Metanoeite CXXXII

"He lets His sun rise on both sinners and saints, and
He sends rain on both good people and bad."

I've been walking this puppy for over a year every early morning and every late night and I'm getting tired of the snow, rain, mosquitoes covering me like make-up on teenagers at the mall, and whatever...

"Don't leave home without Me."

"Keep Your eye on me;
hide me
under
Your
cool wing feathers."

Metanoeite CXXXI

"My people are hell-bent on leaving Me...Oh, how can I give you up? How can I destroy you?
My heart is torn within Me, and My compassion overflows.
No, I will not punish you as much as My burning
anger tells Me to...for I am God...I am the
Holy One living among you, and
I
will not
come
to
destroy."

Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and quit.

"That's not how Ours do it until..."

"It is finished."

Metanoeite CXXX

"Don't look for someone to blame. No finger pointing!
You, priest, are the one...
My people are ruined
because
they don't know what's right or true.
Because
you've
turned your back on knowledge,
I've
turned my back on you priests...
They've
walked out on me,
their God,
for a life
of
rutting
with
whores."

Telling the truth does not exempt me from it; or as my wife asks regularly as well as rhetorically, "Why don't you practice what you preach?"

"Wives know their spices...like salt."

"You who place such emphasis on the Bible,
are
you
disgracing God
by
your
violations
of
the
Scripture?"

Metanoeite CXXVIII

"How often I've ached to embrace your children,
the way a hen gathers her chicks
under her wings,
but
you
wouldn't let Me."

The auto-suggested righteous who rationalize to spiritualize creeds and deeds because they always need to be right and win while pretending to know You better than anyone else exhaust me.

"You!?"

"He took on His own shoulders the sin of the many."

Metanoeite CXXIX

"Half the time I don't know which end is up. The things I really don't want I make a habit of,
and the things I just despise I go right on doing...The desire to do right is there, yes, but
the deed, no. I simply don't carry through on my good intentions; worse,
I fall into the habit of doing the bad things I don't intend.
What a scoundrel I am!
Who can get me out
of
this
rut
of
destruction?"

I can't stop making mistakes.

"You're so human; requiring One so Divine."

"While we were real sick, in the nick of time Christ died for people
who couldn't care less for a loving God...God convinces us of
His love, because while we were still sinful trash
Christ gave His life for us."

Metanoeite CXXVII

"We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing,
gone our own way."

I think I've figured out the difference between Your Church and our churches: Yours looks up, stands up, speaks up, and acts up for Jesus as attested in Holy Scripture while ours navel-gazes.

"You cannot have other gods - even yourselves - before Me."

"I will build My Church; and all the powers of hell shall not prevail against it."

Metanoeite CXXVI

Metanoeite (CXXVI)

"Very early on Sunday morning, as the Son rose..."

It's Sunday!

"So stop acting like it's still Friday!"

"I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally,
experience His resurrection power!"

Metanoeite CXXV

"I must be about My Father's business."

Kopper and I walk for about 30 minutes in the morning and at night; and he waited so long for everything to be to his liking today that he almost failed to do his business.

"Some churches wait just long enough to miss opportunities to honor Me; which betrays deeply embedded disobedience."

"Time is just about up."

Metanoeite CXXIV

"I will never desert You; even if they all do."

They nailed You; then I found the hammer in my hands.

"It's relative to the Adamsons."

"Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death,
another person did it right and got us out of it...One man said no to God and put
many people in the wrong; one Man said yes to God and put many in the right...
Adam caused many to be sinners
because
he disobeyed God,
and
Christ caused many to be made acceptable to God
because
He
obeyed.
...[It's relative]...
You must be born again and from above."

Metanoeite CXXIII

"What must I do to be saved?"

Our puppy Kopper takes the surest and safest way to where he wants to go.

"He's Me for you."

"No one goes to the Father except by Me."

Metanoeite CXXII

"All we preach is Christ crucified."

Visiting a new church, I couldn't find the old cross.

"Obviously, they don't know Me."

"I am going to boast about nothing but the cross of our Master, Jesus Christ."

Metanoeite CXXI

"So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it,
it becomes obvious
that
God's command
is
necessary."

Fiddling with thermostats before checking temperatures, spicing before tasting, voting by reflex without reflection, and knee-jerking through life and ministry illustrate habitual insults to Your holiness.

"Change your habits!"

"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead,
fix your attention on God.
You'll be changed
from the inside
out.
Readily recognize
what He wants from you,
and
quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you,
always dragging you down
to
its
level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you,
develops well-formed maturity in you."

Metanoeite CXX

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

She confided concern about disdain transferred to her because of a friend; so I repeated counsel offered to me: "You are not responsible for what others say and do; but you are responsible for how you react to what others say and do."

"You are Mine in whatever, whenever, wherever, and with whomever."

"Fill your minds with those things that are good and deserve praise:
things that are
true,
noble,
right,
pure,
lovely,
and honorable.
Put into practice what your learned and received from me,
both from my words and from my deeds.
And the God who gives us peace
will be with you."

Metanoeite CXIX

"When the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
you will receive power
and
will tell people
about
Me."

Frustrated and feeling like a failure because there are more needs than me to go around, You brought a saint's recipe for existential and eternal satisfactions to mind: "I tell people, 'Don't follow me. Follow Jesus!'"

"You can't satisfy anyone's needs."

"I am at rest
in
God alone.
He alone
is
my rock and my salvation.
O my people,
trust in Him
at
all times.
Pour out your heart to Him,
for
God alone
is
our refuge."

Metanoeite CXVIII

"Everything is possible to the one who believes."

So, uh, Lord, how are we going to pay for it?

"Trust and obey Me."

"You have a long history of ignoring My commands.
You haven't done a thing I've told you.
Return to Me
so
I can return to you...
Begin
by
being honest.
Do honest people rob God?...You rob me day after day.
You ask, 'How have we robbed You?'
The tithe and the offering - that's how!...
Bring your full tithe to the treasury...
Test Me in this
and see if
I don't
open
up
heaven
to you
and
pour out
blessings beyond your wildest dreams."

Metanoeite CXVII

"If God doesn't build the house, the builders labor in vain."

When we saw the opportunities to advance Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, I was just thinking space, elevator, and renovation.

"Your god is too small."

"So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ,
act like it.
Pursue
the things
over which
Christ
presides.
Don't shuffle along,
eyes to the ground,
absorbed with the things right in front of you.
Look up,
and be alert
to
what is going on around Christ - that's where the action is.
See things
from
His perspective."

Metanoeite CXVI

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."

My wife and I were talking about every Christian having at least one special way to honor You which is dependent upon others using their special ways of honoring You in a complementary design intended to prove no one is no more nor no less important to You in the health and holiness of Your Church; and then she hit me with Your punchline: "Humility is putting into perspective what small yet significant part our thing plays in the big picture."

"Pay more attention to her."

"Just as there are many parts to our bodies, so it is with Christ's body.
We are all parts of it,
and it takes every one of us to make it complete,
for we each have different work to do.
So we belong to each other,
and
each
needs
all the others."