Lost

The clang of garden gates behind me

The flame of the angel's sword, it blinds me

Stain from the fruit yet upon my face

A coat of skins hiding my disgrace

Run fast and hard before death finds me

Before death binds me

And death maligns me

The mind deceived by the serpent's hiss

The scars I bear from his unholy kiss

Go unnoticed in these crowded streets

Among well-scrubbed masses just like me

Unknowingly we march to the abyss

Ignorant bliss

Deadly ignorant bliss

Still inside my spirit thirsts

A groaning, a craving inside me stirs

I feed my lusts but my lusts leave a yearning

Nothing soothes my soul, I am learning

Is there no defender of us cursed?

For the sting of our curse

Grows only worse

Oh, for a redeemer to pay the price

Oh, for a hero to save my life

But my own heart of darkness thwarts my purpose

Deafens my ears to Love's sweet opus

The chasm between God and I

It is too wide

So I cry

They pass me by on either side

These Children of God with light in their eyes

Would that one stop and give me ease

My face rejects you, but my heart still pleads

For a taste of that glory that you hide

Don't deny

Please, don't deny

Saints and warriors, bearers of light

You know the bridge across the divide

Yet you ignore the the cries of these lost

Hoarding the mercy of Jesus' cross

Would you hold back what's freely given?

Would you bar the path to heaven?

Did you forget what Christ forgave you?

Did you brush off the mission He gave you?

Do you value His commands so lightly?

While holding comfort so dear and so tightly?

Sit safely inside your American dream

Over streets littered with the unredeemed

Who shall we send, who will go for us

Who will take up heaven's own cause

Who will run to the wounded and crying

Who will bind up the broken and dying

Who will hear the cry of the lost

And draw them from the grave to the foot of the cross

More than a Conqueror!

“More than a conqueror…”

I’m pondering that phrase this morning and wondering what this looks like.

It means that I can quit living on starvation rations and start feasting.  It means satisfied instead of craving. It looks like flying on wings of eagles instead of laboring through the sloughs of struggling. It means throwing off the rags of poverty and inhabiting a mansion of promise. It means inheritance. Why feed pigs when a robe and ring await?

“More than a conqueror…”

It does not mean that life is easy. It does not imply that the fight is over, but it means that there is a promise of victory in the middle of the battle. It means I will not have to give up, give in, or surrender. It also means that going home would be stupid and running away is not an option. It means I can stick out the fight, standing strong, my banner waving clearly.

“More than a conqueror”
...means that mountains are removable and giants start looking like grasshoppers. 

“More than a conqueror!”

It gives faith. Faith to take one more breath, one more step, one more leap, climb one more wall, cross one more river, swim one more stroke, run one more stride. It enables me to keep my eyes fixed on the finish line, ignoring distraction and discouragement, throwing of the weights that would cling to me and proclaim, “Is there not a cause?!”

“MORE than a conqueror!”
...means that I do not fight alone. It means that I have hosts of warriors that come at my cry. No, I do not command an army, but the One who commands all the hosts of Heaven also commands me, and He will never forget one of His own. He allows me to see battle, but He never leaves a man behind.

“More than a CONQUEROR!”

It means, get on the winning team, stay on the winning team, and be willing to die for the winning team…because in the end, we WIN!

Ascent To Hope

The crazy thing about despair is how addictive it is. It seems that once we have begun to lose hope, we lose all the will to regain it.

THE SPIRAL DOWNWARD
What is it about despair and suffering that intrigues us so? What pulls us into it? It seems it is the Second Law of Thermodynamics that works in our souls - everything digressing over time unless conscious effort is made to reverse the downward spiral. It all usually begins with a failure on our part, or sometimes the failure of someone else that begins to blot out hope. In all honesty, you will often find unforgiveness - either of another or of one's own failure - at the root of all hopelessness. We begin to dwell on the bad things, and forget about the plethora of good that God scattered all over our lives.  If left alone, we will begin to think that despair is all there is. That suffering is our lot. That the grandest plan of God for us is that we learn to accept that life is horrible. Suffering will beget more suffering, despair more despair until our world is so cluttered with arguments and failure and self-pity that no glimmer of hope can seep through. It seems, almost, that we begin to enjoy our misery. Often, in this state, when hope is offered us we reject it.
That is hopelessness.

A RIGHT VIEW OF SUFFERING
Granted, there are times of suffering that God leads us through in our lives. There are seasons where we have great need of endurance to face the situations that confront us. There are times when we fail and He corrects us. There are time when others will fail us, and we must learn to forgive anyway. But that, really, is just the point...in times of hardship we MUST fix our eyes on God, the Source of all hope. We must not let go of the expectation that He will fulfill His promise in our lives, otherwise our circumstance will pull us down into despair.
We can walk through suffering and yet hope.

WHERE IS GOD IN MY PAIN?
It takes an act of God to restore hope in a heart that has lost it. But restore hope He can and will. Like all things, though, He will not force hope on us.  He will wait for us to ask. Yet His waiting is not passive. Nothing our God does is ever passive. In fact, His waiting is something of a warfare. His heart beats with intense longing, with aching pleas for us to lift our eyes from the rubble of our circumstance into the light of His countenance. Even when we feel we have reached the end of what we can bear, if we could look up we would see our dear Father holding off the forces of hell lest they destroy us. Bearing on His own shoulders the weight that would crush us. Shielding us from the fiercest heat, the raging waters, the wind that would surely destroy us if He was not still the Protector. He pleads with us to let Him reach down His mighty arm to save us, and lift us again to safety.
He waits close by, always, ready to save.

THE ASCENT TO HOPE
And there, as sun and shield He waits. He waits to give grace and glory. He waits to shower good things, as soon as we wish to accept them. Here, my friends, is where hope and grace intersect. Grace, by definition, is enabling power. When hope is gone and we cannot lift our heads and truly deserve nothing good, God comes to our aid. He takes the frail, wayward being and lifts them above their situation. He sets them in a safe place, and offers them whatever strength they need to regain hope.

As I mentioned before, God is the Fountainhead of all hope. Wherever He is, there is hope...and life...and vision! As long as we are close to Him, we will find that hope is always close. Despair is held at bay by the Presence of the Promise Maker Himself. Sure, trials will come. Battles may rage. Failure may occur. Wounding may even happen. But somehow, all these things seem a little more like an adventure or a challenge rather than a crippling blow when He Himself becomes our hope.

The Violent Take It By Force

Matthew 11:12 "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force."

The picture here is of a great multitude storming a city to lay hold of it's riches.

I firmly believe that Heaven will be populated by those we may not have expected.  Not the average, normal, nominal American Christian who are popular and soft and self-satisfied. I think we will see slews of the desperate, the tenacious, the determined, the zealous, the single-minded, and the steadfast.

Matthew Henry expounds on this verse in his commentary, stating, "They who would enter into the kingdom of heaven must strive to enter; that kingdom suffers a holy violence; self must be denied, the bent and bias, the frame and temper, of the mind must be altered; there are hard sufferings to be undergone, a force to be put upon the corrupt nature; we must run, and wrestle, and fight, and be in an agony, and all little enough to win such a prize, and to get over such opposition from without and from within."

Those who are good enough to suit themselves, those who are self-satisfied and full of their own righteousness will never see the inside of Heaven's gates. Neither will those who just don't care enough, or are unmotivated to put forth the effort to see the Kingdom of God advance. It is not those who sit back and watch from the sidelines that will lay hold of the Kingdom. It is those who fight day and night against their own self-will. It is those who wrestle with God for the treasures of the Kingdom like Jacob wrestling with the Angel all night for a blessing. These will lay hold of what they so earnestly desire.

Look at those in Christ's day who laid hold of the Kingdom:
The woman with the issue of blood, pushing through an anxious crowd to touch the hem of the Man she was forbidden by tradition from speaking to. The three ingenious men who lowered their sick friend through the roof to lay him at Jesus' feet because the crowd on the ground was too thick. The woman who braved scorn and ridicule to wash the Savior's feet with perfume and tears. Zaccheus, willing to lay down pride and public image to seize an opportunity to observe Christ closely.  The 120 in the Upper Room waiting and laboring in prayer for the promised Holy Spirit.
And who did not lay hold of the Kingdom: Those who felt like they didn't need it. Like the Pharisees, puffed with pride and self-righteousness, attempting to re-route the path to Heaven so only those as lofty as themselves could enter. Or those unwilling to make the sacrifice to gain it. Like the Rich Young Ruler, walking away from Jesus with his fortune intact, but forsaking what would have made his faith complete. Also, those who attempted to gain it the soft, easy way. Like Simon the Sorceror who would try to buy the treasures of the Kingdom rather than live the holy lifestyle that would allow him to access them for free.

We are used to soft American life. We love our ease and our comfort here in our pleasure-seeking and instant gratification lifestyles. Americans will go to church on Sundays...sometimes...but only the late service. We read the Bible if life gets rough, or say a prayer on a bad day. If asked, we'll admit to being Christian, but really, we prefer to keep that quite in case it could embarrass us.  But there is something in this comfort we are used to that is out of place in the life of a whole-hearted Christian. We have a hard time admitting that real Christianity requires effort and discipline. We forget that Paul admonished Timothy to "endure hardship as a good soldier."

I think we all face a point in our Christian walk where the rubber hits the road or we hit the road. We have to determine whether we will stand up or shut up, be a fence-walker or a fire-starter, live it up or live out loud, sleep in or press in, be a fop or a fighter. It is hard to do anything halfway...we tend to get burned out. In the life of a Christian you can be a name-only saint for so long. Pretty soon you either decide to live every moment for the cause of Christ, leaving every other venture and love behind, or decide it's not worth the sacrifice and leave true Christianity to someone a little more tenacious. Christianity is not something you put on - like a pair of shoes - it is something you become. It requires an over-haul and transformation in every part of your life.

The Kingdom of Heaven is forcefully advancing, and those who are forceful in spirit will lay hold of it!