God has been so merciful to me.  I am hard-headed, slow to learn, too quick to speak, judge myself by my motives while I judge others by their actions and how they effect me.  We have so much to learn and understand while walking this Earth, and it takes our whole lifetime to even begin to really know anything of real value.

I want to be a mirror.  I just want to be the surface that reflects and projects Christ.  I don’t want to be seen.  I just want God to erase me, and stamp His image there.

When I was in my Junior Year of High School, I was assigned to write a poem.  When something comes to me practically “all in one piece”, I know it’s not me, but something God put in me.  A clue to His particular purpose in His design when he knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Writing was one, Nursing was another.

Here is that first poem He gave me all in one piece:

Book Mender©

Oh Lord, make me a clean, empty book

Erase all those sin-words of old

Clean the filth and the grime out of every nook

Make me pure white, with edges of gold

Repair me and make me new again

Trim away all my rough, rugged edges

Wipe out every sentence that speaks of sin

And tear out any ungodly pages

You, the Author, make me your journal,

Telling of nothing but You

Making sure that whatever is read in me

Will let all of your Glory speak through

Bind me together with a thread of Your love

And You be my protective cover

Write Your name on every page of my life

And let its beauty remain there forever.

Copyright STLloyd 1981

That is still my prayer today.  The life of a follower of Christ, is always under construction and renovation.

I thought I knew Him then, but I know Him better now!  The more I understand about Him, the more I appreciate what a miracle it is that He should condescend to come to me and seek me out.  God pursues us.  Imagine that!  Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost!  Instead of being the worlds foster child, shuttling from one “household” to the next” lost in “the system”, God adopts us, gives us a name, and a place and a future and a hope.

What kind of “household” do you live in?  What authority are you under?  Are you in a foster home where alcohol is in charge?  Drugs?  Ambition? The illusion of the “self-made man”?

Unless the Lord builds the house, they that labor, do labor in vain.

Tired? Weary? Lost?

Wondering what this world is coming to?

Wondering where you can turn to find some kind of meaning and satisfaction and fulfillment and peace in this messed up, headed-for-a crash world?

I don’t have wisdom, I don’t have advice, but such as I have, give I unto you.

I give you Jesus!

He died so you could live.

We did not get here from a big explosion of nothingness in space which somehow evolved from NOTHING into cells.  Your own common sense tells you that there is nothing that comes from nothing.  That there had to be Someone with intelligence and knowledge, that designed your intricate body, the stars, lightning bugs.

Why study the art when you could know the artist instead?

In the beginning there was God.  He always was, has no beginning, has no end, and in fact is Himself, the beginning (Alpha) and the end (Omega).

He created the world and everything in it, last of all creating man and woman, which He charged to “be fruitful and multiply”. Everything that God created, He proclaimed was good.  He blessed Adam and Eve, who at that time were innocent and did not know anything of “good” and evil”, because all that they had experience of was all good.  He placed them in the midst of a beautiful garden full of everything they would ever need, and He even walked and talked with them in that garden.  They were given one restriction only:  There was one fruit tree they were warned not to eat from.  It was the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and warned that if they ate of it “in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die”.

Faith is faith because it is believed without having to see.

The tree had to be there, because they had to have a choice:  Trust and obey, or strike out on their own.

At this point of history, man was safe (saved) as long as he obeyed the one rule!

 But alas, the devil tempted, the humans chose to go outside what God had deemed permissible.  Man proved himself unable to obey the one rule.  The transgression of it placed them out from under His protection and provision and safety.   We can teach our kids right choices, and they can obey them or suffer the consequences.   There is believing, and there is knowing.   Some kids have to test  everything.

God knew what Adam and Eve would choose.  He also knew what they would suffer.

They were banished from the perfect garden, and separated from the close fellowship they had enjoyed.  They were now in a condition of sinfulness.  Christians often refer to this as “the fall” because with that decision, mankind went from living in paradise conditions on earth, and perfect fellowship with God, to a state of separation and distance from Him, and the whole of a once-perfect creation also fell under that cursed condition of sinfulness.

They went on to multiply as they were designed and instructed to do, and each of their offspring (and all offspring ever since then) were infected with that same condition of sinfulness.  Once God no longer walked presently with mankind now contaminated by sin, man relied on his own conscience (that new-found knowledge of good and evil which came with the eating of that forbidden fruit).  Once they knew the difference, they were accountable in accordance with each and every choice from there on out!  Safety (salvation) was in choosing obedience: right, not wrong; good, not evil.  During this period of history mankind proved of itself that all flesh was corrupted, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, continually.  Man was commanded to love good, do only good, and to hate evil but man proved himself unable to meet that standard once again.   Instead they built a tower, a monument to man and man’s own ingenuity, exalting the creature instead of the Creator.  God confused their languages, and scattered them.  This is all recorded in the book of Genesis.

  Man had authority over all of the earth.  Evil was so prevalent that God warned He was going to send a flood that would encompass the entire Earth, but would providing salvation (safety) by way of the Ark.  Once again, mankind was asked to believe God, and live, but most chose not to believe god.  Only 8; Noah, his wife, 3 sons and their 3 wives  believed when God warned of the coming flood, and it was counted unto them as righteousness and they remained safe throughout the flood, along with the animals they had obediently brought into the ark with them.  Noah and his wife went on to have more sons and daughters, as did Noah’s sons with their wives, and replenished the Earth’s human population, just as the preserved animals went forth an replenished their kind.  The Earth itself changed during this period of history, as one land mass broke and separated into several continents.

Next, God entered into a covenant with one man among descendants of Noah, Abraham.  God promised to make of Abraham’s descendants a great nation in “a land that He would show them”.  Some promises of the covenant were conditional and some were not.  Some have been fulfilled at this (present,modern) juncture of history, and some have not yet been fulfilled.  Those conditional promises which were nullified by disobedience, ultimately resulted in the Israelite bondage in Egypt.  Again man had proven his inability to be faithful and obedient.

God then gave His people the law, through Moses, on Mt. Sinai.  Law is stringent and unyielding, yet the people eagerly and arrogantly vowed they would keep the law to the smallest detail.  That part of history is recorded in Exodus and Leviticus.  Man proved early and often, under law, that they could not remain obedient (therefore safe).  Most of the old testament is like a “broken record” giving account time and again of the rebellion and transgression of the law, even with judges in place, even with kings in place, even with priests and the sacrificial system for making atonement, sin proliferated until both Israel and Judah were driven from their promised land and again dispersed.  But God did not leave His people without hope.

Through the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah, a small remnant did return and out of that remnant, via the lineage of David, born of a virgin and made under the law, Christ Jesus came, though when He did, Jews and Gentiles alike conspired to crucify Him.  You see, God does require perfect righteousness, but He knew all along we could not provide it for ourselves.  In all of the history before Christ came, mankind proved over and over that he was unable to be righteous on his own by choice.  What God requires from us, God knew He would have to provide for us.  All along, He knew this.

Even though He set out various provisions through out history, God knew that man would fail to abide in obedience to those provisions, yet He still expected us to believe Him, take Him at His Word, in faith, because He knew that

“God will provide Himself a lamb”.  Noah believed it, and it was counted to him “as righteousness.  Abraham believed it, Moses believed it.  Mary and Joseph believed it.  Rahab the harlot (and distant ancestor of Jesus) believed it.  David believed it.  They understood Gods requirements and that they could not attain it themselves, but obeyed Him in faith.

Jesus came to fulfill the law because we could never fulfill it.  Now, purely by Grace, we can be saved, through faith, not in the law, but by the free gift of salvation offered to Jew and Gentile alike, upon acknowledgement of this sinful condition, and faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the sinless Christ Jesus who died in our place to pay a debt He did not owe, a debt we owe and cannot pay, to obtain righteousness for you and for me, and bestow it upon us by proxy!  He gives us HIS righteousness and meets the penalty (the wages of sin is death, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins).  This is the new covenant in Christ Jesus.  It does not nullify God’s everlasting covenant with Israel.  But Jews living today can obtain salvation by this same transaction.  Our guilt for His Righteousness.  His blood for our freedom.  The Passover Lamb!

Behold today is the day of salvation!  

Right now we are still living in that age of pure GRACE

It is, indeed a “limited time offer!”

Christ is coming again.  Before then, there will be another period, spoken of in Daniel 9, known as the “seventieth week“. (Thorough explanation HERE)

²⁴ Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

²⁵ Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

²⁶ And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

²⁷ And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Sixty-nine of those weeks are past history of God’s people.  Currently we are living in this age of grace, which can be seen as a pause between the 69th and 70th of Daniels 70 weeks.  But that age will come to a very sudden end and by all signs, that sudden end is now looming very near.

When that age of grace ends, immediately the world will enter into that final (seventieth) week that Daniel during which what the Bible calls “The Tribulation” will occur.

1)finish the transgression

2) make an end of sins

3) make reconciliation for iniquity

4) bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision and prophecy

5) and to anoint the most Holy.

We see in Daniel 12: 4 that God tells Daniel

⁴ But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

So there is a “pause” here.  Daniel doesn’t understand these things because he is not meant to, they remain a mystery until later when in the Gospels and Epistles, God begins to reveal this “mystery”, and build right up to “The Revelation”.  So the “mystery” in Daniel is “revealed” via the New Testament and New Covenant.

The “seal” applied in Daniel are broken by the One Worthy One in Revelation 5.

Jesus is worthy, because He is the One who paid the penalty.  The rejection of salvation bought by His blood and freely offered, is the one sin that cannot be pardoned.  His Holy Spirit convicts you, through the truth of the words of Scripture, and makes you know your need for this gift of atonement.  If you reject it, it will not be offered again.  If you postpone or delay it, your time may unexpectedly run out!  Either by their own death or by the end of the age of grace.  (A moment only God knows).

Receive that gift today so that you do not have to be here when the Great Tribulation befalls this earth, and so that you do not have to eternity in a place called hell that was created for Satan and the fallen angels.   God is not willing that any should perish.