Forged By Faith

Romans 8:19 NIV For such a time in such a place amongst such a people with such a tale to tell that it will perhaps set another soul on fire for their Father having found out they’ve too been found from within this downfall. Indeed, I do find that I can’t help but believe that each of us are endowed by our Creator with a certain unalienable, unchangeable, irrevocable, irremovable immensity as defined by a faith that seeks to otherwise redefine us. Because I can’t quite imagine that we don’t all feel such novelty needed as that afforded by this faith that’s found us or is rather still hammering away upon the door of our hearts asking us to let in the light of love that is the Life. But since such is something of a certain substance, it’s not at all something that many are willing to welcome. Perhaps they’re waiting for someone else to look weird first. Allow us therefore to introduce ourselves… To be a child of the One True King is an honor unlike any other. For it’s one not fond of tit...

Philippians 1:29 NIV Making this easily one of the strangest gifts ever given! Because it somehow begins to inspire us to consider that perhaps to struggle for Him is the only feasible way in which to show the world that what we believe is not merely a matter of some passing hope which dissipates at the first sign of difficulty but is rather a hope of such immensity that it has become the only gravity which holds us here inside not this world but rather within this work that He’s left us here to do on His behalf, the work of making Him known through whatever venture or violence that might necessitate the showing of our suffering in order to shine forth the sternness of our salvation. For it’s easy to proclaim hope when life is comfortable and concise, but it sends an altogether different message when the world sees us at rock bottom upon our knees thankful for such a rare opportunity to praise amidst the pain of persecution or peculiarity. That’s simply not something that many here see...

Colossians 1:24 NIV That one might be saved. Way back going on ten years ago when I started this daily jaunt through God’s Word I never really knew to ever even begin to imagine the many oddities that I’d find along the way. It was just a simple social media challenge, to post a Bible verse every day for seven days, and yet somehow God saw fit within that to alter the entire course of my life in ways that I would have never imagined being able to be thankful for. Because we don’t often understand the ways in which He works as His works are indeed a daily mystery unto us of little faith and often even less interest in trying to see it grow. No, we’re rather a people perfectly poised to prefer the present proven painless than to take pride in persecution, laughing at the losses, welcoming the wrath of the wicked amongst whom and yet still to whom we’re here to perhaps share this hope of salvation that as many as possible might board this train before it leaves the station. And as that da...

Romans 8:18 NIV From within a faith which affords the promise of the last someday being first is found the hope that these present struggles through which we stumble will too turn into a triumph upon that same day. Because that’s just what Jesus does, turn things into their otherwise impossibly opposed outcome. Indeed, as He is what we can continually consider a continued contrarian to the current consensus, we can then contend that His intent is to do as He said He intended and even showed He entirely insisted to the tune of tables turned and the dead walking amongst those who only assume themselves alive. For He has worked so many miracles along the way to where we are today that we’ve now no reason to imagine that whatever we face is afforded the finality we usually fear. For He is the only One with the final word, and His Word has read that those who suffer in this life are done with sin, thus done with death, thus afforded a new life revived inside their share of His suffering blo...

James 1:12 NIV And thus we find that a life lived here is nothing but a test of love sent to see what we love most as answered by what we’re willing to do in order to prove we believe beyond the trials we’re bound to see. As my life grows in Christ I’ve found that I feel less at home down here, bringing about a great many confusions as to the delusions and desertions designed by a mankind of which I feel no longer a part but only increasingly apart. And as this divide deepens by the day I’m daily thankful for this hope He’s planted within which says that it’s not what we go through but rather to what we’ve this chance to go to that means most in this life as lived here in what is but a moment of the many more still ahead. If only we were somehow better at keeping that up ahead in clearer perspective it might afford us a burgeoned belief beyond the betrayals and belittlement of a life we’ve yet to live still to be left behind. Alas we seem perfectly able to struggle with such a focus in...

James 1:4 NIV If ever we’ve felt as if we’ve lacked then at some point we’ve quit, settling short of the fullness of whatever it was toward which we were hoping, unwilling to hold fast through rough seas and raging winds which dared inspire us to fall short again. For to persevere is defined as a continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. It’s amazing to me that mankind’s affinity for defining things seems to always round the corner from our arrogant proclivity to prove a pride’s presumptions back to the basis of the beginning’s basics basically being all about our believing that God ordained everything as it should be way back before we began trying to put all He’s done into such futility as words wrapped within what is but a human language’s attempt to convey the curiosity we find continually within this creation. I guess we just can’t seem to get over this need to feel as if we’ve had some sort of hand in all this. Problem being that we...