I know who you are,
I know where we stand;
You’re holding the anvil
Square in your hand.
The glint in your eye,
The set of your jaw,
The challenge you beg for;
Will I answer your call?
Lay down your arms,
This day bright and fair;
Surrender your harms,
To The One Who Is There.
Copyright 2025. L.L. Shelton.
There is a cost to living long;
Composing loss into our song,
Low tones expressing mournful thought,
Concern of hours love has bought,
Care reverberating ‘round,
Shaping grief into sound.
Pitch includes most wailful tale,
Engulfing sorrow’s mighty swell,
Forming image in the mind,
Hark’ning back to happy times!
Oft’ remembering can blind,
Threatening our loss to bind,
Our purpose in what lies behind.
Then, visuals brim-full with strife,
Cut through the soul as sharpest knife.
Moments when, caught up in sin
We were not who we ought have been.
Clay walls threaten to give way,
In yearning toward that brighter day,
Now, our task comes shining through,
Pale hollow soul knows what to do:
Aware the world’s due reprimand,
Trust His Word; know His plan
Will harmonize these fragile strands.
His Symphony will bring to stand
God’s vision of the perfect man.
Copyright 2025. L.L. Shelton.
(This one is for Jill.)
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, is fallen!
Lunatics are calling, are calling, are calling,
Demons are screaming, are screaming, are screaming,
Their world is careening, careening, careening,
The wicked are wailing, are wailing, are wailing,
Nature is railing, is railing, is railing,
Earth’s systems are failing, are failing, are failing,
Evil’s impaling, impaling, impaling!
Now His furious focus,
No more hope for the hopeless!
Copyright 2024. L. L. Shelton.
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 seem 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 suddenly snatches someone from our grasp.
Sometimes we lose something. Something truly meaningful to us- a beloved pet, 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.
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 experiencing loss, nor without the change that loss entails. No one moves through life without grief.
And 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. We can lessen one another’s pain. 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 is 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. Some are reflecting on the festive Easter and Christmas celebrations at church, and the long empty Sundays in between. There are those who have no memory of attending church as a child, and 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.
Dear Reader, 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 is a GOD in heaven who made you and loves you. If you seek Him- you will find that He was willing to take human form and die to redeem you from your natural sinful state, and from your proclivity to sin.
Sin has many natural consequences. Some are merely difficult, others are horrid. Vitally 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. But, GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY, Jesus Christ has come to buy back His own from the dark side! GOD, in The Son of God, Jesus Christ, has paid in full for our offenses toward Him and for the harm we have done others! What?!? It’s true!
Now, respectfully, before precious theologians on every side of the many fences we’ve built prepare to take me to task- I thoughtfully read, The Book. 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 positions before A HOLY GOD. We cannot 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, Dear Reader, are one with a less than sparkling legacy and you truly want God, you will simply turn to Him in trusting faith, as did the thief on the cross that solemn day, long ago on Calvary’s Hill, and you will be saved! Then, as GOD wants you to enjoy fellowship with other like-minded folks and to enjoy His family, you’ll find a local Bible-believing, Jesus-receiving fellowship, and will link arms with your new brothers and sisters 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.