A Field of Lost Dreams

Not too long ago... though few to none will remember, a fully clad body was discovered in the middle of a farmers field, just outside our home town. It was clothed as if going to or coming from some lavish affair or a church service. At the scene, the identity of the individual could not be assessed due to the lack of a wallet, no personal jewelry, and no obvious distinguishing features. Although there appeared that no foul play was involved, it was still not ruled out.

The body was found in such a state that those passing by might have thought the individual was taking a nap in the field ... Authorities noted that it may have been staged, though nothing was definitive. Sadly, very little information could be released as a statement until family were contacted and an autopsy performed. The scene was so surreal ... So peacefully sad, and so undisturbed ... almost neglected.

Emergency responders could not help but talk among themselves and their loved ones... Hence ... The story leaked, but strangely unnoticed. Weeks later ....The authority's search for possible family and friends (even with all of the modern advancement in notification providing a comprehensive description and an array of digital pictures... sent out way beyond a normal search grid) produced nothing. No one came forward. No one questioned the incident any longer, and no one inquired as to anyone missing. It was eerily disheartening and strangely upsetting to see that the investigation had come to a dead-ended search; It was almost like no one even seemed interested.

This never hit the papers, never hit social media ... And by this time has been filed away as a "cold case" in the archives of an already overworked legal system. The coroner's report was speculative to say the least but potentially insightful. Cause of death may have been due to the following: "With no markings, no cuts, no scars, no bruises, no abrasions, no physical signs of past abuse; death may have been due to possible Narcoleptic Abandon Syndrome 1. Extreme loneliness. plus 2. A heart that could no longer handle the pressure of no hope. plus 3. Possibly self inflicted physical neglect due to the thought of no future. 4. Combined ---resulting in a desire to never wake up to face another day with no one to care."

A life without purposeful or random physical shows and tells of love soon withers into the lonely existence of the darkened days of the unloved. Don't let those whom you love die without "touch". No unprompted hugs, no hand hugs, no looks of love, no words of love ...Love just Not given Or just not received... can almost be like a time release poisonthat slowly breaks down the fibers of hope that hold the soul in balance.

Day after day ...
Untouched by human hands,
Hoarsely... yelling "Unclean, unclean!"
Day after day ...
with a desperate hope of at least being seen.

Matthew 8: 2, 3 - "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Jesus knew that more than the healing from leprosy, this "unclean" "outcast" "abandoned" man needed to be touched ... First things first.

Has love become an inconvenience to give or to receive?
................... No time for it?
God hasn't left nor forsaken you.
Are acts of love rejected as an interruption instead of received warmly and -reciprocated?
...................Just not our style?

What if the individual in the story at the start of the HLFA had been found "sleeping-dead" in the midst of the congregation of saints, instead of the field ---
How would the Coroners report have affected that congregation?
How would the media interpret the event?

Day after day ...
We pass them by
Some one else will care, but please ... Not I.
Day after day ...
We live a sheltered lie,
And miss His blessing as we pass Him by.

Live openly, and love unbridled for the King!
Don't pass Him by...

HLFA,

Jeff

"What you do unto the least of these, my brethren, you've done unto me."

Dead Man Walking


He should have expected it from the get go! Building that beautiful home in the middle of a planet full of unrest and trouble. The area that He placed the foundation seemed perfect, and by design the dwelling was formidable and admirable. But the delays in the sale, and the habitation of the home proved to be its downfall and deterioration.

First there were secretive squatters; and then interior defamation by malicious vandals, and by the time the outside of the home was tagged with the graffiti of the day, ... the interior supporting structure of the home was all but gone. Sorrow filled the heart of the owner, and He returned to redeem the building and restore it to its former glory. The redemption of the home cost the owner all that He had, to say the least.

Though the owner paid dearly, the contractors who cleaned, swept and repainted the interior, and refinished the exterior... because there was a delay, once again, in the plan for habitation (the owner even offered to take up residency)... the next destruction of the home was even more degrading than the first time. The structure was condemned ... "Uninhabitable".

Now ... This is paramount to mirroring a life that responds to conviction of the conscience and attempts to reform, "turn over a new leaf" , get a fresh start... But has no plan to allow the Creator/Savior take up habitation in that life ..."Dead Man Walking!"

No Word ... No spirit ...
A shell of a life that is disconnected from the Power to live.
No fresh truth ... No moral compass ...
A shell that will have to walk on in the dark.
No fresh oil ... No vision ...
A shell that we have to move without the favor of Heaven's anointing.
No renewed breath ... No refreshed soul ...
A shell whose movements forward will leave a trail of dwindling joy and no peace.

Dead man walking!" Prior to the 1960's this was a term that used to be shouted down the hallways of "Death Row" in prisons as the condemned walked their last steps to execution. What a sad commentary of the final moments of a life lived in rebellion against society and the laws that govern it.

There is a spiritual parallel: "He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:18 ... A Horrendously pivotal statement of dynamic liberation from death and Hell because of Faith in Jesus; or the unavoidable separation by Condemnatory Judgement due to the choice to not believe on the only begotten Son of God ... The key to be Fully Alive or the deciding factor for "dead man walking", is found Only in Jesus!

"There is no other Name given among men whereby we must be saved". "For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved". There is no other Way, no other Truth, and no other Life that allows us to come to the Father.

OK ... Probably everyone reading this is nodding their heads up and down in mutual agreement. But why in the world is the "called out assembly of believers" acting as if they are miserable, condemned, and living in emptiness ... "dead men walking"?

Let's do a check up and reset:
Do we hear the Word and the Spirit and welcome Him as royalty into our lives? ...
This is where we are connected to the Power to live.
Do we receive fresh Truth daily, that activates "true north" on our moral compass? ...
This is where we, daily begin to walk in the Light as He is in the Light.
Do we long for fresh oil and a lively vision as He occupies more and more of our life? ...
This is where we move in the active two-way loving favor of Heaven.
Do we daily allow His Breath to restore our soul?...
This is where we long for eternity, and move forward in ever unfolding joy and sweet restorative peace in the midst of a planet full of unrest and trouble.

The potential is Here ... Realize it! Anyone in Christ ... potentially has the opportunity for the miraculous! ... "BE" fully engaged IN CHRIST, take full advantage of all things that He offers in furnishing our life. Remember and realize we are His NEW Created Habitation... Let Him fully dwell and fellowship with and within us. As old things begin to pass by you with less and less enticement and intimidation... New things will rise up and captivate your first love of Him, and undergird your living with the Awe and Reverence of your God and Savior... Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthian 5:17 - "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away: behold. all things are become new."

Take full advantage of this ever present offer to Walk fully alive in Christ ... The world doesn't need a mirage of a church full of new ideas and "exciting" events that are drummed up from "dead man walking" shells and for "dead man walking" shells ... The world needs to see the glory of Heaven that is leaking from the called out assembly of broken vessels that are fully inhabited by Jesus.

Live, fully alive... IN JESUS ... Today !

HLFA,

Jeff

The Pit or the Cliff


The Horrible Pit or the Perilous Cliff

"The clanging of the blacksmith's hammer and anvil above us; the constant tugging, shaking and jangling racket of the chains shackled to us , the moaning, whining and cursing of our pain coming from us, and the unceasing insults and lies that continually spewed into the mess that we were trapped in... It was about to pull me completely under.

Then I remembered, and heard a still small voice that spoke to my soul "Stand still, and see the salvation of your God!" I waited in stillness, with my eyes closed downward, and in the tears of my crying ... When I felt a hand touch me, lift me by my chains, washing me as I moved, unshackling me, mending my brokenness, and whispering Love all the way.

Not quite sure of my destination, I waited patiently in my the journey and the process of my healing until I found my self being lead to rest upon the edge of a cliff. At first my senses rejected the concept of this precarious situation (almost hearing my former captors laughing in mockery of my perceived peril) - but the mockery faded as I was overwhelmed with an extravagant Love that was now holding me in this peril of Grace. My soul knew right well that here on the Edge was the Safety and Security of all Eternity."   Excerpt from The Scarlet Sinner'

Psalm 40:1,2,3 - "I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD."

Every one of us have had that moment of great self inflicted peril or unexplained degradation - where we have cried out in patient desperation for help. We all know what it feels like to be trapped in the midst of frightening, roaring confinement of pain or in that mire, that sticky place of potential addictive desires to rebel. "Not I!" Has become our protective reflex.

"Not I!" Because Some of us haven't been caught yet or faced the mirror of our true persecutor ... But I will guaranty, that once caught and held in that place of profound guilt, shame, and naked awareness ... We all will find ourselves searching for a plea bargain, or someone with the power to deliver us from the invasion of the peril.

Here is the real deal ... When you are quiet and waiting for that deliverance, HE IS THERE. He is moved to bring you up out of that horrible roaring pit, He is longing to lift you from that miry clay that continues to mold you into shame...

But here is where it gets very real (hope you can take it, O please don't shake it) ... He will deliver us, in His way and in His time (for it is best). He will set our feet upon The Perilous Cliff of His Love, and will stabilize our vision-walk forward in the faithful path of His mercy and Grace.

Quiet the noise of our pain, and hear His Voice of everlasting Truth!

He has provided for us ... there ... On the Edge, where there is no place else to go and no one else to trust; and His provision there .. On the Rock, the Cliff, the Edge ...is amazing, satisfying, and eternal.

BUT Will we see it His way? Will we take advantage of this powerfully transparent place, will we take up the New Song found on the cliff, and make His praise extremely conspicuous so that many will see it, and be shaken toward His way, and trust in Him? Some of us still can't shake the noise of the old song of the pit (of slavery to our pain and desires). It has such a familiar ring, and everybody is singing it ... Even in the congregation of the righteous. So many voices that conflict with the voice of rescue, the voice of healing ... The Voice of God.

But as we are reading this ... many of us are lost in noise of the pit, and have sunk so deep in the mire ... We feel that there is no way out. Hey ... No one sees this side of us though. We have put up a great "I'm OK" front and have need of nothing. And we have even donned the garment of pride ... Which when help is extended our way, we push it aside as if we didn't need it.

Be encouraged ... If you have read this far, there is hope. Let's bow our heads right now and give our struggle to Him. He is ready and waiting to rescue us. Just Get Real with God!

HLFA,

Jeff

Don't fall for the advertisements and glamour that the god of this world has in place to break in to your life, to steal all your precious treasures of living, to kill all your dreams on hopes of destroying you for ever... Remember: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."

We Caught His Eye

I don't know about you ... But here is how we should work; while passing through this world our eyes are constantly scanning our surroundings. Our hope in scanning is threefold:
1. Is there any God moments ahead?
2. Is there a familiar soul with whom we can fellowship and encourage?
And/or
3. Is there something new to see and learn that renews my breath.

Nevertheless, even those committed to this journey with Jesus... Who have come to realize that there must be a constant, compassionate, forward movement to be fully alive ... Can and will be distracted because of incomplete disruptive events. What do I mean?
A windshield smash,
a stairwell fall,
an icy slip, 
a blinding flash of uncontrolled power,
a debilitating pain,
an uncontrolled darkness,
an end of normal ... On and on ... And in that disruptive beginning our heart will cry out and our eyes may even fall earthward as we lose hope.

(I would hate to be chained to a walk in life that has my "soul shoulders" stooped, eyes gazing blankly with an unengaged anesthetized mind to the ground, and a fearful sullen heart that will only risk closed eyelids when looking Up).

God is here ... In this beginning ... While our faith has seemed to leave us as an untimely birth ... Still connected to our bloody placenta, choking in our own blood and birth fluids, filthy by contact with our surroundings of abandonment and none to comfort, wash or swaddle us ... Even then He says "Live".

I wasn't always alive ... (No I am no talking about the obvious - my water birth into this world) ... I had that evidence of forever presented to me in a way that made sense and I cried out for the "Second Birth" in Christ Jesus. Some of you understand what I have just stated ... Others may be still wrestling with this concept. Please bare your heart in this matter as I continue to open this moment to a glimmer of light that always shines for those who have opened their hearts to the matter of Faith in Christ.

Now ... There will always be a way that seems "right" unto a man, though the end of that way is absolute eternal separation. God's way, Jesus, leads to eternal life ... What is the other alternative?

Now ... "Now is the accepted time, today is the day of Salvation, If you hear his voice harden not your heart!" Why on earth would a man, who so desperately needs God, provoke Him by insisting that the death of God's own Son wasn't enough to satisfy the righteous mandates concerning the wages of sin?

Now ... There is One Way, and only One way that brings the declaration of justification from the lips of God. That declaration's power and authority was settled on the cruel cross of Jesus and signed, sealed and delivered by His Resurrection. That once for ALL payment brought the justification that covers, completely, the sins of men. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!

Aside from a false perception that everything will be ok ...
Without Him:
We are a destitute and shallow representation of life ...
We are a naked, bloody, aborted child ...
We are tossed cruelly into spiritual emptiness; still attached to the rotting placenta of our water birth that starts us on our perilous journey to death.

All we have earned, obtained and amassed will be left to others as our carcass, though potentially prepared in loving care ... Will be placed in box, the lid will be closed and our remains will be lowered into a cold dark hole where dust that once breathed will turn back into breathless dust.

Proof of our fallen-ness (which will be with us in spite of the miracle of salvation) is "that tendency" for every one of us to fail, fall, curse and blame even though ... We are His. The greatest gift that God has given us in the midst of our "Meltdown Moments" is Jesus, and in Him is found the security of His "New Covenant by His Blood" with us that puts us under the responsible covering of His wings ... Not only when we feel strong but in our moments of shameful exposure, undefended vulnerability, provocative indecency, and improper behavior that leaves us naked in our willful self sufficiency.

Read through Ezekiel 16 -- it is a long passage -- if you can bear with the crushing mirror images of Israel and our potential personal rebellion as the Church ... And in the end we will see "where sin abounds, Grace does much more abound." Here is a pivotal verse to keep in our hearts...

Ezekiel 16:8 - "Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine."

Look deep into this -- God, in His unapproachable holiness, had all the right to pass us by ... But He looked upon us in our breach and decided for our eternal good ... It was our time of His Love; He spread His wings over us, covering our undefended shameful exposure: He adjured us and Covenanted with us and we became His.

Amazing Love! how can it be... that Thou, my God, wouldst die for me?

HLFA,

Jeff

Live 1

"And as for thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. " Ezekiel 16:4-6

Hear His voice - "LIVE!" There are scars that can be indelibly plowed deep into our hearts by choosing any other direction than life for us and others . - Whether it be by destructive devises that we chain to our own frame on this one time journey; or whether by the power of life and death that is in our tongue ... life is shortened because of our blindness toward the character of God, instead of mandating life with our lips ... We bear the life quenching breach to our already handicapped souls caused by our self serving decisions and loveless muted communication. God looked at the literal abortion of mankind ... by man's misdirected choice for sin and Satan's insatiable desire to destroy God's creation ...and Seeing fallen man now dying in his sin -- the law said to God "Walk on, judgement is served!"

But when God passed by and saw us filthy, abandoned, unloved and struggling in the fading power of our own blood: God sent His only begotten Son, sheltered in a virgins womb ... To be born into the risk of eminent rejection, torture and death ... Only to live and share life ... Just to die in mankind's place by suffering the timely "death birth" of Grace ... Being found in "His own life blood ... spilt on a cruel cross ... in the field of man's wicked decisions. Jesus was God's seeing, and God's Word to us "Live!"

As He became the satisfying payment for sin and salvation for all who believe. Three days later the Father said "Live!" And Jesus was raised from the tomb to give us life eternal, and the power to share the message of Life forever in Him. Now ... Does your life speak ... "Live!"

Such a joyful event, or at least it was supposed to be. Our eyes had to be deceiving us; we were pretty exhausted... After hours of a strangely surreal season of labor: A little one was delivered to the care of this world ... We still distantly remember the words that fell out of our stammering lips as our minds were anesthetized by what we were now facing. "Doc you can fix that, can't you?" ... We were greeted with the silent tears of the attendants; and immediately we were beginning to realize that the moments to follow were totally out of our control: 
... Unrequited arms longing to hold,
... glazed eyes seeing things that could not be fixed,
... ears longing to ear a cry, but there was no normal cry,
... and strangers were taking charge of the situation, only giving us limited information that made the longing, the ache, and the severing even more devastating.

O Justin we miss you, but we will see you again ... Totally whole.

Almost 670 miles away, and so many years later: this week... A family of friends have walked though the delivery of a little princess who needed protection (in the safety of a loving womb) from a world that would sooner see her terminated; ...because on this side of Heaven there would be no medical cure.

The princess' Mommy knew that her womb was the only thing between life and death . The princess' Mommy bravely chose Life for her little visitor. Isabel, O Isabel - Psalm 23 to Psalm 26 early morning reading with a dive in to Psalm 139. Such a short but much needed visit of Heaven's love ... Just as we have the memory of Justin's little hand not wanting to let go of the most familiar heart beat in the universe, his mother... So the memory of hand hugs and seeing time with you, Isabel, ... will be with us and your family until they see you again in Glory. Isabel is Home with Jesus ... Isabel is totally whole.

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him." I Corinthians 2:9 ---
"For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him. " Isaiah 64:4

On this side of Heaven there will be tears ... But He has every one of these!
Never take for granted the little visitors that God loans to us as parents ... We have no idea of the duration of that loan. We must always speak love and life into that little one. Heaven should be rejoicing daily because of the way we share eternity with our children.

24 coins today ... If you get to spend them, invest in eternal Love.

HLFA,

Jeff

Dedicated to the Mothers who will never forget.
Dedicated to those whose tears have been the bulk of the investment.
God Bless you!
He sees us "In His Blood" and says "Live!"