Amazingly, for reasons I can’t even comprehend, He does. So I praise Him and glorify His holy name as best I can. I bring my best filthy rags and ashes to the altar — and beside gifts of seemingly greater “value” and “honor” in the minds of men — He accepts my little unworthy song, my little unworthy prayer, my brokenness in exchange for a crown.
Even just speaking of it shakes the ground beneath my heart, throws down the mountains around me, and parts even the seas from blocking my path back to Him. Amen.
He hasn’t abandoned you, friend. He is there, waiting for you to either believe, confess, and be baptized by the Holy Spirit for the first time — or to be still and quiet enough to be renewed by the very same flowing waters of the Holy Spirit (for the strength needed for the cross you should bear today).
We each have a unique purpose and use in God’s Kingdom today, or we can choose to resist and oppose that purpose — wasting the day and our opportunity. Don’t get discouraged if you have wasted days before. We all have — up until that day we decide to abandon that broad road to destruction in favor for the narrow way of a restored relationship with the One true and living God.
Choosing to walk in The Way is a decision to be weighed seriously, so count the cost and see that He is truly our prize and portion, beloved Child of the King!
Truly taking up our cross and walking “holy as He is holy” within a foreign land where “there is no one righteous, not even one” — imagine like a child what that looks like. Even those who think of themselves as “the best of men” would hate such a glowing revelation of the death and wickedness that truly fills their white washed tombs.
The Way may gather some followers for a season, but when one speaks, walks and lives those striking and radical “One Way, One Truth, One Life” things of the Holy Spirit and of God — it culls the herd as quickly as chapters like John 6 and John 18 where we see the truth of Matthew 10:34 proven first in Christ Jesus, and then in His bride. This so clearly reveals the stark contrast between the normal human nature that breeds both immorality and religion — vs God ordained and empowered vessels walking through this land filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Again, imagine in your mind like a child — It creates quite the uproar when the humble walks amongst the proud, the free walks amongst the enslaved, the healer walks amongst the blind sick and infirm, the living walks amongst the dead, and the light shines in the darkness.
When He bids “pick up your cross and follow me”, He isn’t kidding.
When He says “if the world hates you, understand that it hated me first”, He isn’t kidding.
Luke 6:22-23 is just as true as John 3:16, beloved Child of the King. Hallelujah!
Harold J. Ballinger 