READ, PROCESS, LINGER…
I read a true story once about a forest fire in Yellowstone Park. Forest Rangers, after the fire, were ascending a mountain to assess damage to the forest. One of the Rangers noticed what looked like a bird petrified in ashes, perched on the ground at the base of a large tree. The Ranger touched the bird with a stick and three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. Unable to fly, the chicks were carried from their nest high in the tree to a low point at the base because toxic smoke rises. Can you imagine? The mother could have flown to safety, abandoning her chicks, but she didn’t. As the blaze scorched her small body, burning her alive, she remained steadfast. She died so her chicks could live. Isn’t that amazing and wonderful?
Please turn to Psalm 91:4. Being loved this much by anyone should make a difference in one’s life. Remember Jesus who spread his wings on Calvary to protect you from the lake of fire. Do something for someone – make a difference as Christ did.
God’s love is not the result of our good works, and His love does not diminish for any reason. He is steadfast and immutable.
When we are in steadfast fellowship with the Lord, the intimacy is like flowers and sunshine, watered by rain. Without Christ, the unbeliever is a flower sealed in darkness – only Christ can break the seal of bondage.
Spiritual warfare in each believer’s life is fought by Christ, who will slay the diabolical entities who lurk about, seeking to destroy us. Battling with rage, sorrow, pain, and suffering will turn us either toward God or away from God. When we fly with Jesus, we will be at peace through His presence.
God has read the story of your life… His perspective is perfect, His purpose is perfect. We live in the devil’s world but God, through Christ, controls our personal history. When you lose control, God doesn’t. If and when God gets you to the point of reflecting Him, when people see Christ radiating from your soul, it is then that God is glorified and your reward is waiting for your arrival in Heaven. Hang in there, Christ did.
Freedom is not in perceiving life through the senses (sensate) – slavery is found there. Look elsewhere until you can search no more, for it is then you will have found what you lost.
Man strives for God, but finds his nature makes no allowance – he searches in vain faith.
All the ideas of man are just that.
What is life that we live it? What is death that we fear it? What is thought that we think it? What is love that we need it? What is what?
Hate, intolerance, and greed… Realizing our imperfections as truth about self, we also acknowledge perfection, which cannot come from ourselves. We contemplate good and evil, right and wrong, perfection and imperfection, order and disorder, freedom and slavery, truth and lies. Any datum which illuminates the determinate character of ourselves in our reality must have a source greater than ourselves if we are to adequately define ourselves. We all make our own throne upon which we sit.
Sailing to evermore…
We set up mast and sail, catching the sternward wind, onward with billowing canvas we reached the shore that never ends.
We are water of life until our dried voices sing no more and whispers merge with the wind. What then?
The merit-based religions have created a myriad of botched civilizations, and still humanity walks the treadmill of destruction.
All the problems of creation begin and end with relationships, which begin and end.
In many religions, the painter/artist who creates his art is pretending to be a creator, denying the uniqueness of God (makes the artist equal to God) thereby committing blasphemy with every stroke of the brush. I find it interesting to explore the many ways humans choose to pacify approbation by works of wasted efforts. Even more interesting, searching the examples of making themselves equal to God or replacing God on the throne of life and the self.
If there is to be a Bonfire of the Vanities, it will not get one to Heaven, nor will it cause one to reach enlightenment. It is a nice expression but it requires submission to the self through works of merit. The filling control of the Holy Spirit of the believer’s thinking automatically ignites the Bonfire of the Vanities in us.
All quotes are by C. S. Craig unless otherwise noted.