Forged By Faith

Ephesians 4:18 NIV Come to think of it, perhaps 'swine' is a bit too fine. You see, we exist among a place dead-set upon not living. We walk amongst those who've no interest in moving beyond the interim. It's this mindset made manifest in most which only remains feasible as it demands so very little of anyone that everyone is therefore able to measure up. It's a great shifting of the expectations to the point where nothing is considered too low to be unsatisfactory. Yes, the common culture of this catastrophe is one which clearly continues to choose everything and everyone but Christ. How is that even possible? He is love! He is mercy! He is kindness and compassion and healing and home and a road home we don’t have to pave or ask for permission to follow. What is the world missing that has so many willing to miss that opportunity? Easy. They’re missing their sanity. This place has become so unsanitized and desensitized to darkness that eyes can’t see anymore. Everyo...

Matthew 7:6 NKJV As we sullenly drift through a life of only knowing peace in pieces, it's safe to say we need to reconsider where our priorities are being placed. Because in all truth, odds are that they're being allowed to be swayed if not sullied by this society we've been taught to satiate. We've grown in a world where to belong demands a list of demands being met. And well, among those demands is usually found everything that makes us who we are, everything that's been given us to remain who we are in order to do what we're here to do. But alas, those concerns find themselves too simple for the simple minded. Life can't be allowed to become so heavily one-sided, swerved entirely toward a life lived in the right out in His light. No, we've had this outlook impressed upon us that has us believing that we're here only to impress those around us. And thus we spend our days throwing away what makes us uniquely us all so we can better blend into the m...

John 14:27 NIV Life's most priceless gift was given through the heaviest cost, something this world cannot give as it cannot understand. This peace we've been offered to share is something in dire risk of dying the death of a million momentary concerns. It's hanging completely in the balance between the endless choices from which we're pointed and told to pick in this place. But often times, all the time in fact, seems that our peace, the version given us of Christ sadly isn't seen nor considered among the options from which we're given to choose from the world in which we're walking. That's a bit of what we talked about yesterday, this world doesn't know peace because they refuse to know Christ. Despite all of our 'progressions', kindness and humility are entirely not among them. Technology? Sure. Social interaction? Most definitely. A mingling of the two into a platform from which each of us has a digital voice allowing us to add our prover...

Hebrews 12:14 NIV Peace is far too precious an outcome to not pursue it as desperately as possible. But so too is peace far too priceless for us to allow for compromise or for it to be taken for granted so just we can find an arbitrary version somewhere within this middle ground. In this world we're expected to simply go along as the preeminent means of getting along. To be spineless is seen as the only real way to be cordial and make for comfortable contentment for all those around us. And thus we're taught that peace is something defined by the world in which we walk and that it's up to us to therefore alter our ways, our opinions, our beliefs in order to better adhere our lives to their arrogant insistence upon our giving them peace. World peace. That's something that's sadly descended into a mockery most laughable. It's a quick replay given by ladies in a beauty pageants. It's a campaign slogan, a political emphasis, a global consideration of a rapidly f...

1 Peter 2:12 NIV For such a time as this in such a place as this among a people such as this. Last night I realized that my last couple of posts may well have included a few statements or ideas that many might have found particularly grating. And in this world we've been led to believe that any offense, accidental or otherwise, is an undeniable display of a gross lack of love and empathy for our fellow man. And yet, here I sit without the ability to feel bad for what I've said or implied or tried to get across across the last couple of days. Because I do not feel the need to apologize for what is said when it's said in truth, and so therefore will not extend the offer of apology because I meant everything. People really are living as if this life in this world is theirs to create or destroy as they see fit. They're running around in a sort of wildness that's led to a rampant display of vileness that only deepens by the day. Truth continues to be vilified by the many...

Proverbs 28:13 NIV It’s like we’re in a world hiding from hope. Because many find it foolish to lay one's transgressions upon the wide open for all to see as they stand as evidence of our imperfections. And it's those imperfections which we know will immediately undermine the image we've fought to set forth for all the world to see. We've sold such a yarn that we can't bear the burden of backtracking back to the truth of the matter, so we hide from it. We’ve built ourselves into the constant hero, so to prove ourselves only the villain erases everything we've tried to gain, so we pretend we’re not the bad guy. That's why most find our faith to be foolishness. It doesn't merely stop at politely requesting our honesty. Doesn't cease its demand at the demand of our confession. Doesn't only ask that we consider making that confession. No, this faith simply cannot work until we've truly died to all we've been living for in this wasted life try...