A poem I wrote while at school

Shall I be so inclined to care,

Whether or not you fear.

For if I so incline to be,

It will cause much distress for me.

I will hope, I will beg,

Yet not a drop of trust I'll get.

Not one ounce of satisfaction,

Not one blink of true reaction,

A lazy ear, a subtle nod,

Just the sense of a weak facad.

And at your judgement, I will relent,

For the wrath of God, will be spent.

I will taste the doubt from your unbelief,

And I shall wilt before the heat.

If I so incline to not,

The sooner my heart shall rot.

I could not weep between porch and street,

I could not claim my own deceit.

For I knew well the cause of death,

It was my violent lack of breath.

Yet, I covet my own selfishness,

To wash my hands of your distress.

If I care not, I prove myself,

To be among your commonwealth.

For if I hide behind my God,

It would prove my life a fraud.

So I shall, without despair,

Care for you with desperate care.

That you would fear the coming age,

And with your faith begin to trade,

Your wrath for mercy, your hate for love,

Your despair for hope from God above.

Your lies for truth, your law for grace,

To know that Christ died in your place.

So if you fear, to me, it's clear,

That you have found the ears to hear.

Know this too, without contemplation,

All I seek, is your salvation.

Right focus

Trying to maintain a right focus. Focusing on Jesus.

Purification Through Praise

I'm going to throw something out here for minute. I know it might sound weird, and if you're a reader, perhaps you can help me find some Scripture to reinforce these ideas.

Very simply, I find that through the praise of the grace of God, I am sanctified. Almost instantly. What are the spiritual implications of praise? How do we praise God in Spirit and Truth? Recognizing the goodness of God, and standing in awe of it, that's praise. That moment when the grace of Christ manifests itself to your soul, and you are stricken dumb by the shear majesty of its infinite glory, is when praise overwhelms your heart and mind.

The action of praise unto the glory of the grace of the gospel of God, and even the glory of the grace of the reception of this treasure, and yet still the praise of the glory of the grace of the understanding of our worthlessness: peels the flesh from our soul and we are bare to cling to the Savior. Barren of the fruit of worldliness and fertile with the Seed of Righteousness.

I find that too often, I become numb to the devastation of sin in the lives of men. This brings about a coldness that freezes love, and a comfort that grieves the Spirit. Yes, a comfort that grieves. Strange to say, but in detail, I realize that when I lose the connection with the broken, and when I forget the fallen condition of the lost, I forget my own dependence on grace, and I gradually lose the ability to remain in a state of brokenness. Because I buy into the lie that I am doing well, or rather, that I am well enough on my own. More succinctly, I am well enough now that Jesus has helped me a little, and I can do the rest on my own. I am speaking as I would in the flesh, but in the Spirit, I say I am only as the grace that I have received unto this point, and will only be as the grace I have faith to receive beyond it.

Let us purify our souls from idols, let us shine like a radiant blade in the hand of the Lord. Let the furnace be the love of God, let the anvil be the Cross of Christ, and let the hammer be the Holy Spirit.