This morning as I was walking and talking with the Lord I pondered how the mind works. In my mind’s eye I saw one who was utterly exhausted in their mind. The wheels and the machinations of the heart were in constant motion with worrying and anxiety and stress. It seemed to be like the slaves of old who were attached to grind stones in the flour mills of their enemies. Where all day long they would walk in a circle pushing a beam which would in turn move cogs and pulleys and thus move the enormous mill stones and grind the wheat into flour. Each pulley, each cog representing stress and anxiety and worry. The slave himself generating his own anxiety and worry by virtue of being attached to the beam and compelled to push in a never-ending servitude.
Then I saw the same flour mill, only this time it was beside a river and a wheel had been set. The water turned the wheel and the wheel powered the cogs and the pulleys and this in turn caused the great mill stone to turn without any human effort. In each case flour was produced, yet in one case there was a slave and in the other case there was no need for slavery.
Now many may say that anxiety and worry and stress and fear is caused by the enemy or our circumstances, yet Jesus commands us to be “anxious for nothing.” Why would the Lord command us to do something that was not in our power to do? In fact He has commanded us to do something that is very much within our grasp, He has commanded us to choose. The Lord has called His children to freedom. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the Holy place where the most high dwells (Psalm 46:4) To dwell beside the river of God is to be nourished by God Himself. Those who have the river of God flowing through them, those to whom God pours into them living waters, it is those who are like evergreen trees who continually produce fruit in season and out of season. They are like ever green trees in the garden of the Lord and they walk in a peace that surpasses understanding.
Now brothers and sisters. Can you say you are like an evergreen tree set by the river of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to run and not grow weary? Or perhaps you have allowed yourself to become attached to the beam and have become enslaved to the grind of this world? God knows how to feed His children, God has called His children to freedom. He has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind. Today He is calling you to peace.
There is a wall spoken of in Ezekiel 13:10-16. The wall is constructed upon false-hood and lies. Lying prophets who tell the people what they want to hear. They cry peace and prosperity where there is no peace and their prosperity is the gold and silver of this world. Their gold and silver and jewels are truly wood, hay and stubble and it shall surely come to nothing when the Lord comes against this wall.
There are many who plaster this wall and they do so with ” untempered mortar.” Now, I laid bricks for over 25 years. In the beginning, when I was an apprentice, we went to a trade school. In that trade school, which was indoors, we built many beautiful structures. We built egg-shaped sewers and Gothic arches and so on and we perfected all the finer points of constructing beautiful structures. If you were to walk into the large room where we were hard at work, you would see some of the finest examples of brickwork to be found. The untrained eye would not notice and really could not notice that the mortar between the bricks was only sand and lime, it was untempered, it had no cement. When the project was finished it was simply and easily taken down and the material would be scraped off and used again. If it were outside, it would last to a certain degree but if a storm or rain were to hit it, the structures would simply collapse on themselves as the mortar that held everything together never set and had no actual strength to withstand the weather or shaking.
This is the kind of wall that Ezekiel is talking about in Chapter 13. Christendom itself is just like this wall. It has been constructed by false prophets and the mortar used to hold it all together is religiosity. It gives a beautiful appearance and it encompasses a stronghold, but the time is coming soon when the Lord Himself will come against this structure. The Lord Himself will cause a storm designed specifically to bring the structure down. This is just like Matthew 7:26 where the Lord talks about two houses. One is built upon a foundation of Truth, that is Jesus, and the other has no foundation at all, it is merely built on sand. Now, in the normal course of events no one would ever know what house had a foundation or which did not, until a storm comes and beats against the house and it falls and great is the fall of that house, yet the house that stands upon Jesus alone, weathers the storm.
This storm is coming brothers and sisters. In fact the fore-winds have already begun to blow. There will be a flooding rain, great hailstones shall fall and a “stormy wind shall tear it down.” Tear what down and expose what? The great wall of religion and denominationalism shall soon be exposed as the birth pangs begin to intensify. God always has a remnant of people who dwell outside the walls, outside the systems of men who are witnesses and who testify of the truth. Indeed, as Stephen says , God does not dwell in temples built by human hands. God’s kingdom dwells within the hearts of His children. His structures consist of living stones. These living stones together, is the temple of God.
This great storm of darkness that is descending upon the world is designed to leave only the true children of God standing, and by standing I mean never faltering, standing fast to the end , prevailing, enduring and overcoming. That which is without the foundation of Jesus, which is constructed by untempered mortar will not stand and by not standing I mean shall falter, shall not stand fast unto the end, shall not prevail, shall not endure and shall not overcome rather shall be overcome by the great fall of the world and will be destroyed in the midst of this great fall when God moves. Finally that untempered wall shall be no more when the climax of the storm comes, when Jesus Himself shall descend in all His glory with the saints with a shout of glory and triumph. Those saints still alive after the final martyrs have been slaughtered shall arise and join Christ and His army in the air, that glorious army of saints who come with Christ and then every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
It’s not so much the rightness of my position that is all important, although I am a lover of the Truth and my very soul is cast upon it, yet the condition of my heart carries equal weight. What does it profit a man if he understands all the mysteries yet have not love in his heart?
The Lord is my strength and my shield ; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him (Psalms 28:7)
Matthew Henry writes of this passage ” He encourages himself to hope in God for the perfecting of everything that concerned him.”
In the narrow walk of the saint there shall be victories and their shall be defeats. There will be defeats and there will be victories. If we would find the balanced high ground of wisdom in this life, we should find ourselves acknowledging that there will be victories and their will be defeats. A great portion of Christendom is very afraid to even speak of defeats, imagining somehow that by merely speaking the words then defeat shall surely come, this is sheer superstition. Another portion of Christendom is only focussed on suffering and defeat and cry out to God to strengthen them for the inevitable defeats they will experience and strength to merely endure perpetual suffering. Now this is not superstition but can be a recipe for a joyless life full of burden and anxiety.
I myself lean to the latter of those two examples. Yet Matthew Henry is right, David was encouraging himself to hope in God for the perfecting of everything that concerned him. Faith, so much an abused word and concept within the Christian community, relies upon mercy and grace. Now I am not speaking of saving faith, but the faith that we are called to exercise every day as we walk out and work out our salvation. The kind of faith that is so vital in our sanctification process, the kind of faith that pleases God. Read the rest of this entry »
There is a common saying that ” all the world is a stage.” Now, this does not mean that we are actors in the sense of the Greek word meaning hypocrites, but it does mean that we are aware that we always have an audience. Now this audience may simply be our husband or or wives or our children, it could be our extended family, our workplace or our neighbors. Yet this much is sure, we present an image to the ” world.” Now, what shapes your image? Is it your fears? Your insecurities? Your pretensions? Or, is it God that shapes you? When it is God that shapes us then fears and insecurities and pretensions cease to be. For some this happens overnight, for most it is a process. What does you audience think of you? What do they see when they see you? Perhaps you are an actor in the sense of the word hypocrite, meaning the image you put forward is not a true image of who you are? The mature saints have one thing in common in my estimation, they are transparent, what you see is what you get. Now this is rarely a way to make friends and influence people but it is the road to authenticity. A rare and beautiful thing, even if it is a diamond in the rough. Are you authentic? Are you transparent? You see, light can travel in and through the transparent ones, yet those who are shaped by fears and insecurities and pretensions create an inner landscape of darkness and shadows. The fear of man leads to spiritual death, the fear of God leads to life and that more abundantly.
A particular trial ends for the McEleny family this morning. Not a small trial. The kind of trial that lasts for years. The kind of trial that reaches into your chest and threatens to rip your heart out. Yet here we stand, by the grace of God here we stand, whole. Older , wiser, a little greyer, but whole, kept in His hand. And so, in these wee hours of the morning as I cannot sleep, for joy awakes me, I think of all who are in the midst of trials, sore trials, trials that have lasted years yet still you stand by the grace of God and you understand that His grace and mercy is life itself. It is light when all around is darkness. It is hope when the world says there is no hope and oh how we cling to this. And so in this light I have just written the poem below. May it bless you. God has seen the afflictions of His people.
Let the presence of the Lord
Circulate through my heart
Let neither trial nor circumstance
Come and tear us apart
There is a roaring lion
That ever seeks to devour
Let us be ever vigilant
Every day and every hour
Stand fast ye Royal Soldiers
Ye soldiers of the cross
There’s one thing certain in this life
That you will suffer loss
Our Lord He understands these things
He sees our agonies and pain
And on the cross of Calvary
Our enemy there was slain
So in the moment of the trial
In the midst of the darkest night
Stand fast ye Royal priesthood
Stand up stand up and fight
There is no trial that is pleasant
No agony easily borne
Yet there is a God in heaven
And we live by promises sworn
For in the book it is written
It is written there by Blood
That He shall raise a standard
When the enemy comes in like a flood
Stand up ye Royal priesthood
There in the midst of the fire
Stand up my brothers and sisters
Come up a little higher
For He has seen your afflictions
And every tear that falls by night
And holds you in His very hand
He has called you to this fight
There will come a day so very soon
Where all your trials will have an end
And though for now you’re tempest-tossed
You shall not break but bend
So let His presence flow through you
For in these waters you must swim
Through fire and flood and fiercest storm
To be surely found in Him.
Hold fast hold fast hold fast my child
For joy comes in the morning
There is eternal peace ahead
For those who sound Gods warning.
You cover my head in the rain
And in the heat you are my shadow
You are able to bear all my pain
And sustain me wherever I go
You’re my anchor in the height of the storm
You’re my eyes when I cannot see
In the depths of the winter you keep me warm
When I am bound you set me free
When the enemy is all around
And I am beaten and tattered and torn
In your arms I will surely be found
Tis your promise, tis what you have sworn
When I cannot see a way ahead
And I am surrounded by many fears
In the silence of the night upon my bed
You come and wipe away all my tears
You’re my hope in the dark of the night
You’re my peace in the midst of the madness
You will help me to stand up and fight
As you chase away all the sadness
Heaviness shall give way to praise
And joy shall come in the morning
I will worship you all of my days
My heart shall no longer be mourning
I see my son and he is coming
He was banished to a far away land
And to him I will surely come running
Then we shall walk home hand in hand.
Oftentimes when things become more accessible they become less desirable. There is a fundamental flaw in humanity, you can call it the Adam and Eve flaw. We desire what we cannot have and oftentimes take for granted what we do have, until of course we do not have it. The object remains the same, what determines the attitude depends upon whether we have it or not. The ability to be thankful for what we have is a gift that must be learned practically. It can only be learned in the classroom of life. Many never learn , a fortunate few discover that there is great peace and contentment within the heart that is full of thanks.
As long as I know I am loved
I can still go on living
I can rest my head tonight
Because I am forgiven
As long as I know You are there
I can walk in the dark of the night
I can lay down in the valley
For in the dark you have given me sight
As long as I know I am Yours
Then joy still dwells deep within
I can smile where others cannot
For I am delivered from the curse of sin
As long as I know You today
I can mourn with another’s loss
I can open my heart and pour out my love
Because of what you did on the cross
Now this ” knowing,” is not in my head
Nor is learned or given to me
To know Him is when two become one
And that one is surely set free
Free to plunge the depths of His love
And to scale the heights of His glory above
Free to know the comforts of His rod
Free to know the fullness of God
Free to swim in a perpetual sea
A never-ending ocean of love
Free to fly in an endless sky
For I was given the wings of a dove
An eternity to search the unsearchable
Forever to know the unknowable
What seems to the world the narrow way
Is the entrance to eternity which starts today
Yesterday today and forever
Is the Kingdom of God in my heart
It all began when two became one
Now every day is a brand new start
Will you search out the glories of Christ today?
To be known is to truly know
When you walk in the shadow of Christ your King
Wherever He goes you surely shall go.
As I walked this morning, the song that was on my heart was ” I Am holing on to you.” The line from the chorus is ” I am hold0f0ing onto you, in the middle of the storm, I am holding on to you.” It is a beautiful sentiment and one I have felt deeply so many times in my life. Many times, I have hung onto Jesus with everything that was in me. As I continued to walk, I realised that just as many times I had no strength to even hang on. I felt the Spirit say to me ” just add an ” is,” to the chorus. Now the line reads ” I Am is holding on to you, in the middle of the storm, I Am’s holding on to you.” Maybe today you need to be reminded that when you have no strength to carry on, He will carry you.
Many saints I know ” pray,” as though they are not talking to God. They lecture Him, they teach Him, they use prayer to teach others, they do all these things but the one thing they are not doing is talking to God, at best they are talking to themselves. If you do not believe that you are talking to God, then you are not. Your own unbelief has become your ceiling.
Prayer is something that most of us struggle with at one time or another. There is a direct correlation between your walk with the Lord and your prayer life. There can be seasons of dryness, seasons of drought, seasons of abundance, there can be deep dark winters from which we may think we shall not emerge from, all of this is common to every saint.
Many saints I know ” pray,” as though they are not talking to God. They lecture Him, they teach Him, they use prayer to teach others, they do all these things but the one thing they are not doing is talking to God, at best they are talking to themselves. If you do not believe that you are talking to God, then you are not. Your own unbelief has become your ceiling.
We see here in the Scripture that every man shall bear his own burden. This seems to contradict verse 2 of that same chapter where we are exhorted to ” bear you one another’s burdens.” Now we know that in this world we shall have trials and testings and so on. No one walks this earth untouched by its brokenness and sin. Some , it seems, have easier lives than others, some seem to have trials beyond measure, yet the one thing that is sure is that we all have burdens of one degree or another. Certainly we are called to love one another and to reach out to those who are going through trials. We are to love and support them in any way that we can or that we are led. Yet as we all know, there are certain things in our lives that we simply have to endure, to bear, they are uniquely our burdens and no one can help us but the Lord.
How we deal with such burdens, whatever they are, certainly determines how we walk this earth. And how we deal with such burdens also determines how heavy the burden is. Two different people can have a very similar burden. To one it is such a heavy load that it pulls them down, to the other it encourages them to go deeper into the Father’s heart and they become stronger and the burden becomes lighter. In the previous chapter of Galatians we are reminded of what the fruits of the Spirit are. Can I assure you that how we react to our burdens will be measured by the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Now the fruits of the Spirit are these…..love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,goodness, faith, meekness and self-control. As you carry your burden are you loving? Do you have joy? What about peace? Are you patient with others? Would people consider you gentle and good? Do you trust the Lord? When you are provoked by others, do you respond in kind or do you exercise self-control? You see, our burdens are our teachers. Are you teachable? Our burdens shape us, do you allow yourself to be shaped?
When the sculptor starts he starts with a large heavy block of stone. Each blow from the chisel not only shapes the stone, it also lightens it. If the stone could resist the sculptor and refuse to be shaped, it would remain merely a shapeless heavy block of stone. Do you resist the hammer’s blow? Have you been reacting correctly to the burden that you have been called to carry? Does it seem to you unbearable and heavy? Can I encourage you today to go deeper into the Father’s heart today? You know this burden is something that is not going to go away. It has to be dealt with and no one on this earth can help you with it. Jesus says “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Mat 11:28-30)
You see brothers and sisters, the burden is not removed but it can be made lighter. It is made lighter in Him. And as we come closer to Jesus, the very thing that could destroy us if allowed, begins to shape us and teach us and produce fruit in us. I grow up in a city, I could not tell you one tree from another, but I know what an apple looks like. The fruit identifies the tree to those who do not know. What fruit do you bear this day as you bear your burden? How heavy is your burden? The weight is determined by our proximity to God. Can I encourage you to today, draw closer to God and you will produce much fruit and your burden shall be light.
Forgive us Lord in this land for our willful disobedience to your word. We are not ignorant in this land, we are rebellious. We ask for spiritual awakening yet we have no desire to do justice. We ask for mercy yet we show none. We cry to the heavens and complain about the flood of evil, yet we do not repent that we ourselves unlocked the flood gates for our own wicked gain. We cry out to you for unity of thought while we remain behind the walls that we ourselves built for our own glory. Lord, tear down the walls that your people have erected to separate themselves from each other and build a name for themselves.
Lord forgive our pride that deafens us to the cries of the laborer in the field. Can it be Lord that you would hear us when we refuse to hear them? We jealously guard this land that you made available. We reject the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, we the oppressed have become the oppressors and it causes us no shame. You say to us ” I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins, you afflict the just, you take a bribe and you turn aside the poor in the gate from their right,” and Lord we do it all with pride and are justified in our own sight, forgive us Lord and heal our land.
Modern day Christianity has lost its way, has lost its focus. The central truths upon which we have stood for two thousand years has been lost in a fog of noise and distraction and in the rise of humanism and the flesh. Never before, in the history of the Western world have we seen such an indulgent , entitlement-minded people. And since a great majority of the Christendom is just like the world, then we see an indulgent, entitlement-minded church.These people have produced preachers and teachers that will tell them what they want to hear. It is often hard to tell the difference between a motivational speaker and a preacher. Instead of teaching and preaching based upon the central truths of Christianity, there is preaching and teaching on how to get the most out of life. They teach that God would never call you to something that you do not like. Can you imagine your kids telling you that they are not going to do their chores that you have set for them because it does not bring them pleasure? Would you indulge your kids in this behavior? Or would you take the time to explain to them about building character, about sacrifice and about servant-hood? Are these three elements some of the things that are missing from the church? It’s strange that Christendom would condemn the “If it feels good, do it,” generation yet at the same time teach this from their own pulpits.
The short post below is my reply to a sister in Christ who asked ” What does absolute surrender look like?” I thought it worthy of a post since it is such a great question……bro Frank
I believe absolute surrender comes at genuine salvation. It is a hearts attitude that says to God ” I give you my life, my whole life, holding nothing back.” I then believe that sanctification is a process whereby God takes what has been freely given to Him. We are not now our own, we have been bought by a price, the blood of Jesus. The more we give to God, the more we live out that surrender actually. The more we empty ourselves of the things of this world and the flesh, the more the world will see Jesus. We must decrease and He must increase. Yet, the work is all the Lord’s and He gets all the glory. He does this work for his will and good pleasure. He heals, He restores He replaces the things that the locusts have devoured, He refines. He, through the Holy Spirit sanctifies, we surrender. So, ultimately surrender is a response to God. How we respond determines how we live and how we glorify God, which is our chief end in this life.
God is never to be trifled with. We must indeed fear God in this context. He is not my buddy nor my pal although He has called me friend. This should only make us reverence Him all the more. He is high and lifted up. He is majestic and glorious and all of heaven bows down to Him and cries ” Holy.” Indeed we have been allowed to boldly approach the throne, but not glibly. We do not skip into His presence although we can run into our high tower. We must bring to Him the sacrifice of praise. He is my savior and He is high and lifted up. He is my personal Lord and still the train of His robe fills the Temple. He comes to me in sweet and glorious fellowship and yet He holds the whole universe in the palm of His hand, the same hand that holds mine. It is a glorious mystery how one so vast as He, knows and cares for one so small as me.
Hi guys, as anyone who has read the material on this site, you will know that I typically avoid politics or the issues of the day, because typically they are a symptom of a larger disease. In order to become whole, one must treat the disease, not the symptoms. When we arrive at the heart of the matter, this is where Jesus does His work, everything else is usually nothing more than getting ” caught up in the weeds.” It is important that we have eyes to truly see. The general reaction to the release of the young American soldier is a good example of a symptom of a disease. It is a deep malady and has a central cause which exhibits itself in anger and hatred and mistrust, bitterness and fear and loathing. I want to suggest that none of these things are the fruit of the Spirit of God working in our lives, they are the fruit of another spirit that wars against our souls in an effort to pull us away from God and render us powerless and without light in an ever darkening society. We Christians are the salt and the light of the world. If our light is covered and we have lost our saltiness, what good are we for the cause of the Kingdom and to a desperate and dying world?
I recently wrote about this very spirit, based on Luke 9:51 where the disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy, and presumably kill everyone in a Samaritan village because they had insulted and rejected Jesus. Jesus rebukes His disciples , much like He rebuked Peter when Peter told Jesus he would not be crucified. Jesus says to the Disciples that this anger in them, this reaction was not of the Holy Spirit in fact they did not realize ” what spirit you are of.” I would like to share a word of caution to my brothers and sisters. Do not get caught up in these situations and throw your lot in with those who are given over to a spirit that is not of God. In this particular case there is more than likely major negotiations going on with the Karzai government , the Taliban and America about America leaving. This young man is undoubtedly just a bit player, a smoke screen to cover the release of those high-ranking Taliban members.
The war in Afghanistan is coming to an end and I say praise the Lord. The day that the last young American leaves that terrible debacle will be a fine day. And if the Taliban turn on the government there, then that is their own problem, it is not worth the life or limbs of any young American. When America went to war with Afghanistan , I do not know anyone who believed anything other than that the sole purpose of going there was to punish and dethrone the Taliban for aiding Bin Laden and of course trying to capture him. No one I knew believed that America was going there to ” re-build,” that country over a period of decades, or that trillions of $$$ and countless lives, blood and treasure, would be spent on trying to create a democracy. If the American public would have been told that up front, I believe there would have been little to no support for going there.
Most of us and I would include myself in this, first instinct is to draw the sword, and when it is a seemingly ” virtuous,” thing to do, the sword comes out all the quicker. This is of the world, it flows not from the Spirit of God, but from the spirit of man. What spirit shall we be of? Shall we mind the things of God or shall we be found to mind the things of men? Jesus identifies this spirit with Satan himself. Let us walk in the Holy Spirit. This gives us the freedom not to render evil for evil. In this Spirit we can love our enemies and do good to them that would spitefully use us. The spirit of the flesh says ” strike back, lash out, get justice for yourself, destroy your enemies.” The Spirit of God say ” Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” What spirit shall you walk in? We get the choice. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.
A Call To The Remnant 