What a beautiful homegoing celebration today. See you on the other side.
Aretha Louise Franklin (1942- 2018)
Amazing grace how sweet the sound …
A Firm Stand
If they tell you that in some other place, One can find solace
And true salvation,
other than in one God,
They mean to destroy
your soul;
Take a firm stand.
Marguerite De Navarre (1492-1549)The Invisible Is Happening
the invisible is happening
Fraglen is about going THERE getting THERE being THERE
O thou whose every promise is balm, every touch life, draw near to
thy weary warrior, refresh me, that I may rise again to wage the strife, and never tire until my enemy is trodden down.
Give me such fellowship with thee that I may defy Satan, unbelief, the flesh, the world, with delight that comes not from a creature, and which a creature cannot mar.
Give me a draught of the eternal fountain that lieth in thy immutable, everlasting love and decree. Then shall my hand never weaken,
my feet never stumble,
my sword never rest,
my shield never rust,
my helmet never shatter,
my breastplate never fall,
as my strength rests in the power of thy might.
The Servant In Battle excerpt from The Valley of Vision
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:10-18
A Red Robe of Absurdity
If, as often seems to be the case, we have driven Jesus away, or at any rate back to the catacombs, then we are totally at the mercy of our rulers, whoever they may be and whatever the ideology on behalf of which they purport to govern.
The only antidote to the poison from Caesar’s laurel crown comes from Jesus’s crown of thorns. He alone can deliver us from the monstrosities and buffooneries of power, as has been discovered by the most perceptive spirits of our time, such as Solzhenitsyn.
Faced with power at its most unbridled and most brutal, they turn for help and comfort, not to Universal Declarations of Human Rights and other pronouncements, solemn undertakings,Covenants and Charters in a similar vein, but to the man wearing a crown of thorns, decked out in a red robe of absurdity and with a court of jeering soldiers.
There alone the sting of power is drawn and its pretentions are exploded, and the princes of this world have no recourse but, like Judas, to flee into the night.
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
CONFUSION (a brief abrupt momentary interjection of the times)
What misery is mine!
I am like one who gathers summer
fruit
at the gleaning of the vineyard;
there is no cluster of grapes to eat,
none of the early figs I crave.
The godly have been swept from the
land;
not one upright man remains.
All men lie in wait to shed blood;
each hunts his brother with a net.
Both hands are skilled in doing evil;
the ruler demands gifts,
the judge accepts bribes,
the powerful dictate what they
desire –
they all conspire together.
The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright worse than a thorn
hedge.
The day of your watchman has come,
the day God visits you.
Now is the time of their confusion.
Micah 7: 1-4
