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The Bible never says that anyone will ever ask you a question about anything. Not “why should I let you into my kingdom?”. Not ” what have you done?”. Not ,”did you acknowledge me before men?”. Not, “did you do this or that or anything else?”.
It only says that He will judge, and he will do it well. It will not be our job to present any sort of case before Him who judges righteously.
Rather, all of ourselves will be laid bare before Him and He will do what He always does. He will judge, and He will do that correctly. He will handle everything, and He will consider whether you obeyed what He told you to do.
And in that day, there will be no Q and A on His part. No goofy questions that preachers like to use to manipulate you and me into the kingdom. No inane stuff about whether or not you were a Marine or a Soldier. Nothing embodied in these goofy and inane pictures that try to manipulate us into sharing them in order to demonstrate our lack of shame for Him. None. Of. That.
Just you, your life, and He who authorized that life.
The kicker is, what did you do with the life Jesus gave you? Was the direction of your life, mistakes and all, obedience to what He has told us plainly, or was it disobedience?
Mind you, every single thing He ever told you and me, not just in Scripture, but by the Holy Spirit, was told to us and shared with us for exactly the same reason fathers impart wisdom to their children: Tenderest, unfailing, loyal, abiding affection for us.
Father wants the best for you, and He hardwired you to walk in his enjoyment, his pleasure, His love.
The question today, while it is still called “Today” (Hebrews 4), is, “are you ultimately walking according to the design of the manufacturer, or you attempting to modify the perfection He has wrought by making it “better in your own eyes” ?
He knows, adores, and gives what is best.
You cannot improve on that design with control, or connivance, or hypocrisy, or addiction, or homosex, or avarice, or theft, or fornication, or adultery, or simony, or policy change, or amendments, or anything else that changes the outside circumstances while leaving you in the same broken and sinful state.
You must always, ultimately, continually change. We are constantly on the move, by degrees, either from glory to glory, or from death to death. That is part of Father’s design in us.
You will not ever be the same person from day to day.
And He has a “no-eye-has-seen” series of moments of encounter in store for you.
So, go and search out Jesus, and when you find Jesus, remember that NO ONE KNOWS JESUS BETTER THAN HOLY SPIRIT. So, if you want to get to know Jesus, get real intimate with Holy Spirit.
He is, after all, the Revealer of Scriptures. By Holy Spirit do you get to know what is in the Scriptures, and what they teach about the Word of God, Jesus, and the Father of lights, the Father.
The only way we are able to interact with the Father and the Word of God is by Holy Spirit. He is the One given and sent.
So get to know Him really well, and He will run you on a crash course as to your identity, your makeup, your giftings, and the things that really will make you come alive. Better than that bottle, habit, addiction, or sinful lifestyle.
Be blessed.

“Arrogance… I hate”
-Proverbs 8:13-
Four dynamics that Wisdom, the Lord, hates. Pride, arrogance, the way of evil, and perverted speech.
Arrogance…thinking you know and understand well enough to not need any help in a situation and that you view and treat anyone offering help, understanding, or counsel as inferior or worthless. This destroys the body’s interconnectedness (1 Cor. 12:21-26).
The Paraclete’s Hammer

“for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips.” -Proverbs 8:7 (ESV)-
Wisdom utters truth, not lies (Proverbs 8:7 above).
But these true utterances are done with prudence and discretion, in such a way that finessing, manipulation, or attempts to control a situation with fleshly, soulish, or even spiritual means to ensure a positive outcome for the one engaged in the situation.
Jesus (Matthew 10:16) invites finesse, manipulation, and control to die (Proverbs 3:5-6, Mark 8:34-35). By wisdom are the simple and foolish made wise.
Are your hands behind your back?
Some may ask,”What do you mean, David, are my hands behind my back?”
Let me explain.
Are you trying to use your finite resources and ingenuity to fix a situation so that it comes out in your favor?  Or are you letting God work on your behalf and defend you?
If your hands remain behind your back and you are refusing to take the bait to defend yourself, God will step in, in His timing, and work on your behalf.  He will put His hands into a situation and work.  However, If you attempt to defend yourself and put your hands into the situation in order to fix it, God will step back and let you “handle” the situation, and He will put His hands behind His back.
So, whose hands are behind the back? Yours or His?
Whose hands are stronger? Yours or His?
Whose hands are more capable of fixing a situation? Yours or HIs?
Who do you want at work in a situation, even if the timing makes you uncomfortable? You or Him?
Put another way. Do we depend on our own resources, or do we depend on what Father give us a solution to work with, either in the form of a finished product, or raw materials with which to build?
He will make everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11), but you must give Father time to work.
This is one of the tests that believers must endure.
The test on waiting on vindication.
The Paraclete’s Hammer

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention’s President, Russell Moore, wrote a stellar piece in response to the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage in Obergefell V. Hodges recently.  In it, he enumerated why the Church should neither cave to the powers that be, nor panic with respect to the decision made.
You can view that article here.
Concerning all the activity this week, I have some observations.
1) No matter how people choose to marry, or how elected officials choose to recognize the right to marry, marriage is an institution that God set up with certain parameters, and no one can actually change those parameters. The kingdom recognizes only those marriages between a husband and a wife, as consistent interpretation of Scripture details.
2) Any setup that violates the design is a farce, and is not recognized, no matter the codification of laws or the orders of the state.
3) Those who choose to walk in a violation of that Principle of Design–whether homosexual practice, fornication, adultery, or pornography–do not know what they are doing and are stumbling around in darkness, sadly.  
4) As a result of this lack of knowledge, refusal of knowledge, or willful violation of the principles set down by the Father, they have opened the doors to greater bondage.  It was the Father who set all of these principles down out of love, so that we would walk in liberty, free of bondage, deception, and offense.  
5) Moreover, to consider another nuance of this discussion, perhaps some large portion of those people who walk these various sinful lifestyles out, do so out of abuse by parents, or members of either the same or opposite sex.
6) As a result of those areas of wounding or trauma, the victims described in #5 require prayers for healing or deliverance, instead of words spoken out of due season against them. And, where the church has failed in this area, it ought to repent.
7) There is a place for us as the Church to pray for release of those in sexual bondages of all kinds, whether through trauma or choice.  Moreover, we also should pray for the deception to roll back from their eyes.  
8) Moreover, we as the Church should minister to the sexually compromised variously in tender affection, love, and with the truth nonetheless, AFTER we fled our youthful passions; pursued righteousness, faith, love, peace, and purity; and have thoroughly bathed them in prayer, that they might be freed, after the manner described in 2 Timothy 2:22-26.  Credibility for ministry comes following personal sanctification.  NOTE: Please do not heckle me if you are a Christian about the impossibility of sanctification.  God would not tell us to walk in something (Matthew 5:48) and then not give us the resources (He gave us Himself, what is a little bit of personal holiness?) to help us attain that progression (Matthew 6:33).
9) We are ministers of love, grace, holiness, truth, righteousness, faith, and a really great path, that does happen to be narrow.  Let us do this well.
10) The Constitution and SCOTUS butchering of the same are not going to change hearts.  Lowering a flag is not going to change a heart.  Only the Lord can do that.  But, he is capable of softening a heart.  So, let’s work at cultivating more of the Fruit of the Spirit, and walking in more of the principles of the Lord found in Scripture, though not at the expense of realizing the depth of what has taken place in the SCOTUS decision.  They have usurped authority that was not theirs to take.  Our responsibility is to discern what has just happened, and to really grasp hold of what the Spirit is saying in this hour, including the shift that has just taken place in the Spirit realm.
It is time, Church. It is time for us to fight that the sexually-bound might be redeemed and returned to Him, healed and restored, and repentant.  They need us to walk in our identity, and the fullness of the authority Christ has died for us to possess, in order for them to walk in liberty and out of the deception so completely foisted upon them.  Remember, the enemy has sold the gay/adulterous/fornicating/porn-addicted community a Ship-High-In-Transit bill of goods.
It is time for us to pray for liberation.  
That means it is time to walk in liberation, and to begin to strap on some armor and a sword on our side, and enter into His presence, abide in Him by the cool waters (Psalm 23, Psalm 91) as the sheep of His pasture, and let Him come among us, and transform us into His majestic horses fit for battle (Zechariah 10:3).
Are you ready?

Humility and holiness are the bedrock for this fight.
The Paraclete’s Hammer.

I posted earlier a thread yesterday on Facebook and it generated a bit of a stir.
The comment goes something like this.
“G-d isn’t looking for an apology. He is looking for a relationship.”
I have been think a lot recently about what is available to us under the New Covenant. More than just mere theology and good doctrine and Scripture, etc.
What is available.
Consider the following:
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” From 1 Corinthians 2:9.
Well the post on Facebook generated quite a stir, even though it isn’t inherently controversial. Thought-provoking, maybe. Controversial, doubtful. But that is just my perception.
So after thinking about it, I wrote the following that I think is really worth repeating. It really sets the ethos of where I am with the L-rd:
“Hey, guys.
“It occurs to me that y’all may have missed the point of my post.
“So, let me do a little expansion.
“If I reduce my walk with the L-rd to nothing beyond an “I’m sorry” and never connect with Him for any purpose ever again, then what have I really done?
“On the other hand, if I give Him my heart and say, “take it. It is yours”. Then what have I done?
“You see, reducing repentance to a mere apology is neither Biblical nor warranted; nor is it what a relationship-desiring G-d who is Father to sons, Husband to brides, and Counselor to the afflicted.
“Repentance-from the Greek metanoia, meaning roughly, ” I change the way I process knowledge”. 
“We can move, in conversion, from carnal and soulish ways of accruing knowledge into a spiritual mode of gaining knowledge, if we are willing. This spiritual means of processing and discerning knowledge is called revelation.
“The problem is, so many of us do not readily move into this because we are used to the old soulish ways of processing information. We look for natural apprehension without looking for spiritual reception.
“That whole “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and it has not entered into the mind of man the things that G-d has prepared” thing? G-d has THAT ready for us, if we are willing to walk in it, if we want it. Spiritual things are not naturally discerned. Again, from Scripture.
“So, that implies a process, not moment. Apologies cost us only moment. Real repentance is a process, and it is part of that interaction we call a relationship.
“Moreover, “belief” is not merely mental assent, but it implies growth in obedience (see John 3:36 in the ESV for your literal translation of that concept).
“Now, if you come to a lover (See Song of Solomon for the exposition of G-d’s emotions toward us, His bride) and merely offer an apology, and then walk away, when they would rather have the messy process of a relationship and all that that entails, then you are going to leave them woefully dissatisfied. My wife and I had an exchange similar to this this evening.
“The point is, He really is not looking for mere apology. Between the two, He is INFINITELY more concerned about a relationship, considering the fact that He is in LOVE with us.
“Sadly, most people won’t spend the time it takes to really get a revelation of what this tender affection means. They will jump on the bandwagon of rattling off an apology and then walk away from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“When they do this, and refuse to engage in a relationship, then a Love that is deeper than the ocean and higher than the mountains goes ungiven, and emotions that are more intense than anything you or I have ever experienced go unfelt.
“And the Father, Son and Holy Spirit cry out for a relationship that is no mere apology.
“The problem is that we settle. Israel settled for the desert. Israel settled for not knowing the L-rd (Judges). Eli settled. Ahab settled. Manasseh settled. 
“Moses, on the other hand did not settle, saw G-d’s glory, and Moses and David were the best of what was available…under the old covenant. And they are the foundation of the basement floor for what is available to us under the New Covenant.
“But again, we settle. We settle for crumbs of information when G-d has prepared a table, full of the knowledge of His glory, before us in the presence of our enemies, that our cup might run over. G-d has available to us a walk and an adventure that far outstrip any of the prophets of the Old Testament.
“But it really is our choice if we want to walk in that, or kvetch about the little details.
“What does He have for you and what do you really want?
“Bill Johnson was right. Jesus didn’t die on a cross just so we could go to church once a week and tithe.”
It isn’t perfect. I know y’all can get hung up on the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 2:9 or any other number of factors, but it is a fair representation of where I am.
Thanks for sharing.
Be blessed
Theparacleteshammer

For what can be known about G-d is plain to them, because G-d has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived…. So they are without excuse.  For although they knew G-d…
-Romans 1:19-21a-
(parts removed for the sake of emphasis)
Knowledge about G-d based on revelation of Him through creation in v. 19 is equated with knowing G-d in v. 21. So, it seems to me from this passage that it is possible to have adequate revelation about G-d apart from Scripture to be held accountable for our response to that revelation.
So, my question to you, dear readers, is “is this revelation enough to move towards salvation?”. It seems that it is, at least from the reading here.
Curious as to your reactions.

I have a friend from seminary named Mark.  He sold me my first Macintosh (yes I still sometimes use their full name to describe them), an iBook G3, back when Motorola still made Apple’s processors, and sid a dang fine job at it, too.
This beast of a white laptop came with Accordance. For those of you that don’t  know what Accordance is, it is the most glorious little bit of Bible study and reseach software on the planet. Better than Logos. Better than Olive Tree. You name it, and Accordance is better.
So, today Mark posted something about the CEO of Apple Computer and the new law that is in effect in Indiana.  There has been quite a kerfluffle about potential volations of civil liberties to gays.
Now, granted, 19 states have already passed similar laws. And now, Indiana has a law that is now causing these groups, including Tim Cook, to single out Indiana, and not the other 19?
This is hypocrisy on behalf of Mr. Cook and other activist groups, of course.
But, I digress.  Back to the point of the post.
My response to Mark, which I think holds true for the rest of us who are up in arms over Indiana and considering boycotting groups like Apple over their social stances brings something else to the table for your consideration.
I wrote:

The Fallen: What Do We Owe Them?
by Jon Greene
What if I told you that failure looks like a 3,000 square foot house beneath the North Florida pines, two new cars, healthy children, and a loving wife?  You’d probably judge me to be insane, overly self-critical, or just vain beyond reason. You’d say how wonderful my life is, and you’d talk about ‘first-world problems’ and about how my salary puts me in the top 10% of everyone on the planet, and you’d be right, at least in a sense. But you couldn’t tell me why I can’t sleep at night. You couldn’t touch the emotion dwelling deep inside me at the idea that I’m less than what I should be.
What you don’t understand…what you could never understand…is that my drive to excel, to experience, to impact, and to grow is not governed by my position relative to the other human beings on the planet, or the mean national income, or the list of accolades that adorns my LinkedIn profile.  No. You couldn’t know if you haven’t experienced it, but I’m being chased by the ghosts of men who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.  I’m hounded to the point of exhaustion by the thought that, having survived them, I now carry the burden of leaving a legacy big enough for them to share in.
The problem, of course, is that these men are heroes in my mind.  Travis Griffin was my friend.  He was also a better man than me.  My memories of him play like an incessant loop of greatness, over and over again in my mind.  He shot better than me.  He ran better than me.  He had more friends.  He did the job at a higher level.  And he still got taken from us.  It’s one of the great conundrums of modern warfare.  On some days you can do everything right and still get killed. The natural conclusion of those thoughts about the greatness of my fallen friend are dire; if he had lived he would have done great, great things. Greater than the things I’ve done.
And that’s the rub.  He didn’t live, but I did. He bled out beneath the hot April sun in Baghdad doing a tour that he didn’t have to do in order to help a people that he didn’t have to love.  I was home safely with my small children. The randomness of it is infuriating and frightening all at once. And the implications are frightening, also. What does it mean that I’m left wandering the Earth when men such as these have perished?  What do I owe them?
That question has driven me to the point of brokenness on more than one occasion. I feel compelled to leave a legacy of impact upon the world around me, not because I desire to be impactful, but because Travis would have damn sure made an impact if he had lived. I feel driven to do something that matters in life beyond marketing and sales and peddling more socks and toothpaste to people who don’t really have any needs in life. I can’t get free of it.  The paradigm colors every day of my life with the eery shade of a mission left unaccomplished.
And the great irony is, I know very well, that Travis would have wanted me to simply live life.  Enjoy my children.  Grow old.  Eat good food.  Drink good Scotch. Be content. That was the kind of guy he was. And yet his ghost greets me in the mirror every morning with the same questioning stare. Will today be the day that you do something that matters?  Will you impact the planet with some brilliant bit of endeavor?  Will you change the equation in some meaningful way?  Will the world remember you, and in so doing, will they remember that I was the one that motivated you? Will you secure our legacies, make an impact big enough for both of us?  And, at the end of each day, having returned again to that ghost in the mirror, I have sadly shaken my head, no. Not today.  But I’ve not forgotten you.  Maybe tomorrow.
And that is why I feel that I’m a failure.
But that ghost in the mirror is a figment of my own imagination.  It’s self-imposed torture.  In all fairness, I’m not the first person to come up with the concept.  Look at the Asian concepts of ancestral honor.  The European concept of chivalry.  Are these not merely the attempts of men to live up to an ideal; to appease a set of watching eyes? In the case of Bushido, one lives in a way that would please one’s ancestors.  In the case of chivalry, one lives in a manner designed to please one’s lord, or one’s god. And here I am, trying desperately to live in a way that would be pleasing to the particular sets of eyes that, if heaven is a real place, watch over me and judge my efforts.
And yet, and this is the key to understanding this bit of emotional rabble I’ve written here, the Asians and the Europeans managed to temper the requirements in such a way as to not go insane.  Actual achievement gives way to best intentions and honorable efforts.  And, as I think they have rightly concluded, this is what those who have gone before us would most want of us.  Not to be burdened down with the weight of greatness that could have been and self-imposed expectations, but rather to live rightly and honorably before the shrine of their memory.  We need not build monuments to their memory in the form of the great works of our own hands.  We need only remember them. We don’t owe them great accomplishments in their honor at the expense of our own happiness and livelihood.  We owe them honor, and to be honorable on their behalf.
This is easier said than done.  I’m trying.
Well-said, Jon.

…always in my prayers, asking that somehow by G-d’s will I may come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you–that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
-Romans 1:10-11-
It seems it was within (the preposition “by” is the Greek preposition “en”, which usually refers to being in, with, or among something or some entity, be it a person, group, or object) the will of G-d for Paul to go anywhere the Gentiles and barbarians might be found (Romans 1:14).  Some areas of the world notwithstanding, because of G-d’s explicit instructions, Paul was to go anywhere that non-Jews might be found.
G-d, Paul knew, wanted the Gospel presented in Rome. Well, “presented” may not be the best word.  Sounds like a proposal being presented with arguments and talking points.  The gospel, when presented, rather ought to be done in such a way that we get ourselves out of the way and let the Holy Spirit manifest in a demonstration of power (1 Corinthians 12:7), given the gospel is not a matter of word or talk, but one of power (1 Corinthians 4:20).
Ministers of the gospel, we are not expositors of cleverly devised fables, but rather, we are followers of an Entity who loves deeply, relates intensely, dies passionately, and redeems completely  It is not our job to have a clever presentation with deft handling of words and turns of phrase (though some of us, teachers, are given to those details).  Rather, we are designed to plug relationally into a connection with others, and to connect them with a G-d who really does want a relationship with all of humanity.
Thinking I have to follow one preacher’s formula for making disciples, when G-d has made me redemptively with a big spirit for big-spirited connections with big-spirited humanity that has no interest in religion, sells G-d and the gospel far short of G-d’s design for the gospel.
We are redeemed, but to what?
To relate, with our whole being, spirit, soul (mind; will; and, yes, emotions), and body to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  We have an innumerablly relational, big-spirited inheritance and birthright.  Let us seize that, rather than a list of do’s, don’t’s, and motions through which we think we must go in order to placate what we think is G-d, but really is not. 
G-d’s purpose in Paul’s coming was not so the Romans could have merely a soulish, cerebral connection, with perfectly buttoned-down apologetics right down to their feet.  Rather, His purpose was a deep, spiritual, intimate, and messy intimate knowledge (as John Mark McMillian writes, such that “heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss”) of the living G-d and a connection of believers with each other and the lost: a connection defined not by apologetic and argumentation, but by real relationship. Relationship has always been the cornerstone and bridge for redemption. 
That kind of connection brings with it some risk. But in the kingdom, our very living, moving, and having our being are defined in the context of risk (Revelation 12:11-NIV).
What are you risking, believer?

Paul writes:
“For what can be known about G-d is plain to them, because G-d has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
Romans 1:19-20
I am without excuse. You are without excuse.
None of us gets the chance to live this life, and pretend we cannot see G-d at work in all of creation and then use ignorance as a defense when the day of judgement comes.
Each of us will stand and give account for our lives.
Recently, I have been dealing with some personal struggles (yes, I have them as you do) and, as a result, I have watched as some of my relationships have deteriorated.
It is in the times of testing, when you determine who you will reach out to, and when you see who reaches out to you to point you to the Father, that you learn who those close friends are. I have four friends, who each have a normal running dialogue with the Holy Spirit, that I know I can talk to. I know that they have my eternal good first in their minds when I call, and every shred of counsel they give is given in light of eternity.
One of these is my wife, who prays constantly for me, for all the trouble I get into, because of my cluelessness or tunnel vision (the Achilles’ heels of the redemptive gift of Prophet). She has the redemptive gift of Servant, and she flows in making an environment suitable and cleansed for the King to take up residence. And she is capable of getting her hands dirty and still remaining undefiled. And she helps clean up messes that come as a result of tunnel vision.
Thankfully, I think my tunnel vision has begun to get rarer and rarer.
However, my tunnel vision is no excuse. And in light of the matchless life and inheritance G-d has for us, why would we want to hide behind excuses for not listening and obeying?
One day I will stand before his throne. And He is completely just and will handle me rightly.
G-d, help us to examine ourselves in the light of your truth, remembering your kindness, that leads us to repentance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Be blessed