A Boat Ashore Ministry Devotional

Romans 13.1-2 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

I will be the first to admit that I have an issue with this particular scripture.  I have heard many Christians refer to Romans 13 as a call to blindly follow and pray for the leadership that has been elected into office.  This is absolutely untrue – it has to be, for we have free will.  Should we pray for these godless leaders that are put into office?  Yes, we should pray that they are removed.

It is our job as God’s people to ensure that godly and morally correct men and women get elected into office.  If a godless majority in any society is allowed to have free reign, then we are subject to godless leadership who will serve to destroy everything that we hold dear.  Does this mean that God has put these people into office and we should obey them?  I already hear the resounding “NO!”, and it is at it’s loudest today.

Our rights as Christians are being systematically abused and taken away by an increasingly godless society, and it is time to fight for Who’s right.  We are currently in the most groundbreaking political struggle that has been seen in a very long time.  Denominations aside and nominations ahead, it is most clear who is serving God and who is not.  I know many Christians who don’t even vote, thinking that it does not matter.  Could this be one of the reasons why these godless men are being put into office?

As for Romans, there are many biblical scholars who question that Paul even wrote this particular scripture.  This is not the venue for that discussion.  My point is that it is time to stand up as Christians for the Truth that we believe in and make our voices heard.  Get out there and vote today but first, as you enter that little booth of red, white and blue, pray that He gives you guidance and discernment into who the righteous candidate is and that His will truly be done when the day ends.

^{Genesis 2.8} The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

I realize that as of late my writing has been rather sporadic.  I was attempting to write every day, but I always want my writing to be completely led and inspired by the Lord.  Recently, I have found myself in my morning devotional meditating in the garden.  This has become a very personal and inspiring project to me.  It has taken a great deal of sweat and time, but I am finding it well worth it.  We enjoyed the first fruits of our labor yesterday, as I harvested a bit of home grown lettuce for our tacos.

I was able to spend Fathers Day wrapping up the planting for the most part.  Sarah had been worried that she was not able to get me Fathers Day gifts as the van is out of commission until we get a couple of new tires this week.  Upon reflection later last night, I explained to her that all I needed for Fathers Day had been provided…

I spent the first few hours of the day meditating in the garden, after which Sarah and Micah went to Sunday School while Noah and I filled the bird feeders.  I was up on the ladder hanging the full feeder and I looked around and could not see Noah anywhere.  I quickly started down the ladder and noticed that he was up on the first few rungs following me.  As I would pull grass and weeds from the flower beds, he would pull grass and throw it as I was.  He is my little shadow.  This is all I need on Fathers Day.

When Sarah and Micah came home, we were sitting in the living room relaxing.  Micah came to the glass door peering through with a wide smile on her face yelling “Happy Fathers Day!” and presenting me with a card she had made.  Later in the day as I was working in the garden, my family came around the corner and Micah presented me with a bottle of water.  I dismissed her, asking her to put it down on the deck and she replied “But daddy, you need your water.”  I took the bottle and thanked her, opening it up and taking a long drink, my heart full and exploding.  This is all I need for Fathers Day.

We are the plants in the Lord’s garden.  Our children are the plants in our gardens.  We need to tend them with the care and love that God tends to us.  Sarah has worried that she had not had time to get in and help with the weeding in our literal garden.  But she is wholeheartedly tending our figurative garden, growing our little pumpkin heads.  I don’t mind, I have the time to weed the literal garden and as the Lord provides for me, I long and love to provide for her.

Sarah, Sarah with chestnut hair uh… how does your garden grow?  Very well, thanks to Him.

^{1 Samuel 16.7} But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

The old saying ‘You can not judge a book by it’s binding‘ was first written in 1929 in the journal American Speech but the meaning finds its history long before that.  The fact of the matter is, we all judge books unfairly by their bindings.  Two thousand year old thinking has created a ravenous book burning monster and at the heart of the monster beats a hard, cold hypocrisy.

Literary works – brilliant and epic literary works – have been destroyed in the hands of religious leaders and ignorant followers.  These people incite riots based on something they do not understand.  They throw history into the fire based on nothing but outward appearance.  They can not be bothered to actually read what it is they are trashing.

Harry Potter is just one example.  This series of books has become one of the highest selling series and millions of children have entered time and again into the wonderful world of Hogwarts.  Witchcraft and wizardry is at the center though, causing a complete over-reaction by religious fanatics who have no clue what it is about.  How is it that I can write intelligently about this topic?  I have read the books from cover to cover and know them well.  It is an extremely well told story of the triumph of good over evil.

Based on the church’s reaction to Harry Potter, what other works of art should be cast into the furnace?  Lord of the Rings?  There is loads of magic in that book.  The Narnia Chronicles?  Star Wars?  I mean, think about it.  The force?  That is some serious strange magic going on there.  Wonderful books like The Shack and Harry Potter are cast away simply because over zealous cultist religious un-thinkers do not understand the content.

Face the facts, many of you have judged books by their cover. Without reading them, you quickly cast them into the fire and watch them burn –  a greedy snarl and triumphant air of self righteousness floating about you.  This fog of ignorance has diluted your ability to speak conscientiously and intelligently.  How will you be able to teach your children the proper way to read and understand these books if you are so quick to deny them?  I guarantee that your little ones will find a way to check them out.  You have created forbidden fruit, and there is nothing more appetizing to a young and growing mind.

^{John 14.26} But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

The Holy Spirit is not in your church.  The Holy Spirit is in you.  We must remember that the Holy Spirit is a personal experience, subjective and subject to the person whom is being inhabited.  Two people can be standing next to each other and one can be completely filled and overcome by the Holy Ghost while the other will not feel, see or understand that anything has happened.

There is certainly a tangible force and power in the Holy Spirit that is to be felt, but because it is a personal experience, there is really no way to share it.  There are no words to adequately describe it.  I have heard some people refer to it as a fog or cloud but again this is happening within us, not around us.

This is not to say that the Holy Spirit is not omnipresent.  He is everywhere just as much as God is everywhere and Jesus Christ is everywhere.  He is a Spirit nonetheless and He inhabits people, not places.  The end result is, we can only know the Holy Spirit personally.  We can not judge how others are relating to Him, just as we can not know how others are relating and experiencing God.

You do not need to go anywhere to be filled and renewed by the Holy Spirit.  You don’t need anyone but God to be baptized.  It is a gift that no man has the right or responsibility to grant.  Just ask Him and His Holy Spirit will be given unto you, and if you are visiting a church and not finding the Holy Spirit is there, perhaps you need to examine your own heart.

^{Matthew 7.26-27} “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:  and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

You thought it strong in your own logic
As you built each wall taller brick by brick
Surrounding yourself by a stronghold thick
But the foundation was weak and the sand was quick

Stained glass portraiture bleeding light
Darkness of days turning darker by night
Cathedral spires spiraling and twisted tight
Casting shadows upon the land like blight

Overcast clouded in two thousand miseries
Continuing practice of long lost histories
You can count the costs on your rosaries
One by one all those missed opportunities

Concentration squandered on other’s sin
Left wanting and waiting, without Christ within
Old bitter wine that you poured in your skin
Leaving you drunk and stumbling and paper thin

Soiled seed sewn you can keep your throne
And your rhetoric repeated in effort to atone
This fortress of flesh and brittle bone
Is now a strong tower of enduring stone

No longer tied down and pushed around
Captured by rhythmic and melodious sound
Eyes open with wonder now wide and round
An answer evasive now easily found

I find myself taken up and away
Release from the prison of a shallow grave
In a deeper realizing that He suddenly gave
I find that by His grace I am finally saved

^{John 8.7} So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” 

Now that I have your attention, you need to pay close mind to what I am about to say.  God does not hate homosexuals, God hates sin – period.  Black, white, yellow, red – all of the colors of the rainbow – God loves everybody.  This is no ordinary love either.  This is agape love – perfect love unending and infinite.

You (you know who you is referring to) are preaching a message that is contrary to the Word of God.  That is blasphemy and it is a sin.  You are teaching your children to hate, and that is a sin.  In the words of Jesus Himself, you are committing murder in your heart and that is sin.  You are not living and breathing the Word you so highly covet and that is a sin.  You are not speaking His message of salvation to a people who so badly desire and need it, and that is a sin.

I think you will be amazed and surprised, unpleasantly so, by who you meet in heaven, providing that you actually get there.  You seem to be greatly mired down in sin and blasphemy, and you WILL be judged by the same measures as everyone else.  Do not be so quick to cast that first stone.  That glass house you are living in is sure to come crashing down around you.

^{Psalm 127.3-5} Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them…

God has blessed me with a glorious love
A watchful eye from heaven above
Any worry in sight taking flight like a dove
I am blessed

God has blessed me with a beautiful wife
A wonderful friend to share my life
Through thick and thin, harmony and strife
I am blessed

God has blessed me with a beautiful girl
With love and laughter filled my world
From nothing but sand an elegant pearl
I am blessed

God has blessed me with a little guy
Apple near to this tree and of my eye
Bond bound and found in close knit tie
I am blessed

God has blessed me with a house on the sea
A stunning view and wild beauty
Boats and birds in fog moving free
I am blessed

God has blessed me with work, no pushin’ or shovin’
God has blessed me with abundance, left wanting nothin’
God has blessed me friends and this life I am lovin’
And I am blessed once again with a bun in the oven

I am blessed

^{Isaiah 65.17-18} “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

We can not deny science – science is based on reason backed by physical proof.  Science can not and will not deny God, for He created it.  To deny science based simply on your religion is akin to placing your fingers in your ears and singing out as loud as you can “La la la la la, I can not hear you!”  Science has not disproved the existence of God – it has in fact proved that in order for anything to exist, it must have had a beginning.  The second law of thermodynamics provides that you can not get something from nothing, so everything must have come from somewhere.  We must evolve from out of these dangerous and outdated religious patterns and thinking.

Science can not destroy it’s own creator – that cataclysm would return us to the nothing from whence we came.

^{Philippians 2.14-16} Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

Love the Lord with all your heart
Your mind, your soul, your every part
Take up your cross and follow in haste
For His kingdom is not of this earthly place

Hang on to your life you will surely lose
Lose your life for the sake of His brilliant news
Gain the world to quickly lose your soul
Win gains never-ending by loss of control

Worry not for tomorrow but live for today
Turn from all of your selfish ways
Do unto others as you would like to have done
It was for this cause God gave His only Son

Love your enemy and neighbor and turn from greed
Give your life up in ransom to those in need
Ask and it shall be given, seek and you will find
Knock it shall be opened, doors of heaven divine

Drink not of my water, you will most surely thirst
The first will be last and the last will be first
To steal, to destroy and to kill comes the thief
I bear life everlasting to those who believe

Seek first the kingdom of God and His truth
And these things shall surely be added to you
The leader will serve and the servant will lead
And hung up on a tree for you I will bleed

Give unto Cesar what it is he deserves
For no slave is greater than the master he serves
To serve two masters, it can not be done
You will love the other and hate the one

My yolk is easy, my burden is light
Be a city on the hill and let your light shine bright
I am the Truth, the Life and the Way
And together in heaven we will be on this day

^{Luke 22.19} And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

It amazes me how many parallels you find in scripture and how intricately it has been written.  Take, for example, the recounting of the last supper where Jesus sat with His disciples for what would be His last meal.  His action of blessing the bread, breaking it and then giving it out is an allegory for our walk with God.

When we come to God as a new believer, He blesses us in great ways.  Whatever form this blessing takes, it is His way of showing us that He is a tangible force in our lives and that He is capable of leading and helping us.  He makes sure that we realize how in control He is and that He is most worthy of our worship.

As necessary, God then breaks us.  He can not use us for His purposes and glory unless we come to him with a broken and contrite heart.  We need to be prepared to serve, our pride changed to humility and our desire for control abolished in light of a desire for His control.  Only then can we be given to the world.

God knows us intimately, better than we know ourselves.  He is the Creator of the machine and He knows how to break us down and build us up.  It is in this process that we become a malleable form He can mold into His image.  Bend me, break me any way you want me, God – for Your glory alone.