Month: June 2026

For all my beloved friends who extol man’s ‘free will’ and the part it plays in his salvation:

Paul grasped being a nothing. A zero. A placeholder. Just a ‘mouthpiece’.

Some might say a puppet, a thing manipulated; and say so with some scorn or derision. He understood as none before (but the Christ), and few after. Yet he plainly lays it out…even to those who quote him weekly from pulpits, yes…even to those who extoll a thing of man’s own ‘free will’ and the glory of it; those who must endlessly churn within themselves to ‘come up with something’ to present (even as to God), and would have others no less engaged.

And he knew the offense of it among men. He knew, came to know, came to understand…was taught, and learned (as he was appointed to) of how men love holding to their own discretionary power as the demonstration of their sovereignty and authority. Each ‘will do’ as he wills. That is, such thinking persists erroneously until they may meet the Christ of God. And yet, and even then, some may persist in the glorying of their will, as though they had chosen the one who has first (if He has) chosen them.

Glorying in one’s will and choice(s) is rarely seen as clearly as the pride it is when it comes to the Lord and His matters. Who could be against glorying in such a ‘good choice’?

But, just as pride is such a subtle actor and prone to all manner of even pious façade to keep a foothold, the Lord sees. God knows how devoted man is to his own will and to what he might attribute as some goodness, or good acting to it. As though his ‘will to righteousness’ is sufficient to save, not only his own soul, but by publication, encourage others to do the same. He treats repentance and/or having faith toward God as an option presented in the gospel of which men might avail themselves by a ‘wise choice’. Even their own wise choice.

And when such is their beginning ‘in the faith’ (if it is indeed their beginning) how much and many lessons are needed to disabuse the soul of any notion of its own inherent superiority in recognizing the righteousness of Christ. Out of such comes so silly of phrases often repeated “I made Jesus Christ…the Lord of my life”, as though He were an app, an add on that helps a navigator wend their way through the thing they think is their own life.

He is Lord, not of any man’s making, He is life, so that anything else claiming to be be is shown false, He is not ‘made’ anything of man or by man, He is either recognized by the gift of grace through a faith to see that, or it is not being seen. And all any man need understand in this regard, even if he delights in some form of exalting man’s free will, and to understand in regards to Paul particularly, is to hear without distraction of pride, Paul’s own testimony. How Paul (then Saul)…was awakened.

What does anyone see of ‘man’s’ choice there, on that road to Damascus? Man’s will toward anything (other than more mischief aimed at disciples)? Or of a man ‘opting’ to believe? And yet how many, how very many yet…preach as if in some knowing of Paul, of his writings, of his testimony(s)…even from quoting his very words…imagine that what was his most startling entry, is now somehow not of some basis, some foundational understanding…that he would then go on to embrace something that upholds, supports, or extolls what man would call ‘his own free will’? It is not in my power to sit any man down to quietude, but God remains able.

Paul knew “I was struck down!” I was blinded! I didn’t ‘opt’ to hear a voice. I didn’t even decide to call the intervenor “Lord” (finding out in a moment it is Jesus!)…what else would a man, could a man do, when faced with such presentation of knowing power over himself?

Now, obviously, some may easily think there is a gross neglect of certain of Paul’s other accounts or words. Yes, he is the man who came to also write, in no less conviction and verity:

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Such tone seems to undercut all the previous, no? Seems, no? A beseeching, a plea, a praying for…that appears to belie any bold or strident declaration(s). Even command.

This ‘appealing’ as it were, this assumption of character as in need of something from another or others, was only worked in him according to that mighty power that stripped him of thinking anything of himself. But even more notable, or at very least as notable, is this: this is written to nominal believers. The church at Corinth. This is not a transcript or outline of some preaching or preaching methods to be aimed at ‘unbelievers in general’ this is a man making appeal to believers: Be reconciled to God.

God.

Who of all people are appointed to know, even perhaps ‘should’ know (if any can bear what could be my own presumption in writing ‘should’) not only what that word itself means as a word, but the very nature and character of the one whom we claim occupies in all fullness the very meaning of that word? ‘Should’ we at least have some knowledge of that which we tend so freely to speak, and, if so as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, even some personal understanding of whom and how He is in His exercise of authority and power?

Whose will is not subject, but source of all that is; even so that any word born of that will can not only not be resisted except by His will of allowance for whatever time He appoints, but also, must come to pass. Even the ‘allowing for’, the preservation of, the provision for a reserving…that will ultimately display the glory and power of the name above all names.

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

God forbid I deny man has a will. But just as surely God forbid I deny some knowing of His speaking in and by absolute. When Jesus says not only ‘free’…but reiterates with ‘free indeed’, one ‘should’ not pretend such exists to any measure of even to such absolute, outside of His saying how and where, and by this is accomplished. “Whom the son sets free, is free indeed.”

This is an act of will, not by or of man, not implied as latent nor inherent to himself, but something given, made as act of will by Christ toward His own…if they continue in His word, showing themselves His disciples indeed.

And yes, God forbid I or anyone deny God as able to preserve those who, to such point as this continue thinking following Christ’ was their better choice, or choosing, as though being given faith and enlightening was contingent upon their agreement or exercise of will…and who have not YET heard the Lord in “you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you”.

Yes, for God’s purpose and good pleasure there is no doubt that some continue thus, at least to this point. For had He not appointed this allowance, it could not be. And God knows (as I do, but only in part) how much mercy has both been needed by me, in order to be shown to me. And how much remains of that, for nothing less than all the mercy there is…could save me.

But, or yet, or and,

as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

I like sunny days as much as the next fellow. A full belly. Calm seas, untroubled waters. Who doesn’t? Who can ‘help’ their affections, or their tastes? You might just as well think you can make a child like broccoli. Or teach some one to be less inclined toward pleasure and enjoy, or at least appreciate, suffering.

We tend to like those things and/or situations that allow for us to go on our way unhindered in our planned pursuits, rather than find a flat tire on the morning of leaving for vacation. Or a suspicious shadow on X-ray. How different are any of us from one another, anyway? How very much alike?

Admittedly there may be ‘gross’ variance among situations, but underneath is same mechanism. The mogul may weep that he is outbid on a vintage bottle he was sure he would own, just as the homeless man discovers someone has made off with his only blanket. One woman cries to heaven over a broken nail while shopping Rodeo Drive, another weeps to find the last bag of meal in the larder has been spoiled by mice. Loss. Interruption. Unplanned and often unseen circumstance. Something causes loss of estate in either mind or material substance. Who is exempt?

Who ‘suffers’ the most?

Well, you understand some of this relative to the gospel. As do I.

We also know our own tendencies to judge situations and experiences according to some metric of understanding or ‘likeness’. Another mogul may say “Poor fellow, I know what it is to have your heart set on a bottle of 1907 Monopole” or another “I know what it is to try and keep warm in November without a blanket”.

We tend very much to believe our judgments, born only of relativity, (even our ‘relativity’ in experience) are somehow closer to an absolute value, for mostly to ourselves…we are the ‘normal’, living normal and real life, having real experiences (that often outshine other’s touted) and have the best sense of the meanings of things.

It is the odd thing that as much as we often consider ourselves ‘most exceptional’ (read: unique), we no less retain a claim of likeness, a relationship, a ‘like’ understanding that establish our prerogatives of judgment.

I’m doing it right now, thinking I ‘know enough’ about man (by being ‘one’ and ‘one with him’) to make such statements of observations…while also assuming some elevated view by which such observations are made…as a separateness I enjoy watching the ‘herd’. Perhaps in that way we are all uniquely the same, unable to escape such relativity that bars way to absolutes, yet thinking we have arrived there. O! the folly!

But our folly does not mitigate or negate the troubling reality in which we all operate (Oh, the hubris to speak so!) confident that there are or is an absolute, and no less confident we are closer to it than most everyone we survey…we know right and wrong, good and evil, what ‘should be’, what should not be. Even to reality…what is ‘real’, what is not. Yes, we believe, from a somewhere we cannot touch, manipulate, bend, deny or ignore, or in any way influence to ‘other’ persuasion…reality is knowable.

That there ‘really is…a real’. No matter how much we admit to previous influences, impacts of experiences that may distort or otherwise inform to a prejudice we don’t deny…underneath that, that may even cause or legitimize such confessions of possible distortions, is the de facto telling that if there is a distortion, an unsanctioned influence away from the real causing an ability to recognize distortion, it speaks plainly that a ‘real’ remains. We only know a bent line is bent if we have some notion of straight.

Yes, we can throw up our hands in reality or metaphorically to a ‘giving up’ of any notion beyond subjectivity, that we are condemned to never actually ‘know’ anything of truth or reality beyond our each and only individual framework…but we are terrorized (are you not?) at the end of such conclusion…that all are locked up to absolute beyond measure solitary confinement, static isolation that we are forced to invent fictions of communication, community, communion and and that place so aptly described by one as reserved to certain souls:

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

It is apt, isn’t it? Solitary wandering…lost in blackness, raging at estate but from a place of being nothing, having nothing, but raging out shame, to nothing. Just the emptiness about.

Yes, it takes faith to believe in union, communion…even most rudimentary communication. That the isolation so strongly implied and most often (even if subconsciously inferred and raged at to ‘undo’) is nothing more than a work of implication…a thing speaking of another thing, and not the reality itself…always removed to whatever distance or whatever steps. We needn’t resort to fictions to be a comfortable, sustainable (and livable) bulwark against the terrors of isolation, if we are able to see the terror itself is what speaks to the ‘reality of the real’.

In all we ‘don’t want’, run from, are in put in terror by, lay the key to its undoing as ‘reality’ to us. In short, there is a ‘reason’ such fears are inspired, even fed and feed off such notions of ultimate reality of isolation and non-communion, even our own ‘absence to our self’ in death.

Of course it is not good. It has been pronounced as such…to an absolute.

“It is not good for the man to be alone”

To know one descended into all the absoluteness of that ‘not goodness’, cut off, even to the point of submission to being made all that is ‘not good’, sin itself, is to begin to understand what a great death was entered, was swallowed, was conquered by obedience. And an obedience that is, of itself, even terrifying in its depths. Which, were it not done to your benefit, could only speak of all hopelessness and forever lostness. For none other would have, nor could have successfully navigated to (without sin) such death, nor by such innocence, been counted worthy of leading out from it.

Yes, there is a place of absoluteness a man may know (more brashness?) in the absolute terror and the all seeming wrongness of that matter in the cross of Christ. That the perfect one would submit to being all that is not…and not at all perfect…but all of wrongness.

It is so absolute to its end and work, that any man looking into it, cannot but find himself swallowed up by its consideration. But it is from such being swallowed to a depth of lostness unfathomable, yet perceived, that a man may find his final facing of all that is merely subjective, and by its absolute absoluteness (the cross of Christ) be delivered into the reality that is ‘real’ and beyond illusion or manufacture or necessity of comfortable fictions. Such are exposed here, where another life is made known…brought to light by His resurrection.

Someone did this for you. For me. I will not tell you to ‘do anything’ or try to about it, for there is nothing man can do, or tell others to do other than that which they receive ‘to do’…and therefore will do.

Your informing speaks for you, and even denials speak to the truth.

Having the same spirit of faith we speak…as only faith can, will, and does. Some may yet be afraid to examine…”am I as alone as I feel, am I as isolated as all might indicate?” And no doubt some have not faced situation (yet) or circumstance; whereby pain and/or fears cause such a contraction of self as to begin to sense an irremediable “cut off-ness” as a man thrown in solitary confinement begins to feel the waves of insanity encroaching in torment. “Lost’ in, and to, himself.

Someone swallowed all of that. All separation. That He allowed for it, (even sensing of separation) that such might sober us, as even a drunk may be startled to some reason, is without question. He’d be less than God, and less than able to save, were He restricted in any way as to what He allows man to experience. Even gives for experience, apportioning to each as His benevolence dictates.

Whether you are crying to heaven over a broken nail on Rodeo Drive, a lost Tuna in a tournament, mouse droppings in the corn meal you’d hope to feed your hungry children…you are tasting something of finitude that promises eventual loss of all. The entropy imposed…to sober us to life. Loss. And being lost in and to loss. The temptation will be to manufacture fictions, and not look nakedly. For the looking seems far too much to bear for the knowing. Better to retreat, or so it will only seem.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

What could this mean? What could this possibly mean?

To look upon the representation of what has bitten you ‘to death’? What? What life there? How can this be?

Of course it’s the last thing you want to see, the last place you want to look…except with scorn, that fiction that puts ‘distance’ between you and it…even at a man, even that man…in all naked dying and helplessness (to himself)…but…do you know him?

Do you recognize ‘him’? Do you, are you…able to see…your own self? Can you identify…with all seeming hopelessness “MY God MY God, why have you forsaken me?”

Do you know…what you look at? If you know yourself…He will assure you…He also knows you. There is a communion possible…of true recognition, of true ‘identifying with’. Even here, in this land of apparent loss and ‘locked in’ syndrome…men furiously trying to reach out and touching only air. Faces that smile back without any understanding. A land of phantoms and shadows.

But, real is. Real has come. That He also exposes all our facades and futility in their making is unwanted…till we learn what dread burden such making has been.

Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? The ones who do and have…will be unable to remain silent about it.

And be grateful for sight.