What Is Your Will In Christ?

As a hopeful follower of Christ attempting to view the world from a higher perspective... You might scan the news headlines from any source, periodically looking for some sense that godly wisdom and moral standards have gained a slight foothold somewhere in the world - looking for some sign that there's reason to hope for a world caught in increasing moral decay to begin to change its course.     I think the odds are that you won't find it in any way that gives reason for any assurance that an overwhelming surge of godly morality is overtaking the hearts of the majority of human kind. Too many are willing to follow the path of their own hearts rather than choosing the discipline and submission to follow a path of obedience to Christ. This isn't new, it's an old slow spiral of individuals choosing to follow whatever they will other than what they were created for... But the fight for the souls of mankind isn't over, the battle's not lost... because our God...

In our busyness, time has a way of escaping our consciousness in its daily passing, but time is limited - it has a beginning and an end. In that fatal end is enclosed the hope of a beginning without time's future presence - a beginning without an end. The endless span of eternity, without limit, is the span that we were created with intention for. But that path to eternity has active requirement. Time is a bubble - a capsule set apart within eternity that Father God uses to to measure the span of a man's testing in an element created to try him. It's become a conspicuous microcosm that man's commonly come to view shortsightedly as his lifetime - a view completely void of the consideration of eternity's existence. But completely sovereign God is eternal and so are His perspective and His plan. God created man with the hopeful intention that he too would become eternal, a relative of God escaping the fatality of time's passing. But in His infallible wisdom,...

Some years ago, the Wendy's chain of  hamburger  restaurants ran a series of television commercials that some will remember with a chuckle. They featured a pair of ladies well  seasoned  by their accumulated years, with one of them on a seemingly endless quest for the perfect hamburger, humorously asking the famous question - "Where's the beef?" Any reminiscent chuckles aside, my quest and question here concerns another definition of the word "Beef"... From vocabulary.com: " beef Beef is meat from a cow. It's also a word for a complaint. If you have a beef with someone, you’re not sharing a steak, you have a gripe. Just don’t beef to a cow; her problems are worse. Beef is a type of meat from cattle. If you've ever had a hamburger, you've had beef. The word beef comes from the Old French word buef, which became the word for basically, cow meat. Beef is to cow as pork is to pig or mutton is to sheep. On the other hand, if you have a ...

My human triumphs and failures, both my pride and shame here, are of no true account in the reckoning of my eternal balance sheet,... save one endeavor. And that is the goal of becoming of an empty vessel surrendered to Christ - a clay jar, one worthy only by the grace of the true accountant, re-birthed to carry and become saturated by the Spirit of the Living God. He who made me is completely worthy of my surrender to His habitation... and I am made worthy only by the power of His purifying presence in me... So Lord, If I rise in my own assessment of myself, let me fall. And if I fall, I pray raise me up again to true life in you, free of myself - let my focus be on you. If it need be in order for me to become the vessel that your heart truly desires, break me down, grind me into dust and saturate me with living waters. I pray this so that I may once again be formed by the hands that love me, into a worthy vessel. Let the will in me that I once so selfishly clung to die to ma...

If the expanse of the universe has no end... how is that possible? It must end some where... but if it does have an end, what's beyond that? The limited mind has cause to wonder... Having had the opportunity to learn a little about our God in this lifetime and being driven to consider what I've learned of His nature, I'm bound to this train of thought: We've learned about and seen the complexities of God's creation over time, including those of our own intricate, temporary bodies. We've had the opportunity to explore mystery after deep mystery from the beginning time of man's creation, only to discover far more yet to explore. We've been privileged to be allowed to observe countless breath taking wonders and the amazing beauty of God's creativity both in the earth and the heavens above us... But we have no real idea what the future beyond this life holds for us as His children in any great detail. We know and believe unfailingly in what He...

It can be a hard thing when our Christian parents leave this life. The seeming finality of that separation can be something that we find ourselves wrestling with at times. It can leave one with a feeling similar to that of being abandoned in a vulnerable moment. After all, if grace has allowed it, we've known the steady comfort of their presence for many years. From the moment we were born we began to know them and came to know them well. And for years, grace allowing, they knew us better than anyone on the planet. Gone, just... gone. It's a word that we may try to put away out of our minds moving forward. It becomes a word that we can struggle with with varying intensity - sometimes overwhelmingly and seemingly out of the blue. It can come out of nowhere and come in a rush like a punch to your core, assaulting your emotions.  But from a higher, selfless perspective than one consumed with loss or emptiness, we might be forced to acknowledge equally with abundant gratitude....

There's a nagging sense that this life isn't all that it could be. It's a feeling that there's something more, that despite everything we've done and everything we've obtained, something somewhere is still missing. Maybe it's around the next corner or could be found in the next thing, relationship or experience...  Somewhere deep down in the heart of every person who hasn't yet found the answer and the truly satisfying, permanent resolution, there's a hole. There's still something missing and despite everything we've tried to fill it with, something's still not right. Like an itch begging to be scratched it motivates a reaction, but what reaction will satisfy - what resolution? What is it? The volume of that sense varies from person to person and for some it ebbs and flows as life goes on. For some it's quiet, like a continual, still small voice and for others it may rise to a level that brings them to crisis or just to do thing...

I've come across a number of people over time that have a distinct disdain for anything related to "religion". I don't condemn them - in fact depending on their interpretation and descriptions attached to the word, I might even agree with them... To some, the mention of Christianity in particular immediately conjures thoughts of a guilt ridden, ritualistic servitude and life of condemnation immersed in hypocrisy. Of course and still amazingly, the opposite is very true. But one has to wonder where these ideas and impressions come from. Were they given life by the example of someone claiming to live under the banner of Christ? Were they acrimonious conclusions drawn from viewing the scripted religion of past media presentations or over zealous and over acted presentation? Each case may present a different answer, but I cringe when I think about some of the potential possibilities.   I haven't found in scripture yet where Jesus made a habit of yelling and thre...

I'm a child of grace. I'm exceedingly grateful that the challenges, trials and self designated disasters that have been allowed in my life have not been greater... The total number of opportunities for what I would be tempted to consider greater harm in my life - the absolute terror of things that I don't even know that I've been protected from, are something I can only wonder about. I only know that the horror of what could have happened hasn't. I look across the days of my life and consider that I could have been encumbered with far greater physical suffering, heart rending horror and devastating loss - the potential totality of which I can't even know. Yet I here I am still, gratefully broken by the overwhelming mercy of God's grace. What I have suffered is nothing compared to what I might be worthy of. I stand before the Lord humbled under the magnitude of His power and greatness. I'm a tender blade of grass standing before the raw and devastati...

In the busy day to day struggles to get through what's become our self made grind, what we know has a tendency to become so common to us that we really don't give it much thought. For instance, we know that somewhere "God's watching". But we've known it for so long that we may have even become complacent with the idea. I tend to think that God alone is so big and so powerful that He can see each of us individually and continually at the same time. There may be others who watch and surmise the content of our thoughts, intentions and motives in a given moment, but God alone knows the truth - even better than we know ourselves. As He watches over mankind, God's not surprised. He knows and expects with perfect clarity, knowledge and wisdom. But what we might acknowledge even less than Father God's continually watchful eye are the countless multitude of His mighty angels waiting with Him and having witnessed it all from the beginning. What must they thi...

Our lives have a voice. At times, it's a voice that can speak far louder than the one that comes forcefully out of our mouths. As followers of Christ, if the opportunity to talk about our experience with our Lord presents itself and we find our mouths shut in silent shame because of the life we've been living in front of present company... we've uncovered a problem. When the life we're living - what we say and do,  doesn't measure up  to what we might truthfully say or claim boldly in front of others, we may have a credibility issue. And that issue in that moment isn't just with the person or persons we wish we could speak freely to... but with ourselves... and we know at the same time that the Lord sees it. It suddenly becomes a moment of self acknowledgment - an instant self examination that has the opportunity to result in further growth and maturity... or to become an opportunity for discouragement and spiritual immobility. The enemy of our souls would ...

Dare...     ... to take some time to evaluate your life and ambitions by a reality bigger than the one that encompasses your daily life - by God's reality and established truth. Dare to take the time to consider what's real as established by the one who created it all... and in that process, find what your heart's "really" searching for... What's "real" to many is commonly based on the perception of our flesh and is determined by virtue of its senses. But what lives within these decaying bodies is eternal and was created with the holy and purposeful intention to have fellowship with God on His terms. Anything beyond that purpose is meaningless. We were created with an inherent desire for relationship with our creator. Nothing else completely satisfies that ever present and nagging feeling that something is missing - nothing possibly could. We were purposely created by God with a void in our hearts that only He can fill so that we'd be drawn ...

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,...