God has woven the need for justice into the very fabric of creation. Like all ideals however, justice has its greatest value when it is lived out in daily life. Justice is not served only when it suits our whim, and otherwise is cast aside like a used cloth until it fits our purposes again. Justice is a consistent banner that should fly at the top of our flag pole along with truth, and mercy. In many cases the pursuit of justice comes at a price, and each individual needs to determine whether he or she will pay that price. Like honesty’s clarion call, the shofar is blowing in another type of clarion call for justice. Can you hear them?

The call for justice, i believe, resonates across the universe as a universal cry to God for deliverance; a call against the outbreak of sin which kills every bit of matter in the universe due to invasive evil, dishonesty, deceit, and a whole string of really really bad choices. Friends, many of us treat sin as its own beginning and end, but God sees it as sin being the end point not the beginning. It begins with wrongness of character, iniquity, which finds a reason to transgress God’s standards and statutes, transgression, and when iniquity and transgression have done their work, sin is the result.

The plague of sin infected people from birth to expiration date, or from our beginning to the end – every rock, memory, tree, concept and idea, due to sin, are destined to fade and die because of the plague of sin. i believe our true hearts desire is for all things to be made right again, as they were in the beginning – in the beginning, before the decimating disease of sin infected all creation, there was no such thing as death and decay, hatred, lies, deceit or dishonesty. Jesus Christ redeemed fallen man, He balanced our books for those who will believe. Justice, was done, once and for all, when Jesus made a way for all to be reconciled who would believe and call on His name in their day of trouble.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts.

This evening, i’ve decided to begin the discussion concerning the weighty subject of justice. No small topic indeed. i must admit right here and now, it was hard for me. i found myself often being angry because the more i dug into what God intends concerning justice and how my nation actually plays it out is truly an ugly contrast. i did the best i could to present the topic of justice as balanced as possible, but on the heals of that let me add that the aberration of justice in our land is a stench in the nostrils of the Father. With that said, let’s forge ahead.

Man is characterized by his God given ability to contrast and compare, to analyze and understand. God given understanding comes through a right relationship with God, and by that right relationship, by that ability to contrast and compare, righteous justice is done. Our right relationship with the Lord is the door, the point, and the connection to differentiate and separate things in our decision making machine within us, joining spirit and matter. Justice.

As in our conversation of honesty from last week, a very similar question about this also, how do we speak of justice without discussing injustice also? Honesty, truth, and justice are of the same spirit, the same God-DNA, and it’s impossible to have truth without honesty, or justice without truth. It simply can’t be done.

As i made an attempt to write about justice, i realized how much a part of injustice is constituted by deceitful contrasts, dishonest comparisons, and twisted thinking; i thought about how injustice is so often overshadowed by a mouth which speaks one thing while the heart is inclined in another direction. And from the last program, the Hebrew for “deceit” literally means to “steal away the mind” in the sense of saying one thing with our mouth, when we really mean something else in our heart.

Also, it occurs to me that even habitual liars hate being lied to, but if we despise lies and deceit in our society as we say we do, why do we so often tolerate it from our own leadership with seeming indifference? And you know, i think that same leadership sort of counts on us being indifferent, and that’s not good.

Are we, at our core, a just people? Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.” Are we, the church, are we “just” in our heart, do we give right of way to our neighbor? We say we live by faith, but if we are not just, and doing justice, how far will our faith go? From God’s perspective though, being  “straight” or “just” should be the pattern of our lives. We are to be the people who are trained by grace and live in patterns of grace, but also the people who walk straight and live in patterns of justice. From Leviticus the Lord commands us to use right weights and measures, and it was a big deal. The Lord said we are to judge righteously according to the truth not showing partiality or bias. And i’ve gotta tell you, righteousness is only gained through conformity to standards set out in the word of God and we only conform by the blood of Jesus. Remember, “righteous” is a legal term defining our right standing with God by the sacrifice of Jesus. Justice is exacted freely and never ever ever has an eye on gain or wealth. Whether by nations or individuals, righteous conduct can only be gotten by, metaphorically, plowing up fallow ground, sowing in faith in Christ, and reaping the mercy of God. And right there is another pattern which holds hands with justice, sowing righteousness and harvesting mercy.

So, let me ask then, How do you think God views us who say we have faith but do not do right justice? Our government and judicial institutions are absolutely rife with justice for money, and it is a stench in the nostrils of the Father. Friends, to rule on behalf of the wicked for a price is perversion of righteousness, for it takes away the righteousness, the decency and Godlikeness of the righteous.
Do we walk in the ways of the Lord? Hosea 14:8-9 The Lord says, “I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is able to distinguish and understand? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; The just walk in them…” If we as a nation, are not living out a just life because we are just people in right relationship with the Lord, are we walking, as a people, in the rightness and justice of God? No.

Speaking of justice and judgment – are we willing to gather to ourselves the judgement of God? If we didn’t have His judgment, blessing and reproof, we would still be blind and dead in sin. He alone is the only one with a circumspect view of every man and can rightly weigh each person’s life. God is straightforward and is the personification of justice. In fact some scholars believe one of the Hebrew names for the Lord, “Adonai” is derived from a root word which means “to judge”, meaning that in the middle of the Name of the Lord, is the concept and action of righteous judgment.

Isaiah 26:7, “The way of the just is straightforwardness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just.”

Augustine said, “If a man has no order within himself, then there is certainly no justice in an assembly made up of such men.” Oh man!

To further paraphrase, in order for real justice, for righteous justice to happen, it must first begin within ourselves, meaning we must be in subjection to God. Only when this order-of-things prevails in ourselves, can we act justly to others, being consistent and repeatable.

A nation with no justice is a nation who is smeared with the refuse of shame.

Denying our neighbor justice is the same as putting them to shame, and chances are good that if we put our neighbor to shame, then we ourselves are probably clothed in shame also in some fashion or another. Just like war begins inside a man’s heart long before it extends to the world around him, justice begins inside a man’s heart long before it extends to the world around him.

We, as people, are a social bunch, but for true justice to happen in our society, we must first be part of the society formed with God, a just and God-centered society lived through our being rightly related to God. In that just and right relationship comes harmony, unity, internal and social peace.

Does our nation possess those things? If you believe we do not, then what’s at the core of that lack? And i know, it’s easy to just say, “Our nation needs Jesus”, that’s true of course, but i mean something closer to home. If our nation doesn’t possess harmony, unity, internal and social peace, then i must also conclude we as individuals don’t posses them nearly like we think. Afterall, we ARE our nation, and our nation is us. We can’t keep blaming things on the infamous “they”, when “they” is really “us”.

Job 34:17 “Can he who hates justice govern?” Consequently, there can be no right justice without Christ. i know maybe i’ve said this too often, but i think it bears repeating until it sinks in – a nation with no justice is a nation with no peace, and without Christ there can be no justice nor peace.

The classical definition of justice was to “render to each his due,” interestingly, there are those who would say there should be no violence in doing justice. But, in the course of justice, certain people need to be “punished with a certain kind of harshness.” It’s not that punishment shouldn’t happen within the enactment of justice, but more what we cannot do is return evil for evil with a desire for vengeance.

From the book, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagan, written by St. Augustine, “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?  Without justice, those criminal gangs are a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by an agreement like a corporation, in which the spoils are divided according to their agreed on portions.”

Injustice is injustice whether the unjust are paupers or kings. Much of our leadership today is very unjust, but because they are large and we are small, they seem to see themselves above the law. When they act like that they are called government officials, but when we act like that we are called criminals.

Here’s a great little story about a pirate who had been captured and was taken to be judged in front of Alexander the Great. As the story goes, the pirate knew he was about to die, so he just spoke his mind.  The king asked the fellow, “What is your big idea of trying to dominate the seas?”  And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “My idea is the same as yours, dominating the earth!  But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor.” Do you see the injustice of tyrants in that? Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice, Who uses his neighbor’s service without wages And gives him nothing for his work...”

The Lord wants justice and righteousness, literally, to cascade through our lives like a strong and powerful river. Justice is not something the Lord wants to wash through us only when it’s convenient, similar to a fair-weather friend which is like a ditch that only runs full during the rainy season.

What we do in our relationship with God is what we do in our relations with our neighbor – we cannot love God if we do not also love our neighbor. Luke 10:27 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.‘”

If we, as a nation, will not practice justice and righteousness in our courts of law, our national devotion to Christ has fallen short. Notice i didn’t say, “can not” but “will not”, which means much of our leadership, on some level, is probably aware of the need for right relationship with God; they are aware of the need for truth and justice, and it’s not that they can’t come into right relationship with God, but they won’t. Our leadership lives in what i call a “momentary truth”, in other words, what is true for today, may not be true tomorrow. It is a life of “mobile boundaries”.

Right relationship with God is the cornerstone to doing justice, and as we’ve said, a nation with no justice is a nation with no peace, and a nation with no peace is a nation who lacks right relationship with God.

God Himself is at the nuclear core of everyone, we were made in His image, He has enabled everything that is, to be. We need to see God’s intent and His action, the two go hand in hand. In Genesis 1:26 we see the Lord’s intent, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...” and then in Genesis 1:27 we see His action, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”

We often speak of justice, but increasingly, we never seem to get around to taking action and doing justice. In other words, our intentions are good but if we don’t take any action then we’ve done nothing more than think about it. This is the crux of the big deal written about in James 2, if you say you have faith, then show me your works. Like saying, you’ve told me all about your intent, now show me the results of you taking action on your intentions.

Mary Clark, in her paper concerning Justice, writes that, “justice is one of the four main forms of loving God. When we are rightly related to God, we are rightly related to ourselves and to the world around us.”

From that we could conclude, that a nation that is wrongly related to itself, as seen by it’s lack of justice, is a nation that is wrongly related to God. People with a God-relationship, who’s heart is willing to pay the price of justice, has in it’s pockets not only harmony, but unity.  Unfortunately, most of us want harmony but we can’t seem to agree on our means of unity. Hear this: Justice prepares us for the vision of God.

If you’ve got Jesus in your heart, then by the very nature of Him, you have what it takes to be put into action. Here’s a challenging question: Are we willing to pay the price of seeing justice done?

The origination of the word “dynamo” is the Greek word, “dunamis” the same word we get our English word “dynamite” from. Love and compassion should be the dynamo, or “dynamite” of justice for without love and compassion, justice is just law without mercy.

When we do justice out of the Love of God and compassion, we are accomplishing the commandments of God, for Love, as it’s written in Romans13:9-10, is the fulfillment of the Law. “… and whatever other commandment there may be, is summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

As believers, we need to understand that justice is one of the main safeguards of order, peace, and progress. With even scales and balances righteous justice equally favors all and does not press excessively on anyone. Rightly done, justice gives our leadership enough authority to do its legitimate end, while it effectually bars the road to tyranny and violence.

Psalm 50:16-17, “But to the wicked, God says: “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you.”

i’m always amazed to hear people, who disdain the Lord to His face and who don’t even like to have a thought of Him in their mind, when it suits them, suddenly decide to use His name to get justice for themselves. The world hates His instruction, and they throw His words to the ground when it suits them. They pick up His statutes, and handle His covenant when it suits them. It’s always according to a worldly agenda that is all about themselves. To quote Job 34:17 again, “Can he who hates justice govern?” If our leadership has thrown God’s love and words behind them, and mingled righteousness with rebellion, deceit, and dishonesty, again, can those people who hate justice actually govern? If preferential treatment is given to the wealthy, but the poor are cast into prison without much more than a smattering of a trial, is that justice?

i knew a man who had poor boundaries, but his wife was constantly pushing and manipulating, emotionally leveraging everything about their lives in her favor. One day, he lost control, he blew up and got violent, though not doing her any physical harm. The next thing he knew he was in court, did a little jail time, took mandated anger management classes and paid fines with money he didn’t have. The reality is the angry person was his wife, not him.

True, he had boundary problems, but was he truly the violent one? When it all goes to court, all the court saw was another angry man, only assessing the facts, not the truth. Did they really do justice? Did they simply leverage the facts in order to get a conviction? Did the wife feel justified because it was mercy for her and justice for him? Too many attorneys do the right thing only when they’re paid enough; too many prosecutors leverage the facts in excess in order to get a conviction, and too many defenders leverage the facts by omission to get an acquittal, but it seems no one is really interested in the truth, and finding the balance point of justice.

It begins with a right relationship with God. Like all ideals however, justice has value only when it is lived out in daily life. In many cases the pursuit of justice comes at a price, and each individual needs to determine whether he or she will pay that price. Are you willing to pay the price for justice? Think about it.

Honesty is like a clear ringing bell set high on a hill. Similarly, justice is a clear sounding trumpet that needs desperately to be heard. 1 Corinthians 14:7-8 “… how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?”

Jesus is calling us to stand firm in His Name. Standing firm, means a posture that is not in repose, or at it’s leisure. That’s “standing firm”, not “sitting down to fold your hands”. Get up! Take action. It’s not enough to just be on the path, we must move our feet.

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.

The Lord knows your name, so go with confidence this week, doing justice in your house and your community, in the name of the Lord for the cause of Love – it’s the right thing to do. Amen!

Good evening friends, this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the late evening, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers edge and every evening is pleasant. It’s a gentle establishment at the end of Old Field Road, set on a hill with a view all the way to the horizon. Accompanying a little cool jazz is tonights contemplative conversation based around perception, reception, receiving, having understanding, and learning….it’s a thing called wisdom and insight, and man, oh, man do we need some.

Matthew 11:29 (NKJV) “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Running parallel with wisdom is another glorious gift God has given to us, and that is the gift of learning….we can learn. Birds learn, ants learn, even trees can be trained… and what so ever way we train them, whether a tree or a child, that’s the way they will grow, for better or worse. Hey, even fish learn. We don’t need easy, we just need possible, and our God has made a way.

In Matt 11:29 Jesus told the disciples to “learn”. Another way to put it is to know and receive instruction, as in Proverbs 1:2-3 “ To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding, To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity;”

Some key words in that scripture are To receive, to know, and perceive. Proverbs 1:8 says for us to “hear the instruction of your father”, or so to say, listen and learn when your father instructs you. When God says, “Listen to me” or “lend me your ears”, He’s saying, “This is not small potatoes here, pay attention.”

Now, not to capitalize on an old idea too much, but this is a value added perspective for us to pay attention to how often God uses certain words and phrases in scripture. Many times, to know how often God mentions something is to get a good idea of how important He thinks a concept, truth, or idea is for us to grasp. In light of that, the idea of learning, perceiving, getting wisdom, hearing and receiving instruction is mentioned MORE than 250 times in one fashion or another. When God mentions something THAT many times, we need to “give Him our ears”, or listen, perceive, and receive, because, as i understand it, God never tells us stuff just so we can say, “i know”.

If we are learning, we are also teaching. So i have to ask myself then, What are we teaching, and what are we learning? And when it comes to our children, even when we aren’t teaching, we are still teaching by living life in front of them and they are still learning. In a way you could say we are contagious. Tap your toe, dream a little, and we’ll be right back!

In a song by Graham Nash which was released in 1970, there is a line in a verse which says, “teach your children well”. We and all the world around us are learning, even when we don’t know we are learning, we are learning, so we, as believers we need to seriously consider, “What are we teaching?” To reiterate, if there is learning, there is also teaching going on in some fashion.

Being able to learn is a God-thing you know. If God didn’t give us the ability to learn we all might as well be rocks or something mindless and inanimate. And here is a truth and a fact: If God doesn’t give it, we don’t get it.

Like in Numbers 29 when Moses was reciting to Israel all the things the Lord had done and encouraging them to “…keep the words of this covenant, and do them…”, in verse 4 Moses says, “But GOD didn’t give you an understanding heart or perceptive eyes or attentive ears until right now, this very day.” If He doesn’t give it, believer or not, then we don’t get it.

Who is the sole source of wisdom? God. Where does a wise man get his wisdom? God. Who gives understanding to the heart? God. Who opens our eyes? God. Who gives us ears to hear? God. And once we perceive, who gives us insight to understand what we’ve perceived? God. If God doesn’t give it, we don’t get it. There comes first the idea that i am seeing, second i may recognize what i am seeing, and last i understand about what i’m seeing.

There is also a balance to this: i believe everyone is born with the capacity to get understanding as is bestowed on us all by God from the beginning. There ARE extraordinary students and teachers who refuse to acknowledge God, but we need to remember that the Lord makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. But i want to take it a step beyond this world by saying learning is one thing, but we can’t make the most of things solely with what we were born with. Just because we can breath, think, and choose doesn’t mean we automatically know the best choice and actually possess the courage and strength to put it in motion.

Actually putting what God says in motion requires more than just carnal learning abilities. We need Jesus in order to make our understanding and knowledge to go beyond just our brain. We need more than good understanding and knowledge, but God understanding and knowledge.

As was mentioned previously, the Lord takes the idea of teaching so seriously, that the idea of teach, teaching, being instructed, and giving instruction is mentioned over 270 times. Teachers are like pruners, they train the vine and gently cause it to prosper in order to make it more fruitful. Teaching is such a big deal to God He even mentions in James 3:1 saying “don’t let many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” or “held to a higher standard”. Are we careful who we listen to? Do we check the instruction of teachers comparatively against the Bible or do we just take someone’s word for scriptural accuracy? C’mon, we can’t allow ourselves to become so complacent that we cease to check out what we allow in our eyes and ears. We can’t take the word of a friend of a friend concerning what the Lord says and means. i consider it irresponsible to take the word of someone just because they have published books and speak a lot without checking out what they are presenting as wisdom. If someone comes to your church and tells you the way to build a bigger better church is to squeeze the people, pounding them constantly about giving money, money, money, something is off with that and we must have some wisdom about what to do.

2 Peter 2:1 says there will be false teachers amongst us who bring in heresy or a “wasting disunity”. The Lord is saying, “Be careful what you see little eyes, be careful what you hear little ears, be careful little mouth what you say, be careful little hands what you do, be careful little feet where you go, and be careful little heart what you love.”

At this point i think it prudent to mention four basic guidelines for sound doctrine that we should use as a check and balance system: 1) Sound doctrine applies to the entire Body of Christ, 2) Sound doctrine should be by two or more scriptures for Deuteronomy 19:15 says “…by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.”, and 3) Sound doctrine is based on the entire Bible, cover to cover, not just select feel good verses, just the O.T. or just the N.T., but cover to cover. And 4, all scripture is relevant and necessary for the edification and instruction of the Body of Christ today. Rom15:4  “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

In light of those guidelines, when we employ them…. they are easy to put to work in all our getting wisdom and knowledge as it’s driven by the standard of God’s righteousness and the Bible. The world certainly has very fluid standards and, what i call, mobile boundaries, so we shouldn’t be willing to define right and wrong by such worldly subjective standards. We need to get knowledge and wisdom from a better source. And wouldn’t you know, it just our good fortune that Jesus Christ has made a way us to approach the sole source of imagination, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in the universe, God Himself, and absolutely anyone can come to God through Christ. Lend me your ears! This is a good thing. Get wisdom and instruction for yourself from the best place, GOD! Be wise and learn well.

Proverbs 9:9, “Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser; teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.”

i’ve often thought that for me personally, being wise enough to know wisdom and understanding when i see it would be truly wonderful because over the years i’ve felt i’ve missed many of God’s gold wisdom nuggets. Although i may have missed the opportunity, in His continuous faithfulness, they weren’t gone and He brought them back around, but truly, i would like to get better at perceiving and receiving instruction from my righteous source. When wisdom knocks on our door, do we even perceive it, or is it just obscure to our eyes and fuzzy to our ears? How many men and women have married the wrong person, and the Lord really was extending them wisdom and flags of warning, but they simply weren’t in a frame of mind to hear and see?

i fear many are sleepy eyed, they hear the lullaby of the world and it sings softly to them that it’s ok to doze off for a while, and in the mean time, while they’re asleep, the world is changing. The dazzle of this world fills their senses, and often, Jesus, the wisdom of God is right under their noses and they don’t know it, and i don’t mean just those who are lost and undone either. Sleeping people don’t learn well, nor do they teach anything but how to sleep.

i heard a man say once ‘One of the things we’ve learned from history is that we don’t learn from history.’ There is understanding and wisdom to be learned from history, and all i can think is we and our leaders aren’t accepting the God-activated gift of learning, which takes life to a whole new place. H.P.K.R. – Hear, perceive, know, and receive.

It seems to me we take for granted the opportunities to learn as God places circumstance after circumstance in front of us. Maybe we have become complacent to change and the chance to expand & grow. Like the elderly man who finally took up the notion to own a computer and learn to use it. He went about it like a man with a new car, he purposed to learn about his new tool. Do we listen to the Lord with the same enthusiasm, lending Him our ears, looking diligently for the work of the Lord so we can go join Him in it? Not only do we come into this world with the ability to learn, when we let Jesus into our lives, suddenly our ability to get instruction and wisdom is supercharged!

We can begin getting wisdom and receiving instruction by cultivating a mindset of faith and trust in Christ…and that very simple intent of our heart leans us towards embracing the endless possibilities within the relationship with our beloved; being instructed and learning from the Living God ignites creative thoughts, pushes past our current limits and comfort zones, engages us in a deeper purpose than just serving ourselves, and makes us fully alive.

Jesus told the disciples to “learn”, “ To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding, To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity”… God’s teaching and our learning causes us to come completely awake— He makes us to thrive consciously. Amos 5:6, “Seek the Lord and you will live,” He was not just speaking of eternity. He was speaking of living life right now. And, conversely, isolate yourself from the love of the Lord, and you will join the living dead, or those without Christ….you know, people can’t say they are genuinely alive just because they are not medically dead.

We cannot be fully alive if we treasure our hatred more than we treasure the Love of God, Jesus Christ. Anyone who is so thoroughly tied to the past, their disillusionments, and disappointments doesn’t love history, but might very well simply be escaping the present. We have to teach our children well and be present in the room. In order to teach well we must learn well. i can’t give away what i don’t have, and if i don’t possess knowledge, understanding, or my gifting is imaginary, i can’t give it away. Sort of like a man who has chicken pox but he tells everyone he has measles. It doesn’t make any difference how loudly he tells everyone he has chicken pox, the only thing they can catch is measles. We can only give away what we’ve actually got, and if, by God’s revelation and insight, you realize you don’t possess wisdom and insight, go to God and get something better. Ask Him to cause you to have a better attitude and to have right things to give away that others would prosper and be fruitful.

It is difficult to maintain our momentum in Christ if we are dishonest, disingenuous and hypocritical. If we live in our own false little world where we attempt to create reality with our lies, we will become dull and will live like tarnished silver. The truth sets us free to be who we are rather than who we fabricate ourselves to be. We have to teach our children well, thus we, ourselves have to learn well. Jesus said in Matt 11:29, “Learn from me”. Know, perceive, understand and receive, let’s give the Lord our ears. We pray “Lord teach us that we may prosper!” Think about it.

Wisdom isn’t just knowledge, but “know how.” God’s wisdom enables us to “know how” to do things, and includes having the ingenuity to formulate a plan and then to carry it out in the most efficient manner. Even if you think you’ve got plenty, get some more, because obviously if you think you’ve got enough, the truth is you’re in short supply.

This has been Outposts, a little bit of well spent time with cool jazz and contemplative conversation. This program has been brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, Sinclair Men’s Wear on main street, service in step with southern progress at Best Radio and TV, Eddie over at Area 22 Guitars, and Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.

According to Ephesians 4:21-24, if we hear God and are taught of God, then we are empowered to put off our old conduct and are renewed in our spirit and mind. Learning, God-activated learning teaches us how to put on the new creation we become, in true righteousness and holiness.

Give the Holy Spirit your ears, surrender to Him your eyes, teach your children well. Thanks for joining me, drive carefully, watchout for the other guy, and we’ll catch up next time.

Justice and judgment are built into the Name of the Lord. They are only two of many Holy attributes which comprise His character. In the Lord alone is the capacity to render to everyone their due with unbiased scales, i call them the righteous “scales of God”. He is God and His justice and judgment are righteous and final. Like in Daniel 5, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, God gave Daniel the interpretation, wherewith the Lord revealed that the King had been weighed on the scales of justice and found wanting. The Lord God, Almighty, is indeed the judge of the quick and the dead. Who are the quick and who are the dead? Maybe the fast and lazy? Hmmmm, yea, i think more.

According to God, who is the personification of truth – just because we breath doesn’t mean we are alive. Just because God gives each person the right to breath and choose doesn’t mean we possess life or are in the family of God, nor does it mean He knows our name. In Matthew 7 there will be many who will declare they did this and that in His Name, but He will say “I never knew you.”

Contrary to popular belief, when our lives are over, there will not be several alternatives to choose from. Hebrews 9:27, “…man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” Standing before Almighty God, each will know His judgment is right and just.

With faith in the Son of God, grace balances the scales-of-God and it is well with our soul. Without Jesus in our lives, grace is not added and the dead, or those without Christ, will be found wanting. Simple as that. With Jesus, we will live. Without Jesus we are already dead and just don’t know it. God’s judgment and justice was, is, and will be right, and there is never a time when He it is not.

i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts. This program is a continuation of last week, so, hang with me.

In Isaiah 59:14-15 there are four which go together, justice, righteousness, truth, and honesty. It is not possible, is not possible to have justice without truth and honesty, neither is it possible to have Godly kindness without compassion. Where ever justice is, truth and honesty are always nearby.

Righteousness and our being able to come to Godly conclusions is born out of a life surrendered to Christ and being in a right relationship with Jesus and with ourselves. If we can’t tell ourselves the truth, it is a high probability we will have increasing difficulty telling anyone else the truth. Without the Godly character traits of truth and honesty, justice is driven back and is only a distant vision.

In Psalm 89:14 the writer declares rightness of character, and a right verdict as building blocks in the foundations of God’s throne. When justice is missing, concern for others is missing. God is both a God of justice and a God of love. Psalm 89:14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.”

One of several earmarks of injustice is a lack of concern for others, and that earmark can be seen through the idea of “entitlement”. Not all forms of entitlement are wrong, like having the expectation of a response from those who are important to us, or that we are entitled to having our own feelings. But when entitlement becomes inflated and we expect special favors or special compensation because we have money, come from an important family, have a higher education, or have a special job or title, now we’ve got problems. i knew a doctor many years ago who was disgusted with his wealthy patients. One day he told me that some even called him in the middle of the night and expected him to come to their house when they mandated, all because they were important and were wealthy. As people, it’s easy for us to carry that chip on our shoulder because things didn’t go well when we were children, we’re a different color, or our family was poor or had fallen into dishonor, or shame somehow. We have learned to be excellent victims demanding our society and government give us special treatment because we’re so put upon.

Many seem to feel they have the “right kind of history” therefore they feel entitled to benefits which never seem to filter down to the quote unquote “lesser people”. The wealthy can afford the political and bureaucratic influence of a well-connected attorney, therefore they get preferential treatment, and those of lesser resources tend to get lesser justice, because the little people, obviously, don’t have the “right kind of history”.

Here’s some real prejudicial, biased, unjust thinking: some seem to really believe that if the poor had the “right kind of history” they wouldn’t be poor…that’s just straight out wrong. The poor, those with the, supposed, “wrong kind of history”, will always be with us, and that’s because the wealthy, with the, supposed, “right kind of history” will also be with us. Do you see the injustice in that? Can you hear the Spirit of the Lord calling for us to stand up, let go of our value judgments based on a personal prejudice, and do justice?

As it stands today, those with the perceived “right kind of history” get one kind of justice, and those with the “wrong kind of history” get another kind of justice. From God’s perspective, without Christ, everyone and everything has the “wrong kind of history”, Romans3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” But in His mercy, Jesus died and rose again to bring justice against death, hell, and the grave, that we who have “the wrong kind of history” could find justice through faith in the Only Begotten Son of God.

Justice isn’t vengeance like boundaries are not rejection. It isn’t returning evil for evil. Justice does not require that we be absolved of our wrong, but more places us in a position where we can receive mercy. Paul quotes Jeremiah 31:34 in Hebrews 8:12 saying “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Because God remembers our sins no more does not remove from us the responsibility of our actions and behaviors. There is the justice God worked through Jesus concerning us and sin, and then there is the justice that needs to be satisfied concerning the conflict within ourselves with ourselves which inspired us to be led astray to begin with. Do you believe it’s possible that a wounded conscience is capable of doing justice without a selfish bias, when everything about us wants to bias everything in our own favor?

In God’s design, He has promised genuine forgiveness to anyone (criminal or otherwise) who comes to Him. For some who have the “right kind of history”, finding justice is like finding sand at the beach, it seems just easy-peezee. But for many, many others, finding justice is more like finding diamonds at the beach, meaning justice is a rare event.

Retaliation is part of the pattern that has prevented countless cases from being reported and investigated, exacerbating justice. An incredible percentage of victims who reported being attacked say they faced some kind of retaliation afterward.

In 2008, in Sichuan China there was an earthquake that measured 8.0, government-built schools that were only a few years old collapsed, killing most students in them, while nearby buildings remained standing. The government refused to make a thorough investigation. Parents suspected the cause was lax building regulations resulting from corruption, and when the parents banded together, pooling their money to purchase legal counsel, the lawyer representing the parents was arrested and imprisoned.

A 19-year-old lance corporal was stationed at a Marine base in Japan when her sergeant laced her drinks with drugs, raped her and then dumped her on the street at 4 A.M. She reported it to her superiors but little happened. She said she discovered her perpetrator was allowed to leave the Marine Corps and she found herself, instead, at the center of a separate investigation for drug use. Six months later, she was kicked out with an other-than-honorable discharge – one step below honorable discharge – which means she lost her benefits.

What do these two stories have in common? Injustice. In 2012 alone, sexual assault in our military was at a staggering 26,000 men and women, but even though reported, the paper work was somehow mysteriously lost in the system and no one in our leadership made any serious moves to prosecute the perpetrators. Many were afraid to report those crimes because they feared retaliation, neither did they believe they would ever get justice.

We, as believers, must ask ourselves the question – What is the payoff for our non-involvement and not doing justice? Why don’t we speak up? Silence is not always golden, you know. Do we the church have a secret agenda we fear might not happen? Recently i heard of some folks in a local church body having a hard time. They went to the pastor to see if there was any help, wherewith the pastor told them they were just being manipulative, coming in there all sad and looking for help. In the mean time, the church held a banquet where they asked for donations in addition to the normal tithe in order to get enough money to build a $1million dollar building. The troubled family who was accused of being manipulative because they asked for help took a stand saying, “You didn’t mind asking all of us for money and we’re supposed to act like it’s just business as usual. But the moment any of us are desperate and need help, you send us packing, accusing us of being manipulative.”

Are we afraid of retaliation meaning the cost of doing justice is too high for us? Why do we not fight for the injustice towards a parent who is suffering a cruel verdict by the court and a vindictive spouse? There MUST be some sort of payoff for us seeing as how we tend to drag our feet about getting involved with correcting the injustice in our nation. What is your payoff for not getting involved?

Luke 11:42, Jesus said, straight out and obvious, “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.” Jesus tied love, mercy and justice together. Romans 13:10-12, “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

For us, as the Body of Christ, to be so involved with ourselves and our agenda and entitlements that we let honesty, truth, and justice ebb away from us really does not speak well of us.

We comprise the “quick” among the quick and the dead. The quick are those in Christ, and the dead are those without Christ, and don’t you know that even the quick will come before the Lord to be reckoned with. The earliest meaning of ‘quick’ had nothing to do with speed, it meant ‘endowed with life’, or more simply, ‘alive’. To ‘quicken’ was to receive life and the first movement of a baby in the mother’s womb was called the quickening. i repeat, just because we breath and choose doesn’t mean we are alive. With Christ we live, without Christ we’re dead and don’t know it. Are you ready? 1 Peter 4:5, “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”

Stanley Milgram said, “With numbing regularity good people are seen to buckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that are callous and severe. Men who are, in everyday life, responsible and decent are seduced by the trappings of unjust authority.” Most of us don’t want any trouble, we just want to get along and be happy. i think most are afraid that if they stand up and speak out about injustice, whether it’s for the quick or the dead, they will be set in the middle of turmoil and trouble. But let me add this, if we DON’T stand up in the face of injustice, we will end up in more trouble and greater turmoil than if we do nothing.

i believe a substantial proportion of people simply do what they are told to do, regardless of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority, thus we see multitudes of people who are busy qualifying themselves in the eyes of others. Friends, there are some really bizarre doctrines being taught in our churches, and so many just believe whatever they’re told because after all, “The pastor said so, so it must be true.” Jesus said in John 5:31 –”If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.” If a non-brand name person speaks the truth, it seems no one can hear them. But if someone with a title who openly qualifies themselves speaks the same thing, suddenly everyone agrees and calls their words the truth, or even “the word of God”. What is up with our addiction to brand name people and being almost blindly obedient? It’s almost as if we can hear “brand name” people but somehow, we can’t quite hear God. There is nothing more difficult to deal with than the blind who don’t know they are blind, or the dead who don’t know they are dead.

Blind obedience is an aberration, it does not take into account the unrighteous actions that follow the authoritative demand. Once, when filling out some paper work, a pastor encouraged me to lie in order to be sure the paperwork was approved. When i asked another friend who was head of an international mission organization what he thought i should do, he suggested i simply do what i was told. Yes, he actually said that, “Just do what you’re told.” Just incredible! In that moment, the Holy Spirit encouraged me to leave their counsel out of my life.  When we are blindly obedient, leaving justice, truth, honesty, love, and mercy out of our decision making machine, i say, Checkmate! The devil wins. Is that really what we want? If not, then we must take action and get involved.

In recovery programs, there is something called, “Play the whole movie”. Meaning, don’t just see the part where you look good or are the hero and feel validated and important, look further, take a moment and !think!, play out the entire movie of where your actions take you. See the repercussions of your behavior in the long run. Where does our not being involved with justice take us in the long run? Play the whole movie. Where does our not loving honesty and truth take us in the long run? Again, i say play the whole movie. If you think it’s too ugly to imagine because you want everything to just be moonbeams, candy canes, and merry-go-rounds, i say, c’mon children of God, get a grip! This is no fooling around!

A fellow said to me once, “Justice is often born when one oppressed person says “NO”: NO. I will not go to the back of the bus. NO. I will not be silent before the king. NO. My country is a sovereign nation, not a colony. NO. Human trafficking must not be tolerated. NO. I will not be denied my right to vote. NO. I am a parent, not a paycheck. NO. You may not indiscriminately take my children. NO. We may not lie in court for vengeance and hatred. NO. You may not just take my house or listen to my private conversation, i have the right to privacy and to own my own property. I believe in free speech, but not freedom from consequences. We can say what we want, but we do have to be responsible for the words of our mouth and actions of our lives. I believe in civil rights and i also stand firmly concerning civil responsibilities too. We can stand firm for our own, but we must also stand firm for others also. Too many are good with whatever happens as long as it doesn’t happen to them, and church folk are no different.

We can’t wait on someone else at church to do the basic things of faith while we sit in our lawn chairs, drink our mint julep’s, and pretend all is good. Justice doesn’t just happen. In fact, NOTHING just happens! Highly prizing the truth and honesty even to our own hurt is called maturity.

The hour has come for us to wake up from our slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. Let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Ephesians 5:13-14 “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Think about it.

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.

Isaiah 26:19, “You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning.” The time to get up and be involved is upon us. We are more than conquerors and live in the super-abundance of grace, as given to all who believe in Jesus Christ. We are the quick of the “quick and the dead”. It is high time to wake up and love truth, honesty, and justice. Be silent no longer my friends. Let me say again, silence is NOT always golden.

Joel 3:9 “Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors!” i say Wake up oh sleeper, wake up! Gird your loins, tighten your belt of truth, step up to the plate and let out the word of God in your heart.

Do justice this week and don’t draw back. Be honest with yourself and your neighbor, and if you can’t be honest, have the courage to get at the root of what it is which constrains you. Be strong and courageous!

          Deuteronomy 31:8 “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

To what or whom do you turn when you’re in the middle of a terrific storm or experiencing a terrible loss? Someone? No one? Anyone? Are there any truly safe people in your life who would comfort you in your time of need as opposed to someone who is inspired to review how you fell short and could have done things better? i think most of us tend to first look to what we know, like someone or something that has helped us in the past. Sometimes though, trying to get hold of what seemed to work before… just doesn’t resolve anything and we keep coming up empty handed. In the late hours, sitting, searching, and thinking … we walk the paths of our remembrances, we talk to a spouse, a parent or friend… they mean well but, often it seems their counsel is almost cliché, appearing to, offhandedly, say things like, “Just give it to God my friend”, or “Your loved one is in Heaven now, looking down and smiling on you.” Let me say again, they mean well, but maybe an understanding smile, or a silent hug many times is a much better reply. Most of us, i’m sure, appreciate the friendship offered us, but truthfully, we would like something a little more solid. Honestly, we want an answer, even when we aren’t too sure of the question.

Our national news and media service give the feeling of working to cut the Christian faith off at the knees, but after a careful inspection, i find the Bible is a lot more solid than its critics and even many of its advocates realize. It has consistent lines of thought we can base our lives. If we look and are willing to put God’s directions into motion, we will find solutions to life’s most difficult situations. God’s justice and mercy, his offer of eternal life, the source of faith, hope, wisdom, strength, and love, it’s all there.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

You’re not here reading this just because you “happen” to be tuned in. No no no. Nothing just happens and the truth is, i seriously doubt there is actually any such thing as happen-stance. This evening’s topic is about one of the Lord’s attributes, which is comfort and consolation. He is called the God of all comfort in 2Cor1:3. In the spelling of the Hebrew word for comfort and consolation, in it’s very root is the idea of God’s support toward those who breath strongly for sorrow, and weeping in grief. He is compassionate and kind to sad and weeping hearts and is the master of consolation.

There was a time in my life many years ago when i seemed far from the Lord. It wasn’t the Lord who moved, it was me. i had lost the focus on my life’s point of convergence and, like a boat untied from its moorings, i ebbed, obliviously, farther and farther away from Jesus. When i came to myself, i was in a panic in my heart. i felt in danger. i know that sounds odd maybe, but it’s the best way i can think of to describe what was going on. Feeling vulnerable and in danger, i turned to my Bible in an effort to re-center on Jesus, the source of my peace. Psalm 94:19, “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”

When life confronts us with terrible loss and we can’t seem to find our feet again, God’s offer of comfort and consolation stands unwavering. It is not God WAS the God of all comfort, but He IS the God of all comfort and the declaration in 2Corinthians will never fade, that is always true. A.W. Tozer said, “The word of God once spoken… His word never ceases to be said.”

In our society today, in our nation, from the Chief of Staff to the saddest street person imaginable, we all seem to have a need to blame someone for everything. In almost every news report of tragedy and sadness, the media service is always on a witch hunt to find out who was responsible and who is to blame for travesty and badness.

Know this, it wasn’t God who did this to you. And yes, He did know those things would happen to you, God knows the end from the beginning, but His knowing isn’t His determining. Catch that and let it sink into your ears, God’s knowing is NOT His ordaining.  Just because He knew i would skin my knee, doesn’t mean that God ordained that i should skin my knee. Similarly, just because He knew unfortunate things would happen to us doesn’t mean He designed and implemented those things to happen. And if God didn’t set those things in motion, who does that leave? If the Lord isn’t the one whispering doom to you, then who does that leave? That’s right, it’s not God, and it’s not you, so who does that leave?

When confronted by inconsolable loss, consider our examples from the Bible: Job 6:10 says faith is a consolation: “Then I would still have this consolation– my joy in unrelenting pain– that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.”

David writes in Ps119:50, “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” and vs 76 continues, “May your unfailing love be my comfort.”

Isaiah wrote in chapter 49, vs 13, “For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.”

God speaks to his people in Jer31:13, “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.”

The Lord knew that even the kindest words are not consolation enough when we are pressed by death and loss, as a result, He went the next mile and sent his Son to save us, and sends his Spirit to bring us to him. Jesus IS our consolation.

Jesus told his disciples, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

It seems to me that we have often heard the words of Jesus as if He were making a speech or something, but do you think maybe His words in Matt5:4, were not just a speech but more a sincere offer to do just exactly what He said? His words were not part of some speech to gain support, raise money , or gain a following. He was and is making an offer in that He’s offering to help comfort us now if we will turn to him, yes, if we would only turn to him and say, “Is that offer still good?” Or how about, “Lord, i’ll take you up on that offer of comfort, ‘cause i could sure use some.” He is never too lofty to hear, and we are never too far out of plumb to call.

From the beginning of the Bible to now, Christ appears though out Scripture as the Great Consoler. He makes His offer of consolation to us again and again from the first to the last book. Revelation 3:20, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” When Jesus enters in with us, there is consolation and comfort for weary souls, for our wounded and sad hearts.

Within the word “comfort” is the idea of raising up the faithful by the Lord’s strong right arm and divine support… there is hope.

Jesus IS our consolation, for the nails which pinned our Savior to the cross are significant to the grace connection of Heaven and earth… and in that connection is comfort for those alone in the dark… we don’t have to weep in the dark any longer.

Seeing as how God’s word for “comfort” is closely allied to His word for “mercy”, we can conclude that by His mercy, He extends us comfort and consolation. Through His covenant with us there is something for us beyond our sad circumstances; the action of consolation and comfort grows new beginnings out of the ashes of burned out lives, God’s divine comfort breaths life, the rising springs of water of God’s refreshing which He brings to us. When we allow Jesus to comfort us our eyes can see God’s supernatural strong right arm, and His presence and support become evident. Did you hear all that? It is beyond the simple Miriam-Webster dictionary blurb, which once again doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what God has for us. Jesus IS our comfort, and by His strong, supernatural right arm, He draws us near to Himself, and wipes the tears from those who weep.

Psalm 94:19, “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.” Luke 2:25, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

Again, Jesus, Himself IS our Consolation. Sufficient comfort and consolation is possible when we begin by seeing Jesus as Comfort, and Consolation personified- the same way we see Him as “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Jesus isn’t just “a way”, He Himself is the way; He doesn’t just know the truth, He Himself IS the truth; and finally, He doesn’t simply have life, He Himself, is Life. To carry it on, He is our comfort, consolation personified.

Luke 11:3, “Give us each day our daily bread.” i bet most people think that verse has something to do with asking the Lord for bacon and eggs every morning, or at least something about getting food, but that’s not what the Lord is saying. It means that Jesus IS our daily bread and can be understood as “our daily bread”, in the same way He is our consolation and can be understood as “our comfort” in this life.

John 6:51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

i met a woman last week who was raised by her drug addicted mother and an abusive grandmother. When she grew up, after many failed relationships, she had a child, a beautiful baby boy. As a young single mom, she gave her life to Christ, and things were better than she had ever known. She worked hard, and as a result, she had a baby sitter keeping her child. Tragedy struck when she got the call that due to abuse and neglect by the sitter, her child died, she was alone in the world again. From her perspective, God and her child were the only ones who had ever loved her, and not only was the child gone, but she felt far from the Lord and self-medicated to find some relief. 20 years later she was still an emotional wreck … she couldn’t hardly get 10 words out of her mouth before the tears just started pouring from her eyes. Can you imagine living like that for 20 years? She had prayed many other times, but i guess the day we prayed wasn’t going to be like any other days. When we prayed for rest and consolation on that day, 20 years after her child died, something shifted. The air got sweet, and bright; there came the faint smell of vanilla and grapes in the room, and suddenly, she brightened and laughed, and said through her tears that Jesus was inside and out, and she felt light. Jesus came near and comforted her wounded heart. Interestingly, in the time of her visitation, she said God had made her to know some wisdom, He said, “Of course, I don’t want you to forget your little one, but it’s like a newspaper…what happened 20 years ago cannot be allowed to continue to occupy space on your front-page news every day. I will not forget him or you, but let Me put your memory of him in its rightful place, and you and I can get on with your life.”

Jesus was her comfort. She could either continue to weep in the corner or let Jesus comfort her heart. The future will come, one way or another. Jesus changed her mind and heart. God truly is the Lord of comfort.

           Hebrews 7:24, “…but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he ever lives to intercede for them.”

Psalm 16:11, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

God’s consolation and comfort is not just for us to hide away. i mean, yes, it is for us, but also for us to give away to others. If God gives you something, it is also yours to give away too. If we look up consolation in Webster’s Dictionary, we’re handed the silly definition of “to console”, right… like we didn’t know that already. So, to continue on, if we look up console, it says, “see comfort”. Now, i want you to know, from God’s perspective comfort is NOT consolation. In scripture they are two different words, although sometimes the translators exchanged comfort for console, and sometimes even translated “console” as “repent”. Ultimately, the buck stops with God and from His perspective “console” and “consolation” mean >> God, who is our shelter, supports us in our times of need with truth and grace, with truth and grace nailed to support by way of the cross of Jesus. He literally breaths deeply after us with a physical display of compassion. We can see His consoling heart in Hosea11:8 “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim (tseb-ee-yeem’)? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” Interestingly and additionally, within the word “console” and “consolation” there is a tension of encouraging others to come home.

The Lord comforts us in our sorrows so that we may console others.  I don’t know all of the answers or the reasons there is suffering in this world. Although i personally have suffered some terrible things just like you… most of us understand very little about the mystery of suffering, but what i do know about suffering is that it reduces everything to its lowest common denominator, and in the middle of life’s vicious circumstances Jesus is our comforter and consolation, without fail. Some other things i know about suffering are that it adds meaning and dimension to even the smallest things, it reduces culture to a classless society, it teaches us to grow. Lastly, in the middle of suffering we don’t realize how much courage we’ve got until all our options are done and there are no others. Opposingly, we don’t realize how powerless we are until all efforts are spent and yet the situation remains the same.

Rest your hope in the person and power of Jesus Christ, for He has proven Himself faithful throughout the history of His people. He has not left you to suffer alone, but provides you with comfort in His Son. God calls troubles “light affliction, which is but for a moment.” Sometimes it truly is challenging during our difficulties, but God sees around corners. We are encouraged to look not only at what is presently happening, but to look at things which are not seen, using insight and foresight, understanding present and future spiritual realities. God is present always, and already has a solution to every problem. He is faithful to always provide a way of escape so believers can patiently endure, and cast their cares on Him knowing He cares for them. Think about it.

           The Holy Spirit and the Word of God give us comfort, and God’s consolation and comfort is strengthening, encouraging, inspiring and gives hope. God’s comfort is not given so that people can just sit around, as one friend would say, “waiting, wishing, wanting and whining,” but rather to get busy, live for Christ and move forward in faith.

The Lord is God of all comfort in 2Cor1:3. In Jesus is kindness and support toward those who breath strongly because of sorrow. He has comfort for those who weep in grief, who sit in a corner and cry softly. He is compassionate and kind to sad and weeping hearts and is the master of consolation.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.”

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.

If we have nothing to rely on, or we forget our blessing and sink into our circumstances, thereby becoming circumstantial, then discouragement begins to take hold. We need hope and peace. Be encouraged because the Lord is there with us in our affliction, and is not leaving us unloved or uncared for. It’s time to re-focus on Jesus, amen.

How is it we can do so many things God asks us to do and yet, for many, we have seemingly no clue about who He really is? i mean, we say we do, and of course we actually do to a degree, but really getting to know the person whom we say we love takes time and patience. Our abilities to observe and reason must change from the way we understand the world to understanding someone who is not of this world, bigger and better than anyone we can imagine. Like an infinitely faceted diamond, there is so much of the Lord Himself to know about, i can’t help but think that if we actually knew Him better, our difficulties and problems would be seen with such a shift in perspective they would become insignificant to the point where we would truly be willing to endure anything to be where our lover is.

What is that old song from back in the 50’s, “Getting To Know You”….you know the one:

(part of tune “Getting To Know You”, Julie Andrews)

How should that old love song NOT apply to our relationship with Jesus? The lyrics seem to fit so well. So just how does one get to know God, and why would anyone really want to know, who *I* think is, the most wonderful, worthy, loveable person, in the entirety of forever, Jesus?

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the late night, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers edge, the fire fly’s are out by the billion, and every evening is pleasant, peace is our cornerstone.

Cool Jazz and contemplative conversation is our format, i hope you enjoy this Friday evenings content. We’re venturing out into the deep waters of “Getting to Know God”, why would you want to do that, and the benefits of knowing Him. Stand by, refresh your coffee, tap your toe, dream a little, and we’ll be right back.

Matthew 14:23 “When the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.”

Spending time with God is THE key to developing the essential and vital relationship with Him we all so desperately need. Just simply being involved with God gives us the tools we need to meet the difficulties of life in general. i’ll be the first to say, hanging out with God is the greatest joy of my life, but it’s not an easy sort of thing to do, not because He is difficult, but because *i am* difficult. Regardless, we need to develop the discipline of spending time alone with God—He is the fertile soil, we are rooted in Him, and grow we must. The Lord is interested in us all becoming mature children, and if we are to mature then we must do the work of growing. i need Jesus to grow and so do you …. as no one is an island unto themselves, neither are we able to grow in Christ by ourselves.

Luke 2:40 says very plainly, speaking of Jesus, “And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace (favor and spiritual blessing) of God was upon Him.”

Jesus grew and we must grow also.

i suppose it would be easy to ask the question: “What’s in it for me?” The “what about me” crowd seems to, foundationally, be interested in a relationship with God, but it’s overlaid with a heart posture that wonders what they get out of it, always measuring the profit margin. Friends, it is a “relationship”, not a pecking order …. a “love relationship” is not a merit/demerit system…… the word “relate” is the root of relationship and God has made a way for us to relate to Him through Jesus Christ. The Lord a two-way street for us through the cross of Christ, not just the one way street of an action, but the two way street of interaction. He’s interested in spending time with you and i, and He doesn’t want to chase us down all the time in order to do that. Have you ever had a friend who never called you, but you always called them? …. and it seemed you were always the initiator? Yea…one of those….And one day you sort of wake up and realize, if you never dialed their number, chances are VERY good you’d probably never hear from them….well, unless they needed something. Many a church goer is like that friend when it comes to a relationship with Jesus.

That relationship with God is the goal of Christianity and it’s where the true joy in being a Christian is found, so if we neglect it, we’re missing the whole point. Is your goal, your skopos in Greek, is it just something you’re shooting for, or is it a person who encompasses all you hope for, who drives your life, and motivates your passions? What’s your goal?

Getting to know God means we must spend time with Him. One way is simply reading His word. Ya’ gotta admit, we can’t know it if we don’t read it, and we can’t just sleep with a Bible under our pillows and hope that by osmosis, somehow the words and meanings will just seep into our mind and spirit. Reading your Bible is a choice. We’re not reading because we’re too busy, that’s an excuse. We’re not reading because we are choosing.

Most all of us have gone into our room to read our Bible, and there on the table is a Bible and one of our favorite magazines. Which one do you think the devil would prefer you pick up? It’s not the Bible. Reading your Bible is a purposeful choice, we have to choose to Get To Know God, we have to aim ourselves at Him, or position ourselves, and purpose to set our feet in the direction of Jesus. Maybe it seems as if the day you met Jesus was a bit “coincidental”, but i can assure you it was not. NOTHING just ….happens… God purposed to meet you, He orchestrated the entire encounter, and now you must purpose to meet Him. A one way street only runs just so far, and a relationship is a two way street.

Prayer is another way of getting to know God. Now isn’t it the truth that if we don’t talk to anyone, it is right nigh impossible to have a relationship, much less relating to anyone as an acquaintance. It is silly to think of saying we know someone if we don’t talk to them. Talk to Jesus, we’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose by carrying on a conversation with the Lord. If we’ll talk to Him, i promise He will talk back, if we’ll listen.

Plainly spoken, knowing Jesus !IS! the benefit of knowing God. There are other benefits, but that is primary. Praying gets us involved with Him; reading our Bible gets us involved with Him, but is reading and studying His word really enough? i’ve known more than a few, sadly, who read, study, analyze, and get certified in the study of the Bible, yet are quite possibly some of the most spiritually blind people i’ve ever met. They interpret it based on experiences, flesh, and the findings of other “really smart people”. How is it someone can read the Word of God daily, and not understand even the elementary characteristics of God? We can’t know the Lord based on what someone else says. We’ve got to know Him for ourselves.

Getting to know Jesus is the key. Knowing who He is and How He is …is more important than just being able to quote scripture or pray eloquent prayers. Knowing Jesus is THE key. Ya know what i mean?

In getting to Know the Lord, we can more easily find out what God wants for us; learning to draw close to the Lord tends to refocus us and get our mind off the world and the worries which surround us. Also i believe in drawing close to Jesus we naturally become more like Him …. for the closer He gets to all things the more all things become like Him. Most importantly, the more time I spend with God, the more I will love Him! To know Him is to love Him, afterall, He *! IS !* the fairest of all, no joke.

Another way to get to know God is through worship and praise. Is worship just going to Sunday service? i see alot of signs that say, “Come worship with us”, but when you go, the idea your left with is a far cry from the idea of worship in the Bible. Worship isn’t the words and singing, but a lifestyle with a constant upward pointing to the sovereignty of God as our second nature. Worship is a decision and action, not a feeling. We need to discipline ourselves to worship even when we don’t feel like it. The Lord deserves our worship, so we should give it to Him. It is His and His alone and there is not another who is worthy of an honorable mention. To reiterate, worship and praise helps us focus on the Lord, not ourselves and not our circumstances; it helps get us out of ourselves. It would probably be good to stop thinking about ourselves so much, and focus on Him so we can put things in perspective. Worship and praise inspire humility and reminds us of the truth of who God is.

Position yourselves to draw close to the Lord and know that getting to know God is the greatest thing in the universe we could ever do. Breathing is at the top of my list of important things to do, and knowing Jesus is more important than breathing.

Shifting gears a little, let me list some of the benefits of knowing God. When we Get To Know Jesus, He shares with us His attributes, like Hope, Peace, Wisdom, Courage, Strength…. and there are some other more subtle benefits like rhyme and rhythm in the ebb and flow of our work-a-day world, or diligence, endurance, persistence, humor, perception, intimacy, and joy.  In our getting to know the Lord He shares with us His compassion and privilege, grace and reason, His creativity and righteousness, His sanctification and companionship. Those are just a few of the benefits of knowing God, and over time, i have compiled quite a list.

And why would anyone want to know the King of the Universe? To know Him is to love Him, and if anyone has ever met Him they are permanently imprinted by His goodness and grace…. they will never be the same, in Jesus Name.

Maybe some of us feel we are having a difficult time Getting to Know Him….here’s some very simple suggestions:

Don’t rush your time with God. There are things He’d like to say to you and, honestly, it’s difficult to talk to someone when they are busy talking or they don’t have time to listen. Slow down! Take the time to sit with Him. If we’re not willing to sit with Him a while, why should He share anymore than He does? i think we’ve all suffered a relationship of two where the other person only wanted something from us, and the moment we ceased giving what they wanted, they were off to the next thing.

Do you feel you’ve gotten in a rut and don’t feel you’re connecting? Try looking at different ways to spend your time with Him: read a different translation, move to a different spot, maybe ignore your reading plan! and let the Holy Spirit lead you. How about try a different time or place, maybe add a devotional – do whatever it takes …. how about just being honest and telling the Lord you feel like you’re in a rut in your relationship with Him and ask Him to help you out of it. Being honest and transparent with the Lord goes a really, really long way to knowing Him better.

Another way distance grows between ourselves and Jesus is by our not sharing what God is teaching us. When we don’t share with others what God is doing, it can discourage us and maybe we stumble into what i call, the doldrums of boredom – find some friends to share with from time to time. Let His testimony out of your mouth.

And of course, none of those suggestions really cut the mustard when we are in a crisis of faith and it is a season of literally just holding on, believing God will change things shortly. You know, we all love a prophetic word of encouragement, and sometimes, sometimes…. i think the Lord gives someone a word for us because the world as we know it is about to spin under our feet and, in His mercy, God is giving us something to grip to until our world is repositioned for a new season.

It is a new season. If you will ask Him, He will tell you. If we will draw close to Him, He will draw close you us, and that’s right out of James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

Jesus loves you and has been waiting your entire life to be close to the object of His affection, you and i. Getting to know the Lord is the best thing anyone could do. Really really. Think about it

What do we mean by saying, “Knowing Christ”? Faith, Bible reading, doing right, loving others are all a means to an end, but in the end …. knowing Jesus is the prize. When we say, “I know you”, is that figuratively, literally, euphemistically, or inferentially – the act of passing information around? When i say i know the Lord, it means i have a good idea of what makes Him tick, and what His preferences are. Knowing God means we are more than just aquainted, more than just passing conversationalists. It means we know His joys, His sorrows, what makes Him happy or angry….we know His tendencies, His hopes and dreams.

This has been Outposts, brought to you semi-live from the late evening, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees lean gently over the rivers edge, and every evening is oh so pleasant. i’m Social Porter and this production has been brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, Area 22 Guitars, Gladys Ward at Select Foods, Bobby Whitmire, Kevin, Perry, and Tommy of the Mebane Freedom League, White Knuckle Studios, and Trinity Bakers, where there’s always something good in the oven.

i hope i’ve not posed too many questions….but i do want you’all to know the questions are posed to encourage us to think our facade of skin, 2-3” below the surface of our presentation face. Do you know what i’m saying?

Hosea 6:3 “So Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his going forth is as certain as the dawn; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

Be blessed this week, pray for your neighbor, get involved somewhere, and be a friend to someone. Till we meet again, amen.

Ephesians 2:1-5 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.”

God, YHWH, who is rich in mercy is the King of the Universe. What an amazing heart God has toward us, and i mean not just those who believe on His name, but all people. Because the Lord is merciful, Matthew 5:45, “… He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Friends, for those who know Jesus, rest assured there is a Divine Spark glowing within you, and you are part of the magnificence of God. Yet, let me encourage you, don’t become preoccupied with yourself. If all you have in the room of your mind is mirrors, you will only be aware of yourself and your own needs. Take this suggestion seriously, replace some of those mirrors with windows so you can discover the world outside yourself and the needs of others.

Speaking of the needs of others, this evening’s topic is about the “Power of Mercy”. Mercy, specifically, the mercy of God – invented by God, exercised by God, who is the soul owner of righteous mercy in the universe … mercy, it is one of my prized possessions.

 Genesis 19:19 “Indeed now, your servant has found grace in your sight, and you have increased your kindness which you have shown me by saving my life;.” Interestingly, in some translations, the Hebrew word for mercy was translated as kindness and i take exception to calling a specific thing by another name. Gosh, let’s just call it what it is. Kindness is a subset of mercy and it probably should have been mercy. Kindness and compassion are derivatives of mercy, and the quality of compassion is what we would call being merciful. Indeed, in the Old Testament, there is another word used for “mercy”, but in this case, today, “hesed” is the focus of God’s character which we want to appropriate for ourselves. When scripture says, typically, that the Lord is compassionate and gracious, those two are derivatives of the word “merciful”. To say “the Lords mercy endures forever” is to say He is kind and compassionate beyond the vanishing point. The mercy of the Lord spans our lives from the beginning to the end. Every mountain and valley, every river and sea, every man, woman and child breaths and live within the amazing mercy of God.

Abraham was the first in scripture to mention the amazing power of the mercy of God. We badly need to understand that the idea of God’s mercy is far more than just a Webster’s Dictionary blurb. True, mercy is the withholding of judgment, but it is so SO much more. It is God’s expression of pity towards us as one who has love for an unborn child. His idea of mercy includes redemption from trouble and enemies. To say “God’s mercy” includes preservation of life from death, and is the foundational action for the redemption of sin. Did you hear that? God’s mercy is the action of His compassion and kindness. Again, literally, the Hebrew word for “mercy” means “God’s kindness and compassion beyond the vanishing point.” How far away is your vanishing point? Believe me, in His mercy, the Lord stands on your horizon and occupies space at your vanishing point. Like the rising sun, the glow of His mercy lights up all the earth, from river to rim.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” The yoke of this world without God is one of turmoil, grief and suffering, with grief as the default setting for the endpoint of life without Christ. In light of that then, what is His “yoke” that we should take it upon ourselves? i suppose it would be good to understand that a “yoke” is a connection between two things so that they move and work together, and if we take upon ourselves HIS yoke, we will be yoked with God, working and moving together, and in that picture we understand The Lord calls for us to come participate with Him in what He’s doing. His easy and gentle yoke is composed of, here it is: mercy, compassion, kindness, and grace, and has the sum value of love. That is so excellent i’m going to say it again so put your ears on: the yoke Jesus spoke of in Matthew 11:29 is composed of mercy, compassion, kindness, and grace, and has the sum value of love. In other words, when we sum up all righteous mercy, compassion, kindness, and grace, it all adds up to Love.

Grace is sister to Mercy, and where mercy is, grace is close by. Within the Hebrew word for mercy is the word grace … the Lord has given me some words to portray the idea of grace within mercy – it goes like this: Grace under the umbrella of mercy is “Compassion and kindness beyond the vanishing point, which crowns us with the Sword of the Spirit for life and new beginnings.”  Yea! Now that’s a good definition, at least i think so. i can literally “see” it in my mind.

i love the way the words “mercy” and “grace” sound and feel in my mouth, sort of like tasting something delicious and right. i want to say it again and again until my mind hears what my heart is saying, “mercy is God’s divine compassion and kindness beyond the vanishing point, like the light from Heaven, the blood of the Lamb, applied to the door posts of our heart for new beginnings.” Yea man, that’s what i’m talkin’ about!

Abraham was not content to simply receive God’s compassion and kindness, he took it up a notch becoming the human embodiment of God’s infinite kindness. Through God’s love and kindness Abraham inspired others to follow after the Lord. i find the mercy of God an inspiration. From studying the life of Abraham, and ultimately Jesus, we easily see that man’s humanity reaches it’s zenith in his imitation of the Ways of God, and … within the store house of mercy, is a key component – truth. The opposite of all that, when we imitate anyone or anything other than the Lord, is rock bottom at the lowest ebb possible, with the key component as lies, distrust, suspicion, and corruption.

If we want to live in a culture of honor then truth and honesty are keys we must own and prefer, even to our own hurt. Truth decides when to utilize kindness, when to utilize justice, and when to temper one with the other. When kindness and justice are blended together in proper measure, the result … is Truth. Psalm 25:10 “All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.”

The Lord in His wisdom has tied mercy to grace, mercy to truth, and mercy to justice. He is absolutely brilliant! But of course, He is God you know.  The word “systemic” refers to something that is spread throughout, it is not only something you know, but it is system-wide, affecting your entire person. i believe eventually, although mercy starts in our hearts as systemic, eventually it is even intrinsic, as in it is part of our being and becomes part of our nature. Without a systemic love of mercy, honesty, truth, and grace, when those four are lacking in us, we become the people of a multiplicity of vision, meaning we have moved from vision, the singleness of eye, to di-vision, people divided in our hearts. Amazingly though, God has mercy for us and continues to pursue us, regardless of ourselves. We see ourselves in a judicial sense as being right and wrong, but i’m firm the Lord sees us more as near and far from Him. On a side note, i found it interesting that the Lord comforts us, but there is nothing in all scripture implying we will be comfortable, as in relaxed and at ease. As though that’s not enough, i believe most of us hold that we can’t function unless we are comfortable, and that’s a long way from the truth.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” God’s mercy runs from the top to the bottom of His heart, there’s a continual giving nature revealed in that scripture. Mercy is extended to us as comfort in a manner such that we can then use it to comfort others. The focus of mercy is focused outward and isn’t only for ourselves.

The beautiful fabric of our God-clothing is woven with the threads of mercy, and when we extend mercy to others as it has been extend to us, it looks like the action of grace and benefits for other people, it looks like kindness to the needy, and makes us beautiful inside and out … which is why when Jesus lives in your heart, as He is beautiful, we are beautiful, and as He is holy, we are holy also. His mercy is radiant and enduring. His yoke of mercy, compassion, kindness, and grace is only difficult when i’ve got a heart full of don’t want to.

Mercy is linked to all His attributes, therefore it should be linked similarly in every part of our character also. Micah 6:8 “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” That is God’s expectation of us.

Luke 6:35-36, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Jesus commanded us to be merciful as He is merciful, with compassion and kindness running in our lives like a clear river because it’s just the way we are, not a rule to keep but someone to be. Do you get it? Loyalty is intrinsic to mercy, they are part of the whole. If someone says that loyalty, which is part of “hesed”, or what we call “mercy” in English, is more important than kindness, or compassion, or grace, then we’ve as good as said the first finger is more important than the ear. The five attributes, mercy, kindness, compassion, loyalty, and grace function as a hand, acting together as one unit, and repetitively throughout scripture, the Lord ties the five together. Mercy is more than loyalty.

Saul had died in defeat. The care of Saul’s body seems clearly to have been a free act of kindness. It is partly where the early church gathered the idea that burying the dead was a mercy and seen as one of the seven virtues.

Also. Laban’s willingness to send Rebekah to Isaac was not from any covenant obligation. It was a kindness as part of mercy to a long-lost relative. He could easily have said no. i hold that the beautiful story of Ruth is tarnished if we think Ruth’s action as motivated by some contractual obligations and loyalty alone. The Lord had no obligation to get the widows new husbands in Moab in Ruth1:8-9. Ruth went with Naomi from pure love. Boaz recognized her action as goodness in Ruth 2:11-12 and calls it “ḥesed”, what we call mercy, and in Ruth 3:10 the translators called it “kindness”.

When the Lord is specific, it is something He really, really wants us to get, like Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Jesus spoke specifically that we should possess and practice mercy.

In Ephesians 2:4, mercy is linked with grace which is linked to love – “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.”

Proverbs 14:21-22 refers to making mercy an integral part of your life with wisdom.

The Lord linked mercy to covenant in Nehemiah 1:5 where the writer wrote, “O great and awesome God, you who keep covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments.” The word “and” means “in addition to”.

Mercy is part of forgiveness, starting way back in Numbers 14:18, where God linked longsuffering, and forgiveness with mercy.

On a different note, the unmerciful, shall not receive mercy. When Jesus addressed the Pharisee’s, again, He was very pointed. In Matthew 23:23-24, Jesus said, very plainly, that the Pharisee’s tithed, not money, but things, and he rebuked them for making justice, mercy, and faithfulness something small, they made overly large the paying of tithes and made small justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus was extremely specific! In verse 24 He called them “Gnat swallowers”. Do you know any “gnat swallowers”?

43 times in the O.T. it is specifically written that God’s mercy endures forever. Considering He mentions that His mercy endures forever, do you believe the Lord thinks it is important that we understand the power of mercy, compassion and kindness which is beyond the horizon, past the vanishing point? Isn’t it obvious to us that the Lord’s heart is to be good to us? Why do we have such a hard time letting God be good to us, after all, His mercy endures forever?

i believe one of the most important people to practice mercy on, is … ourselves. We are so mean and stringent with ourselves it is unreal. My religious teaching from years ago has convinced me that i’m not hardly worthy of love or mercy, and it’s so not true. That’s not what God said. Is the Bible true or not? If it is, we need to tuck deep in our pockets God’s perspective of how He sees us and leave our self-loathing behind.

Now about that part concerning being merciful to ourselves … i don’t mean not being mindful of cruelty, lack of love, lying, generally living a life which wounds our conscience, or simply not being responsible for our actions. Anyone who thinks they don’t have to be responsible for themselves and their actions because Jesus quote/unquote “Dealt with all that at Calvary” really doesn’t understand the Heart of God. As long as there’s a devil and we wear flesh, it’s going to be a fight. What i do mean, for example, is we need to quit calling ourselves names in the mirror. Stop cursing yourself, stop loathing your neighbor as you loath yourself. If you make a mistake, let it go and get over it. If you sin, repent, for we have an advocate with the Father. The devil has been trying to get you to hate God and yourself all your life, and i believe it’s high time to cut it out. God has mercy on us, so be merciful as God is merciful; let us be compassionate children of our compassionate father and make mercy a central family value. Don’t just ask for mercy, Show mercy! I would like to suggest today that mercy can’t be regulated. Mercy is wild. Mercy can’t be contained. Mercy cannot be measured. Mercy cannot be sliced in small pieces and offered according to our agenda. Whether or not we have committed one crime or 1 million crimes, God’s mercy pardons us if we seek it.

Mercy offers a way out when the LAW condemns us. When the law cannot protect you, your only hope is mercy. When lawyers can’t take up your case, when judges are ready to give the verdict, you desperately need mercy.

Oh, and before you go doing the law, wherewith i guarantee you’ll see yourself as a failure, remember Romans 7:6 which says we have been delivered from the law. In fact, when the Hebrews made the ark of the covenant, they put the law inside and then covered it with … that’s right, the Lord covered the law with the mercy seat.

In 1 Samuel 6:19 seventy men died because they looked into the ark, meaning that they had to remove the mercy seat to look inside. Why would they have died for looking inside the ark? The law was in the ark, and to look upon the law without the covering of mercy, it is sure death. For those out there who think they want to go back to do the law of the Old Testament, the law has no mercy or grace, and going back to do the law with no mercy is death. We can’t live with one foot in the law and the other foot in grace. Let us prefer the mercy of God through Christ. The power of mercy from God as it is extended towards mankind is life changing for us all. If the Lord did not extend mercy to the entire universe in general, as a whole, there would be no universe, and there would be no us. And that’s a good place to say, Think about it.

Grace is brother to Mercy, and where mercy is, grace is close by. God’s mercy is  “Loyalty, Compassion and kindness beyond the vanishing point, which crowns us with the Sword of the Spirit for life and new beginnings,” and grace is like “the light from Heaven, the blood of the Lamb, applied to the door posts of our heart for new beginnings.”

“Your mercy is great unto the heavens” Psalm 57:10.

“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His compassion and kindness beyond the vanishing point for them that fear Him” (Psalm 103:11). None can measure God’s mercy, it is beyond the vanishing point.

We are designated “vessels of mercy” in Rom. 9:23.

In Ephesians 2:4,5 It is mercy that made us alive when we were dead in sins.

It is mercy that saves us in Titus 3:5.

It is His abundant mercy which brings us into an eternal inheritance in 1 Peter 1:3.

There simply isn’t enough time or space to tell of the Lord’s preserving, sustaining, pardoning, life supplying mercy. Truly, His mercy, compassion and kindness is beyond the vanishing point.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries and this has been Outposts.

Be kind and generous to a lost and dying world this week, practice mercy for yourself and others. Drive carefully and remember Jesus knows your name, and that’s a good thing. You are not forgotten! Amen!

Psalm 37:11 “But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.” Psalm 37:34 “Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land.” Inheritance from God is a privilege, not something we get because we demand it, nor can we manipulate favor out of God’s hand. Some seem to think more highly of themselves than they are in that they can declare blessing out of God’s hands, or prophecy prosperity out of His pockets making sure to get the words right like they’re speaking some magical incantation. i’ve heard people pray out loud and then insist everyone say “In Jesus Name” together while making a circular motion with their hands like their sealing a pact of some sort. i think that’s just crazy presumptuous, pretentiously assumptive, and arrogantly taking advantage of the privilege the Lord affords us to come to His throne. We can’t name it out of His hand, nor can we claim it from Him in order that we would “make” God give us what we want.

One of the laws of sound doctrine is we must take the entire Bible into account, cover to cover, not just select scriptures which make us look and sound good. Jesus said in John 8:44 “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.” John makes the same distinction in 1 John 3:10, saying “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are”. Sounds harsh maybe to some, but there is a difference that is important to point out the distinctions. i’m not creating the difference, God is. Those scriptures are being quoted because, within ourselves, we must draw a distinction of who belongs to God and who does not in order to see privilege as God extends it to us, and pretense as we have extended privilege to ourselves. Let me say that again, that is “privilege as God extends it to us, and pretense as we have extended privilege to ourselves.”

To those who have entered in to a relationship with God, there are amazing and wonderful privileges that come to us, and for those who have NOT entered into a relationship with God and have refused His gift, the only privilege hell will grant is the right to suffer…and that’s a privilege i, personally, do not want. Even at that, let it be known God gives wisdom and mercy, even to those who are not His. Matt5:45, “…for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

i’m Social Porter  and this is Outposts.

The topic is “Of Privilege And Pretense”. Inheritance is a privilege, not something we get because we demand from God, or practice to manipulate favor out of God’s hand. i’d like to briefly discuss privilege as God extends it to us, and pretense as we have extended privilege to ourselves.

Pretense. People seem to love, i say, love personal titles. We love qualifiers and titles which, hopefully, cause the world around us to highly esteem us and think we are worthy of being listened to – maybe even so we will believe we are worthy to be heard in our own ears. We need to hear God more than men. What if God asked you to lose your title and quit telling people your name? Would you still be willing to do what He called you to? Or would the need for the dirty water of men’s praise and being validated in the eyes of other people prevent you from continuing? Let us weigh that one well within our own hearts.

A minimum of 5 times, John simply refers to himself as the “one whom Jesus loved.” John never named his title, someone else did that. i figure he must have been really irritating for some religious people to talk to. i also think it would be safe to assume that he was the premiere apostle on earth and was the last man alive who knew and walked with Jesus, but yet you probably couldn’t get the guy to tell you his name much less his title. i can hear it now, “What’s your name?” “Doesn’t matter.” “Where are you from?” “Doesn’t matter.” “You’re the last apostle, how do you feel about that?” “It’s irrelevant.” “Well, what is relevant and what does matter?” (1John5:20) “That you know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And that you are in Him who is true– his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” 1 John 5:20 was what was important to him, not his entitlements or privilege among the brethren.

The titles we get for ourselves make us larger than we are. i figure only the world and religious people need a title.

i am amazed at the people who demand to be called “pastor”, “apostle”, or “bishop”, “teacher”, or “prophet”. They gladly name themselves. It’s almost as if the Lord did not say over them, “This is my beloved Son, hear Him”, so they say it over themselves. Is it not enough for those people that God has called them? Is it not enough for them to simply be who they are? Proverbs 27:2, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.”

i recently heard of people giving themselves titles like, “panoramic prophet”, “all encompassing prophet”, “comprehensive teacher”, “master prophet”, “super-prophet”, “dread apostle”, or “super mystic”, and then there comes a guy trumping all those by naming himself, “Pastor to the prophets”. When will it end? This is absurd. Jesus, even Jesus the Son of God said of Himself in John 5:31, “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.” Isn’t it enough that God has given us the privilege of exercising His gifts, which are supposed to be used to glorify Him and bring forth the Kingdom of God? His spiritual gifts are a privilege, not used in pretension to create a facade of greatness for ourselves.

When privilege becomes entitlement, when we assume we are more than we are because we “deserve” glory, then pretense is revealed and our God-given-privilege becomes an aberration. Do we think God owes us something and we deserve favor because we have “the right kind of history”?

 Pretentious people are folks who portray themselves as those with unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature. Pretense is when we extend privilege to ourselves, by ourselves and for ourselves, being in our own eyes more than we are. With pretention comes large egos, seeming narcissism, and a compulsion to be “right”, there is a need to be seen.

i believe we often operate in pretentious faith when we feel small, invalidated, and we need to be larger in our own eyes than we are. Romans 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

i’m not talking about entitlements like Social Security, which most of us have paid into and are entitled to the pensions of the plan; or Medicare and Medicaid which our taxes have supported and we are entitled to the benefit. Those type of entitlements were meant as a safety net for the needy, not as a prop.

To quote Ezra Bayda, “Perhaps the most basic belief underlying all of our feelings of entitlement, our ‘if onlies,’ and even our illusions, is the belief that life should please us, that life should be comfortable. All of our resistance to life is rooted in our wanting life to be pleasing, comfortable, and safe. When life doesn’t give us what we want — you know, the job that isn’t satisfying, the relationship that isn’t quite working, the body that ages and breaks down — we resist. Our resistance can manifest as anger, fear, or self-pity, and even depression … but whatever forms it takes, it blocks our ability to experience true contentment. We see our discomfort as the problem: yet it’s the belief that we can’t be happy if we’re uncomfortable that is much more of a problem than the discomfort itself.” Wow. Did you catch that? The belief that we can’t be happy if we’re uncomfortable, which is much more of a problem than the discomfort itself.

Often, in our nation, it seems only conquering heroes and title holders count, and it’s okay to do whatever it takes to advance our position. The church says, “Oh, that is the worldly way of living”, but i see the same pretentious behavior going on in my own people who are more than willing to get themselves a position and a title when God doesn’t move fast enough for them.

We tell ourselves that we deserve happiness and to always have things go our way. We often act like a bunch of spoiled little kids when we don’t get what we want. Many of us, when we were kids, expected our parents to chauffeur us around from one place to another. Were we thankful? No; we expected adults to meet our needs; were we were convinced they owed us special treatment? Absolutely, maybe not consciously, but the attitude was still there. And when they didn’t do what we wanted, we cried out demanding: “It’s not fair!”

My friends, God’s appointment will come around to us, but in His time, not ours. He will give us a position and a title if we’ll wait, but it will be on His time schedule and His terms, not ours. And finally, a quote from John Wimbur, founding member of the Vineyard Church, he once said, “Let me see first how the Holy Spirit is using you before we give you a badge defining your place in the Body of Christ.”

Many in Christianity act as if they deserve preferential treatment, like spoiled children demanding their rights of their parents. It isn’t that we have the privilege of preferential treatment by God as His people, but more that we demand our rights from God. For us, as the Body of Christ, to be so involved with ourselves and our agenda and entitlements that we let honesty, truth, and justice ebb away from us really does not speak well of us.

More than a few seem to operate under the pretense that they, themselves, have earned everything and success is entirely of their own making. Really? i believe we take God’s blessing of privilege and twist it into the pretense that we did it all by ourselves.

For me, i’m old enough to surely know one thing about entitlement and that is it doesn’t give up without a fight. On a side note, pretentious privilege and expectations seem to go hand in hand, and you know what is said about exaggerated expectations, that most of the time they are premeditated resentments. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with expectations. We live with it, and it’s part of having hope, but when we got twisted thinking which feeds our twisted expectations, we’re absolutely bound to be disappointed.

So fight we must. Where do we get the idea that we deserve benefits and favor because we have the “right kind of history”, as if God somehow owes us power, blessing, honor, wealth, or life with a lack of conflict? Don’t you know, we’ve all been at war, in some form or another, all our lives, so much, so long, we’ve never known anything but war, and for us to have a life without conflict would be a life in “perfect peace”, which even with the best of us, is an astounding rarity most of us have never known. As long as there’s a devil and we wear skin, it’s going to be a fight.

Shalom does mean peace but it does not mean a lack of conflict or violence. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Privilege. God gives us life through His Son Jesus. Life, real life, not life according to the world. It is an exclusive privilege afforded us by God.

Peace is a privilege from God, and we can’t get it because we have declared ourselves or set ourselves up on a podium. Galatians 1:3, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Wisdom is a privilege God gives to all who ask. James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

Faith is a privilege. It’s a something that is real and without it we can’t please God. Hebrews 11:6, “but without faith it is impossible to please God.” Is the faith in me something i drummed up? No. We can’t go to the store and buy faith. In order to drum it up i would have to have some ability to drum with, and i have no such thing in me. Faith is an exclusive privilege afforded us by the blood of Jesus.

Justification is a privilege. Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Being holy because He is holy is a privilege not to be taken lightly.

Grace is a privilege – it isn’t something we demand from God or manipulate Him into giving. We can’t fast it out of His hand, demand it or declare it from His wealth, nor can we tithe enough or do good works do get some. The privilege of grace was not available under the law, but by Jesus Christ as it is written in John 1:17, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Those are just a few things which are a privilege extended us exclusively by God.

One definition of privilege is “to be exempted”, and in our case and all who call on the Name of Jesus, we are exempted from the penalty and verdict of death, delivered from the law and corruption.

Salvation, Redemption and mercy are a privilege; We are afforded the privilege of reconciliation – which means God balanced our books; and probably the highest privilege is the Love of God which abides with us forever. Here’s one: being given a seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb, talking, eating, and laughing with God is an amazing privilege! God did not HAVE to give us those things, but because He loves us, He grants us the privilege of sharing in His Kingdom. i don’t ever want to take God’s extension of privilege for granted. Now this may seem odd to say but according to Heb12:5-8, part of the privilege of being part of God’s family is … being tested. i have read somewhere that, unlike the Egyptian’s perspective which said that the heart was weighed after death, the Lord continually evaluates and improves our hearts that in the end we may come forth as gold. It is a privilege to be tried in the refiner’s fire.

It is a privilege to live our lives in the loving kindness and favor of God. The Lord is the center and source of creativity in the universe, and it is a privilege and honor that He shares His resources with us, and shares His inheritance with us. It is an honor that i can’t hardly get my head around. i mean, can you imagine that, the King of the Universe, upon repentance He honors us who were dishonored by sin by making a way for us to come clean, be forgiven, and to come home with honor? He even shares His name with us! Friends, it is a privilege to be placed in leadership in the body of Christ, not so we can get wealthy, not so we can lord it over the sheep, but for the purpose of advancing the Kingdom of God. Not your denomination, not the number of titles you demand others recognize about you, but to advance the Kingdom of God.

Ultimately it is a privilege and eternal honor to know the unknowable. He was known to Martin Luther as “deus absconditus” (ˌdāy-oos-ˌäp-ˈskȯn’-di-ˌtoos\), deus revelatus” (ray-vay-lah’-toos) … Literally meaning, “the hidden God” and “the revealed God,” respectively. The phrases, originally used together by Martin Luther, speak of the paradoxical situation of a hidden God revealing himself and a revealed God hiding himself. For Luther, the unknowable God is revealed in Christ; yet in the cross of Christ, God’s true glory is hidden to human wisdom.

The Lord did not HAVE to reveal Himself to us, it was His good pleasure to grant us the privilege of meeting Him, and it should never, ever be taken that He owes us a ministry, a title, or a position with power and authority.

It isn’t that we have taken, but more that He has given. Psalm 116:12 “What shall I render to the LORD For all His benefits toward me?” Let us be glad and thankful we get the privilege of all His benefits and not stretch our privilege into presumption and pretense. Amen, and think about it.

 Privilege: When God gives us a place and a title, it is given with authority and with His endorsement. Know this – with God’s endorsement, we have the power and authority to do whatsoever He has given us to do. His calling and gifts are a privilege.

Pretense: When we make our own place and give ourselves titles … it is thin, self-exalting, self-important, self–authenticating, and self-validating … ultimately, it’s all about, me, me, me – where I go, what I see, how I feel, what I do, what I say, what I want … me, me, me, always controlling the narrative. Whether we are dictating what others are allowed to talk about, or depreciating ourselves in our conversations where we are the focus, it is still all about ourselves. That is pretentious. Is that really who we want to be as the people of God, or does it just sound like a continuation of pretentious worldly thinking?

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts,

The idea is to go with God, not get what we want. It is a privilege to serve in the court of the Great King Jesus before all the host of Heaven. Be strong and courageous, take your dreams seriously, listen carefully for the Lord, it is life and peace for those who have ears to hear. Amen!