I'm not a happy-go-lucky optimists who doesn't know what the word "sad" means. I'm familiar first-hand with depression and its often ensuing apathy. But I’m realizing that with as incredible a God as I represent (not just to this world, but also to the spiritual realm), what a gross disservice I’m doing my Savior when I let myself wallow in despair, in essence telling satan, "You're right. I am hopeless."
When I make it about me, I have no compelling reason or ability to fight. When it's about God, I have every reason and means to conquer.
When I make it about me, I have no compelling reason or ability to fight. When it's about God, I have every reason and means to conquer.
"We like love. Love deals in relationships, while truth deals in cold hard facts.
"But Jesus never compromised one for the other. The problem we have with truth is that it cares nothing for our feelings or preferences, and pays no tribute to our opinions or the sacredness of our dogma. Truth is about reality. It is concerned not with the way we believe things to be, or the way we would like then to be, but with the way things actually are. Truth is spun from the fabric of facts and therefore cannot bend to accommodate the wishes or sensibilities of the masses. Truth is not the product of a vote or a democracy and has nothing to do with the will of the people. It will not bow to the wealthy like a preening politician. It cannot be bribed. Nor can it, in the name of compassion, make exception for the aged or the unfortunate. It never has and never will enter into agreement with the proud or unbelieving and offers no parley to the religious and the self-righteous. Truth is what it is."
-Ben Davenport, from the forward to "The Bravehearted Gospel"
Below is the song "After the Last Tear Falls" (by Andrew Peterson).
I hope it encourages your heart as much as it has mine.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:
'Look! God's dwelling is with men,
and He will live with them.
They will be His people,
and God Himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will exist no longer;
grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer,
because the previous things have passed away.'
Then the One seated on the throne said, 'Look! I am making everything new.'"
(Revelation 21:1-5)
Tonight as I gazed at the autumn sunset, it’s blazing orange, crimson hues, and golden beams all in beautiful coordination with the fading leaves, I was reminded of the Source of Artistry.
How often have we been entranced by a canvas and paint, assembled in a beautiful chemistry of thought and emotion, conveying without words the heart and soul of its creator? Yet how often do we stop to appreciate the beauty made from nothing, through which our very God and Savior has reached out, putting forward to us a part of His heart, His soul….
This is not just an invitation to stop and smell the roses; this is an invitation to peer into the mind of the God who makes them.
I’m the type of person that gets home sick. Easily. Even if I’ve got the whole family travelling with me and we’re only gone for a couple days, I will most likely at some point just want to be home.
So one day, as I was traveling with my sister and some other folks from our church down to the Mexican border, I started to think about this home-sickness. Why do I feel like this? Why do I miss home, no matter who I’m travelling with, and almost no matter how long I’m gone? Where does this feeling come from? I can’t say that it matches any other feeling – in some ways it’s a sadness, in some ways a hidden discomfort with the unknown, in some ways it’s a weariness of not knowing these new places as well as I know my own…. However one describes it, there’s just this particular desire to be home.
And then, I started to think about my Home – that place that’s Home not because of an address but because of Who lives there. I started to think about how much I want to be there too.
Then I looked a little deeper. Why do I feel so lonesome for my home on good ole North 51st Ave, when the Home I should be lonesome for is the one where my Father lives – the one our Bride Groom has gone to prepare for us; that’s where I should want to be more than anything – and not because it’s got streets of gold and pearly gates. For one thing, that would be esteeming the created more than the Creator. And besides – who’ll be able to even notice once we see Him for whom we lived, for whom we willingly die? If we just want to go to Heaven to see the amazing bling and stay out of hell, it’s more than completely missing the point. The reason that Heaven is Home is because that’s where my Father, my Brother, my Family all live. And I want to be there too – because I love them all – but most importantly Jesus Christ.
So this made me look deeper yet. I’m lonesome for my physical home, because it’s what’s familiar – this particular house is where I’ve been for almost half my life. I’ve lived in the same state my whole life. I know my way around most places, and have pretty good guesses for the rest. I know generally what kind of people to expect to see here, I can usually guess when someone is not a native of my state, and I can usually tell who’s never known another state. I’m familiar with my home – and I like it. But am I as familiar with my eternal Home? Am I familiar enough with it to know who else is from There? Can I hear in someone’s voice the “accent” of a heavenly country? What’s more, can someone hear those “accents” in my voice?
It is my hope as I start this new venture of a blog that I will grow in my knowledge of my Home land, and that as I’m enlightened by the Words of my Father and those of His children, that the words I write will encourage you on your pilgrimage in this far country.
As I go about my life, whether home or roaming about the country, I will always be Homesick; for that City “whose builder and maker is God.”
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