For those who glory in their doubting...

If I could tell you anything that I thought would be significant it would be this...you are wasting time trying to intellectualize God...the Bible tells the Truth. We do worship Jesus and it is right, there is sin and it has definition and it separates us from the Father. There is a hell and it is horrible, it was never meant for humans but we choose to travel there. God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. The Law is good , Grace is better, but we live by both. Now the Law is written in our hearts and we don't try to do it, we become it lived out in the world where it wll mean something...others are watching us...they want to know if this Jesus stuff is real...we have turned Him into a laughingstock as we 'ponder' and 'suppose' and 'discuss logically' the pros and cons of believing in Him...this is not honest, it is not righteous.

There is no denying that Jesus made claims that stood the hair of the Political and the Religious community on end...He made claims that bring us to the conclusion He is either God or mad. There is no middle ground.
And if the God we serve is so small as to allow His word to be corrupted then we do not serve the Living God for He has kept His Word. The Bible is the most backed up reliable source of any text in the world and men still wonder at it's stability.

I love Him. I love that He is not affected by the conversations I have been reading lately. I love that His Purpose and Plan for this world will come to pass in spite of our foolishness.

Time is short, I grow weary with the ones who have stepped away from 'the church' and have turned into the very thing they hate.

But I cannot stop reading their posts, for I love them you see, and there are others that I have grown so fond of...and I pray they give in to Him, and serve Him alone, and come to know the Jesus that I know...Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Shepherd, Lamb of God, Bread of Life, The Word, the Light of the world, the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, the Soon and Coming King, the Healer, the Alpha and the Omega, Beginning and the End, my God and Savior, my Comforter, my Master...
I love You, Lord...

The Call

I am not sure what it is exactly that I am called to be doing...I do not know the particulars. But over and over again I hear the call to be under gazebos, out in parks, in the sun and the rain. Have you heard it as well?
Last night, during a worship service, when thinking about what the call is on our lives I saw it. I saw the gazebo where church is on Friday mornings and I saw the look on the faces of the homeless ones when they were being caught up in the air to meet Jesus. They had looks on their faces that expressed joy and wonder at the realization that they were okay, that their wildest hopes of being accepted by God were true. What joy and wonder on those crusty, wrinkled faces. I was filled, truly filled to the brim as I stood in the pew. My heart is out there, somewhere under a gazebo.
Oh to be in His Presence as I walk this earth. O to do what He calls us to. O to just be in the realest of realities, living life in the Kingdom, under the authority of the King, reaching the lost, speaking truth into their lives and establishing a good hope in them and in me.

The Altar

Genesis 33:20- Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel (God, the God of Israel).

Up until this point Jacob (now named Israel) has referred to the Lord as the
God of "Someone Else." HE has been the God of Abraham, the God of my father, the Fear of Isaac, etc. Through the years of struggling through his commitments to Laban, even when deceived, somewhere during that time his character was being formed; but not until he struggled all night with God and prevailed did he ever refer to God as being his (Israel's). Now he builds an altar and declares that God is his God as well. He saw God. There it is, that necessary personal encounter with God and now Israel is His!

There seems to always have to be that One on one, Face to face encounter with God that establishes a relationship of 'servant under Almighty'. It is a struggle and a wrestling match to give in to the Truth. It was a struggle with the Lord when I was first saved. There have been other struggles...wrestlings with loyalties and devotions to the wrong things or persons.

Israel called God his God that day. O that all my confrontations with the Lord always end with Him still on His Throne over me.

Pockets of Purpose

When I walked into the Bike shop I have to admit, I felt a little uneasy. Though I had met Kenny and Jen a few times before I had never stopped by to check out their church...a planting of the Lord...right smack dab in a bike shop on a highway. By the time we started there were 25 or so there. Worship began...Helen led with no instruments and a raspy deep voice. There I was, among leather and chains and remnants of cigarette smoke and....I felt at home. Did I fit into their social life? No, can't say that I did, but, we all had one thing in common....we were all there because we love what Jesus has done for us and want to be more like Him in a world that is dying.
I brought Tracy the next week. She does street church in another part of town down the highway some. HUH was there, he is pastor of a Bike club. It seems that there are these pockets of ministry all over this town. And it is very, very neat how God is bringing us all together. Kenny and Huh went to check out Tracy's gathering last Thursday night. They all walked the neighborhood and prayed. They were all blessed that they now know each other. I met HUH at the Friday morning church in the park with the homeless ones. Now I meet up with him at Kenny's. HUH has a group that meets down the road in the back of a beauty shop. I have a gathering at a lady's house over in the Section 8 apartments tucked at the edge of the desert. Lots of moms and babies over there. Women struggling to survive.
So, now, there are these preachers who are discovering they are not alone in this town and I am excited to see what God is going to do with a motley crew like us...

Death by Opinion

John 10:33 ~ The Jews answered Him saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a man, make Yourself God."

Their own scriptures taught what Messiah would accomplish. They knew what to watch for. But the veil over their eyes kept them from allowing what they knew to connect with who Jesus really was. He wasn't appearing in the exact way they thought He would and, so, could not (would not) allow themselves to reckon with what they were seeing and hearing. Their cheese was being moved and they refused to accept it. They could not say in their hearts, 'maybe I've been wrong'.

I do myself a great injustice when I set my own opinions as law over reality. All things have to be subjected to the Word and to the fulfilment of that Word. And, I must understand and pray for those who are trapped in living the way those in John 10:31-42 lived- loving darkness more than Truth.

I don't ever want to settle for less than the miraculous, less than the excellent, less than the Truth in any area. Lord, lift any veil that covers my eyes and Lord, lift the veil of those we are trying to reach.