Of Things Seen and Not Believed

I never met a flying pig with sprouted wings from fleshy sides.



I never met a little girl who shed her fur to take smooth skin, a former monkey-pie.



I’ve yet to meet that man of letters who could explain or teach a single thing, apart from grace.



Yet I have met a wormy little caterpillar-bug who once did crawl from dust to tomb, transformed, not evolved, to butterfly.



The Malachi Pour

Franklin once said: “if a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him”. This is true enough; though, at best, it is a splinter of the larger truth of generosity. The Lord says: “no one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord”. The truth of generosity is simply this: if you choose to give something away, it can never be taken from you. If you give your wealth, how can it be taken? If you make a gift of your freedom, can you ever be made a slave? If you give love, mercy, forgiveness, can those things ever be snatched from your hands? If you give your faithfulness, your loyalty, your chastity to the bride of your youth, can it be stolen?
Has the atonement, the completed work, then ceased to compel our hearts, minds and souls to give? Has the sacrifice and the “keeping of the feast” constrained us, at God’s holy table, to close our rails, to lid the cup, once poured out in love, for us?

I say, emphatically, no! For The Cup is a flowing stream from everlasting to everlasting. The Cup to the suffering, the broken, the afflicted, the sick, the proud, and all manner of men, is the old covenant fulfilled and made new perpetual. The Atonement, singular, definite for all time, empowers and empours for all time. It is no mere abolition of law; it is consummation and perfection, willfully poured out and pouring out still- yea gushing, flooding out in tides, and beckoning us to join the swells, purifying and washing so that we may give acceptable gifts of our own sacrifice unto The Lord.

“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”  Malachi 3: 10

Dismas is a Prince

A prideful boy once asked the King, a favor to enjoy:

The King he listened to the lad, and asked for his true wish.

The boy said “I am a man with many needs and also wants and dreams. I ask to be a worldly man, more stellar than my king.”

The King he looked with sadness down, then gave the lad his wish:

He sent away the foolish boy, to be a foolish king.

A sweet young lass of noble birth, then said to the great King:

“Your Majesty, you see my gifts, you see my many things. I am a child of privilege; I deserve above the rest. Look after me, especially, make me a royal queen.”

The King he wept a solemn tear to see this child awry; He left her to another king, and granted her true wish.

A man of sickness and great sin, in chains, was drug into the court. His flesh was torn, his legs were broke. He bled upon the stones.

The wretch, he could not even lift his eyes, to see the Holy King, yet hoarsely still, he found his tongue and slowly did he speak:

“I am a broken thief, condemned to die, a sinner to my core, but once I met, on Calvary, a man who is my true King…and there he promised to remember me, into his kingdom come. I have no merits of my own and yet I Know Your Son. He was the perfect sacrifice; His blood for all my sins…Great Master, if it by thy will, I came to visit Him”.

The King in splendor’s sovereign grace, he took this beggar in. The Prince of Peace, He healed his wounds, and gently lifted him.

The Spirit of the Living God, rejoiced with all the host, and Dismas sang eternal hymns to Father, Son and Ghost.