By His wounds we are healed...

Salvation in the Old Testament and the New Testament is centered on the idea of “healing”, the healing of not only our souls, but also our bodies and our world. Hell is a real place and an inescapable reality taught in the bible. But hell is not the focus of the bible, nor should it be of the believer and his Salvation. The focus of salvation must also shift away from the Platonic notion that by simply checking a box you will escape some day to a spiritual realm where you will “exist” in a manner far different than we do today. Rather that when a person receives salvation they are ushered into the Kingdom and they begin "healing". They receive the first fruits of the recreation and in their reception they also experience the first fruit of the recreation. Biblical teaching is that Salvation is immediate in initiation, but continuous all the way until final redemption. It is not a day experience, but a daily experience where man is saved over and over and over from the bondage of sin, Satan, and death. This has enormous implications. That though salvation or healing is begun in an instant, it does not ever stop. Redemption takes both a moment and a lifetime. As a believer though I have the ability to resist and quench the spirit, but not to extinguish him (if I am truly a believer). But in so doing I rob myself of joy, freedom, life, and healing. An illustration might give clarity here. It would be as though someone wanted smoking due to a spot that has appeared on their lung. This spot and more so this habit was robbing them of life, the ability to breathe, exercise and live. So the quitting of this habit was in every way beneficial. But lets say it was initiated by an anecdote their doctor given them to free me from my addiction and begin healing their lung. Their doctor explained that the medicine he gave them was perfect. It will not let them pass away by smoking, although they (should they continue smoking) will suffer many physical ailments due to smoking, the medicine is guaranteed to save them from the death and cancer it always brings. Now should they go back to smoking because of this promise of security, they would still incur all kinds of painful, and troublesome consequences because of it. For example being incapable of running, maybe lose their ability to speak, they would be a slave to addiction, and a number of other caused difficulties. Even though they had a guarantee that smoking could not take their life away entirely, it could destroy my existence. This is like Salvation. Once saved by grace through faith the healing will surely begin, but I am able to grieve and quench the spirit of Holiness working inside of me and serve myself rather than my maker. But by doing so I will also receive every ounce of pain and sorrow that comes with “encumbering” the healing process the Spirit performs in us. All of the created order is right now in a state of longing for healing, and the good news is that the "rumors of another world existing" are far truer than anything we know. Our world is not all that it was intended to be, things are beginning to change and they will only continue to do so. Thus the story of the believer in Christ, or better yet all creation is that there is more! The Creation groans to be set free and it is almost time, “Salvation” is coming, indeed it has come! It is a healing, and the emancipation from the bondage of corruption that has echoed inside of man’s heart since the fall. It has begun to and will continue to burn away the dross, and heal its participants. It cannot be stopped; and all who cry out for healing will be saved-- but they will also be healed. Sometimes this healing hurts, as the molding of the hammer and the heat from the fire are painful, but the lump is hardly as worthy as the vessel. All who fell with Adam, but are now raised with Christ; are being daily raised and healed and brought to new life by faith in Jesus. Salvation or “the healing” of men individually, the church corporately, and the universe entirely, has begun and we may either join in and fight for it or we may work against it, but must remember “he who began the good work will be faithful to complete it” and our “God is a consuming fire” his word will prevail and nothing can stand against His purpose. He will Heal His world and His people.

Heal us God, Savior King come and heal us!

Fairytales

There is something inside of man that longs for the enchanted. Every age has always created fairy tales. Something inside of us believes or at least longs to believe that this isn't all...there is more to the story. A longing for greatness, for fantasy, and for life just to be beyond what we know. We yearn for transformation. For mermaids to walk on land, servant girls to attend the ball, frogs to turn into princes, beasts to become nobleman. We long for change in our world and often we picture its coming by love. True love expressed with a kiss or a rescuing... This Love is Powerful enough to change things, to change everything. It Alters not only the story but the people in the story and often the World in which they live. Reread any childhood story (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Shrek, Cinderalla, The Magic Swan...they all have the same theme. Some one is trapped in some sort of bondage or death and it is LOVE that brings about an incredible change)

It is simply an inescapable reality that deep within us we long for enchantment. We know their has got to be more to the story. Well there is! The world as we know it is not all, there is far more to the story there is another world. But it is not distant, in fact it is much closer than we ever thought.

It is here among us now, like Bell's Beast waiting to be unlocked fully but beginning to show the first signs of freedom. True Love has come but this time it wasn't a The Prince's kiss that brought his Sleeping Beauty to Life; it was his Death. By the wounds of the Great and Courageous Prince his Beautiful Bride came to life. All the people in the land heard saw it had happen but disagreed on whether or not he was truly the rightful King "the King would never do something like that; he is a fierce Warrior". So another man rose, he claimed to be the true King and he had enough soldiers to put himself into power. He decreed the so called "Prince" to be a fool and punished his bride who had miraculously come to life. He tried to kill her again but all his efforts failed. So he had her punished and then throw into the street. He set up his rule and promised peace but it never seemed to come. The beauty was clothed in rags, but she was like nothing the people of the kingdom had ever seen. She began talking about her Prince and people began to remember him. She said He was still alive, and there were many who said he was the rightful King if he was truly alive. They started to believe her, saying not only that he was the rightful King, but they too said he was Alive, even though the whole kingdom saw him Killed for his Beautiful Bride. They believed her. More than that they began saying with his bride that he went away to gather his troops and prepare for war...They said that he had told them he was coming back to make war and establish his reign once and for all and claim his now awakened Sleeping Beauty that his Death had brought to life (his bride) and all with her.

They say he said that his army will be greater than anything we have ever seen, and no power will be able to Stand against it. He has with him the mightiest of Warriors and he is coming to take his place as the rightful King. He once gave up everything for his Beloved Bride, but Now he rides again not to the grave but to the throne..he will rid the Kingdom of all who do not say he is the Rightful King, but he will reward all who took heed of his coming. Never before has there been anyone like him. And He Shall make all things New! All of the Kingdom shall be like never before.

You see the Enchantment we crave is hear. We know there is more yet we cannot quite put it into words. And there is... more than we could imagine. The world was set to bondage but soon it shall be set free and dark will turn to light, and the children of God will be revealed. The Beautiful Bride will be given he proper adorning. As the wife of the King she shall be clothed like she should have been since long ago, but because of the wicked ruler in place she was made a servant and punished for her love for the True King... but winter shall soon end, the first buds of spring are showing and

The King is coming for LOVE and WAR. The Fairy Tale is coming to Life...

(If you don't know this King, you need to. The Night will soon be over and its Nightmares with it. The Sun shall soon appear and the Light always casts out the darkness... Leave your email address and we'll chat if you want to know more)

Yeshua

JESUS CHRIST

The english name "Jesus" is a beautiful one. Arguably the Sweetest word in the English language (or in any language for that matter). But the etymology or meaning behind the name carries far more than a quick glance could give it. "Jesus" is a transliteration of the Hebrew "Yeshua". Yeshua is a name that is a combination of "YHWH" the Hebrew word for God and 'shua' a word that means "to cry out for saving" or combined "cry to YHWH when in need". It is related to the word Hosanna, which is the word that welcomed "Yeshua" or Jesus into the city of Jerusalem in the first century. History tells us that palm branches were thrown at the feet of the colt carrying Yehsua and the people began to joyfully shout "Hosanna in the Highest" (or "God will deliver us in the mightiest way"), "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.".

The Jewish men and women flooded to the streets with the arrival of the well known man known as "Yeshua" all throughout their province. After hundreds of years of oppression the Israeli people were ready to be set free and regain their statehood as a nation once again. They cried out to the one who they though most assuredly would bring them the freedom from the oppressive force of the Romans and lead them out of bondage into power, strength, and sweet sweet redemption. "God save us in the highest way"...

Well ironically they got not what they were wanting, but what they "asked" for and they were offered saving in the highest way. But not only the Hebrews were given this offer, so were the Romans, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Americans, and ALL people of the earth. Hosanna in the Highest has come true. Saving in the highest way, but not from the oppression of Rome, but from that of Sin, Satan, and Death. Victory was accomplished in the Mightiest and Highest Way. Yeshua- "God saves when we cry out to him"- is true. His name, his life, and his death all tell of his tremendous love for you and for me. Love so great he is not content to settle for anything less like freedom from Rome, or from poverty, or sickness, or hardship but freedom from Death, Eternal and a much deserved eternal dying. Hosanna has come, and while there is still time cling to him. He loves you and cares for you!

If you do not know how to have eternal life, leave a remark, time is wasting and I would love to talk to you! You are Loved and Cared for by the God and King of all creation. Yeshua and "He shall save his people from their Sins".

In the Words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

The Desire of our Souls.

Oh LORD, We have waited for You eagerly;
Your name, even Your memory, is the desire of our souls.
At night my soul longs for You,
Indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently... Isaiah 26:8-9

Everything in my life is broken. All is lost, in words of William Butler Yeats:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

I have learned that my life is hardly what I wish it was, and this will to some extent, always be true. I am incapable of fixing myself or being entirely fixed this side of heaven. The worst part is I am constantly pretending that this is not so. I create walls and barriers that disable the infiltration of others into my life. Like a fortress that fiercely denies access of those who pass by should they come with blessings not burdens. I will gladly clothe, care for, and love the traveler who comes by looking for rest. He shall find it, but should he wish to bestow on my fortress some sort of 'traveling mercy' and provide comfort and rest to myself, the drawbridge shall scarcely be opened. Come thirsty to my doors or do not come at all.

I am praying that God will break me of this and am by his strength doing significant efforts to burn down the Castle walls. God is gracious to give us programs of recovery and people who help recover. My past is littered with pain and betrayal. These wounds have may my heart ache and yearn for healing (a healing that one day I will receive in full), but it is also these wounds that make me afraid of abandonment, afraid of intimacy, afraid of being let down, afraid to believe that I can trust another. I have a slew of carnage behind me in past relationships that have had to suffer because of it. Romance doesn't survive in Camelot. If the King of a Castle shows the brilliance of his inherited lands but not the hideous trail of tears he also inherited; he will never acquire a true Queen or any trusted allies. He will be pretending and protecting, but this preserving will not preserve him or his lot it will destroy them both

The verse above is not only how I understand the aching in my soul, but where I find the remedy to these cravings. God is the desire of all of my heart, and the thing I pant for. Thus because he is this I am free to express openly that often I mistake or attempt to fill these desires with other things (success, security, sexual longings, supremacy, strength, status etc...). But these never succeed, they only leave myself and all who drink from them ever more thirsty. All that I am, all that I yearn for, every echo of loneliness and sorrow deeply imbedded within me is for the presence of God. A presence that was removed at the fall in that sacred Garden. He is and always has been the fullness of all I desire, the fullness of every desire. Things have fallen apart and the centre cannot hold. All of creation has been subjected to futility. And the scriptures tell us that this desire when it is allured to the lie that something else will satisfied it gives birth to all of our sins (James 1). This is a common occurrence, and so none of us are quite what we were meant to be. All of us, whether we have numbed ourselves to the monotony of life, with some vice (or virtue become vice) or simply ignored it so long it seems to be 'just the way things are', are really seldom satisfied with the cold reflection we see in life's stained mirror should we be brave enough to look upon it. There is something inside of us that yearns for more. Our souls remember, they cry out in a vague memory that something has gone awry. We miss our maker, he is the desire of our souls, and we thirst for living water whether we choose to drink from its fountain or not.

Help us Lord, your Name, even your Memory is the desire of our souls. Give us strength to Wait upon you...

beloved,

I am Yours and You are mine.

Tears...

I ate dinner with a woman who works for Salvation army tonight. She has never met her father, and her mother died 7 years ago from HIV. Her mother was a prostitute, addicted to cocaine and forced by her own doing into a life that fed her addiction and sorrow. This woman never saw all of her children and she never raised them. She was not educated at a private school and was abused her whole life until she was 30 years old when Aids took her life... But that was not the story that haunts me.

This womans daughter, told me not of her broken life brought on by her mothers addiction, she told me of another woman. A 16 year old girl. The girl was 16 years old, and was originally from Arizona. She was deaf, and had been molested by her father her whole life. Finally she ran away at a gas station and pleaded for the help of a couple after serious abuse. The couple took her in, it was a pastor of a church in Dallas, his wife and their child. They took her back to Dallas in safety of what seemed like safety. This soon ended, and the man who had appeared as a savior, took this deaf and abused girl and locked her away in his basement. He opened a Sex business with her as the attraction. He set up video cameras and a website where for a fee one could go and type in what you wanted to see done to the girl and he would do it (including at one point set her on FIRE! For some sick bastard whose condemnation is just). He would do whatever act his paying viewers would type into the computer and say they want to see her to. For 2 years she was beaten and raped repeatedly. ALL BY A PASTOR IN DALLAS, TEXAS. This continued until Fall of 2009. She thought she would be saved only to be Tortured

The girl was eventually rescued by the police, but she came out with all of her body mutilated and her genital region completely destroyed... Oh God have mercy on Her, she needs you. I know you say that 'shall not the God of all the earth do what is just? (Gen 18:25) But Lord have mercy on her, Yahweh God of all creation save her soul...God help us... This is what Porn Addicts are watching!!! God let it stop, come quickly Lord Jesus I know you are enthroned on high, Adonai

"I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And Behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them...And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the son." Eccl. 4:3

You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their Sins...

Lord I pray right now for this deaf and abused girl, her pour heart and soul, save them both. I pray for the Pastor of this Church and the deacon who are only miles from me right now, their pour souls, GOD SAVE YOUR PEOPLE

How to Save a Life...

Can you fathom the Weight of a Soul in light of Eternity?-Spurgeon

Can you? Can you even begin to understand, imagine, know the incredible weight of a soul, a living soul? With eternity in the balance, think about that. The most infinitely important thing about or in us is our SOUL. The immortal soul is nothing new to us. Plato and Aristotle wrote often and openly about the apparent soul that gave all of us consciousness. A consciousness distinctly different than any other animal there is. We are awake (in a sense, but many are very much asleep in another).

With the eternal state of the men and women you interact with daily, get hair cuts from, kiss, laugh with, cry for, and labor creeping into the very fabric of their existence. How can you not open your mouth? Think about this...If they were able to see you at the end of the Age as they awaited their Judge (the same one who will judge you), and they saw that you knew, you knew the truth and you had never told them. What would they say? "How could you not open your mouth?" "You knew?, You knew this whole time and you never said anything? Because you were worried about how you would look? How could you not say anything you knew? How could you keep silent? I don't understand...HOW??? Your reputation, your job, your image??? These were worth more to you than My Eternal Destination???"

Oh Lord make us bold, remind us "How to save a life".

"Chosen that you may proclaim the Excellencies of him who called you out of Darkness into his marvelous light."- 1 Peter 2:9

Citizens of Heaven or Hell

What we are becoming TODAY is what we will be tomorrow. Citizens of Heaven, are those who as Christ would say ‘bear good fruits’ (Matthew 7)they do this by the presence of the Holy Spirit which Paul tells us in Ephesians 1 is how we know we are a believer, and the ‘guarentee of our souls’ salvation. The presence of the Spirit creates these fruits, it does this by what Peter says is called ‘sanctification for the obedience to Jesus Christ’ (1Peter 1:2). Point being those who accept God’s grace and receive eternal life are in that moment ‘created new’ (2cor. 5:17) and so for the rest of their life they go are continually are transformed day by day from one degree of glory to the next into a citizen of Heaven. This is most clearly seen not in what they do ‘externally’ but on the inward transition that takes place in their heart.

Conversely this is also true for those who are citizens of this world. Who, like the citizens of heaven also await an inheritance. However, this inheritance is not one that resembles in any way the that which awaits those whose ‘Souls desire’ is found in God. You see the distinguishing mark or ‘seed’ within the heart of Christ Followers is a ‘love for God’. This seed may be weak or strong but it is always implanted upon receiving grace and repentance. Thus Heaven will be the fulfillment of their hearts affection and the magnification of it as well. So in those who do not love God, Heaven would not be a place they would be satisfied anyways, but one where they are not able to Worship the idols of this world or the god they have made of themselves, they would be miserable.

And as well without this ‘seed’ of love, they are not able to grow over there life into anything resembling a Citizen of Heaven. So they grow in their love for self, or whatever else they desire. Suppose for example that a man became so addicted to cocaine that what began as a fix from time to time, soon began to rule his life so strongly that he was no longer able to live a normal life at all, if the addiction continued it would take over himself so greatly that we might say ‘his life is hell’. Well that is a close resemblance to the Christian doctrine of hell. A man will grow either in his affection for himself (pride), sex (lust), mankind (humanism- let me say I do not think affection for man kind is a bad thing. I actually feel quite the opposite, man is to love his neighbor as himself. But the minute that Civility and Social Justice efforts become the God we worship we find that we have also slain the foundation of our god and any purpose we had in helping our brother man, any more than we would have in helping our ‘brother ox’) or any other idol from birth until death until it makes him so focused upon it that ‘his life is hell’. This idol becomes quickly a ruthless dictator who demands an ever conforming heart and soul. It demands we lay down all we have. A close parallel to the brutish gods of the greeks.

We are always serving something, and further always conforming to one world or the next…Which is left to our own choosing, but to not choose is simply not an option. You are born a servant to self and sin, thus you may change the ‘Lord’ you choose to serve, but you will never stop serving. Who will you serve?