A Manifesto Of Hard Truths

George MacDonald once said that “If I devote the entirety of my day on what God would have me do, I would have no time second guessing it.” This is something that I have been meditating hard on as of late. There is a very fine line between what God would have me do, and what the ideology of the flesh would suggest I do. Here arises a problem; man does not have the capacity to devote our day to what God would have us do. This is a hard truth but a truth nonetheless. We may wake up every morning in meditation and declare to our God that I will do thy will always, and mean it from the bottom of our hearts, but we are sinners. We are a creation that has it in its heart to do well, but equipped with a mind to reason. Sometimes reason doesn’t collaborate well with the Kingdom. When collaboration fails, we turn to our own will. The minute we do this, even if for only the briefest moment, we turn away from the will of God. You see, we have a sort of protection while we are in the will of God. But the minute we turn away from that will, and execute our own self will, we are like a lone wolf in the midst of wolves.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

We tend to hold a certain justification in regards to our temptations; that is that God is tempting us for a reason unknown to us according to his will. In our minds, our temptation in this world has nothing to do with what we have necessarily done; it is all part of a bigger plan. Well I am here writing to you today suggesting that maybe our temptations in this world are due entirely to what we have done. James wrote that God does not tempt. That temptation is a certain type of evil, and evil has no association with God. If that is true, then how is it that we have found ourselves in a position of hardship, despair, and temptation? Is it not because we have at some specific point turned away from the protection that is God’s will? Is it not possible that we have traveled into a region where God has no business being in? If our will brings about sin, and sin is evil, and evil is a vice that God has no association with; then I believe that it is safe to say that the walk that one travels in that situation is a road that God does not travel. At that point, it is up to man to walk back to Christ. And believe me, He will be waiting.

I believe I would be flawed if I did not point out the difference between hardships in God’s will, and temptations of our own making. There are hardships in God’s will. Do not walk away from this passage thinking that anytime an occurrence comes to pass that you feel is unjust, it is because you have entered your own will; this is untrue. God’s will is a path that we do not understand. We tend to fear, and dislike what we do not understand. But the difference is that the hardships in God’s will do bring about a purpose that is for a greater good. We may not realize or understand it at that moment but it will. A hardship that has arose from your own self will, on the other hand, will do nothing but take you further from the Kingdom of God and the will that He has bestowed upon you.

This writing is truly from a holy place for me right now. It is something that I have been battling with hard. For the past couple of months I have been under the impression that I am where I am right now because God wants me here right now. Day-by-day though I began to realize that this was something more; it was something of my own making. What I was going through had nothing to do with God. It had everything to do with myself. It wasn’t till I stopped expecting God to deliver me out of this place, and instead delivered myself back to God did I begin to feel consciousness. Take these words to heart, and apply them to your walk. These are hard truths, but they are essential.

Perseverance of Faith By Gift

The Kingdom of God does not ask much from its children; mostly for us to live righteous, pure, simple lives. Indeed this can get sometimes complicated, but not because the task its self is complicated. It is more because we ourselves make them complicated. It is not a hard task to love one another, or to not steal; I think we can all agree on this. Yet we all find ourselves constantly contemplating over these same pinnacle moral judgments every day. Part of this nonsense is because of our own self will; the idea that we have the answers. I spoke in my last writing about the God consciousness that we all have, yet seldomly chose to acknowledge. We may get away with this ignorance before our walk with Christ, but once we enter the Kingdom, we must acknowledge. We must rely on our God consciousness if we wish to live the lives that Gods asks us to live.

But how is it exactly that we are to go about handing our reasoning over to Christ? It comes two-fold. First and foremost you must come to Christ, receive his grace. Once we have entered his place, he gives us faith. Notice that I say that He gives us faith; faith is not of our own. It is not manmade and we have no dominion over it. It can be given, strengthened, but also weakened. I can say that I have faith in God, or that I have faith that this will turn out right. All this would seem that faith is of my own, and that I am giving it to God himself. But could you have faith (real faith that is directed and received from God) if he has not blessed you with grace? It is more of a plea from a man to a stranger. What we have more is a faith, which is directed to the grace that Christ has blessed us with.

So we have faith; but is that enough? Is it faith and faith alone that will lead us down the path that we have searched for in vain our whole lives? Certainly not! Our faith is a virtue, a trust between God that he is good. Faith is our energy; our energy that allows us to do the work of the kingdom. It is impossible to do the work of the Kingdom without the faith that is given to us from God. But as the Gospel of James says, “Faith without works is dead.” Our faith will weaken if we do practice it; we must do our part to maintain the energy that God has bestowed on us.

Miraculously, all that entails is for us to live righteous, pure, simple lives; for us to help one another, to be truthful, to love. It is not enough for us to just talk about what God has done for us. We must carry his will with us everywhere we go. Listen to our God consciousness, and fulfill the part he lays at our feet. When we accomplish this, we exercise our faith; it will grow. It will blossom into a beautiful and powerful thing. It will allow us to communicate on a more personal level with our creator. But without our works, the gift of faith will fade away. Our relationship will weaken, and our personal will may creep to the surface. Do not ignore a beautiful quality that our God has given to us. Embrace it, and never forget it.