The Roaring of My Soul

Have you ever felt that because you're afraid to lose something or fail at something you are living way below your potential? I know I have. I struggle daily with the imposter that lives within me, the poser, the braggart, the man of flesh and blood, who fearful of dying sometimes forgets to live.

But isn't that what Jesus Christ did for us at the cross: take away the fear of death? So why are we still crawling around on our bellies licking up dust and running through the shadows?

I don't know but for me it's usually some kind of fear. Afraid that someone will not like me or respect me or understand me or whatever. You know, it's all a bunch of dung. The only thing that matters is what God thinks and says. Period. End of story.

But how difficult is it to believe that we are precious in His sight, chosen vessels to carry his treasure, more than conquerors over whatever may come our way, when our husband thinks we're stupid or our wife calls us a jerk or our kids are doing stuff they shouldn't and we don't have enough money to do whatever it is we want to do and it seems like days turn into weeks and we're like chasing our tails around and around and nothing seems to be changing. Even after all the great teachings and counseling and the 'breakthroughs' and epiphanies we've had in our journey thru life, things are still difficult.

That's the real rub isn't it? How do we have faith and believe in the words of the invisible God and our Savior Jesus Christ when all around us our little world is falling apart and we can't do a thing to stop some of the erosion. All we can do is take care of our own heart and soul and mind and strength and even that fails at times. Pile a little guilt and shame onto this fiasco and you have a full blown recipe for despair, I'll tell you what. And with all the knowledge and wisdom I think that I have, and all the friendships and relationships I think that I have, there are still days where the abyss comes rushing in usually during the late night, early morning hours and I am tempted to panic, to despair, to cut and run, to lash out against God and humanity.

I only know one thing to do when the whole world seems to be on fire around me and within me and I am not strong enough to save myself, let alone those I love: I have to roar out my praises to God. And for me it's really a roar: a deep, guttural groaning roar to the heavens. Loudly, knowing and caring nothing for my self for good or ill, I raise my head and roar my praises to Him and His son, the rightful rulers of the universe.

I am dust and I will return to dust. No matter how many times I spin this little dirt bike of mine around the world's track, no matter how many books or bucks I collect on the journey and no matter who loves or hates me righteously or unrighteously, I will someday in my body stand before the Lord God Almighty and my Savior Jesus Christ. That will be my day of glory for even if he judges me according to my deeds, yet is my salvation secure in my savior.

Therefore from the depth of my anguish and disappointments and inabilities I roar with the strength of the Lion of Judah within: Great is God our Father and Great is His Son Jesus Christ and Great is His Kingdom which is coming to earth. Let all who draw breath praise Him. Let all who are wise be fools. Let all who would speak before Him be dumb. Let the humble in spirit approach and let the meek guide all of us to His throne. I await the coming of the Lord God of hosts and the armies in heaven which shall be led by the One on whose thigh is written the name above all Names. Even so come quickly Lord Jesus.

In the meantime, while we are waiting, can I get anyone a glass of water?

@ 2007 Joseph Ricciardi Jr

Are You Naked?

49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49

This most precious clothing of the soul, the gift of holy spirit, poured out by Jesus Christ from the Father’s right hand, is the power and ability to overcome all of the inevitable challenges of life that will seek to cause us to run and hide from God’s presence in shame. There is no better way to cover the soul of man nor is there a more advantageous position that an individual can find than to be accepted by grace into the church of God by the death and resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ. No amount of good works either from the law of Moses or the laws of man, no disciplining of the body towards ascetism or honing of the soul towards the higher ethos will ever give an individual the warmth and security and complete covering of the soul’s nakedness before God than that which God himself provides for his people by way of the new birth.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, they sewed fig leaves together into aprons to cover their nakedness. In place of this, God gave them the best covering that was available at that time: the blood and skins of animals. In this incredible day of Grace and salvation, God has once again given the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, the best of what is available: the righteous life and death of His only begotten son.

We are no longer naked and ashamed, hiding behind coverings of our earthly making. We are now completely covered in Christ Jesus from any sense of sin, guilt, shame or shortcomings. This is the great message of the gospel of salvation: He has removed our poor, earthly rags that barely cover the soul of man and has replaced them with the unhemmed garments of purity, faith and love. We no longer need to flagellate ourselves mentally or emotionally with the consciousness of our unworthiness, groveling before the creator like a subject comes on their face before a mighty Gentile king or emperor. Rather, through the kindness and goodness of God as exhibited in the face of Jesus Christ we are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb and He himself has provided the garments we are to wear.

So then if this great thing has been done for us, why is there still those among us who are suffering mentally and emotionally? If this salvation is so great that it has now swallowed up the curse of the Law and overcome the weakness of our flesh, why do we still see members of the church of God begging in the town squares for understanding, for peace, for love, for acceptance?

There is one place and one place only to look and it is at once the most satisfying and terrifying of answers to the human soul. When all else is stripped away and we finally kneel in our own gardens of Gethsemane, we face the same agonizing choice that Christ faced in his earthly body: “not my will but thy will be done.” The inner heart of man, that which we direct through our mind and emotions, the seat of our personal life, that which makes you, you and me, me…this is the place where the battle now rages. “It is me, oh Lord. Help thou my unbelief.”

17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Eph 4:17-24

There it is, in all its simplicity and glory: “put off your old self (habits, ways of thinking…your old clothes) and “put on the new self” (the one that God created in you when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior). This is the true secret to victorious living. Once a person has “clothed with power from on high”, it is up to individual to make the salvation we have been given the dominant awareness and reality of our hearts and minds by purposefully removing the tattered rags of the sin nature (our old man) and putting on in our heart and our thoughts the beautiful new nature of the spirit so that we will not “conform any longer to the pattern of this world“ but we will be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.”(Rom 12:2)

Are you still trying to “clean up your act” by dry cleaning the sin nature of Adam and Eve? Worse yet, have you rejected the old man with it’s deeds but rather than accepting the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ are trying instead to clothe yourself in some self-righteousness by prayer or good works or some other such ascent to godliness? Be wise and forego the agony for He who loves you has already ascended to the right hand of God to prepare a place for you and He will come back again to get you. Therefore, be wise as serpents but harmless as doves, accept the grace of our Lord Jesus and begin the heart strengthening work of sowing God’s thoughts and words into your conscious and subconscious mind. Reject the dead, lifeless philosophies of this world and the vain imaginings of the pontificating, supercilious old fool that lives within all of us who thinks he knows what’s really going on. Reject that poor soul and instead put on the rich wardrobe of the mind of Christ.

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor 10:5

@ 2008 Joseph Ricciardi Jr

The Dynamics of Being

How difficult I find it to just “be”: to live in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and not be anxious for something to happen. There seem to be forces pulling constantly on my soul to “do more” or to “be more” or to “have more”. I seem at times to be suspended between the planning and the carrying out of the plan.

And whose plan is it anyway? Yours? Mine? Ours? Voices wielding shards of truth which stab at my heart in an attempt to root out apathy. Kind voices, concerned voices, angry voices, impassioned pleas drip off my soul like water after a shower.

Oh wretched man that I am…who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Those were the words of the Apostle Paul when he exposed to us and the “saints at Rome” the struggle with sin he had within himself.

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Who am I that I shouldn’t find those same struggles within myself? Am I greater than Paul? Have I escaped the realities of existence here in the 21st century by way of knowledge or affluence or technology? “Not I”, said the cow with the curly horns who lowed at the babe on Christmas morn. Not I.

Paul’s response to this self-realization?: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

For Paul it was a recognition that there was no good thing within him but that this new life, this new way of being: life in Christ, delivered him from the bondage of corruption, i.e. sin and death. I am because he (Christ) is. I have because he did. I will be because he has been and will come again. This is the true dynamics of being for a son of God thru Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rejoice my brothers and sisters. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

@ 2008 Joseph Ricciardi Jr

The world that has been pulled over your eyes

I love the scene in “The Matrix” where Morpheus makes the offer to Neo (the Red pill) to find out what the Matrix really is all about. If you haven’t seen the movie, that scene alone is worth the effort. Morpheus calls the matrix:

… the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Of course, once Neo becomes “enlightened” to the truth his life actually becomes more difficult and bleak. Those of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ and have accepted his offer of life in the age to come, are acutely aware of how true to experience this can be.

One of the other characters in the movie, Cypher, regrets his decision to take the red pill and find out “how deep the rabbit-hole goes”. He would rather be a slave, asleep and oblivious to the reality of what’s going on, feeding on “virtual” steak and accepting the blinders. In order to regain the womb to tomb comfort of the Matrix, he sells out his compatriots to the enemy. His spoken philosophy: “Ignorance is bliss.”

Gosh I’m so much like Cypher and like Neo. I want to be the one who takes the red pill, faces reality and lives out of my true heart come what may. But then I’m a well seasoned American child of affluence who enjoys worldly comforts. “Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24) Like Cypher, I like my creature comforts.

So although we’re not just batteries for a race of evil machines, like the horrible future portrayed in “The Matrix”, there is an evil that would like to ruin our lives in a fruitless pursuit of things that are not worthy of our attention. In fact, the world in which we live, is, in many ways orchestrated to appeal to our basest emotions and intentions and thus shipwreck our faith and reliance on God and divine providence. I agree with the Apostle John in his first epistle to the Church where he writes:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abides for ever. (1John 2:15-17)

Don’t let them pull the world over your eyes! Love God and eschew evil. Jesus Christ is coming again.

@ 2007 Joseph Ricciardi Jr