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Jesus Christ, regardless of what one may think of him, was neither reluctant nor timid in regards to addressing the game within the game. He saw it, understood it, easily identified its earmarks, and to his own hurt, was diligent to expose them. He is the author stepping on and into the stage and staging with its props, its characters, its scripted lines and determined actions with the promise of reality to any who would undertake his dread course of escape. And he knew, as none other, that only certain of the characters were made eligible to this by an informing from the very place he too had come. And make no mistake, despite all his conviction, his entrance was as assigned him “born of a woman, born under the law” even to such end that none could recognize him lest they too had heard from that very place from which he had come.

In this place, where all are born of woman in all commonness, he was speaking only to the uncommon to it. Those who later, yet in every way like him, also find themselves “sent into the world” as he spoke to those “As the Father has sent me, so send I you…”

And also make no mistake, he was able to marvel in discovery of who might “get it”. Though much is made of the Centurion’s trust that one word from him was enough to heal a servant apart from the necessity of his physical presence or proximity to the one sick, this is not what was astounding to Jesus of that “great faith”. What was astounding was the Centurion’s grasp of Jesus being “a man under authority” and even so strictly so that his word carried all power in that estate.

While the disciples themselves may have equated him to whatever degree with such as Moses and Elijah (themselves noted for “miracles” done through them) in wanting to build three tabernacles, this Centurion saw as they did not. Not a “miracle popping man” simply able of himself or his own discretion to do a thing…but a man under authority. That Centurion understood the rules of the game far better than those to whom the rules were first given. Even for the game, and that from which the game within it developed.

That one may not like these references to game or gaming, take that up with Paul: 2 Tim 2:5. If one’s religiosity is such that easily taking offense (thinking it such a fine discerning) consider that God himself made the gaming grounds subject to all particular slant that the house must always win: Rom 8:20 and 2 Cor 13:8. There is no winning against the house. And if one doubts they are once surrounded, even immersed in only types and shadows, these simulations of the real, (and even by the real to His purposes) wake up! And find rest elsewhere: Col 3:3. And those appointed to awakening, will. And escape.

Yes, the game is rigged. Only the designer, who does all things for His good pleasure, and whose pleasure cannot nor will not be denied, knows all about the game. Who and or what runs “lawfully”/legitmately and those who are seeking to bend matters to their own game within that game. To such Jesus is quite frank and offensive (for he saw what was in their hearts just awaiting the provocation of truth for revealing).

Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?

Well, how do we like that? Such a rude man! Speaking to those who took their stand as a something for having received the rules, yet not keeping them. Or, in another place with such inner claims of superior paternity John the Baptist also speaks:

And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Yes Jesus knows all about the game…and further the game within the game we develop for “cheats”.

And no, God cannot be pulled into our games, though he fully set up the board. It is for Him to supply way out as so choosing. If so choosing to such revealing.

“When it pleased God to reveal His son in me…”

Paul saw the cheats and dumped them, calling them dung. Things that might “give him advantage” in such (but only if the game were competing against “others”) but he was delivered from that derivative gaming. No, his sole quest was to know the author, the designer, even while in the midst of all “types and shadows” that appeared so compelling…he stretched forward and beyond.

He was being pulled out…and he knew very well this was not of any of his own doing. But he felt it, even as do we at times, yet he without any illusions that because such was so intensely and personally felt…he would confuse it with his own work or efforts. “For it God at work within you”…he said. And that someone who was at work in him also worked to keep defiling hands off so that even in midsentence he would correct himself (to any with eyes to see)

But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

“yet not I” he wrote. He could have erased all the prior “but I laboured more abundantly than they all” to make an appearance of being the more “humble” but he would not deny us the seeing of both his need of, and the continually reality of correction present…even to such a one who could probably, above most, if not all take a stand upon his labors.

But…even “that work” of being so transparent (is Paul too transparent for you?) was not his own…but God’s. But Paul had learned when the true substance of that which we call light (in our types and shadows, that seems so insubstantial) actually spoke of the true (of which it only represented) that was truly of such force and power…that when hitting anything holding its own substance to itself and for itself…knocks it down. As a strong wind does a solid…it is far better to be a screen in such case, or absent all together in transparency when the wind of such true light comes.

And we, who are sometimes called christians, or even fond of thinking or calling ourselves so with whatever fondness we do, eager to display our work(s) or so often marvel at the blindness of others…even those who we may say “did not see the truth though He stood right before them and speaking to them”. How could they be so blind…and (thankfully) so unlike “us”?

One hears a million sermons and sermonizers…and most probably not unlike myself at all.

Forgetting that game is rigged. Forgetting what Paul said in regards to blindness and the why of it to some. And who has assigned it with purpose.

Who has assigned blindness and sight?

In whose hand are all, and always for His good pleasure to do with as He alone pleases?

Do we have “Paul” as some others had Moses? Take some stand on his words as being “from God” and of same spirit of Christ?

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

One may say I have seen God’s patience, as have I on so numerous occasions. But that means little or nothing for God endures with much longsuffering vessels of wrath, too. My experience means nothing…if all I see is my own seeing.

If there be any presumption of estate developed from our own seeing, our own experience, our own so called standing to ourselves…God will either faithfully and mercifully cut these away, or just let us continue in the “set up” to breaking without remedy. While continually trying to game Him.

So few I have met or known who understood the implications of Paul’s saying this:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

“We” and “or an angel from heaven”. Would God send an angel to deceive? Or, strong delusion? Could Paul assure himself against turning?

What is only hope? For it cannot be “hope against that” for there can be no hope against God’s choosing. Only hope for it.

The one who “came into the simulation” and dwelt amongst types and shadows and images of the real, never relinquished his seat above and in the bosom of the Father. He dwelt as real in the land of less than real.

I think of him when Paul says “not of the Jews only, but of the gentiles” and Jesus dealings with a woman who wanted healing for her daughter.

But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

What card is played when called a dog?

It takes no faith for a man to think himself wonderful, skillful, knowledgeable, accomplished, been around the block, seen some things, learned some things…knows some things.

But what does he have when all this is shown of nothing?

What or who, remains?

This can be resisted…just never successfully.

“which he had afore prepared unto glory,”

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

So much for even “trying” to run…lawfully. Trying to keep one’s self in bounds…or show one’s self a “better” runner. The ditches really do have a “work” in them.

It’s enough to just not be a bastard.

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

It may be of some interest, though I am not entirely sure, how much is often come to in recognition of debt. A discovery of an owing, most often in gratitude, to things we once formerly overlooked or were once in all of ignorance. It can range from an appreciation of parents, teachers, friends, instructors, even to those things more vague to us in impacts of experience(s). The forming of who we are, and if at all content in it and beyond some wishing we were someone other, we learn, is owed mostly to those people and matters over which we recognize we have had no control.

Now, of course, the embittered person may sense none of this nor care for such considerations, and may rather view those things uncontrolled as having done nothing but harm to him. And I am not sure the very proud will have much, if any, appreciation of these thinking he believes he has arranged himself according to his own good choice(s). The very self made man. (If there really be such a thing)

So, to those who may even have only the vaguest sense of that which I speak, I speak. And I have some hope to, even according to a man whose way of thinking also has impressed me much. Who was not reluctant to describe himself as debtor. And who came to understand to whom all ultimate sense of debt, even though un-repayable, was owed.

But even this in experience may not be strange to those who have come this far in reading with some sense of that which I speak…for myself having deceased parents to whom I must acknowledge much; there is much gratitude though it is without any hope of repayment. And a great part of that, this depth of gratitude, is in some measure deepened by seeing they would have neither expected it nor sought it. How much the more then is sensed as owed! Do you not yourself find some feelings of gratitude for those who have done right by you, simply believing it was all, and only right to do so? Not in service of some other agenda? I really don’t know of greater love, nor example of it.

Therefore, though it may be oddly received of some perhaps, how I now must acknowledge some form of debt to those who have stridently resisted me…and particularly those who call themselves atheists that have done so. Whether of my pretense or sincerity, where I may have sought to present a thinking God as a, or even the reality, some have resisted to such extent to press me (who believed he served this very conscious and thinking God) to think…even more. And to do so convinced this is done in the presence of that God I believe.

And that, of course, is the crux of all these matters that may be in contention, is it not, that there is a thinking and conscious reality of [a] Being, even responsible for all? Or not…that all is random and of a chaos without order or orderliness or design…adhering to “sometimes” laws (as we may know them) but subject to finding them contradicted in certain circumstance. Or by certain experimentation.

For under duress, or extremes of observation even what we call the material universe can be observed to behave far differently than once we thought. Really bringing all into question about what we do, or may call, the material universe. (For anyone who cares to, you may read about Lord Rutherford and the impacts such discovery had upon him. Even to a man afraid to leave his bed)

https://www.factfiend.com/physicist-scared-falling-bedroom-floor

We may both, or all, believer and professed atheist alike…speak of beginnings. And if one is a strict materialist (if there be such a thing) the easily poked holes into some claim of “everything had to come from somewhere or something” that one may propound as irrefutable proof of a conscious initiation of all matter, should be plain. For when asked or confronted with “therefore even (a) god cannot be exempt from such a thing as a beginning” by that argument, is often odious to the believer. “No” he may protest, “God is what (or who) has no beginning nor any end” and the facile argument that “everything” must have had a beginning outside of itself (by an initiator) must no less, crumble. For the materialist might then respond with “if you make an exception for a “something without beginning or end” in such argument…who is to say such might not be as easily applicable to the material?

And I have heard many arguments and contentions, often being part of them, myself. And the matter of beginnings, of what is real vs what is of imagination and conjecture or speculation, are often rife with these contentions. And again, as it cannot be over stressed, is the matter of consciousness and thought “present” to all, even sustaining all, or just the apparent randomness of material acting in all materiality according to its own being of restrictions upon it.

But this also cannot be over stressed, such verbal arguments (or written) are acknowledged as owing to thought and/or consciousness in observation(s) and expression. Apart from the existence of consciousness (and thought) such do not (can they?) take place. To me this is prima facie and any contradiction otherwise would be far more than absurd. Then the question must follow, even to each, “is thought/consciousness real?” And though I, for the purposes of this writing may seem to equate them (thought/consciousness) I am less than convinced that in all things they are the same. But there is enough for us to consider them, for now, at least coupled. Unless one cares to disagree, to which I cannot but be receptive of hearing.

Now, that question of “is consciousness real?” has far deeper implications than I can express. And none need answer, to each inwardly they already have. Unless you are one unconvinced they think in reality. And that such thinking is (actually) real to them, perhaps with nothing other more real to them than their thoughts; for it is all and only by such we even have and hold any notion of reality and any hope of expression of the observable. We are either “truly” in some form of consciousness or consciousness does not exist; or taking that proposition to a more absurd end that one (them self) is sole possessor of it. As in “I know I think, but I am not at all convinced you do”. Which actually may be a far more prevalent attitude than one might admit, or care to consider.

And one may even expand upon some premise that all communication is to find whether one is alone in their thinking, or may, somehow, reach by communication a mind not unlike their own, also “in thinking” and consciousness. Able to find and establish connection. And we could also argue whether communication ever actually takes place or we are just screaming into a void and at best, only receiving a vague echo from images we believe real. And, we could “go there” if one cares to.

But if you are unconvinced you are the only one who thinks (or possesses consciousness) we then have basis to continue.

The proposition (not unlike myself) is ridiculously simple. And it is offered to the strict materialist whether of “Big Bang” persuasion or something other as to beginnings. (For one could easily ask “what was before the Big Bang”? A more remote beginning of material, one could suppose.) And this would not in any way establish a theist’s contentions. Material (and energy) one could simply argue “always is”…even if we can only see or theorize back to what our observations inform. Inform to our consciousness.

The proposition is again simple. At least if one has any concession to consciousness and thought being a “real” thing. Is it more or less real than a rock…which at best is only considered “real” by consciousness and thought(s) about it? Consciousness may be the most fundamental “matter” of all we are allowed to consider, reasonably. For unless we confess to it, make some claim (even if only to ourselves) as having it, upon what other is anything constructed for knowing? In that sense it is prima facie proof and of all necessity, especially if we no less consider communication as a real thing.

The simple proposition: If material (and/or mindless energy) is truly all there is, and “in the beginning” is all and only material from which, and of which all we observe (your house, my house, your car, my car, that star or that star all present in some form of material) is all and only the real and true, and that consciousness itself was “not there” in whatever beginning we may ascribe, then whence came it?

Could what had no owe-able consciousness “at beginning” then create from itself something that never was, or in it, or to it, before? Yes, materially my car and yours is in there somewhere, this and that star, this and that rock, our bath towels, bananas, and toenails. But if consciousness “is/was” not there (as some might contend) seeing only arrays of atoms, subatomic particles as building blocks being acted upon by all and only ignorant forces, whence your intelligence? (Such intelligence that even “projects back” to occupy that space of time looking for intelligence)

Of course this is no “proof” of anything, (much less God or a god) but unless one is prepared to deny their own consciousness as real, there are matters we might consider. Even beyond what are called the material. Or mindless energies.

If you are my atheist friend, you may see the conundrum presented if one says “consciousness always was…and is” at very least in potential in all material and is not something new to material at all, nor not present already in all matter. Then you may be at best a pantheist.

For in that mix of material was/is also what constitutes your brain whether one believes it really thinks or not. (How one could think they do not actually think…would be curious at best)

Yet it, your and my brain, may not actually be the seat of consciousness. But that seat is worth searching out.

For if one’s consciousness is all and only of random or chaotic construction, how can it be trusted for any reliable data?

You expect more from your speedometer, and a pilot their altimeter.

Can there be reason in a thing apart from reason for a thing?

And in this universe, do any of us ever truly claim to have no reason?

Even in ourselves?

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, addresses the matter of the passing perishable (and its necessity) to the putting on of the imperishable. He speaks of death, sin, and law in their relationship to one another for the stirring of hope in their being delivered from through Christ. There is no other way of deliverance Paul has always stoutly maintained and, of course, remains unrelenting to this premise throughout. Christ alone is able, has done, does, and is the only source of such deliverance to the believer. Reliance upon anything other will only show the vanity that under girds such misapprehension.

That this must be settled to us as not merely “Paul’s stance” but made to us as true in all, God will patiently show…even through any or all of our own misadventures. And only in following God’s Christ do we truly begin to learn and see both our own folly and the strongholds of such “other thinking” that run so deep; that we may come to know only the miracle of new birth severing at root the natural and its inclinations, is sufficient to us. Yet, we are to be renewed in mind from a, even that, life giving spirit that is Christ. We must be trained to “think anew”.

We learn a significant part of that training is a rebuke to our old ways, not yet enlightened by spirit. We might like to have it some other way of ourselves…but this is not, and cannot be so. In one sense God has allowed for us to “make our own mistakes” that such learning be real to us and that rebuke, once a thing so strenuously sought to avoid is itself even changed to comfort through the Lord’s word.

“As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent”

And what would one exchange for the knowing of such love? Is the seeming comfortableness of “no rebuke”…worth it? God forbid! Therefore we needn’t hold pretense with or among one another that “some of us” have come to anything apart from a trail of often painful correction(s). As though “we got it” or get it, either better, or in some other fashion than another.

God forbid we lie to one another or accept to ourselves some better station that has exempted us. Indeed, one may be so bold, if one could do so apart from accusation of “other brothers” to note that those chosen of very foundational ministry (apostles) have their own stories to tell of their own mistaken-ness, and that without shame.

One may begin to see the wisdom of Christ in such calling and choosing of such men…not to be seen as “always” paramounts of virtue, loyalty, clear thinking and astute spiritual insights…but rather as example of what Christ can do with “the most common of men”.

But I dare not sound as though by such they are “brought down” in accusation…but that only each would come to understand, teach, lead by example of being a product of the miraculous power of God…that He can take what is most common…and transform.

That I bang this drum loudly and often is a must for me, a man so easily given to think himself so “very special” as to have heaped all manner of griefs to himself by such silly presumption. Yes, for me it is safe. To be reminded that only God can make a man, and it is enough to be one, despite all my occasions of trying to be “more”. Or see myself, or present myself…as “more”.

In one sense God finds in me a full time job, yet I have never found Him growing weary in it. He is always ready, willing…and quite able…to rebuke. It’s almost like He has a pleasure to show someone other than the one I so naturally gravitate toward for viewing. Nah, forget “almost like”…it is that He has a great pleasure in showing someone other than me…to me. Yes, for me it is safe. And the “who” he shows instead has never left me disappointed.

So looking “through” Paul to see Christ (and I am persuaded Paul was fully joyous in being made able to “look through”…as transparent) I find a strange turn of phrase in his exposition about law, sin, and death. He says this in one place:

“The sting of death is sin”…[and the power of sin is the law.] 1 Cor 15:56

At first glance I think otherwise, or tend to want to. Shouldn’t it be otherwise?

“The sting of sin is death”?

Isn’t death the sting? But that is not what is written, and this all despite our understanding of the wages of sin, how it “pays out” (even to death) so that death would seem the ultimate unwanted consequence in all? That is where the “sting” is made known, no? Yet he writes

“The sting of death is sin”

Have I been “all wrong”…again? Or what is being said…in order to be understood in better light?

Might it not be that Paul, in his wisdom learned, his revelations given him saw something quite differently…but true nevertheless, that is to be considered?

Could he possibly be saying in my “getting it wrong” about death being the sting, the totally “unwanted thing” that must be refreshed, renewed? It must be. It cannot…but be.

If we take death as the “signal” of wrongness, that is sin, then dying is the immutable proof of sin’s presence. And this is not inconsistent with the necessity of the flesh’s death, surely. But on the other hand we dare not let go of the Lord’s promise of deliverance from sin (and even death)…that even such promise given to what is, and while in, these earthen tents.

Is it therefore, not merely possible…but true, that there is a death that does not speak of, nor indicate the sin of the “dying one”?

Of course! But whose alone is it? Who died a true death…yet not in consequence of His own sin…having none? Ahh…do we not see a blessedness held out? A promise even there that dying need not hold all pointing to the shame of sin in us? Yes, we accept the consequence of being in a perishable tent (didn’t He?)…but if or when we come to such compelling in us to hold to the Lord’s glory alone, that even He be glorified in our mortal bodies by His alone quickening spirit…do we see that there is an acceptance of “a” death that is not pointing to sin in the embrace of it? And this, not only so as something to grasped at, evolved to…but actually already given us in Christ!

Oh, I know how silly I sound…that almost every child can repeat:

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Yes, it is true…and often so very widely accepted and repeated, as well it ought to be.

But now the reality of “a” death apart from pointing to the shame of sin is made ours, is made real…a death so precious (if indeed it is precious to us to even glorify the Lord in a temporary tent) that all our falling short in any or whatever sense…is not being held to some ultimate end of showing all our imperfections as indicated by the suffering of death.

To those of whom this may seem “old news”, that are very well exercised in the Lord’s death as to be ho hum about it, no doubt I sound a fool. But for a man who is all too familiar with his own failings, his own strivings, his own utterly failed and failing attempts to appear “more than a man” (even thinking that that the Lord might be rightly served in this)…it is a glorious relief. A “christian” man, a “spiritual” man, whatever kind or sort of man is held out with illusory promise of making one “better” that the shame of his failings be not “so obvious”…has hope! A man…no more than a man. And never called to be other…but to learn, as only through One, how OK it is to be “just a man”. And that only God…can make a man…when all illusions of being “self made” are being shown for the folly they are.

What a relief to not seek to be a “better” man. There is no such thing. But there is God’s only begotten Son…who alone is “true” man. A man so good and true in all He does not withhold His death from sharing as though clutching it to Himself to hoard all glory to Himself.

But this man:

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

And He was sent…to die…without shame. He gloried in it.

His Father’s will.

When we discover (as only Christ can lead us) how easily we are maneuvered toward pleasure(s) and away from suffering(s), we may come to see a thing. It is our very disposition toward such that allows for such maneuvering. We are wholly, and till such time as Christ reveals, devoted to pleasure(s) as a good thing, any pain or suffering as evil or bad. Christ knows this very well of us.

It really is not a reach to say that the fall (our fall) itself was an attempt to right a something we perceived as lack to an abundance of having. But if you think you are entirely unlike Adam, at all, one need only look closer. For there can be no motion from first Adam into last Adam apart from once being (even knowing) one was (and to whatever extent remains of mind) of the first Adam.

He is not “bypassed”. This renewal of mind exhorted is from a something to another something. First comes the natural, then the spiritual. And it is only by this that a seeming paradox can even be seen to provoke to resolving…for actually it is the spiritual one, Christ Himself, who is before all. But we must “go through” our natural first…to have any apprehending of the spiritual. We all share in ourselves, such natural beginning to ourselves.

It is, in that sense the “great equalizer”. No man has ever, nor would, nor could…claim in truth any more natural disposition to loving God in obedience…than Adam could. This is a hard word for any who still find comforts from their flesh, or thinking themselves in some way(s) better than another. No natural man is or ever has been more obedient to God than Adam, and Adam was/is disobedient. We can read of Adam as “other” till we awake and see our own selves. In truth we can think of all men as other till we see ourselves. For us to our own knowing, God has purposed to start with dust, clay…and make a living soul. And till Christ be revealed in us as the preeminent of all, the soul informed of flesh and dark messengers, holds all sway. But, and only, when it pleases God to reveal His son in us, then all is changed.

And strangely (but not to God) we learn the method of this glorious revelation made able to be delivered is, and has been, through a most humiliating and painful instrument set in place to our liberation. We delight in knowing ourselves as changed (and it is entirely fitting) but we cannot deny it came at a terrible cost through a (once) terrible instrument. Add to this (have you added to this? have I?) this was neither accident…nor ultimately of any man’s doing, despite the hands that handled him and put Him to it and on it.

No, this is, and has been solely in and through the plan of God. It (even!) God help us all, “pleased Him” to do it. There is no indication of scripture nor spirit that God had a wincing in it, or even a “I hate to have to do this…but…”. No, and as need be, read again from the prophet Isaiah.

Or consider “the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?”

This may be a grand matter, this may be the smallest matter of all…God knows. But for me, and what I trust has been God’s work in a man (even a man like me) to come to both any merest understanding that God delights to show mercy, even to such delight as to “be pleased” to put His own Son through this to that end…convicts me that He does indeed have a pleasure in mercy I may know little about…but is surely worth the investigating.

Add to this that this specter, this thing lifted up, this man lifted up…looking nothing like a King, nothing like a superior, nothing like anything but what itself is being broken and far more in need than mercy than I…is where I can only go to find it. Even, and only from Him. To see it. To even in some way, come to appreciate the way of God in it. If for you there has been a real “of course, only a silly man would have any need of such a a things as this being resolved to himself…”…well…you have now met that silly man.

“Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief” I am not so foolish (only by the grace of God) to abandon only to another’s plea. A man “not like me” who once spoke so.

How to square this doing. Yes at first it appeared all too lovely a story, a story of ultimate sacrifice. on behalf of others. But I am not as sure now as once I was I was enticed as much by the truth of it (to myself) as the loveliness of it. Yes…I “saw” it ( a miracle) but its main appeal was of the “niceness” of it. Who wouldn’t want to know one who “gave all” for them, and on their behalf?

But seeing in part the very truth of it…(to whatever extent I have been allowed and granted by grace) of a man who, with a word to His Father could have gone around the whole of it with more than 12 legions of angels; but instead endured it, embraced it, refused being pitied in it, refused being made numb to it, refused even counting it so dear in all pain to Himself that he could not hear the plea of another there.: “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom…” It is where loveliness and truth must merge, as terrible a truth it may even seem. This is God’s way…of showing what He delights in: mercy. And that good Son could not be moved to deny it. It flows there.

Sometimes a thing can be made clearer (a bit) by saying what it is not. And I cannot lie to you and deny my very first inclination was to speak of this matters in these terms I was rebuked of saying. I was going to say “In one way it is God’s putting a lock upon it” that the place we would or never could look is now the place where a thing is found…in other words no one gets to see unless invited and given the key. To me that sounded right…till rebuked. But then I saw how plainly Jesus delivers the key, and so really, it is not that. For in this is seen the key “Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you have done unto me”.

Do you see? Once this is delivered to any man, any man has it. O! But God’s wisdom is great in catching a man! Before we deal with the man who “says” he has accepted this in any form of believing himself and declaring himself a “christian”, a disciple, a believer…let’s look at the man who says “it’s all balderdash”. Already he is in reaction to. Something has come to him in part or whole of the gospel by the expression of Christ’s word…and he holds that reaction. He is in all essence saying “It is true that Christ is a liar”. Even “I am true in what I hold as truth…and Christ is a (or the) liar”. He has, and is, establishing himself as arbiter of truth…even as true to himself. Even truth itself to himself. He is the true, Christ is the not true.

It is not a hard equation to see, but what is subtle to discern is that which is made clear by the spirit, is that man is reactor. Not actor, even though he takes that to himself in his presumption of being true, and truth to himself. An, or even the, origin of truth. And he has set himself in full opposition to the word of another man who speaks truly of God.

Every man has a god.

And the scriptures are rife with the consequences of such attitude when held.

If you have any work as a believer it is to be led to this man and preach the gospel to him. Preach all the consequence present in unbelief to him, preach the terrors of the wrath of God to Him and the salvation even of that God through Christ to him, and even love him as your very self. Remind Him all will meet and be judged in the eyes of Him who holds eyes as a flame of fire. He may be the very least of all the brethren in your esteem, he may not. But if you would preach to others, you cannot escape the command to preach to him. Preach to him till he finds the terrors of death surrounding him and his only hope is in Christ and His resurrection.

You may find him to be yourself.

You may say what has this to do with “whatsoever you do to the least of these…”

There’s a man in the Lord each of us easily neglects in the preaching of the gospel in order he be built up in Christ, and we do not know he is actually the least till we are graciously stopped from thinking he is so much more than that. And we so easily tend to think many of the words are hyperbole, some are just “nice things” a man might say to either appear humble or contrite. As Paul saying he was the chiefest of sinners, or this:

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

who am less than the least of all saints…

Paul understood.

To ignore that man in this, even as this, is to truly ignore Christ.

Till then it is only a comforting vanity for us to think some other needs the truth of Christ more than we.

We therefore see apostles Peter and Paul in much agreement over this matter of patience. Peter reminding to count the patience of God as salvation, and making mention that Paul often writes of the same thing. Even if in other matters he (Paul) writes of things hard to understand. Do you find it noteworthy that even another apostle might confess “some stuff ain’t easy to understand”?

If we believe each lived as they wrote, that is by revelation, we begin to appreciate that revelation and revelations require some unpacking. We may even learn that those we receive, even if most personally, require no less. A digesting of sorts that goes beyond what may lead to presumption of a thing if merely tasted. Taste is good, I am not arguing against that at all. It is taste that gets the digestive juices flowing.

But there is also another strange matter at hand that cannot be denied, sometimes the taste of things seems all wrong, out of place; at best irrelevant, at worst, toxic. Who hasn’t heard “chew the meat and spit out the bones” in referencing some matters another may share. As in… “I recommend (or find) this fellow may have some things worthy to say, so take the goods from it, what is useless, disregard”. It seems sound advice, no? “Don’t reject everything because some may not be to your liking or fitness, take what you can from it”. But even in that…what seems a soundness of advice is already some judgment… “all may not be fit to eat”. It is a very back handed, even when seeming necessary, way of dealing. And if this is revelation only God can make clear… “the thing you spit out today may be the very thing you find yourself in need of tomorrow”.

And how many times has a situation or circumstance (even in mind) presented that you “go back” searching in the scripture saying “I know there is a fit to this…I remember something I once read that addresses this very thing…do I remember it rightly…I must make sure”” A very “Oh! this is that which was spoken of…” moment when you find it? Have you ever?

A thing or word went in “enough” even though it seemed to matter little or make no sense at the time…but enough in…that now you are provoked to see its fitting-ness. Aha Lord…you already spoke to this very thing…even to me! But it was waiting to be uncovered to you. Yes, often a thing we either did not or could not understand at one time, or even misunderstood and/or counted as little perhaps…suddenly becomes a matter of the God of all creation speaking directly to you. Deep connection is made. The “light” goes on. Bingo!

But we have to (in some sense of “have to”) admit, that if believers, even if not yet convinced all the “red words” and “black words” are of the same spirit, given for our benefit, recorded for our benefit, even lived out by those chosen to do so to benefit; that in all we have this conviction that when Jesus says His “words are spirit and they are life” it is true. Even if we have any disposition to thinking that means “mostly” the red words, then surely above all, by that disposition there is a provoking to know. Even if it only be most particularly the them of those all recorded. A hunger is produced when we find ourselves believing. A need to know. To eat and drink. A need…to live by what life really is.

But here’s the thing…even the red words sometimes seem to either “go over our heads”…or are consigned to some lesser import. Who is not able to repeat verbatim John 3:16? (No this is not a quiz, and life in the Lord is not a memory game of scriptures) But you may understand. And am I simply being painfully, even too painfully obvious as to be as absolutely of no necessity? Ah, but this would be good, very good indeed, for that is what I am all of…no necessity to any. Telling things already too plainly to be known.

Yet here is another thing in this matter…a matter of reference, even some unraveling of particular matters of the how and why of us. It has to do with that “strange matter” mentioned a few paragraphs back. We like comfort (God knows). We like what tastes good to us (God knows). But God also knows how we fare if left to ourselves.The scriptures are rife (yes, even new testament as well we call them) with (is it “our” or their?) misadventures. Even [almost] wholes of congregations may come under an ungodly sway. If we are familiar it may not “shock” us by such as our being familiar, but were we to say “this is no less true of us than them”…(or me than them)…do you see where a certain resistance comes in? If not out right rejection? We easily feel we have learned (and are) better because we have their example given us as from a “them”. Yes, we easily assume we have taken the whole of matters quite to heart…and are now the sobered up people…and not like…them.

But here is warning. Any inclination or adopting of attitude toward “a them” (our brothers and sisters) that leads to any fragrance of divorcing ourselves from them…well…do you see? Who are we in truth divorcing ourselves from? The “We (or I) are not like the Corinthians…or the Galatians…or those to whom the Lord ministers stern rebuke of the seven churches.”

Until we come to recognize we are very much in a fellowship of necessary rebuke, even sternest of chastenings and corrections…we not only do not appreciate a thing, but neglect…and may even be found willfully ignoring certain truth(s). And one that only becomes very precious by enduring rebuke is this: “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten…”

It’s always easier, and in some ways shamefully precious to us, to see the foibles and shortcomings of others instead of the Lord whose blood was shed for them no less than an us, or a me. Dare we talk about, make hay about “those others” as though we are immune…or better than to fall for what they have left us in record? It is not unlike the foolish man who may raise up Peter in long winded sermons (a man probably just like me) thinking he, of course, could never be brought to any such denial(s). Such thinking actually, just paves the road ahead to just that. The consequence(s) are already in the attitude. We are simply as those saying to the Lord…”Had we lived in the days of our fathers we would not have…blah blah blah…” The question is not really “will we ever learn…?” But statement quite in opposition…it is all of miracle that we ever might.

For if we have learned a strange thing in all our seeking of comfort (not a bad thing of itself), learning we have preferences of taste (not a bad thing of itself), do not like suffering and are no more able to appreciate it at the time than any other, it is that a new appetite is given even for truth above all despite its precious cost to us even in light of its precious cost to be made for us, and find the only one with no bones to “spit out” who speaks to us. We begin to swallow some very hard things…even learn we are made fit for their digesting by another, and that not one of the Lord’s words or acts toward, or for us, is any less precious to us than any other.

We may even begin to enter into that blessedness of hunger and thirst (once unpleasant in sensing that cause babies to cry out in wailing) and learn of such blessedness. For to the hungry soul even every bitter thing is sweet.

How hungry are we made to be? How thirsty?

How satisfied?

And full?

He cried “I thirst” from a terrible stake.

But as in the people’s meeting the waters of Marah, once too bitter to drink

So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?” He cried out to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

It is the very cross of Christ, and our own death(s) faced in utter completeness and all of the old creation that even makes us come to be able to glory in what once terrified.

It is not even that the hungry soul may come to see it, that gift of hunger manifesting our total dependence and necessity for what is “not of us” to sustain us (a man will not live long eating his own body parts) is what compels us to it, and in utter dependence…even find perfect liberty.

“Preach it!” we may hear. “Go and preach it” heard as such command we find now a burden laid upon us…even such as “woe to me if I preach not the gospel”. Oh, yes, do not doubt or think you are the only one who has even felt this…a compelling, a necessity, a being driven to a thing. Even such as could be described as overwhelming. And one then enters into experience and experiences. Real experiences, without doubt. Things happen. Even unexpected things, some unwanted things, such things as (if we are forced to honesty) we “never saw coming”.

Oh, we were told they would come, we were told to be ready for their happening and to not be dismayed when they do…but…nevertheless we are. Or we could lie. Yes we can. We could try and present ourselves as those who have never been surprised, never been shocked or in any way “caught off guard”, as those who have “always known”. In short, an expert.

But God knows. God knows all the times we have met with frustration, even such fierce resistance coming from quarters unexpected that vex us, rebukes, chastenings and the like that we may eventually be even moved to tears before Him. And that is the good end, even the best we may come to.

The “bad” one is to develop some intransigence, some hardening, some self convincing that in (what we think) is our sole desire to do what is right and be obedient…”all the stiffneckedness” is out there…and in others. Where our only comfort is in our own self pity. Do I lie? Is Elijah’s experience too quaint to us? “I’m the only one left and now they seek my life”? Or Moses…smiting the rock?

(Do you think that in their appearing with our Lord on that mountain and the speaking of His upcoming demise…Jesus was not considering…lessons? Might both Moses and Elijah hold “lessons”? Or was it appeal? “Remember who you are, you are not like us or as we were…you Lord, are our hope!” Could that even be? “We can tell you how sorely tempted you will be to self pity and an ungodly anger…but…you are the hope of all Israel…yes…even see us in our weakness…and know why we so depend upon you to be who you are” Could that even be? “You Lord, are the Lord. Made in flesh like us…but not like us”)

Do I speculate? God knows. Do I “project” upon Moses and Elijah a self pitying attitude (or tendency toward it) that is really only in me? God knows. But we do know a voice came in response to what seemed a “reasonable” suggestion (as Moses and Elijah also stood very great as with the Lord in some eyes) “Let us make three tabernacles…” But a voice came to the setting apart of that Son from those servants. How very good it did. And still does…to separate that Son in our esteems. Have you heard it?

Yes, being made like Messiah Yeshua is a work of all patience…just as keeping us from any “messianic complex” does. Sanctify the Lord in your heart…(but don’t worry…there’s all the help there is working to that end in you, if you are His.) A helper, devoted to help. He can even help us learn to abandon all self comforting lies! Talk about miraculous power and working! That a man might be made to receive this thing he once so hated…even the love of the truth! Oh, yes, power indeed.

“Let patience have her perfect work” is a well needed caution to get out of the way of inhibiting, short circuiting, or seeking to short cut. But again…don’t worry…(why would, or how could… salvation have worry in it?) you have a Father who sees, a Father who knows and understands. And works in all patience. So patient indeed that He is able to work in one who holds all presumption to a conforming to another…even One without any presumptuousness in Him.

To say He is fully devoted to our understanding of this gospel we may preach is akin to understatement. This conforming to His Son as the very heart of all things of the gospel is no small work, and something no less than God Himself accomplishes. None less than God could…or would. Even with all…of Himself. (What is the gospel but the very testimony of that giving? God’s giving of all of Himself through Jesus the Christ to man’s salvation?)

To admit we are always looking for some comfort may be a large confession or very small one indeed. God knows. And God also knows all our ways of seeking to short cut to it. I can accuse no other of this without incriminating myself (as no less a man) so rather I have found it safer (even been forced to see it so) to make it only as a confession. And where such a man (as myself) may have held all wrong inferences (read:presumptions) in this matter of the gospel and even its preaching, I can only confess for myself.

The short cut I took to comfort was assuming any call to preach or share was as testimony to my own having it so well in order in able to do so. What once was my own obvious conclusions have all been quite shattered by a hand under which I cannot escape. Call it mighty. And so the comfort I took to myself in that command was “obviously I must know something” for this One to be telling me to “go” or do. If He tells me to build a bridge…then…obviously He must see me as a “good” (or good enough) bridge builder.

Little did I know (O! how very little did I know!) the end of this telling “to go” was only to the end that I might even begin to learn the all of which I did not know…but once presumed to. I was not told to “go” because I am (or was) expert, or good at, or even know. I was told to “go” to find out the all I did not know as I ought. I am quite persuaded that in His mercy and patience and grace that He did not, nor would He in all his knowing…not know…how a man like that would have received “go, because you really don’t know a thing, but tell of me.”

No, (or yes) He is merciful.

And, after all, who doesn’t (or wouldn’t) want to be seated next to or very close to the Christ of God if catching any glimpse? Who doesn’t like being “in tight” with the power of all power?

O! but the way is different than first thought. So very, very different than that man could have even apprehended when responding to “are you able to drink of my cup?” Yes, I am able! Send me, send me! I am able.

Oh, but there is so much laughter. So much laughter, thanks be to God!

You will indeed drink of my cup.

When this cross we preach, this way of salvation that is made for us as to us…comes in that “to us” as to us… man Lord! I had no idea! I am not good at this at all, it breaks me, it leaves me wondering if you are even in it with me, it makes me cry out as never before, like a baby, like an lost and abandoned child……no Lord, I am not good at this…at all. Lord! Lord! I am not good at all. Lord, forgive me…I did not know. No, not at all.

Or, (God forbid) we could pretend to be “good” at it.

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

And I once always thought “they” was someone else.

And God knows what remains of that.

Thanks be to God His patience is salvation. And can be counted so.

If we consider patience, and that particularly spoken of as being the Lord’s in Paul’s esteem that it be counted as salvation, we may find the matter of consequence(s) (or what we consider such) in far greater proximity to truth and truths than first we understood.

I have some inkling that we all, in one way or another, suffer under the burden of time. It may be the barest of sensing, nevertheless I will not deny it. And what next I say I say with some trepidation and in whatever fear of the Lord I also sense as having been granted me, even so is the Lord’s goodness. It is a hard thing to say for it is open wide to all rebuke, but I dare not be moved (or even restricted) by anything so craven as fear of rebuke. What might ordinarily be called “getting in trouble with God”. For “with God” is a thing I have found I cannot escape, even as trouble is for a time appointed; the only matter ever at hand is “is it the right trouble?” By many tribulations…we enter.

This “eternal weight of glory” that Paul speaks of, and of which Jesus, God’s Christ, is the full manifestation…is it not heavy indeed? Who hasn’t felt some pressing under it? A pressing to conformity, a pressure in molding, even a certain woe perceived accompanying its absolute call to discharge…as in “woe to me if I preach not the gospel!”. Paul felt/sensed/knew (have you? do we?) a matter of necessity:

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

Beyond, even well beyond, (for I hope to speak to those of some maturity) is any consideration that any preaching adds any merit or “goodness” to any. Paul is quite plain about self glorying in any relationship to this. “No, I am not good or better or in any way able to find any attribution for such as I might glory in…’I have to’ preach!” Necessity…is laid upon me.

And I am rather convinced that this equation (if you will) is not unsound…it is the very glory (and goodness of Christ Himself) that lays such weight upon a man. The call of it, the sight of it, the vision of it, the revelation of it, the sheer weight of it in truth…has in itself that very compelling to necessity. We cannot speak but of that which we have seen and are seeing. Even learning. Which, we come to find, all men are already assigned.

Everyone (even every thing) is “giving off” expression according to their sight and understanding. All things in the creation hold expression of what they are. Even of necessity. From the most debased (as we might consider) to the most aged and pious saint. Nothing escapes assignment to this. No thing. Paul is in essence saying “I am a thing now created to preach the gospel, and I cannot escape it”. Necessity is laid upon me. O! but this is far different than the man who meets the Lord and recalls before Him what he thinks has been his good work! Have we not prophesied…done many mighty works…”look at my record!”.

Yet, what does the Lord say?

By the grace of God I am what I am…is all Paul can say. And I am no less persuaded such apprehension does not come “apart from” nor separate from this knowing…”even if I am set to be all of warning, even a cautionary tale, all of what or how a man should not be…if God in His infinite wisdom has set me to that…then it is all by His grace He does so…in some benefit that only grace can accomplish on behalf of His beloved of Christ.

Yes…a sober man does not “want to” appear outside…but a sober man also knows his own preferences here are as nothing…but for Christ’s work (and working) on his behalf. How God whittles down to truth! All is being taken that must be taken…till (in all hope) only the glory of the Christ of God be known. Talk about…weight!

No wonder Paul said “who is equal to such a task?” Man (who is not God) made to bear this weight…who alone can “do anything about it?” …but God? And so we find ourselves being whittled in this matter, even of all seeming contradiction(s)…even as the sculptor was asked “How do you make a sculpture of an elephant?”

Simple.

“I take away all the parts that don’t look like an elephant”

And God is making a man in us.

In all patience…because He sees Him there and will do no damage to the vision.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

A people being maneuvered by fear into bondage. And particularly, even ultimately as all root of fear, that being “of death”, is the fear that maneuvers.

There is a hand in glove relationship here, between this by the writer of Hebrews and what Paul has said in 1 Corinthians:

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

“But wait!” An astute reader might think having apprehended that it is by sin that death made entrance. “Shouldn’t it be obverse? …’the sting of sin is death’…therefore?” For was it not sin that brought death to be visited upon Adam’s race? Isn’t death the consequence of sin and not at all the other way ’round?

We are even familiar that the wages of sin is death…and so sin is always that primary with death always and only being in consequence. Sin “brings” death, yet Paul is saying the sting is not death…but sin.

Is something amiss here? It surely could appear, or seem so, but do we have any question of Paul’s wisdom received…or the spirit’s precision/accuracy?

Some (perhaps much) has been written elsewhere by necessity, that what we call matters of consequence and consequences must be set in order of our thinking.

Naturally we tend to think of consequences as things following…things coming after or later, not apprehending that all consequence is already very present to any matter. In truth so present to all matters that there is no separation, only our once misguided experience of them (abetted by our confidence in time) that has led to all misinterpretation of mind to consider them in some ways separate.

And since such writer in that “elsewhere” knows well he has not exceeded Paul in either experience nor revelation, he can only conclude he is but barely coming to what Paul already well understood, and makes no “mistake” about.

In truth, such “coming to” only helps with such clarity in regards to some of the other and many things said by Paul. How he could and would write and see things a certain way that on their face either appear to some question, or (God forbid!) even contradiction.

And, in this regard, I will leave off by saying to those who may casually say in this matter that all Paul has written is easy as pie to them, quickly understood (by them), and too plain to justify anything said above. I will leave them with the testimony of another apostle of same calling and of stature.

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (Peter’s referencing of Paul’s writings in 2 Peter 3)

Believing Paul and seeking to understand what he writes, even how he sees to such, is (though I am sure some would consider it so) not wrestling against him or his writings. For one either believes him a faithful herald or does not. And upon that basis alone…seeks to understand. But now I flirt with defending what calls for no defense “with all you get, get understanding”.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

And Peter testifies of a wisdom:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;…(as also in all his epistles)…

Perhaps first we must apprehend this very thing before going too much farther, that is, to account the patience/longsuffering of our Lord is salvation… not “like it”, not sometime necessary to us, not a thing apart from salvation itself…but of its very nature to us.

Yes, perhaps starting there is best.

“What does your patience look like, Lord?”

“When did it start(?) if it has been “long” as in your suffering, was it at Golgotha and matters surrounding?” Gethsemane? When did you begin in patience “for” a something…we call salvation? Is patience “for” a thing? Like you do something and then wait for the consequence(s) of it…as we do?

Or is it something else? That you are the very all of what patience is…and it is not a thing only in exercise “until”?

Yes, these questions might well be better asked before proceeding.

As with many matters considered and confessed elsewhere, I cannot escape again acknowledging to painting a rather bleak picture of man in his own estate. And with less doubt that the religious would not only see it so, but by extension, find some worm in these contentions that then points to “their god”. Only a malevolent and evil god could make man to know all frustration in any seeking or trying to be good…or have a good move of his own to present.

And if those religious are of some christian persuasion, this is often to them all the more heinous and odious. But there is patience available that is not one’s own, to be called upon for the growing in. And again, with little or no doubt there is some umbrage at the references made to men like Shakespeare…or mention of others, philosophers, playwrights, or writers of the existential or even absurdist ilk. But men often intuit and say things of which they may not be aware in the broader sense, that include a spiritual inkling or reference. They may sense some so called existential quagmire inescapable, some absurdity of a consciousness that both holds a sense of timelessness in an extremely time limited experience. Or some sense of good and evil at raging war within that, rather than be confronted in naked light they continue to seek to resolve to some seeking of doing good to quiet their conscience.

Another man came to see it and speak of it, yes, even in the Bible. Something (or someone) had made him unafraid of this frank confrontation with himself in his estate as man. And though his almost uninterrupted trumpeting of this someone that had made him unafraid, he could not neglect this light that let him see himself in that starkest of light. He is not only unable at all to produce or do anything “good”…but even that which he would acknowledge as the not good, or evil, he would acknowledge as to be shunned, he is held captive to. He is reduced to finding the utmost of all law by which his will is captured. But he also knows the very light that has allowed him to see this, is the very means by which he is delivered from the condemnation of seeing it in himself…and knowing it without doubt.

He is the wretched man who has been given escape…not by his ability to good, or even now to do good as that new creature (of itself)…but that the only good of the only good doer of all, has prevailed on his behalf. He is un-condemned by that someone who has worked all on his behalf to free him from the condemnation of that law at work in his members. The conscience and consciousness of his inalienable inability toward anything but evil, has been sprinkled by another’s blood. He is found guiltless for his estate. Justified in it by such faith that another has done this for him. And he knows this faith is neither mustered up nor fabricated for then his guilt is only added to as liar in this regard.

He (the apostle Paul) even faces the question or proposition that issues from the claims of some that the dead are not raised. For if they are not, than neither is Christ, and we are yet lost to our sin and estate…and further, make God a liar by preaching so. The resurrection for him is both foundation and beyond indispensable necessity. And true. Not part of a happy story or superstition.

And here, where matters of truth become paramount to a man, even made so by his full admission of his own wretchedness and estate, is where the believer is called. It is not nor ever a call to matter we would call religion, nor even christianity or (God forbid) what is called a “christian worldview”, but to a person, alive. One who admits to being once dead, but is now alive…and fully so. And, as an alive man, even the alive man as back from the dead, speaks.

There is no part of this that is not wondrous in all measures. Every seeming part that might appear as being able to be separated out, examined to some degree or other, or have doctrines set about it to support, one finds is actually a seamless whole. There is no knowing of how desperately wicked a man is apart from some revelation, some gift of light from the giver of light.

No man can come to this of his own will or desire to know…for he must also see an ensuing pride that accompanies such grasp of this knowing were he to attain to it of himself. And for those still stuck in such experiment to prove any part fallacy, or error, particularly in this; as though setting himself to the discovery of at least one good thing about man or particularly himself, he will only find either frustration or self delusion. Happy can be the man who finds perfect frustration, and just as much so, happy is the man who finds how easily he deludes himself. For such knowing will not come apart from light. Inasmuch as he may desire to, will himself to, seek of himself to, that is find one good thing to present or suitable for a presentation…there is none.

Too bleak it seems. And too bleak it is, but for that light.

It is the light that has proved me incapable of one good move. In all my chess playing, all my seeking to game both others and particularly then carrying this game to God Himself, I am exposed. With all intent and expectation in all my moves to elicit a directing of another, a restriction to an anticipated and desired response (read: control) I have been proved to have none. To play is to deem oneself worthy of getting that right (read:desired) response if the move is good enough.

Oh, yes, God has always known me as one considering himself good enough to play. His plan is perfect to its end. I have only been evil enough to play. And in some light of that’s appearing, He who alone can give choice out of His unspeakable liberty, constrained by none, unrestricted by any, by hand unable to be forced or in any way bounded, shows His delight in showing mercy.

Paul came rather late to his own confession of being chiefest of sinners. There is nothing of sorrow in it for he understood only the light given had let him see so clearly. And such light made mercy clearer still. So much so he endorsed the saying of it as faithful and worthy of all acceptance, even to those still caught in their own experiments. Those not yet appreciating, or even seeking escape from that place of knowing mercy as all of necessity to themselves. No man can make another see or accept this.

For we are man who knows not what he does.

And that is the man Jesus plead mercy for.

This thing referred to in last section, even to some innate power to hold us to a certain inherent metric of nobility; that is conscience, is no small matter. Though our metrics may be entirely skewed in, and by their limitation(s), they are there. And to reference again Shakespeare by use of that word nobility to a certain structure I am not ashamed. I am made as free as to quote the apostle Paul, the prophet Isaiah, a philosopher as Nietzsche, or a playwright as Shakespeare. Once a thing is found to have some undeniable resonance within a man, to deny it would be both folly and even affect ones conscience if actively denied.

And if one, let us say as a christian, were reading and has noted my prior confessions of Jesus Christ to some measure were to say there is some missing of the mark by inclusion of anything beyond red (or black) words found only in the Bible, I could only conclude to the boundedness [sic] of his consciousness. For Jesus Himself is said to have marveled at finding a something (was it unexpected to Him…or did He recognize it because He was open to all finding?) He called a greater faith in a Roman Centurion than He had found in all the children of Israel. And though, and even because I give Jesus the Christ all and only credit for my liberation it would be dreadfully in-congruent to bind myself again.

Yes, Shakespeare speaks with some question of “whether ’tis nobler in the mind”. And it would be hard to separate the pairing of conscience and consciousness, for their interplay is extremely dependent upon one another. But let’s do a hard thing nevertheless.

Conscience is bounded by consciousness. What the mind is convinced it holds in knowing is all it has. And even if in some confession of not holding all there is, or could be to be known, it is nevertheless convinced what it knows, it knows. Here Paul is useful. He is convinced he knows something of innocence as a more than merely guiltless thing. But he also knows that, as such a matter, innocence extends far past the merely not being of another thing, guiltless.

It is having some entry into essences gained. Even as truth is far more than “not lie”, for to be bound by such defining to what a thing “is not” may be sometimes useful, but also, and inherently, establishes the defining of that thing in terms only of another…and conceding to it a superiority of reference. It is true man is not dog. Man is not hamster. Nor beetle, nor bauxite. But in all the saying of what he is according to what he is not gives no knowledge of what man is.

As with innocence (and no less truth) Paul understood these to be matters real upon which and from which all other things themselves derive their placement; in no necessity of support by what they are not, but quite the other way round…everything else can only be known (to, or by a man) by their being established upon these which all else lay for description and/or defining.

And so he would write pertaining to his own conscience:

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.

Or, as another translation put it:

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

The value of a clear conscience cannot be overestimated. That acting in congruence to what one knows as true. But also admitting one does not know all of truth or of things to be shown true must leave that door open. For Paul is admitting here he has entrusted all ultimate and final judgment of matters into hands above his own. Even his own “guiltlessness” or sense of it, is not enough to secure him. He knows this and has learned this. This power that overcame him to bring him to some knowledge of the necessity to act or be in congruence to what he knows (even in its limits) is the power over all, and he dare not “bring it down” by his own referencing of it in “I am guiltless, therefore I am innocent”. The superior matter of innocence remains to him where it must…over him.

Yes, Shakespeare externalized a struggle through Hamlet, and one I find a real and true struggle, one that resonates within me. I dare not deny it. How to act or be in congruence to what one believes he knows to be true. The very struggle to either find or maintain that (what he calls) nobility of mind is real. Here some deconstruction does indeed take place down to essentials, past poorly propped assumptions and preferences. Things that may grow out of, but are not of themselves the essentials and essence(s) of a thing.

“To be or not to be” is rarely seen or referenced to Shakespeare as support for his being a superior existential playwright to Sartre, Genet, or Camus in his writings. The struggle here is very real, so real, and perhaps too real to be described. If one truly embraces the “Life is hard and then you die” (and are indeed gone into a forever-ness of unknowing and un-being) and such is irrefutable and inevitable (and to one’s self as undeniable)…and that forever indeed shrinks what little time here (or in which this is discovered) to less than a nothing in its infinitesimality of small-ity…how to act in accord with what says they believe they know? The bare bodkin? Is that it? Bring on an inevitable end that is claimed true as both inevitable and end? But (and here Shakespeare is terrified in honesty…) what dreams may come in that sleep? Could one be stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire? What he calls cowardice stops the hand…even a cowardice inspired by conscience.

He (Shakespeare) had some obligation to move the plot along as he was a playwright after all. I am not. I’m not even a writer. But had he gone just a bit further in considerations or exposition he might have come to the greater enigma, conundrum, or pickle we are in by having a conscience, this thing that in us demands of us some congruity. Here the word frustration again finds just usage.

For the thing compelling is the very thing restraining, for as much as conscience moves us at the very same time conscience stops us. Even to some extent becomes broadly condemning of us. If left to our own. For the obverse of that consideration Hamlet was thrust into in “whether ’tis nobler in the mind” is to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” must have consideration. To leave oneself open to all of suffering we find, is something we cannot do. We always resist at some point, cry uncle, say enough is enough and enough is “even too much”. We can’t reconcile ourselves to all of suffering. We find ourselves very much (too much?) creatures of comfort. Dare we invite more by holding to (or even saying) we shall endure it all without resistance or at least some considering of resisting?

Who here is fooling who? (Or is it whom?)

One’s only hope in that would be for someone kind to have endured the all of all suffering on one’s behalf. Taken the blows. Stood between. Stand between, all that could come should we rightly judge ourselves. It’s far too late for any to believe they can undo being.

These things I found out while playing chess with God. Once it was the only move I had. Not a good one, admittedly, but all I had in my knowing. And how I found out He knew all my moves would be “not good” was by my playing.

Why is this always so frustrating I asked.

Well, at least we are at the same table.

Not everything need be a game.

There are other things can be done at the same table besides game playing.

Despair is often underrated, even shunned, but you may find something there if you are found there.