CONCLUSION

Can any feel the presence of real peace, knowing what you now know?  Those of you who have made the impressionable decision to believe the Good News?

 For others who are still not as sure, the question to ask your own self is everything.  Jesus (Yeshua) wants us to “count the costs” of this spiritual venture.  No question is inappropriate, really.  For this is a matter of life and death.  It is a big undertaking.  

Go ahead.  Seek, and you will find, if you are ready.  Ask yourself.  Am I ready?  To be reborn?  To drink new wine?  To renounce the past?  To throw away old patterns of lies?  To end enslavement to my habits?   To cast away this world’s stones of condemnation?   To laugh and leap in my heart again for joy? 

If your answer is yes to any one of these questions, please note that #IAMTHATIAM  is standing by to usher you, personally, into His Family.  God is at peace with all of mankind. 

Luke 20:17, 18 reminds us (and Satan), “What then is this that is written: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’?  “Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Why these references regarding mountains, rocks, stones, sand, and dust in the Bible?  We are dust.   That’s why. 

 How about the one that states if we keep silent and hold back our praises, then the stones would cry out.  Or what about moving mountains out of our way.  Or breaking up the fallow ground. 

It is safe to say that ashes come from mountains.  Sand from the rocks.  And dust is everywhere.  Here to stay!

b

This is a new time!  It is a new day!  Sufficiently secured is the status of mankind, through a gift.  A peace offering. This undertaking by God does not in itself contain the idea of joint obligation on any of our parts.  Our contribution is nil concerning salvation.  We are in the natural predicament of the little drummer boy who had no gift to bring.  The Lord of all the earth is urgently offering an opportunity to accept this salvational rescue for all-time!  These intimating details of God’s truce are spelled out for us in the new (better) covenant.  God has invited us to come.  Come lowly.  Come just as you are.  Come without money! 

One day we will all have our day to stand.  This day is fast approaching.  See, we are all in the same sinking boat; same mire; same quicksand.   It is okay that we are unable to satisfactorily cleanse our own vessels. Our Father provides this service for us.  All of His eternal favors await us.  While we wait on that great day when these promises will materialize, we have a perfect example to follow after—Jesus, who performed an extraordinary exercise.  He washed feet.   In this instance, the disciple Peter expressed his willingness to be thoroughly washed from head to toe.  And Jesus assured him that He who is bathed (from their sins) needs only to wash his feet from time to time, but is completely clean otherwise.

If you come, He will humbly wash your feet.  He will graciously wash your soul (soil).  He will dress you in the finest.  And you will feel no shame to be in His glorious presence. 

As He washed the feet of His disciples, this symbolic gesture in turn taught a good lesson to these men on how to “wash” away the blight offenses of others that were sure to come after he left them. This is Jesus’ lesson to us, too.   We can show mercy and forgive too.

Jesus is surely showing us today that the priority of discipleship is to forgive and give mercy to others when people hurt, offend, and wrong us, because we all will get our feet dirty as we travel (travail) this earth. 

Their sins (and ours) will need to be washed away over and over again to keep up with our continuous traipsing about in this mean-spirited world.  Simply put, we are all prone to sin and fall short sometimes.  We will all trample others sometimes to fulfill selfish pursuits.  And yes, we will feel the guilt of our choices.

Truly, if we had to place value on what we think the world owes us compared to what we owe God for all that He has done and continues to do faithfully, the significance of all the wrongs done to us, combined, would only amount to about one [$1] dollar.

~Heard someone teach on this once~

Surely we can afford to ‘let it go’ if someone owed us a dollar.  We owe God much more than that.  And He is able to forgive us.  God knows our debts can never be repaid and so do we.  Unfortunately, some of us do not think that we owe anything to anyone.  Especially God.   How sad.

God outdoes us every time, though.  He would have to withhold His sun, His moon, His air, His rain, and His manifold blessings that never cease to begin payment of our debt!  He would have to withhold our very breath in order for us to pay Him back for what we really owe! 

~Can anyone say Insufficient Funds?~

I say to you, all that any man or woman has done to offend you in a lifetime, combined, is still not worthy of our vengeance or grudges, or any justifiable feelings of hate. 

I hope this consideration sheds some light on the importance to forgive fellow debtors. Especially when Jesus says we are clean already, assuring us that He took care of the rough part of the climb. 

He just wants for us to do our part, to be hospitable enough to forgive one another when it is needed; when it is so obvious that we owe one another that much.

 I am guilty.  Guilty of not doing this when I should.  Are you?  May God please forgive us all!

b

How do we do it?   How do we learn to effectively showcase this newly acquired hospitability and to accept the hospitability of others likewise?  Practice, practice, practice!  There are more than enough people on the planet, who will push our buttons, who will afford us many opportunities in order to master the art of forgiveness, compassion, patience—the stuff love is made of. This becomes our ministry now.  This is what we do as newly made “temples.” And this kind of service calls for a welcome mat. 

A welcome mat is a place for people to wipe their dirty feet.   Even when we don’t particularly care for a person’s company, even when they were not invited, we know that they have dirty feet because we all do. 2 Corinthians 4:1 says, “Therefore since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.”

b

Our heavenly Father says that He wants to bring you into a “larger place,” but first you must take your eyes off of the Lie and focus.  Because of the work of Christ, you can live life with an abundance of expectations.  Expect life to bring in a yield of thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold. 

This means God will measure your love for yourself and for others. God will measure your joy over your circumstances. God will measure how much of a peacemaker you are and how you handle yourself in the midst of your problems. God will measure  your faith to see if it succeeds in conquering  those habits we wrestle with.

Are you patient?  God will know.  Or are you angry and puffed up every day?  This is what God will measure.  God will measure how long you are able to suffer or put up with the unfair way things are going.  God will measure, if you are kind or cruel, to animals, to children, to strangers.  God will measure your integrity, your principles?  Do you have any?  Especially when you think no one is looking?

Humble yourself when it calls for your will to remain humble; and trust that God knows best, instead of doing what suits you, because that will be measured also. 

And finally, the last thing that God will surely measure is your ability at wrestling, at resisting, at taking control of excessive, habitual, carnal desires.  Your mastery at being agreeable, in relationship, with the Holy Spirit  will be definitely measured.  These are some of the works that God will be assessing (judging) in the Day of Judgment, folks.  I cannot pray this enough, Lord please help us!

Do not allow Satan—try your hardest—to put you neatly into a box (or a closet).  His box of tricks are endless, seeking to enclose (close) your mind into his yoke, his prison, and his dead end. 

You can always light the candle of truth and good news anywhere, anytime, when you light (enlighten) your own heart foremost. 

Everybody is invited to carve a place in this earth in which to have a fulfilling, purposeful life, that brings in the best harvest he can (with the Holy Spirit’s help).

One day soon,  the costs of all our labors will be added up, in that Great Day of the Lord.   Our good works will be our yield, the return on our investment.  And it has nothing to do with the price of our salvation.  Jesus paid that price.  This has more to do with ‘walking the walk.’

b

 I do not believe that God requires a person to travel the world-over, to Romania, Africa, Russia, or Asia in order to be effective on this world’s stage.  So make life count for something.  Do not be like the “rich man.”  You remember the story about the rich man?  He did nothing but serve himself.  He was given opportunity after opportunity to do any one of those good deeds that I listed above. 

Do you remember Lazarus?  He was the poor man in this story (can’t have a rich man without someone being poor).  Poor Lazarus had one lone role to play—to suffer for as long as it took to convict the conscience of the rich man, because God cared deeply about the rich man, too, and did not want any man to perish in the splurge of his evilness.  God gave this unscrupulous man opportunity after opportunity, at Lazarus’s expense. 

~This is hard to believe isn’t it?~

But God’s love reaches to the widest of ranges and the highest of heights beyond what we can fathom.

 “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen” (Ephesians 3:20). 

This is exactly the reason why men prayed this prayer back in those oldest of times; because it was true then and it is true now.  God’s love is unconquerable.  Your sins do not (cannot) overwhelm Him or separate you from it!

b

Evil does not care!  Does not care, I say, who it lands upon to destroy, whether gay or straight, rich or poor, black or white, man or woman.  Although evil can be unleashed into our lives with such an obvious absence of anything good, it helps me understand to what a wide spectrum good and evil are distributed in this world.  That which is Good, however, is knocking at the door of your heart, calling out to you, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

 Keep this in mind.  Don’t you be the one who misses his opportunity to let his light shine.  You may be thinking how do I do that?  Let my light shine.  First, get out of the corner you found yourself in and find your rightful place  (meaning, you have a right) in Christ Jesus.  And stop trying to be rich, so to speak.  It really means trying to be what you are not.  I think it is a good mindset to let every chance that comes your way be a chance to showcase that pure love God has for us, by allowing it to flow from us to others.    Keep on moving in beat with life to a place where there is a need of your gifts and talents. 

Maybe you were called to be a Lazarus (i.e. rejected, longsuffering).  Have you thought about that?  All I know is that “the widow’s mite” and that poor beggar, Lazarus, have gained tremendous returns, to be rewarded later on, and will profit a good harvest.  And for all of the reasons that you are rejected, count each one as your blessing. No longer wonder why you are rejected and ever suffering. Just know that God is for you.  Not against you.  Out of our miserable, wretched states an offer of true love has come to us.  No one can stop that flow of love.

b

The woman in this book made the mistake of feeling entitled once upon a time, just like Eve.  But there are two sides of the coin, and they have been thoroughly examined.  And whatever your conclusion, after an honest debate and looking into the will of God for yourself, your choice is yours to make.  As long as you can honestly say that you have weighed the “costs,” and that you understand the testimony as heard, when you do stand before God’s Judgment Seat. 

Let there be no doubt about what it really means to be free.  Freedom is a two-way street.  There is a kind of freedom that gives one great liberty to choose whatever his heart desires—to become a slave (if he wishes) to the natural tendencies that he has acquired a taste for.  Eat, drink, and be merry all the days of your life, if that’s what you choose.  This is the broadest way of freedom.  The only setback to taking this road is that it will halt.  Soon enough, you run out of road.  it will come to a dead-end.

The other spectrum is much, much narrower.   This way also gives one great liberty to choose, except there is not an array of choices, along the way.  Taking this road requires an acquired taste as well.  The thing here is that you will get to eat, drink, and be merry for the rest of your eternal, abundant life.  And be full to the fullest.  There will be no end.

~You might be saying… “BUT” ~

But, I say to you in return.  Yes, you may have made radical cosmetic changes, altering your face or your gender, to assimilate your unique situation.  But, I say don’t waste any more time trying to fix it all.  Let it be for now.

 I know you want your rights to be equal.  I know you want to be accepted and beloved without bias.  But, the Lord is saying to you, permit it.  Suffer through it, for now.  Believe me, you will prove yourselves to be more righteous, tomorrow, than the ones who are condemning you, today.

b

To the LGBT (Q, et.al) community at large, hear me loud and clear:  Born this way?   Of course, you were born a sinner!  Born this way?  Of course, you were born into sin!  Yet, YOU ARE NOT, defined by nature alone.  YOU ARE, a multifaceted child of the King of kingdoms, if you choose to be.

Father God has sent His healing to those of us who are poor and dejected in the Church (and out of the Church)) with these encouraging words from Revelation 3:8,9:  “’I know your works.  See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My Word, and have not denied My name. . .indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.” 

 If you get nothing else, get this in your heart and understand that God has all power and authority.  His scepter reigns.  He can forgive whom He wants to forgive and He can wash whom He wants to wash and He can bless whom He wants to bless and…  the beat goes on.

We are bigger and stronger than we think!  We all come from that same substance which is in the Rock who will grind our enemy to powder.  And his lies.  And his schemes.  Our Father has a chosen route of escape for us. A specially prepared exit strategy redirected to become the end all in this saga called our life.  Victory has already been declared for us!  Battle with the devil is winnable, if we make it across the finished line.  We must go all the way to the end, to see what the end will be.   Weep as you go, its okay.  One day, Joy, which comes from the Lord, will be there to greet you! 

Be encouraged.  Encourage yourself with these words—In spite of it all.