Check the Integrity of your Gatekeeper.
A brother in Christ by the name of Brian Jones wrote recently something so profound that it both laid me out from the sheer concussive force of it, and then led me to share and elaborate as the Spirit led me. He wrote the following;
"The Great Wall of China would barely be finished before they would be invaded three times. The invaders did not go over the wall, they didn't dig under it, they simply bribed the gatekeeper. Our mind has a gatekeeper. Have you bribed yours to allow an invasion? Check whom and what you are letting in, then tell me you don't have a security breech!"
As with all truth I have been exposed to lately, I first needed to get up off the floor from the sheer impact. Then, once I conveyed to him how much what he said blessed and edified me, I started writing.
When a member of the elect submits their life to the LORD, an eviction notice is served to all of the old inhabitants of *us*... what we are told is the temple of the Living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). All of them. The older, more entrenched ones, the ones which we came to love for the lying comforts they offered, the ecstasies they granted us; all which they made us feel before we were convicted of the sin, have rent controlled quarters within us. These usually have to be gassed, smoked out, bound, and dragged, kicking and screaming, from the premises, as the LORD grants us grace to do when we earnestly seek His face and bow to the Truth. We are then set free; the scales removed from our eyes so that they finally see and acknowledge the truth of our inherent sinfulness and need to be saved, the iron shackles removed from our wrists and ankles to allow us to at last be free, now that we are justified and made holy by the blood of the Son of God, to make war upon the enemy of our souls. We are supplied with armor, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wear them. We are supplied with the Sword of the Spirit, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wield the blade.
But the story does not end there.
"24 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”" Luke 11:24-26
We are not given armor and weapons for show. We are not given sight to recognize our need for Him, supplied with weapon and armor, taught in their use, to then use them only on occasion, or when and where convenient. Our new way of life, from now until death, is the way of the warrior which champions the truth and lays down his or her life for it. We will be called to arms at all hours, day and night. We had best learn the practice of *sleeping* in the armor, with the Sword clenched in our fist, or we will perish, because that which left us by the Sovereign grace of the LORD will come back to test our mettle again. And again. And again. It *will not stop*, so we must depend ever more upon the LORD for our strength. The walls must always be vigilantly manned. The gatekeeper in the tower above the gates must have integrity such that they can not be bribed, nor feel pity or compassion when the unclean spirit we once harbored returns with another tactic, and by begging and bringing up how it comforted us before, or reminds us of how we once loved it, and thus seeks mercy to be allowed to enter in again.
To fail in any of this is to be overrun.
"1 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17 Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed." Mark 5:1-20
One thing that gave me deeper understanding and appreciation of the grace of sight without scales; every unclean spirit Jesus encounters knows Him by sight. The people knew Him as the carpenter Joseph's son. His disciples weren't sure in the beginning *who* He was. But these demons knew Him immediately. Not only did they know Him, they pointed at Him and called out to Him in the way the condemned behold their executioner at the time appointed for their execution. "What do You want with me?"
4 chapters earlier in Mark, Jesus encounters one in the synagogue, (That's right... *in the place of worship*. Let that sink in a few moments.) and it asks "Have You come to destroy us?" This is the same question which the condemned have answered for them unspoken, when the warden and the priest and guards assemble before the cell door and he says "It is time."
They know their fate. They know it is coming. Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. They commit their acts knowing there is no forgiveness, nothing but payment exacted for their audacity to rebel against their Creator. I read of the man with Legion within him dwelling near tombs, crying out and causing the man to cut himself.
Monstrous despair. It made sense that it would both be where it was and doing what it was doing to the host. Self hatred and loathing must be at the root of each of them, and the myriad ways in which they weaponize and deploy the weapons of their master the Accuser; "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" are proof that they have no other purpose than to use as many means to bring you to their level of misery and despair as possible, and see you tormented with them. They have nothing left.
CAST THEM OUT!!! By the grace and authority given to us, by the LORD and Savior who ransomed us with His own blood, cast them over your walls far from you AND DON'T LET A SINGLE ONE OF THEM BACK IN, no matter how piteous the cry or overwhelming the force arrayed is, FOR THEY THAT BE WITH US ARE MORE THAN THEY THAT BE WITH THEM.
Bring the gatekeeper of your mind, where the battlefield truly is, before the throne of God, and trade up for one with impregnable integrity. Because anything that gets in and does not glorify the LORD your God is only there to kill you. Submit therefore to the Absolute Truth of the Almighty, use what He has given you and taught you, be strengthened by your obedience to love Him with all you have, and among the brethren encourage and love one another, and live. Fail and be taken with those who see only their destruction in front of them, and share their fate.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Grace To Know To Whom You Belong
5 words she said to me. I did not know that these were the last words she would speak to me on this earth.
Grandma. The hands which gave me my first Bible and prompted me to read it before a church congregation at the age of 4. Hands that eased me through a week long stomach virus while living in her home. Hands that both eased coughs away, and beat my behind for lying. Those hands were about my neck in the apartment she last lived in, surrounded by what belongings she kept from a lifetime of marriage and over 20 years of widowhood, hugging my face to hers.
5 words.
"Remember to Whom you belong."
At some level I knew what she meant. I knew to capitalize the first pronoun in my mind as I heard it, and not the second, at least.
The fathoms of my own blind ignorance, however, were just beneath the thin veneer of my nod into her warm neck; as deep a deception as the thought that, just as I had soothed myself with countless times over the years, I would visit her again while she still inhabited her flesh.
I yielded nothing. I submitted nothing. I had the temerity to think to fit God into my life, let Him be my steering wheel instead of bowing to Him in humble submission and having Him drive. True worship... denial of self... true humility... was lip service at best.
The same murderous delusion as that which dwells within the vast majority of all who lay claim to the title "Christian".
I did not even begin to know how to accept the fullness of what she was given to know. Whether by the truth; of the filthy rags of anything which *I* could do to live a clean life acceptable in His sight, or the lie; of the utter devaluation of my self worth's currency--I did not even see her words past my horrifyingly feeble hope... that I would somehow die within the handful of seconds between "repentance" of sin, and the commission anew of what I had just declared I would never do again. All her guidance, her cajoling... her hours of conversation on the phone, or one on one, throughout decades of life, whether in times of inner peace or scarcely reined atomic fury, all coalesced into those five words.
The LORD, Whom she faithfully served, granted me the grace to have the scales removed from my eyes regarding her words.
8 *years* after she died.
******************************
When I lived in Brooklyn, many of the members of my father's church lived on Bainbridge Street with us. I would see them several times a week, on the way to and from school or church. It was part of the continuity I so cherished. One of them lived across Stuyvesant Avenue, about 6 or seven houses from the corner. I can not at the time of this writing remember her name (see: senility) but she was an elderly lady who was very kind to me. I shoveled the snow from before her house in the winter in addition to ours, but we shared a common interest which I have recently recovered in her honor.
She was a lover of green growing things, as I was. One of my folks told her about my interest, and she invited me into her brownstone one day to show me her many well cared for plants. I remember at age 13 or so, looking in the front room of her home, just to the left of the iron-wrought entry, looking over the green plants, and doing a double take at colors and shapes I did not expect. Closer inspection revealed that she had, growing in Brooklyn, New York, two different kinds of fruit trees, miniature versions of their tropical counterparts; an orange tree. the golf ball sized oranges catching my eye from the hallway, and one I did not recognize. It was the largest of all, sat in a pot on the floor, and had spreading, intricate leaves at the top of a long brownish trunk without bark, and a gathering of fruit clustered where the top of the trunk met the explosion of leaves.
I asked what it was, seeing that she had 4 or 5 other, smaller versions of it, in smaller pots in the sills facing the front of her home among her other plants. "That is a papaya tree," she said in her contralto voice. She went on to answer all my questions about how the trees are cared for, and how with proper care they would fruit all year round. When it was time for me to leave, she kindly rewarded my obvious interest and handed me a few small, wrinkled, black seeds in a "dixie" cup.
I spent the next couple of years trying to replicate what she had done, but in my own bedroom window. I had yet to learn that the heat register directly above said window placed too much dry air on the young plants, although one of them grew to a decent height and even flowered. but did not produce fruit (I'm thinking now, in retrospect, that this one was a male, which produces no fruit but is advisable to have for pollination).
The 28 or so years (...*wowzers*) since I fell in love with the papaya tree saw little to no opportunity to have one. The thought of growing one in Washington D.C. struck me as just wrong; my reasoning--why on earth would I subject another living thing to live in hell along with me...? I relegated the memory of the papaya tree and the kind neighbor who taught me about them to the inviolate place in my memory where I stored all things and people from Brooklyn; the place where I lived before consignment to... well, you know.
Anyway, a 41 year old man looked at the memory this past January and thought, "Hey, man, you're an adult (sort of) a husband and father... go ahead and get some seeds and some soil and do honor to that memory, Steve." And I did; I ordered some seeds from a place in Hawaii, learned that there are several types of papaya, and ordered the one called "Linda" in honor of the beautiful woman who is my wife and mother of my children. When they arrived in a tiny, air tight envelope, I bought some soil and degradable pots, and planted 4 seeds, all in the midst of a pleasant moment reliving the memory of what I had been taught about planting the seeds only so deep, and watering the soil every day, expecting to be able to see the seedlings inside of two weeks or so.
Man...
Two weeks came and went. Nothing. 3 weeks. A month. NADA.
Every morning, when making breakfast for the girls in the morning school routine, I would look on the kitchen sill above the sink.
Bupkis.
I'd water it faithfully each day. Wait another week. Tumbleweeds.
At one point I held the pot in one hand while no one was looking, twisted up my mouth, and from the depths of useless knowledge in my memory banks, pulled out Doug E. Fresh, complete with 1980s echo chamber:
"WEEEEEE, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful... We have done so much, for so long, with so little-ittle-ittle, that we are now qualified to do anything with-with-with-with... NOTHIN-othin-othin... Say what?... NOTHIN-othin-othin... I can't hear you!... NOTHIN-othin-othin..."
A mind is a terrible thing.
After over 6 weeks, two seedlings appeared. At the same exact moment, both in the same state of unfolding from the soil on the same exact morning. Two. So what if I planted 4--two appeared, in sync, in thrice the expected germination time.
****************************************
Herein lies a lesson in the sovereignty of the LORD. I can be as huge a control freak as I want to be; I am not in control. The One Who determines which seeds will grow and when is the same One Who determined when and where I would exist, and determines how long my heart will beat and my lungs will take in air. I must continuously trust and obey the LORD, and all pretense of control I exert over something is precisely that, a pitiful pretense, lasting the equally pitiful length of time it takes to be born on this earth and die. Obey and trust Him with all you have in you, that He may be glorified." That's all there is.
I look at that pot of baby papaya trees and thank the LORD for the lesson; I am to be faithful and concentrate on doing what I am here to do, and things will happen in His way, in His time, in accordance with His good pleasure and as He sees fit. Not the way *I* want it, beacuse that is less than irrelevant. Not the way *you* want it, either, save by happy coincidence of your will being in alignment with His own over a particular thing. Don't look at your own will, Steve. Don't even hold any bit of it in your hand or clutch it to your chest because your flesh craves/wants/will sell your soul for a nickel for its own sake to obtain. Give it to the Father and accept that *He* is LORD and not you. Trust and obey Him above *you* and your will's delusion of might and strength. Love Him with all that you have, and your true neighbor as yourself, and be thankful... BE THANKFUL EVERY NANOSECOND OF YOUR LIFE... that He made you a good seed, one of His, from before the foundation of the world, for His glory, and not a tare, indistinguishable from the wheat, but known... *known* beyond all doubt... to those who will harvest.
"Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”" Matthew 13:24-30
"Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13:36-43
We covered these verses in our Bible study recently. My brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin, said, "Anyone who is familiar at all with farming knows that a farmer keeps a collection of choice seeds, and determines when and where they will be planted. We were in *His* hand, sown from His hand..."
"...before the foundation of the world." I spoke aloud. And, remembering my grandmother's final admonishment to me, I cried in front of all of those people. It was one of the few moments in my life when it took all of my strength to restrain weeping in strangled silence, and not let it pour out of me in shameless floods.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:" Ephesians 1:3-4
""Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Matthew 25:34
"And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." John 6:39
"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." Revelation 13:8
No longer do I need to search for stones in my soil. No longer do I have a place to harbor any doubt of whether I am sheep or belligerent goat. I belong to Him. I am His sheep, and hear His voice. The sure knowledge that I am His and He has ransomed me is *not* license to act any way I want, but an opportunity to show my gratitude and serve Him more faithfully.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that wants to trust and obey *You* above what I want. You gave this to me despite the fact that I am the wretch the song Amazing Grace refers to.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that knows that the *only* thing which we are all genetically predisposed to do is SIN, and that we can only be freed from that condition through Your salvation; being one of Yours, sown in the world by Your hand and written in the Book of Life before the world was even made.
Thank You, Father, for teaching me to learn my place and stay in it; a creation. A bit of shadows and dust You formed. That *You* ALONE are God, and that You ALONE are sovereign over everything.
Thank You for a grandmother who loved me enough to convey to me with everything she had to remember to Whom I belong, and for Your choosing to let me live long enough to accept it as truth.
Grandma. The hands which gave me my first Bible and prompted me to read it before a church congregation at the age of 4. Hands that eased me through a week long stomach virus while living in her home. Hands that both eased coughs away, and beat my behind for lying. Those hands were about my neck in the apartment she last lived in, surrounded by what belongings she kept from a lifetime of marriage and over 20 years of widowhood, hugging my face to hers.
5 words.
"Remember to Whom you belong."
At some level I knew what she meant. I knew to capitalize the first pronoun in my mind as I heard it, and not the second, at least.
The fathoms of my own blind ignorance, however, were just beneath the thin veneer of my nod into her warm neck; as deep a deception as the thought that, just as I had soothed myself with countless times over the years, I would visit her again while she still inhabited her flesh.
I yielded nothing. I submitted nothing. I had the temerity to think to fit God into my life, let Him be my steering wheel instead of bowing to Him in humble submission and having Him drive. True worship... denial of self... true humility... was lip service at best.
The same murderous delusion as that which dwells within the vast majority of all who lay claim to the title "Christian".
I did not even begin to know how to accept the fullness of what she was given to know. Whether by the truth; of the filthy rags of anything which *I* could do to live a clean life acceptable in His sight, or the lie; of the utter devaluation of my self worth's currency--I did not even see her words past my horrifyingly feeble hope... that I would somehow die within the handful of seconds between "repentance" of sin, and the commission anew of what I had just declared I would never do again. All her guidance, her cajoling... her hours of conversation on the phone, or one on one, throughout decades of life, whether in times of inner peace or scarcely reined atomic fury, all coalesced into those five words.
The LORD, Whom she faithfully served, granted me the grace to have the scales removed from my eyes regarding her words.
8 *years* after she died.
******************************
When I lived in Brooklyn, many of the members of my father's church lived on Bainbridge Street with us. I would see them several times a week, on the way to and from school or church. It was part of the continuity I so cherished. One of them lived across Stuyvesant Avenue, about 6 or seven houses from the corner. I can not at the time of this writing remember her name (see: senility) but she was an elderly lady who was very kind to me. I shoveled the snow from before her house in the winter in addition to ours, but we shared a common interest which I have recently recovered in her honor.
She was a lover of green growing things, as I was. One of my folks told her about my interest, and she invited me into her brownstone one day to show me her many well cared for plants. I remember at age 13 or so, looking in the front room of her home, just to the left of the iron-wrought entry, looking over the green plants, and doing a double take at colors and shapes I did not expect. Closer inspection revealed that she had, growing in Brooklyn, New York, two different kinds of fruit trees, miniature versions of their tropical counterparts; an orange tree. the golf ball sized oranges catching my eye from the hallway, and one I did not recognize. It was the largest of all, sat in a pot on the floor, and had spreading, intricate leaves at the top of a long brownish trunk without bark, and a gathering of fruit clustered where the top of the trunk met the explosion of leaves.
I asked what it was, seeing that she had 4 or 5 other, smaller versions of it, in smaller pots in the sills facing the front of her home among her other plants. "That is a papaya tree," she said in her contralto voice. She went on to answer all my questions about how the trees are cared for, and how with proper care they would fruit all year round. When it was time for me to leave, she kindly rewarded my obvious interest and handed me a few small, wrinkled, black seeds in a "dixie" cup.
I spent the next couple of years trying to replicate what she had done, but in my own bedroom window. I had yet to learn that the heat register directly above said window placed too much dry air on the young plants, although one of them grew to a decent height and even flowered. but did not produce fruit (I'm thinking now, in retrospect, that this one was a male, which produces no fruit but is advisable to have for pollination).
The 28 or so years (...*wowzers*) since I fell in love with the papaya tree saw little to no opportunity to have one. The thought of growing one in Washington D.C. struck me as just wrong; my reasoning--why on earth would I subject another living thing to live in hell along with me...? I relegated the memory of the papaya tree and the kind neighbor who taught me about them to the inviolate place in my memory where I stored all things and people from Brooklyn; the place where I lived before consignment to... well, you know.
Anyway, a 41 year old man looked at the memory this past January and thought, "Hey, man, you're an adult (sort of) a husband and father... go ahead and get some seeds and some soil and do honor to that memory, Steve." And I did; I ordered some seeds from a place in Hawaii, learned that there are several types of papaya, and ordered the one called "Linda" in honor of the beautiful woman who is my wife and mother of my children. When they arrived in a tiny, air tight envelope, I bought some soil and degradable pots, and planted 4 seeds, all in the midst of a pleasant moment reliving the memory of what I had been taught about planting the seeds only so deep, and watering the soil every day, expecting to be able to see the seedlings inside of two weeks or so.
Man...
Two weeks came and went. Nothing. 3 weeks. A month. NADA.
Every morning, when making breakfast for the girls in the morning school routine, I would look on the kitchen sill above the sink.
Bupkis.
I'd water it faithfully each day. Wait another week. Tumbleweeds.
At one point I held the pot in one hand while no one was looking, twisted up my mouth, and from the depths of useless knowledge in my memory banks, pulled out Doug E. Fresh, complete with 1980s echo chamber:
"WEEEEEE, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful... We have done so much, for so long, with so little-ittle-ittle, that we are now qualified to do anything with-with-with-with... NOTHIN-othin-othin... Say what?... NOTHIN-othin-othin... I can't hear you!... NOTHIN-othin-othin..."
A mind is a terrible thing.
After over 6 weeks, two seedlings appeared. At the same exact moment, both in the same state of unfolding from the soil on the same exact morning. Two. So what if I planted 4--two appeared, in sync, in thrice the expected germination time.
****************************************
Herein lies a lesson in the sovereignty of the LORD. I can be as huge a control freak as I want to be; I am not in control. The One Who determines which seeds will grow and when is the same One Who determined when and where I would exist, and determines how long my heart will beat and my lungs will take in air. I must continuously trust and obey the LORD, and all pretense of control I exert over something is precisely that, a pitiful pretense, lasting the equally pitiful length of time it takes to be born on this earth and die. Obey and trust Him with all you have in you, that He may be glorified." That's all there is.
I look at that pot of baby papaya trees and thank the LORD for the lesson; I am to be faithful and concentrate on doing what I am here to do, and things will happen in His way, in His time, in accordance with His good pleasure and as He sees fit. Not the way *I* want it, beacuse that is less than irrelevant. Not the way *you* want it, either, save by happy coincidence of your will being in alignment with His own over a particular thing. Don't look at your own will, Steve. Don't even hold any bit of it in your hand or clutch it to your chest because your flesh craves/wants/will sell your soul for a nickel for its own sake to obtain. Give it to the Father and accept that *He* is LORD and not you. Trust and obey Him above *you* and your will's delusion of might and strength. Love Him with all that you have, and your true neighbor as yourself, and be thankful... BE THANKFUL EVERY NANOSECOND OF YOUR LIFE... that He made you a good seed, one of His, from before the foundation of the world, for His glory, and not a tare, indistinguishable from the wheat, but known... *known* beyond all doubt... to those who will harvest.
"Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”" Matthew 13:24-30
"Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13:36-43
We covered these verses in our Bible study recently. My brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin, said, "Anyone who is familiar at all with farming knows that a farmer keeps a collection of choice seeds, and determines when and where they will be planted. We were in *His* hand, sown from His hand..."
"...before the foundation of the world." I spoke aloud. And, remembering my grandmother's final admonishment to me, I cried in front of all of those people. It was one of the few moments in my life when it took all of my strength to restrain weeping in strangled silence, and not let it pour out of me in shameless floods.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:" Ephesians 1:3-4
""Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Matthew 25:34
"And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." John 6:39
"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." Revelation 13:8
No longer do I need to search for stones in my soil. No longer do I have a place to harbor any doubt of whether I am sheep or belligerent goat. I belong to Him. I am His sheep, and hear His voice. The sure knowledge that I am His and He has ransomed me is *not* license to act any way I want, but an opportunity to show my gratitude and serve Him more faithfully.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that wants to trust and obey *You* above what I want. You gave this to me despite the fact that I am the wretch the song Amazing Grace refers to.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that knows that the *only* thing which we are all genetically predisposed to do is SIN, and that we can only be freed from that condition through Your salvation; being one of Yours, sown in the world by Your hand and written in the Book of Life before the world was even made.
Thank You, Father, for teaching me to learn my place and stay in it; a creation. A bit of shadows and dust You formed. That *You* ALONE are God, and that You ALONE are sovereign over everything.
Thank You for a grandmother who loved me enough to convey to me with everything she had to remember to Whom I belong, and for Your choosing to let me live long enough to accept it as truth.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
One Way Or The Other
In the One Way, or in the other, the name of the LORD *will* be glorified, both by my life and by yours, as surely as there is a Sun in the sky and night follows the day.
This truth requires nothing from us. Neither our consent, nor our acceptance, our compliance, our obedience, nor even our acknowledgement of its existence, are necessary. Hopefully, we receive the grace to know our true place, as slaves and bond-servants of either to sin, or to He Who ransoms us from it. Or perhaps through the parasitic cancer of pride we consider ourselves to be potential gods striving to "recover former glory". Or maybe we bow to no god but the idol of currency, like most of the world. Perhaps we merely hold *ourselves* in higher esteem than He Who created us. Whatever our worldview, OUR LIVES *WILL* GLORIFY HIM.
The Sovereign, Holy, Almighty LORD needs no one to worship Him, or be His people.
His Sovereignty is such that all of the Heavens are His roof, and the Earth is His footstool. It is such that if His followers had been silent rather than shouting their praise and glory as the Master entered Jerusalem, then the very *stones* would have cried out. His glory is magnified by all creation, whether it yields its will in submission, or refuses and is made into an example of His wrath. His Holiness is so intolerant of sin that the laws given to Israel simply could not be followed without a spirit and heart broken and contrite before the LORD. Pride must be *absent*, our souls completely cleansed of its terminal cancer, to see the utterly hopeless calamity of our soul's state; the complete unworthiness of us to anything but *death* beside His holiness. This remains so for those of us who are disciples of His Son today, because it was only by the Blood of Christ that we may stand before Him.
Yet from the time of Aristotle, on through to today's world, pride and self will are considered virtue and are exalted, while humility, and the denial of self necessary to follow Jesus are considered weakness and are shunned.
The LORD has made clear what is of value to Him.
"Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD." 2 Kings 22:19
"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
"For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isaiah 57:15
"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." Joel 2:13
Those infested with Pride and the Will to wield it are impaled upon them both before the LORD. To wield them rather than *yield* them is unbowed rebellion against Him, and the Word shows that severe, lasting consequence follow, even when we are forgiven.
Yes, I said infested; Pride is a parasite with the benefit of a good press agent. It grows, and metastasizes, and KILLS; like cancer. It is an affliction which causes blindness to the condition of the soul it preys upon, until that soul is brought, naked, all pride and will torn away before the presence of the LORD in the day of judgment. By then it is too late, and the soul is delivered to the Second Death.
The theme of "Obey the LORD or be used as an example of wrath upon disobedience to Him," is not a state that has changed with the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, folks; that was the only way in which the Father would accept restoring us to Him. It did not change the condition of God's Holiness and Sovereignty in any way.
"God is not like people. He tells no lies. He is not like humans. He doesn't change his mind. When He says something, He does it. When He makes a promise, He keeps it." Numbers 23:19
Are you one who thinks that your sense of right and wrong need not submit wholly to, or requires no alignment with, that of the LORD? Do you think that He will see the difference in your measurement and understand; excuse the differences? Do you think He sent His ONLY Son to be tortured and crushed so He could start winking with the rest of the world at that which He calls sin and abomination?
Do you even fear the LORD at all?
Consider the scriptures, both listed here, and the innumerable others within the Word which expose those thoughts of presumption for the deadly lie which they are, and consider where your worldview aligns with them, and THINK AGAIN. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow and few will find it because of those untold billions who think that same way; that their way is good enough.
Do you not like these questions I have asked? Do you consider them unfair? Intolerant? Inconsiderate of your feelings?
You would be correct. The truth doesn't take our feelings into any account whatsoever; we are either accepting of the Truth, allow ourselves to be branches of the Vine, be painfully pruned and roll with it, or we reject it, are cut off from the Vine, and are crushed by it as it rolls right over us... before we are summarily burned in the fire.
The truth is absolute and unchanging. Permanent. It is therefore intolerant of all your desired modifications to it.
This--this life--*being* here; the dates that will mark our headstones signifying the blink of an eye between our birth and our death--this is not about us. You do not breathe in and out for the sake of what you think is fair or what pleases you or makes *you* happy; the dream of pursuit of whatever pleases you is *not* the will of the LORD. You are placed here to love, worship, and glorify the One Who made you. That's it. Do it *His* way and live forever; do it your own way and die for all eternity. This is the central theme throughout the Word of the LORD from Genesis through the Revelation of John. It requires sacrifice, rejection, and enmity with the entire world, because it rejected the Truth long ago and *knows* you are removed from its fate, and are insulated from the evil of its dominion.
When Jesus said, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." in Matthew 10:22, did you think he was playing? Did you think you had devised some clever way to be saved while avoiding the hatred and persecution that will come with it, when the LORD also said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."?
You still think you've "got this", *your* way, and don't need Him, don't you.
For your own sake; please think again. The lie only lasts for as long as you breathe, and the breathing can stop at any time; in your sleep, walking down the street, behind the wheel of your car, at your desk reading a blog...
No euphoric, temporal façade, which defies the Absolute Truth of God's Sovereignty and lasts for precisely the split second we inhabit this place and no longer, is worth the burning agony of eternity separated from Him.
Behold two Kings of Israel. Both glorified God.
One Saul. One David.
Saul was chosen of the people in rejection of the LORD. David was chosen by the LORD in spite of the choice of the people, to establish His Kingdom forever.
Saul made decisions based upon fear of his own people, and forgot his true place. David made his choices based upon his fear of the LORD, and when he forgot his place, he truly repented, even as he was harshly punished.
Saul was blinded by his pride into thinking he could disobey the LORD, deceive the prophet Samuel, and get away with it, because he esteemed himself above his need to obey. David was blinded by his lust, disobeyed the LORD and repented when confronted by the prophet Nathan, because he loved the LORD above himself and knew in his heart that deceiving Him was impossible.
Saul reacted to the truth of his sin with fear rather than contrite submission, compounding the sin with ever more sin, until the LORD used him to make an example of what happens when a person abandons His way in favor of their own. David reacted to the truth of his sin with repentance, his heart broken by that truth, and the LORD used him to show that even as your sin has lasting consequence, if you repent and set your heart upon pleasing Him you will be forgiven, and be made into an example of His grace and mercy. (Even as David's first son born from Bathsheba died in infancy because of his sin in taking her for his wife, he received the punishment in full acceptance, and moved on in service to the LORD). That is severe punishment and lasting consequence for *the anointed King of Israel*, chosen of the LORD, recognized by the Almighty Himself as a man after His own heart... and some of us have the hubris to think we can escape consequence... we, the *creation*, *willing* our sense of right and wrong to be *complied* to by the *Creator*, instead of the other way around.
Saul was king for 2 years. *2 years.* He died abandoned by the LORD for having forsaken Him. The bodies of his sons were slain beside him, and there were no farewells. Even at the moment of his death, Saul fell upon his own sword for fear of what the enemy's humiliation would be once they caught him. David was king for *40 years* and died in his bed as a servant of the LORD. He said his farewells to Solomon his son, advising him to both observe what the LORD requires, and walk in His ways. His line was established forever, because his heart was after God's own.
Behold two kings of Israel. BOTH glorified God.
In one way, or in the other, our lives *will* do the very same, serving as examples of grace and mercy, or examples of wrath and destruction.
Please. Yield to the will of the LORD and serve Him. It is for no one's sake but your own, because He will be glorified by your example whether you do or not.
This truth requires nothing from us. Neither our consent, nor our acceptance, our compliance, our obedience, nor even our acknowledgement of its existence, are necessary. Hopefully, we receive the grace to know our true place, as slaves and bond-servants of either to sin, or to He Who ransoms us from it. Or perhaps through the parasitic cancer of pride we consider ourselves to be potential gods striving to "recover former glory". Or maybe we bow to no god but the idol of currency, like most of the world. Perhaps we merely hold *ourselves* in higher esteem than He Who created us. Whatever our worldview, OUR LIVES *WILL* GLORIFY HIM.
The Sovereign, Holy, Almighty LORD needs no one to worship Him, or be His people.
His Sovereignty is such that all of the Heavens are His roof, and the Earth is His footstool. It is such that if His followers had been silent rather than shouting their praise and glory as the Master entered Jerusalem, then the very *stones* would have cried out. His glory is magnified by all creation, whether it yields its will in submission, or refuses and is made into an example of His wrath. His Holiness is so intolerant of sin that the laws given to Israel simply could not be followed without a spirit and heart broken and contrite before the LORD. Pride must be *absent*, our souls completely cleansed of its terminal cancer, to see the utterly hopeless calamity of our soul's state; the complete unworthiness of us to anything but *death* beside His holiness. This remains so for those of us who are disciples of His Son today, because it was only by the Blood of Christ that we may stand before Him.
Yet from the time of Aristotle, on through to today's world, pride and self will are considered virtue and are exalted, while humility, and the denial of self necessary to follow Jesus are considered weakness and are shunned.
The LORD has made clear what is of value to Him.
"Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD." 2 Kings 22:19
"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
"For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isaiah 57:15
"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." Joel 2:13
Those infested with Pride and the Will to wield it are impaled upon them both before the LORD. To wield them rather than *yield* them is unbowed rebellion against Him, and the Word shows that severe, lasting consequence follow, even when we are forgiven.
Yes, I said infested; Pride is a parasite with the benefit of a good press agent. It grows, and metastasizes, and KILLS; like cancer. It is an affliction which causes blindness to the condition of the soul it preys upon, until that soul is brought, naked, all pride and will torn away before the presence of the LORD in the day of judgment. By then it is too late, and the soul is delivered to the Second Death.
The theme of "Obey the LORD or be used as an example of wrath upon disobedience to Him," is not a state that has changed with the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, folks; that was the only way in which the Father would accept restoring us to Him. It did not change the condition of God's Holiness and Sovereignty in any way.
"God is not like people. He tells no lies. He is not like humans. He doesn't change his mind. When He says something, He does it. When He makes a promise, He keeps it." Numbers 23:19
Are you one who thinks that your sense of right and wrong need not submit wholly to, or requires no alignment with, that of the LORD? Do you think that He will see the difference in your measurement and understand; excuse the differences? Do you think He sent His ONLY Son to be tortured and crushed so He could start winking with the rest of the world at that which He calls sin and abomination?
Do you even fear the LORD at all?
Consider the scriptures, both listed here, and the innumerable others within the Word which expose those thoughts of presumption for the deadly lie which they are, and consider where your worldview aligns with them, and THINK AGAIN. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow and few will find it because of those untold billions who think that same way; that their way is good enough.
Do you not like these questions I have asked? Do you consider them unfair? Intolerant? Inconsiderate of your feelings?
You would be correct. The truth doesn't take our feelings into any account whatsoever; we are either accepting of the Truth, allow ourselves to be branches of the Vine, be painfully pruned and roll with it, or we reject it, are cut off from the Vine, and are crushed by it as it rolls right over us... before we are summarily burned in the fire.
The truth is absolute and unchanging. Permanent. It is therefore intolerant of all your desired modifications to it.
This--this life--*being* here; the dates that will mark our headstones signifying the blink of an eye between our birth and our death--this is not about us. You do not breathe in and out for the sake of what you think is fair or what pleases you or makes *you* happy; the dream of pursuit of whatever pleases you is *not* the will of the LORD. You are placed here to love, worship, and glorify the One Who made you. That's it. Do it *His* way and live forever; do it your own way and die for all eternity. This is the central theme throughout the Word of the LORD from Genesis through the Revelation of John. It requires sacrifice, rejection, and enmity with the entire world, because it rejected the Truth long ago and *knows* you are removed from its fate, and are insulated from the evil of its dominion.
When Jesus said, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." in Matthew 10:22, did you think he was playing? Did you think you had devised some clever way to be saved while avoiding the hatred and persecution that will come with it, when the LORD also said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."?
You still think you've "got this", *your* way, and don't need Him, don't you.
For your own sake; please think again. The lie only lasts for as long as you breathe, and the breathing can stop at any time; in your sleep, walking down the street, behind the wheel of your car, at your desk reading a blog...
No euphoric, temporal façade, which defies the Absolute Truth of God's Sovereignty and lasts for precisely the split second we inhabit this place and no longer, is worth the burning agony of eternity separated from Him.
Behold two Kings of Israel. Both glorified God.
One Saul. One David.
Saul was chosen of the people in rejection of the LORD. David was chosen by the LORD in spite of the choice of the people, to establish His Kingdom forever.
Saul made decisions based upon fear of his own people, and forgot his true place. David made his choices based upon his fear of the LORD, and when he forgot his place, he truly repented, even as he was harshly punished.
Saul was blinded by his pride into thinking he could disobey the LORD, deceive the prophet Samuel, and get away with it, because he esteemed himself above his need to obey. David was blinded by his lust, disobeyed the LORD and repented when confronted by the prophet Nathan, because he loved the LORD above himself and knew in his heart that deceiving Him was impossible.
Saul reacted to the truth of his sin with fear rather than contrite submission, compounding the sin with ever more sin, until the LORD used him to make an example of what happens when a person abandons His way in favor of their own. David reacted to the truth of his sin with repentance, his heart broken by that truth, and the LORD used him to show that even as your sin has lasting consequence, if you repent and set your heart upon pleasing Him you will be forgiven, and be made into an example of His grace and mercy. (Even as David's first son born from Bathsheba died in infancy because of his sin in taking her for his wife, he received the punishment in full acceptance, and moved on in service to the LORD). That is severe punishment and lasting consequence for *the anointed King of Israel*, chosen of the LORD, recognized by the Almighty Himself as a man after His own heart... and some of us have the hubris to think we can escape consequence... we, the *creation*, *willing* our sense of right and wrong to be *complied* to by the *Creator*, instead of the other way around.
Saul was king for 2 years. *2 years.* He died abandoned by the LORD for having forsaken Him. The bodies of his sons were slain beside him, and there were no farewells. Even at the moment of his death, Saul fell upon his own sword for fear of what the enemy's humiliation would be once they caught him. David was king for *40 years* and died in his bed as a servant of the LORD. He said his farewells to Solomon his son, advising him to both observe what the LORD requires, and walk in His ways. His line was established forever, because his heart was after God's own.
Behold two kings of Israel. BOTH glorified God.
In one way, or in the other, our lives *will* do the very same, serving as examples of grace and mercy, or examples of wrath and destruction.
Please. Yield to the will of the LORD and serve Him. It is for no one's sake but your own, because He will be glorified by your example whether you do or not.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Grace To Submit (Part 2)
Fresh from being tempted in the wilderness by Satan, it is recorded in Luke 4 that Jesus went home to Nazareth, to identify himself and his purpose there, only to be so rejected that they ran him out of town and sought to murder him by throwing him down from the cliffs Nazareth was built on.
To precipitate this, he read the verses from the prophet Isaiah, which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
He came to save people who are granted the grace to be aware of their decrepit spiritual state,
and have hearts and spirits broken and contrite as a result. The vast majority of people, especially those who knew him merely as the son of Joseph, possessed none of these attributes,
and Jesus knew it. So when he told them as much in terms they fully understood, they were infuriated, as the remainder of Luke 4 details.
The Lord identified the spiritual state of men to that of a captive cast into a dark prison, sightless and broken, bruised by iron chains.
It brings to mind the horrific fate of Zedekiah, last King of Judah, who, already in tributary bondage to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, entered into alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt and revolted without the blessing of the LORD, and the resulting siege and capture of Jerusalem led to his fleeing the city with his followers, only to be captured, brought before Nebuchadnezzar in
chains, and have his last sight be that of his sons being put to death before his own eyes were gouged out.
Zedekiah perished in that prison.
Having disobeyed the LORD through the word He gave from the prophet Jeremiah, he brought utter calamity to himself, his sons, and his entire kingdom. This is being repeated in various ways, in the lives of innumerable people, who hear the gospel of salvation, only to either refuse it or deceive themselves into thinking they need not submit their lives to receive it; because their pride has stolen their sight, and prevented them from seeing that their soul is destitute, that the thing they hold to their breast by the acceptance of the world is sin and therefore condemns their spirit to judgment and *death*. Thus they are hopelessly bound to their sin as with chains in the dark. Nor do they recognize the poverty of their spirit, as their sins have not broken their hearts, made possible because the parasite of pride is all that sustains them while the breath of life remains.
Jesus came for those who acknowledge the hopeless condition of their spirit and are crushed by the truth of it. He did not come for those who think they're all good as they are. He made this abundantly clear when in Luke 13 he was asked bluntly, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
"He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out." Luke 4:23-28
In short, Jesus answered in the affirmative.
THIS is the truth. Ignored. Inconvenient.
Painful.
TRUE.
It is not the lie you have been told, that everyone gets to heaven their own way. Nor the lie which says God loves and accepts you just the way you are. Nor the one that says we are to tolerate and accept the behaviors which the secular world tolerates and accepts, and that God, who changes with the times, does too.
These are lies wrought by the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places, led by the Accuser, he who walks about seeking whom he may devour before he himself receives judgment in everlasting fire. And all who exchange the truth of God for these lies will be impaled by them, for the lies leave them under the wrath and judgment of the LORD, who in spite of all claims to the contrary is unchanging, and makes mockery of "enlightened, modern understanding".
God is not fooled or impressed by any such claims; even those which deny Him.
"The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise
will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?" Isaiah 29:13-16
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
Receive the grace of the LORD and submit all that you are to it. Acknowledge the truth and permit it to break your spirit and replace your pride with humility and a contrite heart. Then the LORD will release you from your captivity, restore your sight, and set you free.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."John 8:31-36.
23 short verses from here, those who Jesus spoke to here took up stones to kill Him.
Be one who accepts and obeys the truth when convicted by it, rather than one whose heart is so hardened against it that they would sooner crush it to earth and remain blind and in the dark than submit and be transformed.
To precipitate this, he read the verses from the prophet Isaiah, which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
He came to save people who are granted the grace to be aware of their decrepit spiritual state,
and have hearts and spirits broken and contrite as a result. The vast majority of people, especially those who knew him merely as the son of Joseph, possessed none of these attributes,
and Jesus knew it. So when he told them as much in terms they fully understood, they were infuriated, as the remainder of Luke 4 details.
The Lord identified the spiritual state of men to that of a captive cast into a dark prison, sightless and broken, bruised by iron chains.
It brings to mind the horrific fate of Zedekiah, last King of Judah, who, already in tributary bondage to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, entered into alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt and revolted without the blessing of the LORD, and the resulting siege and capture of Jerusalem led to his fleeing the city with his followers, only to be captured, brought before Nebuchadnezzar in
chains, and have his last sight be that of his sons being put to death before his own eyes were gouged out.
Zedekiah perished in that prison.
Having disobeyed the LORD through the word He gave from the prophet Jeremiah, he brought utter calamity to himself, his sons, and his entire kingdom. This is being repeated in various ways, in the lives of innumerable people, who hear the gospel of salvation, only to either refuse it or deceive themselves into thinking they need not submit their lives to receive it; because their pride has stolen their sight, and prevented them from seeing that their soul is destitute, that the thing they hold to their breast by the acceptance of the world is sin and therefore condemns their spirit to judgment and *death*. Thus they are hopelessly bound to their sin as with chains in the dark. Nor do they recognize the poverty of their spirit, as their sins have not broken their hearts, made possible because the parasite of pride is all that sustains them while the breath of life remains.
Jesus came for those who acknowledge the hopeless condition of their spirit and are crushed by the truth of it. He did not come for those who think they're all good as they are. He made this abundantly clear when in Luke 13 he was asked bluntly, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
"He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out." Luke 4:23-28
In short, Jesus answered in the affirmative.
THIS is the truth. Ignored. Inconvenient.
Painful.
TRUE.
It is not the lie you have been told, that everyone gets to heaven their own way. Nor the lie which says God loves and accepts you just the way you are. Nor the one that says we are to tolerate and accept the behaviors which the secular world tolerates and accepts, and that God, who changes with the times, does too.
These are lies wrought by the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places, led by the Accuser, he who walks about seeking whom he may devour before he himself receives judgment in everlasting fire. And all who exchange the truth of God for these lies will be impaled by them, for the lies leave them under the wrath and judgment of the LORD, who in spite of all claims to the contrary is unchanging, and makes mockery of "enlightened, modern understanding".
God is not fooled or impressed by any such claims; even those which deny Him.
"The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise
will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?" Isaiah 29:13-16
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
Receive the grace of the LORD and submit all that you are to it. Acknowledge the truth and permit it to break your spirit and replace your pride with humility and a contrite heart. Then the LORD will release you from your captivity, restore your sight, and set you free.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."John 8:31-36.
23 short verses from here, those who Jesus spoke to here took up stones to kill Him.
Be one who accepts and obeys the truth when convicted by it, rather than one whose heart is so hardened against it that they would sooner crush it to earth and remain blind and in the dark than submit and be transformed.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Subjugation of Forttopia
“Since its founding, the people of Forttopia considered themselves a sovereign nation. Then, suddenly, they were overwhelmed, and defeated…” –Cyril T. Jermin. My thanks to you, Elder Brother in the LORD, for speaking such edifying truth to me, and inspiring this writing.
It came to pass, that in the year in which men first took steps upon the surface of the Moon, the LORD saw fit to establish one of a countless number of nations founded upon the Earth, that its inhabitants would worship and glorify Him. Its large population nestled within mountains completely shrouded from view, for all its realm was brought to being by the LORD within the guise and form of a child. Where the child’s eyes fell, there did the gaze of the nation fall. What the child conceived in this thought, the nation also pondered. Where his stone heart experienced any emotion, the entire nation braced itself as that emotion washed over them in a flood.
The LORD created this nation, as all others He had made, to glorify Himself; and it assuredly would. For by its obedience and servitude to Him, it would bring Him glory by the way in which the nation used its gifts to that cause and was blessed by Him, while by its disobedience and rebellion it would bring Him glory in the way it would be utterly destroyed, as an example to every other nation, everywhere. In no conceivable ending of this nation would the LORD not point to it and say, “…that all may know that I am the LORD,” whether through its submission and service to Him, or its rebellion and service to itself.
This nation, called Forttopia, was and remains comprised of one central metropolis, girded about and supplied continuously by outlying cities that are in allegiance with it. The Metropolis was named in that realm for the child in whom it was made, Steven I, who was to be Steward over the nation in service of the One True King, the Son of God; but once the child grew in awareness, that which inhabits all humanity, sin, entered the water supply of the nation and, just as in all humanity, utterly corrupted every inhabitant from the Steward down. What was worse, it also thoroughly separated the child from the God who made him and doomed him to the undying wrath of the LORD’s judgment. Steven I kept the title of his stewardship, but by the corruption of sin, which could not be prevented by any force the nations can muster, (thanks to the first such nation of humanity’s founding, known as Adam,) the Steward and his entire realm were subverted by the deadly parasite that is the first child of sin; pride.
In this manner was the Metropolis renamed Pride, after the parasite which claimed the Steward and later every inhabitant within the walls. Its infection and resultant blinding influence spread unchecked, placing its numerous outlying cities in utter bondage through power of its corruption.
Greatest among those who contributed to Pride’s growth were cities which began as one name before taking on another once the parasite took hold. The Submitted Will, which was to be kept clean and be the habitation of the Spirit of the LORD, became the palace of the Steward in his corruption and called itself Free Will, and forsook all truth of being bondservant to the King. The city of Anger, a common, natural occurrence within the nations of humanity, grew powerful and became divided into three brethren cities, and through Pride became flooded with the self righteousness pouring from the palace gates, becoming known as Malice, Vengeance, and Wrath. The city of Interdependence was claimed by the parasite and went mad, denied its purpose and begat by Pride’s influence Greed, Lust, the shining city of Entitlement, and the host of sub-districts patrolled by their powerful armies, all named from the world without while feeding the insatiable drives of their inhabitants. In this manner, all the cities about Pride were subverted and twisted into self serving forms of themselves.
Were it not for the mountains which sheltered Forttopia, constructed from the prayers of the nations of the child’s forebears, their full submission to the LORD that made them, and all the suffering they bore for standing in the world as God’s children, Forttopia would have immediately joined the nations numbered greater than the stars; those which forsook the Absolute Truth of why they were created. It would have succumbed immediately to the blindness of Pride’s more metastasized stages; that which makes the nation utterly forget that it is from birth doomed to fall under the wrath of the LORD, who is holy and righteous and will not abide sin, and can only be saved by *Him*, that their life is not their own and it would fully account for its disobedience before the LORD once the heart of the child inevitably stopped beating, and its last breath was taken.
In spite of this, Pride began to issue edicts to govern the nation, and the Steward signed off on them, for the parasite made him blind to only that which Pride wanted him to see, and he was bound by those edicts, having no power to overcome the seductive euphoria of all which Pride fed him from the surrounding cities. The Steward, like the stewards of countless other nations, gave only lip service to the LORD his King, and was blind to the state of his rebellion, as Lust satisfied his flesh, and he found that he wielded self righteous vengeance and wrath with skill. So it was that when Pride issued the edict that it was not sin to obey some parts of the will of the LORD while ignoring others, Steven I only slightly flinched. And when Pride declared itself its own Sovereign Nation under God, and that God would understand his choice to do things in the way of Forttopia rather than of the King who created it, Steven I squelched the fear that he was now in rebellion with the LORD by not seeking the truth and denying any stirring to seek His face, receive the truth, and be subject to it. Pride went on whispering shameless lies to him, chief among them the one that declared that he was fine just as he is, and need submit nothing of himself to be saved.
That the majority of nations are made utterly blind to the truth escapes them even as it escaped Forttopia's Steward, for by the power of its euphoric infusion into the host pride preys upon, that host does not acknowledge that pride is a cancer, but buys the lie that it is a virtue, and thus are unaware that pride’s sole purpose is to bring that nation under the Second Death… that of being finally stripped of all blindness, forced to do what it refused in life and acknowledge all that God is as the Source of all life and worthy only of our abject worship and praise, while being denied that very Source by His judgment for refusing to acknowledge Him correctly when we yet walked the Earth. This state of unimaginable suffering and torment, called Hell, was made for Lucifer the Accuser, who was the first victim of pride, and all those who rebelled with him and followed him into madness. There demon and human alike will endure the suffering of all who do not receive the Grace to acknowledge and obey the LORD before they breathe their last.
And that suffering will have no end.
It so happened, by the design and will of the LORD God *only* and through merit neither of Forttopia nor its Steward, that the nation of Forttopia was visited by the only thing that could save it; The Perfect Grace and Mercy of the LORD.
The Mercy, the act of not receiving the death that the nation was doomed to and fully deserved because its Steward was made from birth nothing more than a wretched sinner, was brought about by the Grace…
The mightiest, most loving of all graces, for which was paid the highest of all prices…
The Grace, the act of receiving salvation and forgiveness that Steven I in no way deserved nor could ever earn through any work or effort of his own, was brought about by the innocent Blood of the very King who created all things with His Father, who loved the Steward and his befouled nation so much that He would not only put down His mantle of Kingship and become a child in flesh as the Steward, but would be crushed, tortured, and crucified on a Roman cross for him, whereby His act of love would purchase Steven I from the judgment of the Second Death and make him an adopted child of the Father.
So it came to pass, while Pride held dominion over the nation of Forttopia as it rested secure in its blind journey toward the eternal Judgment and Wrath of the LORD, that the Grace and Mercy of the Most High God fell upon the Steward, who had become a man and now had children of his own, and in his growing fear of failing them realized he did not know the Truth and would account for both not seeking it and not having delivered it to his children as it was delivered to him.
When it fell upon Steven I, his blindness was lifted, and the throne of the King which he occupied was discovered to be covered all about by the many tentacles of Pride, which had entered his own flesh and dwelt in every portion of his life, even behind doors he thought were shut, within rooms he never knew existed. The tentacles not only kept him blind, they fed him with the perverted strength of the surrounding cities, and bore crushing weight about his chest which he did not notice, as his heart was made entirely of stone. Now that the Grace of the LORD fell upon him, that heart was turned finally to one of flesh, and the eyes of Steven I befell the state of himself and all the nation of Forttopia he was made Steward over, and from the polished reflective surfaces of that which he dared call Free Will, Steven I saw himself with eyes free from the blindness of Pride, and wept.
And his weeping has not stopped, nor will it all the days of his life.
So it was that Pride did not anticipate the freeing of the Steward, who by Grace had the Dark Armor of lies, crafted by the city of Despair, replaced by the whole Armor of the LORD, which at once freed him from every caressing, poisonous tentacle leaching his spirit and feeding him sweet, deadly delusion.
The Spirit of the LORD then went out from the Steward and overwhelmed the armies who dwelt there, and they were worsted by the miracle of the LORD's salvation. The lie of Free Will was removed, and Pride for all its perceived might was brought low and broken, and the palace of the Steward was thus made Submitted Will forever.
Those few that remain of those forces which were corrupted by Pride and yet live, (and they are many, for the life of Forttopia while its heart yet beats is their life and will only fall once the body Forttopia inhabits returns to the dust,) were seized by panic and outrage, and fled from before the face of the Spirit of the LORD to the crevices below the mountains where the nation was founded. There they lie in wait, and at such times as the Steward fails in the vigilance he is called upon to exercise; to watch upon the walls and destroy without mercy the cloying, begging, twisted creatures that were fed by Pride and thus were cast out and seek re-entry in relentless desperation, they mass together and return to places they once knew, and by the same Grace and Mercy, the Steward is forgiven for the failure to fight, and supplies him strength to make war upon them and destroy all those he finds by the weapon the LORD supplies him, even the women and children, and their corpses are cast over the reclaimed walls in ruthless message to those that dwell without. These same yet return and hurl themselves, still hopelessly blind, at the gates of Forttopia, for their blindness has stolen all truth and its hearing from them entirely, and though they ask continually from outside why even those who appear innocuous among them may not return, they fail to comprehend that the King Himself has already answered them in His Word, and in their futile cries hear nothing He has said:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23
“Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” –John 10:25-30
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
“Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
“Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then shall he answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” –Matthew 25:31-46
Many who now read of the Subjugation of Forttopia will find it foolishness and regret the time they spent reading it; to whom I say "go in peace, and don't die." If you are among those who are aware of their Stewardship and are given the Grace and Mercy of the LORD, I implore you to fully acknowledge the King and yield to Him the throne of your life now, while the false illusion of Free Will yet exists and it would glorify the LORD to believe in Him, having not seen Him. I implore you to submit your life, destroy your pride, and receive the Savior as your own, to read his Word and own it for yourself, and join me in my fight to the death, for *we* are the blinded enemy, and it is we who must come before the LORD and die to Him, that our souls may live.
It came to pass, that in the year in which men first took steps upon the surface of the Moon, the LORD saw fit to establish one of a countless number of nations founded upon the Earth, that its inhabitants would worship and glorify Him. Its large population nestled within mountains completely shrouded from view, for all its realm was brought to being by the LORD within the guise and form of a child. Where the child’s eyes fell, there did the gaze of the nation fall. What the child conceived in this thought, the nation also pondered. Where his stone heart experienced any emotion, the entire nation braced itself as that emotion washed over them in a flood.
The LORD created this nation, as all others He had made, to glorify Himself; and it assuredly would. For by its obedience and servitude to Him, it would bring Him glory by the way in which the nation used its gifts to that cause and was blessed by Him, while by its disobedience and rebellion it would bring Him glory in the way it would be utterly destroyed, as an example to every other nation, everywhere. In no conceivable ending of this nation would the LORD not point to it and say, “…that all may know that I am the LORD,” whether through its submission and service to Him, or its rebellion and service to itself.
This nation, called Forttopia, was and remains comprised of one central metropolis, girded about and supplied continuously by outlying cities that are in allegiance with it. The Metropolis was named in that realm for the child in whom it was made, Steven I, who was to be Steward over the nation in service of the One True King, the Son of God; but once the child grew in awareness, that which inhabits all humanity, sin, entered the water supply of the nation and, just as in all humanity, utterly corrupted every inhabitant from the Steward down. What was worse, it also thoroughly separated the child from the God who made him and doomed him to the undying wrath of the LORD’s judgment. Steven I kept the title of his stewardship, but by the corruption of sin, which could not be prevented by any force the nations can muster, (thanks to the first such nation of humanity’s founding, known as Adam,) the Steward and his entire realm were subverted by the deadly parasite that is the first child of sin; pride.
In this manner was the Metropolis renamed Pride, after the parasite which claimed the Steward and later every inhabitant within the walls. Its infection and resultant blinding influence spread unchecked, placing its numerous outlying cities in utter bondage through power of its corruption.
Greatest among those who contributed to Pride’s growth were cities which began as one name before taking on another once the parasite took hold. The Submitted Will, which was to be kept clean and be the habitation of the Spirit of the LORD, became the palace of the Steward in his corruption and called itself Free Will, and forsook all truth of being bondservant to the King. The city of Anger, a common, natural occurrence within the nations of humanity, grew powerful and became divided into three brethren cities, and through Pride became flooded with the self righteousness pouring from the palace gates, becoming known as Malice, Vengeance, and Wrath. The city of Interdependence was claimed by the parasite and went mad, denied its purpose and begat by Pride’s influence Greed, Lust, the shining city of Entitlement, and the host of sub-districts patrolled by their powerful armies, all named from the world without while feeding the insatiable drives of their inhabitants. In this manner, all the cities about Pride were subverted and twisted into self serving forms of themselves.
Were it not for the mountains which sheltered Forttopia, constructed from the prayers of the nations of the child’s forebears, their full submission to the LORD that made them, and all the suffering they bore for standing in the world as God’s children, Forttopia would have immediately joined the nations numbered greater than the stars; those which forsook the Absolute Truth of why they were created. It would have succumbed immediately to the blindness of Pride’s more metastasized stages; that which makes the nation utterly forget that it is from birth doomed to fall under the wrath of the LORD, who is holy and righteous and will not abide sin, and can only be saved by *Him*, that their life is not their own and it would fully account for its disobedience before the LORD once the heart of the child inevitably stopped beating, and its last breath was taken.
In spite of this, Pride began to issue edicts to govern the nation, and the Steward signed off on them, for the parasite made him blind to only that which Pride wanted him to see, and he was bound by those edicts, having no power to overcome the seductive euphoria of all which Pride fed him from the surrounding cities. The Steward, like the stewards of countless other nations, gave only lip service to the LORD his King, and was blind to the state of his rebellion, as Lust satisfied his flesh, and he found that he wielded self righteous vengeance and wrath with skill. So it was that when Pride issued the edict that it was not sin to obey some parts of the will of the LORD while ignoring others, Steven I only slightly flinched. And when Pride declared itself its own Sovereign Nation under God, and that God would understand his choice to do things in the way of Forttopia rather than of the King who created it, Steven I squelched the fear that he was now in rebellion with the LORD by not seeking the truth and denying any stirring to seek His face, receive the truth, and be subject to it. Pride went on whispering shameless lies to him, chief among them the one that declared that he was fine just as he is, and need submit nothing of himself to be saved.
That the majority of nations are made utterly blind to the truth escapes them even as it escaped Forttopia's Steward, for by the power of its euphoric infusion into the host pride preys upon, that host does not acknowledge that pride is a cancer, but buys the lie that it is a virtue, and thus are unaware that pride’s sole purpose is to bring that nation under the Second Death… that of being finally stripped of all blindness, forced to do what it refused in life and acknowledge all that God is as the Source of all life and worthy only of our abject worship and praise, while being denied that very Source by His judgment for refusing to acknowledge Him correctly when we yet walked the Earth. This state of unimaginable suffering and torment, called Hell, was made for Lucifer the Accuser, who was the first victim of pride, and all those who rebelled with him and followed him into madness. There demon and human alike will endure the suffering of all who do not receive the Grace to acknowledge and obey the LORD before they breathe their last.
And that suffering will have no end.
It so happened, by the design and will of the LORD God *only* and through merit neither of Forttopia nor its Steward, that the nation of Forttopia was visited by the only thing that could save it; The Perfect Grace and Mercy of the LORD.
The Mercy, the act of not receiving the death that the nation was doomed to and fully deserved because its Steward was made from birth nothing more than a wretched sinner, was brought about by the Grace…
The mightiest, most loving of all graces, for which was paid the highest of all prices…
The Grace, the act of receiving salvation and forgiveness that Steven I in no way deserved nor could ever earn through any work or effort of his own, was brought about by the innocent Blood of the very King who created all things with His Father, who loved the Steward and his befouled nation so much that He would not only put down His mantle of Kingship and become a child in flesh as the Steward, but would be crushed, tortured, and crucified on a Roman cross for him, whereby His act of love would purchase Steven I from the judgment of the Second Death and make him an adopted child of the Father.
So it came to pass, while Pride held dominion over the nation of Forttopia as it rested secure in its blind journey toward the eternal Judgment and Wrath of the LORD, that the Grace and Mercy of the Most High God fell upon the Steward, who had become a man and now had children of his own, and in his growing fear of failing them realized he did not know the Truth and would account for both not seeking it and not having delivered it to his children as it was delivered to him.
When it fell upon Steven I, his blindness was lifted, and the throne of the King which he occupied was discovered to be covered all about by the many tentacles of Pride, which had entered his own flesh and dwelt in every portion of his life, even behind doors he thought were shut, within rooms he never knew existed. The tentacles not only kept him blind, they fed him with the perverted strength of the surrounding cities, and bore crushing weight about his chest which he did not notice, as his heart was made entirely of stone. Now that the Grace of the LORD fell upon him, that heart was turned finally to one of flesh, and the eyes of Steven I befell the state of himself and all the nation of Forttopia he was made Steward over, and from the polished reflective surfaces of that which he dared call Free Will, Steven I saw himself with eyes free from the blindness of Pride, and wept.
And his weeping has not stopped, nor will it all the days of his life.
So it was that Pride did not anticipate the freeing of the Steward, who by Grace had the Dark Armor of lies, crafted by the city of Despair, replaced by the whole Armor of the LORD, which at once freed him from every caressing, poisonous tentacle leaching his spirit and feeding him sweet, deadly delusion.
The Spirit of the LORD then went out from the Steward and overwhelmed the armies who dwelt there, and they were worsted by the miracle of the LORD's salvation. The lie of Free Will was removed, and Pride for all its perceived might was brought low and broken, and the palace of the Steward was thus made Submitted Will forever.
Those few that remain of those forces which were corrupted by Pride and yet live, (and they are many, for the life of Forttopia while its heart yet beats is their life and will only fall once the body Forttopia inhabits returns to the dust,) were seized by panic and outrage, and fled from before the face of the Spirit of the LORD to the crevices below the mountains where the nation was founded. There they lie in wait, and at such times as the Steward fails in the vigilance he is called upon to exercise; to watch upon the walls and destroy without mercy the cloying, begging, twisted creatures that were fed by Pride and thus were cast out and seek re-entry in relentless desperation, they mass together and return to places they once knew, and by the same Grace and Mercy, the Steward is forgiven for the failure to fight, and supplies him strength to make war upon them and destroy all those he finds by the weapon the LORD supplies him, even the women and children, and their corpses are cast over the reclaimed walls in ruthless message to those that dwell without. These same yet return and hurl themselves, still hopelessly blind, at the gates of Forttopia, for their blindness has stolen all truth and its hearing from them entirely, and though they ask continually from outside why even those who appear innocuous among them may not return, they fail to comprehend that the King Himself has already answered them in His Word, and in their futile cries hear nothing He has said:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23
“Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” –John 10:25-30
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
“Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
“Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then shall he answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” –Matthew 25:31-46
Many who now read of the Subjugation of Forttopia will find it foolishness and regret the time they spent reading it; to whom I say "go in peace, and don't die." If you are among those who are aware of their Stewardship and are given the Grace and Mercy of the LORD, I implore you to fully acknowledge the King and yield to Him the throne of your life now, while the false illusion of Free Will yet exists and it would glorify the LORD to believe in Him, having not seen Him. I implore you to submit your life, destroy your pride, and receive the Savior as your own, to read his Word and own it for yourself, and join me in my fight to the death, for *we* are the blinded enemy, and it is we who must come before the LORD and die to Him, that our souls may live.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Grace To Acknowledge Him
I was afraid.
Of a painful death. Of dying in my sins. Of failing to teach my children to fear God and give glory to Him. Of voices and sounds in the dark. No security was tight enough to satisfy me. No defense impregnable enough. No hill high enough to permit me to prepare enough in advance. No response plan sufficient enough to permit me to relax. My world was rife with traitors, thieves, and murderers without souls, and nothing kept me from feeling truly exposed, unprotected, and worst of all, powerless to save those I love.
The truth is that I can prepare for possibilities all I like, but I am not Superman. I can lay down my life to save my family. I can insure my life so that they will not unduly suffer should I flee this coil before they do. But there is no security like that which God offers those who hear and obey His voice.
This security is within the Scriptures. While some of its verses truly speak for themselves, we still must discern and obey the Living Word to hear it resonate within our hearts.
One problem I have seen is that we use too many of them flippantly in song and misrepresented verse without truly thinking on the meaning of what we are reading; without truly absorbing the nutrients in it that are meant to strengthen our discipleship. I have certainly done this more times than I can count.
One oft-repeated verse in particular speaks clearly on how to be free from all semblance of insecurity.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones." -Proverbs 3:5-8
"In all your ways acknowledge Him."
ac·knowl·edge verb \ik-ˈnä-lij, ak-\
transitive verb (for it to be transitive, the verb "acknowledge" must have a direct object in order to be correctly used in grammar, so to illustrate I will insert the object of the verb as it applies to this discussion.)
1: to recognize the rights, authority, or status of HIM
2: to disclose knowledge of or agreement with HIM
3a; to express gratitude or obligation for HIM
3b: to take notice of HIM
3c: to make known the receipt of HIM
4: to recognize HIM as genuine or valid
Unfortunately, no human being with the wheel of their life firmly in their own grip, driving its course where they see fit, will submit to this. No person living, the majority leading what I call "La Vida Invictus"--soul unconquered, bloody but unbowed, defiant of both the narrow gate and the final judgment in the name of holding captaincy of ship and mastery of soul--will do this and receive the certain gift God offers. We *want* that security, that surety, without paying the price necessary for it. We would prefer to continue to operate under the illusion that *we* are in control, that we live free and unconquered when we are all in truth slaves. Yes, slaves. We live as bond-servants to one of two conditions; to either our sin which sires death and separates us from God, or the One who ransoms us from it--there are no other states of being. We serve ourselves in the iron chains of our sin, or we serve the Savior who frees us from the wages of sin and tells us that to follow Him is to suffer now for His sake and receive eternal life. We prefer the postmodern convenience of no suffering, no knowable truth, no difficult choices to obey, coming to God as though He were not Sovereign; as though He were not the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the things therein, but a faerie tale genie, where we perform a few painless rituals and expect results in accordance with our wishes; where *we* are called "master" and are required to submit or change nothing of ourselves.
We want it *our* way, steeped in our hubris, but this is not *The* Way. So while we can want it to conform to our image of fairness and acceptability all we like; the Absolute Truth is unchanging. Jesus is The Only Way. *He* is the one called Master, and obedience to Him elevates us to adopted children of the same Father He has. Everlasting life is not something we all reach in our own way, but *only* through acceptance of and obedience to Him in full.
In FULL.
"In *all* your ways acknowledge Him."
This is explicit. It does not say "some of your ways", or even "most of your ways", with some reserved for yourself;
on your iPod...
on your computer's harddrive...
on your phone's text messages...
in your predispositions which the world labels acceptable and which God calls sin...
in a destructive habit that you do because you think it hurts no one but yourself...
in a "guilty pleasure", the guilt of which is apparently insufficient by itself to induce any change...
in your mind, and how you think...
in your heart and how you feel...
Do you desire true assurance, not only for the brief amount of time which spans the dates which will be marked on your headstone, but for the eternal existence for which this is the beginning? Do you want your path directed by the Sovereign God?
ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN EVERYTHING AND RESERVE NOTHING.
Yield to Him your pride, because He has authority over it.
Yield to Him your habits, because He has the rights to them.
Yield to Him your pain, because it shows you have taken proper notice of Him.
Yield to Him your anger, because it is your obligation to Him.
Yield to Him your lusts, because you owe them to Him.
YIELD to the Father ALL that you are, because it shows that you have received Him. Recognize that you are not your own, that the LORD alone has valid claim over the sum total of your parts.
The NKJV notes on this proverb of King Solomon clarifies this way;
"The words *trust in the LORD* echo the command of Deuteronomy 6:5 to love God with all our being. The verb *trust* is complimented by the verb "lean". Trusting in God is a conscious dependence on God, much like leaning on a tree for support. The idea is reinforced by the command to *acknowledge Him*, which means to observe Him and get to know Him in the process of living. In doing so, a person finds time and again that God smooths out paths."
We may hear this and ask, "When I'm done with all this 'yielding' of myself, what is left that is mine? What's left for me?"
Nothing. And EVERYTHING!
Yes, this is completely unpopular. Yes, the world will hate you for it, because it first hated the Master for it, and by the sheer magnitude of its pride can not begin to even comprehend it; receiving the grace to relinquish claim of our own lives. It can not be done partially, either. This can not be half-stepped.
If I choose to stick my chin out in a fit of pride and take the wheel for myself, only to get upset when I end up lost in the wrong part of life, I have disobeyed God and require repentance for my failure to trust Him.
If you see an oncoming trial in the road of your life which you must *obey* Him through, and opt instead to grab the wheel because as much as you would *like* to trust God, you trust *yourself* more, you can't get angry with Him when you end up in a ditch.
This is the requirement for reasonably safe travel through life; to have your path directed by God, acknowledge Him in all your ways. It involves COST of all the *temporary* stuff that is labeled good or acceptable by popular opinion, stuff which we routinely claim as our right to possess or our right to be, and is ultimately worthless, and receive instead the gifts of all that is *eternal*, and is good in *truth*, regardless of *any* opinion; undeserved gifts in place of the judgment and death our sin has already earned us.
"Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"" Luke 9:23-25
I *must* accept and cling to the grace to trust and truly acknowledge the Father in *all* my ways, if I want my paths directed by Him. If I want to truly live forever, I must deny my humanity, with all its delusions of supremacy, and *submit* them to Him in full, even if it means my life. So must we all, because there is only one God, and we are not Him.
"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth--to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people--saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who has made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."" Revelation 14:6-7
The pain and loneliness of separation from what the world calls acceptable is nothing to the agony and despair of being under the everlasting wrath of God.
So be it.
Of a painful death. Of dying in my sins. Of failing to teach my children to fear God and give glory to Him. Of voices and sounds in the dark. No security was tight enough to satisfy me. No defense impregnable enough. No hill high enough to permit me to prepare enough in advance. No response plan sufficient enough to permit me to relax. My world was rife with traitors, thieves, and murderers without souls, and nothing kept me from feeling truly exposed, unprotected, and worst of all, powerless to save those I love.
The truth is that I can prepare for possibilities all I like, but I am not Superman. I can lay down my life to save my family. I can insure my life so that they will not unduly suffer should I flee this coil before they do. But there is no security like that which God offers those who hear and obey His voice.
This security is within the Scriptures. While some of its verses truly speak for themselves, we still must discern and obey the Living Word to hear it resonate within our hearts.
One problem I have seen is that we use too many of them flippantly in song and misrepresented verse without truly thinking on the meaning of what we are reading; without truly absorbing the nutrients in it that are meant to strengthen our discipleship. I have certainly done this more times than I can count.
One oft-repeated verse in particular speaks clearly on how to be free from all semblance of insecurity.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones." -Proverbs 3:5-8
"In all your ways acknowledge Him."
ac·knowl·edge verb \ik-ˈnä-lij, ak-\
transitive verb (for it to be transitive, the verb "acknowledge" must have a direct object in order to be correctly used in grammar, so to illustrate I will insert the object of the verb as it applies to this discussion.)
1: to recognize the rights, authority, or status of HIM
2: to disclose knowledge of or agreement with HIM
3a; to express gratitude or obligation for HIM
3b: to take notice of HIM
3c: to make known the receipt of HIM
4: to recognize HIM as genuine or valid
Unfortunately, no human being with the wheel of their life firmly in their own grip, driving its course where they see fit, will submit to this. No person living, the majority leading what I call "La Vida Invictus"--soul unconquered, bloody but unbowed, defiant of both the narrow gate and the final judgment in the name of holding captaincy of ship and mastery of soul--will do this and receive the certain gift God offers. We *want* that security, that surety, without paying the price necessary for it. We would prefer to continue to operate under the illusion that *we* are in control, that we live free and unconquered when we are all in truth slaves. Yes, slaves. We live as bond-servants to one of two conditions; to either our sin which sires death and separates us from God, or the One who ransoms us from it--there are no other states of being. We serve ourselves in the iron chains of our sin, or we serve the Savior who frees us from the wages of sin and tells us that to follow Him is to suffer now for His sake and receive eternal life. We prefer the postmodern convenience of no suffering, no knowable truth, no difficult choices to obey, coming to God as though He were not Sovereign; as though He were not the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the things therein, but a faerie tale genie, where we perform a few painless rituals and expect results in accordance with our wishes; where *we* are called "master" and are required to submit or change nothing of ourselves.
We want it *our* way, steeped in our hubris, but this is not *The* Way. So while we can want it to conform to our image of fairness and acceptability all we like; the Absolute Truth is unchanging. Jesus is The Only Way. *He* is the one called Master, and obedience to Him elevates us to adopted children of the same Father He has. Everlasting life is not something we all reach in our own way, but *only* through acceptance of and obedience to Him in full.
In FULL.
"In *all* your ways acknowledge Him."
This is explicit. It does not say "some of your ways", or even "most of your ways", with some reserved for yourself;
on your iPod...
on your computer's harddrive...
on your phone's text messages...
in your predispositions which the world labels acceptable and which God calls sin...
in a destructive habit that you do because you think it hurts no one but yourself...
in a "guilty pleasure", the guilt of which is apparently insufficient by itself to induce any change...
in your mind, and how you think...
in your heart and how you feel...
Do you desire true assurance, not only for the brief amount of time which spans the dates which will be marked on your headstone, but for the eternal existence for which this is the beginning? Do you want your path directed by the Sovereign God?
ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN EVERYTHING AND RESERVE NOTHING.
Yield to Him your pride, because He has authority over it.
Yield to Him your habits, because He has the rights to them.
Yield to Him your pain, because it shows you have taken proper notice of Him.
Yield to Him your anger, because it is your obligation to Him.
Yield to Him your lusts, because you owe them to Him.
YIELD to the Father ALL that you are, because it shows that you have received Him. Recognize that you are not your own, that the LORD alone has valid claim over the sum total of your parts.
The NKJV notes on this proverb of King Solomon clarifies this way;
"The words *trust in the LORD* echo the command of Deuteronomy 6:5 to love God with all our being. The verb *trust* is complimented by the verb "lean". Trusting in God is a conscious dependence on God, much like leaning on a tree for support. The idea is reinforced by the command to *acknowledge Him*, which means to observe Him and get to know Him in the process of living. In doing so, a person finds time and again that God smooths out paths."
We may hear this and ask, "When I'm done with all this 'yielding' of myself, what is left that is mine? What's left for me?"
Nothing. And EVERYTHING!
Yes, this is completely unpopular. Yes, the world will hate you for it, because it first hated the Master for it, and by the sheer magnitude of its pride can not begin to even comprehend it; receiving the grace to relinquish claim of our own lives. It can not be done partially, either. This can not be half-stepped.
If I choose to stick my chin out in a fit of pride and take the wheel for myself, only to get upset when I end up lost in the wrong part of life, I have disobeyed God and require repentance for my failure to trust Him.
If you see an oncoming trial in the road of your life which you must *obey* Him through, and opt instead to grab the wheel because as much as you would *like* to trust God, you trust *yourself* more, you can't get angry with Him when you end up in a ditch.
This is the requirement for reasonably safe travel through life; to have your path directed by God, acknowledge Him in all your ways. It involves COST of all the *temporary* stuff that is labeled good or acceptable by popular opinion, stuff which we routinely claim as our right to possess or our right to be, and is ultimately worthless, and receive instead the gifts of all that is *eternal*, and is good in *truth*, regardless of *any* opinion; undeserved gifts in place of the judgment and death our sin has already earned us.
"Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"" Luke 9:23-25
I *must* accept and cling to the grace to trust and truly acknowledge the Father in *all* my ways, if I want my paths directed by Him. If I want to truly live forever, I must deny my humanity, with all its delusions of supremacy, and *submit* them to Him in full, even if it means my life. So must we all, because there is only one God, and we are not Him.
"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth--to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people--saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who has made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."" Revelation 14:6-7
The pain and loneliness of separation from what the world calls acceptable is nothing to the agony and despair of being under the everlasting wrath of God.
So be it.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Grace To Submit (Part 1)
I am a corrupt, pathetically selfish creature, and of my own power there is absolutely nothing I can do about it except utterly fail, and pay the wages of my sin.
David knew this to be true of every person, and said as much more than once.
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3
Paul expounded further in his letter to the Romans, combining the verses of David with others of his Psalms, as well as Ecclesiastes and the prophet Isaiah.
"As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”" Romans 3:10-18
My corruption could not be helped, being the reality of all human condition from the womb; our varying stages of denial notwithstanding. My selfishness, fueled by pride the size of a gas giant, has the power to reach into the substance of which I am made, take hold of my inherited stubborn tenacity, put it to the flame of whatever the lust du jour is, and craft such mind-numbing defiance and rebellion of what I know to be right and just, that I become a living caricature of what Paul wrote to Titus regarding those who routinely reject truth:
"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Titus 1:15-16
I am here to tell you that submitting my will to the Lord only comes from *His* grace, because my corruption will not permit me to make the choice by myself. Apart from God, *self* preservation thinks the very idea is utterly foolish, and weak besides.
But this is *also* part of the plan of God, and identifies self-preservation as a feature of the world, rather than of the Spirit.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The grace of God, given to me by His mercy; to believe that He is the LORD and His only Son died for my sin, to acknowledge Him now in my thoughts and feelings as well as my words and deeds, to submit my will and pride in obedience to Him, is *the ONLY thing* that changes my condition. *Not* my desire to be something other than what I am. *Not* the strength of my will or determination. *Not* my revulsion in the face of my failures. The grace and mercy of Yahweh, His choice to transplant my heart of stone with one of flesh, and love and adopt me IN SPITE OF ME, is the only reason why I can write now free from it all.
My most recent example of this was my submersion into World of Warcraft. It lasted almost 5 years, and could have wrecked everything that matters most in my life.
I know what some of you are likely thinking at that last sentence; affixing it with:
"How pathetic. What manner of fool falls prey to a video game?"
You'd be surprised.
The close resemblance to the game's posted disclaimer warning players to do other things with their time, to that on a cigarette package warning the purchaser that smoking their product can kill them, is no coincidence.
It is a product designed to not only attract the right paying client, but bind them to it so that the payment continues in ongoing subscription format. Anyone with a large inner fantasy world, as I have always harbored, is easily drawn to its seduction of pursuing wealth and power, all within a steeply detailed world of well crafted lore; of noble heroes and richly flawed villains in all their warmongering glory.
There is little reason to spend much time bothering with the details of life when one can be submerged beneath the sea of their own fantasy for as long as they can hold their breath beneath the waves. One glance at the news will show you that here are people who never come up for air before it is too late. The game is quite literally filled with people chained to its seductive power by the millions, pursuing its reality-defying, ego-satisfying goals at virtually all ages, in virtually all cultures, encompassing the globe. Those who play it seeking any form of efficiency and success must pour time into it like fresh water into a bottomless, thirst-inducing pit, always taking more than it gives. One surfaces from beneath its seductive waves and takes a breath only to discover that what they presumed was a few moments was actually several hours, and time and events have moved without their awareness or presence (and all the consequences therein)... and this life-draining game is the pursuit of choice for literally millions of people.
I was one of them.
I can think of no more innocuous-seeming death than that which the game offers.
It binds itself amorphously to the paying host with their own permission, injects ego-soothing visions of beauty and power into it which they crave, and removes their very presence willingly from all that is right in front of them. It is an escape that lasts as long as the power, game servers, and internet connections are up and running. Pauses for food and sleep become irritating distractions, as are any and all attempts by other people to interact with them. It is the refuge for those who have no relationships with people, and the destroyer of relationships for those who still have them.
It is yet one more modified weapon formed from the lust of the eyes; one of the same, tired, yet grossly effective three weapons from the arsenal of the Accuser. This version of it dulls the pain receptors just enough for the player to feel nothing while it carves their life to shreds.
Such is my weakness that I succumbed to it for 5 years. Such was my dumb luck that my family stayed together through it.
In July of 2010, I was given the grace from the Father to recognize it among the hooks that felt so wonderful in my flesh as they were killing me, observe how it was going to destroy everything I held dear, starting with my relationships with my wife and children and spreading outward from there, and forcibly remove them all. The sum total of all my efforts, all the characters I had created and reached the pinnacle of self-sufficient might over the course of years, were destroyed in a scorched earth manner. I erased them all. I cancelled my subscription and deleted the software from my computers. I emailed the proof of cancellation to my wife, who had grown so tired of looking at the side of my head while playing the game that she could only sit in shock at what I had done.
The story should end there. But it doesn't.
This is because the Grace To Submit, as invaluable and necessary as the gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the requisite effort to enter the narrow door.
The Submission Must Never Stop.
No desire or act of will can be separate from God after that.
We who follow Christ must be relentless, and even ruthless, in our submission and obedience because that which we submit is founded in corruption and therefore *will* come again like a weed, and use whatever remnant of pride we yet harbor to become our *choice* to disobey God and obey our own will. The Accuser won't stop cajoling us to make the choice which sides with rebellion until he is finally destroyed. He will ask us, just as he asked Eve, "Did God *truly* say...?" We hear those serpentine whispers because in the face of the truth, our nature, whatever form it takes, be it quantifiable through DNA or simple accustomed preference, will reject God utterly when we do not deem it important to submit to Him and obey.
We are given the equipment to do this successfully.
We just have to put it on. The last suit we'll ever wear.
The Armor of God, detailed in Ephesians 6, preserves the new heart of flesh the LORD gives His adopted children, and maintains the sanctification the follower of Christ is gifted with... but we have to faithfully equip it every second of our lives. Take one step without all of the pieces securely in place... make one stupid decision to use a shield made of something *men* crafted instead of the Shield of Faith... select a belt made of your inherent desires rather than the Belt of Truth, and know what it is to bring a knife to a gunfight. We not only lose, we look exceptionally retarded doing it.
I told you all of that to provide the proper background for the story of how I did that very thing. I am a work in progress, so I have and continue to do it in more ways than this, but while this is just as poignant in significance, it is also among the least humiliating.
The tale is brief, in comparison with the background. 6 months after I quit, a friend I have not seen in 26 years told me he played the game and invited me to join him. I told him I had quit and why, which he respected, but left it with "Should you choose to return, you know where to find me."
Now, had I been dressed properly, I would have told the *desire to play*, which spoke up now with numerous, very reasonable excuses as to how I could do it with moderation, to shut up and die, and run it through with the Sword I was also given. I would have told it that my life is not my own, having been delivered from the slavery of sin and death to the servitude and adopted sonship of God, and that the choice to partake of that game in no way honors Him.
But instead of girding myself with the Belt of Truth, I put on my $39.50 black braid dress belt from Land's End, which serves no purpose other than holding up my pants.
This is disobedience, as Paul mentioned that the Armor needed to be put on in *full* for a reason.
So, without the truth, my rebellious nature, which can not obey God of its own free will anyway, can and will take any and all foolish excuses which it deems acceptable to satisfy anything it wants. So I did. I re-downloaded the bits for the game and installed them. I re-upped my cancelled subscription, and even had them recover the deleted characters.
But seeing them again, in all their glory, did not make me happy.
It made me sick to my stomach.
The difference, my friends, was that when I last looked upon them, my heart was a lump of stone the size of my fist within my chest.
But now...
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27
Now that this has happened to me, and I dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and abide in HIS shadow, my old clothes and mantles I once bore reek foul with the sin which my pride had dulled my senses enough to thoroughly ignore. I saw those characters and remembered all of the time my wife spent talking to the side of my head instead of having my undivided attention... all of the times my children wanted to play with me but I was too busy wallowing selfishly in my batcave to do so. I remembered all of the time and energy and effort I had not merely wasted, but poured into a pit full of greedy swine which have neither thought nor care that I had given it my greatest, most precious commodity, TIME; stealing from those to whom it truly belonged, only to watch the game devour it with that of every human being too reprobate to even care what truth or righteousness or holiness is, and how much we will all want to know it when our hearts have stopped beating and we all stand before God.
I saw them, and knew that Jesus meant what He said in John 10.
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
This is assurance. And it is true. I know it beyond all doubt, and have my life as evidence. Once we give ourselves to Him, we are His forever, and not even the warm, comforting stench of the things we once did give us pleasure, because He changes our hearts and turns them from stone to flesh. He makes us from broken pottery into vessels that don't even require wax to hide and shore up the integrity. He transforms us into new people, He conforms us as adopted children into the image of His Son.
I belong to YHWH, and nothing shall ever snatch me from His hand.
With tears of gratefulness, and repentance and deep sorrow for my failure to obey, I deleted the software, never to partake of that table again. I put on the Belt of Truth and fastened it in place amongst all the other pieces of the Armor of God, because it is the last suit I will ever wear. I submit my every thought to Him, my every desire and feeling, my every word and action. If it does not glorify HIM, it will not be done.
Should I fail, I will truly repent and do it no more, and will resist no more that which God put me here to become.
I worship Him with my life. HE alone is worthy.
Amen.
David knew this to be true of every person, and said as much more than once.
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3
Paul expounded further in his letter to the Romans, combining the verses of David with others of his Psalms, as well as Ecclesiastes and the prophet Isaiah.
"As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”" Romans 3:10-18
My corruption could not be helped, being the reality of all human condition from the womb; our varying stages of denial notwithstanding. My selfishness, fueled by pride the size of a gas giant, has the power to reach into the substance of which I am made, take hold of my inherited stubborn tenacity, put it to the flame of whatever the lust du jour is, and craft such mind-numbing defiance and rebellion of what I know to be right and just, that I become a living caricature of what Paul wrote to Titus regarding those who routinely reject truth:
"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Titus 1:15-16
I am here to tell you that submitting my will to the Lord only comes from *His* grace, because my corruption will not permit me to make the choice by myself. Apart from God, *self* preservation thinks the very idea is utterly foolish, and weak besides.
But this is *also* part of the plan of God, and identifies self-preservation as a feature of the world, rather than of the Spirit.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The grace of God, given to me by His mercy; to believe that He is the LORD and His only Son died for my sin, to acknowledge Him now in my thoughts and feelings as well as my words and deeds, to submit my will and pride in obedience to Him, is *the ONLY thing* that changes my condition. *Not* my desire to be something other than what I am. *Not* the strength of my will or determination. *Not* my revulsion in the face of my failures. The grace and mercy of Yahweh, His choice to transplant my heart of stone with one of flesh, and love and adopt me IN SPITE OF ME, is the only reason why I can write now free from it all.
My most recent example of this was my submersion into World of Warcraft. It lasted almost 5 years, and could have wrecked everything that matters most in my life.
I know what some of you are likely thinking at that last sentence; affixing it with:
"How pathetic. What manner of fool falls prey to a video game?"
You'd be surprised.
The close resemblance to the game's posted disclaimer warning players to do other things with their time, to that on a cigarette package warning the purchaser that smoking their product can kill them, is no coincidence.
It is a product designed to not only attract the right paying client, but bind them to it so that the payment continues in ongoing subscription format. Anyone with a large inner fantasy world, as I have always harbored, is easily drawn to its seduction of pursuing wealth and power, all within a steeply detailed world of well crafted lore; of noble heroes and richly flawed villains in all their warmongering glory.
There is little reason to spend much time bothering with the details of life when one can be submerged beneath the sea of their own fantasy for as long as they can hold their breath beneath the waves. One glance at the news will show you that here are people who never come up for air before it is too late. The game is quite literally filled with people chained to its seductive power by the millions, pursuing its reality-defying, ego-satisfying goals at virtually all ages, in virtually all cultures, encompassing the globe. Those who play it seeking any form of efficiency and success must pour time into it like fresh water into a bottomless, thirst-inducing pit, always taking more than it gives. One surfaces from beneath its seductive waves and takes a breath only to discover that what they presumed was a few moments was actually several hours, and time and events have moved without their awareness or presence (and all the consequences therein)... and this life-draining game is the pursuit of choice for literally millions of people.
I was one of them.
I can think of no more innocuous-seeming death than that which the game offers.
It binds itself amorphously to the paying host with their own permission, injects ego-soothing visions of beauty and power into it which they crave, and removes their very presence willingly from all that is right in front of them. It is an escape that lasts as long as the power, game servers, and internet connections are up and running. Pauses for food and sleep become irritating distractions, as are any and all attempts by other people to interact with them. It is the refuge for those who have no relationships with people, and the destroyer of relationships for those who still have them.
It is yet one more modified weapon formed from the lust of the eyes; one of the same, tired, yet grossly effective three weapons from the arsenal of the Accuser. This version of it dulls the pain receptors just enough for the player to feel nothing while it carves their life to shreds.
Such is my weakness that I succumbed to it for 5 years. Such was my dumb luck that my family stayed together through it.
In July of 2010, I was given the grace from the Father to recognize it among the hooks that felt so wonderful in my flesh as they were killing me, observe how it was going to destroy everything I held dear, starting with my relationships with my wife and children and spreading outward from there, and forcibly remove them all. The sum total of all my efforts, all the characters I had created and reached the pinnacle of self-sufficient might over the course of years, were destroyed in a scorched earth manner. I erased them all. I cancelled my subscription and deleted the software from my computers. I emailed the proof of cancellation to my wife, who had grown so tired of looking at the side of my head while playing the game that she could only sit in shock at what I had done.
The story should end there. But it doesn't.
This is because the Grace To Submit, as invaluable and necessary as the gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the requisite effort to enter the narrow door.
The Submission Must Never Stop.
No desire or act of will can be separate from God after that.
We who follow Christ must be relentless, and even ruthless, in our submission and obedience because that which we submit is founded in corruption and therefore *will* come again like a weed, and use whatever remnant of pride we yet harbor to become our *choice* to disobey God and obey our own will. The Accuser won't stop cajoling us to make the choice which sides with rebellion until he is finally destroyed. He will ask us, just as he asked Eve, "Did God *truly* say...?" We hear those serpentine whispers because in the face of the truth, our nature, whatever form it takes, be it quantifiable through DNA or simple accustomed preference, will reject God utterly when we do not deem it important to submit to Him and obey.
We are given the equipment to do this successfully.
We just have to put it on. The last suit we'll ever wear.
The Armor of God, detailed in Ephesians 6, preserves the new heart of flesh the LORD gives His adopted children, and maintains the sanctification the follower of Christ is gifted with... but we have to faithfully equip it every second of our lives. Take one step without all of the pieces securely in place... make one stupid decision to use a shield made of something *men* crafted instead of the Shield of Faith... select a belt made of your inherent desires rather than the Belt of Truth, and know what it is to bring a knife to a gunfight. We not only lose, we look exceptionally retarded doing it.
I told you all of that to provide the proper background for the story of how I did that very thing. I am a work in progress, so I have and continue to do it in more ways than this, but while this is just as poignant in significance, it is also among the least humiliating.
The tale is brief, in comparison with the background. 6 months after I quit, a friend I have not seen in 26 years told me he played the game and invited me to join him. I told him I had quit and why, which he respected, but left it with "Should you choose to return, you know where to find me."
Now, had I been dressed properly, I would have told the *desire to play*, which spoke up now with numerous, very reasonable excuses as to how I could do it with moderation, to shut up and die, and run it through with the Sword I was also given. I would have told it that my life is not my own, having been delivered from the slavery of sin and death to the servitude and adopted sonship of God, and that the choice to partake of that game in no way honors Him.
But instead of girding myself with the Belt of Truth, I put on my $39.50 black braid dress belt from Land's End, which serves no purpose other than holding up my pants.
This is disobedience, as Paul mentioned that the Armor needed to be put on in *full* for a reason.
So, without the truth, my rebellious nature, which can not obey God of its own free will anyway, can and will take any and all foolish excuses which it deems acceptable to satisfy anything it wants. So I did. I re-downloaded the bits for the game and installed them. I re-upped my cancelled subscription, and even had them recover the deleted characters.
But seeing them again, in all their glory, did not make me happy.
It made me sick to my stomach.
The difference, my friends, was that when I last looked upon them, my heart was a lump of stone the size of my fist within my chest.
But now...
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27
Now that this has happened to me, and I dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and abide in HIS shadow, my old clothes and mantles I once bore reek foul with the sin which my pride had dulled my senses enough to thoroughly ignore. I saw those characters and remembered all of the time my wife spent talking to the side of my head instead of having my undivided attention... all of the times my children wanted to play with me but I was too busy wallowing selfishly in my batcave to do so. I remembered all of the time and energy and effort I had not merely wasted, but poured into a pit full of greedy swine which have neither thought nor care that I had given it my greatest, most precious commodity, TIME; stealing from those to whom it truly belonged, only to watch the game devour it with that of every human being too reprobate to even care what truth or righteousness or holiness is, and how much we will all want to know it when our hearts have stopped beating and we all stand before God.
I saw them, and knew that Jesus meant what He said in John 10.
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
This is assurance. And it is true. I know it beyond all doubt, and have my life as evidence. Once we give ourselves to Him, we are His forever, and not even the warm, comforting stench of the things we once did give us pleasure, because He changes our hearts and turns them from stone to flesh. He makes us from broken pottery into vessels that don't even require wax to hide and shore up the integrity. He transforms us into new people, He conforms us as adopted children into the image of His Son.
I belong to YHWH, and nothing shall ever snatch me from His hand.
With tears of gratefulness, and repentance and deep sorrow for my failure to obey, I deleted the software, never to partake of that table again. I put on the Belt of Truth and fastened it in place amongst all the other pieces of the Armor of God, because it is the last suit I will ever wear. I submit my every thought to Him, my every desire and feeling, my every word and action. If it does not glorify HIM, it will not be done.
Should I fail, I will truly repent and do it no more, and will resist no more that which God put me here to become.
I worship Him with my life. HE alone is worthy.
Amen.
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