Gentle people
Everywhere,
Now engage
In earnest prayer.
Stage is set
For promised peace,
Therein will come
Our sweet release.
While we see,
Some are blind;
Those precious souls
Still left behind.
We pray Thy peace
Will flood their minds,
Transforming them
Into our kind.
True peace from Thee
We now receive,
Trusting Thy Son
We now believe.
Let us proceed
On bended knee,
Proclaim ourselves
To be with Thee.
Copyright 2024. L.L. Shelton.
I have been fascinated by the LIFE in Corrie Ten Boom since reading an account of her experience under the Nazi regime. I was eleven years old when I found her book, The Hiding Place, in the Berclair Baptist church library. (I read, The Diary of Anne Frank, during the same period.). I was young, but I had been awakened to the reality of God in Christ; yet I had a long way left to go with Him; I still do. The Christian’s life is a journey. Here is the thing: I was drawn to GENUINE power.
Ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes, seances and other occult activities seek the power of the dark side. The supernatural power of the dark side is not the real thing. It is lesser. It’s an illusion. It’s temporary. It is handed to the receptor for a moment and it is removed when THE MAKER sees fit.
Authentic LOVE is the supernatural self-less fuel of the righteous- meaning those rightly positioned to God in Christ. LOVE for GOD, and LOVE for others, in Jesus Christ, is the energy of truth and forms the power of prayer. This is why loving is the greatest commandment, and the second is like it.
The desire for and the search for power seems to be at an all time high. I recognized pure power in Corrie Ten Boom’s chapter of His story. Maybe you will read her story. If you wish to be part of her astonishing family, God’s special family, turn to Jesus; seek the face of GOD in Christ, read and study His Word while you can, embrace His way. His will for you is expressed in His Word. Find a Bible-believing, Jesus-receiving fellowship and participate. Plug-in to genuine power and live!
Copyright 2024. L. L. Shelton.
With their noise
And their toys,
Boys will be boys,
In the woods
Laying claim,
To little girls
They name dames.
Little girls
With their curls,
Their dresses that twirl,
In the grass,
Lingering,
From little boys
They bring kings.
Copyright 2024. L.L. Shelton.
Not by aught
That I have done,
But by thy blood
My victory won,
Not by aught
Except thy love,
Was mercy ceded
From above;
And wandering we,
True Church of Light,
Brought home to glory,
In thy sight!
Not by aught
But by thy might,
All creation
Is made right.
Copyright 2024. L. L. Shelton.
God’s Word Tells Us:
1. It is something that we must strive to keep out of any ecclesia- out of any gathering of two or more in the name of Christ Jesus.
2. It is something God hates.
3. It is something that will bring us pain.
4. It is something that brings pain and illness to those we claim to love.
5. It is something that wills to kill us.
6. It can be blatant or subtle.
7. It loves the dark.
8. It hates the light.
9. It loves a lie.
10. It hates the truth.
11. It is self-seeking.
12. It puts self over others.
13. Its source is pride.
14. It is something that will not remain hidden indefinitely.
15. It is something that every man knows is wrong by the power of his own conscience.
16. It is something that the Believer knows is wrong by his conscience and the indwelling power of The Holy Spirit.
17. It is something that should be confessed to God and to other Believers daily to deprive it of its power.
18. It is something that will only grow in power if it be professed to the wrong person or people.
19. It is the thing that makes us unequally yoked with another.
20. It is something that we must repent of (turn away from) to permanently discourage it.
21. It is something worth our efforts to atone for here on earth. (Heavenly perfect atonement has been made for the Believer by Jesus Christ.)
22. It is the thing that has the power to destroy us to send us to Hell, and to separate us from God and from others who love God forever.
Copyright 2023. L.L. Shelton.
We all experience loss in varying degrees throughout our lives. Sometimes we lose a person. Sometimes it is someone of remarkable significance to our lives. Sometimes we lose our idea of a person. Sometimes we lose someone while they are still living. Sometimes we lose a person before they have a chance to be born. Sometimes death snatches someone from our grasp.
Sometimes we lose something. Something truly meaningful to us- a job, a relationship, a marriage, a family, a home. We may lose our faith in ourselves or our confidence in others. We may lose our affection for someone. Someone may lose fondness for us. Sometimes we lose our possessions, our good health, an opportunity, or a skill. Sometimes we grieve the loss of another’s good opinion, a phase of life, or a particular situation. We may lose our dignity to abuse. Sometimes, in the wake of trauma, a piece of our history is lost to us. In reaction to grief, we may lose a part of ourselves.
No matter. Loss is Loss. And in some form, each and every loss affects us. Our losses affect us at differing levels, on any given day, for as long as we live. This is true whether or not we can identify the trouble or admit to it.
Sometimes the pain surrounding our loss is evident to all. It’s conspicuous and loud- maybe even obnoxious. Sometimes our grief is quiet and obvious to few. Sometimes we suffer in silence. Other times we let it all hang out. But we all suffer. No one makes this journey without loss. Without grief. Without the change that loss entails.
We are in this life together- inextricably intertwined- if only in our minds, our memories. Our journey’s are our own; and yet we pass one another, we bump into one another, converge at various points along the road. We’re often gathered at intersections or stopped together in traffic. Sometimes we are involved in the parade and other times we’re held up by it. Sometimes we are forced to view an accident. Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of the wreck. We may realize we instigated a pile-up. We can accept the truth of our relatedness or not. We can like it or not, we can cooperate with healing or not, but nothing can alter the fact of our wondrous interconnectedness.
The best that we can do is to be patient with one another and ourselves, and to be kind. We can be committed to honesty, to listening, and to being present. We can own our mistakes- time and again if necessary. We can seek forgiveness and we can be forgiving. We can offer grace- allowing new opportunities for growth. In Christ, we can practice genuine humility and real compassion. In Him, we can love in the truest sense.
Copyright 2024. L.L. Shelton.
Following every glittering testimony of faith from one raised in a stable Christian home- learning at an earthly father’s knee to love The Heavenly Father, happily participating in church life with the family, knowing a lifetime of Christian heritage- is a chorus of genuine amens and hearty hallelujahs! And rightly so!
But for many hearers, there’s a whispered, “please Lord, let that be my kid’s witness someday, since it will never be mine.” There are those thinking of when they were children and rode the church bus alone every Sunday- and still are the only professing Christians in their families. Many are remembering regular family participation in church- punctuated by long days and nights of familial dysfunction. Many have no memory of attending church as a child. Due to the troublesome vines continuously trying to choke it to death, some folks may not be able to distinguish the branches of their family tree.
The Good News is: If you have kissed a hundred frogs and not one of them turned into royalty, if you are sleeping with pigs and slapping off flies, if you do not know your earthly father- much less your heavenly one, if you are running hard and fast from pain- afraid to slow down and catch your breath; there’s a GOD in heaven who made you, who loves you- and if you seek Him- you’ll find He was willing to take human form and die to redeem you from your natural sinful state and your proclivity to sin.
Sin has many natural consequences. Some are merely difficult, others are horrid. Most important however, is the ultimate price of our sin: It is spiritual death and eternal separation from GOD, and from all that is good and pure. Good tidings of great joy: Jesus Christ has come to buy back his own from the dark side! GOD in The Son of God has paid in full for our offenses toward Him and for the harm we have done others!
Now, respectfully, before all you precious theologians on every side of the many fences we’ve built prepare to take me to task- I thoughtfully read the book, too. The Book says, if anyone wants GOD it is an act of His sovereign grace in that one’s life. It says, if anyone is willing to trust in and sincerely believes on Jesus Christ, The Only Begotten Son of God, for personal salvation from sin it is an act of sovereign grace. And if anyone consistently, yet imperfectly, displays the fruits of salvation and of The Indwelling of The Holy Spirit it is an act of sovereign grace. And if anyone genuinely wants GOD he or she is elect. And if anyone chooses GOD it is because GOD CHOSE first. It says, there is not one thing, NO NOT ONE, that any of us lowly humans can do to better ourselves and our position before A HOLY GOD. We can not even WANT God on our own. We cannot be WILLING to obey on our own. There is not one tiny work we can do without God either to save ourselves or to keep ourselves saved. Everything is ALL of GOD and everything is owed to Him. Justified- sanctified- glorified, ALL OF HIM! By Him, for Him, and through Him, ALL things came to be, and are coming to be, and will be, and are held together. These things are in the book. These things are in His Word.
Therefore, if you are one with a less than sparkling legacy and you truly want God, you will simply look to Him, as did the thief on the cross that solemn day long ago on Calvary’s Hill, and you will be saved! Then, you will go find your new brothers and sisters! You will link arms with them and in the power of The Holy Spirit, embrace the struggle against sin! You will go and celebrate the victory that was hard-won for you! Merry Christmas And A Shiny New Year!
Copyright 2023. L. L. Shelton.
This is my favorite part of the day- just at the new moment of it. It’s the perfect time to get square with Our Maker and paint a brand new picture of ourself doing the right thing.
On this particular dawn, I’ve sat down with a cup of hot spiced tea and taken to imagining my son’s face when I unveil the turkey I put together just for him. I’m planning to invite him to share it with the rest of us, but I put two birds in the oven this year just in case.
You see, some life back, along about the time he had his first crush on a pretty little girl named Gen, and we were still enjoying close community with our neighbors and moving through our days at the pace of typical suburban life, a few things had me feeling rather despondent. (Honestly, God gives a mother everything she needs to get through a day, but sometimes she isn’t seeing as well as she should.)
When Thanksgiving rolled around that year, my favorite son had a brilliant idea (well he was my favorite every time we were alone together, as is every child). Jack had always had a keen sense of taste and smell, as well as a bright mind for snuggling up and imagining exotic family vacations we’d take, if we ever found ourselves in possession of a fancy bottle we might rub and get our wish.
Lately, he had been daydreaming about fixing up a cologne, special for a person’s favorite girl. It would smell just like bacon frying on the camp stove when you first open your eyes and take a swipe at them; when you roll over on your cot and you peek out through the tent screen, and there’s nothing to see but God’s creation of the morning rising up over polished water you know you’re going to be cutting a wake through later, and you get a soul-satisfying whiff.
I could tell my other three sons, my son-in love, and my future son-in-love, had seen their estimation of this youngest boy on the brink of joining their ranks, grow by leaps and bounds as he told of this unique blend of scent that every man could cover his favorite pretty girl in whenever he took a notion to spend much time with her. A man could just splash it around her neck real good, and everything he ever longed for would be cuddled up next to him. To tell you the truth, my ears hadn’t pricked to such strange wisdom since my eldest son had announced his plan to marry his four-year-old crush and carry her off to Mississippi, where they’d live happily ever after in a little two room cabin with a dirt floor. (Such mental trickery wasn’t really all that surprising since we’d been on a regular fare of “Little House in The Big Woods” in the evenings.)
Anyway, that year as we prepared to express our tremendous gratitude for this great nation in which we are encouraged to worship GOD and love each other the way we see fit, Jack wove a spell-binding tale of a potential centerpiece for the Thanksgiving table that would enter the waking fantasies of every man to live into the double digits, till kingdom come! The giant poultry that we’ve been told Benjamin Franklin nominated to represent this great nation, would be carefully chosen, then stuffed full of every kind of tasty, expertly seasoned, and for the finale; deliberately special-wrapped in, you guessed it- the best any pig has to give- beautifully marbled, perfectly cured, thick-cut bacon. You should have seen their manly eyes light up when he described it to the remainder of the pack.
Of course, I’ve never been one to shudder at a novel idea. In fact, I kind of like to take a calculated risk once in a while. I find it keeps life perky. So, with measured enthusiasm I proceeded with Jack’s magnificent plan. I shopped with care for the lucky winner- she had to be pleasingly plump but not obese, with pretty curves in the appropriate places. I hit the Jack-pot at our local Kroger.
On the big day, I rose early before the initial pink began to make a swath through the sky. I cleared the counter and washed it down. That turkey weighed twice legendary babies who are told of for decades by the doctors who delivered them and the mamas who near-died getting them here; but I wrestled with it until I had it as securely wrapped as those respectable specimens were upon leaving the delivery room. I sprinkled and sprayed and tossed and prayed over it, before placing it in the oven to slow-roast until it became the most perfect example of a juicy gobbler we’d ever put in our mouths.
Later, following the ceremonial placement of the fantastic bird on the center of our extra large, well-loved, beautifully laid gathering table; and the half-hour devouring of weeks of labor- The Turkey was pronounced the finest fowl ever to have been seen or heard from this side of Paradise. In fact, one man jumped to his feet after only one bite and swore he wished his mother had named him Jack! And now, Loved Ones, you know how that Thanksgiving became the only one to beat.
P.S. I do love you, Jaxon Edward McGarrh Shelton, and in some of my most special memories, you truly are my favorite.
Copyright 2023. L.L. Shelton.
TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK CHURCH:
WHERE ARE WE?
We are on a planet largely controlled by powerful men who consider themselves God. We in the United States, are located within western society as it continues to abandon the principles of The Christian Faith. We in America, are in a nation often governed by crooked and perverse men, and we are surrounded by a confused generation.
WHEN ARE WE?
We are in a time that bitter is called sweet, and evil is called good. We are in a period of great deception, and are initially concerned with covering our sin rather than repenting of our sin. The mad is deemed reasonable. The criminal is protected and the victim is punished. We are occupying during the upside-down, and we may truly be nearing the end of the church age.
HOW ARE WE?
Following the traumatic events of two world wars, our corporate society began the primary pursuit of personal peace and affluence. Separating ourselves from the principles found in God’s Word, we spiraled into a sexual revolution and we witnessed the demoralization and eventual break down of the family. The generation of free-love and casual sex was followed by a homosexual revolution. We are in the midst of a transgender revolution. Our traumatized society may result in a collective reprobate mind. Our earthly leaders appear to be considering a third world war.
WHO ARE WE?
We are the redeemed. We are the saved. We are bought at great price. We are Saints. We are Believers. We are the precious children of THE MOST HIGH GOD; possessions of GOD marked with His permanent seal. We are friends of Jesus Christ. We are the family of GOD. We have the mind of GOD. We are those who can not be separated from the LOVE of GOD. We are the ones who will stand.
WHY ARE WE HERE?
To be the light of the world. To be luminaries and blessings. To enjoy GOD. To be witnesses to TRUTH. To live before a watching world with eternity in our hearts. We are here to share THE GOOD NEWS to the glory of GOD! We are in Christ the HOPE of the world!
WHAT ARE WE TO DO?
This is our high calling and reasonable service. This is our mission. Our orders have not changed. We are to occupy expectantly as we await our LORD’s return.
And since GOD is with us and for us, who can be against us?
Copyright 2023. L.L. Shelton.
As healthy parents, we long to intervene in the suffering of our children. We want them to be well and comfortable. In infancy, this is good and ensures that their basic needs for food, shelter, and love will be met; however we should begin to allow some autonomy as our children try and assert themselves. When they begin to walk, we must allow the occasional fall. On the other hand, we must not be so over-bearing as to engineer circumstances to bring about their suffering, and at any rate it is hardly necessary as every created thing is groaning in pain under the weight of The Fall.
It is our task to provide them with the whole truth while shielding them from evil to the best of our abilities. It is not our work to prevent their suffering. Personal suffering to some degree is the very thing that leads one to God at the point of justification, and later at the various points of sanctification. It is ordained that each and every Christian will suffer at the point of glorification due to the death of the physical body, the actual separation of spirit from flesh. Though, we may cite an instance when a person is said to have “walked away with God,” this does not mean there was no pain in the metamorphosis that had to take place, and salvation is complete when it has passed through these three stages. We may be sure the thief on the cross passed through them; albeit in an unusually rapid manner.
Scripture does not allow that we make personal peace and prosperity our goal in life, and as parents we are on occasion unhappy in our own suffering. We occasionally desire, though it be momentary, to escape our hardship. We may attempt this in a variety of ways- some seemingly benign and others completely unhealthy. We may influence our children to attempt their own flight. Also, in this we may inspire our children, though unwittingly, to go forth and right the wrongs that we’ve suffered within the roles and circumstances that God has designed and allowed for us. This we must strive against as suffering is ordained for the Christian. The Christian by very definition, is the one attempting to navigate this fallen world in a manner that is pleasing to His Father God. A Christian is one who has recognized his own offenses before God (his sin) and has purposed to live in a fight against further offense. Therefore, to ignite in our children a desire to escape this difficulty is to inspire our children to abandon God. May it never be!
Copyright 2023. L. L. Shelton.