Category: encouragement

Be Alert– Very Alert!

Be-Alert-Sign

“He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One.”

Daniel 7:25, NASB

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”

Matthew 24:12, NIV

Sometimes, we think it would be a fine thing to be able to tell the future. We could gaze into a crystal ball, and see exactly what is going to happen next. We would just love to tell this to our family and friends.

In a sense, the Holy Spirit has already shared the experience of believers in the modern church. And we have been told repeatedly not to consult the occult. It is forbidden– plain and simple. It’s not for us.

Once I was preaching on street corner on Telegraph Ave., in Berkeley, California. There I encountered a tarot card reader. People were everywhere. She was telling everyone’s future from a card table. Provoked by the Lord’s Spirit she went “gonzo.” She picked up her metal chair and began to smash it repeatedly against a big garbage can. It was a scene and a half! But it taught me the true nature of demon activity.

The future has been clearly predicted to us. We will enter a time of extreme difficulty. Daniel speaks of believers being “worn down.” Christians will start to crumble and erode away. It appears that this satanic assault will take apart the lives of most believers, leaving them in a compromised heap on the kitchen floor.

Jesus declares the future as well. He says that in our future we will see the love of many to grow cold. These ‘frigid believers’ will be troubled by sin and darkness. Evil will be more common, and saturate everything. The coldness will creep in.

In 1983 I was hitch hiking in Alaska. My heart was not in a good place. (I had just graduated from Bible school and I felt I had given God enough.) As I walked I saw a red piece of paper in the ditch. Retrieving it I opened it up to read simply, “Be Alert.” I felt a distinct connection to His presence. Walking another 30 yards or so, I spotted another red note. Again, “Be Alert.” I had no doubt God was speaking. When I finally got to my cabin, a call came. It was my mom who just got back from the doctor who had given her a diagnosis of cancer. I was heart-broken, but not ready to pray.

This morning I wish for you the discernment to see what is happening all around. In so many ways, the church is like the prophet Eli. We have lost our sight, and most of our discernment. (1 Samuel 2). I certainly mean no harm by this post. All I have wanted to do is give you a “heads up.” I don’t know what situation you are in at this time. But, Be Alert!

God loves those who struggle. It seems they are in a continual trouble, but the Father’s love will hold them. Their sin will remain, but they’ll be forgiven.

“But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, 21 and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.”

Jude 20-21

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A Singular Coal

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA A young man had come to a decision. “I will not be attending Church. I need to stand on my feet, and be a Christian my own way.” He was quite adamant about this, and his young wife hadn’t the slightest about what to do. It seems he had grown somewhat hard and coarse over the last few months. He had quit attending services for the last few Sundays.

She had made a discreet call to their pastor; she also prayed for her husband. “What else can I do?” she thought. “We really need to go to church.” She went about her busy morning, washing clothes, and tending the fire. “Somethings are best left in God’s hands” she said to no one in particular.

That evening was chilly and a fire was banked up quite nicely. The little house was cozy and ready to be “buttoned-up” for the night, when there was a knock on the door. It was the pastor, smiling and holding his hat. “Good evening. dear ones– someone told me you had a nice fire to sit by.”

“Come in, Reverend; please, come and sit,” the young husband said. He was not really enthused by the pastor’s sudden and unannounced visit, but he was polite. Removing his coat, the pastor sat in big wing-backed chair by the fire. He was quiet. No one said a thing. They just watched the flames.

The silence continued for some time; no one saying a word. Suddenly, the pastor popped up and grabbed the black iron poker from its spot by the fireplace. Poking at the sizable bed of coals, he managed to drag a single coal from the fire bed to the hearth. He separated it from the rest of so it burned on its own.

Still, not a word was spoken. Everyone just sat and watched this isolated coal burning on its own. In just a short time this glowing coal had become a dying ember. No one spoke. The pastor guided the once bright coal back into the hottest part of the firebox where it blazed up immediately. “Well, it’s late and I best be going,” said the quiet guest.

“Thank you, Pastor, for everything. We’ll see you Sunday morning.” said the young man.

flourish-bird

25 “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”

Hebrews 10:25, NLT

“The Greek work for church, ecclesia, is made up of a prefix and a root. The prefix is ek – out of. The root is the verb coleo, to call. The church in the New Testament is made up of those who are called out from the world, from darkness, from damnation, from paganism, to become members of the body of Christ.”

   ~R.C. Sproul

aabryscript

Our (Eternal) Compulsion

eternal-view

Strangely compelling. This morning I found waiting for me a series of verses that link with each other. Together they are both irresistible and indispensable. Combined, they form and establish the eternal perspective for the believing Christian. And it is all very real.

Look for what links them. (All verses are from the New Living Translation.).

flourish1

“Because I am righteous, I will see you.
When I awake, I will see you face to face and be satisfied.”

Psalm 17:15

“Your eyes will see the king in all his splendor,
and you will see a land that stretches into the distance.”

Isaiah 33:17

 “Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!”

John 17:24

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

1 Corinthians 13:12

“Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.”

1 John 3:2

“And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads.”

Revelation 22:4

Living forever, and being changed irrevocably is the sole privilege of the believer. It’s what we long for– sort of a (good) divine madness that continues to drive us; a splinter in our hearts that we can’t expel. But even if we could, would we?

Eternal life has already started for us; I believe far more awaits.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

aabryscript

Chickens Who Cross the Road

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Seldom has such a riddle penetrated our thinking as this issue.  Here is a list that approximates an answer on this very important subject.  (It is helpful to have a working knowledge of philosophy and history, but not really necessary.)

Mohammed Aldouri (Iraqi ambassador): The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don’t even have a chicken.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

George W. Bush: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

Bill Clinton: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned,because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Emerson: The chicken didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Louis Farrakhan: The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken “crossed” the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Grandpa: In my day, we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Captain Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

John Lennon: Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Agent Mulder: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

Ralph Nader: The chicken’s habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Richard M. Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

Plato: For the greater good.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn’t anyone ever think to ask, “What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway? Where do they get these chickens?”

Dr. Seuss: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I’ve not been told!

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Oliver Stone: The question is not, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Rather, it is, “Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?”

Mr. T: If you saw me coming you’d cross the road too!

Thoreau: To live deliberately and suck all the marrow out of life.

Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Voltaire: I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.

Wittgenstein: The possibility of “crossing” was encoded into the objects “chicken” and “road”, and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!