Had to spend a week in the hospital in March.
Felt fatigued, thought it to be the flu.
Was checked, no flu.
Flu-like symptoms.

After three days of more fatigue and
being mostly in the bed, and upon a 100’+ temperature and an infected spot on my left foot… my wife insisted I go back to the hospital.

She was wise.

Staph infection in my blood.
Not knowing if its was MRSA or
simple staphylococcus…
I was admitted to the hospital.

Immediate infusion of antibiotics and blood tests were done on a consistent basis for the next several days.

A trans-esophageal echogram was performed on me to determine if the staph had gone to my heart.

After the blood work and cultures
had been done for a few days a particular approach was developed by the infectious disease doctor.

He visited me and outlined the infection in the blood, what that meant and the method of treatment he was considering.

Two days later he visited again with his determination and the results of the echogram done inside the esophagus.

The staph had not attached to the heart and he outlined the next round of antibiotics.

I had a chance to ask him questions about the infection.

He told me I was the cause of it.

He said I was my own worst enemy.

Having varying levels of atopic dermatitis since I was 23 years old,
the Doctor relayed to me that this infection came upon me because I had scratched open a place on my skin. Staph… which exists in so many places… entered the bloodstream through the open wound in my skin.

He said I had probably had this before but it had not risen to this level.

My skin, which is supposed to be a shield against germs and bacteria, protecting all of the inner elements of the body, had been compromised….
and the intended protection it is created to provide,
failed.

It failed …. not of its own accord…
but because I compromised it myself.

I was sick….
and I had brought it upon myself.

We talked about diseases and their origins and then I asked the Doctor a question I have had in my mind for about a year.

“If I had lived in earlier or ancient times ….with the condition I have currently…how would I have survived without steroids or modern skin treatments???

He answered….and it’s what I thought might have been the case.

“You would have been a leper”.

“You would have damaged your skin and without modern medicine, you would have contracted Leprosy.”

I thought about that conversation during the next few days of the hospital stay… once again the Grace of God led me to another realization of Thankfulness.

As I have resumed normal life, with a renewed appreciation for modern medicine ….the events of March and April have led me to another thought.

As the skin is created with the intention of being a shield and a protection against the harm of bacteria and infection…
so the Armor of God is intended to be covering us and shielding us against the approach of the germ and destructive infection of evil.

And just as I broke my own shield of protection by opening the skin, I caused it to fail.

It did not fail on its own accord.

The Armor of God does not fail if it is allowed to do its work as it is intended to do.

We can fail to put it all on….

We can fail to ALLOW it to do its powerful work…

It….in and of Itself
does not
and will not fail.

For it is forged spiritually,

We are, however,
spiritual beings in physical bodies.

I brought and caused weakness in the protective shield of my skin.

I can break my body….
I cannot break Armor forged by God.

The only breakage possible in the
functioning of God’s Armor is in our
role allowing It to do Its work.

Initially, we fail the potentiality of It if we refuse SALVATION.

Or by failing to use the SWORD of the SPIRIT….and not knowing or using SCRIPTURE.

Or by not appropriating the SHIELD of FAITH….
by not operating in TRUTH…
by not walking in PEACE.
by not living in the given gift of
RIGHTEOUSNESS.

As I might have in earlier times
suffered physically from leprosy…
I have an Advocate Who will not allow a leprosy of my spirit.

As I recall the Doctor telling me that I am my own worst enemy in maintaining the protection my skin allows…

I realized I don’t need a second enemy…for I have a spiritual enemy seeking the theft, death and destruction of all God has gifted and given me.

Therefore,
may I be further committed to
hear everyday and
consistently obey
the urging of Gods Voice
to put on His Armor
to stay in my place
to allow His Armor It’s Work.

I have read many books in my many years.

When I was young and living at home I read a good bit.
Whenever we traveled I had a book with me. Now, it was not always Dostoyevsky, but it was not always Sports Illustrated either.
In my college days I read for classes in Literature. I read The Classics, both English and American.

Later on I read simply to learn and also for enjoyment. I determined in Graduate School that I would read every afternoon for at least 90 minutes.

When you read a good or great book… you probably remember a great deal about it.

Have you ever gone back and read a great book again?

I have read
LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL three times. It has never meant as much as it meant to me when I was a 20 year old college student wondering what life was going to be like and what it held for me.

At that time, at that age …
that book meant more and spoke to me more than any novel and any book ever had.

Some people would never read a book twice.

How do you feel about reading books in The Bible…??

If you have read The Gospel of JOHN , would you say….
“I have already read that book,
I don’t have to read it again”…???

If you have read PROVERBS….
would you read it again???

I have heard long-time church-goers say …”I have heard that before, I have already read that…. I got that.”

In my mind, that attitude is a limited outlook of an unfathomable opportunity.
There are some books I read with a pen in my hand … because I know there will be memorable phrases.

My copy of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steven Jobs…is
half underlined because of the memorable words and comments of Jobs, Gates, Jonathan Ivie and a few others.

I encourage you to read The Scriptures with a pen in your hand.

There are memorable phrases.

I have read Psalms, Proverbs,
The Gospel of John, James,
Paul’s epistles….
at different times and at different ages in my life.

These books and other Scripture hold current application at whatever time I have read them.

LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL was most applicable and held the most meaning to me when I was on the cusp of adulthood.

Scripture holds applicability and
meaning for each and every moment and stage of life….
because we are consistently on the cusp of eternity.
Novels are written by man’s hand guided by man’s heart and mind about man’s limited experiences.

Scripture was written by man’s hand guided by The Almighty God about God’s Unlimited Plan for and Eternal Role in man’s experiences.

Man’s hand can write about a life and the events contained within that limited existence.

God’s Guidance directed man’s hand to write about Creation, the life of a nation,  Christ’s Walk on the earth, time splitting eternal events, angels doing battle, fulfilled prophecies,
and the unlimited forecast of the eternal life that will be realized by everyone.

If one has any sense of the spiritual
significance of God speaking to man and desiring communion with His created beings…..
then the re-reading of His Word to us should never be shunned because of a previous exercise.
I have not heard my fathers voice in 33 years.

I can remember his words and can read them.

I have reread them.

They hold great meaning because they are his words…but they are not everyday applicable and directive.
I can say that I have already read
LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL…
and that
I don’t need to read that book again.

Scripture speaks to us today as it did to the believers in Corinth, Ephesus and Thessolonica when Paul’s letters were read to them.

Because It is given to the writers by an eternal and omnipresent Spirit…. Scripture holds eternal and ever-current Truth.

In your life,
I hope there is always a need and desire to read that Book again.

 

Do you know the power in your voice?

Do you know the influence in your voice?

My father has been dead since 1983, but if it were that he could call me and speak…I would know and recognize the sound of his voice.

I have an Uncle whose voice is close to being identical to that of my Fathers…..

I recognize the similarity because I knew 

and stilll know 

my Father’s Voice.

Would you not recognize your Mothers voice….no matter the time since you have heard it?

It most likely was the first voice spoken to you and most familiar voice you heard in your first years.

Your children know your voice.
They recognize it when you speak.
They can tell your attitude by the inflection or tone.

The volume of your voice carries meaning as well.
“Raising” ones voice carries meaning and attitude.

Your Spouse can tell many things from the tone, inflection and volume of your voice.

And you know their change in tone, as well.

My father used to tell me that the problem was not necessarily WHAT I said….but the WAY I said it.

Know that your voice, in your house…and in the lives of those in your family….carries great weight.

Therefore, use it properly.

For several weeks, I have started reading aloud the Scripture to my wife when we get into bed at night.

I want her hearing my voice….
the voice of her husband,
reading God’s Word to her as she ends her day.

My desire is that the Assurance and Authority in God’s Word, and the Familiarity and Comfort of her husband’s voice… bless her as she passes into the rest granted her at the closing of the day.

I would believe your wife would benefit from the same thing.

Even if she does not admit initially,
your voice carries great meaning in her heart and in her spirit.

She needs to hear your voice.

It breeds confidence and assurance in her.

Your children need your voice in their ears. For through hearing your voice they gain the centerpiece of authority and assurance in their existence.

Though your audible voice, they will begin to hear and understand God’s usually inaudible voice as He speaks through His Word.

With the Power and Authority in our voice….we need to always be aware of the words we speak.

Our voice, carrying condemning words can cause massive damage.

Our voice, conveying correction,
can instruct and guide with proper authority.

Our voice, with words of blessing,
can cultivate and generate great balance and encouragement in those who hear our words.

The sound of your voice can bring
Peace, Destruction, Assurance or
Encouragement.

It can relieve, it can burden.

It can harm and hurt…..it can uplift and heal.

Understand the power in the sound of your voice.
Know that it has great effect on those closest to you.

Allow it to be governed properly.

Exercise the usage of it properly.

Just as Mary’s head and heart and hopes were lifted when she heard Christ say her name after His Resurrection… outside the tomb…..

your voice,
speaking to those who love you
can lift, love and lead their lives.

Put the power of your voice to good use.

Proactive.
Purposed Instruction.
Intentional Intervention.

Yesterday, I mentioned Mentors in my life and the respect I possess for them.

The active and kinetic movement of a Mentor is what they do to affect change. 

To Mentor is to teach. To Mentor is to coach.

To Mentor is to exhibit the traits taught earlier.
To Mentor is to “lifestyle” the things spoken.
To Mentor is to walk out and example behaviors conducive to success in a given field or activity.

Being a Mentor is not a passive act.

The neophyte needs active and interventionist behavior.

The first Mentor in life is a parent.
If a parent is passive then they have abdicated their role as leader and Mentor.

Bring a Parent/Mentor is the most difficult role because for the 18-25 years you teach and instruct them the one being instructed lives with you.

Therefore, consistency in your message and method is essential.

Preaching a message is a good thing.

Practicing the preached message is where the “rubber meets the road”.

That is a secret for all Mentors…

to consistently model the lessons
being taught.

It says you really believe it.

If you take your pre-school child to
bible school and they learn about Jesus…and you teach them that as well…
and you do not behave as if that message is important… 

the words spoken and the mentoring will be eventually seen as false.

You would be MENTORING a message
without MODELING  the needed behavior.

Mentoring is active ….kenetiic…
always watching the student…
and always being watched by the student.

It’s an everyday thing.

It’s an everyday active verb when it’s being exercised….
only becoming a noun when it’s accomplished.

Who is your “spiritual mentor”?

Not a preacher or a Bible character.

Is there a man or woman who was a spiritual role model to or for you?

Did you try to live like them?
Have you walked by them, learned their ways and grown to reflect them??

They may have taught you in a Class, they may have preached sermons which you heard, or they may have simply lived and modeled a life or lifestyle which showed you how to be more like Christ.

Think of the spiritual models in your life.

Mine are, initially, my Father. 

Then my paternal Grandfather and my Mother.

John J Buell
Harry Piland
Terri Taylor
AT Scott
George Green
Wallace Henley
Bill Venz

At different times and in varying ways, and two of them for just a short time, these people influenced me and modeled for me a spiritual behavior or trait that has greatly influenced or moved me toward What and Who Our Father desires for me to be.

I celebrate those people.

Not one of them is in my life today. 

However, their life and influence, cast and exerted when they walked in and spoke into my  life remains a living and fully functional existence which breathes in me and speaks through me to those I have the opportunity to touch today.

I am thankful for each of them.
Who are yours???

Think of them and celebrate them, express gratitude for them and to them.

Tomorrow……MENTOR, the Verb.

It’s called Investment.

If you do invest,
you deposit money over time and it yields value….maybe quickly, history reveals it always does, eventually.

For many people,
the most important element in their investment program is the proper use of their current income.

Walking away from money…
what is the most important investment you can make?

Time invested in The Scriptures.

What would be next?

If married,
It would be the investment made into the heart, eyes, ears and spirit of your Spouse.

Statements, actions and prayers…
made incrementally into your Spouse creates fertile ground for a great return….and yields the opportunity for great gains.

In every way you can name.

Just as you can place things needed later… on the back burner because they are not urgent…

You can ignore these deposits into your Mate because of “busy-ness” and eventually reach a point where you cannot make up the deficiency.

See your Spouse as you see your retirement account… if no deposits are made and little or no attention paid, there will eventually be no value.

And, if you only make withdrawals…
you will go into default.

No matter the time of life or the “busy-ness” of your current existence… invest in your Spouse on and with purpose….
with your ATTENTION
with your WORDS,
with your TIME…
with your HEART.

Know this…
You make time and you sacrifice for what you consider most valuable.

February, 2017

Follow me.

Sunday, a sixth round draft pick, the
199th player taken in the 2000 NFL
draft played in his seventh Super Bowl.
He has won five.

He has won over 200 NFL games.

More than one win for every player chosen before him in that draft.

He was MVP for the fourth time in the most intense sporting event in American sports.

He did not receive a plethora of offers out of high school.
The main way he attracted attention from college recruiters was from a highlight video his father made and sent out to 54 schools.

This year, maybe his best year, while he trained and prepared…
his efforts have been effected by knowing his mother has been undergoing chemotherapy and fighting a great battle herself.

Emotion has added additional fuel to Tom Brady’s fire.

Follow me.

In 1958,
Johnny and The Moondogs changed their name.
After playing in a cellar at lunchtime dates, they traveled to Germany to play. Upon hearing their single,
“My Bonnie” and realizing they were not a German band their new agent brought them back to Britain.

After going through two drummers and another couple of other guitarists, they settled on a name and The Beatles became popular in England before conquering America in February, 1964.

No band….NO BAND… has ever had the initial impact or lasting influence as they have had over the past 50 years.

Follow me, please.

Six NBA titles.
Six Finals MVPs.
5 seasonal MVPs.
10 time scoring champion.
The universally accepted position as the G. O. A. T.
The first athlete to achieve billionaire financial status.
The first athlete to be given a brand and legitimate equity in a sneaker company and propel the sneaker industry into financial legitimacy.

He was cut from his high school basketball varsity as a sophomore.

His father was murdered in a car at a roadside rest stop..

He was labeled a ball hog and a team killer in his early professional career.

His rivals teamed up to frustrate any progress toward a title for the first six years of his professional life.

The JORDAN RULES was the effort to knock him down and blanket him on the court.
Those RULES eventually drove him to the weight room, an everyday training regime …. and unmatched, successful fury.
These are three examples of undeniable GREATNESS.

These are examples that reveal there is always a backstory to Greatness.

Those successes that appear to come easy… as it did for Michael Jordan…as it does for Tom Brady… as it seemed for The Beatles…
only appear that way.

Things are not always as they appear.

Hard to equal “hard work” has been
exercised by these three examples.

Malcolm Gladwell says we become great at something after doing it 10, 000 times.

That might be right.

Ask Brady.
Ask MJ.

Ask the ones who have learned from them.
Kobe Bryant, a disciple of Jordan’s,
ended his career with 5 titles and is the 3rd all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan.
He was known for having the best fundamentals and most efficient footwork in the NBA.

He was also known as the player who out worked everyone else. … for twenty years.

Research Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Glenn Cunningham, Billy Graham.

There is always a backstory to greatness.

If you have achieved an accelerated level of success …
you have a backstory.

My encouragement is to be open to sharing it.

Frustration will grow in those around you who try to emulate your results if they do not understand the effort, sacrifice, and dedicated work which you engaged in to arrive at the point of success you now enjoying.

Share your backstory.

Because of that pyramid of work and extended effort you built… pride should not keep you from
allowing those following you to hear and learn that you did not sail easily to this point.

Easy sailing may occur now…
it never would have if not for your
earlier dedication and commitment.

And it will not last for long,
if you fail to continue that exercise of effort you built your success on.

Brady is probably beginning his workout regime tomorrow…
for next season.
I bet he is ALREADY into it.

If you are young and just beginning…
you might not develop patience if you are continually hungry for success… but know that a backstory takes time to develop.

Do not think with the initial taste of
success that it is accomplished.

None of these examples were satisfied with one title, one victory, one gold record, or one award…
that one accomplishment made them want more.

It’s why Saban has a 24 hour rule.
Enjoy this victory
or hurt in this loss….
for 24 hours.

Then begin the work again.

Brady woke up early this morning thinking ahead.
He is working on his next title …
by working diligently on the body gifted to him and on the developed craft that got him to that very visible stage he stood on last Sunday night.

He will most likely be there again.

His backstory will get him there.

In the second chapter of John,
the Author describes Jesus, very early in His Three Year ministry, physically wrecking the commerce going on in the Temple.

In the other Gospels this same event is referred to again…. seemingly in the last week of His
before His Crucifixion.

If it was one event described several times, or if it occurred more than once…….it took place.

It sets a precedent for His followers.

Is there anything going on where you worship which needs to be physically confronted and shut down???

If so, then have the spiritual and physical courage to do so.

I did it once…
after someone complained about not getting anything out of the sermons being preached.

The gentleman left the Church.

I know of someone who did this …
and his actions brought great influence upon a decision-maker and allowed an alternative and better solution than what was going to take place.

Be careful when you consider this and surround your behavior in prayer…because you are subjecting yourself to The Highest Authority when you get into possibly being the vocal element in Gods’ work.

What about the “temple” of your home???
Where you live.

Anything disruptive or simmering just under the surface that is causing you or others in your house to be less than what your Spirit is telling you to or leading you be ?

Is there any activity in your house that if Christ walked in he would take a whip to…???

Are you sure?

As a parent you have the right and
responsibility to check, often,
your children’s phones…
make that the phones YOU pay for and let them use.

As the adult in the house…
and as the “priest of the home”,
you are supposed to lead, example and hold accountable any behavior under your roof.

You are also challenged to be aware…to investigate, as a Physician does when looking for the root of an illness… anything drawing your spouse or a child away from you or the family unit.

Couching it as…
“they are just being teenagers” …
is abdicating your role as the Adult, as the Parent,
as the One who has the responsibility.
What about the last and hardest “temple” to cleanse ?

The Church where you worship is one responsibility.
The home you live in and the family you have given rise to is another absolutely important and essential responsibility.

The hardest ” temple” to cleanse is, and always will be,
the “temple” your MIND and HEART reside in.

It’s the most private.

It’s the easiest one to rationalize.

I heard this phrase from
Larry Taunton…
” to rationalize is to ‘rational lies’ “.

Jesus could have walked into the Temple… spoke with a calm and quiet voice and asked everyone to shut the commerce down and move their tables outside.

That might have been the rational or polite thing.

He did not act with courtesy or politeness.
He was angry and carried out a little wrath.

His behavior was an example of
the phrase…
“be ye angry and sin not”.

Treat with the outmost honor and
accountability the “Temple” you govern the most …..and do not tolerate any thought, behavior, imagination or outside influence to prostitute the purity of this most important  “temple”.

It’s why Jesus acted out of anger and wrath.

He took the sanctity of the His Temple most seriously.

Look at your “temple” in the way.

It’s where we are told by Jesus Himself…. that He resides within us.

It’s where you originate any worship you engage in.

Any and all worship begins in your “inner temple” before you physically enter one of concrete and steel.

It’s the “temple” where more worship and praise occur than any made by human hands.

What is being worshipped and praised in your ” temple”??

Is it something Christ would take a whip to??

Being honest…
we have all abused the sanctity of our ” inner temple” at some point in our lives.

Being honest…
Christ desires that we allow Him
continual access to this most difficult “temple” to keep holy.

As he may have cleansed the Jerusalem Temple more than once… He can,
will,
and desires
to “cleanse” this ” temple” when we open the doors to Him.

But unlike most public Temples where the doors are easily accessible …..
the door to this “inner temple” that you own…has its handles on the inside of the door only to be opened from within.

He will knock…
but, He can only enter
and do the work that only He can do…..if you let him in.

It is incumbent that you allow Him entrance.

How many things in life appear to be one thing….but are really not?

When you were young you may have had a fear of the dark.
As you grew older you came to understand that there was nothing different from what you saw in the daytime…
but for the absence of light.

Most track and field aficionados in the early Fifties felt that the human body could not allow an athlete to run a mile in under four minutes.

Until 1972, women were not allowed to compete in the Marathon at any Olympic Meet. Officials thought the long exhausting event was too strenuous for the female body.

After being introduced by
David Thompson, in his Hall of Fame induction speech, Michael Jordan made a comment, in what was mostly an edgy and competitive speech….  

“Never say never…limits, like fears, are often just an illusion”.

As soon as he said that I had to write it down.

Like many Scriptural verses, which I have read,
like several of Tolkien’s words that he had Gandalf speak, like about half of what William Buckley has written, and like so many C.S.Lewis phrases my eyes have scanned.

I knew Michael’s was a comment I had to transcribe and commit to memory.
“Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.”
Read that again and consider it for a moment.

I do not believe Michael was attempting to channel
Tony Robbins…
but, that is a incredibly motivating sentence.

Before the committed effort by the United States government to land a man on the moon, space travel was a science fiction fantasy.

When I was a boy….
a comic book character named Dick Tracy had a phone on his wrist. 

Multiple times in the development of the three i-products he brought to the public, Steve Jobs had to drive his Apple team to the edge because they would tell him they could not get something done or complete it by his deadline.

So many “limits” are self-imposed.

Steve Jobs drove them to distraction, but his drive made them push through their “limitations”,  and now the world is different because of the very device I am writing on, and you are reading on at this moment.

A great many limits, and done fears are imposed on us by parents, friends…who are attempting to be thoughtful and considerate because they want to protect us from failure.

In 1985,
when I told my Mother I was leaving the teaching profession to enter the financial business….and mentioned the monetary possibilities… she said,
“you don’t want to do that !”

She thought, at the time,
making more money might make me different.

She was fearful it would lead me toward negative consequences.

It presented me so many positive opportunities …
and she came to see that.

Those same parents put you on a bicycle, maybe with training wheels first….then they removed them…and pushed us down the sidewalk as we wobbled and eventually gained our balance.

We broke through that limitation and maybe the fear of falling.

Push against that envelope.

So many barriers can be overcome by commitment, perseverance and time.

In the television series….
“The Men Who Built America”…
Vanderbilt, Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford dealt with extreme limitations and roadblocks and the fears of a slow moving society, to achieve great fame and fortune while constructing the infrastructure of what would become the greatest nation and economy in the history of the world.

Are you allowing yourself to be hemmed in by a self-imposed barrier, fear or limitation?

Did you give your best effort last year?

Many people have mental
“audio tapes” from the past that they hear over and over.
Those old “eight tracks” have played too long.

Erase and Replace those confining commentaries with a new vision of potential and possibilities.

Examine the fearful or limiting illusion in front of you and your progress…… 

and either remove it, see through it, or destroy it with your commitment and perseverance.

Limits are barriers meant to be broken through.

Fears are confinement’s to be overcome.

It’s how progress is achieved.

The dark is nothing but for the absence of Light.

Get a flashlight.

The mile is no longer has a four minute barrier.

On Christmas afternoon I thought this through     but wrote nothing down.

The Grand War of Aggression was declared and the initial “shot across the bow” was levied on the day we celebrate with gifts and mirth. A day in which we remember and hopefully elevate the central figure in the Aggression.

He has most times been portrayed and pictured as a mild person, with a probable soft nature. The world has framed Him as almost effeminate. He possessed carpenters hands yet the world has painted Him to have a grandmotherly nature. Most movies have shown Him as one one who could be run over easily.

Yet He is not.

He is none of what the preceding  paragraph refers to.

He came not to attack you. 

He came to attack no one and no thing He had a hand in creating.

He came to wage a War of Aggression against the one who wages aggression and destruction against those who have been given life and breath and blood by His Hand.

When you read of Him you read His Words of Peace, Love, Forgiveness, Optimism, Opportunity and Joy. His Words to His Creatiion are intended to breed those traits and lead them to live as He lived.

And lives.
Understand this though, He is a warrior Who came  to destroy completely the the one who rose against  Him, the one who tempted Him and who tempts you.
He came on the day we celebrate to bless and encourage the created ones but to “draw and quarter”  the one who seeks our destruction.

In Rome, every statue of Saint Peter has  a set of keys in his hand. Every statue of the Apostle Paul  has him grasping a sword.

What did Paul write that the “sword”  represented?

He wrote, “The Sword of The Spirit which is The Word of God”.

In John 1:1, he also wrote,…..”In the beginning was The Word and The Word was with God…and The Word was God”.

“The Word” Paul writes of is Jesus.

Jesus is the SWORD.

He came as a SWORD to cut the heart and life out of and away from our common enemy and to embarrass, defeat and expel the foe from the place made for us and damn the foe and His like to the darkness and despair made for them.

If you think He came to speak nice and peaceful words….He did speak prolific and life-inspiring words.

But, know this, as you breath the air He made and allows you to take into the lungs He created for and placed within you…

He is The Weapon of Aggression 

He is The Weapon which the enemy fears.

He is The Weapon we must wield.

His Purpose was and is to empower us, His soldiers, and to lead and example the way to wage Aggression against the Foe.
And He means to wage Aggressive War.

He did when He was tempted.

He did when He was laid in a tomb.

His death was strategic to trap His enemy and His Resurrection was the defeat that signaled the War would soon be over.

Similar to the game last Monday night…..the winning team struck the death blow … yet one second remained on the clock. It was a short delay of the inevitable.

We are walking in that short delay.

We are to be trained soldiers continuing the Aggression.

Walk in the Words and Strength of Example He gave and gives us.

Wield the SWORD.

Wage the Aggression.