For Her

The sincere do not walk the face of the earth, they are driven by it.

We have learned the wisdom of cowardice...it's called non-confrontation.

You Cannot Have Faith in God and Mammon

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see."

Where we place the wholeness of our being is what we hope for and that which we are blind to is that which gives us certainty. How then can we have a surety of hope in anything the world here offers? How is it possible for a Christian to have that which is seen possess his conviction? Yet this is the experience of most. The people of faith live their lives with an egotistical concern for personal welfare to sate themselves in the indulgence of an easy life (no man finds fulfillment in the excuses of ease). This replaces their transparency before God, and substitutes it for an unsteady hope in monetary income and activities. That which would be faith by profession is nothing more than sedated conscience and conflagrated will because it's power is merely in diction unrelated to the exercised power of the Kingdom of God. Because men choose to live in a way which does not depend on devotion to the singularity of God, their faith is shattered into fictional proportions and they are undone before the grace of God being unable to recieve it.
It is a matter of either/or. Man will either have a sure hope in what he is blind to and certainty of what is not seen, or his hope will be in what is here and now and his conviction will be merely the extension of his ego.
To you who would love Christ and who would be aware of worldly security, here is a negative rephrasing of the prior verse for definitive purposes: "Now unbelief is being sure of what is tangible and certain of what is seen." Those who would pure of heart and be complete in devotion to God must keep the faith and never rest in the lure of wealth's tangibility. Place yourself in the hands of the Living God and seek His providence in all things. Substantiate your hope in what you do not see and be possessed by the convictions of the unseen Christ. He who does this will be among the nations richly blessed.
Amen.

The effect of Faith is God making flexible the human will and gladdening it for His purposes.

a story of materialism

There is a Yiddish story about a rich man who is persuaded to pay a visit to the rebbe. The rebbe leads him to the window.

“Look out there,” the rebbe says, and the rich man looks out at the street. “What do you see?”

“I see people,” he answers.

Then the rebbe leads him to the mirror. “What do you see now?”

The rich man answers, “Now I see myself.”

“So,” the rebbe says. “In the window there is glass and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass of the mirror is covered with silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others but see only yourself.”

"Pride is the sin that grows out of the ashes of mortified sin."

Faith

"Great faith merits great rewards. And wherever you set down the foot of hope among the goods of the Lord, they will be yours."

-Bernard of Clairvoux

The Heart of our Healer God

Then Jesus got up early in the morning when it was still very dark, departed, and went out to a deserted place, and there he spent time in prayer. Simon and his companions searched for him. When they found him, they said, “Everyone is looking for you.” He replied, “Let us go elsewhere, into the surrounding villages, so that I can preach there too. For that is what I came out here to do.” So he went into all of Galilee preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Earlier in Mark 1, John the Baptist's ministry is summed up and immediately after it has run it's course (at the baptism of the Messiah and the arrest of John), Jesus goes forth into the world and begins to preach openly. In the passage i have put up, we see the heart of God displayed in the anonymity of Jesus by His refusal of recognition and praise. All that we see here, at the beginning of Mark's Gospel, is the Son of God going off into "a lonely place" to submit His heart to His Father in order that He may do God's will. In doing this, He openly rejects the praise of men, even of His disciples. The proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the curing of the sick is all that drives Jesus here. He will not rest until all that the Father has appointed to Him have heard the Good News in the other towns. This is perfect love, this pouring out of the self of God alone is the motivation of God's Sacrifice for us in the beginning of His ministry and at it's end--the cross.

When we consider that Jesus requires us to be like Him, conformed to His teaching and life-purpose let us consider the difficulity of being sincere before God. Let us consider that our baptism and clothing into and of Christ and the difficulties that we will face. Let us keep before is this Scripture as a warning and a promise:

"I tell you the truth, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”


Also, let the sharp edge of Christ's word pierce you as you consider the great humility of grace poured out and what it calls forth from us:

"But it is not this way among you. Instead whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

God, may Your heart be ours, and may we not be timid or forget to proclaim Your Kingdom to a people in the land of darkness. Bless the words of our mouth and the work of our hands as we await the Day. May You alone be praised!