terrible, because they have been trained, both physically and mentally, to receive only those foods that have been so destroyed. A nice hot fudge sundae from Dairy Queen seems to always win over a fresh juicy piece of fruit. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isa 5:20) Therefore the end harvest of this is devastation. A nutrition-less, dead food diet, consumed by a living body will never produce life! Only sickness and despair can be it’s final outcome. Starvation is but a symptom of a food diet that has been totally stripped of it’s vital nutrients and power.

Such is the dilemma in the church and the religious world around us. When a man eats only those things that are carnal and devoid of any spiritual nutrients, the final outcome is starvation, sickness, and despair. When sports, entertainment, television, and Hollywood are the main foods that flow over the palate of the inward man, is it then so surprising that the Word of God is so quickly rejected. How terrible is the Word’s pure and undefiled taste when one has only eaten the sweet and fatty things of the carnal mind. And when preacher’s find the response of preaching His Word to be so appalling then he moves to ‘change’ it into something more palatable. So why not add some fat to His Word and sweeten up the gospel with a few man made additives. To do so makes the Word so much more palatable to a carnal mind who has only been trained to eat perverted foods. No wonder there are churches everywhere, yet America is spiraling in spiritual decay. Homosexuality, divorce, murder, fornication, traitors, heady, proud, lying and deceit...all spreading like a net around it’s prey...sounds like perilous times to me. A time when there is plenty of food, but most still end up starving to death.

Its time to shake ourselves out of this nutritional coma of slackness and step into the trump of God! Its time to arise UP out of our sleep and slumber! Its time for us to not just hear the Word of the Lord, but do the Word of the Lord! "How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." (Proverbs 6:9-11) I am reminded of something Ben Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Its time to take up our cross and deny ourselves. Its time the Body of Christ to rise up in these last days and esteem Him higher and the words of His mouth more than our necessary food!

The Love of Money

2010-03-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
(1 Tim 6:9-12)

Money, money, money, and more money! Who of us hasn’t dreamed of hitting any recent Mega-Lottery jackpot? I mean just a momentary contemplation of winning that kind of money makes us wobble at the grandiose thoughts of living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Oh! We dream of all the things we would do with such a load of money. Not only would we give to the church, but we would help build our church a new church. We would help our brothers and sisters. Oh, the wonderful things we would do with a cash bonanza of that size! And I say, “YEAH RIGHT!!!” After having been around Pentecost a few years and seeing what people do after God delivers them from a horrible pit, it seems to be fairly clear picture of what they would do with a winning lottery ticket. After the Lord delivers them and begins to clean them up. Their preacher puts God’s wonderful Word in them and all those nuggets of eternal principles of gold, which allows them to stand on their own two feet and in turn begin to bring prosperity into their lives. I have been an eyewitness to this pattern of events in people’s lives. When people finally begin to make money and accumulate things and they are finally able to give back to God and the ministry...99.9% of the time they backslide and become hoarders of ‘THEIR’ money. I have witnessed this time and time again...people come in destitute, God cleans them up, the preacher puts the Word of God in their hearts, they become something, and then when it is time for them to give...they’re gone...nowhere to be found.

It seems other than sex, money is the other thing most talked about in this world. Especially now in these times of economic difficulties. Have you ever heard anyone say that ‘money is the root of all evil’? Yet we know that this is not true, but the true saying is as follows: The LOVE of money is the ROOT of ALL evil.” It can be safe to say that if there is a problem in the church it can somehow someway be traced to money. The problem is more than likely rooted in a love for a person’s money. This love that Paul describes in the scripture is a covetous love. It is not a pure love but one that is rooted in envy and earthly thoughts. It was Judas who was the money keeper and betrayed the Lord. Somewhere in his heart was rooted a love for money. After seeing the oil ‘wasted’ on Jesus, it was Judas, the money keeper, who went to the chief priest to betray him for thirty pieces of silver. I have witnessed many ‘saints’ over the years that have mumbled and grumbled over money in the church. They complain how the money is being handled and who does the handling. In their eyes, nobody knows better than themselves on how the money should be taken care of and who should be taking care of it.

They show their disgruntlement in many ways through their words and comments to others. Most of the time it is through their subtle actions. They quit giving in the offerings. They stop paying ‘their’ tithes. Subtle actions that let the preacher know that they have a problem with what is being done with ‘their’ money. They know the preacher is not going to tell the congregation about their lack of tithes or make a public display of their continual record of non-giving. So, in an act of subtle rebellion, they let the preacher know how they feel. It is a power struggle... they think that ‘their’ money gives them power over the preacher and in a larger sense the entire church. They feel like since they have money they can influence or persuade the preacher. Don’t forget, the serpent is very subtle. He is so subtle that a person such as this who may read this a article - that is if the title didn’t stop them in the beginning - will find a way to dispute what I am writing. But the Word is the Word and the love of money IS the ROOT of ALL evil.

I have read in studies the more one gets money, the stingier the person gets. You would think this would be the other way around. The more one gets money, the more one would want to give back and help those around them. But, generally, this is not the case. Somewhere a person’s pride rises up and they begin to think more highly of themselves than they ought to. I remember working as a short order cook at a yacht club of the rich and how I was treated by the ‘rich’. Talk about feeling like a piece of dirt! It is a known fact that waitresses and common folk who wait on those who have money say that the one’s with the money are the worse tippers in the world. It is the common folk who know and remember what it means to work hard. These are the one’s who tip well. The rich are stingy and hoard their money. They seem to feel that everyone is out to get ‘their’ money. They have to protect ‘their’ money.

Why is it that the people who do not pay their rightful bills are usually the biggest murmurers and complainers? One would think that if you are not paying your bills, you would be silent concerning that area where they choose NOT to be responsible in. It would only seem right to stay somewhat low key and in the background. It has been made clear to me that the ones who do not pay tithes and offering, or support the ministry always seem to have the biggest mouths. They find fault with everything and everybody.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled . They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. (Titus 1:15-16)

A person who is pure of heart sees goodness and purity in everything; but a person whose own heart is evil and untrusting finds evil in everything, for his dirty mind and rebellious heart color all he sees and hears. Such persons claim they know God, but from seeing the way they act, one knows they don't. They are rotten and disobedient, worthless so far as doing anything good is concerned. (Titus 1:15-16 TLB)

To a person who is defiled, NOTHING is pure. Those that have been overtaken in their quest for riches usually end up being defiled. Especially in this day and age, where it is very difficult to make and honest buck anymore. Those who are involved in the workplace know how difficult it is NOT to become a cheater like the rest of the world. The pressure to compromise any standard of uprightness and honesty is intense and always under attack. Though therein may lie some of the problem...it must be difficult after cheating and lying all day to make a buck and then have to come into church and hear the Truth of an Apostolic message! When one is defiled in such a manner, no wonder all those around them seem to be just like themselves. Their minds are drunken with the earthly cares of the world. They have bought into the lie of DECEITFUL riches. Their riches have deceived them and made them think they are something more than they really are.

Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness : from such withdraw thyself. (1 Tim 6:5)

Over the years I have watched people make thousands upon thousands of dollars, yet have nothing to show for it or lose their family in the process. They never seem to get anywhere in life. Like a car spinning it’s wheels in the mud or running on a treadmill.. they exert a lot of energy but don’t seem to go anywhere. Their ways are priority one, God’s ways are somewhere down the line. It reminds me of what Haggai said, “Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes .” (Hag 1:5-6) People who chase after riches put the Kingdom of God second or third or fourth...oh, yeah...they think about God, but only in the context of using His principles to make money. The only temple they seem to pursue is building their temporal temples here on earth. Temples that are only gong to disintegrate and perish.

I must say that I am not perfect in this matter and I cannot claim to have obtained. There definitely have been times in my life where I have gotten too focused on money or maybe I felt that I lacked, yet I have always tried to bring my body back under subjection. Money in itself is not evil nor is it bad to desire financial success or want to get your bills paid. But when we become the slave to money and it becomes our master that is when the scales will begin to tip against us. My desires can be found in Proverbs 30:7-9. "Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." Like Israel who forgot God after He had blessed them, Lord, I don’t want to be or get so rich that I forget YOU. Yet, Lord, don’t let me become so poor that I do something that causes a reproach to your name.

A Poem of Appreciation to My Pastor

2010-03-20T11:47:00.001-07:00

Over twenty years ago in June of nineteen eighty seven
I fell at an altar and got my first glimpse of heaven.
Just a youthful twenty four years old
God felt fit to bring me into the fold.

You see, for me, life wasn’t very grand.
On my own there was no way I could stand.
The world had me in her clutches
and I unknowingly walked on pagan crutches.

From confirmation to communion
in the midst of such dysfunctional disunion
I made my journey through the dismal mire.
my youthful life was abound by carnal fires

Raised up the common American way
I walked too and fro from day to day.
Never really knowing where I was going
moving wherever the wind was ever blowing.

Whenever there was chance for some fun
from responsibility I would run.
Booze, pot, wine, or drugs
I tried to escape reality with a shrug.

From the grip of public education
I became a rebel by acclimation.
Always learning how to break the rules
unknowingly becoming everyone’s fool.

On to college and a higher level of learning
the lust of the flesh just kept on burning
unto heights of empty dreams
always chasing after mindless extremes.

Standing up against any and all authority
I was just blending in with the majority.
Following the crazy multitudes
my life became more crude and more lewd.

While leaning on philosophies so vain
the spirit of living began to drain
in chains of darkness I began to grope
soon losing the passions of my carnal hopes.

So many times I asked my self these questions
is life always full of all this oppression?
Could there be more to life than this?
Or have I observed through teary eyes amiss?

From history to psychology
and politics to theology
The more I seemed to play the game
the more everything stayed the same.

Pink Floyd could not give me the answers
their words and music grew but more cancers.
Famous authors could not find
what I needed for relief in my mind.

No help could be found in television
which left my troubled soul in derision
nor could the stars of Hollywood
bring me anything that was pure and good.

And though I bowed to those great MSU professors
I walked further down the road of chance and guesser.
Taught of Maslow, Pavlov, Jung, and Sigmund Freud,
their answers to life still left me powerless and void.

Tree hugging and zen meditation
I followed without hesitation
and to them their anthems I sung
trying to find solace in them, but always getting stung.

Living on the principles of Darwin’s evolution
did not help me find a solution.
Finally, torment, pain, despair, and confusion
led my heart to a simple conclusion.

All these learned ideas only unfurled
that my answers were certainly not in this world
experience had begun to teach me a lot
and an escape from this world, I began to plot.

I just wanted to know a simple truth
that I had sought after since my youth.
Was there a meaning to this life
or was it nothing but endless pain and strife.

And though I had gone so far and astray
God began to move in my dismay
and though this sounds somewhat bizarre
it all began with my brother’s witness in a bar.

He told me of the Romeo church
and there he said I would end my search.
Though filled with my own intellectual suspicions
I was no longer armed with much ammunition.

Soon after, I was Chicago bound
my brother’s words still my mind did hound
from my past I was still running
beguiled by a serpent that was oh so cunning

but it was only three weeks later
I found Chicago to be nothing greater
I came home one Memorial weekend
to my brother’s house did I apprehend.

And too my pleasant surprise
my brother’s life had seem to arise
his Bible was open on the table
and he told me God was still able.

Needless to say when I saw what I saw
I could do nothing but drop my jaw
His witness to me made one thing clear
whatever had touched him I wanted to hear.

So one spring evening I came to church
to do a little of my own research.
I came as myself, all broken and torn,
deep within my soul did mourn.

The world had me completely deluded
there was no way out I had often concluded.
But one June night that all began to change
and my life, I was ready to rearrange.

As I sat in the pew and began to ponder
at all the years that I had squandered
behind a pulpit stood a rugged preacher
speaking words of no ordinary teacher

I was soon with God’s great spirit drawn
learning quickly that this preacher was no pawn
he preached to me of Namaan’s trouble
and living life within the world’s bubble.

The preacher preached with strength and power
his words I sat and I did devour
on the edge of my seat sat I
not knowing what to do...whether to run or cry.

And at the closing of his sermon
he walked up to me fully determined
to give a dying soul a chance...a hope
of getting off such a slippery slope

The preacher whispered in my ear
words, to this day, I still hold dear
he told me God would fill me with the Holy Ghost
because that was what I needed the most

now being raised catholic I did not know
anything outside of religion’s status quo
and yet I knew that deep within
I was done with all the sin

the preacher’s words led me to an altar
there...hot in prayer I would not falter
and in my ear I did hear
it’s between you and God son...do not fear

so with no holds barred holding nothing back
I put it all on the line and went on the attack
I gave God my sin, sickness, and despair
and within moments He made everything so crystal clear.

In just one moment He loosed my mind
in just one moment I was no longer blind
there heaven and earth emerged.
And at a one God altar my heart was purged

and so this scripture to me is so endearing
that faith cometh only by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God
which quickly cuts through the world’s facades

and though I knew no scripture verse
God still delivered me from this wretched curse.
Through the preacher’s preaching of the gospel
came the breaking of the devil’s tainted spell.

With raised hands and on my back I did fall
like all the disciples and the apostle paul
I began to speak in heavenly tongues
and within me a well of joy had sprung.

Now full of the spirit I was soon led
down in the water to bury the dead
I was baptized in Jesus name
and have since, never been the same

Yes, this was over twenty years ago
and today I still want my preacher to know
because of you, I know Jesus and His way
and from holiness I refuse to sway.

Because of you, my preacher and my Pastor
my life has been freed of impending disaster
from One God, Godliness, and the beast
I have sat at a table of a continual feast.

So today, I am honored to give you thanks
and I have no problem with being quite frank
on earth, you are the greatest man I have ever met
and what you have done for me I will never forget

and though I know these days, that talk is cheap
and shallow words, in times past, may have caused you to weep
behind you and this gospel, my family and I will continue to stand
founded upon the Rock you taught us, and not sinking sand

So keep preaching the truth of His Word
for there are still those, who like me, have not heard
and if given a fair shake and a choice
would be willing to hear and follow the master’s voice

and in just one moment at the breaking of the dawn
at the last trump we will be gone
and a crown of righteousness we will wear
all because a preacher would not bend or spare.

So thank you Pastor for preaching to me
do not back down, and do not flee
because without you I couldn’t see
and how would other captives ever be set free?

Distractions

2010-03-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

"You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain

There is a story involving Yogi Berra, the well-known catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at that time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playing in the World Series, and as usual Yogi was keeping up his ceaseless chatter, intended to pep up his teammates on the one hand, and distract the Milwaukee batters on the other. As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, “Henry, you’re holding the bat wrong. You’re supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark.” Aaron didn’t say anything, but when the next pitch came he hit it into the left-field bleachers. After rounding the bases and tagging up at home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi Berra and said, “I didn’t come up here to read.” (Nehemiah, Learning to Lead, J. M. Boice, Revell, 1990, p. 38)

It seems the one thing that has become difficult to do in this day and age is to remain focused. There is so much vying for our attention and our time, to remained steadfast toward a certain goal or objective, seems almost impossible. Think about the myriad of 'things' that assault us on a daily basis. Can you remember the day we never had a cell phone? I can! It used to just be television and radio, but now the internet and our phones. With the technology that is now available with our phones, all of life's distractions can be accessed in the palm of our hands. Wow! Everywhere we go, we can bring a handful of distractions with us! From texting to Facebook, I find myself inundated with a constant flow of information. When I begin to think about these many distractions in our lives, I begin to wonder how much the human mind can handle and at the same time, how difficult it is to remained focused while so distracted and interrupted on a daily basis.

Henry Ford said, “A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see. Every now and then I wake up in the morning headed toward that finality, with a dozen things I want to do. I know I can’t do them all at once. ”When asked what he did about that, Ford replied, “I go out and trot around the house. While I’m running off the excess energy that wants to do too much, my mind clears and I see what can be done and should be done first.” (Bits and Pieces, September 19, 1991, p. 18)

It's not that I think these technologies are bad, or need to be abandoned. If these technologies are used properly, they are great tools that can be very beneficial and helpful in our daily lives. But we must be careful they don't become the distractions that hinder our focus. One of the paradoxes of all these technologies seems to be the same technologies that bring us some deliverance and freedom, also seem to bring with them a form of entrapment or bondage. For example, we are living in the 'information age' and the freedom to access information through the television, internet, and now our phones has provided a certain amount of empowerment. Never before in the history of mankind has so much been available at one's fingertip. Yet, there seems to be this incredible information overload. Most of us seem so overwhelmed with information we have a problem of balance and discernment. With so much information, what do you believe? One day, eating carrots is good for you, the next day, its not so good. This information overload is causing a great scattering of our minds. Society as a whole has almost become schizophrenic. Right is wrong! Evil is good! Very few seem to have much of a grasp on reality anymore and I wonder if some of this is due to our culture saturated and distracted with TOO much information!

In Psalm 57:7 David said, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise." In Psalm 112:7-8 he said, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, until he see his desire upon his enemies." If your heart is going to be fixed, it must be fixed upon something rock solid or unmovable. How can you fix your mind on something that changes on a daily basis or at the whimsical feelings of someone else? When a ship throws an anchor over board the whole idea is for that anchor to grab hold of something that does not move. When the anchor grabs hold, the ship will remained fixed in that location. The wind and the waves will not cause the anchor to give way and the ship will continue hold its mark!

If there is one thing I love about the Word (which there are many), its the fact that the Word of God is an anchor to my soul! It is not like whimsical flesh and the carnal mind that changes with every new fashion of the world. Its the same yesterday, today, and forever! There is no changing the Word of God. It is a standard above all other standards. It is a discerner of the the thoughts and intents of the heart! When things get out of sync, the Word can and will bring everything back into a right perspective and balance! When the distractions of this world get our thoughts too entangled, the Word of God will once again reestablish our bearings and set our course straight and anew!

If your life is distracted, tormented, or seemingly out of step with reality, then maybe its time to look to the Rock of Ages and the anchor of the soul. Put your phone down, step away from the computer, turn the television and the radio off, its time to find rest and solace and fix your heart on an unmovable God! The distractions of this life and world are inherently fixed on keeping you un-anchored and manipulated. But as the song goes, 'If you've tried everything and everything has failed, try Jesus." If you are tired of spinning your wheels in the world of distractions, then maybe its time you find a rope that is anchored by the Word of God to help pull you out!

Why Run?

2010-03-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." - Inspirational sign on a runner's office wall

I am up early this morning getting ready to run my first road race of the year. Its an annual 3.1 mile (5K) road race held by a local running store. Yesterday, I decided to take a 'rest' day to give my body a break after running a difficult eight miler on Thursday. I was going to run, but after waking up in the morning and feeling like I was hit by a freight train, well, I figured I might as well relax for a day. This ole body doesn't seem to respond like it used to. I 'feel' like an eighteen year old, at least in my mind, but my body is forever reminding me that those days have passed and the big FIVE O is just around the corner. Thursday as I was running, a thought raised up within me about my running and exercising. There just seems to be this battle that rages within me. Why run? I mean its not like I have a multi-million dollar contract with Nike or something. I don't have to run and try to stay in shape. I don't have to get up early, drive a good thirty miles away, shiver my way to the start line, and run a road race this morning! Why run? Why do this to myself? A lot of people in church and friends outside of church wonder the same thing about me. Why or how come you continue to do that to yourself?

Immediately, a few scriptures come to my mind, when I begin to think this way. "And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." (1 Corinthians 9:23-25) Though I am running in the natural, there is no doubt it parallels my run for the Lord. I mean, isn't 'why run?' the same question asked within and without? Not only do you battle your own inner demons concerning life and your soul, but you battle the multitudes who can't see past their appetites and beyond the momentary gains of their senses. As they eat everything sensual that comes their way, like king david, you can almost slip by mere observation! As you continually restrain yourself and allow yourself to be constrained, you can begin to wonder if it is worth it all! But in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, you realize that life is far more than satisfying your palate and fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life! Over twenty some years ago the lord called me out of darkness and into his marvelous light, not to be a failure, but to show forth his incorruptible glory in this corruptible flesh!

There is no doubt in my mind my running in the natural has its parallels with my spiritual journey. The pitfalls I have encountered in trying to remain dedicated and disciplined to running has helped to reveal many things about myself. Strengths and weaknesses have been exposed, all for the working of my good! "I run because it's so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can't. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you're capable of so much more than you thought." (Arthur Blank)

So, here I sit in my car trying to stay warm on this first road race of 2010. I run to obtain the most out of life, naturally and spiritually! Today I will finish this 5k road race and I will receive a prize. Because not only is He the Author of this race, He also the Finisher! As a well known runner and author John Bingham said, "What distinguishes those of us at the starting line from those of us on the couch is that we learn through running to take what the days gives us, what our body will allow us, and what our will can tolerate." Jesus first love me and showed me the way! He robed himself in sinful flesh and took up His cross! Many enjoy discussing the power of His resurrection but do not understand its divine connection with the fellowship of His sufferings! Life is far more than what our carnal senses can offer us and there are worlds to see that cannot be perceived from the seat of the living room couch. Most shun the agony and grotesque consequences of the cross, failing to see beyond the pain! Like the Greeks, they stumble at the inability to step beyond their mythological gods, who would have never offered themselves a living sacrifice, and the Jew who was too smart for their own good! Yes, there truly is nothing new under the sun! As it was in the days of Jesus, the same mindset seems so prevalent today!

So, now I am ready to be delivered into the hands of a cold Michigan morning! But I know and am assured that I do not run alone! As I run I cast my mind toward the finish line, knowing by faith, it is there and in a not too distant future I will cross it! I will lay aside the layered clothing, and any weight that may hinder me from obtaining my vision! For in my patience, I know He will possess my soul until the end! See you at the finish line!