“Do I love you because you’re beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you?” ~ Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella
Every man has a responsibility and privilege to “unearth” and discover the beauty within his wife, girlfriend, or daughter. He can either bring it to the surface, cherish, and celebrate it, or he can tragically ignore it, leaving it buried.
Men, we will be held to account and will not escape God’s notice for every wrinkle and stain we inflict on the hearts of our wives and daughters. Their hearts surpasses our careers, our man-toys, and sport statistics.
I was speaking with my son, Jordan, one day about women and dating. We talked about how some women are too willing to give themselves to men, and too many men are predatory. I’ll never forget my son’s answer to a question I had asked him:
What do you do, son, when you find yourself in a situation where a woman throws herself at you?
“Dad, he replied, I will not take what doesn’t belong to me.”
I sat there, momentarily shocked and pleasantly surprised by his answer. His response was far beyond how most men, young or old, would’ve answered that question.
My son understands that a real man gives, and does not take from a woman, no matter how beautiful or how needy she may be.
Nature teaches us that a man gives from his masculine strength, and a woman is a “receiver” from within her feminine soul—from her feminine “frailty.” This, in no wise, suggests that the feminine soul is weak. Her feminine frailty is in her curvaceous form; it’s in the delicacy of her frame and the softness of her skin. A real woman is ferociously feminine and powerful in her own ways.
But, her feminine frailty goes deeper than her sexuality. Her true frailty lies deep within her heart and soul, where her sensitive nature lives—where her desire for a deep, meaningful relationship resides—where her dreams live.
When a man takes from a woman, he robs her of all her treasures. He takes and takes, eventually leaving her empty. Leaving her feeling used. Feeling dirty. She’ll feel like an overdrawn bank account, with a guy cashing checks that don’t belong to him.
Our culture is replete with drained and hollowed out women and girls. It’s heartbreaking to see so many of them broken to the point of lifelessness and left with a warped sense of femininity.
Men, we are to be blamed because we have abandoned our masculinity. We succumbed to wokeism and the anti-male culture without a fight! Passivity is unbecoming to the masculine soul.
A man is made to protect and give from his masculine strength. While he too desires to be loved, his heart is after a woman’s respect. Being loved by a woman may be easy for many men, but to be liked — to be admired by her comes with certain sacrifice and humility.
A woman, though powerful in her own way, is made to receive, to be loved; she’s to be fought for, cherished, and wanted. She doesn’t want to be the center of a man’s world — she wants to share the world with her man. She doesn’t want to be the adventure — she desires to be adventurous with him.
When you give to a woman—when you honestly love a her, you make her beautiful on the inside and radiant on the outside.
Tell your wife, your girlfriend, or your daughter that you love them in a thousand different ways and, if necessary, use words.
With long days and even longer nights, I have written more and have done a great deal of thinking and searching. Each time I do, more memories and tears bubble up. But these are good tears because what was once tragic is now increasingly becoming a blessing.
So, I’ve added more stories and more insight. It’s been the hindsight, coupled with new understanding, which has been revealing the fingerprints and mastery of a loving Father-hearted God, who, by the way, took all my days of good and evil and is progressively showing his artistry through all of it.
His color palate contains far more colors than just “black and white,” which is what many cold and lifeless religions preach to us. He is an unlimited God, with shades of an eternal spectrum yet to be discovered, and a profoundly intimate God, motivated with an ever-expanding Father-heart. He is filled with grace and wisdom. His love utterly humbles me, and if you can believe it, speechless at His unconditional grace and mercy towards even a guy like me.
Thank you all for your prayers and kindness. I genuinely hope and pray that whatever you may be battling or struggling through, it too is woven into something beautiful, no matter how difficult or painful. God loves a “stacked deck,” the more complex your life may be, the more impossible for a solution or cure, the more grace will appear — for our God loves, absolutely loves to come through!
So then, in our weaknesses and fragility, we can boast about God’s grace and that we’re also co-siblings with The Great Overcomer, Jesus Christ. We are children of the Father-hearted God. We are vastly wealthy and greatly loved.
I was at a water damaged home in Walnut Creek several years ago. I was speaking with the mother of this cute little, “Shirley Temple” like 3-year old. A few minutes later, the front door opens, and the little girl lights up and runs to her father, excitedly yelling, Abba, Abba, my Abba is home! I gotta tell yah, that brief moment tugged at my heart. I think it’s because that’s how we’ll one day greet our Heavenly Father. That’s how he wants us to greet him each new day. I think God’s favorite name is Abba!
So, notify your soul and face too, and show the world how great our God is. From your sick beds to your busy offices and lives, from your living rooms to the dressing rooms of Macy’s and Kohl’s — in every shopping line, and especially at Walmart, For our God is a great God, 24/7!
He loves to reveal his Father-Heart to broken and lost people. Our God would rather hang out with the despised and rejected than dwell with kings and queens — that’s just how special you are!
There’s no need to be anyone else than you. No need to be with anyone else than with the Father-hearted God!
Toni and I saw the movie “Sound of Freedom” a few weeks ago. If this movie doesn’t move a person to action, I really don’t know what will. Child abduction, abandonment, child sex trafficking, and enslavement are horrible stains on America. I can’t think of anything worse!
The title of my article is a direct quote from the Sound of Freedom. “God’s children are not for sale” is a powerful statement that must be heralded worldwide! Yet, there are other statements just as vital that must also be broadcasted; God’s children are not to be aborted! They are not to be abused! They are not to be abandoned! They are not to be molested!
Several years ago, I was invited to speak at a retreat for underprivileged boys. I enjoyed speaking and sharing my message and testimony to the camp. Anthony Vasquez and Jordan Koester also shared their testimonies. I talked about the Father-heart of God and how to become a redeemed and true son. Our Father-God is no dead-beat-dad. He is faithful and true always. These boys needed a positive message about God’s heart for them.
Lots of prayers went out for these boys and the counselors throughout the rest of that week. Many of them do not have dads. I just wanted to bring them home with me and love them as sons, but I told them that God can love them, heal their pain, and father them in the way they should go.
I asked them all a question:
Which would you rather have, a broken leg or a broken heart?
They all replied loudly:
“I’ll take a broken leg!”
This is because most of these boys, unfortunately, already know the pain of a broken heart and how difficult it is for a broken heart to be healed. Our job that weekend was to reveal to these precious lost boys the Healer and Redeemer of the Brokenhearted, which is none other than Jesus Christ.
I shared with them Isaiah chapter 61 and explained how Jesus Christ proclaimed good news to the poor, that he is the Healer of the brokenhearted, and that He came to set the captives and the prisoners free! And that through Jesus, we can become saved, healed, and restored. How good is God’s Word, and How awesome is our God?
God is good, trustworthy, and true! He never fails and is no dead-beat-dad!
He is a True and Faithful Father to lost Sons and Daughters everywhere!
Jesus did amazing work that weekend. He wants you to join him in doing the same work wherever he sends you. Wherever you work, shop, or play. Lost and broken boys may not be born to you, but they can be mentored or even fathered by you.
It doesn’t take a college degree to be a big brother, mentor, or father-type to a fatherless boy. There are also men in their twenties, thirties, and even in their forties that are in desperate need to be fathered and mentored. These boys and men need good father types to help them triumph over the evil that cursed their lives.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
Evil can only triumph in lost boys if you and I do nothing. Boys become lost because their dads did nothing, or worse, ran out on them. Let’s stop evil’s triumph as much as we can. One lost boy at a time!
When I get strong, I get lost. When I get busy, I get independent. When I get successful, I get lonely.
I was down and out from October 11th, 2013, through mid-January 2014. Life had been hard and painful, but God has never been closer than he’s been with me through those difficult months. I’ll tell you, my dear friends, I’d rather be laid up and laid out with God by my side than lonely but successful in the world any day.
I had gotten to the point in my suffering that I began to thank God for my injuries and sicknesses. I began to see the blessings and the beautiful breaking to my stubborn heart and the fresh and living water flooding into my dry soul. My pain in a miraculous way allowed God’s voice to become magnified, and the whispers of “I love you son” filled my troubled mind in those long and dark, painful nights.
I truly want God, but he’s not necessarily in my busyness, nor is he in my business. He’s not in my self-imposed deadlines, or in the deadlines of others, which weary my body and mind, and cause me to strain and to force my goals above Gods’. He’s not in the coulda, woulda, or shoulda’s, nor is he in my goals of independence and worldly success. God is definitely not in my confused tantrums, my sulking, or complaining.
God is in the midst of suffering; he’s nearby the crushed and the weary, the sick and the lonely. Our God is with the widowed; he’s with the fatherless and alien. He hears the cries and prayers of the broken, the injured, and the weak.
“He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.” Isaiah 42:3 (NLT)
When I get strong, I get lost. When I get busy, I get independent. When I get successful, I get lonely.
I want God, and therefore, I welcome the pain and suffering so that I might gain all that he has for me through it. This is the process that can get us found in God, which can make us strong in the right things and focus on eternal values, which can bring contentment during our seasons of affliction.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking for pain and suffering, only that when it comes, the goodness and presence of God is magnified through it, and therefore, I can revel in it and celebrate because of it. Through it, I have learned that our greatest changes can result from what we suffer. Pain and suffering are powerful for our good!
So, while my body was aching and writhing in pain and anguish, my soul was soaring with God. I worshiped God and thanked him through so much of my illnesses and injuries. The pain still lingers, and the scar, which I now bear on my left leg and knee, will always remind me of God’s faithfulness to me all the way through it.
And so, I thank God for all of it.
One day, I was complaining to my wife, Toni, about a difficult client. I was through and ready to cut the relationship and take a significant loss just to get out of the misery.
Then, Toni pulled the “Book of Job” on me:
“Has not God provided through this person?” she said, and then continued: “Do you really to throw people away because they sometimes cause difficulty?”
Wow! I was called out and convicted. Thank you, Toni!
I had set aside, not only heaven’s provision for me, but I had set aside God’s provision of grace and mercy towards the one whom God set up to bring such needed financial provision.
“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not also receive evil?” In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10
I am not deformed, but I am being transformed. The more we complain and lay blame, the slower our remaking through our braking goes. In my recent story with my client, God used my wife to get me back on track and with God’s program.
Our complaining always works against God’s transforming work, and so we fail to see how God masters evil for our good. Our complaining and blaming causes us to only see the badness of evil, rather the goodness of God in spite of it and His creative use with it.
“I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I The Lord do all these things.” – Isaiah 45:7
Ha, I’ve not heard that verse preached in Church!
So, if God masters light, darkness, peace, and evil, how can we be destroyed in the day of pain, sickness, and disease? How can we lose if what we fear can not keep us from winning? How then shall we live, if even evil and the day of disaster, is under the control of such a loving and caring Heavenly Father?
I’ll tell ya how we should then live – in Total Victory and with an Overcomer’s Spirit!
Hey, there’s power in what we suffer, no matter how miserable or deadly! But you gotta put away the complaining and start the thanksgiving and praising.
I was just a young teenager of 14 years old when I got a hold of a book titled “By What Standard” by the late Dr. Rousas John Rushdoony, the father of Mark Rushdoony.
Like the late Dr. Rushdoony, the life and story of Job, set the standard of who God is and His power over evil. Page 185 through page 205 of By What Standard is what impacted me most in my life as a teenager. The Book of Job established my foundation for all my understanding of the ways of God and the ability of God. The Book of Job became my standard of biblical understanding and godly comfort.
Like Job, it is blind faith and trust in the Almighty, whereby God shall succeed in spite of our lack of understanding and even confusion. Our suffering is not the end of the means, but the means to an end, forewhich Satan’s must comply with God’s will over our lives and our wellbeing.
So, the key is to invest all of your faith and trust into God’s will, and pain and suffering will become allies to your transformation and glorification.
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” – Hebrews 2:10
Was it not God who invited Satan to consider His servant Job?
Did not God establish the boundaries after he invited Satan to afflict Job?
The Book of Job, chapters one, and two.
God masterfully controlled darkness, sickness, and disease over His servant Job, but He also displayed His power over the Prince of Darkness.
The Book of Job reveals how Satan must obey the very boundaries that God sets up, leaving Satan and all evil under the power of the God of the Universe and Creator of all things. And yes, including all angelic beings, and even those who’ve failed at the Heavenly coup d’état of God’s throne and power, and dare I say, they failed miserably!
‘God spoke to Cain:”Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you; you’ve got to master it.” – Genesis 4:6-7
We can master sin because God has mastered evil, and his Son, Jesus Christ, has vanquished our sin. He destroyed death and conquered the grave! But tantrums and sulking leave you vulnerable, and instead of victory, you’ll end in defeat.
So, we can thrive in pain and suffering, in loss and betrayal, and evil shall not destroy us. Evil becomes a weapon in the hand of God, disarming our enemy and thwarting evil’s plan for our destruction.
Do you want to disarm the Evil One? Then, praise God in the midst of all that hell has unleashed and bask in the suffering with thanksgiving. Trust fully in the God who knows what He is doing and the limits for which evil must obey.
Can we lose?
“No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37
Put your faith and trust in God and become transformed and not deformed by all that you suffer.
Your pain may be your breakthrough into victory and validation that you are a true son or daughter of God and not a fatherless victim.
As a victor, you, too, will see The Miraculous Power of Pain and Suffering.
God Wants Us As We Are And Not What We Pretend To Be.
It’s been a long season of letting go and stripping down. It’s been a time of pruning and preening, until all the old feathers are removed and the old eagle remains perched, cold, vulnerable, and flightless. It’s a time of humility and powerlessness. It’s a time whereby I’ve become blind, deaf, and mute. I long for even the faintest whisper from the Almighty; a glimpse of his existence, and acknowledgement of my prayers.
It’s a time where others are making my decisions, not because I am a king (my time of reigning has deminised) but, because God’s interest are sonship and not kingship at this time in my life. God must have his way, or I will become too strong, too hardened, and too important. While my flesh yearns for such strength, independence, and self-importance; yet, His Spirit calls me heavenward.
So, I am sent back into the womb; into seclusion; into the hands of God to be reformed, kneaded, and made pliable, until my obedience becomes instinct, and my quality becomes refined. The purest gold is crystal clear and what we call beautiful, God calls dross.
In our human fragility and stubbornness, we cease the process of humility way too early. If it’s our own deconstructing and demolition, we blame it on the devil. If it is a friend or neighbor facing such travails, we jump in to save and to fix, and so short-circuit God’s best work in them. As singer/songwriter, Jill Phillips has so artfully penned into song,
“…God is both the builder and wrecking ball.”
And this truth gives good reason I cling to hope; amazingly, through it all, our God is in control. My deconstructing can be a good thing, if it is God swinging the wrecking ball.
Religious-populace thought, has dwarfed my perception and need for God. The extractible biblical principles and acquirable blessings “by cause and effect,” granted me the promised land of goodies without intimate relationship with Yahweh. I have become an idolater and have joined the ranks of “Christians,” who have reformed and refashioned their gold and silver into objects of worship. We call it “Yahweh,” and have found a way to satisfy our itch for deity worship and maintain our addiction to sin.
We’ve even learned to worship our worship! And crave “the anointing” more than the Anointer.
We’ve convinced ourselves and others that God as “Love,” trumps God as Justice, Holiness, and Righteousness. Oh, but how many of us do cry out for true justice, righteousness, and holiness?
Mainstream Christianity has reinvented God. He’s become a benevolent and tolerant God, full of winks, giggles, and thumbs-up at our sins.
So, I’ve been quiet and introspective. I’ve taken a look under the hood and it’s time for rebuilding and rethinking. Twenty-first Century Christianity is finally equivalent to First Century Phariseeism, only without the dark and flowing robes and phylacteries.
We’ve convinced ourselves that observances and the mastering of principals and rote make us acceptable to God. We are all white on the outside, but dead and dirty on the inside. We shut our ears and mouths to our own inner immorality and conflict; we direct the attention of others to our outward achievements and ministry appointments. We protect our own duplicity at the cost of our own identity.
We prefer to live in the shadows; not too much in the light or too much in the darkness. In the end, it is God we must convince, and He sees through our masks and into our hearts. There are no shadows with the Almighty!
We’ve become the generation who’d see to the arrest of Jesus; treat him as an imposter, a fake and a phony; his presence an annoyance, and his outspokenness a disturber of our traditions. We’d cast him out of our carpeted and high-tech sanctuaries and chase him and his homeless faction back to 73rd and West MacArthur.
We simply would not recognize Jesus of Nazareth, nor agree with his lifestyle and “unsuccessful demeanor” and lack of corporate-ness.
I’m on a quest to find the simplicity of what Jesus taught. To archeologically excavate and rediscover what decades of religious debris has covered over, like the sands of time.
So, that’s what has been going on in the inside. The outside is a different story. It must be mastered, or it will become my master. And this is my battleground. It’s an ancient battle fought by many, and won by so precious few. My prayer is to join the few, by relying on God’s grace and power, through Jesus Christ.
Our Sunday morning masquerading must come to an end. The pretense and fakery must be replaced with humility and honesty, or else we’ll become master Pharisees. We must capture our first love again and shed our sophisticated and false adult-selves and become God’s children again.
God wants us as we are and not what we pretend to be. Jesus didn’t come for fakers or liars, but for the broken and humble.
Pretenders pretend that their sins and shame are covered behind their false personas. Their so-called salvation is their masquerade, which, by the way, only assures them a full dance card outside with sweaty dogs and demons.
“Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life. Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie.” – Revelation 22:14-16
I pray, that we as a redeemed people, can leave all the religious fakery behind and get back true redemption and rejoin God in redeeming this world. Because, if you haven’t noticed, this world is headed full speed towards hell.
Blessed are those that remove their masks and cease their love affair with living a lie.
My prayer is that God will also help you fail at your masquerade. Amen
Don’t wait for your kids to find your heart, be brave and pursue theirs. It’ll change everything!
Before a nation collapses, the family collapses. Before a family collapses, the father collapses. Therefore, the fall of nations is the failure of fathers.
After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Toni and I finally went to a movie theater in Angels Camp, California, to watch the sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” We watched it in 3D at 48 frames per second. Wow!
The movie’s subtitle should have read, “The Way of Fathers.”
While the cinematography, special effects, action, and acting were all superb, the portrayal of the father’s role was unmistakable and powerful! Matter of fact so was the mother’s role. The importance of parents and family is something we rarely see in movies produced in Holywood.
While James Cameron wrote a fantastic story and script, the importance of fathers taking responsibility for their children was something to behold. Just like in the world of Avatar, our world needs strong, uncompromising fathers to survive!
I see the role and importance of fathers in the Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Book of Revelations. From the last book of the Old Testament, the final chapter, and the last two verses, and to the opening of the New Testament, in the Book of Luke, chapter one, verses fifteen through seventeen.
Malachi 4: 5-6 (Last Old Testament Book)
“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
Luke 1: 15-17 (One of the First New Testament Books)
15, ff “…And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to their Lord God. 17, And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the unbelievers to the wisdom of the just men: to make the people ready for the Lord.”
John the Baptist was the second Elijah spoken about in the Book of Malachi. It was his job to stir the hearts of fathers to their sons and daughters. Otherwise, the mission of Jesus to reconcile the lost sons and daughters of Israel to his Heavenly Father would have met hardened hearts.
Our roles as fathers are not only the most significant societal and cultural role; it is the single most important relational/spiritual role our children can have here on earth. Malachi is pointing out that a father’s estrangement (absence) from his children has the potential of cursing our land and creating avenues of destruction throughout our cities and towns. Estranged and absent fathers make ungodly and rebellious children. It also hardens the children’s hearts against the love of God, his Heavenly Father’s role, and ultimately His plan of salvation for them.
Do you fathers understand your role and responsibility in God’s plan of salvation for your children? You will be held to account. Do you want to stand before God as a deadbeat dad?
There can be no more significant failure in a man’s life than to turn his back on his marriage and children.
The career is not worth it. An affair is not worth it. Money is not worth it. One more drink is not worth it. Your girlfriend is not worth it. Even your “ministry” is not worth the sacrifice of your children.
Suppose you’re on the fence about your marriage and your responsibility for your children. Suppose you’ve walked out of your marriage and your kids’ lives. Suppose you’re in an affair or about to enter one. Even the promotion in work or ministry could take you away from your wife and kids. Consider the impact on their lives and future and our culture before you walk off the cliff of selfishness. It is not worth it, men!
Go back home to the wife of your first love. Go back home to the family you’ve left behind. Go back home to the most extraordinary life a man can live. Rescue your wife, save your children and save your legacy!
Reconciliation becomes possible when fathers turn their hearts back towards their children, taking responsibility and becoming accountable for them. To reverse the curse, which is undeniably present in our culture, we fathers must turn back to God and walk in His ways so that we can again point our children to a greater Father to embrace, love, and walk with throughout their lifetime.
The success of marriage and unconditional commitment to our wives and children must exceed the failure rate of broken families and absent fathers. If this tide cannot be turned, then as Malachi has prophetically declared, our land will indeed become cursed and worsen rapidly.
Repair the breach, men! Turn your hearts back towards your sons and daughters. Repair your marriages and live up to your commitments. Turn your hearts back to God and walk with Him as your True Father and listen to His advice and wise counsel. After all, He is the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Wonderful Counselor, and Prince of Peace. God is everything we need as men to become the fathers our sons and daughters need and our land requires.
To those sons and daughters that have lost their fathers due to death, you can still turn your hearts back towards him. Forgiveness is your most significant path to a new life, to a new future, and to become healed from your heartache.
This is the only path to a cure; to reverse the curse and restore our great Nation through restored families! Get it done, men!
…It may only take “20 seconds of courage.”
Make this your New Year’s Resolution, a Revolution For the Love of your children.
Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the Healer of all wounds; that’s a lie. God is the Healer.
“Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for from it flows the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23
“A wound where there are no tears is a wound that cannot be healed.” Author, John Eldredge – Ransomed Heart Ministries
A splinter under the skin, if left alone and ignored will eventually fester to a point of infection. Your body is rejecting the foreign object no matter how small it is, the pain calls out for your attention. If you ignore it too long, you could end up in the emergency room.
How about your heart?
Why ignore the pain?
Your heart is more precious than a finger; you can live without a finger, but you cannot live without your heart.
Sometimes we’re strong in the wrong things and at the wrong times, but to be weak in the right things and with a humble heart, can get God’s attention.
If you are hurting, in pain and are crushed in spirit, heart, and soul, you may be at the greatest turning point of your life. You may actually be dwelling with God in a high and protected place, but you must share your tears with God, or you’ll be swallowed up in bitterness and left alone on earth.
Isaiah 57:15
“The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: I live in that high and holy place where those with contrite, humble spirits dwell; and I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.”
Psalm 51:17
“The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”
Let God encounter your tears, after all, He is the Everlasting Father. Share it with Him as your sacrifice. Come to Him crushed, broken, betrayed; come to Him rejected and despised. His Son, Jesus is well acquainted with all of this and more. He allows it to touch your life, not to destroy you, but to draw you closer to Himself.
God wants to father you…
Simply trust and turn to God and surrender your right to be offended; your anger for being abused; your self hatred for being molested, raped, and violated. God specializes with hurting and wounded people, and He’d rather be with you than with kings and queens.
The moment you offer up to God your tears and pain, you are with Him in spirit and in truth.
Isaiah 42:3
“He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged.”
God won’t exploit your bruises. He’ll not snuff out your heart, even if its barely beating and you feel life is over.
God desires to be your daddy…
Give it all over to God. If you do, He’ll see to it that justice is served, and you can give your revenge a proper burial.
Then, you’ll knock down your walls of despair and make them into a dance floor and you’ll dance with your Abba, just as He’s always wanted.
Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the Healer of all wounds, that’s a lie.
God is the Healer of all wounds, and He’s waiting to hear your cries directed towards Him, so that He may act.
“O my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.” Isaiah 30:19
Give it up to God. Let it out and drink in God’s presence and love, and so be healed and restored.
Become healed in the name of Jesus! He came to seek out the lost and broken, and there is no one he cannot save or heal.
Isaiah wrote about the mission of Jesus centuries before He arrived:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61: 1-3
You see, God wants to do an exchange with you, He’ll give you beauty, joy, and praise for all your ashes, mourning, and despair. It happened with me, and it could happen for you too.
This may be one of your greatest days!
Your heart and soul are God’s specialty. He wants to heal your heart and set you free!
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalms 11:3
While the collapsing of America has been slowly plodding since it’s inception some 246 years ago, in these past few decades, and especially these past two years, it has accelerated to breakneck speed. Like a speeding locomotive, too heavy and too fast to stop.
Historically, every failed Nation or civilization has indeed gone through what America and Western culture is currently going through. The key phrase here is “every failed Nation or civilization.”
What America is currently undergoing is the rapid decline of our freedoms of the many for the sake of individual liberties of the degenerate and the immorality of the few. Those with political power will ride the inevitable cultural implosion to greater power and dictatorial control. This is by design and not by coincidence.
Again, this is not a new paradigm but a “rinse and repeat” cycle of history and what happens with apathetic, contemporary people unwilling to learn from past historical mistakes. The treasures of historical knowledge has been purposely engineered out of our educational institutions, and unwittingly to the average American citizen and student.
This, by no means, excuses the average American citizen but is a sad and factual commentary of our collective willingness to seek pleasure and policies of appeasement in exchange for governmental control and free goodies.
In reality, we’ve all chosen to worship America and all its bounty rather than the God of Heaven, Earth’s only Redeemer.
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalms 11:3.
Unfortunately, 21 Century Christianity has been too preoccupied with Church. You may not think so, but darkness does, and the Lord of Darkness celebrates our easy relinquishment of the Church’s Kingdom of God duties and responsibilities. If the Church had been occupied with the Kingdom of God as an occupying force for King Jesus, we would not be this far down the river, and perhaps the “foundations” could’ve been repaired.
Our task was to occupy until He came — To preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, to bless the world with the rule and reign of God’s Son. Not hasten the day of destruction because of our misguided disengagement, our pre-tribulation theory, and premillennial exfiltration madness.
As surely as the sun rises in the East, our future leaders will be as degenerate, morally vacant, and deranged as the voters that vote them into power. Our ignominious milestones of the first this, or the first that; the first gay Senator, first transgender Congressman, first Islamic-Extremist Representative, and our first LGBTQUIZ President, etc. will become the millstone of slavery around every citizen’s neck; rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight, liberal or conservative.
Unapologetically, the only option for recovery and change is to turn away from our individual and corporate sins, repent, and turn wholeheartedly to God — without delay, seeking His forgiveness for our willful disregard of His laws, and the greatest gift given to all humanity, that is Jesus Christ, God’s only way of salvation.
Without the Church’s acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord and King, America’s greatness will undoubtedly collapse, and not even Donald J. Trump or Ron DeSantis can make America Great Again.
It is my hope and prayer, as I’m sure it is yours also, that our better days as a people and a Nation are yet before us. But this is all up to God and not up to a politician or political party. The two things that can change the fate of this Nation is a repentant Church and praying Saints.
This is Part 2 of my first two-part article about the plight of 21st Century American Christianity.
My “fued,” if you will, is not against the true Church or authentic Christianity. It is an article of warning, challenge, and calling out believers that have been sold a false god, making them into a lesser child.
Nehemiah prays for God’s children…
“Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we now are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.” Nehemiah 9:36-37
Politicians, Legislators and Presidents will not return us to a Great People or a Great Nation, but confession and repentance of God’s People will.
Nehemiah continues…
“But they- our ancestors behaved presumptuously; they rebelled and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and did not recall your miracles that you had performed among them. Instead, they rebelled and appointed a leader to return to their bondage. Nehemiah 9:16-17
Jeremiah laments…
Death Is on the Prowl
God ‘s Message yet again:
“Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls.
But they said,
“Nothing doing. We aren’t going that way.”
I even provided watchmen for them to warn them, to set off the alarm. But the people said,
“It’s a false alarm. It doesn’t concern us.”
And so I’m calling in the nations as witnesses:
“Watch, witnesses, what happens to them!”
And,’ Pay attention, earth! Don’t miss these bulletins. I’m visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result of the games they’ve been playing with me. They’ve ignored everything I’ve said, had nothing but contempt for my teaching. Jeremiah 6:16-19
We’ve exchanged the Glorious Gospel for a seeker friendly message so as to build our Churches in numbers rather than faithfulness to God and His ways.
We’ve changed the blood of the New Covenant, the precious blood of our Lord and Savior, into that of the blood of animals, and we therefore proclaim people sinless by emotions rather by repentance and faith. We teach tolerance but not obedience. We preach the Love of God trumps all other attributes of the one and only True Living God of Scripture. Who’s wrath against sin and those who make sin their lifestyle still remains. Though they know it or not, their day of judgment is being held back.
Faith, belief, repentance, and obedience to The risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is mankind’s only escape from the wrath of God. For who needs to be saved from a God of Love? And, if we only preach God’s love and tolerance, what becomes of the shed blood of Jesus Christ? And, for what purpose does his death serve if God is only Love?
Our Country was found on Christian and moral principles, and by the rule of law. America became a people of renown, of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.
Our Nation was lost because we pastors and churches have abandoned our Christian principles and our moral standing under God and before the nations. We’ve abandoned the preaching of the cross and the resurrection of our only Redeemer. Sadly, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his birth have become nothing more than semi-religious holidays.
We have full churches, but empty Christians. We have Christian couples fornicating, but freely worshiping. We have Christian marriages adulterating but actively serving. We have Christian youth sexually experimenting with their bodies, but attend warm gatherings and rallies for Christ. We’ve trained them with double standards, one set for school and the other for church. Our youth of tomorrow are the double standards of today’s adults. And all this is just fine?
Our Nation is lost not because the ungodly sin, but because the righteous practice, tolerate, and preach a distorted and confusing relationship with God!
The condition of the Church is directly related to the condition of our pastors; to the messages they preach, and the duplicity they tolerate. All in exchange for notoriety, fame and market share of transient Christians, and the unsaved seeking a friendly Sunday morning message. We’ve become more excited about a new visitor rather than a new saint.
One Wednesday evening service my Senior Pastor allowed me to preach a message titled: “Children of A Lessor God.” When I stopped preaching, people were weeping in their seats and falling on there knees at the alter. My Senior Pastor and I had to literally and carefully step around and over our repentant brothers and sisters, and began praying for them one by one. Others came forward to assist us with prayer or join their brothers and sisters.
After things quieted down, I will never forget what my Senior Pastor said:
“There is no way you can preach that way on a Sunday morning.”
I was both confused and shocked! It is precisely why our Churches and Christians are in the state that they are in because we don’t preach the Truth of God’s Word nor preach Christ Crucified to redeem sinners from God’s terrible wrath.
When we refuse to preach the weightiness of God, people will not experience the weightiness of their sins, and God then becomes less in their lives.
We have become children of a lesser God and therefore have a lesser Church, lesser Nation, and have become a lesser people.
Many years ago, between 1975 – 1978, I was attending two churches. The Walnut Creek Christian Reformed Church was the church my parents brought my siblings and me to. The second church, Concord Christian Center, was the church my girlfriend attended, which I visited from time to time.
At the Walnut Creek Christian Reformed Church, they read the Ten Commandments each Sunday service. The Ten Commandments were presented as God’s goodness and grace to his people. The Reverend taught in an expository manner, being faithful to context and textual meaning.
At Concord Christian Center, there was no reading of God’s law and, honestly, very little reading of the Scriptures. The worship part of the service was the highlight, with a full course band, singers, and highly emotional songs. The pastor’s messages, while loosely based on Scripture, were mostly topical, centering on physical blessings and prosperity. This church adopted the high school that I would eventually graduate from in June 1978.
At CCC, several marriages ended. Many of the divorced married other ex-spouses within the church. Fornication and adultery were not uncommon. While CCC may have been a fun and exciting place to worship and fellowship, the people there became lesser as God was lesser. This is one of my pivotal experiences that lead me to preach on a Wednesday evening service, “Children of A Lesser God,” back in 2007.
So, just as the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt, our nation is headed back to Europe, the very place our founding fathers had fled. The ancient Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt, to return to slavery under a new Pharaoh. We seem to be headed into a new style of slavery by unelected bureaucrats, technocrats, and globalists. We want this 21st Century enslavement because we see ourselves as a lesser people.
It’s up to God’s people to stand strong as His Chosen People, as His Holy Nation and a Royal Priesthood of True Believers! We must shake off our false identity as Children of a Lesser god and be His Children of The Great and Mighty God, God of the Angel Armies!
Do you want to be a great people, a great man, or a great woman? A great nation? Then reject the lesser god of your life, cast him off like a worn-out shirt.
If you’re attending a church that emphasizes a false and fake gospel, a tolerant love guru, a genie god, or a Geico god, where it’s “so easy, a caveman can do it.” Find a God-honoring Church that worships God in Spirit and in Truth. A Church that aids you in becoming a Child of The Great God of Creation.
Until the “world” has been removed from you, you are no good to the Church or world. It is all about your proximity and not your prosperity! It is not what you have but rather where you are.
“Proximity,” definition: nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, or relation.
Life comes to us in seasons. It unfolds like a story. Until we move with the Spirit of God, according to our individual story and cooperate in the seasons he has ordained, we will be of little eternal use to God. Our proximity needs to change from running away from God, to drawing near to him. And, at times this may be what’s behind the difficult seasons you go through. Remember the story of Jonah? He could not out run God, and his running from God was making him awful company.
Sometimes “surviving” is an ordained season from the Lord. Sometimes he takes us, one by one into the wilderness to remove worldliness from us. While simply living at “survival mode” may not be our choice, it may indeed be the season the Lord has ordered. We should not look to be removed from the world, rather we should look to have the world removed from us. A trip through the Land-of-Not-Enough (survival) sometimes leads us to the Land-of-Worshiping-Him.
Why did God want his people to be set free from Egypt?
Was it so he could lead them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey?
Nope!
It was so His people may come to the wilderness to worship Him there!
Exodus 7:16 (New International Version)
“Then say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert.”
God chose a unique people to show the world that he is a unique God. His first step was to bring his people into the desert. A land of just surviving, so that his people could learn to live in the Land-of-More-Than-Enough. The Land-of-Just-Surviving, trained his people not to forget Him, while they were to live in a land of worldly treasures. Since they so quickly refused God’s process of removing Egypt from them and the reproach of a “slave mentality,” God allowed his people to linger for a generation in the Land-of-Not-Enough, living at a basic survival mode with God as their sole (soul) provider.
Stop using the methods of the world to transform his people. We are not meant to be a “subculture” but a counterculture. We think we need to resemble the world in order to reach the world? God forbid!
We have got to maintain our worship of God. Our only hope in doing so, is to get the world out of us. You cannot use the same tools the world uses for worldliness and expect to be transformed into a spiritual people.
2 Corinthians 10 (New Living Translation)
“We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God.”
1 Peter 2:11 (New Living Translation)
“Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.”
Unauthorized acts of Righteousness
I would caution you to be careful of what you parrot when reading books of men, and mimicking the ways of “rock stars.” There are many worldly ministers and authors who are too accustomed to worldly ways to be of any spiritual good. It may seem good here on earth and may produce results, but will it be recognized in heaven and will the “results” be eternal?
It’s not the ministry outcome, which should be measured, but rather it’s method. If it is a worldly method, no matter what the result or outcome, it is lawlessness and an abomination to the Lord. The definition of “lawlessness,” is unauthorized acts. In the biblical sense it means “unauthorized acts of righteousness.”
Wow! How can righteousness be considered evil acts? Let’s take a look…
Matthew 7: 21-23 (ESV):
I Never Knew You
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
You see, your proximity is far more important than your prosperity, far more important than your talent, your “bling-power” or your religious glittering image. Proximity has to do with the nearness of your relationship with God. Not your talent, not your “anointing,” and not your wealth!
It’s not “what you do” as a Christian or minister of the Gospel; it’s not how many demon butts you kick, how many prophetic words you speak or how fluent your prayer language is. It’s not how many show up for your concerts or sermons; how many people make a decision for the Lord because of your fine singing, powerful preaching, or earth-shattering-mighty-works of God. If it is not done in accordance with the will of our Father in heaven, it is unauthorized acts of righteousness and it stinks to high-heaven. Only those who do the will of the Father, are those who know and are known by the Father in heaven. You can’t practice righteousness apart from intimately knowing God as “Father!” No matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you, and your audience feel.
You are so lost…
Lost in yourself, lost in your ministry and lost in your “so-called good works.” How lost are you? Worse yet, how lost are your disciples? Those you’ve taught, those who follow your every move and ministry trick. It may not be the stage of life you learn of your errors, but the throne of God, at Judgment Day. Repent of your lawlessness. It’s not about just doing it right, but by knowing God as Father and then doing His will, His way.
Which is better, a Worldly Church or a Churchy World? Get the world out of the Church and you will have a Church which will change the world. Our value to the Church is our clean hands from worldliness. A corrupt pastor can only corrupt, no matter how pretty and charismatic he may be, underneath and behind the scenes, he may be falling apart, but before the Church he’s Johnny-on-the-spot.
It has been too long since Christianity has produced authentic saints of God. Men and women who’ve not bowed to Baal (worldliness), nor kissed his feet, that is to tolerate sin within and without. You become what you worship, and you’ll eventually act out what is within your heart. It is far better to confess to a brother in this life now, rather than it being exposed in the Halls of Heaven and at the Throne of God.
If seasons of survival, living in the Land-of-Not-Enough, are the surest way towards righteousness and clean hands, then let us all travel there for a season of change. It is our part to wash our robes.
Revelation 22:14 (The Message)
“How blessed are those who wash their robes! The Tree of Life is theirs for good, and they’ll walk through the gates to the City. But outside for good are the filthy curs: sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters—all who love and live lies.”
Job 17:9 (New Living Translation)
“The righteous keep moving forward,
and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.”
Jonah 2:8 (New International Version)
“Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”
Mark 8:36 (New International Version)
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world,
yet forfeit his soul?”
Where in the Heaven are you?
Find a trusted friend and let him know where you truly are, so that you may find the needed rest for your weary soul.
Jeremiah 6:16 (TLB)
“Yet the Lord pleads with you still: Ask where the good road is, the godly paths you used to walk in, in the days of long ago. Travel there, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, “No, that is not the road we want!”
Yes, it is the road you want. It only takes twenty seconds to do the right thing.
Become so heavenly-minded that you’ll do earthly good. Maybe you’ll be recognized in heaven!
Call To Courage 