Bathsheba had a hold on David. Some Biblical scholars insist her entrapment of the king was deliberate. The houses in
Ruins of David’s Palace, Jerusalem, Photo courtesy of Larry Mize
the ancient Middle East were very close together, so logic would support the theory that when Bathsheba drew the water for her bath, she was completely aware that she would be in full view of the king’s rooftop. It is quite possible she had even noticed that he retired to the rooftop around the same time each day to take advantage of the evening breeze.
What we do know is this- David fell for Bathsheba in the worst sort of way. His lust for her obliterated his plumb line of right and wrong. It screamed so loudly that the man after God’s own heart couldn’t even hear God’s voice. The addiction of Bathsheba shattered David’s reasoning capabilities as well, convincing…
A few weeks ago, two of my children were outside and made a discovery that has impacted our lives on so many levels. One of them looked down, and noticed something small and helpless in our driveway. It was a baby mouse – only a few days old. The day was sunny (and abnormally warm) and the tiny mouse appeared to be near death. It was at this point, that the children made a decision… they decided to pick up the mouse, bring it inside, and attempt to nurse it back to health. This decision required the necessity of making a new mouse “home” (a cardboard shoebox with all the necessary “mousy” materials and surroundings). It also required some research online (they looked up several articles on baby mice and what they needed to survive). In their research they discovered that baby mice needed “mouse baby…
This is a one of my all time favorite blogs. The author is incredibly descriptive. It isn’t about me dropping my guard, but me doing something that invites the little foxes in. How much does a person need crushing before he catches on?
THE LURKING BEAST OF A WEIGHED-DOWN HEART – April 19
“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36
There is a beast that roams my small acreage.
I have never seen its shape for it comes out only after I yield to sleep. Yet, the evidence of its presence confronts me at sunrise every morning. I walk into my field and shutter at the thought of an unwanted presence having recently crossed the very path of my footsteps.
I know what it hunts. I see the numerous holes it has dug in pursuit of its prey – gophers. I do not object to that pursuit. However, I wish that it would get its own. This beast has found that it is easier to steal from me. It has discovered that at the bottom of the fluttering location flags is a gopher trap that often, by the time of darkness, contains a dead gopher. It then absconds with the gopher and my trap. I have lost two traps to this beast.
I can tolerate the presence of this beast lurking in the darkness since we have a common nemesis – gophers. However, I know there is a danger that goes beyond the thief of traps and the annoyance of hole digging (this beast does not have the common courtesy of backfilling its holes).
My concern is for my chickens. I know that it is just a matter of time before this beast finds that a roosting chicken is about as easy to catch as a trapped gopher – and much more satisfying. Therefore, this beast has become my enemy before I lose something I value more than a dead gopher.
I am not sure of my success. Therefore, I must stay vigilant to the unseen dangers.
There is a danger to our souls that lurks in the darkness. Our danger is that the day of judgment will come upon us unaware, when we do not expect it, and when we are not prepared for it. The danger is that we are called to meet our Lord, and He is the furthest thing from our hearts and low on the list of that which we love.
We are most vulnerable to this danger when we are unconscious to its presence. That is why we are encouraged to stay awake. We are to stay vigilant against the beast of a heart that is weighted down. We are to watch ourselves from becoming satiated with an inordinate pursuit of the good things of this world and an over-indulgence of the appetites of the body.
Many of us live in an amicable truce with the cares of the world. We fall asleep and allow the beast of our cravings to roam free because we consider them a normal course of our existence. We live with competing loves because it does not appear that they are having an effect upon our spiritual lives beyond an occasional thief of joy and the annoyance of our disrupted façade.
I believe that the danger of a weighed-down heart is far greater than we realize. A weighed-down heart is evidence of misplaced love. Misplaced loves have to be killed before they can burden our hearts, steal our fruitfulness, and even cause us to give up.
From my experience, I rarely get a clean shot at my misplaced loves. They grow in the hidden crevasses of the normal course of my life. I can become so accustomed to these cares, that I fall asleep to their danger.
I have to go to their lair and smoke them out.
There is only one way to smoke out misplaced love. It is by the work of the Spirit in our lives that affections are set upon God and God alone and misplaced love is killed. We have to come to the Spirit in pray and ask the Lord to examine our hearts for anything that we love more than Him. When we feel weighed down by the cares of this world, we must yield all to the Lord and set our eyes upon the things of the Spirit.
We mustn’t fall asleep to the danger. We must not accept a beast prowling in the darkness of our hearts as normal. The danger of a weighed-down heart is nothing to ignore.
PRAYER: Father, I do not want my love to be misplaced. I do not want to love anything more than you. Lord, examine my heart. Show me where I am being weighed down by the cares of this world. Show me the good things that I pursue more than you. Show me where my appetites are out of control. Help me give to you those loves that I have allowed to become too elevated. Help me keep my eyes on you. Help me stay awake to that which I am setting my mind upon. Keep me in your steadfast love. I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen
“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36
There is a beast that roams my small acreage.
I have never seen its shape for it comes out only after I yield to sleep. Yet, the evidence of its presence confronts me at sunrise every morning. I walk into my field and shutter at the thought of an unwanted presence having recently crossed the very path of my footsteps.
I know what it hunts. I see the numerous holes it has dug in pursuit…
1Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,a and set on fire by hell.b7For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,c these things ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. James 3:1 – 12 ESV
Too often, I speak without thinking, I think without reason, and I reason without listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
That is when what I think I am saying turns into a thing I never intended to say.
One thing is clear; When the Spirit of God gives you utterance, it will most likely surprise you more than it surprises the listener. The reason that is so is, the Listener was looking for the answer deep in their heart, and the Spirit of God simply reveals the heart of the hearer, and He gave you utterance to that listener, despite of what “wisdom” you think you have..
My mouth will speak what is in my heart. My heart will believe what I choose for it to believe. When what I chose to believe is contradictory to the will of God, I have ceased to represent God, and the finished work of Christ. When I do this, I am reproved of God. He is gentle and loving, and does not condemn me when he corrects me. You can tell who the Children of God are when they correct you the same way. If I am wise, I learn…if I am a fool, I am broken on the truth. If I refuse to learn, then I am useless.
This is what I pray the Spirit of God will write on my heart:
This is true of every utterance you have. Wether in writing, or in speech, in thought or in deed. I must labor into the rest of the finished work of Christ, and allow the Spirit of God to do His mysterious and powerful work in me. To do anything else is rebellion against the One whom I say I have accepted in my heart.
Even Confucius understood this: “If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone.”
Paul said it best:
15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…
I pray that the Spirit of God first teach me this wonderful love, and write it on my heart. I pray that, if I have to speak or write, under any circumstance, that I do it in the love He has poured into me. I pray that I do not rely on my own understanding, but learn to get myself out of the way before I attempt to tell anyone anything.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
I am doing a research, right now, where I compare the writings of two different Christian Leaders. One of these leaders manages to take everything he discusses back to the finished work of the cross. The other one, a more influential person, acknowledges the work on the Cross, but manages to take his work back to Adlerian Psychology, Mixed with Ericksons Stages of Development. I recognize other influences, in there, too, but, whether he calls his modality these things, or not, this is what he is doing.
One leader takes the hurt soul and shows us where we are complete in the finished work of Christ, and are given a host of gifts. This leader tells us our identity no longer lay in the things of this earth, but, as a new creation, we are now completely loved, accepted, and are being made in the likeness of Christ our savior. The rest of his works describe the scriptural basis of Christian Authenticity.
The other leader, despite the finished work of Christ, wants to take us through our developmental stages of life, point out where we were “wounded” and how that affects our lives, and uses several psychological gimmicks to justify and solidify this teaching. Then he peppers it with scripture in an effort to undergird his writing.
This inauthentic approach never releases you from sin, never gives you a chance to labor into the rest of the finished work of Christ, and never releases you from a past that Christ clearly died for.
At Cates Control Solutions, we have a saying about Responsibility: We accept the responsibilities of our position and know we are accountable to meet our obligations.
So, what is my responsibility to what I am reading. Simple, when I read any leader of the “Christian Faith”, the test of authenticity I have learned to recognize is this: It either takes you to the finished work of the Cross, and how that makes you a new creation, or it doesn’t. When Christ died of our sin, he didn’t die for just a few things. He died of everything, so you will receive everything that is His. You do not have to regress and confront anything in your past. Your past is dead. When Christ rose from the dead, Your NEW SELF rose with him. OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY. I also know from experience, any “woundedness” I carry is because I have not rested in the finished work of the cross. I do not have to identify myself with anything but Jesus, and seek the Kingdom of God. There is nothing I need to go back and fix. I labor to rest in the finished and authentic work of Christ. I have received all gifts and benefits of the Child of God.
Tonight we observe that Christ died on the cross. He fulfilled His responsibility, and set you free from all encumbrances. My responsibility as a new creation, is to make sure I do not get mired down in any doctrine of man that attempts to denigrate the finished work of the cross.
After all, When Jesus said it was finished…He meant it.
If I had been there, would I have…
…cried like his mom did?
…mocked him like the guards did?
…stand in open condemnation as the High Priest did?
…observe with the joy of blood sport as the local rabble did?
…betray him as his followers did?
…shriek in loud cheers as Satan did?
Chances are, had I been there, I would have done all of the above.
Chances are, I would have done these things out of the same pitiless ignorance that they did.
Even in all his betrayal, pain, and separation from the Father, he asked God to forgive us, since we really didn’t know what we were doing.
Jesus didn’t die for our sin, He died OF them. He died for me. He died for you.
I Love You
David Perkins
Sammy.snardfarkle@gmail.com
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. I COR 9:24 ESV
Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith Hebrews 12:1-11
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Do Not Grow Weary
3Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
To Find My Path of Unrelenting Relentlessness, I first Had To Relent
Part of dying to my old self meant putting away my old self-habits. I know that the only way to do that, and make it stick, is through the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And THAT has to be what I call “Heart Surgery”. For the change to keep, my Heart Beliefs HAVE to align and harmonize with the Spirit of the Living God. From there, whatever characteristics I stored in my mind are overwritten with the Character of Christ. When that happens, my body follows.
To relent is to soften your position on certain fast held beliefs. To relent is similar to repent, which is to change your mind. The difference is, I must be willing to soften my unrelentingly relentless stance on a wrong belief, it is when I am unrepentantly unrelentless that a character other than that of Christ is revealed in me.
This is why it is written: Ezekiel 36:29 NIV – ‘“I’m going to give you a new heart, and I’m going to give you a new spirit within all of your deepest parts. I’ll remove that rock-hard heart of yours and replace it with one that’s sensitive to me.” Before I can learn to relent, I have to submit to the Heart Surgery of the Holy Spirit, and be recreated, which is where II Corinthians 5:17 is revealed in you: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come”
As a new creation, with a new Spirit and a heart sensitive to the voice of God, you can be remade into the image of Christ. There are dangers in this, though. The Spirit of God is gentle, and will never force its will on you without your consent. You can ignore it, you can deny it, you can do whatever you want. If you are willing to relent, then you will be changed, gently, without condemnation, and grow to be more like Christ.
WHAT AM I WILLING TO BE RELENTLESS ABOUT.
At Cates Control Solutions, Relentless is defined as follows: “RELENTLESS: We will not back down from our pursuit of excellence in every aspect of our business.”
In order to pursue excellence, I must relent on my attitude that “Good Enough is Good Enough.” I must find where EXCELLENCE is taught in the Bible, and I must let the Spirit of God write these things on my heart.
Excellence, like any other Core Value, is as meaningful as you will allow it to be, and is only as effective as it is written on my heart. It is my hard-earned experience that I cannot fake this value of the relentless pursuit of Excellence.
Click the word EXCELLENCE, to see what the Bible has to say about Excellence.
Frankly, left to my own devices, Good Enough is Good Enough for me. It is not in my carnal nature to want excellence, or to pursue excellence. This can only come from a changed heart. It is not just for the sake of Cates Control Solutions that I chase, unrelentingly, after Excellence. It is first, and foremost because the Spirit of the Living God is pursuing excellence in me.
“RELENTLESS” and all the other Core Values becomes real, not because it is a rule at the office. It stops being mere words when the Spirit of God is allowed to turn my heart of stone into a heart that is sensitive to the will of God. If I approach all of the Cates Core Values this way, then it will not matter of this is posted on our wall, or the back of my business card. I will not have to be reminded by the “Thought Police” to pursue this, either. It will simply manifest itself as the natural outcome of my unrelentingly relentless pursuit of the Character of Christ.
My Prayer: Dearest God, My Father, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord, My Savior, and my Brother, that I relent in my stiff-necked will, and turn toward your voice, and become unrelentingly obsessed with all the things you say are excellent. I know all the qualities exist in the Person and Likeness of Christ. Lead me, Dear God, to be just like your son. – AMEN
The difficult part of the disciple’s life is getting out of the way of the Lord when He is doing a work. Have I asked for the single-minded determination that trusts God in all things? Then I shouldn’t…
Ruins of David’s Palace, Jerusalem, Photo courtesy of Larry Mize 
There is a danger to our souls that lurks in the darkness. Our danger is that the day of judgment will come upon us unaware, when we do not expect it, and when we are not prepared for it. The danger is that we are called to meet our Lord, and He is the furthest thing from our hearts and low on the list of that which we love.
David G. Perkins 