Faith is Power

Mic 3:8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

Faith is power and truth, the bridge across this world, a gift of the spirit. Never forget, it was never easy, there was pain all along the way. It wasn't always a straight road, how often you were drawn away. There is a city called Rome, there are oceans of deep waters, cold wet days in which you would drown but for the glory of God who prevails against this dark confederacy. I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord. I give all thanks unto Him. I was afflicted. My bones were ground like sharp glass scratching against the dark eyes of my soul. I ached with lesions in a wilderness of hopeless living death. So I celebrate, now I am lifted, no longer dogs in the dirt not knowing what they do. You have to remember yourself in the presence of God, you have to understand the forces pursuing, hunting, seeking to eat you. You are nothing, nothing big or important, vain perhaps, a little man and often not even that. So wake up, press now for the sands of the cool earth have a peace only in a world you must leave - so seek Him for His sake, as purely and truly as you can - touch Him because He IS. We are already dust. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

Fear

Rom 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Fearing God is, as it seems, a peculiarly difficult and at odds with our times type of thing. It appears - and I may be entirely wrong on this count - that the liberal expansion of the 1960's and the mantra's of all-you-need-is-love and such, made the idea of love desireable in a way different to earlier generations. Generally speaking anyway. Of course, to many love is love and it is all fairly simplistic and effortless with little distinction between the values of Eros, Philadelphia and Agape. Even so. Though a person may not be a Christian nor indeed particularly spiritually oriented they will often admit to seeing some level of meaning in the instruction to love thy neighbour. Contrary to this, the idea of fearing God gains no approval, makes peoples skin crawl and is, by and large, a no-go zone: vanity knows where it's not welcome.

So, what does it mean to fear God?

Well, what would it be to have to give account of oneself to God?

How could I? What would I say? Forgive me for I am a miserable sinner? I know not what I do? I lack all inner command? I am weak and have ever failed to remember myself, to be present to your presence? My will is crabbed and doddery when faced with temptations of lust and desire? What can I say? I walked in darkness. I lacked self-restraint. Nothing excuses what I became here in the flesh - no matter how grand a dream I may have envisioned before bursting through the waters of my mothers womb: the sheer weight of flesh upon my soul so pinned me to the floor, glued me to the tinsel attractions of the world, that it took half a lifetime just to open my eyes to the Truth of Thy Word. I cannot account for myself, I am condemned - not merely by acts committed in my name but by the thoughts to which I gave myself. Carried away in sin, a great lacuna of conscience, it is too terrible and adamic, nothing, no words of mine can release me. So God save me.

Stone ...

Joh 9:29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

Reading the account in the Gospels of the Jews rejection of Christ, or at least the priestly Sanhedrin rejection, one feels some sympathy. They were facing a dreadful quandary: if they accepted Jesus and he turned out to be a false prophet they'd look ridiculous, their authority savagely undermined, yet in accepting Jesus as Christ, historical Jewish culture would be at an end, certainly their priest-craft. They were surely in a catch 22, locked into personal survival mode: thinking with their deadly lower instincts - it's Him or us. That's what I said, this world eats you up, the lower emotions tugging hard on the reins. How inveigled it gets, there's just no way out if you're sitting in the scullery.

And then, here were a people surrounded with false prophets, and a body of sacred literature warning of the woeful consequences of following would-be-prophets. In that respect our own times share some major similarities. God knows the number of new age fads and Osho's and Raelians that claim to stand in some relationship to a higher authority, that proffer themselves as mediators between Man and the Divine. It works too, a proven method for hauling in the sluts and moolah. Let's look at it, there are millions of suckers being led into oblivion by one Joseph di Mambro after one David Koreshi after one Jim Jones. How many crazy dogs make themselves out to be God? You're either easily led, a cautious skeptic or a cynic - and neither one nor the other yield much return. No one wants to be a dupe, but we are in the flesh, so what can you expect?

How would we respond today as individuals in a similar predicament to that of the Sanhedrin? That's a reasonable question to ask yourself. There is a time in all our lives where we are faced with this dilemma, and vanity is never far away worrying how she'll be perceived. Shall we accept Jesus as Christ, as our only hope of salvation? Shall we resist this or that particular temptation? Jesus Saves. Jesus is Alive. Our senses object, our reason wants none of it - where are the certainties and proofs, the hard evidence? Yet we have this choice and if we so choose then we must walk a tight rope with faith and hope as our only balancing stick. It would be very easy to reject Him all over again - afterall the world has always rejected Him, and ever full of reasons, rationales, logics and watertight recidivisms. On the other hand it is very easy to embrace Him: it is finally a matter of discernment. In this land of captivity, though we be fallen creatures, the Light comes from above, which is deep within, the light comes from without which is beyond the little man called me, myself, I - the plurality of being - that is me, me, me ...

Judas

Luk 22:3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.

There has always existed this myth, this spark of imagination in the fallen mind of man, that there was something noble, even self-sacrificing in the actions of Judas Iscariot. It is this absurd idea that Judas represents the conscious man with the heroic burden. He fulfils prophesy, he commits the necessary betrayal, he gets the bum deal of treachery, his name is dirt for all time but of all the disciples he is mighty and illustrious because he gave himself for Christ. To the biblically illiterate this idea is almost romantic. Judas, the most despicable of types is retrieved from the gutter and given his own salvation. Yet this lie is shattered by the proof of scripture. Satan played his hand and entered into Judas. It is natural that the people of the darkness would seek to twist this central truth: Satan has power in this world. That is something they will not understand, they mock, laugh and deny yet the powers of darkness swirl around us all, a fact discerned by the children of light.

Judas did not believe Jesus was Christ, Son of the Living God. Ergo, Judas was a devil. Work it out ...

A Straight Road

1Ch 19:9 And the children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array before the gate of the city: and the kings that were come were by themselves in the field.

There's always a feeling we are at a loss in this game, that there's no chance of winning against the flesh. I don't say this as a defeatest but rather as one who see's the breadth of the forces of darkness. Porridge is porridge. We cannot defeat the powers of this world with the powers of this world. We must walk in the spirit, the lights are all in the upper chamber. What are we doing down here, half maimed like a hunted doe? This world eats you up. In a split second it'll take you away. You'll not even know it. And if that sounds like a bunch of words you need to come into some sort of silence and observe yourself and the events which so bedazzle your attention. It is almost impossible to explain, but it is happening every second of every minute. You can't break away, or give it up dreaming of blue skies. You can't market the escape route, there's no retail, or off the shelf product. It's between you and your Maker. You have a bond.

Col 3:14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Who but God?

Who but God can set men free? And He sets them free as they walk with Him. All independence of Him is darkness.

Andrew Jukes

School

We are His elect ... whose number is one-hundred-fifty-three. This is the number of the School, so very rare and difficult to find ... here working in the world, but no longer of this world. The straight way to God.

Joh 21:11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

Watch & Pray

2Ch 1:10 Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?

Remember Solomon prayed that the LORD God would grant unto him knowledge and wisdom. He sought nothing but the very things that would bring him closer to his Maker. The psalmist puts it like this:

Psa 119:18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

I guess we just have to realise and have it with us that death is awefully close, that no matter the attachments we have to this world, it will not be long now before we are dead. It always seems we are here forever but already life has passed and how many days more shall we count before our age is done? We have only this short time and really what is life? A stream of events, some we like and some we dislike and all in all none of it matters, or so little of it. At least, from an objective perspective we have a much greater task than being drawn down into the passing concerns of the moment. There is an understanding that stands high above the riches and self-glorification of the personality seeking its own apotheosis. This is what Solomon teaches: he has to govern this crowd of beings, just as we have to govern this crowd of I's within our being. He knows we need help, asks and is made King and granted knowledge and wisdom ...

Mar 13:33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

He hath showed thee, O man

Mic 3:6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

Gen 46:8 And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn.

Men may have designs and plans for life, but each and all are subject to the Will of God. If it pleases Providence to send a people down into Egypt, there is nothing that can prevent it - and not one man, but his entire seed! Likewise, no matter a man be a great prophet - what He gives He can take away, and worse, leave a man in darkness, groping blind and ignorant. Maybe it pleases Him or maybe our fellow sufferers are in need to learn from these events. We can only say that the feeling and sense of security in familiar surroundings is as fragile as life itself. We are instructed to love the Lord, yet like the prophets that make people err or the children of Jacob, being but children of Adam we delight in our own vain desolation. And out of that mire of self-will and vanity we are brought to account, to know in our conscience the Lord God, to be not conformed to this world but transformed and renewed, cleaving to the Good.

Mic 6:8 He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

None But Jesus Christ

1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Th 5:10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

There it is, it says it plainly - and I believed it all along. I understood it to be true. But to read it in scripture is a warm thing. Those who are saved are saved through Jesus Christ. Whether they be awake or asleep they obtain salvation. They wholly accept and invite Christ into their hearts. There is nothing else. Conscious development alone saves no man. Any such effort must be tied to the one God and mediator between God and men: our Prophet, Priest, Lord and King: Jesus Christ. Not that we are invited to sleep, on the contrary the preceeding verses explicitly request that we remain sober and watch. It is a part of our armour, to watch. Truly there is no place for spiritual sloth and slumber. We are ever at war, guarding against sin and the temptations that so lured the old man. Yet, we may stumble - our works can never save us. Or, as Herman Witsius puts it: None but God can restore us to true liberty.