What Is Your Will In Christ?

Who am I but a single lowly seed bearing a certain promise, plucked from a fire ignited by my own iniquity... The promise I bear was endowed prior by the same hand that saved me and I am saved by no redeeming quality or accomplishment of my own, but purely by the grace of my redeemer. I am but a seed, small and indistinguishable among countless others. I bear the traits of the heritage of my forefathers, stained by the same imperfections as they. I could be counted worthless as I am no noticeable prize among the innumerable horde of others. Yet, lowly as I may appear even to myself, I have been counted worthy to be saved and singled out by the hand of my savior. My redeemer knowingly suffered the burning pain of my iniquity to save this single lowly seed, saving the endowed promise within. Now I am willingly and joyfully convicted by my own conscience to bear the fruit of the promise within me to the one who gracefully saved me. And I discover that through no credit to myself,...

I pray that the crushing of my heart - the grief and repulsion that becomes exposed when revisiting the true and extreme anguish suffered by my Savior in the course of my rescue becomes unwavering resolve. His suffering leading up to the cross, every humiliation, every blow, every lash and every insult and finally, every moment that He hung on that cross was knowingly and patiently suffered with intention - to save me. I am and will be unendingly grateful for the forgiveness that I've received because of what my Lord has done for me. His grace in my salvation will always be heralded and responded to with extreme gratitude in my heart as is right. But every opportunity to meditate even briefly on the subject exposes something more in my soul that is hard for me to contain. It provokes something more, something always present, residing just beneath the surface - raw and very powerful....  I've been married to the same awesome daughter of God for forty years. We married young...

*** I wrote this piece n early five years ago   after years of attention to the changing spirit and values of our nation and surrounding world. I was considerably concerned then. Now, I'm even far more deeply concerned by what I see and hear being raised up against what was once considered valuable and acceptable and were once based on Godly standards. And while these current societal standards seemingly change on the whim of both individual and collective lust and pride, our God's standards haven't changed in the slightest. There's a collision and a reckoning coming and that day's not far off - it gets closer every day. If you've read this piece before, I hope that you'll read it again and consider while you read what's changed in the last five years to further conflict with God's standards and His people. Where are the mighty men of valor and the awesomely powerful, Godly women   warriors  standing firm and raising their voices in objection to th...

I remember that back in Mrs. Sprague's fifth grade class (many years ago) we were each given an assignment to create a poster reflecting the virtues of eating a healthy diet. The particular subject at hand was related to the benefits of drinking milk and each of us were given the task of creating an artwork reflecting the positive slogan "Milk, It Does A Body Good". With that, I began to become conscious of the physical benefits of eating a healthy diet. It wasn't too many years later that I began to realize that another popular and similar health related slogan - "You are what you eat"... might have dual implications The ability of our diet to affect our physical bodies has of course been known for a very long time. In fact, the Bible even makes some reference to this truth. For example, take our brother Daniel and his three companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and their all vegetable diet. The results of their experiment, taken in spite of their c...