Power of the Gospel

Its raining out today and this evening and it looks like tomorrow will be too. Thank the Lord I ain’t a crop farmer cause I sure would hate to be sitting here looking at all them muddy field, crops that ain’t drying down a lick and even soybeans popping out of the pods as the beans expand and bust the shrunk down pods open. Back on September 30th we pretty well finished up chopping silage and that night it rains heavy and its never really dried out since. We got our crop taken off the fields except for around eight acres of picking corn and I get a feeling that stuff will get picked in late March or in April. It’ll be pepper dry then and its a good standing corn, the deer move out of that area in winter so there’s no worries of feeding a deer herd for months. Nope, even as sloppy, slimy, saturated as it is I can’t complain.

Well, last evening at church I did Children’s Church and I had about a five minute warning that I’d be doing it, and it was one of the best night’s I’ve ever had there! Funny how that works, when a person prepares and prepares it never seems to take off, but just let loose and preach the Word and have faith that the Holy Ghost will take over and yes sir, things happen! I just talked about what I’ve been writing about as of late and it sure did go good.You know with kids, if they’re attentive, not yawning and shifting around, things are getting through. They don’t fake it like adults sometimes do.

This past week I received the October issue of The Christian Ranchman from Fort Worth and there’s a little line in there that stuck to me.

D.L.  Moody tells of a man who said he would like to come to Jesus, but he was chained and could not break away. A Christian said to him, “But, man, why don’t you come to Jesus, chain and all?” He replied, “I never thought of that.” He came and Christ broke every fetter.

I tell you, there’s a lesson in that one if there ever was one! One time I was talking to a person, basically the same thing happened. I told him about Jesus and he said he’d have to shape up first. He’d have to get his act together before he could even consider Jesus. Now in my way of looking at things this is the most wrong way of thinking that anyone could ever have. The job of the Christian is to be like Jesus was when He walked on this earth and if I recall Jesus never told anybody to shape up first before they could come to Him. Never.

One of the books that I borrowed last week from our pastor was written by John Osteen. called, “Unraveling the Mystery of the Blood Covenant”. Very good, very simple.  Here’s a quote from there that caught my eye also.

The world is hungry to hear the Good News, but we have preached hell hot, sin black, and judgment sure. Sinners already have enough of that inside them. We are not to preach the problem, we are to preach the solution. Nobody wants to go to church and let you beat them over the head and grind them down to the ground about their problems. They go to church with a desire to hear a solution-His Name is Jesus!

To hear a solution, yes! Now this might fly right in the face of the self righteous, but this is how the Gospels operated, this is how the early church operated, this is when power flowed! The solution! I think back, and Lord I had better think back every day to how life was before jesus took over and look about me now and I know what the unsaved are feeling. It don’t matter if a person puts on a show,that they’re rough and tough, there is that emptiness eating away inside of them. All those years when I was living like I was living I heard countless preachers preaching hellfire and brimstone and it just drove me further away. There was no solution in it, only condemnation. I read around the internet today and come across things all the time, constant condemnation. But I ask, where is the Gospel, the Good News.

I have come to the conclusion that any ministry I do from now on till I’m taken home will be Biblical Christianity. Oh, I’ll have to soul search daily in order to keep myself from falling into the easy to fall into trap of self righteousness.  In the quote above I will change one thing, he says “they go to church”. I’ll change that a bit. I say most will never go to church. I know I did, but I’m a rare one. And most that are deeply troubled way down in their soul go to church to never, ever return because they just didn’t fit in. Like I say, I know the feeling, very well. So to the person that has had it with church, all I can say is church doesn’t save you. Never has, never will. Jesus saves, nothing or no one else. Jesus saves you as you are. Oh, can this fact get self righteous people puffed up ornery!

But its the fact of the universe never the less. Nothing can change that fact. To come as you are. Its not good news to go out and tell the world that God is mad at them. God is not mad. He loved the world so much He sent Jesus to die that they might be at peace with Him. The Blood of Jesus does not say God will forgive you. It says God has already taken the initiative and forgiven you. A simple fact, the gift of peace with God through Jesus’ Blood is a gift God has given to man. It is ready to be taken!

I’ll never forget when I heard a sermon preached on this very subject two years ago this month. That was probably the best sermon I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and I’ve heard allot of sermons! People were literally shaking in church as the power of the Gospel was being spoken forth! There is power in the Gospel, but very little power in old traditions of men that have evolved over the centuries. Power! The Blood. The Gift! The Good News! This is how the original church turned the world upside down!

Sons Of God!

No rain today, “glory!”, and the sun even tried to come out a bit. Gotta attempt to spread two semi loads of lime tomorrow on the fields that will be planted to hay next season. Its looking firm enough on the higher ground so we’ll do it. Then this coming weekend get them calves done for the year.

As time goes on I read and read more things about faith, the Christian faith and the one thing that is coming out of all of this is the realization that what I used to think I knew about the thing called Christianity was way off. I’m talking years ago. I was brought up in religion and stayed in religion that really didn’t teach anything of what the Bible says we are. Take for example, if times are going pretty tough to just shrug a person’s shoulders and say it must be God’s will. That works fine for someone who doesn’t dig into God’s Word, but once a person does dig into God’s Word an amazing thing sometimes happens. If a person can shake off the man made traditions, they could be called out right lies, and reads the Word an amazing thing starts to happen. We were not called to be some beaten down, poverty stricken, scared of the devil folks, no way!

We are taught that God is so unreachable, so holy, that we just had better get through this life as quietly and unseen as possible. We shake when we hear about what the world is up to, we tremble when things get tough. But God didn’t call  us to live a life like that, not one bit. We sometimes state bits from Bible verses such as ” we are more than conquerors”, but cry about what’s going on in our lives and the world around us. Its no wonder Christianity, or the “form” of it today is seen by the world as a poor alternative to a worldly lifestyle, because the world is right when they judge Christianity that way, or the “form”of Christianity that has evolved through the centuries and become so traditionalized, so powerless, that there’s very little draw to it on the unsaved in a very hard world.I know, cause I was there and church would be about as useful to me as …..well, not much use. I don’t like dead,meaningless,powerless stuff. And when a person reads the Word it becomes very, very apparent that Christians were not meant to be some weak, powerless people. Anybody’s hair standing up on the back of there neck yet, if it is that’s the religious spirit not liking this one single bit. Them spirits are  like parasites,like lice, always sucking the life out of a person,just like they do to a person’s livestock and it don’t hurt every once in a while to get a good de-licing the way I figure it.

Now if anyone wants to really test for a spirit of religion here’s some stuff that should get that spirit, that filthy thing a digging its claws deeper as this is read.

This is the most tremendous truth that God has given us in the Pauline Revelation, and this is the very heart of the New Covenant, that God makes us like Himself!

Weren’t you made in His image and likeness? That image is an image of righteousness! If God declares that you are righteous, what business have you to condemn yourself?

When you were born again you entered the Covenant.

Are you a partaker of the Divine nature? Yes!

Are you a son of God? Yes!

Has God given you His righteousness? Yes!

Is God your righteousness? Certainly!

Then has He given you a legal right to the use of Jesus’ Name? Certainly!

Do you see what kind of a man you are? You are not a weakling. You stand like the Son of God. YOU ARE A SON OF GOD!

Amen! It ain’t easy to get away from generations of teaching saying that we are poor wretched sinners,not worth anything. We have been preached to as sinners. Almost everyone of the old hymns started beautifully but before they were finished we are just poor weaklings and we are living in sin, and we are under bondage, and we are staying there till we get called home. But the Bible certainly doesn’t say that,not at all!

Romans 5:17 (Amplified Bible)

¹⁷For if because of one man’s trespass (lapse, offense) death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive [God’s] overflowing grace (unmerited favor) and the free gift of righteousness [putting them into right standing with Himself] reign as kings in life through the one Man Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

This says that the believers reign as kings in life! Which life? The thereafter? No!….. Now!

Now the way I figure it, not to many kings sit around moaning and groaning about how tough they got it! They got a job to do, and that’s to rule! So do we! The Bible says so. And if this doesn’t convince a person on who a believer is, well, just read the Bible with this in mind and it all makes sense. Much more sense than trying to figure out the Bible in a spirit of defeat,just waiting for the sweet by and by. Just waiting for the heavenly home so a person ain’t a poor miserable wretch no more. Nope, Jesus wants us reigning as kings in this life, to be His representatives. To do what He wants done. Not to hide our candle under a basket so no one will see!

Oh Lord! I thank you for this Covenant, the New Covenant, the New Testament! The rich promises! The promises that set the world on fire almost two thousand years ago.The promises that made the faith spread like wildfire, with the believers on fire, filled with the Holy Ghost and knowing what the faith meant! The biggest enemy Christianity has today in the western world is not the world, its the traditions of man that have taken a powerful Gospel, a Gospel that sets people free, and made it into a powerless man made tradition. People all over the world are waking up to the Gospel, the Gospel that sets people free. And its even happening here in the countryside! The most beautiful thing is when a person sees the veil come off the eyes of the spiritually blind and the realization hit em, the realization of what it means to be a Christian!

A Dark Sunday

The gloomy skies continue around these parts and I can tell its wearing on people, heck its even wearing on me. This afternoon after getting home from church I went out across the county road to where we hauled some cattle last week and before I let them out of the large holding corral out there I always inspect the fence that I have around the meadows and a couple acres of standing silage corn that won’t be chopped for silage anymore because of the wet conditions. The power level on the electric fence tester that I carry with me wasn’t the greatest even with us having that high powered, battery run, electric fencer out there. So on inspection in the wettest area that the fence goes through I discovered the deer ripped the fence out for a couple hundred feet in that muck. So, get everything back in order and release the cows and let em graze for a couple hours. That’s all I’ll let em out there at the moment because there’s places of lush red clover and alfalfa and I’d rather they get used to it before having them eating it full force. Could save a number of cow lives doing this.

Now its pretty dark in the house even in the middle of the day and when I got done doing what I do I had me a hankering to find an old cookbook that I ordered ages ago. Its called, “Original Cowboy Cookbook”, and I always really liked this one. There ain’t nothing modern in it at all and its chuck full of wisdom to boot! This last week we had us a couple of hogs make it to the freezers here and when its cool and gloomy out I think of food! To tell you the truth I’m about the worst person on earth when it comes to fasting from food. And when I say food now I’m talking about all that pork around here, I’m licking my chops! Well, after a considerable amount of digging looking for this old cookbook I finally found it way in back of a closet and its like I struck gold! And I got an idea to put in a recipe or two every once in a while here on the blog. Some of these are hard to find, although I don’t know about the sausage recipe that I’ll put on here now.  And seeing this old cookbook doesn’t even have a copyright and it was penned so long  ago I don’t see much problem with jotting them down here every once in a while.

Homemade Sausage, (this is spicy like the cowboys liked!)

10 pounds ground pork scraps

5 T salt

2 1/2 tsp dry mustard

5 tsp black pepper

2 1/2 tsp ground cloves

5 tsp ground red pepper

6 1/2 T ground sage

Mix the seasonings and then work them thoroughly through the meat. Sausage meat may be packed loose for freezer storage, or it may be stuffed into natural casings,  or cheesecloth and stored in the freezer or smoked. This recipe was given to me by a friend who worked at the King Ranch, Kingsville, TX

Yep, this week I’ll mix us up a batch of that stuff. I kinda like sausage with a kick! That book is loaded with ham and bacon making and a whole pile of stuff a person doesn’t run across all to often. Not that I’m a great cook or anything like that, just a great eater! Well, today was our church’s ten year anniversary service and I must say it was really good hearing about how it all started and all.Never heard most of that stuff before being we are late comers. Now with that under the belt time to keep on going with what we’re doing out here. Plus this coming weekend we gotta work those calves and get er done earlier this year than last year.

Now that the weather is heading south its time to get more on the move around here as far as faith matters go, on spreading the Gospel, the simple Gospel where it really ain’t being spread. There’s allot on my heart as far as going to the unchurched around here and if I can’t do much out in the fields, well neither can they! I get a funny feeling this is going to be a busy season in that department! This will involve separating a tad bit from activities at our church.In many ways we’ve already cut back, because we know that the more we get involved with in church programs the less we’ll be doing for the Lord. Some folks were meant to be behind those walls, that’s their calling, but we know that ain’t the case with us.

Now getting my mind off of food and getting it back to the real food, faith matters, I borrowed some books this past week from our pastor, and one is titled, “The Blood Covenant” by E. W. Kenyon. I’ll end this post with a quote from in that small booklet and will continue with it as time goes by because its is a faith builder if ever there was one!

What is the Gospel?

The Gospel is this: that God, on the ground of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is able to declare that He is righteous, and that He Himself is our righteousness, the moment we believe on Jesus.

This is the most staggering thing the mind can ever grasp…that God Almighty becomes your righteousness the moment you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you learn to walk as Jesus walked, without any consciousness of inferiority to God or Satan, you will have faith that will absolutely stagger the world!

Stuck In The Mud

I remember the sun shining this past Monday for a while and that’s the last I seen of it! Yesterday it rained a bunch, today its really wet out, cloudy, northeast wind, cold, but allot got done again in spite of it all. Moved 54 cows across the county road to the fall grazing area. We load em on a trailer, many loads and take em out with that. Trouble is I don’t have the fence done out there yet, but maybe tomorrow I’ll get it finished and fired up with our super duper, high powered battery fencer. Now that baby shocks let me tell you! Believe me I know! So in the last week, three days were mostly cattle work and I can feel it. Oh, and today’s slip up, I was climbing over the corral fence and as I was coming down into the cattle lot which is cemented but with about an inch of pure manure slop from the rains on it, my ankle buckled and I fell flat on my back. From my shoulders to my boots my backside was pure…uh….sloppy manure. Make my day eh! Well I couldn’t keep working like that so I decided to go to the house which is a considerable distance away and strip down and get some fresh clothes on and also trade in my hooded jacket for a much lighter denim one till the hooded one could get washed and dried in about two hours. I couldn’t go in the truck without totally ruining the drivers side seat and I wasn’t going to walk with my backside drippin …manure, so I hopped on the four wheeler and stood up driving all the way home so I could strip down in the cool garage. favorite wife was just outside the door as I came racing home, she could only see my front side and asked how come I was driving standing up. I turned around and told her, “sorry, I just couldn’t hold it no more”. Well, after a good laugh I stripped down and got my clean set of clothes on to get back out in the swill and get all splattered again. The cattle finally got moved by three in the afternoon and I finished up some morning chores that were put on hold because of all the catching, sorting and moving.

All showered up now and the belly is full, homemade pizza, one of my favorite suppers let me tell you! The excitement a cattleman has is second to none eh! Oh Lord, nice warm house, and I’m all dried off and comfy as I sit here. Sometimes there just ain’t a better feeling in the whole wide world than that. Tired out, legs are heavy, eyes are burning with that tired feeling a person gets from being in the wind all day. Tomorrow’s forecast ain’t looking all that great but at least I shouldn’t be loading the trailer and walking in swill. I should be walking out in the fields and meadows finishing up that fence for those cows. Last evening after church I received five books, on loan, about the Blood of Jesus and I tell you I’m reading them every spare moment that I have and I’m all excited about the rest of this evening and the next few evenings.I’m drawn to that subject like you wouldn’t believe!

Nothing but the Blood of Jesus is in my head and in my heart tonight. Heard that song sung for quite a few years but its really taking on meaning now. The most powerful substance in the universe is what it is! It washes away my sins, nothing else does! I kinda figure that the way it draws me that this might be one of those subjects that sticks with me for life. Another one that’s a sticker is this,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That verse from Hebrews 13 is something to plant deep in a person’s heart. Jesus ain’t a “was”. Jesus ain’t a “to be”, Jesus is the same from beginning to end and a fella gotta get that deep down in their heart and believe it! What an awesome God! To come and die for us. To come and take our punishment which we so truly deserve. Thinking about that swill today points me to a little example. Out behind the corrals where the mud is deep a fella can easily get himself stuck with the knee high boots on, (believe me, that happened to me today to but I ain’t gonna write about that too).  You take a calf or a sheep, when they get stuck in deep mud they stop and cry for help, they struggle till they’re exhausted and they need someone to pull em out and if they ain’t to shaken up and disoriented they’ll get out of the area lickidy split! They called for help and got saved.Now you take an old hog, they head for that same deep mud and manure and if you somehow pulled em out they’d head right back into it, enjoying the filth, yes they would! There’s two kinds of folks, some are like that sheep or calf and some are like that old hog. Some get caught in the mudhole of sin and when they realize that they’re stuck and helpless they call out for saving. And they get pulled out like a strayed sheep or calf. But some folk like the muck like that old hog and even if you offered to pull em out they’d head right back into it and lay down in it, even put their snout under the surface and blow some bubbles for the heck of it.

I tell you, I work in the mud and don’t really enjoy it all that much.Kinda like the world’s system is what it is. Swill, sloppy, stinky. We gotta work in it but that don’t mean we gotta stay stuck in it. Can’t let it get ahold of us. And if we do start getting stuck in our walk through it we just have to cry out for help! And that hand will come and grab us and pull us out. That Bloody hand that took our place at the Cross!

Weaning Time!

” But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Those are the words of Jesus in the beginning of the Book of Acts. I think that they are our motto here. “You shall receive power.” Power for what I wondered for a long time. But I’ll get to that. Around here its been a cloudy day and its even drizzling a little bit as I write. I was making fence part of the morning and most of the afternoon today. Yesterday we weaned calves and its kinda noisy around this here place at the moment.Gotta sleep with a fan running in the bedroom to drown out the noise or a feller will never get a wink of sleep for the next three days. I kinda like it all though. Sure they make noise bellering non stop for a few days but when its all said and done its for the better. The calves really take off when they start relying on some good feed instead of just following mama around, getting a little warm milk here and there, nibbling on froze out fall grass and just generally not accomplishing anything.

Now in raising cattle there’s a heck of allot of faith lessons, life lessons if a person ain’t blind to them and following the world. You know how they always say, well maybe you don’t know, but they say that a new Christian gets fed on milk. They get nurtured in the faith in the beginning. And working this morning and a little bit this afternoon with the cattle in the corrals, bellering like nuts, all I could think of was faith. And growing in faith. Now you take that verse I put on top of this here post and really read it.It doesn’t say you shall receive power so your church experience is wonderful, no it don’t. It doesn’t say you receive power to witness to all corners of the church building, nope.

Many folks think that the church experience is something a person does “in church”. I must say, from the very beginning I knew it was outside the walls and to tell the truth I get bored stiff sometimes in church. Power it says, you shall receive power! And the Word never lies! And unlike what the spiritually dead figure, that all this went out with the Apostles, it is alive and well today to those who “only believe”!  Just like them calves bellering, many folks think that church is where it will all happen and I must say, church is where the least has ever happened in my experience. Am I bashing church? No! I’m stating a fact! You want to see power flow in faith, just do what the Word says and get out! Them calves want milk and they can’t think of anything else as they beller themselves silly. They get every thing that they need put in front of their noses but they want milk and not have to take any responsibility of their own.

Personally I don’t like milk all that much, or baby food either. I’m a steak man, chew them bones clean! I need power food! Not some slim fast or something.  (UH, I’m talking spiritual here).  And with the power foods once in a while a person even gets a power dessert! Amen! There’s some good stuff when walking the walk! Jesus said you shall receive power, well then how come a person hardly ever sees any power inside the church walls.You even have people in churches begging for God to show up and all the while He’s right outside the doors saying “lets get going!”

I have seen more power,more moves of God in this family, or should I say through this family when we ain’t in church than all the power and moves of God in church put together. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for outside the walls as a whole, anyway that’s what the Bible says, so how come we sit in church and cry for it, (power), to show up? Why should it show up if we bottle it for a church service?

Oh Lord, we beller and beller, we just want some warm milk in a nice warm building, with nice warm programs that the outside world couldn’t give a hoot about! We spend our time with this and that and meanwhile there’s no power at all! The praises are empty because we’re not obeying Him. Because He said, “and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Well, we ain’t! We can’t hardly witness to ourselves behind the protection of our fortified walls, safely separated from the hungry world, the dying world.

Our Lord publicly suffered and died on a bloody cross. A spectacle for all to see. He gave us the command on the top of this page, but like them calves we’ll hang on to the milk as long as we can. We don’t want to get weaned and start doing what we’re supposed to be doing, nope, not at all. Thus no power, thus no hearing from God, thus we start crawling the fences like those calves are doing till we figure out that the food, (power), is right in front of our noses and the food that’s replacing the milk has allot more power in it. Faster growth, more energy! A new day, no more mama’s milk, just being in the place we’re supposed to be, to do the job we’re supposed to be doing!

Funny what a person can come up with when you raise cattle. There’s allot of lessons in it daily. In fact its rare a day goes by without something directly from God showing me how we act in relation to how the critters act. Jesus used those kind of lessons too. He created them and I guess they follow the rules of life. We can sure learn if we keep our eyes open.

I Will Give You Rest

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

I’ve heard it countless times, this passage, and for some reason its knocking at my heart tonight. Knocking, beckoning, there’s a tug. “I will give you rest”.  Jesus said that and either its the absolute truth or else He’s a liar. No in between the way I figure it. I get excited reading the Gospels over and over because every time is a brand new experience! And as time marches on its tugging at me more and more, the hope for the outcasts.

Now, the more and more a person reads the Gospels with an open heart the more and more the ways of Jesus penetrate right into a person. And a thing that bothers me much of the time is how this walk with the modern day church many times throws the simplicity of the Gospel right out the window into the garbage dumpster out back. I’m sorry, but its true. Many times just attending church can be a huge drag down to a person. I don’t know when I wrote it but I know I’ve written it a few times in the past and that is where I wrote the Charismatic church, while figuring they’re all right on track, always saying they ain’t religious, saying they hate religion, are basically one of the most religious branches of Christianity that there is.

Through the years writing I’ve had many, many people e-mail me with problems but there’s a few that stand out in my memory. One was from a lady in New England. She was going to a Charismatic church, a very popular one, where they pride themselves in not being religious. But sadly to say, they were just as religious as the Pharisees in the days of Jesus. Maybe even more so, it’s just disguised from many people who aren’t aware of it. Seems like the pastor there put such a heavy emphasis on speaking in tongues that if a person didn’t they were labeled pretty low in the church. The letter I got back then was from a person that was totally devastated because of how she was made to feel by these supposedly Spirit filled Christians. She had to quit the church, and couldn’t even bring herself to finding a real Christian church. And I truly do mean it, this statement! I overlook many things with many churches. I am not one to judge but every once in a while it just swells up inside of me and I get a rage. I ask God is this just me or is there really something wrong with it all.

As far as I know I probably failed with my answer back then to that lady. I never really heard from her again. But through the last few years this bothered me, bothered me allot. And as the years have gone by I’ve studied, prayed and researched this all from every angle I could possibly do. And I’ve come to the conclusion, wait, let me inject something here that happened this past summer while I was talking to a “rural outcast”! As I was talking to the fella, talking farming and faith, something slipped out of my mouth during the conversation that was out of my control. No, it wasn’t in tongues, it was in cattlemen’s language. I said bluntly as I was witnessing to him, “there’s more people going to hell because of the churches than the other way around”. Now that should give me high marks from allot of people, more like tar and feathers! But I tell you that its true, sadly. And I ain’t church bashing here either.

I read the Gospels, and I go to church. When I read the Gospels, it all makes sense. When I’m involved in church stuff a person almost has the gospels taken out of it. You know, a person sits in church and its very rare anyone new comes in, very rare. And if they do that’ll more than likely be the last time a person will see em. That is of course if they are from the world. Most folks that drop into churches are from other churches and ain’t satisfied and they sometimes like to see how green the grass is on the other side of the fence. I call em, professional Protestants. I really call em that, called em that for years. And if they can work their way in and become popular they’ll stick around for a while. Usually they want top billing and are satisfied for a while being the center of attention. Let’s just say its in a Charismatic church, well you can bet your bottom dollar that if’n they never spoke in tongues before they will be right quick because they’re going to look good no matter what!

Allot of churches that ramrod tongue talking, (instead of letting the Holy Spirit move and have real tongue talking), keep talking, “its the evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit”. Back a couple years ago when I took Bible College there was one huge thing that they taught over there at World Harvest Bible College and that was about the evidence of tongues. Now, let me say right here I believe in tongues cause the Bible says so and I ain’t listening to no body but the Word.  The thing that sticks in my memory, and I love this, is that a person can be found guilty even with evidence supporting them! Heck, I’d bet most folks going to trial have some evidence in their favor but many, many are found guilty! Evidence is nice, yes it is, but evidence can be untrue also. Yes it can. What is needed is “PROOF!” Proof without a doubt!

I just love this! I really do! Proof that a person has the love of God in em! Proof that they love the Lord more than the world and themselves! Proof! Proof that they ain’t burdened by the world!Proof that they can’t contain the Good News in themselves and they just have to share it instead of thinking church is where its at! I tell you,I can really get going on this because the ugly fangs of religion show themselves so often in churches that it makes me wonder about the verses I put on top of the page. I get a rage deep down in my gut when I see people being forced into religion. The Gospel says, “I will give you rest!” The Gospel says “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light!” And I think back to that lady who wrote me and I have incredible sorrow because of how she was smashed down by religion! Life is bad enough in the world without churches adding to it! Amen?

Jesus Christ suffered and shed His Blood for all of us, not just some of us. I don’t believe that He wants a complicated, hard to reach life for any of us. Whatever happened to joy in the Lord? I hate complication! When Jesus walked this earth He had compassion, not rules! He broke durn near all the rules and the Pharisees were foaming at the mouth. And most importantly, He said following Him was easy! Easy! I will testify that it is, when you break away from the rotting manure pile of religion and just love the Lord, simply!

Links, Video, and Preaching Manure!

Another rainy day around these parts and the ground is pretty soggy to say the least. But with the promise that tomorrow the sun might peek out I’m getting a bit excited cause then we can get the south herd home without getting our daily shower poured upon us. Looking back, even in those terrible droughts of years past, this time of the year would be wet. Although it didn’t do hardly any good in them years except make a person wonder why it couldn’t rain in summer. But that’s all water under the bridge nowadays. The silage pit is over flowing and there’s even a second pile to its side.There’s plenty of hay baled up and the winter won’t be so long knowing a person doesn’t have to be looking for high priced hay. Butchered four hogs this morning and that’s a chore I don’t have to do daily for the next few months till spring when we get a few more. Was talkin to a friend a bit ago and we were thinking about raising up one next spring and have us an old fashioned hog roast next summer. Then later I was thinking what a wonderful way to draw sinners in! I know if I was a sinner, (I mean unsaved), I’d get gosh awfully tempted when there’d be a hog roast! Nothing like a roast hog butchered up the old fashioned way, scalded!  Another side note here, as I type I’m listening to the Cowboy Gospel Hour and I sure do love it.I wished we had a show like that on local radio around here. But praise the Lord for the internet, even being the filthy sewer that it is, cause there’s some pretty good stuff on it for an old time, cattle raising, mud trudging, cattle cussing, born again back roads sometimes preacher.

Now the show I’m listening to is titled, “Don’t Be a Christian Snob”.  Even the title draws me cause if there’s anything I hate is when Christians get all high and mighty. I know I do at times and I gotta catch myself when I do. Gotta judge myself, well, that’s what the Bible say to do, judge yourself so that God don’t have to do it! Better to get it done right now than later at the throne I figure! Now take an old fashioned hog roast for example, say if a person was going to kinda open it up to folks that ain’t exactly churched, what would my reaction be? Well,I figure there wouldn’t be much problem with me the way I look at it, cause I ain’t exactly what you’d call a super saint. I ain’t no better than anybody else so if they like hog, more power to them! Heck, my main church clothes, even when I preach, are Wranglers, jeans and shirts! (Durn, I’m listening to that Cowboy Gospel Show and I tell you, those folks are preaching my kinda message!)

I like the phrase, “they got their noses so far up that if it’d rain they’d drown!” Yep, I don’t like that kinda stuff. Come as you are I say! The clothes of a person ain’t going to get them points in heaven! No sir! Now,I’m going to put a video on here again, some preaching from Roman’s 7. My kinda preaching too! If anyone is wondering why I’m putting up links and videos quite often lately, well, its a way I have of saving them in case this computer gives up its ghost! In the last post I touched the Blood of Jesus, the most powerful substance in the universe, and that’s the only thing that saved me, nothing I ever did, nothing.  The verses in Romans really tells it like it is and the video has that flare that I like, very understandable for a simple cattleman like me who is full of manure every day, especially in this mud weather! (Must be a sermon in this). Preaching manure will get the attention of any born again, Spirit Filled country guy or gal!

Roman 7
¹³ Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. ¹⁵¹⁶ If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. ¹⁷ But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. ²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ 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 what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Nothing But The Blood!

Rainy and gloomy out today. In fact it’s been gloomy most of October with a couple of snow falls to boot! Kinda strange seeing leaves on the trees yet after having snows and deep freezes this last week. But slowly and surely things are getting done around here. Got field work to do yet if possible this season, it won’t really take much to be able to get into the fields, just a sunny day, then a few in a row.

Last evening was church on a dark, gloomy October evening with rains staring up. I didn’t have a car available to drive the thirteen miles through the hills to church so I decided to take the three quarter ton flatbed pickup, which includes all the corral building tool that were laying on the flatbed, I didn’t have time to take them off and put them away. Those old farm trucks are an adventure in themselves. The bright/dim indicator light don’t work so a fella has to figure out if they got the brights or the dims on as its getting darker. We had to go a different route last evening to church and it was already pretty dark when we hit those winding, narrow gravel roads out that way, through the hills and woods, around the ponds and lakes. A couple of miles the road goes through a woods, a narrow gravel road, and the thing is like driving through a tunnel. There is no open sky above, the trees cover the road completely. Up and down the hills, no ditches at all, many times cut through the hills so it was like going through a chute. And of course ol’  Tom starts telling the story of Sleepy Hollow, well, it felt appropriate! Of course if’n I’da seen a headless horseman I really wouldn’t have worried about my gas consumption driving that three quarter ton hog! There’da been a pedal to the metal!

Well, at least teaching Children’s Church last night I couldn’t complain about the conditions in the double wide trailer that the classes are held in along side the church. Nice and warm and dry in there and it was just flat out comfortable to a fella that had just spent his whole day out in the gloom and mud. Now I didn’t know till about an hour before that I’d be teaching last night so I didn’t prepare one thing. Either prepare and miss supper or the other way around. After trudging with winter clothes and mud rubbers all day I elected to eat a hearty meal and trust in the Lord for some teaching ability when the time came. I have no book that I go by in those classes, I used to, but now I just see where the flow is heading and pick up from there. In fact we even sometimes do “preach it”, which is where a kid closes their eyes and I give em the Bible and the don’t know if its upside down or right side up and the open er up and point their finger to a verse, (remember its with their eyes closed), and I put my finger their and show them the verse and then I preach about it. The kids really love this and its really surprising how sometimes after five or six totally random picks like that, there developes a definite pattern and the kids, (and myself), are amazed!

We didn’t do that last night as the rain was falling under the lonely street light over the gravel street in that small town of 140 people. Like I said, a dark night, very dark and as the class was about to start I still didn’t quite know what I’d teach. As it started it came to me and I asked a question. I said, “What’s the most powerful substance in the universe?” I let the would be answering go on a couple minutes but nobody got it right. Everything from stars to bombs, but not the one I was looking for. Finally I said, “The Blood!” And I tell you it never let up after that. Now a Children’s Church teacher always has a back up plan,which is when all else fails throw in a DVD or a video and sit on you butt and let the kids watch some teaching show that’s more interesting than I am if I ain’t feeling up to snuff.

The Blood is something I discovered the kids are totally interested in! Eyes as wide as saucers, full attention! Now if that don’t make a teacher’s night I don’t know what can! The Blood! The most powerful substance in the universe! I was listening to a teaching tape by Glenn Smith where he’s training up people for ministry, cowboy style, (in other words I love it), and he mentioned that a person should never preach a sermon that didn’t take the people to the Bloody Cross. I agree and I won’t ever forget it! It don’t matter where a person is with God, whether well saved, backsliding, or totally unsaved, the preaching of the Bloody Cross is where it should lead to.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

There’s so much to this subject that I could go on forever, but not tonight. This is central to our faith, to the faith of the believer. A Bloodless faith is no faith at all. Today its not fashionable to keep on preaching the Blood. In other words I think I’ll be doing allot of it! There’s Power in the Blood!

Dwelling On A Sunday Evening

They say snow again, we’ll see how it goes.At the moment there’s rumors of it slipping to the south of us, and I’m hoping it will. There’s some corral building to do on the south pasture two miles away. Just a few rail road ties to dig in, some oak plank to nail up, two steel gates to hang and that corral will be in the order of our corral across the county road where two guys can easily load up cattle without over working. And I want them cattle home with the craziness of this weather we’re having this early October! I’m planning on putting at least fifty cows across the county road to eat a month or two in the meadows and a couple of acres of standing corn in the lowlands. But what ever happens it’ll all get done sooner or later. I’m also putting on a big push to get this herd back to top status after it slowly dwindled down through the multiple droughts we’ve had in the past few years. Reputation cattle is the word I was looking for. Not bragging cattle cause heaven forbid I don’t want to be a braggart, but cattle that raise the eyebrows of buyers in the sales barn at feeder calf sales every year.

One thing about ministry, especially rural ministry is that there’s an extreme lack of people a fella can go to for advice. The Lord calls a person and then the question is, Now what?? Where does a person begin? And the one thing I know I ain’t called for is regular church. Not saying I don’t do things, sometimes allot of things in regular church, but that’s not the call at all. Try as I might it never works out to do something churchy. But let me talk country and it goes as smooth as silk. So as I have written many, many times before there is a mission field out here that is huge! But where do you start when the ones that are tugging at the heart don’t give a hoot about regular church and many times have a darn good reason. I just look back at myself and there’s quite a bit to learn there. I literally hated church years ago and I ain’t kidding! And I still get allot of red flags when things get to churchy. When things get done in an order that’s set and nothing short of the end of the world can stop it.

Farm and ranch ministry is the calling that I have without a doubt. Sales barns, livestock events and also one on one farm and ranch ministry. The burden on my heart for a long, long time, much longer than I’ve been blogging is to set up some country meetings with music and fellowship and just have a durn good time. Probably not in a church setting either, but that’s flexible. This is to reach folks that don’t feel comfortable in established churches.

This evening as I write this I’m going to do something I rarely do, and that’s ask for readers to keep this all in their prayers. There’s allot to do around here and I’m not talking the cattle operation, even though I’m overloaded at the moment. I’m talking about the needs that there are in all of this. I need Cowboy Bibles and some country folk tracts, but I ain’t asking for any money cause I figger that prayer works wonders and I believe that with all my heart. There’s things to set up, there’s divine appointments to pray for, but this is exciting to say the least!

This is nothing new. I can look back when I got the first ever issue of the “Christian Ranchman” back in 1991 and something sparked! Heck, it was 14 years later when I really got saved! So even as a cussing, drinking, hotheaded cattleman the seed was planted to sprout many years later. These are my people, this is an area I know. The needs are great and the workers are very, very few. But what an adventure there is to be had! I got more stories than a person can shake a fist at, mostly though I can’t put them on here. There’s healings that are incredible, seeing God work miracles through the hands of this family continues to floor me. This spreading the Gospel is real, no different than in the Bible times no matter what the dead religions say! I see it over and over and there’s nobody can indoctrinate me in their human religion that say the times are past for all that stuff, no sir!

God is on the move in the rural areas! Things might be done a little different than traditionally done but they’ll get done! No different than the inner city, you’d have a rough time ministering there if a person wanted to do it in a refined way, all done perfectly, making the people become all proper in our eyes and all. Doesn’t work, a person has to take the Gospel to them in their way of living. It’s biblical too, I wrote about that just a few posts ago.

Tonight I’m excited, happy and a tad bit nervous! We’ve been doing allot around the area as far as spreading the Gospel but this is the direction we were always meant for. As much as possible I’ll keep this site informed as time goes by, but as I wrote, keep us in your prayers.

To Be Set Free!

They’re talking snow here tonight, my how times change fast around here where the northern plains meet the north woods! Not a blizzard or anything like that, just a little snow fall. Good thing the tomatoes where all canned this week and the rest can go to the hogs. I personally am looking forward to an Indian Summer after all of this weather the last week. There’s one herd of cattle left to bring home and I hope to get that job accomplished next week sometime. At least that way there’s more control with the critters in case the weather heads south!

The times they are a changing, that’s for sure. Some folks in Christian circles are what would be considered a watchman. I guess I’m not one of those. Oh, I watch all right, but for me its more the pull of harvesting. The work must continue, in fact the work must pick up the pace in these days and times. Even if it means one person at a time. I guess in our culture things are measured in quantity. And if a person isn’t some big named evangelist or something a person gets overlooked by man. That’s fine and dandy with me cause I really don’t care what man says anyhow. One person at a time if need be is right in any person’s call.

A couple of years ago I heard a word or a testimony and it was about how folks are watching us who are the Blood bought children of God. These same folk would probably be turned off if they had the Bible preached to them. But they watch a person.I know this for a fact although much of the time we never really notice. Lately I’ve had a couple cases where it became apparent that folks were watching me and it put me in place I tell you! Now its been mentioned many times here that witnessing means living the life, or walking the walk. Our everyday life tells folks more than our words ever could, especially in a local rural area. Folks would just laugh if a person said they were a Christian and still cussed and swore, still moaned and groaned about everything. And to tell the truth there’s much to much of that in Christian circles.

If a person wants Jesus Christ to be real to folks a person had better start acting like Him! Oh Lord, here I go again! Jesus, anyway the way I see it when I read the Gospels did not really go around having mass crusades. Sure He had huge crowds at times, but mainly He went from place to place and there was allot of one on one. There was that compassion to stop everything for one suffering person, to heal them and let them know that there was hope beyond a strict, ridged, religious society that they were trapped in. There were plenty of folks that knew religion, that knew the rules, but there was very little hope. Jesus changed that! You know the saying,hope for the hopeless, well that’s exactly what this is all about!

Hopeless.I know the feeling, very much. So very much. But the Lord changed that and since that day I’ve never looked back, and don’t intend to either. I know it happened at a much older age than many but that don’t mean much to God. He restores the lost years and uses them for His Glory! Amen! And I know that I know that I know that God can take any life, no exceptions and turn it around to His Glory! The Gospel of Outcasts, I just love that! And I was an outcast if there ever was one! And that’s where my heart leans towards, the outcasts. I don’t get to worried about all the folks that seem to have it all together, I lean towards those that don’t. And there’s more of them than a person thinks. Take a look at those “perfect” families and a person can almost rest assured that they are not. We have a way of putting on a show for the world, a pretty good job of acting if I must say so, and I don’t think there’s all to many that have it all together.

The simple Gospel does more for people, for outcasts than all the social programs this world can come up with, I know. This simple Gospel can take a totally hopeless situation and turn it into a blessing beyond measure. To be touched by Jesus is unforgettable, to have a life changing experience. To know that we are important, that we are loved and that we are somebody in His eyes is the key to unlocking the whole meaning of this life and beyond! Oh Glory to God, this simple hope has more in it than everything else in the world combined! And the hardest part for me years ago was coming to grips with the reality that it had nothing to do with me being good enough to make it to heaven and escape eternal damnation in hell. Nothing at all to do with me, it is a gift, nothing more, nothing less!

Hard, very hard to understand after a life time of religion and even to this day I feel the claws of religion trying to get ahold of me from time to time. But I know it now, I understand it now, the lies of religion that say you have to do this and you have to do that. No sir, I ain’t living under that bondage no more. I don’t want to live under the bondage that folks did in the time when Jesus walked this earth. Following this rule, following that rule, no love in it, and very little if any hope. Jesus Christ suffered and died for us, He rose from the dead and if we believe that and accept it, accept this fact that we are totally helpless in trying to be “good enough”, to cry out to Him, we shall be saved. Its the promise that the whole universe rides on!

I pray, I really do pray that this touches someone. I don’t normally write in this vein but for some reason I did tonight. To escape the bondage of the world, to escape the shackles of religion, to be set free by the one who set people free two thousand years ago is the greatest news this planet has ever had!