Through the Roof: A Down-to-Earth Faith

Dear friend - Let us press forward to know and love Messiah Jesus in a deeper way, to obey Him out of a sincere heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

My hope is you will be blessed as you read and are lowered closer to Jesus. There, with Him, is where our treasure should be.

In Stern's Complete Jewish Bible, faith is defined as "Trust-grounded obedience".

Trust on!

Quasiblogo

a.k.a. "Quaz"

If life is mysterious, what surprise is it
that the Lord Jesus should work in mysterious ways?
Should we dare mock the latter,
we belittle our God-given ability
to conclude the former.
So in a very natural sense,
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”.

Nihilism is to attempt a mental negation of mystery,
and at its core is a striving to erase
the Author of mystery from memory.

For Nihilism to work,
one must step into Pandora’s Box and shut it.
The “problem” here is that humanity cannot invent
a lid efficient enough to do the job.
Of course, “efficiency” is the catch,
for its equation requires a reckoning
of the variables of imperfection,
accounting for why the lid
cannot be closed fast enough.
For God is perfect, making any calculus
that would seal Him out, futile!

The mystery of Your order,
oh, Majesty of Your grace!
Both rolled out to meet us,
Both reveal Your Face!

Peace in Christ,

Quaz

“All feeling
must be within covenant“,
believers in Jesus should tell themselves.
Paul’s “taking every thought captive”,
being content with little and with much:
he showed us that his worldview stemmed
from his world within. In that world,
Christ reigns supreme
and we are invited to it.
This is the Abrahamic pact
between God and humanity, by faith.
Wherever we walk,
whatever the emotional landscape,
we are reconciled to God the Father.

It does not matter if we cannot
reconcile our present circumstances
with logic or good feeling,
with what our culture says we are “owed”,
or even with the matrix of our experiences
and its complexities that has
been woven into the fabric of society,
family, or friends.
That last one is a tough one: we identify
ourselves by it, others know us
through it.

However, just as smoke can fill a room,
the Peace of Christ,
like a sweet fragance unto the Father,
permeates the one born of the Spirit of Jesus.
Every structure within the believer,
be it material, emotional, or conceptual,
becomes pervaded by a spiritual calling
that first sets priorities and then speaks
about them as life progresses.

In the Kingdom, we can never be “cheated”,
for purpose is stronger than circumstance,
and One is always with us to remind us of this.
Was it not enough that Jesus should
come in the flesh, die for our sins,
and rise from the died? No.
Jesus told us He had to ascend to the Father
so that He might send us the Comforter, the Spirit.

The “default setting” for our spiritual condition
is astounding. It is “Christ in [us], the hope of glory”!
Can we really have Christ with us, only to lament our condition?
Shall we be sad without being consoled?
Shall our sense of fairness and justice be violated
without our recouping a reconciliation in Jesus
that far outweighs our disappointments?
If it took time and skill for the enemy to buffet us,
shall we not make way for the wave
of restoration that comes?

Our feelings must be viewed from within covenant,
We are there, and the certainty of it we can count
on, just as surely as we know the tides of emotions
that come and go. Only, we can count on
covenant to remain, withstand, and shield
us from devastation, as certainly as a castle
stands firm against a sea tide.

The Peace of Christ,

Quaz

Lay hold, lay hold of it all.
Come to Jesus like there’s
no tomorrow,
because
your life, your life is a flower,
here today
for a purpose
all its own.

I have driven ‘cross Texas,
clear to Alabama,
an’ it hasn’t dawned on me
“Life has no meaning”, just because a flower
I once glimpsed in New Orleans,
I never saw again.
There was a reason for the flower
and for the panorama.

Have ears to hear
and eyes to see!
God…He is speaking
to you in humanity,
like you were his only one,
as if the Bride were you.
Lay hold of Jesus, like a flower, catch the dew,
Heaven’s morning-promised, sunny dew.

Be blessed,

Quaz

Is "faith" a game we play,
between aspirations?
Or, is it when our very existence
advances in synchrony to God's commands,
body, soul and spirit?

We are clothed in Christ,
every bit of us covered.
We are moved. As we move in faith,
we are moved yet again.
We are touched. As we touch in His Name,
we are touched afresh.
We are inspired. As we think, enriched by His Word,
we gain new vision.
We are thirsty. As we exert ourselves for Another,
is there any air more real?,
...any joy more focused?,
...suffering more relevant?,
...prosperity more shared?
...any other god so pervasive, ever-present,
overwhelmingly persuasive , as all-prevailing
as the Oneness of God,
revealed to humanity
through Messiah Jesus?

All game moves cease,
any strategem is nullified,
and the board pieces are swept aside
for His audience to behold,
as the eternal plan
is proclaimed--proclaims of Himself,
"I Am!"

There is no God but God, and Jesus is
His very Likeness!

In Jesus,

Quaz

The Lord said I have a Sabbath.
Do I really make one
that stops me in my tracks
to question, "Which am I:
a man of religious inclinations or action?"?

Is my Sabbath a well for Him,
from which justice, mercy and forgiveness
sprinkle the other created days?
Within it, do I do what I please,
say what I want?

Oh Lord, may this rest bring me
to an overflow that nurtures the dominion
you have ordained for your servant.
Oh, how I delight in making, now,
my house a sanctuary of praise,
my table a playground of fellowship,
my leisure walk a reenactment
of Jericho-praise, as my Sabbath becomes
a garden of growing expectations
that You will work mightily, again and again.

In the waning discharge of sunlight,
I hear the joy-spirts of birds and children,
and I wonder, "My Jesus, how long
before you restore all things
to their innocence and glory?"
And as I kneel in praise by the mulched bushes,
I remove my gloves to snatch weeds
as ambidextrously as I can.
The smell of Heaven and earth are closer.
I praise God! I thank Him!
For as Sabbath yields to another day
where cares queue up, kingdoms collide,
and brotherly dominions coalesce,
He teaches me that in the art
of doing His will, I can live
a care-free diligence...
where the left hand need not struggle
with what the right hand does.

The Lord said I have a Sabbath,
and I thank Him for it!

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Quaz

Good and upright,
Father, good and upright,
good and upright are You!
For the sake of your Name,
for the sake of your Name,
forgive all my sin.

Show me your ways,
teach me your paths,
guide me in truth,
for You are my Savior, You are my God.

Do remember your
great love and mercy...

Guard my life,
rescue me,
let me never be put to shame...

...because my hope,
all of my hope,
because my hope is in You!

Be blessed,

Bro. Quaz

“Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”. Millions of souls would consider this a privilege.
Oh, to know the will of God, the creator of the universe!
How many have thirsted for this and never had their
desperation quenched?

However, many believers, even after being gloriously
saved through faith in Jesus, struggle with the need to
consciously and conscientiously bring all motives, thoughts, and actions to the Holy Spirit. Why this rebellion?

There are many reasons:

• Fear of being labeled a legalist.
• The awareness that many in the world do not care a wit about one’s love for the Savior--the caressing of this in our thinking to the point where we become lonely… but only because we have brainwashed ourselves within our own self-pity.
• The love for being admired and desired more than the earnestness to know Jesus and the fellowship of His sufferings.

Speaking as a Christian living in the U.S., many believers struggle here with their weak-knee thinking…and when they do, they live in their small worlds, non-commited worlds, subject to the shifting winds of the never-minds. They think that thinking about Christ once in a while is akin to spirituality, forgetting that no follower of Christ can serve two masters.

This kind of thinking only leads to wandering, or worse yet, shipwreck. The never-minds…

Never mind that the magazine page has lewd and haughty photos, that that movie, book, or conversation exudes crude, blasphemous, and lascivious language, looks, and comportment.

Never mind that the boss isn't looking as I surf the Web instead of work.

Never mind that my less than complimentary remarks about a co-worker, relative, even church member are camouflaged as “official communication”--when all along I am damaging their reputations with gossip.

Never mind that I substitute Christ-consciousness for diligent study of the Word , routine prayer, frequent fellowship, and sacrificial service. This is tricky here. It is only when we hear God’s voice in our obedience
that we can distinguish our intellectualizing of divinity versus life with the Divine.

The key to loving God is that “taking every thought captive” is the instinctive reaction to being immersed in God’s will and God’s ways. It is not some kind of scholarly exercise in which we somehow concede our lofty thoughts and regretfully bring them to a spiritual tailor who will make what we grasp as “life” fit us just right.

God forgive us--as we take the grace dive into obedience.

Thank you for the things that are not,
chosen to nullify the things of man,
those imaginations about who is weak and wise.
We were made to applaud what gives us pleasure.

And You have shown us, in Jesus, what is wisdom!
And You have shown us, in Jesus, who is strong!
Therefore we boast only in your righteousness,
your holiness,
of this grand revelation
of what is not our own
yet becomes, by the Spirit, ours
when we receive a toe-hold of mercy
with I Am, in the midst of what is,
by what Is not.

This year in Carolina,
the winter's settled lightly,
and the leaves have barely given way.
Now birds sing too early,
and grass sprouts even before the snowfall.

Can it be that winter's wanting,
that we'd give away the bluest
of skies just to have the grays?
Seems we all have this earthly predilection
for winter not to fade before its time.

We know that
some things must die,
some dreams have got to simply slip away,
where ti-i-ime,
like numbered
imaginations,
counts off hours,
is counting off the days,
counts off the months
while we live and hide away.

With springs gone by, we remember...

Stored away,
creased for intentions.

Taken out, when life
begins to stir.

With new hope in the air,
we hesitate to mention
the troubles of the past.
The breathing's fresh again.

The smile of Your favor, Lord,
has not made it all too clear.
It's just that winter's passed away,
and with You, hopes of Spring appear.