“When I stand before the throne
Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see Thee as Thou art,
Love Thee with unsinning heart;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know-
Not till then – how much I owe.
R.M. McCheyne
Tag Archives: prose
Burning Hands
My hands were burning
I couldn’t sleep for the pain
I sought the Lord
His eyes are fire
I am scared
He had fire to give me but I was
Too scared to receive
His eyes are like a flame of fire
His feet are like fine brass refined in a furnace
I laid my body down on the altar
Of burnt offering
He spoke to me of fire
Why was I keeping on keeping the fire going?
I see now it’s going to hurt
To keep the fire going
I am willing and He is able
I’m in His army
It’s His work
I wanted the fire
I received the baptism of fire
Go out to the Road again
Pick up the lost, the forgotten and broken
How?
With burning hands
Hands of fire
A Pandemic Dance
How will the covid-19
acrylic and gouache
Change the way
We see A.I.?
Will the fear
Be so great
We will accept now
What would have been unthinkable
before?
Tracking
Tracing
Monitoring
Vaccinating
Surveillance
Apps
Identity bracelets
Micro-chips?
People calling for government
To lock them down:
“Please just lock us down!“
And then I knew
It wouldn’t take that much
To scare people into complete submission
Revival or Revolution?
I think both revival and revolution
At once
Is coming
Who Will See?
It’s not about me,
It’s about Him
As ever
And always will be
But not many see
That or care
We want
Our kingdom
But it is about His
Kingdom
We want to be set up
But God is setting up His kingdom
We want a name
But His is the Name above all names
We want a throne
But His is the Throne
At which our knee shall bow
Enlargement,
Promotion His way is:
More of Christ;
More of Him in us
Less of us,
In us
Christ magnified
Christ enlarged
Christ glorified
Christ promoted
Christ’s kingdom ENLARGED
Who will see?
For an enlargement of Christ’s kingdom I pray
The Way of the Cross
The Way of the Cross is hard
The Way of the Cross is unyielding
The Way of the Cross is sharp and pointy
The Way of the Cross hurts
The Way of the Cross shatters self
and self-belief
The Way of the Cross breaks open a Way
And this is from where Life springs
Eternal
The Way of the Cross is death
That leads to Life
Stop resisting the Spirit of God. Why do you kick against the goads? Yield to Him.
He has a better Way.
I Believe in Brokenness
This vessel
broken by
anxiety
depression
This vessel
broken by
persecution
rejection
This vessel had been hard,
callous
and full of Self
But this vessel needed to be
used
and taken from the shelf
God knew it would take
some major breaking,
even some smashing-
For the Self-life
to be conquered
’twas so secure there
in its bastion
And oh I’m glad He did
that He cared enough for me
to take me and break me
pastorsponderings.org
From Self to set me free
It hurt, it killed
at times too hard to bear
but my God – He did it
For Himself He had to share
You May Not Like it, But I’m Gonna Say it
We seem to have forgotten that
It’s all about Jesus.
All of it.
He is the centre of it all.
It breaks my heart that I can now visit a church and not hear His Name even mentioned.
Bono is mentioned.
A new Christian super-star leader is mentioned
Mother Theresa and even Buddha may be quoted
(How very relevant and emergent of you)
But where is Jesus?
He who is the Door, is now outside the door.
Jesus is unfashionable in His own church:
Truly the Father’s heart is grieved
The worst part?
Nobody even notices
They’re so busy laughing at the Pastor’s jokes
Busy building up their Christian reputations,
Their earthly kingdoms
Busy gettin’ known in Churchianity
Nobody cares
That the Body is dead if there is no Head
Oh yes,
There is a Body,
An eternal, living, breathing, organic, victorious Body
Of which Christ is Head!
But it is not there
Not where Jesus is forgotten
Dismissed, cast out
Not where people are ashamed of His Name
And His Word
(Funnily enough, there is no shame in distorting and abusing it
In order to compel the flock to “tithe”
There is a business to run after-all)
Where are you Jesus?
My Lord and My God
You are not there.
He who has eyes of fire
Would vomit that out of His mouth
There He is!
He is outside the camp
Always
I wonder who is willing to go to Him there?
Who is willing to let go of Christianized kingdoms?
Christians being crucified by ISIS
Who is willing to forgo Christian-fame?
Who is willing to lose friends for Him?
Who is willing to be considered a crack-pot for Him?
Who is willing to go outside the camp
To bear with Him His reproach?
This will be the test of the Christian in these the last days.
What is it you are after?
What do you really want?
Is it Christ Jesus Himself?
Not a ministry, not a creed, not an organisation,
Not structure, not even Christianity
But Him, the Person
At the end of it all,
That’s what it comes down to.
There is nothing else
But Him
holyforchrist777.blogspot.com
“But God…”
You’ve been heading one way…”But God…”
You’ve received a diagnosis… “But God…”
You have nowhere to live… “But God…”
Your marriage is struggling… “But God…”
You don’t know how you will get through this…”But God….”
But God…
But God…
These words are like a great signpost in the middle of the path of your life.
Sept ’15. Pastel, pencil, conte crayon
They signal God’s intervention in our lives. They signal God’s mercy in caring enough to reach down and move in our circumstances.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” Ephesians 2:4
“But God…” there it stands, two words that are full of promise. These two words can change the course of your future.
But God… that is all it takes to raise the dead to life.
But God… is all that is needed to change your direction
But God… lifts us up from the ash-heap to the heavenly places in Christ
But God… don’t walk past the signpost. Don’t accept that this is how it just is. Don’t give in. Don’t believe the words of man.
Stop. Look up.
There is God’s Word “But God….”
Take hold of a promise of God.
Know that if God can take you, who was dead in trespass and sin, and intervene to make you alive together with Christ, then God can certainly intervene in your situation now.
There is a way, and it’s God’s way. He has an answer, He has an outcome.
Take hold of “But God…”
🙂
Related posts:
God’s Victories Look Like Defeats
Suffering: According to the Pattern
The Mystery of the Cross
I woke up one morning with this in my head, and wrote it in my journal:
The cross is ugly,
The cross is beautiful.
The cross kills,
The cross gives life.
The cross is God’s hatred towards sin,
The cross is God’s love towards us.
On the one hand, the cross deals a death blow to pride, vanity and selfishness
On the other hand it’s beauty is evident by the suffering of a sinless Saviour
Who can say whether it is one or the other?
It is both.
For Jesus is meant death, pain and suffering,
If we follow Him, it will for us too.
But this is the only way to life and hope
You can’t have the life of the Saviour
Without first, having the death of the Saviour
You can’t take a short-cut
First the pain, then the relief,
First the sorrow, then the joy,
First the death, then the life
“Truly, truly, I say to you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it stays alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.” (John 12:24)
Grace and Truth 