i really love the tune, Moon River. i’ve been completely taken with it since i was a child and my dad would play the Henry Mancini version on our family’s little turntable stereo. i played it over and over… there’s just something in my heart that bubbles to the surface anytime i hear it.

And so it goes, the sun comes and goes, the moon rises and falls, seasons come and seasons go… days go by…..joy rises and falls, wounds speak and then are healed….. and so it goes. The rain falls today… the flowers and grass of the field rejoice, and tomorrow comes at its own pace on its own terms… ahh well, let’s not bother about getting all pumped up about tomorrow, the truth is we really don’t know what may come ‘round by this time tomorrow. And so it goes…

The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud is like a flag to your faithfulness, and with your depth of love there is an increased capacity to love even more still; consequently, the more people hate, over time, the more nothing else is left to them but to hate. And so it goes, sometimes conflict and struggle can’t be avoided, and in the interim when there is a time of no conflict and no struggle we have time to accept our successes and guilts, to mull over conversations that should have happened and didn’t, as well as the ones which actually did occur… in the “in-between” times we get time to deal with what we think and feel and how to face our own experiences.

Interims are like soft periods or bold semi-colons, it’s not quite a full breath, not quite a full stop, maybe a little longer than a pause, but just something God has framed into life for everyone… whether they take advantage of the “soft periods” in their lives or not, those contemplative interludes are entirely up to each person. The lull and intermission in our lives often play like a symphonic masterpiece that slows to a near crawl, and waits for the rest… and the breath…. giving an extended moment for musicians to refocus before pressing on to express the remainder of its melody.

And so it goes, meaning “that’s just the way it is”, or “that’s just the way things work”… life goes on.

Psalm 55:18, “My life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger Even while thousands are lined up against me.” In the midst of turmoil and danger, life goes on…. the birds still fly, flutter, and twitter, people still go to work and come back. Ok, so things didn’t work out so well today, make a purposeful pause to consider more than just what didn’t happen but what did happen also, be specific. What does tomorrow look like, and if it’s not pleasant, can you re-imagine it in a good and positive way? How about imagining peace instead of imagining dismal forebodings? How about next week? And you totally know that regardless of all your planning there will be situations occur which couldn’t possibly be planned for and not all in a bad way either. Let us stop being morbidly fascinated with all that didn’t happen, or might not happen.

People change, love can be agonizing sometimes, friends come and go, things go right and things go wrong, but through it all remember, life goes on…..which is another way of saying… and so it goes. Romans 5:3-4, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

A friend of mine came to the United States from another country. The culture shock was overwhelming and, at times, paralyzing. After many months of trying to fit in here, i found him weeping one day. He said, i wish i could just go back to where i started when I understood life, when i understood people, in a place where I knew how to get along. In the moment i had a vision that was in motion, I saw, on a huge scale, people living, moving, working, resting… there were gears and wheels everywhere….. behind clouds, under buildings, some big gears, some small, but it was just a big picture of life happening and it was all in motion. The clouds moved slowly across the sky, and everything moved forward as if on a giant wheel, everything changed at the pace of everything else and there was no going back. Even if we were sitting on a park bench, got up, and walked away only to return a few minutes later, things may look the same, but rest assured nothing is the same… everything has moved. The change may be infinitesimal but i can assure you everything has changed. When life seems to have a down-turned mouth and sad eyes and we so long to go back, there is no going back, for what we have desired to go back to is only the memory of a place, a person, a situation that does not exist anymore as we remember it.

Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” And so it goes.

Idioms are words, phrases, or expressions that cannot be taken literally. It’s a combination of words that has a meaning that is different from the meanings of the individual words themselves. It can have a literal meaning in one situation and a different idiomatic meaning in another situation. It is a phrase that does not always follow the rules of meaning and grammar. In other words, when used in everyday language, they have a meaning other than the basic one you would find in the dictionary… like the phrase, “a chip on your shoulder”, meaning you are holding a grudge, or “sick as a dog” meaning you are very ill. We talk and speak in idioms all the time, like, “once in a blue moon”, “pay the piper”, or “jump the gun”… our Bible is absolutely full of idioms.

“And so it goes” is a little idiom … meaning, life goes on, and on, that’s just how things go … regardless of how bad you feel, or how someone made you angry or hurt your feelings… get up from your sad bed and try again… life goes on and tomorrow is another day. And so it goes. If we want to eat we either raise a garden or go to the grocery store, it’s something we must do if we plan on living. We work in the garden pulling weeds, hoeing the soil, picking bugs off… day after day after day…and so it goes. It isn’t a job nor is the task a laboring grudge… it is a benefit we get to participate with the Lord in, our everyday work-a-day world built largely of things we do over and over, and so it goes. We brush our teeth (hopefully), wash up, comb our hair, get up in the morning, lay down to rest at night, sit in our comfortable chair, breathe in and breathe out, over and over, and so it goes. These may seem like mundane, mindless, thoughtless things, but they are things in the interim, in the interlude between events where the Lord has constructed times of respite for pondering. It doesn’t mean God is done with us, it just means we are in the place of tidying up loose ends, doing maintenance.

You know… when you’re between projects, and, oh, how i know the thinking that says that maybe the Lord is just done with me because nothing is happening… i’m learning to use those times for rest and regrouping. Is it possible, when nothing is going on that it’s not that the Lord is done with us, but more it’s a time of rest, a time to do the everyday things that make life go on, and so it goes, on and on?

Psalm 94:18-19 “The minute I said, “I’m slipping, I’m falling,” your love, Lord GOD, took hold and held me fast. When I was upset and beside myself, you calmed me down and cheered me up.”

i used to live in a place that i loved more than any other place i’ve ever lived. It was old, i mean really old, and i loved the history of it all … down to the bone. It had roots back to the late 1700s, there were h-u-g-e trees, long open fields, old fruit trees which bore the sweetest fruit i’ve ever eaten, there were even several old barns and a house other than the main house which was left over from long ago tenant farming days in the 1920s. But then, life changed radically, i don’t live there anymore… And so it goes. My heart has so desired to go back there and be there again. i’ve had dream upon dream, wishes upon wishes that if i could just get back there… well, i can’t. The truth is, i don’t live there anymore, i live here where i am now. This is where i live and this is what the Lord has me doing. 2 Corinthians 6:2, “God reminds us, I heard your call; The day you needed me, I was there to help. Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped.” Or my paraphrase, the date is today, the time is now.

We have to be where we are, present in the here and now, not in the what was, or in the dream world of what will be. There is no going back for all things have changed, and nothing stays the same except the Lord who is ever the same.

Deuteronomy 31:8, “GOD is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.”

         In Job 8 Bildad, one of Job’s supposed buddies, gives his first response. In verses 1 through 13 Bildad speaks of the results of turning against God and forgetting Him altogether. Then in verse 14 he says, “And so it goes to all who forget God. The hopes of the godless evaporate.” When he says, “and so it goes” he means the situation and results of verses 1-13 just go on and on and on for those who forget God.

Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and hope.”

“Even so” is another little idiom, which means… with the exception that, or despite anything to the contrary, and nevertheless.  It is an idiom that also has an “on and on and on” motion similar to “And so it goes”. Like in John 3:14, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” meaning despite anything to the contrary you may have heard, nevertheless, Jesus must be lifted up. John 5:21, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so, the Son gives life to whom He will,” meaning regardless of anything else or to the contrary, regardless of what you believe or have been taught, the Son, Jesus, gives life to whom He will.

The Lord doesn’t dribble words pointlessly across the pages of the Bible. Every single word in the Bible has a point and a job, so if we’re going to understand the Father’s heart and fully know who He is, we’re going to have to take even the most minuscule words seriously, making an effort to see Jesus in them, even so, if we’re interested enough to chase the wisdom of the Lord, He will make sure we catch it in due season, then comes life, moving in like an early morning fog, even so, it comes…..and so it goes….every day.

Romans 5:19 “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”

“Even so” is there is an idiom representing the idea that, although what was previously said may be true, what is to follow is above all… the end all of what is true. As it is re-read with the definition of “even so” replacing the words “even so”, we would read it as, “… through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, regardless of that fact, above and beyond the truth of that statement, due to the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous, which supersedes what previously was true.” The words “even so” place the focus on of what is the “nevertheless” truth.

Another place among many examples is in 2 Kings 3, where Jehoram (yea-hô-rhām’) in verse 2 put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father made, but then in verse 3, it starts with an “even so” or “nevertheless”…..meaning regardless of his action of tearing down the pillar of Baal which was a good thing, his sins stuck to him, they were hard after him staying close at hand. It didn’t matter concerning any good he did while he was king of Israel, he wore his sins like jewels to be proud of.

Even so, we go on… and so it goes… on and on.

Proverbs 19:21 21 “There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the LORD’S counsel–that will stand.” Regardless of all the well-laid plans we may have in our minds or hearts, the Lord’s counsel will stand forever, and so it goes, on and on.

He is our purpose, He is our being. In Christ, there is a divine purpose for which we were born. When crisis strikes in our lives, regardless of the reality of the crisis, above the crises is the greater reality, Jesus, the Lord, even so, or nevertheless, He covers us and shelters us, providing us comfort to withstand it all by His grace. In our every moment of joy or hardship, He is there.

Be certain that the glory of God will be revealed in our lives when stressful events occur. Do you ever wonder how you will face difficulties that come your way? Problems with finances, family, relationships, health, work, and your livelihood, real or imagined may cover you like a blanket, and our character and foundation of faith are tested, it seems that life just wants to pull the rug out from under us (“pull the rug out from under us” is another idiom). When our entire world is shaken, our ability to recover is impossible unless we rely on the Lord for strength. And so it goes, when we know we don’t have to face it alone, it makes all the difference. Knowing that He is there helps us survive another day. Every day is a new day, a new opportunity, a new day of possibilities, and even in the midst of it there are still the little things we do that may seem mundane, but they are part of life. Even so, Jesus is there to help us survive another day, and every day thereafter.

Nevertheless, or, regardless of all your trouble, God is always there, always faithful, and always right. Remember to “fasten your seatbelts” (another idiom), because life is going to get bumpy, full of turbulence, and possibly internally and externally. We have to, so to speak, strap ourselves into His word (another idiom) and trust in His faithfulness. No matter your situation, even so, God will perform miracles in your life. So, when tragedy knocks at your door, stay focused, and place your faith in God. When we trust in Him, all is well and will be well, day after day, and so it goes.

Psalm 28:7, “The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Even so, my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song, I will praise Him.”

And so it goes, life goes on my friend, the days come and go, situations arise and pass, but the Lord is still there, never leaving you or forsaking you, every day without fail… and so it goes until you’re home with Jesus. Selah.

Friends, we’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home…the Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little Heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

Many believers live in the midst of some pretty terrible circumstances even so, they do so with a cheerful heart…don’t walk around drooping your heads or dragging your feet…don’t let the world get you down, instead let what’s in your heart rise. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are all it takes to stop you? Take note of the little pauses God gives you every day. Use them to re-orient and rest. Don’t get in a hurry, tomorrow will come, and so it goes. When the time comes, we’ll exchange this world for homecoming. Regardless, and nevertheless, neither this life nor homecoming is the main thing. Gladly loving the Lord because He first loved us is our main purpose, knowing His heart regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions.

Tomorrow is another day, gone is the sun, take the time to notice the little interims and pauses the Lord has built into your life… His kindness extends to us beyond your imagination, beyond the vanishing point, even so, let us walk in His goodness, never giving up, day after day, week after week, breath after breath, on and on… and so it goes. Amen!

          Contrary to popular belief, we all really do need a mediator. We have a conflict within us between life and death and there needs to be a judge and peacemaker to help resolve our conflicted thinking and crisis of conscience.        

         Hebrews 9:13-15, “For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason, He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”

         How will God reward us in Heaven when we have led a life of constant self-condemnation? i think that for many of us, we’ve bought into the lie that we are alone and nobody cares, making it easy to aim our own condemning finger at ourselves. Either way, it’s still all about ourselves… the consummate victim and martyr. Being a victim is as much about domination as being a controller.

         It is not true that we are alone, nor is it true that no one cares. Maybe that works for many of us because we’ve got this idea that if we were God, we wouldn’t have anything to do with us either… but in light of that, i’m very pleased that i am not God, and He is exactly who He says He is.

         Are we just old sinners, doing sinner things with sinner people, thinking sinner thoughts, going sinner places for sinner reasons?

         What is it we know about ourselves that if God found out, we are sure He wouldn’t like us anymore? Do we think God is somehow blind to the entirety of our lives, and we must continuously hide?

         If the sacrifice of bulls and goats was only good to cover sin for a year, how much more is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ sufficient to cover your sins? i believe there are two kinds of secrets, the ones we hide from others, and the ones we hide from ourselves. Without foundational honesty, our hearts shift from vision… a singleness of eye, to di-vision, a multiplicity of vision. To buy into the lie from hell that we are nothing and a zero… and always will be because we are just old sinners… is a lie that divides… our heart, making the condemning vision of ourselves our truth, never taking into account how God sees us. How the Lord sees us is, by far, the correct perspective.

         i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the deck area of a rural cafe overlooking the Ockluhwahhah River.

         Who are you anyway? We all know who we say we are, but in our heart of hearts, do we see Jesus staring back at us in the mirror, or do we see the eyes of Judas the traitor, imagining reproach in our own faces with tears of condemnation leaking from the corners of our eyes? Who does God say you are? Do you really believe it?

         Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Friends, take it from someone with some hard-won wisdom, it is right nigh impossible to rejoice and be glad in the day which the Lord has made when all your thinking is busy being just an old, no-count sinner.

         Matt19:19 says to love your neighbor as you love yourself, not loathe your neighbor as you loathe yourself.

         Objective honesty is the truth according to God; Subjective honesty is the truth according to me. When our subjective truth is so negative, looming and large, as it apparently is in many, it diminishes the objective truth, so much so that it can be difficult to grasp what God says about us. i figure we can either be mind changers or simply be the ones with changing minds. Who are you anyway? And even more important… to whom do you belong… or who’s your daddy?

         i was raised in the southeastern United States… the Bible Belt. After i met the Lord in 1973, for more years than i can count, i was constantly, constantly, constantly told who i was not, what i did not, all that i could not, and everything i would not…i can’t remember but a scant handful of times in the first 30 years of my walk with the Lord that i ever heard anyone tell me how the Lord sees me, other than to say, “He loves you”, then quickly adding not to get too proud about it, lest you prove Prov16:18 true… you know… that part about pride going before a fall… then adding “And brother you’re pretty close so you better watch out!” My world was filled with watch out, be careful, and don’t.

         How long can we live in the subjective truth, the truth according to ourselves, while striving to rise above the constant pointing out that we are sinners? There is an incredible conflict in us which says i’m just an old sinner man and can never rise above my wrongness of character, and the other which is the perspective of God Himself who says we are beautiful and loveable. Maybe, when God says we are made righteous by the blood of Jesus, it’s just too good for most of us to bare… . because i feel badly about myself doesn’t change the fact that Jesus, by His blood on Calvary’s Hill, made those who believe on His name righteous. Just because it seems too good for me to bear, doesn’t make it not true. Romans 8:1, “Therefore, now, there is not even one bit of condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit, that of the life in Christ Jesus, freed you once for all from the law of the sinful nature and of death.” There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

         Yes, we all fall short of the glory of God, great day, haven’t we constantly, day and night, been reminded of just how “no good” we are? What do we do then with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Is it enough? If we’re going to be under the law, of which no man is justified, made free or whole, then all we’ve got left is condemnation. If Jesus satisfied all the law, i must ask the question, Who’s side are you on? If we have tasted the grace of God and gone back to doing the law, the endurance and surrender of Christ is made of no effect and there is no other sacrifice to be made. We are free, by the blood of Jesus and no going back to Egypt allowed, if you catch my drift. We are either in the law camp of condemnation or the grace camp of Jesus.

         Did God speak to you…by His spoken word, through the church, or by His written word? Either way, i believe He certainly has spoken to you, one way or another… therefore, three questions really need to be answered. 1. You need to know, did God, indeed, speak to you? 2. What EXACTLY did He say? And 3. What are you going to do about it?

         i’d like to unfold those three important questions a little bit. There are people who don’t believe God speaks to anyone anymore, which if you take scripture seriously, that is silly. i figure He has a mouth, we have ears, why wouldn’t He speak to His kids? Maybe it’s more that many people think it’s too scary, or maybe they believe they are too low, insignificant, or sinful for God to speak to them… i find it peculiar that it’s not them who can’t hear, but God who doesn’t speak.

         So let’s suppose the Lord DOES speak to us… c’mon, play along… suppose He did. In that case, we’d have to follow His path of possibilities. If all things are possible with our God, as it says in Mark 10:27, then isn’t it possible He has spoken to you? AND… if He was speaking, it seems to logically follow, you’d probably want to better understand exactly what He was saying… right?… because you don’t want to misunderstand, add anything to His words or leave anything out. If He said to clean up your room, you wouldn’t want to turn it into cleaning everyone’s room all the way down the street, when He only asked you to clean up your own room. From there, we must pursue the Lord to know how to take action. He doesn’t talk to us just to hear Himself speak…it is for our benefit. It may take time to understand what to do, so be patient. One time, it took 9 years to conclude what was initially spoken to me by the Lord in a dream… as another example, it was a long time before Abraham and Sara saw the word of the Lord come to pass concerning Isaac.

         i believe a large part of the body of Christ is in the middle of an identity crisis. Our Savior is speaking to us, and one of the primary subjects He is speaking to us about is “Who are you anyway?” We’ve established that the Lord is indeed speaking to us… If you don’t believe it, read your Bible…God’s voice is loud and clear. What else does the Lord say about each of us other than our selective reading which only points out our short fallings?

         Years ago i saw a woman with a Bible in which she had taken a Sharpie Pen and blacked out all the scriptures she didn’t like… she had literally created a redacted Bible. i asked her why she had done that and she replied that some were too good to be true, and others were too cruel to be true and she just wanted to read the moderate parts because she was a very moderate person. Similarly, we can’t read a redacted Bible, only picking out the scriptures that point to our badness, and all our sins… we must read the rest of what God says about us… and those scriptures that seem too good to be true, if we are going to walk in sound doctrine, we must DO something with those verses and no longer continue to ignore them. The Lord HAS spoken to us, we have a record, and at the very least it’s good enough to understand what He’s saying, so now… what will we do with the entire counsel of God? Ummm… tough question there, huh?

         When we are constantly bombarded by information concerning what sinners we are, we can only hear just so many calamitous stories before they set a bias in our minds.  

         Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

         The word “workmanship” is originally a Greek word, “poiema”… it is where we get our English word for “poem”. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are God’s poetry, and if we are His poetry, it just doesn’t seem right for us to call bad what God has called good. If we, who belong to Christ are His poem, His righteous rhyme, and joy, who do we think we are to re-decide what God has declared?

         You, yes you are God’s poetry. He knows all your secrets, all the things you may not want anyone to ever know, yet He still loves you and would still like very much to have a never-ending conversation with you. Yes, i realize that if you were God, you maybe wouldn’t want to talk to someone like yourself, but you aren’t God, He is, and He has chosen to talk to you, that is if you have time. If you don’t have time now, believe me, eventually, you will have time and the Lord will be ready.

         For years, i was under the impression that the Lord was just barely able to contain Himself toward my smaller sins, though numerous and proliferate, but He wasn’t so quick to forgive concerning the larger ones. The implication was that if i didn’t get my act together, God would leave me for reprobate in the desert, so to speak, and there wouldn’t quite be enough of the Savior’s blood which could wash me clean from sin. That is NOT what the Lord says. We must do something with Psalm 103:11-12, “For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, He has removed our transgressions far from us.” It doesn’t say, as far as east is from west until it suits Him to go get them back to use as leverage against us, neither can we go fishing for them to bring them back to make ourselves pay over and over, being filled with regret. That is the way the devil thinks, NOT the way God thinks. Your sins have been thrown into the sea of forgetfulness…but just to be clear though… the phrase sea of forgetfulness is not actually in Scripture. When people mention the “sea of forgetfulness,” they are usually referring to several passages that talk about God’s forgiveness, and how when we are justified in Christ, God forgets our sins so completely that they might as well be buried at the bottom of an ocean. 

          The main passage that contains the idea of a sea of forgetfulness is Micah 7:19, “He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

         Isaiah 1:18, says, “God will make our scarlet sins as white as wool.” A sea of forgetfulness represents a place where our sins are sent so very far away from us, that they can no longer affect us.

         In light of that, the Lord sees you as a son, daughter, beloved, and friend. We’ve got to get the vision… out of our heads that the Lord is some tooth-gritting, raging galactic hurricane that can’t wait to burn desperate sinners, those monsters of iniquity to the ground. THAT is NOT God’s heart. Sure, He is holy and righteous, unwavering in excellence above all the earth, but the problem isn’t the way He sees us, it’s in how we see ourselves. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” A man recently said that Jesus used death to defeat death and became sin for us. He got what He did not deserve, death on a cross, that we would get what we do not deserve, righteousness. If God says, by His son we are righteous, just because we are uncomfortable with that, doesn’t make it any less true.

         C’mon church, let’s get a hold of this and see ourselves as the Lord sees us. 2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” What part of all doesn’t mean all? All means all, not mostly, pretty much, or for the most part, and God is not kidding around. If we’re going to be balanced believers, walking in sound doctrine, then we must take ALL scripture into account, and if we’re going to do that, then we can’t continue to see ourselves as just an old sinner, barely scraping by into Heaven with the faint aroma of sulfur and brimstone on us because we so narrowly missed hell. Hebrews 7:25, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” To barely get into Heaven means all powerful God very nearly couldn’t save us. Is there any part of you that His blood does not cover? If not, that is to say, the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, was insufficient. He could save others, but couldn’t quite save you. Really? C’mon, really?

         That’s absurd. What is it your eyes see that you think God’s eyes do not? Maybe you feel you’ve somehow walked far from the Lord and the world has inserted itself into your thinking… nevertheless, the Lord has not stopped calling after you,

“Come home!” Maybe you’re afraid God will be mad at you. In Is54:9, the Lord says He will no longer be angry with us. i can assure you, having wandered away myself, the true heart of God says, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance”, Luke 15:7.

         Maybe you feel surely you are lost for good, but i can guarantee you, God knows exactly where you are, and you have not escaped His attention… you’re not just some old no-count sinner… don’t call foul what God has declared sanctified… the Father knows His children and calls them by name…and He calls you by name. The Lord is confident in His ability to love you back from the edge of destruction and has made a way for you to find your way home and be welcomed with open arms.

         i read somewhere that your worth and value are not determined by the popular clique group that rejects you! Ultimately, not what YOU think, but what does God think of you… THAT’S where the buck stops… with God. If we’re going to be in a club, all we have to do is believe we are all right and everyone else is wrong. But to be a Christian, we have to believe we are all wrong, and there is only One who is right. If He says you are more than a conqueror, then take Him at His word and believe it. What…have you got… to lose? To say anything is “just” this or “just” that… is a subtle way of belittling, as a result, in the mind of many believers, not only are they sinners, but out of their mouths comes a further belittling of themselves by being “just old sinners”. Start speaking life to yourself in the mirror every day.

         Acts 10:15 has a powerful statement we should apply to ourselves… “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” The word “common”, in this case, means profane. From God’s perspective, if we are His poetry, His beloved, who are we to re-decide His decision, calling ourselves profane? He says we are lovely, we say we are just ugly sinners. God says we are beloved, we say we are just sinners, barely liked, much less loved. God says we are righteous in Christ, we say we are sinners and don’t deserve anything good.

         You can snuff out all the flaming missiles from hell with your shield of faith, and you, yes you are a child of God, born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God which lives and abides forever. Amen. And that’s just a start.

         Because for so many years i went through an identity crisis, over the years i’ve compiled a list of who God says i am. i hope you’ll adopt these for yourself as i have.

         You, yes you can do all things through Jesus Christ, you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power. Did you know you are alive in Christ, free from the law of sin and death? You totally are! You are far from oppression and fear is not part of your makeup. 1 John 5:18 says you are born of God and evil does not touch you… You are made of Holy Ghost teflon and the curses of darkness do not stick to you. Prov 26:2 is the truth, a curse does not stick without a cause, and Jesus has made it so there is no cause for curses to cling to you. Eph1:4 says you are holy and without blame before the Lord in love. We can not curse what God has blessed, just ask Balaam… read his story in Numbers 22. If Balaam couldn’t curse what God had blessed, then we need a different story in our mouths about ourselves than being “just a sinner”.

         You have the mind of Christ, and the peace of God in you passes all understanding… God said so, therefore it is true. 1 John 4:4 says you have the Greater One living in you… confess every day to yourself, if necessary, that greater is He Who is in me than he who is in the world. Tell yourself that as often as necessary until you get it down…in… your… head!

         You really really do have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and, yes, actually actually, the eyes of your understanding have been opened.

         You are a new creation in Christ, new, all new, never been another you like you are now. You are alive in Christ, fully alive, not just barely getting by, and the light of the gospel shines in your mind and heart. You are blessed in your actions and are a doer of the Word of God. Not only are you more than a conqueror, but according to 2 Cor 5:21, you ARE the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. You are either righteous or you’re not… if you’re only mostly righteous then you’re not righteous… according to the Lord, if you believe in Jesus Christ, God calls you righteous… that may seem too good to be true, but it is true because the Lord said so.

         Who are you anyway? Just an old sinner, sludging along like some desperate bunker dweller, or are you who God says you are, an overcomer by the Blood of the Lamb, and an ambassador for Christ? 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellency’s of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

         You are beautiful in the eyes of your Heavenly Father, beautiful and beloved as Jesus is beautiful and beloved. You are blood brother to the Son of God, not some no-count sinner. Lift up your chin church, stand up straight and put one foot in front of another, any day can be your new day to begin walking in your calling.

         Drive carefully this week, think about what you spend your time thinking about. Be consistent and repeatable, we are almost home. Amen, and amen!

Ugh! Mammon! What a word… the more i say it the more the word feels like something very unpleasant in my mouth. The way it is used in scripture speaks of more than just money, which is what most of us have been taught… it is more than just money, it is a heart posture, a soul focus and money is more a result than a cause.

A few years ago the Lord began speaking to me of mammon, what it means, how it impacts things, and why, if Christians are so taken with the Lord, can we get so entangled with this ugly… thing… mammon… it is a real golden calf of sorts. Getting in bed with mammon eventually makes us someone of constant sorrows, afterall, without Jesus, there is no real happiness in the end. And yes, i realize “happy” is a very subjective word, but, God is happy, so i believe His desire is for us to be joyful and happy also.

Mammon elevates us in the moment, it spikes and then trails off in a negative direction… it starts high and then the thrill deteriorates until the next high… like drug use… we spend so much time trying to get back that initial spike of exhilaration, as a result, little by little we, pursue our devotion to stuff, and things, or for some maybe, the possibilities of fame and power, but it never quite becomes as satisfying and delicious as the first time we encountered “mammon”.

In the days of old, if a man was caught being disobedient to a cruel lord of the land, sometimes, the master would have a dead body tied to the living man, and through contagion, which is the communication of disease by direct or indirect contact of dead things with living things, the man would eventually die a terrible death. If we hold “mammon” to ourselves, it will eat a hole in our pocket, and upon laying against us… all the terrible soul-sicknesses will begin to invade us, inserting themselves into our thinking, making us become dull-eared, dim-eyed, and thick-skinned toward the Lord. It won’t be long until we are “distant” from God, and we’ll wonder how we got so far from home… never meaning to have become so removed, yet there we are. Mammon is sneaky and insidious, and hell knows mankind can easily get sucked into an addiction to it.

This evening’s topic is “mammon”, absorbing and grave, personified and opposed to God.

Mammon! It even sounds like something i want no part of…The Lord calls it a way of death. As previously mentioned, it is absorbing, grave, insidious, personified, and opposed to God. Cunning and deceitful, it looks good at first and reassures us all things are well as we are slowly swallowed alive down the vortex of the never-ending gullet of a world without God. Like a child playing with a very dangerous toy, the Lord says to us, specifically and plainly, “Don’t touch that! Mammon and all it represents is bad for you and everyone in the sphere of your influence. Put it down and don’t handle it!” Mammon can easily be represented by the character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when coveting the one ring, calling it, “My precious!!”

Early on, believers in Christ began to use the word “mammon” in a way that expressed contempt and disapproval… it also was used in reference to gluttony, excessive materialism, greed, and unjust worldly gain. Amongst mammon’s subset of qualities is covetousness, which says “i want what i have and what you have too.” Covetousness is idolatry because mammon is idolatry at its core.

Colossians 3:5, “And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.”

Those words, “doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy,” is the foundational attitude representing the idea of mammon.

Go ahead… say the word to yourself a few times… feel the way your mouth makes the letters… the word has a stop in the middle meaning you’ve got to stop saying one thing to start saying something else. To me, it’s just ugly to say out loud. More importantly, watch the vision in your head when you say the word… slowly, several more times… i don’t know about you, but i see dark clouds, encroaching dire gravity, weights not wings, which sing us a lullaby to doze us off while regret grows gently around our feet, binding up our courage and growing roots through the foundations of our confidence… it is like a dark, circumvoluted path that is riveting to our soul… mammon finds life in us like a seed planted in a rock wall… when it grows, roots break down our barriers and eventually tumble our fortress defenses.

The use of the word isn’t so much about what you’ve got, but more what you trust in… the word comes with a leaning toward vices that spring from idolatry and are peculiar to its practices… another word that comes to mind is avarice… mammon breeds covetousness and avarice. Hear this: friends, these are the days of the golden calf, something to worship other than the Lord… glittering, shiny, just… dazzling, and many of us get so lost in the dazzle… money dazzle, eye candy dazzle, everything, even architecture is just dazzling and hypnotic.

Col 3:5, as translated by Kenneth Weust, a noted Christian New Testament Greek scholar of the mid-Twentieth century reads, “By a once-and-for-all act, and at once, put to death your members which are upon the earth: fornication, impurity, depraved passion, wicked craving, and avarice which is of such a nature as to be idolatry;”

There should be an incredibly poisonous snake named avarice which, when bitten, we die an unhalting, slow, agonizing death by which only the blood of Jesus can arrest its continual march to stop our hearts.

The root word for mammon comes from a Hebrew word which means “your treasure, what you lay up or store up.” It’s the same root word for what Isaiah 33:6 calls “treasure”. This is important to understand: A literal translation of the word “treasure” means the head and heart are connected by the things we pursue… i’ll say it again, treasure means the head and heart are connected by the things we pursue.

We all realize there is nothing wrong with “treasure”, but when our treasure becomes our god, now we have problems. The obsession with greed and treasure was so great, many early believers held mammon to be personified as a demon. It was seen as just that powerful.

When we are “near” God, there is no room for the subtle and corrupt things of the world to get a grip in us to grow, but when we are “far” from the Lord, the world inserts itself into our thinking through the cracks in our character, like a snake in the grass, it just slips along until it starts influencing all our thinking. Mammon is about who or what you have confidence in, and in the case of Luke 16:13, Jesus counsels us to either be on the left or be on the right, but we can’t be in both places.

In a believer, mammon breeds chaos. The word Babylon is first used in 1 Kings 17:24, literally meaning confusion and chaos. People who try to do both grace and law, with one foot in the New Testament and one foot in the old, have a heart of Babylon, or confusion… we can’t do the law and grace at the same time. 1Cor15:56 says the strength of sin is the law, and if we have tasted the grace of God which came by Jesus Christ, then according to Gal5:4, we have gone backward and lost our hold on grace. i think Babylon and mammon live on the same street and are close neighbors.

Luke 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Serving the Lord requires the surrender of our worldly ways, humility to get low, and the relinquishing of our past lives for a better one which He will lead us into. This world we live in beckons us to live in such a way, our attitude is: ‘I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” So, don’t worry about anything, you’ll be dead soon, so what does it matter? The Lord says in Prov 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” God doesn’t ask for our heart so He can prevent us from having good things, but so He can position us to actually have good things which cause us to live, not die.

Jeremiah 24:7, “Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.”

Love says, “Give me your heart.” Mammon says, “NO! Give it to me!”

In Jeremiah 24:7 is a word that is the 12th most used verb in the O.T… it’s the word “return”… and better than any other verb, it combines in itself the two requisites of repentance: to turn from evil and to turn toward the good, and that is Godly good, not just good as the world understands. The Lord beckons to us to give Him our heart, yet the world we live in croons to us to join in its dark, godless state and leave the Lord out of everything we do.

If mammon and avarice were a large, corporate service provider, i think their advertisements and sales pitch would sound like this:

“We at Mammon and Company thrive on facilitating a belief system which serves people’s needs… right away. Most have a mortgage, a family, and, according to them, an extremely demanding job. People DON’T want a religion that complicates their lives with unreasonable ethical and moral demands. Mammon and Company has done the research… we find that God requires a huge amount of commitment concerning things like “single-deity” clauses, compulsory goodness, and a never-ending litany of over-spiritualized, mystifying mumbo-jumbo. It’s no wonder people are switching over to Mammon and Company. We know we aren’t the biggest player in the spiritual race, but our ability to deliver on our promises is… well, unique, and our moral flexibility is absolutely unmatchable. Why? Because you deserve to enjoy life – guilt-free.”

That was a parody, but can you hear the insidious, near reasonableness of the creative advertisement? … that is if you don’t think about it, letting the world appeal to your needs, pointing out how you don’t have what you want, and that they can fulfill all your needs, just give mammon your heart.

Love says, “Give me your heart,” mammon greedily says, “No! Give it to me!”

Love says, “Be content with what you’ve got.” Mammon says, “Get everything you can by hook or crook.”

Where is your treasure? Jesus said in Luke 12:34, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Friends, let us cease our efforts to gain prominence, positions, titles, possessions, manufactured personas, and a greedy grabbing for the supernatural. It is the Lord’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, stop being afraid, it is His choice to give it to us. Make a provision from your wealth and give to the poor; provide for yourselves money-bags which don’t deteriorate with use, a treasure which is unfailing, in the heavens, where a thief can’t get in, not even a clothes-moth can destroy, for where your treasure is, there also is your heart.

Many years ago, i was having a hard time sorting out what spiritual direction to go. i wondered where my heart was on some very real issues. As i dropped the plows into the ground one day, over the roar of the tractor i plainly heard the Lord say, “If you can’t find your heart, go look for your treasure… your heart will be laying around there somewhere.” Again, where is your treasure?

Mammon says to grab all you can, get it for yourself, and only share if it means an increase in your profit margin. Most wealthy people aren’t wealthy because they are so generous you know… and that amazingly cool guy that is a Christian music producer…you know, the one who is so interested in your project? Remember, he probably doesn’t drive a fancy car and have a suite on Hollywood and Vine because he’s such a good guy.

1 Timothy 6:7-9, “for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”

Love says, “Be honest and just.” Mammon says “Cheat your own father if you can gain by it.”

It’s always about what you can get, even if you have to step on the neck of the person in front of you.

Love says in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Mammon says to not worry if it is true, who cares if there’s any honesty as long as you’ve got your legal paperwork done, no one really wants justice, purity isn’t relative today; it says life is most beautiful when you’ve got yours and theirs too, always commend yourself first. Mammon says that having what you want when you want is true excellence, and always remember, you and only you are worthy of all praise, you are your own beginning and end… constantly think of these things.

God and mammon are completely opposed. Love says, “Be giving.” Mammon says, “Hold tight to what you’ve got!” Love says open your hand, releasing the provision God has provided to those around you. Mammon says let others fend for themselves. They’ll get what they deserve, and it serves them right.

The Lord says in Proverbs 25:21, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,”

Mammon says if your enemy is hungry, too bad, this is my food and water and you don’t get any… well, unless you want to work a deal… what have you got in mind?

Jesus said in Luke 6:30, “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.” Mammon says take from the one who begs, and from the one who steals, prosecute them till they drop and take all their stuff.

In the “meaning of things”, the dictionary doesn’t give significance to your words, nor is your content and context derived from some approving agencies’ board members, sitting in their high places, vowing and disavowing potential ministers and ministries. In the eyes of the Lord, we are not defined by our stuff, but by Christ who lives in our hearts. If our hands are influenced by mammon, we will have shut up riches and closed hands, we will become narrow-eyed, tight-lipped, and our mind will become darkened and dull… thick-skinned toward the Lord.

In 2001 i was at church one Sunday and as i walked out that afternoon, i had an open vision. In front of my face, as plain as day i say in full technicolor, a man’s hand… it was open, palm up, and had a nail hole at the heel of the hand. The open vision was only for a couple seconds, and honestly, for a moment, i wasn’t sure what had just happened and wondered if i had actually seen what i thought i had seen. When the vision happened, it was like a light blue wind pushed through my person and rocked me backward a little, but yet i had no understanding nor application for the vision. Only in the last 2 years, have i begun to understand what i saw. The Lord has opened His hand to whomsoever will receive from Him.

Matthew 10:8, “… Freely you have received, freely give…” and Acts 20:35, “…. the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

i believe somehow, we typically find ourselves somewhere in the middle between Love and mammon. On one hand, we have a heart to give, and on the other hand, we would really like to have something for ourselves. We say titles and validation don’t matter, but secretly, more than a few wish for those things. Friends, we need to balance the equation, so to speak.

Within us, we have conflicts on many levels that are being allowed to continue unchallenged. A question for us all: How has the love of “stuff” and an idolatrous dedication to possessing whatever we can invade our thinking and being? Think about it.

Love says, “Be anxious for nothing.” Mammon says, “Be careful for everything!”

Luke 12:22-23, “And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” But mammon says to watch every possession like a hawk, be greedy with everything.

The Lord denounces the blind watchmen in Isaiah 56:11, “Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds Who cannot understand; They all look to their own way, Every one for his own gain, From his own territory.”

Do you see it? Driven by the insidious, cunning, deceitful way of death called mammon, those watchmen found themselves in opposition to God. We either have our feet on God’s side, or on mammon’s side, but we cannot straddle the divide with one foot on each side… it tears us apart, and we end up in chaos and confusion.

The contrast of Love vs. Mammon, was something i found, in Matthew Henry’s Commentary. i was so impacted by, what has been called, the simplicity, strength, and pregnancies of the expressions in his short piece on God and mammon, i thought it valuable to bring it up at this juncture.

Love says, “Be careful for nothing.” Mammon says, “Be careful for everything!”, Love says, “Be giving.” Mammon says, “Hold tight to what you’ve got!”, Love says, “Be content with what you’ve got.” Mammon says, “Get everything you can by fair or foul.”, Love says, “Be honest and just.” Mammon says “Cheat your own father if you can gain by it.”, Love says, “Give me your heart.” Mammon says, “NO! Give it to me!”. There is a lot to think about there.

The Lord calls each of us to be anxious for nothing, to be giving and content with what we’ve got, to be honest, to love the truth and justice, and above all give the Lord our heart. We are bid to consider carefully… to choose this day whom you will serve. The ball is in your court… how do you plead?

Be strong and courageous, pray for your neighbor, be a cheerful resource of hope and strength for those who are in short supply, and i’ll talk to you later. Amen.