God has begun a Project in us, are we available? Yes, God will perform the thing concerning us, no problem. Will we let Him? He’ll work the plan in faithfulness, will we faithfully cooperate? Explain? It’s easier to understand this relationship when we consider God’s ends for us. When we do, our part simply responds, responds, responds. God has marked out boundaries for a believer’s life, did you know that? What kind of boundaries? —boundaries set from God’s foreknowledge. For instance, He already knows beforehand the number of people we will meet in our whole life. He knows how much money we will make. He knows every decision we will encounter and the ultimate outcome of our choices. He knows how many times we will ignore our choices. He knows our thoughts afar off, and yes, He knows our name, and our wife and children too. So, with the advantage…
Healing at the Cross Posts
Hope ….maketh not ashamed, for the love of God is shed abroad in our heart. Patience found itself through tribulation and then through that patience came experience, and experience birthed hope? Of course, we know the Bible. Hope maketh not ashamed. I love that end product, I wonder about the other stuff. Hope means nothing to us unless contrasted in hopelessness. Shame surfaces in the midst of unrelenting dires of living hell, bombarding mankind from externalities unseen. Our existence and it’s shame abide synonymous. Hope, however, makes us not ashamed. Hope changes a root. Hope deadens a curse, revokes a penalty, releases a fear. That damned shame battles to retain its ground, nevertheless,. Tribulation worketh? How strange a remedy; “tribulation” —not shame release yet, but step 1 builds patience? Couldn’t God think of another way? I must admit that tribulation takes my eyes off my shame. Is there a hint…
People who understand grace also understand the meaning of the cross. It’s vital for the application of grace to personal situations. “Grace embrace” and “cross” require a commitment, and that “surrender” leaves self behind and moves Father-bound. Jesus cried out from His cross, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my Spirit.” Likewise, we commit our works unto the Lord toward established thoughts, in Proverbs 16:3. When we commit our way unto Him, the way comes to pass. (Psalms 37:4-6). We commit the keeping of our soul unto Him. He keeps it. In Romans 6, Paul showed us a bunch of facts to memorize, namely: we were (at salvation) baptized (immersed) into Christ and His death; two-we were buried with Him because of this saturation; three-since Christ was raised, we could walk in a new life; and four-we were joined to Him in perfect equivalence to His death and resurrection. See, united to Him…
The judicial system does not separate a person from his past but sees the person’s identity as a consistent whole throughout a lifetime. Thankfully this is so, otherwise it could be argued that the person, five years removed from the deed, has become a new person and so sheds responsibility for past years, ie. Tom at age 18 was a different person from Tom at 27. In a true story, Tom robbed the grocery store when he was young. What do we reckon now that Tom has been found out 10 years later? In most places our legal system says he still pays for the crime, but many folks are of the opinion to release him. What do you say? Well, lets ponder; if an individual could receive a token status of “new identity” in a measure of time lapsed, there most certainly would be criminals running free in our…
Is America becoming a post-Christian society? What does it mean for us Christians? It directly affects believers who try to win lost souls because an unsaved person’s ground of decision making may be skewed or obscured in the river of modern relativism. See, much of contemporary thought leans toward “fate” and “fatalism.” This “higher knowledge” quaintly un-hides itself in the colloquial phrase ” history repeats itself.” People who practice “fate” as a lifestyle live in idolatry and this God-demoting practice has many variations. It starts when some find it convenient to blame other persons, things, and events for their own sins. Adam and Eve originated this trend in Genesis 3. They duck blame and skirt responsibility. They use “wisdom from below.” We fall into the sucking vac hose called stupor. Rolling snowballs accumulate more snow, lies beget more lies, and hell is never satisfied, so says the Bible. God…
This superstitious woman, within the framework of her very strange and terribly primitive world of ideas, has grasped the mystery of the Savior at a deeper level than most theologians and worldly wise men. She has made Jesus unclean by touching Him. She has thereby saddled Him with her suffering and by this bold touch has made him a companion in her affliction. She has had her life’s burden taken away by him and pulled Him down into her deep misery. Thus with her poor finger she has unwittingly pointed to the mystery of the cross. This woman made Jesus her brother. In so doing, she has made Him into precisely what He wants to be for us. This is why He went to the cross. What she did unwittingly. However, it is actually the miracle of the gospel – that there is no depth in which this Savior will…
We walk together with a person, Jesus. We get to, actually. He moves from place to place and from glory to glory. We go too, both ways. Together we go from strength to strength, faith to faith. Strength does not move to greater strength, but new strength. Faith also becomes new faith, not increased faith. We do not progress by resisting the resistance but by following on to know the Lord. We are not associates with Him, we are One. We go from Tom to Jesus, from diminishing glory to the new inward Hope of Glory We go together to the Father, by Him. The lighted path brightens more light, new illuminations all. First pales and dies, second resurrects renewed. First withholds, next gives; First decays, next sprouts. Originally we fail, new makes it work; First ends, next starts again. In the beginning it breaks, following reveals treasure; First wounds, then healing comes.…
Good coaching goes this way: “back to fundamentals boys, back to the basics.” The hidden word here is “foundation,” and any team going anywhere has to build from the bottom. When that group forgets what got them to their present successes; they need to go back and do a revisit now, (I mean Right Now!). Hey, if the Bettenhausen Lady-birds’ softball team drift too far, they lose sight of the nest, and the chickadees ain’t gettin no food! Its time to get back to business! This is a comic picture but true. “We need more unity, we gotta get together, we ain’t sticken together as a unit.” What happened? Well, it happened in the hearts of the individuals first, manifesting itself second in the “lean mean fighting machine.” The synchronized power-generator started disintegrating because of the parts breaking down. For the Mannheim Sheep Dogs, maybe, the wolf in sheep’s clothing…
I wanna talk about forgiveness for our sins. I am driven to understand again remission of sins. I must apply again the removal of sin, and be clean once more. O blood, O blood of God, be here, my conscience purge; my mind and heart. Free me, blood of Christ, scour the depths, clear me O exempt my soul. Just as if I had never sinned, O justify me anew. Just as if I had never left, O draw me closer than before. I must be intimate, next to, in and around You; surround Ye me, O precious Savior. Advocate for me, O Jesus Christ the Righteous. I need to lawyer-up now, for despicable is my potential, and my will; an ugly enemy. The carnal mind hates God, I shame when mine appears. Deliver me from bloodguiltyness, if, only a minute peeve, it buds. It struggles for identity, it’s desperation…
“The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not , is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter’s stomach, is an absolute. There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other side is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks…