Ironworks

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16-18 Are you ever afraid? I think we all have answered yes during certain seasons of our lives. Fear is certainly one of the most effective tools of Satan. He uses fear to control men. He uses fear to propagandize men. He uses fear to keep Christians from being faithful. Fear realistically disables our ability to love God, and we find ourselves in a vicious cycle of living in fear rather than living in Christ’s love.  Fear is the antithesis of love. The ideas stand over and against each other like David and Goliath facing off before battle (1 Sam. 17). David was a young man stan...

“Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain:  whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.  But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.  To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”  James 4:13-17      What is your life? The answer may be scarier than the question itself. Yet, the Holy Spirit asked, “What is your life?” It is a vapor, something that is seen briefly. It appears and it is gone. So why do we try and hoard the time that we have on this earth instead of willingly giving it up for God? When we plan in such a way that we leave God out of our lives, we hold onto the temporary brevity of life rather than the eternal desire God has...

“Every word of God is tried: He is a shield unto them that take refuge in him.” Proverbs 30:5      They said the Titanic was “practically unsinkable” in 1912, but we all know what happened. It was untested, but it was a spectacular ship, unlike any other in history. “One of the largest and most luxurious passenger liners at the time, the Titanic, was also equipped with watertight compartments, which led many to consider the ship unsinkable; an anonymous deckhand famously claimed that “God himself could not sink this ship.” On April 14, however, the ship struck an iceberg, and early the next day it sank. Some 1,500 people perished.” . Gone are the lives of many on that maiden voyage, all lost on the account of the unseen. If they would have know the fate of this great ship, do you think anyone would have gone aboard?  They had every reason to believe they would have a safe voyage.       Many go through life feeling unstoppable, unbeatable, and sure...

“Thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies. Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; Thy judgments are a great deep: O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.  How precious is thy lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings.”  Psalm 36:5-7      The world says be overwhelmed. The world says give up. The word says there is nothing that can save you. The world says one more drink, one more pill, one more excuse, and one more thrill. In the end, you feel all the more empty. You feel a void that nothing seems to fill. What does one do when the message is hopeless, the message is bleak, or when the repeating message is give up? Flip the Script      To respond in the right way, one needs to change the message to which they are listening. The world has offered trouble and terror. Those liars have offered poisonous error. Yet the God of the Universe, the Cr...