June Light Inspired

First Light 2017

A NEW YEAR


There is gladness in my heart as I share a new world, new life and new year with those I love. They are my community. My solace and joy, dawn and twilight, every aspect of my present wealth and prosperity, my family and friends are to me a call to be a man of peace and love. Thank you to all of you for your love this past year. I love you and promise a love for you that will bind us closer together in joy and peace in 2017.

A 2017 A. W. TOZER

Now as always God reveals Himself to “babes” and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.

Tozer, A. W.. The Pursuit of God: Updated Edition (Annotated) (Kindle Locations 176-179). Aneko Press. Kindle Edition.

2017 - REVIVE ME AGAIN

Dearest Heavenly Father, Holy is Your name and Your righteousness is beyond comprehension. In Your presence I am convicted of all the hate, bitterness, malice and murder that is in my soul. I am confronted by a cold, calculating idol worshiping soul that is enthralled with worldly wealth and entertainment and is void of compassion and love for You and Your people. There is no Christ-likeness within me and when I am weary of the crassness of my humanity I loathe the path that I know will bring me back to the foot of Your throne.

I have openly and secretly mocked those who believe in a Democratic process to bring justice and peace. I have derided those whose faith is entwined with political and socio-economic systems. I have belittled everyone whose hope is in the same American ways that approved the genocide of First Nation Peoples, the enslavement of millions of Africans, the murder of thousands of non-combatant Japanese and the slaughter of 60 million unborn children. I have bled in my despair for my daily association with darkness and death, but have rarely even whispered a prayer for those who have flung wide open the gates of hell and death that we may skip blindly into that vast godless abyss.

I avert my eyes as I drive past the blue tarps and muddy fields of the homeless camps. No longer pushed off into the borders of my city, they dot the landscape of the main boulevards leading to my work place. I curse the greed and avarice that has caused this Second Great American Depression to destroy the bone marrow and “fight” of the weakest in our society. Yet, I have not whispered a prayer for them, or those who have condemned them to degradation of soul, mind and spirit.

I will, in my will, and in my lunacy a different outcome for all Your people. For those who are aging in poverty and disgrace and for those dangerously unborn. From the first breath to the last, would You at last bring Your righteousness into this fallen nation and dispel the darkness and death that haunts us in every institution and chamber of power. Even in my “Good Works” I have been filled with pride and bigotry; surmising my sacrifice to be significant when in fact I have been a toddler in the sand box moving from one bucket to another dusty grains of silicate and rock.

How I have adored my idols O Lord and have ascribed to them power and majesty. I have adorned them, reason and industry, with human-like qualities so that I can dance with them when I feel frail and alone. I have exalted them, education and learning, with banners and streamers that glitter gloriously before my eyes to block out every glimpse of pain and suffering all around me. I have promoted wealth and power to prominent positions in my soul and prayed to these dead minions to relieve the distress I feel for the derelict in my community. I have lit candles and sang songs and offered acetaminophen and morphine like platitudes so that my worship of my idols will be religiously relevant and beautifully attentive to detail. In reality I have turned away from You and Your goodness and mercy to try my hand at being God. If I were made in anything other than in Your image, I would be too far past the point of salvation. I would be swallowed up, and rightfully so, in the gravest death of all and consumed in judgement fire.

While I deride the Clintons and Trumps of this world, whose defined ultimate mission is to rule this sin stained nation, I must commend their courage to have their character and soul smeared by the hate mongers and assassins of this land. No pride and joy that comes from a victorious race to the top will mitigate the blood stains that they will inherit from previous American leaders. No accomplishment will be big enough to erase the sins committed by them and their associates in their rise to power. No amount of “good will” to the American people or the peoples of the world will eradicate the fear, hatred and rage lawless people have for anyone who would impose their God-given-right to rule over them. When the lowly created have rejected their Creator, why would they embrace even the noblest of rulers? In our blindness to Your ways, O God, would we even recognize a noble leader if we saw one? I know You say “No. We would not.” And more and more I begin to believe what You say.

The bitterest of truth comes to me now Lord, as I begin to repent of all the sin that I know and don’t know that inhabits me and have committed against You and Your Kingdom. I am the unwashed, unemployed beggar in the boulevard. My idols can’t eradicate my position. I have enslaved them to poverty as much as any banker or politician. I murdered the First Nation peoples as much as my fore fathers did. I enslaved as many Africans as they did and helped them drop the bombs on Hiroshima. I have nodded politely as baby after baby has been aborted in this nation and I have not shed a tear for those who have had the where withal to survive the most atrocious holocaust ever devised by man and Satan. My soul is as corrupt and dead as any of mankind’s worst. I look upon others with horror, seeing at last myself in their wrath and panic. You are coming O my God. And there is nowhere to hide. Like my friends I feared the Clintons and the Trumps, mere mortals, but I have not feared You, the most Righteous and Just force in all of creation and beyond creation. Hide me O Lord, from the wrath that is to come.

My Father, You are not a player in a drama or a competitor in a game of “to-the-death”. You are not man or man-like. In Your words is the unvarnished truth of what was, what is, and what will be. You never lie, nor do You hide even the slightest bit of what You do now and what You will do in the future. Your intentions are an “open book” that reveal with astounding detail, every aspect of who You are to everyone who will look into Your script. You are not hindered by even Your laws of nature or Spirit and You only restrict Yourself by the promises You have made to Your chosen people. Covenant. Concepts that few people outside of Your Church understand anymore.

I bless You my Father, because You have not closed the door to Your saving grace, but offer another way, far away from the popular road that leads to perdition. You do not cringe at the sight of my vanity or the vile sin stained interiors of me no one else can see. You are not troubled by the poison that courses through my veins nor do You recoil at the sight of the malignant leprosy that pervades my soul. Instead, by the most holiest of miracles ever given to man, You see Your Son, ascending from the death and tomb, a Lamb without spot or blemish, a perfect sacrifice, whose blood washes away my sins and every association I have made with sin because I was born into this blood thirsty nation. I repent of all of my sin Lord. The sin I have given myself too recently and those that I pick up time and again because of my loyalty to my nation, state, city and community. I ask Lord that You would forgive the sins of America, past, present and future and may the Lord Jesus Christ rule over America and Americans without fetters or restrictions. May Your will and Your justice be done in America in a way the foils the evil intents of our lawless courts and corrupt politicians.

May every American President and national ruler of the world, from now until Christ’s return, befriend and make covenant with Your people Israel to defend, honor and protect Your holy nation. May there be peace this day and forever more in Israel and Your Holy city Jerusalem and may Your power be displayed in Zion forevermore.

Thank You for hearing my prayers O Lord. I know You always do and I am grateful. In Jesus name. Amen.