Photo by Mareefe
she is comfortable with her smile. Her smile doesn’t mask the great pain that undoubtedly lay in her life; it embraces it…and in that embracing, the oil of Joy pours out like a healing balm…
for true Joy is not a feeling nor is it an emotion. True Joy is seeded in Truth. Truth about how the story began and how it will end…”every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD.”
I am breathing underwater and not wondering how
I am praying to be rescued but not sure if the time is now
Gravity feels heavier than it use to but in the water I am weightless
I can no longer hear the angry world and could not care less
You are so close I can hear but not touch you
You are The Holy One well acquainted with Truth
Photo by Vinícius Vieira Fotografia
A mystery revealed. When we are born we know nothing of Truth. We believe those around us are truth tellers. We believe WE are truth tellers. We believe our parents tell us the truth and they believe it too. Our homes are warm and dry so safety must be true. Our siblings play and live the same as we do so how we live must be the true way to live. Our schools must teach true facts so educated people must be true. Our religion must be true because it rules our behavior, our traditions but the fact is we are born liars. We are born enemies of God and do not know truth. We are born liars, decievers, and accusers. The Truth is not in us until the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ utterly dwells within us. God’s Word states that not one of us is good and that humans love darkness and when the Light of the World came we did not know him. Until He chose to reveal to us, by the Spirit of God himself, who came in the flesh. Until Jesus! This is the Epiphany, the Light of the world who is the God Man Jesus. The One born in Bethlehem. The One who grew up without sin. The One who was crucified for all sin. The One who rose from the dead. The One who ascended and lives on High. The One who will return for His people and will reign forever. He is the only Truth!
So why are we surprised that we lie to each other and put on masks, and build detailed facades of being perfect families, perfect marriages, and perfect churches? Why are we surprised that some of us had Godly truth telling parents and some did not? Why are we surprised when our five year old child lies to us or sneaks candy from the pantry? Why are we surprised that we are or once were liars and not valiant for Truth?
This is an important part of understanding the ” state of human kind and our sin. Understanding our sin is the way that leads to falling on our faces before The Holy and repenting with humility. There is not plural Truth! There is only One Truth!
“All have sinned and fall short… (Romans 3:23). All of us need redemption. All of us are liars if we say this isn’t true. Truth is a person in flesh and a person in the Trinity of God’s very being. We do not know Truth in our lives until we humble ourselves to receive the Grace and the Mercy of The Holy One who is the very definition of Truth.
” and they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for Truth…Jeremiah 9:3
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Just declared to be God’s only Son. The voice and the dove announced it to the world. Driven straight out by God’s Spirit to the wilderness of Judea where not even scorpions will live…
No food or water upon these forty days. He who is announced and ordained now lay weak, trembling near death only to now be approached by Satan…
Satan, the shining one come to accuse The Word of God. If you are the Son of God??? Compared to Eden the destruction of the Second Adam seems it might be an easy victory…
Fear is a wilderness where the devil runs around
He tempted Jesus there now he wants to take me down
Fear is a wilderness where death creeps up on trust
The water is polluted, hope turns into dust
Fear is a wilderness where Jesus walked alone
Oh but The King of Ages left the wilderness undone!
Jesus never once defended his identity or Godly position. He knew that Satan knew it well. For even Satan and all his demons tremble at His name. He the Second Adam would destroy all death and hell! For the living Word is his name and his Word is more powerful than any two edged sword!
Photo by Dominika Roseclay
You can look for me on the streets or home
my footprints are there but I may be gone
There is a scent of rose and a south wind breeze
a slight Texas drawl and a gospel hymn…
They say no one knows where they belong
without a doubt I know this is wrong
For every step taken must be redeemed
this journey’s path is seldom what it seems…
You can look for me in this Texas town
where all my roots lay deeply in the ground
A sense of strength and a southern swag
and a Gulf Coast pull that calls me back…
You can look for me on the streets or home
Some familiar paths and some still unknown
You will hear my laugh dancing in the trees
the cottonwood’s shade as the church bells ring…
Photo by Jens Johnsson
Oswald Chambers says “The Cross of Jesus Christ was the greatest and most profound collision of God and Sin”. In my sixty-three years of life I am still often astounded how I cannot grasp all that The Cross of Jesus means to those who choose to follow him. For you see it is a choice. Jesus never pushes himself on people because He knows that to be his follower there will be a cost.
In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Meditations on The Cross, I found myself pierced in the heart at my lack of true discipleship. Oh, make no mistake I am a born again child of God, regenerated and adopted into the family of God through Jesus’ blood shed for me however, having knowledge of that and thoughts and plans of my own on how that should go and how that should look I am learning to abandon.
In Bonhoeffer’s book he quotes Martin Luther and this quote absolutely “gutted” my spirit and has also transformed my idea of what following and obeying Christ means…I really don’t have the words to express what I have realized.
The Martin Luther quote, “things must happen not according to your own knowledge but rather immerse yourself in the abandonment of understanding and Jesus will give you true understanding. You cannot find the way of the cross. Jesus must lead you there like a blind person. Not the work you chose for yourself, not the sufferings you think up for yourself, but what comes to you contrary to your choosing, thinking, desiring, that is where you must follow, there He is calling. There you are the pupil, there is where your teacher, your Savior has come and is found.”
“So, this Great Collision between God and Sin, this collision absorbed by the heart of God is what the Cross of Jesus is. The world shook, the foundation of hell and death were defeated forever.” Oswald Chambers
What the Cross is NOT is an act of martyrdom, in the sense that there is no “defeat” on Jesus’ cross. Only victory with the greatest price paid that eternity past, present, and future has ever known. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the questions of both. Nor is the Cross of Jesus something that “happened” to Jesus. He came for this exact purpose when he made His covenant between the three persons of the Godhead to become flesh and dwell among us.
Oswald Chambers says, “The Cross of Jesus is not “a” gift from God rather it is THE Gift from God! The Cross of Jesus is the literal act of God’s Holy judgment on Sin.” Most Christians are familiar with these words but I tell you when I pondered on Martin Luther’s quote above regarding Jesus leading me like a blind person to His Cross, bearing my own cross of sin, selfishness, and vain knowledge I was undone!
In an ongoing study but now a conclusion to this small putting together of words that cannot satisfy what I am trying to say, The Cross is not the horrible end of a pious life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Every call of Christ leads to death of self with the promise of eternal life in Him. You cannot know the way of the cross. I cannot make myself a disciple of Christ with my own knowledge, my own pursuits. It is only in following Jesus to His Cross that we will know the “Power of His resurrection” and eternal life. Lift up the mighty shield of faith for there are battles daily in this world but Jesus the God/man Redeemer of all is leading the way!
Oh what a Collision of God and Sin, my sin happened on the Cross of Jesus. The Cross of God. Oh my soul rejoice for the Joy of my Salvation has been restored!
(Credit to Oswald Chambers and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and the Holy Bible.)
Photo by Tookapic
when Life is not always
a merry Tale
or Thunder makes war
from east to west…
when Day leads to
a comfortless Night
or Evil and danger bring
your Soul to unrest…
put an Axe to the Tree
of all things hidden
keep your Sword always drawn
and sharpened…
let the Fair and the Fresh
be your Dream
never forget the High King
of Heaven…
Photo by Pixabay
The mourning is in the small connections to ordinary things. The smell of her hand cream and her talcum powder…
The crinkle of his skin in the corner of his gray-blue eyes when he smiles. The silly songs he sang to wake me up each morning and the silly nicknames he called us to show His love…
The struggle, the grief, the mourning is not between ourselves and others. It is within ourselves and lay between the longing in our souls and that which is ordained by God himself…
Between the body and its desire and between the mind and its necessary vital need of renewal…
These connections are learned at a very young age, as a babe already knows the scent of his mother and the lower tones in her father’s voice …So it is that these ordinary simple connections… are in reality the sound of Joy’s voice like a warm spring rain…
These are the gentle paths of mourning that ease us into grief. There is no fear in mourning for it is a connection to our Maker…there is no fear or reason to “get rid” of grief. For without the mourning there is no comfort. Without the sorrow there is no relationship and without grief there is no Joy.
Photo by Tina Nord
Oh the smell and sound of my Gulf shore
all of my changes were there
My Texas bayou city and bluebonnets in my soul
my angels were younger then
When I climbed my highest wall
these places cushioned the fall
My sea loving heart and my Texas soul
are the notes in my Holy song
Photo by nagaraju gajula on Pexels.com
Photo by Bryan Schneider
“Some of the greatest lies you will ever believe are told by your own eyes.” Says the writer Preston Sprinkle
We have been talking about this issue in American culture for the last twenty-five years and I don’t see much change in the message. Even in the age of reality TV shows like “the Voice” while the auditions are blind so that a judge cannot pick the contestant on any merit other than their voice we find that if they make it past the blind auditions they are quickly given a Hollywood stylist and their clothes, make-up, and hair are tweaked here and there and by the time the contest is over for that season the person is “acceptably attractive.” Even as far back as Carrie Underwood winning American Idol or Kelly Clarkson…if you go back and look at them you can see they were “made” more acceptable.
With God, your image, yours and mine, we are acceptable just as we are but I cannot for the life of me understand why we cannot get past these stereotypes of how one should look, and dress, and even age…
As a believer in God, Jesus Christ and the Bible I have no problem believing that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing, all-seeing, creator of ninety trillion million stars, the ocean, the tide, the sun, the earth…(You get the picture). Nobody tells God what he can or cannot do.
I have a harder time believing that this same transcendent Holy God would reach down to his earth and rescue his human race which makes him also an intimate God. A God who desires relationship with the people he created, with me and you. He isn’t playing a game of cosmic chess with us. He doesn’t love us begrudgingly yet most of us have a difficult time believing that same huge God who we believe created us and everything around us truly cares about us. That he delights in us. That he thinks of us more often than there are grains of sand? That he can’t wait for me to come talk and walk with him? That I am more beautiful than any sunset or sunrise could ever be? That he wants to be my friend and even more astonishing that He trusts me? That he never gives up on me just like the father in the story of the prodigal son He never stops looking out to the horizon to see if I am coming home after making a mess of everything in my life! He loves to hear my joy of laughter or singing. He is patient and kind and slow to anger. He loves my face and my body. He loves me!
It is an endless dance of performances and masks that I grow so very weary of. Are you weary? I cannot sustain what I think that you think I need to look like to be acceptable. This is the burden of societal shame.
So, I must not let my own eyes deceive me in commercial ads, in billboard ads, in Playboy, in movies, in T.V.
I work with young women. Eating disorders, body image, and anxiety is at an all time high in this country. It is a fact. They believe they must be thin, quiet, and good all the time. They believe they are ugly and not made by God and in His image at all. What a toll it has taken on our people.
God sees his children as beautiful. He sees each race as beautiful. His redemption of his children cannot be thwarted by any scheme of Evil or of man. So, I choose to look at myself through the eyes of my Father God who created me. I choose to look into his eyes and see myself as his beloved daughter. A daughter of beauty in every way and that He came down from heaven and redeemed me with his Grace and lets me walk with him daily and talk with him freely and never feel that I am ugly or unworthy of his love and blessings.
My spirituality, my beauty, my worth is upheld by God’s stubborn Grace and deep enjoyment of me. It is God whom I reflect and even if my eyes lie to me a thousand times it does not change the Truth one bit. I am precious, beloved, and I do belong to Him. I am beautiful…
I want my daughters and their sons and daughters to know they are more than even their own eyes tell them they are.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity into our human hearts; no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Jill Autrey Dorman 