Out of Darkness Into The Right

I have a friend. He is a really good guy except for his flaws that have developed over the years and now have come to to destroy his family, estrange his wife and children, place doubt in the hearts of the fence setters and generally follow the patteren of brokeness that either destroys our souls or perhaps even worse, obliterates our witness. Of course of all these things are of harm and despair, the truth is they are the product of sin and the darkness that accompanies the Dark One. This is where we meet Jesus. I have found in my life and through the lives of others that often to see the light you gotta be in a dark place. My friend has found his dark place and by God's mercy and grace he is also seeing the light of Christ as he begins a life long relationship with Jesus.

When I had spent a couple years with the Lord I finally understood. Either I am with Him or I am against Him. A few are called and without hesitation devote their moment to monent life to sharing the Gospel, loving the unloved and truley impacting all people that every soul matters to God.

I come in contact with alot of addicts that want to be former addicts. I know several friends that have walked with Christ on Sunday and drunk on Mondays. Ridicule is punching their ticket for the last train bound to hell. These created beings, our brothers, the most dynamic creation of Gods that we are aware of, envied by Fallen Angels (Demons) and hated by Satan. Who the Bible says seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy us. Why are we so terrifying to Satan that he and his minion joint purpose is to destroy the witness/ testimony of us Christ followers. Satan figured he can't sway us so he will compromise our witness. In doing so our testimony is impotent and words are feeble like an old womans command.

Whomever might read this in the future will think, : why that fella was a nut. flower carring, bald, robe wearing tree hugger. You know with media as it is today and so many diffrent methods of worshiping Christ. Traditions vary church to church, denomination, to denomination. The most ice breaking, hive soothing moment came for me early on at First Assembly NLR. I was given a word from God. I know, scares most folks, they cut and run. The smart ones look it up in the Bible. The uncomfortable spirit I had my first few services there added to the overwhelmed feeling of being like a little bitty fish on a great big hook. Then God removed the scales from my eyes as I entered in the sactuary for the third time and I knew. All these "holy rollin" folks and me came from the same DNA. We all was cut out to serve God and our brothers. NOT LESS THAN THAT, EVER. I was no longer intimidated by being in the presnce of the other people. Those folks, everyone of them, were hellbound at one moment in their lives and in the next they had a responsibility we hardly wrap our minds around.

My life never had purpose or value until the day I was finally empty of any purpose good or bad and my life was filled with a quickening and an unquestionable knowledge that ALL about our Christ is true. My regret is I waisted so much life and health and time, leading folks astray that I pray for the honor to serve God in His desired fashion. The words from God, "good job loving me" is all that I desire. I have come to know that in this place we live, there is no other calling, deportment, attitude, respect, or condition that has an all encompassing cure. !00% successs rate since the beginning to the end of time. It is the least risky, unnessesarily speculative gut feeling that we all have. The call of Jesus. The active and deliberate acceptance or denial of the greatest truth and honor bestoyed upon Man. To utter the word's I work, I live for you Lord. Thats the beginning of a beautiful love beween Creator and His creation.

I will go into why I think a third of the Angels and Satan hated us so badly that his pride could not allow him to worship God because, Envy, Pride and contempt filled the spirits of all that have fallen. Why, Why'd God go and make us if He knew it was just gonna be a failure? By selfless service, unconditional love, forgiveness, and it's all true whats in that ancient book called Bible. Yeah Right. But that's the perfect beauty. It is all and everything God and Jesus and the Spirit has promissed, guarenteed. Told stories of 1500 years before they happened and it all came true and is still the only truth, the only way.

I will leave this. The truth is in you. You know it is true. When God made us I think he put an ability in us to know His truth's. The bible says it is written in us. The moment in time for each of God's miracles always occurs at the exactly correct moment. Broken or not, God supplies our every need, my supernatural history with Christ is the unbreakable, unconditional love He has for me. That I can only respond with worship, adoration, praise and surrender to creater of the all. The significant reality that I and many others are Loved by God. We beat up the whole: who me? Saved< Forgiven< Innocent< Forgotten< Fertile, Hungry for Redeemption, Yearning to complete our purpose ; The Will Of God. Simple. Plain Instructions, Translated for the more Educated, Complete, without error, just one catch, Love the God who Loves You Unconditionally. Love your neighbor as yourself.

This Is Difficult

No matter how wealthy, powerful, pleased, proud and satisfied, you loose without God. We win. We have God.

How does that statement make you feel?

Every Soul Matters To God. Even his.

I was uncomfortable.

Somewhere in the Bible there's a part about being unmoved watching others never knowing Jesus. Something about not seeking to introduce the lost to Christ. Which is about the best way I can think of to worship and honor God. Service to God service to others. Service to God.

I have found that the desire to serve God does not ensure that we will be successful. I fail.
All the time. My desire is strong, the hard part for me how? I would love seeing a billboard on I-30 saying how to do it right in 30 days, 1-800-NO1Fail.

I am struggling. I am anxious, exhausted and sustained. I am in the position that I must trust Him to survive this.

I have never had elevated expectations of myself. I was and am , to a degree, still painfully shy, introverted, awkward. I had and have still low self esteem and struggle to find purpose. To know me ten years ago it would have been obvious. Today not so much. I struggle still but I have Jesus. The difference between fright, misery, and fear and knowing the Truth, Grace and Hope that relationship with Christ produces.

I've been a Christ follower for five years and a Christ "knower" since 1973. I was 12. I knew Jesus but to do all those things seemed impossible. Church was no fun. Every week i was going to hell. So I played so hard the other six days just in case I went to hell on the 7th. That's how I remember it anyways. The best part of Church was when the Preacher give that last long prayer I'd slip outta Mom, Dad and my pew and ease up to Grandma and Grandpa's. As soon as the preacher reached the front doors and said amen me and Grandpa split out the side door, get in his Doodle Bug as he called it and headed to Grandma's and his house. We was fixin to eat. This forced Mom and Papa to come too. Genius.

I have learned that the period of time between knowing the name of Jesus and following Jesus is often a long time . I wonder if there is purpose in that statistic? Is it possible that we are (for lack of a better word) numb to the extreme urgency which we are in simply because Jesus is just a word to us? To the others? How can we communicate or reveal the most real, pursuing danger, evil that seeks to destroy us that is effectively invisible to the very peoples we desire to reveal it to?

I have been trying to hang onto pride. The only way to lose my pride is to tell the truth about me. The most difficult part of faithful is in the moment. It is a battle and takes effort and I am weak. Once saw things about life a much different way than today. Today there is hope. I never knew what hope was it was till I run up on it. Never knew what to truly believe in anything until I saw the intervention of my God begin in my life and has never yet stopped. There is a seamless presence of God in my life. I believe. it is such a change from being who I was once.

I want so badly to tell to others exactly what God has done to my my life. I am not good at knowing how to do that. I mean there's the story. Its a long one. I told you God showed up in my poor, broken existence and He changed my world. Its the best story in the world to me cause its how I surrendered to Christ. Surrender daily is the key. Gotta have a gonna serve Christ attitude and God does the rest, guaranteed.

The Bible promises in Psalms 34:18 The lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. As for myself, that pretty much sums me up. The deeper I look in me the greater the need for Jesus. Then I find it harder to serve Him because of me. It seemed as at the very moment I began a life with Christ. It ain't like it was. Life has become a montage of obstacles, traps. snares, pitfalls, distractions, temptations and shinny things. It really is hard to see a great volume of of the presence and reverence to Christ when I stand and look around. Here there's the Slick and Polished for me. If I am committed to follow Christ, and I am struggling and the Bible tells us plainly that we should have expected it, read the Book. I figure most others are also.

Lord I feel pressured, inadequate and fearful. I need your help dealing with everything that has come against me. I know your word says I am . I love you. I worship you. My only desire is to serve you. I need that strength of Jesus today. I need your presence and peace.

First Things First

Earlier this morning I was setting in my chair. Beside my bookcase. Lots of books, file folders. memorabilia. The bookshelves contents were 99.2% Christian oriented items. Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries. Cute figurines with nice bible verses on them. The .8% left over goes to the weighty ball chromed out skull.It came on my cane. That's another story. A couple of years ago I went to several Narcotics Anonymous meetings in town. I really tried to hang with the message and the people. I kept looking for hope and the affirmation that Christ makes us successful in what he planned for us If we follow him. I got the vibe that it wasn't gonna happen around a lot of pissed off folks.. These were angry people. Whole lot of despair, anger, no victories. One night before I left the meeting I purchased a book. This morning I opened that book. On the inside cover of the book I had written several years ago, disheartened by not fitting in at those meetings. Hurting, angry and anxious. I wrote:

1. I am not God. Stop trying to act like it

2. I am unable to become the person he intended me to be without first, knowing and believing in

#1. Secondly I must shut up and listen for my Lords whisper that comforts me.

3. I must constantly be aware that because of the brokenness of and choices I have made I must

live a life in which my God's Grace is sufficient in all things. My choices will determine my

eternity. Jesus is with me.

4. The moment that I feel the "satisfaction", "pride" or an "anonymous victory" in my recovery,

my ability to effectively help another is lost Got to get that outta me o me.I have to

#1, #2, #3, and #4. Hit my knees on the floor. Pray and cry and groan. Submit

SUBMIT

myself as a willing and humbled sacrifice excited of the prospect of God's will coarsing

in me as I get to serve God Himself. I need "humbilization" before I go forward.

It was designed by God to be about the thems. It is ALL about Jesus. It is not about me. It is

all about being God's child. When I read the Bible there ain't nothing better.

5. Hardest part is to remain teachable. Its hard to admit shortcomings, inabilities and weakness.

Be humble. Live weak. I know where my strength comes from.

6. There is no coincidence I survived to live this day. God's Grace got me here. Don't waist it.

Confessions Of What Is Real

This has been happening to me for along time and I am in pain. I come around the corner the other day and run up on Jesus. He had been a long time coming and His timing is Perfect. I owe everything to the Grace and Salvation of my Master, Wise Council, King. All that is Is You. I want to throw myself at your feet and worship and adore you Jesus. I crave to be in your presence, where I feel You best. I have been in a cursed life bound for hell. Then I met the Truth. The moment I met God, in my life I knew He is the Only Truth. My Christ. My King.

WHAT IT IS WE KNOW THAT IS TRUE ABOUT OUR KING, OUR CHRIST, MAN OF SUFFERING. MY SAVIOR IS REAL. ALWAYS BEEN. ALWAYS BE. MY KING. I KNOW IT IN MY GUTS. THAT'S ALSO WHY YOU DO NOT FEEL IT THEIR WHEN IT IS NOT.

If anyone hasn't told you, When you choose Christ as Lord and Savior, that's not the end. That's the beginning.

I want to record the things that are happening in my life. I want to in any way leave a record of Christ in my life. My personal Jesus. Savior. Truth. Answer.

Before I get started on that I have a friend and his wife from our church that are troubled on my heart. A couple weeks ago in Sunday School I find that he is stricken with a rare and inoperable brain cancer. All my Sunday School members were making these cute get well and hope you feel better cards. I asked what they were doing and I learned about my friends illness. I felt horrible for just not knowing. I just couldn't bring myself to make this card. I just couldn't. This morning, here in the middle of all the crazy stuff going on around my life I feel inspired to write them a note. " I will leave their names absent in respect". I rote their names and said, "What can I say? Ain't no word's is there? You know how to go through this. You gotta love Him and you gotta love him. You have to grow closer and wiser during this time. I know it sounds counter-intuitive but now is the time to grow. Alot of it. You don't want what's happening to yall but you cannot be successful without it.

You know it ain't ever crazy doing what God's got us to tend to, even when it does seem that way.

Only secret I know of is Praise God. Praise Him. Worship him. Cry to Him and yell at Him and let yourself be exhausted of your efforts at the feet of Jesus and in His time He shall turn your tragedies into His victories. Y'all in a win/win situation. Y'all can do this. It makes us who we will be. These are your moments to be as you are so you can become who you shall be.

Sometimes I find it fascinating can't take it all in. BUT I KNOW IT. IT'S ALL TRUE. IT'S ALL REAL. EVERYTHING THE BIBLE SAYS IS THE TRUTH. AIN'T GONNA BE BUT ONE WAY AND THAT'S HIS WAY. That Truth is your comfort. That Truth's all it takes. That Truth's all there is.

Your in a fight your scarce readied for but you know how to fight and you know who has the Victory. I love you guys so much, you make me grow.

It'salways Best I Heed My Own Advice

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Hey Sue nice to hear from you and actually its nice to hear the type of problems your expressing. Ive led a less than desirable life before Christ and have had many problems, most of which I was responsible for. Now when I hear mysel;f saying that I want to be more connected to my Church, ny Church Family and feel a responsibility to ones that are influenced by my choices and convictions, I have to say there is no better burden than the burden for Christ.

It sounds like you are well equipped to handle the burden that your responsibility of faith requires. A while back I realized that i had developed a habit of looking at most everything in my life through the filter of Christ. What my marriage means to me and how I am devoted to my wife without reservation or an "exit strategy" and the desire and determination to help lead my kids to Christ had become the focal center of my purpose. What you are describing is so similar. You describe being sold out to Christ and have a burden for your daughter and husband. Christ also knows exactly what your burden and content of your heart are. He is well equipped to assist you in your effort to help develope you family into life lonf followers of Christ. Remember the parable about how we are to sow the seed and Christ will water and nurture it to fruition? Sister you do what the Christ in your heart commands. Do you endear your daughter to Christ if she fully resists and is despondent at the notion of going to Church. In my post i briefly described my mother's word to me, everytime I saw her. She would say, "you need to be in Church". I would say "i know" and kiss her on the head and go on about my life. I can guarantee you this, she never once missed Church because I didn't go. She never tried to pacify me or entice me to come to Church with anything other than the truth."You need to be in Church". My momma died and in the Church that we had the service in was the first Church Id been in since 1977.

i was the type of person that is shaped by extremes in my life. For me to turn my life over to Christ I had to loose everything. I mean living in the homeless shelters, no money , no family. i had to be hopeless, broken and desperate. in my despair I tried to take my own life. it was unsuccsessful and it was at that first moment of consciousness that i was primed and ready for Christ to be my Salvation. Now I'm not saying that that is the solution for your daughter and husband. I describe the call of Christ like this, Jesus has a "secret combination" of events that he "dials in" in our lives. He invites us to accept His gift of savation many times during our lives. He positions us so that we can CHOOSE.
The Bible says that God would have it that none should perish but all should come to know Him as their Savior. I know that its a heartbreaking feeling that our loved ones are struggling, not understanding the serious and eternally important consequences of their tarrying attitude towards Christ. I know this, I cannot tell anyone anything, but I can show them. Sue, you go to Church. You be a prayer warrior for your daughter and husband. You be the leader God intends to the ones that choose to listen to your Christ given leadership and wisdom. You spread the message of a need for prayer to your Church family. You immerse yourself in the Word. You live a life that emmulates Christ to the very best of your abilities. I believe the only reason I am alive today, a Christ follower and writing this to you is that my mother took me to Church when I was a child and she continued to grow in Christ and never ever compromised her beliefs for fear of "losing" me.
The only chance I had was her prayers and mantra that continually rang in my ears,"I love You And You Need To Be In Church. You know the way. Go for it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. In Christ, Patrick Franke

For Us, For Me, For Every Created Thing To See

It has been a month since my last post. Things have been hectic with the holidays coming. Work is picking up. Kids are growing and more demanding. Life is just plain faster and harder. I fell off a step ladder last Thursday and sliced my left forearm open requiring multiple sutures and staples to close. That injury kinda slowed things down a bit. I actually took a photo of my arm before and after suturing and my crazy yet lovely wife posted it to Facebook. I mean really, we live in a world where I can cut my arm halfway off and the next moment its digitized and spewn around the planet. Crazy cool times we live in now.

More seriously though is the time with our families and friends. I have the pleasure of having a wonderful wife and family. I serve the one and only God of all things. My God, my King. Sadly this has not always been so. I served myself first for a long time. I lived without thought or consequence of a "God". I lived, I lost, I destroyed the things that were close to me. I lost all my family, all my friends, all my self respect because of brokenness, hopelessness and despair brought on by addiction and more specifically no relationship with Jesus Christ. This is no fault of Jesus I'll let you know. Looking back I can see where He has extended His hand countless times offering me the unconditional love I have always sought. The love that we all seek. I found Jesus Christ as my Savior when I was 12 years old.
I promptly took that experience and started burying it with the "junk" of this life in the "junk drawer" of this life. I kept on living and kept filling that junk drawer with the things I thought I wanted and needed. I lived hard and played hard. I ended up married and soon thereafter suffered a broken neck and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. Soon after surgery to stabilize my neck I discovered I had contracted Hepatitis C from surgery. Hepatitis C from my surgeon. Six months later it was discovered I had liver tumors. I had cancer. In a two year period I had went from owning life to being a prisoner of life and the hits kept coming. My marriage deteriorated. Life was insufferable. I sat day after day mentally and physically deteriorating. I gave up. The desire to live, left. Then in the fourth year following experimental viral treatments for the cancer and Hepatitis C something remarkable happened, I was cured. No detectable tumors could be observed, the liver biopsy showed no cirrhosis. and the Hepatitis C was undetectable with RNA testing. My physician called it a miracle. I really can't recall rejoicing. The grip of depression and loss was greater than the news that, yeah! now you get to live a long time in that stinking chair. Talk about ungrateful, no good self serving, feeling sorry for yourself scumbag. That was me. I could have had a goose that laid a golden egg and I would have been mad cause I couldn't fry it. Two years later four significant things happened. 1. I began to regain feeling in my legs. 2. My mother died. 3. Our daughter died. 4. Within two years I learned to walk again. All this and not once did I say thank you God. I just took, hid it, buried it, faked it. My physical abilities improved my mental abilities deteriorated. My addiction dominated my life. My wife sat in a chair in our living room and disappeared. My marriage was over. My life was over, or so I thought.

I believe I once was the most ungrateful human that has ever lived.I stole lied cheated, decieved and in doing so I found a new life and a new friend, Unfortunately for her she didn't get to meet the real me until after she married me. We hadn't been together long and the addiction became unmanageable and without bounds.My firsy ex-wife committed suicide and almost a year to the day my new wife divorced me and I was on the street, living to die. I lived from shelter to shelter. Hopelessness abound. I still can't wrap my head around how God could have delivered me from so many hopeless situations and I not be able to see it. Well. finally I'd had enough. It came time to die. I had a plan. My ex-wife told me that night she never wanted to hear from me again. Never wanted to see me or have anything to do with me. The last thing i told her was she'd never see me again. That night I overdosed on methadone and was found dying in an alley. The ambulance took me to the hospital who saved my body. My soul was still lost. I woke up in ICU five days later mad as a hornet because I was still alive. I raged against God. What kind of God would make me suffer like this. How could I be so selfish? Why couldn't I see every blessing that He'd given me? I felt the presence of the love of God laying in that hospital bed. I cried to Him to do what the Bible said He'd do. Save me, Forgive me, Help me, Take this horror and pain and hopelessness off of me and please God do it now cause I can't stand it another moment. Jesus won't let me die ans I can't live without Him. I gave my life to Christ that moment of that day Better yet He gave me life that day. The sacrifice He made on the cross at Calvary where he Died so that I could live. I accepted that gift that day.

I escaped from the hospital that day a homeless half naked former drug addict. I walked to a place called The Union Rescue Mission. I stayed therefor a year and went through their rehab program. I established a relationship with Christ. I found a new family at a Church that God led me to, The First Assembly Of God North Little Rock. The closer in relationship I grew with God the more I had to cry and tell Him I was sorry for not seeing the blessings and gifts and miracles he had done in my life, all my life. One day my ex-wife contacted me. I didn't know if I should have contact with her. I had prayed for many months for our relationship to be restored. I didn't know if I was strong enough to just "be friends". We met I showed her MY CHURCH and her comment after an hour was "I think I need to bring the kids here, we need to be in Church". I knew it then and there. God was up to His stuff again. Within a year our Pastor married us, again. We live today so the kids will see everyday how God can take a broken helpless sinner and love him into a worthwhile, purpose filled person. I live today to share my story of how far God will let you go just to get you into a position to choose Him.

I understand today that Jesus not only died for us, He was born for us. He lived for us. He loved for us so we could know what being born, living, loving and dying meant. I have come to know, for me , the meaning of Christmas was the birth of my Savior. The thing that has recently come to my knowing is that God created us so He could show all His creations what love was. We were given the free will to choose to love God or reject God. The son of God came and lived among us and let it be known that he was dying for us to abolish all sin for all time. All we had to do was accept that truth, that reality, that gift. In doing so we exercised our free will and fulfilled God's grand design that above all else love triumphs.

In this Christmas season I urge you to open your junk drawer of life and remove the clutter, broken,useless, meaningless junk that covers the glowing gift that Christ has given to us all. If you've accepted His gift of salvation but buried it with the trappings of life dig like crazy to rediscover it. Find it and nurture it because frankly, it's all you got. If you have never accepted Christ's gift of salvation, Now Is Your Chance To Use Your Free Will. There is a God, His son is Jesus. He lives. The stories you've heard about how He came to earth as a baby, grew to manhood, lived a sin free life, taught the truth about who He is and who we are, and that these truths are found in a book named The Bible. These are all true. Find a Bible .Open it to the Book Of Luke and read. Let your heart feel the truth. Go around the corner from where you live and go into the Church. Say hello to anyone. Set down. Open your heart close your eyes and hear the truth. Believe it or not, YOU are the meaning of Christmas. It was all for you and I. Jesus in the manger, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the sacrifice. It was all for you and I. Jesus made Christmas for us. We didn't make it for Him.

This season hold your children. Hug your parents. Greet your neighbors. Call your families. Gather together and remember the Christ who loves us. the Savior who gave all for us. The God that opens His heart for His children and offers them the unconditional love that He created. God bless us all, Merry Christmas

An addendum To Signs And Symptoms

When I finished my last post -Signs And Symptoms- I did so hurriedly because I was trying to get ready for Church. In my haste I was unable to express what I believe is the most important aspect of the message. When I reviewed it, it sat to close to pride. I may have left a subtle impression that their was an element of pride in overcoming the things that had for so long seperated me from Christ. This is false. Their is no pride because it is not about me. It is and always has been and shall always be about Christ and His Grace born of the Cross. The Grace from Christ and how we wear it, use it, exude it and share it is the outward sign and symptom of being a Christ follower. I wanted to leave this message with a couple of mental pictures. Ones that will forever be in my head and my heart. Most importantly they are the things that I can express in words as ideas to help witness to others.

In the Bible their is a mental picture that is the timeless expression of a Christ follower. The time is the end of Jesus' life as a man. The location is a hill called Calvary. Jesus is crucified between two criminals who, too, are moments away from eternity. With one statement of faith one criminal secures his place in Glory with Christ. One moment of humility, of guilt erased by the Creator. Jesus told this man he would be in Paradise with Christ that day. This is because that criminal spoke aloud for any to hear his beliefthat Jesus is the Christ, Son of God. The criminal spoke it with his mouth and believed it in his heart.

The other sign and symptom comes from an experience related to me by my best friend who is also a Pastor at my Church. The other day he was telling me he had to preach a funeral for a fellow that mosy likley did not know Christ as his Savior. He stated the family was sure this dying man did not have a relationship with Jesus. My Pastor friend told me he went to the hospital to see the dying man. He was unable to talk and could only squeeze his hand as a form of communication. Pastor leaned down to the man's ear and quietly told the dying man that he didn't know if this man knew Jesus as Savior. Pastor told the man that he was as close to being in eternity as anyone he'd ever seen. If the man wanted now to confess Jesus as his Savior and ask to be forgiven as a sinner, then, in his mind repeat the name of Jesus over and over. That he that calls upon the name of Jesus will be saved. The man , Pastor told me, squeezed his hand strongly and quickly, over and over as a tear fell down his face. Many will scoff at this moment and find reason to conclude the dying man did not accept Jesus. I have already heard this perspective. I am encouraged that my Jesus, the Jesus that knows our hearts and thoughts, the Jesus that desires that none fall short of His gift of Salvation. The Jesus who heals the blind and speaks the universe into existence can and did witness the dying mans squeezing hand and shortly after welcomed him into Glory.

So whats your sign and symptoms of Christianity? What is it that makes others easily identify you as a Christ follower? Do we really need to be nailed to the cross of life before we cry out? Are you betting on the death bed experience? Do we act like a neighbor lover? Are we consistant in the way we are in Church as well as when we are in the picture shows? Think about it.