Magnify VII (4-3-09)

Do we really believe in the work of Christ? If so I ask myself “should a man like me run away?” (Num. 6:11) I hear all my critics (some using the misnomer “friend”) rail upon my choices and encourage me with all the daggers. It is easy for coach potato Christians to comment on the woes of battle while they sit on the sidelines with their intellectual comfort of mental ascent acquired from their readings. Faith is an action verb that is far more than mental ascent.

Last night as I left the chapel with a man I never met before. He was obviously in deep distress. His 14 year old daughter Tomica died this day. How can you comfort a man in this distress? What empathy can rise to the tragedy. I ask myself “Can a man like me run away?” from a situation like this. I had no social obligations to this man, Michael, I could have easily gone about my business and walked right past his tears.

When I ask myself like Nehemiah “can a man like me run away?” What am I asking? I search myself and ask do I really believe in the redemptive work of Christ? Do I more than comprehend but have a gnosis which incorporates the action of faith into experience? Am I truly a new creation in Christ Jesus? Not at the expense of my personality but in the complete fullness or capacity of my personality. The old man which was Kurt is to selfish for Michael’s need, but the new man which is Kurt is living in a different capacity. My father told me Scotty led his new celly to the Lord. A high ranking member of Hells Angels. Can a man like Scott run away? What of you, can you run away?

Fears and phobias and their agents would have us never commit to a battle unless the outcome was certain and the trek was painless. These are the methods of the devil. God will bring you a faith challenge with no further insight except this is my path walk ye in it. Nehemiah knew God to be faithful and that God was his all in all. He knew this before the revelation of Christ. Shame on us if we shrink back. Have you ever pondered this truth He who does not gather with me scatters? Notice there is no neutral.

Who exactly should God send into the frey of battle in this fraudulent mortgage industry. One who thinks he knows God or one who does. Imagine the strange scenario that arrives in battle. Bow down to me or go into my furnace. You think Alsup’s offer to me was any less? He made it abundantly clear I offended him with my contempt of his authority. TO gather with Alsup was to scatter with Christ. Now making a stand the furnace gets fired up 7 times hotter as though the original heat was not enough. This is precisely where those who do not know the Lord who called them to battle can never meet the Lord who shows up in the furnace. No matter how hot the battle gets the Lord is present. Even the evil men cannot take the effects of their own weapons. Should the furnace make me run? Should the tyrant make me run? Should the delays and disappointments make me run? Answer the questions yourself. If God be for you and present in any danger, supplying you to the full capacity of the work of Christ you were called to walk in, for the eternal glory and testimony of His Son, can a man like you run?

I cannot! I know I will see victories never imagined by the scatterers because I am gathering.

There was the man born blind whom Jesus healed and there was Elisha (2 Kg. 6:16-17) having God open the eyes of his servant. I like all of you have been born blind to God and His kingdom yet if we pray and magnify the name of the Lord perhaps like these men our eyes will be opened and we will see how silly it would be not to enter a battle or to fear the hordes of the enemy and run.

Hebrews 11 talks of those who subdued kingdoms, received their dead and other wonders of God they were called to walk in. Not one name is a coach potato. The mortgage fraud industry is a front for a spiritual sickness and battle. The wall street guys can be champions of the world if it can afford their price but who will bring down the strongholds of the enemy that fortified the hearts of wicked men? Isaiah said Lord send me. I, among all the mocking laughter and shameless ridicule, am glad of my calling and hopeful in the purposes of the Lord who calls and equips. I magnify His name as the name above all names and glory in His work. I shall not run. If I perish I perish, but I think it will take more than this hot box blow hard furnace of Alsup and his minions.