Josh Kezer

Sayings of Light and Love (Dichos de Luz y Amor) by St. John of the Cross

2012-01-06T08:53:00.001-06:00

From: The Collected Works Of St. John Of The Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, revised edition (1991), copyright ICS Publications. Permission is hereby granted for any non-commercial use, if this copyright notice is included.

Introduction

In the style of the apothegms of the Desert Fathers, John of the Cross's teaching first comes in these hard, clean, unsentimental sayings that overflow with spiritual wisdom. They give to their recipients treasures that must first be unlocked; as maxims they were to be repeated and mulled over. While he was spiritual director in Avila, before he had undertaken any of his larger treatises, John jotted down many thoughts and counsels for the guidance of those whom he directed, probably similar to the ones expressed in the later collections. None of those earlier sayings has come down to us, but we know from witnesses that this practice was characteristic of the Carmelite confessor at that time. After John's imprisonment in Toledo, when he took up spiritual direction again, this time in Andalusia, he returned once more to the practice of condensing his thought into concise spiritual counsels for his penitents. They could keep them for inspiration, so as to be stirred in the Lord's service and love. Sometimes these sayings were directed to the particular needs of an individual; at other times they were destined more for a group of persons. The number of sayings that circulated must have been large, but comparatively few have come down to us, and they come through different collections.

The most distinguished collection is contained in an autograph manuscript, the largest autograph we have from John. Restored in 1976 and reproduced in a facsimile edition, the manuscript is preserved in the church Santa Maria la Mayor in Andajar (JaŽn). In his prologue to this collection, John calls his maxims "sayings of light and love". The title, Sayings of Light and Love, comes then from John's own words, and provides a good general designation for the other collections as well. Footnotes will indicate where one collection ends and another begins and the source from which each comes.

Sometimes, rather than being counsels destined for others, these sayings have an autobiographical coloring, as for example in the celebrated Prayer of a Soul Taken with Love. Here John in a profound experience of spiritual poverty becomes aware that God has pardoned him and given him everything in Jesus Christ; love then carries him off in a lyric outburst.

Though these sayings do not follow in any systematic order, we do find in them the important themes that the Carmelite friar developed at length in his major works. What he there expounds in detail, he here compresses into dense aphorisms. Much difficulty lies in deciding whether many of the maxims attributed to John actually did come from his pen, or disciples culled them from his sermons and conferences, or if they are simply spurious. Omitting the counsels of Madre Magdalena because they are repetitions of those given in chapter 13 of the first book of the The Ascent of Mount Carmel, we include here only those sayings that editors have considered trustworthy.

Prologue

O my God and my delight, for your love I have also desired to give my soul to composing these sayings of light and love concerning you. Since, although I can express them in words, I do not have the works and virtues they imply (which is what pleases you, O my Lord, more than the words and wisdom they contain), may others, perhaps stirred by them, go forward in your service and love -- in which I am wanting. I will thereby find consolation, that these sayings be an occasion for your finding in others the things that I lack. Lord, you love discretion, you love light, you love love; these three you love above the other operations of the soul. Hence these will be sayings of discretion for the wayfarer, of light for the way, and of love in the wayfaring. May there be nothing of worldly rhetoric in them or the long-winded and dry eloquence of weak and artificial human wisdom, which never pleases you. Let us speak to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love that do indeed please you, removing obstacles and stumbling blocks from the paths of many souls who unknowingly trip and unconsciously walk in the path of error -- poor souls who think they are right in what concerns the following of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in becoming like him, imitating his life, actions, and virtues, and the form of his nakedness and purity of spirit. Father of mercies, come to our aid, for without you, Lord, we can do nothing.

1. The Lord has always revealed to mortals the treasures of his wisdom and his spirit, but now that the face of evil bares itself more and more, so does the Lord bare his treasures more.
2. O Lord, my God, who will seek you with simple and pure love, and not find that you are all one can desire, for you show yourself first and go out to meet those who seek you?
3. Though the path is plain and smooth for people of good will, those who walk it will not travel far, and will do so only with difficulty if they do not have good feet, courage, and tenacity of spirit.
4. It is better to be burdened and in company with the strong than to be unburdened and with the weak. When you are burdened you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience.
5. Whoever wants to stand alone without the support of a master and guide will be like the tree that stands alone in a field without a proprietor. No matter how much the tree bears, passers-by will pick the fruit before it ripens.
6. A tree that is cultivated and guarded through the care of its owner produces its fruit at the expected time.
7. The virtuous soul that is alone and without a master is like a lone burning coal; it will grow colder rather than hotter.
8. Those who fall alone remain alone in their fall, and they value their soul little since they entrust it to themselves alone.
9. If you do not fear falling alone, do you presume that you will rise up alone? Consider how much more can be accomplished by two together than by one alone.
10. Whoever falls while heavily laden will find it difficult to rise under the burden.
11. The blind person who falls will not be able to get up alone; the blind person who does get up alone will go off on the wrong road.
12. God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.
13. God desires the least degree of obedience and submissiveness more than all those services you think of rendering him.
14. God values in you the inclination to dryness and suffering for love of him more than all the consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations you could possibly have.
15. Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?
16. O sweetest love of God, so little known, whoever has found this rich mine is at rest!
17. Since a double measure of bitterness must follow the doing of your own will, do not do it even though you remain in single bitterness.
18. The soul that carries within itself the least appetite for worldly things bears more unseemliness and impurity in its journey to God than if it were troubled by all the hideous and annoying temptations and darknesses describable; for, so long as it does not consent to these temptations, a soul thus tried can approach God confidently, by doing the will of His Majesty, who proclaims: Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you [Mt. 11:28].
19. The soul that in aridity and trial submits to the dictates of reason is more pleasing to God than one that does everything with consolation, yet fails in this submission.
20. God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with the desire that people know of them. Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing about whether others see their works, but do not even seek that God himself know of them. Such persons would not cease to render God the same services, with the same joy and purity of love, even if God were never to know of these.
21. The pure and whole work done for God in a pure heart merits a whole kingdom for its owner.
22. A bird caught in birdlime has a twofold task: It must free itself and cleanse itself. And by satisfying their appetites, people suffer in a twofold way: They must detach themselves and, after being detached, clean themselves of what has clung to them.
23. Those who do not allow their appetites to carry them away will soar in their spirit as swiftly as the bird that lacks no feathers.
24. The fly that clings to honey hinders its flight, and the soul that allows itself attachment to spiritual sweetness hinders its own liberty and contemplation.
25. Withdraw from creatures if you desire to preserve, clear and simple in your soul, the image of God. Empty your spirit and withdraw far from them and you will walk in divine lights, for God is not like creatures.

Prayer of a Soul Taken with Love

26. Lord God, my Beloved, if you still remember my sins in such a way that you do not do what I beg of you, do your will concerning them, my God, which is what I most desire, and exercise your goodness and mercy, and you will be known through them. And if you are waiting for my good works so as to hear my prayer through their means, grant them to me, and work them for me, and the sufferings you desire to accept, and let it be done. But if you are not waiting for my works, what is it that makes you wait, my most clement Lord?Why do you delay? For if, after all, I am to receive the grace and mercy that I entreat of you in your Son, take my mite, since you desire it, and grant me this blessing, since you also desire that.
. Who can free themselves from lowly manners and limitations if you do not lift them to yourself, my God, in purity of love? How will human beings begotten and nurtured in lowliness rise up to you, Lord, if you do not raise them with your hand that made them?
. You will not take from me, my God, what you once gave me in your only Son, Jesus Christ, in whom you gave me all I desire. Hence I rejoice that if I wait for you, you will not delay.
With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?
27. Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in something less or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father's table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.
28. The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence.
29. A soul enkindled with love is a gentle, meek, humble, and patient soul.
30. A soul that is hard because of self-love grows harder.
31. O good Jesus, if you do not soften it, it will ever continue in its natural hardness.
32. If you lose an opportunity you will be like one who lets the bird fly away; you will never get it back.
33. I didn't know you, my Lord, because I still desired to know and relish things.
34. Well and good if all things change, Lord God, provided we are rooted in you.
35. One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it.
36. For the insensible, what you do not feel; for the sensible, the senses; and for the spirit of God, thought.
37. Reflect that your guardian angel does not always move your desire for an action, but he does always enlighten your reason. Hence, in order to practice virtue do not wait until you feel like it, for your reason and intellect are sufficient.
38. When fixed on something else, one's appetite leaves no room for the angel to move it.
39. My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on you.
40. What you most seek and desire you will not find by this way of yours, nor through high contemplation, but in much humility and submission of heart.
41. Do not tire yourself, for you will not enter into the savor and sweetness of spirit if you do not apply yourself to the mortification of all this that you desire.
42. Reflect that the most delicate flower loses its fragrance and withers fastest; therefore guard yourself against seeking to walk in a spirit of delight, for you will not be constant. Choose rather for yourself a robust spirit, detached from everything, and you will discover abundant peace and sweetness, for delicious and durable fruit is gathered in a cold and dry climate.
43. Bear in mind that your flesh is weak and that no worldly thing can comfort or strengthen your spirit, for what is born of the world is world and what is born of the flesh is flesh. The good spirit is born only of the Spirit of God, who communicates himself neither through the world nor through the flesh.
44. Be attentive to your reason in order to do what it tells you concerning the way to God. It will be more valuable before your God than all the works you perform without this attentiveness and all the spiritual delights you seek.
45. Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them.
46. If you make use of your reason, you are like one who eats substantial food; but if you are moved by the satisfaction of your will, you are like one who eats insipid fruit.
47. Lord, you return gladly and lovingly to lift up the one who offends you, but I do not turn to raise and honor the one who annoys me.
48. O mighty Lord, if a spark from the empire of your justice effects so much in the mortal ruler who governs the nations, what will your all-powerful justice do with the righteous and the sinner?
49. If you purify your soul of attachments and desires, you will understand things spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them.
50. O Lord, my God, you are no stranger to those who do not estrange themselves from you. How do they say that it is you who absent yourself?
51. That person has truly mastered all things who is not moved to joy by the satisfaction they afford or saddened by their insipidness.
52. If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving but by denying.
53. Going everywhere, my God, with you, everywhere things will happen as I desire for you.
54. Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act.
55. Since God is inaccessible, be careful not to concern yourself with all that your faculties can comprehend and your senses feel, so that you do not become satisfied with less and lose the lightness of soul suitable for going to him.
56. The soul that journeys to God, but does not shake off its cares and quiet its appetites, is like one who drags a cart uphill.
57. It is not God's will that a soul be disturbed by anything or suffer trials, for if one suffers trials in the adversities of the world it is because of a weakness in virtue. The perfect soul rejoices in what afflicts the imperfect one.
58. This way of life contains very little business and bustling, and demands mortification of the will more than knowledge. The less one takes of things and pleasures the farther one advances along this way.
59. Think not that pleasing God lies so much in doing a great deal as in doing it with good will, without possessiveness and human respect.
60. When evening comes, you will be examined in love. Learn to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.
61. See that you do not interfere in the affairs of others, nor even allow them to pass through your memory; for perhaps you will be unable to accomplish your own task.
62. Because the virtues you have in mind do not shine in your neighbor, do not think that your neighbor will not be precious in God's sight for reasons that you have not in mind.
63. Human beings know neither how to rejoice properly nor how to grieve properly, for they do not understand the distance between good and evil.
64. See that you are not suddenly saddened by the adversities of this world, for you do not know the good they bring, being ordained in the judgments of God for the everlasting joy of the elect.
65. Do not rejoice in temporal prosperity, since you do not know if it gives you assurance of eternal life.
66. In tribulation, immediately draw near to God with trust, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.
67. In joys and pleasures, immediately draw near to God in fear and truth, and you will be neither deceived nor involved in vanity.
68. Take God for your bridegroom and friend, and walk with him continually; and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
69. You will without labor subject the nations and bring things to serve you if you forget them and yourself as well.
70. Abide in peace, banish cares, take no account of all that happens, and you will serve God according to his good pleasure, and rest in him.
71. Consider that God reigns only in the peaceful and disinterested soul.
72. Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress.
73. What does it profit you to give God one thing if he asks of you another? Consider what it is God wants, and then do it. You will as a result satisfy your heart better than with something toward which you yourself are inclined.
74. How is it you dare to relax so fearlessly, since you must appear before God to render an account of the least word and thought?
75. Reflect that many are called but few are chosen [Mt. 22:14] and that, if you are not careful, your perdition is more certain than your salvation, especially since the path to eternal life is so constricted [Mt. 7:14].
76. Do not rejoice vainly, for you know how many sins you have committed and you do not know how you stand before God; but have fear together with confidence.
77. Since, when the hour of reckoning comes, you will be sorry for not having used this time in the service of God, why do you not arrange and use it now as you would wish to have done were you dying?
78. If you desire that devotion be born in your spirit and that the love of God and the desire for divine things increase, cleanse your soul of every desire, attachment, and ambition in such a way that you have no concern about anything. Just as a sick person is immediately aware of good health once the bad humor has been thrown off and a desire to eat is felt, so will you recover your health, in God, if you cure yourself as was said. Without doing this, you will not advance no matter how much you do.
79. If you desire to discover peace and consolation for your soul and to serve God truly, do not find your satisfaction in what you have left behind, because in that which now concerns you you may be as impeded as you were before, or even more. But leave as well all these other things and attend to one thing alone that brings all these with it (namely, holy solitude, together with prayer and spiritual and divine reading), and persevere there in forgetfulness of all things. For if these things are not incumbent on you, you will be more pleasing to God in knowing how to guard and perfect yourself than by gaining all other things together; what profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of one's soul? [Mt. 16:26]. [1]
80. Bridle your tongue and your thoughts very much, direct your affection habitually toward God, and your spirit will be divinely enkindled.
81. Feed not your spirit on anything but God. Cast off concern about things, and bear peace and recollection in your heart.
82. Keep spiritually tranquil in a loving attentiveness to God, and when it is necessary to speak, let it be with the same calm and peace.
83. Preserve a habitual remembrance of eternal life, recalling that those who hold themselves the lowest and poorest and least of all will enjoy the highest dominion and glory in God.
84. Rejoice habitually in God, who is your salvation [Lk. 1:47], and reflect that it is good to suffer in any way for him who is good.
85. Reflect how necessary it is to be enemies of self and to walk to perfection by the path of holy rigor, and understand that every word spoken without the order of obedience is laid to your account by God.
86. Have an intimate desire that His Majesty grant you what he knows you lack for his honor.
87. Crucified inwardly and outwardly with Christ, you will live in this life with fullness and satisfaction of soul, and possess your soul in patience [Lk. 21:19].
88. Preserve a loving attentiveness to God with no desire to feel or understand any particular thing concerning him.
89. Keep habitual confidence in God, esteeming in yourself and in your Sisters those things that God most values, which are spiritual goods.
90. Enter within yourself and work in the presence of your Bridegroom, who is ever present loving you.
91. Be hostile to admitting into your soul things that of themselves have no spiritual substance, lest they make you lose your liking for devotion and recollection.
92. Let Christ crucified be enough for you, and with him suffer and take your rest, and hence annihilate yourself in all inward and outward things
93. Endeavor always that things be not for you, nor you for them, but forgetful of all, abide in recollection with your Bridegroom.
94. Have great love for trials and think of them as but a small way of pleasing your Bridegroom, who did not hesitate to die for you.
95. Bear fortitude in your heart against all things that move you to that which is not God, and be a friend of the Passion of Christ.
96. Be interiorly detached from all things and do not seek pleasure in any temporal thing, and your soul will concentrate on goods you do not know
97. The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.
98. The poor one who is naked will be clothed; and the soul that is naked of desires and whims, God will clothe with his purity, pleasure, and will.
99. There are souls that wallow in the mire like animals, and there are others that soar like birds, which purify and cleanse themselves in the air.
100. The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.
101. We must adjust our trials to ourselves, and not ourselves to our trials.
102. He who seeks not the cross of Christ seeks not the glory of Christ.
103. To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but on the greatness of its humility.
104. "Whoever is ashamed to confess me before others, I shall be ashamed to confess before My Father," says the Lord [Mt. 10:33].
105. Frequent combing gives the hair more luster and makes it easier to comb; a soul that frequently examines its thoughts, words, and deeds, which are its hair, doing all things for the love of God, will have lustrous hair. Then the Bridegroom will look on the neck of the bride and thereby be captivated; and will be wounded by one of her eyes, that is, by the purity of intention she has in all she does. If in combing hair one wants it to have luster, one begins from the crown. All our works must begin from the crown (the love of God) if we wish them to be pure and lustrous.[2]
106. Heaven is stable and is not subject to generation; and souls of a heavenly nature are stable and not subject to the engendering of desires or of anything else, for in their way they resemble God who does not move forever.
107. Eat not in forbidden pastures (those of this life), because blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied [Mt. 5:6]. What God seeks, he being himself God by nature, is to make us gods through participation, just as fire converts all things into fire.
108. All the goodness we possess is lent to us, and God considers it his own work. God and his work is God.
109. Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.
110. All for me and nothing for you.
111. All for you and nothing for me.
112. Allow yourself to be taught, allow yourself to receive orders, allow yourself to be subjected and despised, and you will be perfect.
113. Any appetite causes five kinds of harm in the soul: first, disquiet; second, turbidity; third, defilement; fourth, weakness; fifth, obscurity [3]
114. Perfection does not lie in the virtues that the soul knows it has, but in the virtues that our Lord sees in it. This is a closed book; hence one has no reason for presumption, but must remain prostrate on the ground with respect to self.
115. Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.
116. The entire world is not worthy of a human being's thought, for this belongs to God alone; any thought, therefore, not centered on God is stolen from him.
117. Not all the faculties and senses have to be employed in things, but only those that are required; as for the others, leave them unoccupied for God.
118. Ignoring the imperfections of others, preserving silence and a continual communion with God will eradicate great imperfections from the soul and make it the possessor of great virtues.
119. There are three signs of inner recollection: first, a lack of satisfaction in passing things; second, a liking for solitude and silence, and an attentiveness to all that is more perfect; third, the considerations, meditations and acts that formerly helped the soul now hinder it, and it brings to prayer no other support than faith, hope, and love.[4]
120. If a soul has more patience in suffering and more forbearance in going without satisfaction, the sign is there of its being more proficient in virtue.
121. The traits of the solitary bird are five: first, it seeks the highest place; second, it withstands no company; third, it holds its beak in the air; fourth, it has no definite color; fifth, it sings sweetly. These traits must be possessed by the contemplative soul. It must rise above passing things, paying no more heed to them than if they did not exist. It must likewise be so fond of silence and solitude that it does not tolerate the company of another creature. It must hold its beak in the air of the Holy Spirit, responding to his inspirations, that by so doing it may become worthy of his company. It must have no definite color, desiring to do nothing definite other than the will of God. It must sing sweetly in the contemplation and love of its Bridegroom.[5]
122. Habitual voluntary imperfections that are never completely overcome not only hinder the divine union, but also the attainment of perfection. Such imperfections are: the habit of being very talkative; a small unconquered attachment, such as to a person, to clothing, to a cell, a book, or to the way food is prepared, and to other conversations and little satisfactions in tasting things, in knowing, and hearing, and the like.[6]
123. If you wish to glory in yourself, but do not wish to appear ignorant and foolish, discard the things that are not yours and you will have glory in what remains. But certainly if you discard all that is not yours, nothing will be left, since you must not glory in anything if you do not want to fall into vanity. But let us descend now especially to those graces, the gifts that make people pleasing in God's sight. It is certain that you must not glory in these gifts, for you do not even know if you possess them.
124. Oh, how sweet your presence will be to me, you who are the supreme good! I must draw near you in silence and uncover your feet that you may be pleased to unite me to you in marriage [Ru. 3:7], and I will not rest until I rejoice in your arms. Now I ask you, Lord, not to abandon me at any time in my recollection, for I am a squanderer of my soul.
125. Detached from exterior things, dispossessed of interior things, disappropriated of the things of God -- neither will prosperity detain you nor adversity hinder you.
126. The devil fears a soul united to God as he does God himself. [7]
127. The purest suffering produces the purest understanding.[8]
128. The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself.
129. The soul that has reached the union of love does not even experience the first motions of sin.
130. Old friends of God scarcely ever fail him, for they stand above all that can make them fail. [9]
131. My Beloved, all that is rugged and toilsome I desire for myself, and all that is sweet and delightful I desire for you. [10]
132. What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.
133. The submission of a servant is necessary in seeking God. In outward things light helps to prevent one from falling; but in the things of God just the opposite is true: It is better for the soul not to see if it is to be more secure.
134. More is gained in one hour from God's good things than in a whole lifetime from your own.
135. Love to be unknown both by yourself and by others. Never look at the good or evil of others.
136. Walk in solitude with God; act according to the just measure; hide the blessings of God.
137. To lose always and let everyone else win is a trait of valiant souls, generous spirits, and unselfish hearts; it is their manner to give rather than receive even to the extent of giving themselves. They consider it a heavy burden to possess themselves, and it pleases them more to be possessed by others and withdrawn from themselves, since we belong more to that infinite Good than we do to ourselves.
138. It is seriously wrong to have more regard for God's blessings than for God himself: prayer and detachment.
139. Look at that infinite knowledge and that hidden secret. What peace, what love, what silence is in that divine bosom! How lofty the science God teaches there, which is what we call the anagogical acts that so enkindle the heart.
140. The secret of one's conscience is considerably harmed and damaged as often as its fruits are manifested to others, for then one receives as reward the fruit of fleeting fame.
141. Speak little and do not meddle in matters about which you are not asked.
142. Strive always to keep God present and to preserve within yourself the purity he teaches you.
143. Do not excuse yourself or refuse to be corrected by all; listen to every reproof with a serene countenance; think that God utters it.
144. Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be detained by anything human.
145. Consider it the mercy of God that someone occasionally speaks a good word to you, for you deserve none.
146. Never allow yourself to pour out your heart, even though it be but for the space of a Creed.
147. Never listen to talk about the weaknesses of others, and if someone complains of another, you can tell her humbly to say nothing of it to you
148. Do not complain about anyone, or ask for anything; and if it is necessary for you to ask, let it be with few words.
149. Do not refuse work even though it seems that you cannot do it. Let all find compassion in you.
150. Do not contradict; by no means speak words that are not pure.
151. Let your speech be such that no one may be offended, and let it concern things that would not cause you regret were all to know of them.
152. Do not refuse anything you possess, even though you may need it.
153. Be silent concerning what God may have given you and recall that saying of the bride: My secret for myself [Is. 24:16].
154. Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end.
155. Take neither great nor little notice of who is with you or against you, and try always to please God. Ask him that his will be done in you. Love him intensely, as he deserves to be loved.
156. Twelve stars for reaching the highest perfection: love of God, love of neighbor, obedience, chastity, poverty, attendance at choir, penance, humility, mortification, prayer, silence, peace.
157. Never take others for your example in the tasks you have to perform, however holy they may be, for the devil will set their imperfections before you. But imitate Christ, who is supremely perfect and supremely holy, and you will never err.
158. Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.[11]
159. The further you withdraw from earthly things the closer you approach heavenly things and the more you find in God.
160. Whoever knows how to die in all will have life in all.
161. Abandon evil, do good, and seek peace [Ps. 34:14].
162. Anyone who complains or grumbles is not perfect, nor even a good Christian.
163. The humble are those who hide in their own nothingness and know how to abandon themselves to God.
164. The meek are those who know how to suffer their neighbor and themselves.
165. If you desire to be perfect, sell your will, give it to the poor in spirit, come to Christ in meekness and humility, and follow him to Calvary and the sepulcher.
166. Those who trust in themselves are worse than the devil.
167. Those who do not love their neighbor abhor God.
168. Anyone who does things lukewarmly is close to falling.
169. Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good.
170. Conquering the tongue is better than fasting on bread and water.
171. Suffering for God is better than working miracles.
172. Oh, what blessings we will enjoy in the vision of the Most Blessed Trinity!
173. Do not be suspicious of your brother, for you will lose purity of heart.
174. As for trials, the more the better.
175. What does anyone know who doesn't know how to suffer for Christ?

Footnotes

1. The autography manuscript ends here abruptly. The following saying are the MAXIMS ON LOVE gathered by the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Beas. A manuscript copy is preserved in the Silverian archives in Burgos.

2. Cf. Canticle 31, 5-6.

3. Cf. Ascent 1, 6-10.

4. For more on these signs of contemplation, cf. Ascent 2, 13-14; Night 1, 9.

5. Cf. Canticle 15, 24.

6. Cf. Ascent 1, 11, 3-4. The following maxims are from the edition of Gerona, published in 1650.

7. Cf. Canticle 24, 4.

8. Cf. Canticle 36, 12.

9. Cf. Canticle 25, 9-11.

10. Cf. Canticle 28, 10.

11. This saying comes from the Cathrusian Guigo II's SCALA PARADISI, chapter 2, in Migne, PL 40, 998. The counsels that follow come from an old manuscript belonging to the Carmelite nuns in Antequera. A copy is preserved in the National Library of Madrid.

On New Years Resolutions: Who's will ... yours or His? by Pete Briscoe

2011-12-27T11:24:00.000-06:00


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“New Year's Day… Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” —Mark Twain

The big problem with New Year's resolutions is that they begin with the two words, "I will…" Mustering all of the sincerity and dedication that we are capable of, we determine that we will become something that we aren't and achieve something we have yet to do. "I will…” Fill in the blank with anything you want:

I will lose the weight!
I will read the Bible every day!
I will be courageous!
I will pay off the credit cards!
I will fireproof my marriage!

All the good intentions in the world aren’t going to get you anywhere when you start with those two words, “I will…” In fact, when we make any plan according to our will, and then try to do it through our will power, it’s destined to fail. That's not the way we were designed to live, and that's not the way we were designed to pray.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. —1 John 5:13-15

No, our prayers and plans need to begin with, "If You will, Lord… ” and any action must begin with the resolution to allow Christ to live through us, rather than attempting it in our own strength!

Jesus, I am done with “I will.” In all the details of my life, I want Your will. My willpower is so limited. Yours is never ending. Whatever it is that You have planned to do through me this year, I place my trust in Your power working through me. Amen.

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Happy Thanksgiving: Thank you, Lord!

2011-11-23T11:06:00.001-06:00

“No matter what happens, always bethankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1Thessalonians 5:18   

Take this opportunity to post why youare thankful. Encourage some one today.” Pastor James Jackson’s November 22,2011 post on Facebook.

"No matter what"? "Alwaysbe thankful"? This is hard, but despite everything that's been going on inmy life and the mental strain, despite the personal struggles, I am thankful, Ibelieve, I still believe.

God's word soothes my spirit and mind."For this is God's will for (we) who belong to Christ Jesus"? Amen. Ido belong to Jesus. Without question, without a doubt, I am thankful for that.Father God's will is good. My will may not always be His, but His will isalways good.   

My eyes may not always see things Hisway, but I still believe. I am thankful. If my life has taught me anything,it's that His ways are higher than my ways, His thoughts are more knowledgeableand considerate than mine, and He's faithful.  

Isaiah 55:6-13

I'm thankful for:

. Jesus

. My salvation

. His determination tosuffer and die for our sin

. His tenacity toresurrect and conquer sin and death

. His word

. His love

. His grace

. My church

. My freedom

. My deliverance fromalcohol and drug addiction

. My purpose

. My journey into purity

. The fight our Lord hasfought for me

. My mother's education

. My father's service inVietnam

. Mt grandmother'sspiritual roots

. My family

. My friends

. My health

. My finances

  What are you thankful for? Tell mewhy.

Finish this.

2011-11-18T01:32:00.001-06:00

Jesus is ______________. He has been ________________________________ as I've walked through _____________________________________. He's _______________________________.

My Deliverer by Rich Mullins

2011-10-29T13:29:00.000-05:00

In all my need, He's come for me. He's come for you. Amen. Amen?

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is our Deliverer.

General Message: Suggestions and Assistance Requested, Updates Coming Soon.

2011-10-16T00:34:00.000-05:00

I'm working on some things and have something special in the works. Please be patient with me and continue to follow my blog and recommend it to others, both domestic and abroad.

I'm interested in enhancing the blogging experience. I'd love to hear from more of you more often. I'm interested in your thoughts, life stories, prayer requests. Can any of you tell me how to include a live chat box and message board on my blog?

If you know of any other ways I could enhance my blog, please share. I'm open to and welcome other suggestions. Thanks.

Grace and peace, blessings and honor in Christ.

Josh Kezer

Urgent! A Special Request For An Innocent Man Scheduled For Death, This Month, On September 21st

2011-09-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

Troy Davis needs our help!

"Hi Josh. I was wondering if you could post something about supporting Troy Davis and getting people to sign the petition against the state of Georgia putting him to death on 9/21. This makes me so sick! We've got to save him! I have posted it on both Ryan's and my page (on Facebook) if you'd like to copy and paste his picture and the website where people can go. Thank you so much! Hope you're doing well." Kelly Ferguson.

I'd like to introduce you to Troy.

Take a look at his face. Kelly's a dear friend. Her brother's Ryan Ferguson. Most of you have noticed on here and elsewhere the fight I've put up for him. Ryan's a dear friend of mine, but this isn't about Ryan or me ... or is it?

Look at his face. He's a man, a human being, a living and breathing life, God's creation. He's not just a story, a headline, a name, a number, a case file, an inmate, on death row. He's flesh and blood. He's God's creation. He's our brother, someone's son and a friend to others. Does he have kids? A wife? Please consider all of this.

Innocence is innocence. Exonerating one of us is a victory for us all. Killing one of us is ... yeah. You guessed it. It's like killing us all. Please help us stop Troy's execution.

Admittedly, I don't know as much about this case as Kelly, but if she believes him and supports him, so do I. It's that simple. I trust her ear, her heart and her character that much.

Please. Go to the following link and voice your support for Troy. Thank you.

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=6645049&aid=12970

The Latest in the Life of My Case: Questions surround Kenny Hulshof’s tactics in murder prosecutions

2011-08-21T19:05:00.004-05:00

After you read the article, please read the following comments and feel free to write your own. Thanks. I appreciate your willingness to read my blog and concern yourself with the issues that concern me. Bless you.
___________________________________________

Questions surround Kenny Hulshof’s tactics in murder prosecutions

By TONY RIZZO, The Kansas City Star

Kenny Hulshof once excelled at asking tough questions in Missouri courtrooms.

But this spring, the former star prosecutor and congressman found himself in the hot seat of the witness stand answering pointed inquiries from an attorney and a judge.

Across the courtroom sat Mark Woodworth, a former farm boy who has spent most of his adult life imprisoned for a murder that he says he didn’t commit.

Hulshof prosecuted Woodworth as an assistant attorney general in 1995 after already having built a statewide reputation as an aggressive and skilled legal tactician in trials for other accused killers.

Most, like Woodworth, ended up in a prison cell — some on death row.

But today, years after Hulshof tried his last criminal case, Woodworth is the latest inmate to pose what have become persistent questions.

Did Hulshof push the rules to win? And in doing so, did he sometimes convict innocent people?

Woodworth and his attorney contend in court documents that he did. They are seeking exoneration.

If Woodworth succeeds, it will mark the third time in as many years that a Hulshof-prosecuted murder defendant won his freedom after enduring roughly 15 years behind bars.

In their rulings, two judges have criticized Hulshof’s courtroom tactics. In court filings, several attorneys have accused Hulshof of making improper arguments to juries, misstating evidence or, in some cases, telling juries things that he knew, or should have known, weren’t true.

In one case, he argued there was blood on a defendant’s clothes even though scientific testing had not confirmed that. In another, he assured jurors that a crucial prosecution witness would be locked up for a decade for his role in a killing — but then the witness got off with probation.

And in some cases, including Woodworth’s, attorneys have claimed evidence was withheld from the defense.

In at least 13 murder cases, defense lawyers have alleged misconduct by Hulshof or others involved in prosecutions that he either assisted or led. In six of those, courts have thrown out convictions or overturned death sentences. In a seventh case, Missouri’s governor commuted the defendant’s death sentence to life in prison.

Hulshof vigorously defends his record. He said that he never withheld evidence personally, did not intentionally mislead jurors and always adhered to ethical standards.

“It’s your career. It’s your professionalism. It’s your reputation,” he said. “Those things were, and continue to be, very important to me.”

Though he spearheaded some prosecutions, Hulshof points out that he only assisted in others. Many of the prosecutorial misconduct accusations involve actions other than his own, he said. The same goes for claims of withheld evidence. Though prosecutors are responsible for forwarding all potentially useful evidence to the defense, Hulshof said he was as surprised as others to learn, sometimes years later, that investigators hadn’t given him everything that needed to be forwarded.

No court has found that Hulshof personally withheld evidence.

Hulshof notes that probably no Missouri prosecutor tried more murder cases during the six-plus years he was an assistant attorney general and that appellate lawyers employ “any and all means” to make their case.

“So in that regard, it comes with the territory,” he said of facing so many accusations.

Although he has not studied the specific allegations in Hulshof’s cases, Bennett Gershman, a nationally recognized authority on prosecutorial misconduct, said the number of reversals from Hulshof’s six-year tenure was “significant.”

“I don’t think this is something innocuous. … The numbers are pretty glaring,” said Gershman, a law professor at Pace University in New York who has written textbooks on prosecutorial ethics and lectured to prosecutors across the country, including in Missouri.

A 2003 study by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism center, found 77 Missouri cases dating to 1970 where judges cited, among other things, prosecutorial misconduct in reversing convictions or sentences.

Hulshof prosecuted or helped prosecute three of them.

The study’s authors called such reversals relatively rare and noted that any prosecutor who has more than one “belongs to a select club.”

Because so many questions have been raised in his cases, Hulshof’s mere involvement has become fodder for appeal.

“The actions of Mr. Hulshof are clearly part of a shocking pattern of deliberate disregard for the rights of many persons he has prosecuted,” Bob Ramsey, Woodworth’s current attorney, wrote in a court filing.

Hulshof said to consider the source: Ramsey is advocating passionately in a case he wants to win.

“The word ‘agenda’ may be too onerous,” Hulshof said. “But certainly he has a bias in favor of his client.”

Courtroom star

Words, and their power to persuade, made Hulshof a man to be reckoned with in small-town courtrooms across Missouri.

“He was a great public speaker and had a natural knack for the dramatic,” said Cape Girardeau County Prosecutor Morley Swingle, who gave Hulshof his first prosecutorial job in 1986.

Hulshof’s work in Cape Girardeau caught the eye of a lawyer with the Missouri attorney general’s office who recommended Hulshof for a job there. In 1989, he became an assistant attorney general.

He served as a troubleshooter, called in to help county prosecutors in complex cases throughout the state.

Hulshof prosecuted 58 defendants, most for murder — including the high-profile cases of Faye and Ray Copeland, the elderly couple sentenced to death for killing five transients on their Livingston County farm in the late 1980s.

In his murder cases alone, Hulshof won 28 convictions and lost only two trials. Seventeen other defendants pleaded guilty. One conviction later was overturned, and the defendant was acquitted in a second trial tried by a different prosecutor.

Attorneys sometimes drove across the state to see Hulshof deliver one of his impassioned closing arguments, a former colleague said.

“Golden-throated,” one courtroom adversary described him.

Juries loved Hulshof, say lawyers who tried cases against him. With his rural Missouri background and folksy style, he knew how to connect with the men and women he sought to persuade.

Attorney Steve Walsh from Poplar Bluff, Mo., one of the few lawyers to face Hulshof in a murder trial and win, described Hulshof as “very aggressive” and said he appeared “crushed” when he lost.

“I didn’t see him as having a bad character,” Walsh said. “But winning and putting a W in the win column meant a lot to him.”

Hulshof said he was “poignantly aware” that he was the voice of crime victims going through a terrible ordeal.

“On those occasions where the judge or jury found the prosecution’s case insufficient, it affected me personally, as I had empathy for those individuals who had looked to the legal system for justice and had found none,” he said.

Other adversaries said Hulshof was aggressive but treated them and their clients fairly.

“He was a formidable opponent,” said attorney Joel Eisenstein. “He was honest, forthright and a great lawyer.”

Like all good trial attorneys, Hulshof knew how to play to a jury and get the most from the evidence, Eisenstein said.

Some critics, however, allege in court records that Hulshof misrepresented available evidence to a jury.

Kansas City attorney Sean O’Brien, who has handled appeals for several Hulshof-prosecuted defendants, said that more than once he has uncovered instances where Hulshof elicited testimony from witnesses that was contrary to reports in the prosecutor’s file.

“Is he (Hulshof) doing it carelessly?” asked O’Brien, a law school professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “Doesn’t he know the file?”

In 1996, Hulshof rode his successful record as a tough prosecutor to a seat in Congress. In 2008, he ran for governor of Missouri but lost to Jay Nixon, his former boss in the attorney general’s office. In 2009, he joined the Kansas City law firm Polsinelli Shughart, where he works in the firm’s public policy group.

Actual innocence

These days, on serene mornings fishing near Bagnell Dam along the banks of the Osage River, Dale Helmig enjoys the freedom he was denied so long.

But even that bucolic tableau can’t erase the painful memories of a man who spent nearly 15 years in prison for a killing that he says he didn’t commit. At least Helmig has someone to talk to who understands.

Josh Kezer also spent about 16 years in a Missouri prison for murder (The article mistakenly had 15 and I seen fit to correct it, as every year of my suffering mattered and still matters). Like Helmig, he was freed after a judge found he was convicted wrongfully.

Hulshof declined to say whether he still believes Helmig and Kezer are guilty, even as new evidence uncovered in recent years helped convince judges that they were not.

“I believed that when I went into court in each of those cases that we had a strong, albeit circumstantial evidence, case to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

It was about 40 meandering miles downstream from Bagnell Dam in 1993 that two fishermen discovered the body of Helmig’s mother tied to a concrete block.

There were no signs of injury to Norma Helmig, and an autopsy failed to reveal how she died. A coroner testified that absent any other cause, she probably died of asphyxiation.

In 1996, when Dale Helmig went to trial, Hulshof argued to the jury that Helmig smothered her with a pillow.

“It really hurt to hear that,” Helmig said recently.

The hurt only multiplied when the jury returned after about four hours of deliberation and proclaimed him guilty.

“That took the starch right out of me,” he said. “I never really thought I’d be found guilty. I thought if you were innocent and had an attorney, that’s all you needed.”

For Helmig, it wasn’t.

And he very well may have spent the rest of his life in prison if O’Brien hadn’t taken an interest in his case.

O’Brien initially declined to take the case. He changed his mind when he heard Hulshof had prosecuted Helmig.

With the help of the Midwestern Innocence Project and a cadre of lawyers, students and investigators, O’Brien spent years researching the facts surrounding the case.

“There is no question the jury was misled,” O’Brien said.

Last November, a judge came to the same conclusion.

“Mr. Helmig is the victim of a fundamental miscarriage of justice,” DeKalb County Senior Circuit Judge Warren McElwain wrote.

He ordered Helmig freed.

McElwain found that Hulshof “knew or should have known” that testimony heard by jurors was false.

He cited testimony by a state trooper when Hulshof asked him if Helmig had denied killing his mother.

“Sir, at any time during these contacts, and particularly during this conversation which you’ve just shared with us, did Dale Helmig ever deny killing Norma Helmig to you?” Hulshof asked the trooper at trial.

The trooper answered: “No, sir, he did not.”

Yet the trooper’s written report in the prosecutor’s file said: “He (Dale Helmig) stated that he did not murder his mother.”

Hulshof told The Star that he was trying to focus the trooper’s testimony on one specific interview when Helmig didn’t deny the killing, not on other times when he did.

“The question was a bad question,” Hulshof said. “It wasn’t to try to obfuscate.”

In another instance, the judge found that jurors were left with the impression that a few days before the murder, Helmig threw a cup of coffee in his mother’s face during an argument at a restaurant. Actually, another person had thrown coffee in her face. In his ruling, the judge said prosecutors cited unproven allegations of a similar incident involving Helmig.

The judge termed it a “highly improper and prejudicial” tactic.

In his ruling, he also noted that law enforcement officers concealed information and evidence from the defense and that Helmig’s lawyer was ineffective and may have been under the influence of drugs during the trial.

Beyond his findings that the prosecution’s actions had denied Helmig a fair trial, McElwain found that Helmig presented clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence.

No direct or physical evidence tied Helmig to the scene, McElwain noted. Law enforcement officers had recanted or clarified important aspects of the case, including the coffee incident. And new evidence — involving the victim’s purse — supported Helmig’s innocence, the judge said.

The purse was found in a field seven months after the killing. The prosecution contended that Dale Helmig threw it away the night of the crime. However, a canceled check in the purse had cleared the bank after Norma Helmig’s death. It would have arrived at her home almost two weeks after her murder.

“The evidence surrounding the check establishes that Mrs. Helmig’s purse could not have been thrown into the river on the night of her death, as argued by the prosecution,” the judge wrote.

In March, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld McElwain’s decision to throw out the conviction. And last week, the Osage County prosecutor announced that she would not retry him at this time, although she noted there is no statute of limitations for murder.

Helmig is living with his brother in Rocky Mount, near the Lake of the Ozarks, and has been looking for work without success. At least that gives him plenty of opportunities to go fishing, and he never feels freer than when he has a fishing rod in his hand on that river where some mighty big crappie swim.

He also proudly describes the accomplishments of his children, including his youngest daughter, now 16, who was a toddler when he went to prison.

“There’s such a big gap between being in diapers and 16,” he said.

Wrongfully convicted

Josh Kezer was 19 when thrown into the decrepit prison in Jefferson City once dubbed the “bloodiest 47 acres in America.”

In 1994, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder for the 1992 killing of Mischelle Lawless along a highway exit ramp in Scott County, Mo.

Kezer claimed he’d never met her. No murder weapon was found and no physical evidence linked Kezer to the crime, though at trial Hulshof argued that it did.

As he did in Mark Woodworth’s murder trial the next year, Hulshof appealed to the jury’s sense of justice.

“You are our only hope,” he told them.

A judge’s order freed Kezer in 2009.

In his ruling, Circuit Judge Richard Callahan, now the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, said the entire criminal justice system failed in Kezer’s case, from the investigation through the trial and the appellate process. That included when investigators withheld police reports and notes favorable to Kezer’s defense, he ruled.

Callahan also noted that evidence presented at trial and cited by Hulshof in his closing argument has since been refuted or proved false.

Hulshof summarized the evidence against Kezer this way: “We put him at the scene. We put a gun in his hand. We put the victim with him. We have got blood on his clothes.”

In ordering Kezer’s release, Callahan wrote: “We now know that none of what Mr. Hulshof said in that final summary was true.”

Hulshof says that phrase has been unfairly reported in the news media. Later, Callahan wrote a letter to Hulshof in which he apologized for the way the media had portrayed the ruling.

“I never believed that you personally withheld any evidence,” Callahan wrote.

In his ruling, Callahan noted that the jail inmates who testified that Kezer confessed to them later had recanted.

A man who testified that he saw Kezer in a car near the murder scene was himself a suspect — although a sheriff’s deputy testified he wasn’t. That man also gave conflicting accounts of who was in that car. That was among the information not provided to the defense before trial, court records say.

And the woman who testified that she saw Kezer and Lawless argue at a party shortly before the murder later admitted she was wrong. The party’s host came forward after the trial to say that Kezer didn’t even attend the party.

When Hulshof told jurors there was blood on Kezer’s clothes, he was referring to several spots that reacted to a preliminary test for blood. He described how the test “glows like a Christmas tree.” Only years later did lab workers conduct a test that determined the spots were not human blood.

In his ruling, Callahan said the prosecution knew at trial that the testing did not prove the presence of blood, yet argued that it did.

“The prosecutor also knew there was no evidence linking any of it, whatever it was, to Mischelle Lawless or Josh Kezer,” the judge wrote.

Hulshof said recently that jurors knew from expert testimony that the test was only presumptive and that based on the evidence, it was a “reasonable inference” to argue that the substance was blood.

For Kezer, it was an example of how Hulshof operated in the courtroom.

“Hulshof’s tactic is smoke. Juries see smoke and think there’s fire,” Kezer said. “He creates the smoke.”

Kezer sued the county and several law officers over his wrongful conviction because they had withheld information. He settled the case, reportedly for several million dollars. Hulshof was not named in the suit and in fact aided Kezer by testifying that the information also was withheld from the prosecution.

Kezer, who now lives in Columbia, said he refused to allow the anger and bitterness over his situation to fester during his prison years. And he now works to support others prosecuted by Hulshof. He recently donated $10,000 to a defense fund for Rick Clay, who, like Kezer, Helmig and Woodworth, maintains that he is innocent of murder.

Still fighting

Clay was one day and 15 feet away from death.

This January, cloistered in a glass and cinder block holding cell next to Missouri’s death chamber, he waited for word from the governor on whether he would live or die.

It seemed a forlorn hope.

As attorney general, Nixon vigorously had advocated capital punishment. Throughout Clay’s appeals, Nixon’s office had fought to keep him locked up. And Nixon had been Hulshof’s boss when he won the conviction and death sentence against Clay for a 1994 killing in New Madrid County, Mo.

As Clay’s execution hour drew near, his attorneys argued for more time to pursue Clay’s innocence claim. To bolster their argument, they invoked Hulshof’s involvement.

“Also significant to the heightened need for a thorough clemency process for Mr. Clay is the fact that the overriding reason alleged for his wrongful conviction is prosecutorial misconduct by Kenny Hulshof,” they wrote. “Hulshof has a track record of misconduct that cannot be ignored.”

Nixon surprised many people, especially Clay, when he commuted his sentence to life in prison. Nixon did not explain his reasons but stated at the time that he still believed Clay was guilty. The governor declined to comment for this story.

Hulshof said he has not spoken to Nixon about the decision, and he declined to say if he agreed with Nixon’s action.

“Our justice system in Missouri allows for the governor of the state to commute a sentence, and so the justice system has worked whether you have personal feelings or views about it or not,” Hulshof said.

Not since 1999, when Mel Carnahan commuted a death sentence after a personal request from Pope John Paul II, had a Missouri governor taken that action.

At Clay’s trial, no physical evidence linked him to the killing of Randy Martindale inside Martindale’s rural home.

The state’s case hinged on the testimony of Clay’s friend, Charles Sanders, who was having an affair with Stacey Martindale, the victim’s wife.

Initially charged with the murder, Sanders pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Clay contends that he and Sanders went to the house that night to sell the wife drugs and that her husband was alive when they left. The wife, who was home during the killing, claimed she didn’t see who shot him. But she stood to gain a big insurance payout from his death. Prosecutors accused all three of involvement.

In Clay’s trial, Sanders denied being with Clay that night and testified that Stacey Martindale confided in him that she was going to get Clay to kill her husband.

At trial, Hulshof asserted to the jury that Sanders would be sentenced to 10 years in prison as part of his plea agreement.

“Let there be no mistake about it,” Hulshof assured them.

The jury convicted Clay. Convicted separately, the victim’s wife was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

But Sanders received probation. On appeal, Clay claimed that his jury was misled about the state’s plea agreement with Sanders.

In 2001, a federal judge threw out Clay’s conviction, agreeing that in an attempt to bolster Sanders’ credibility, the prosecution did not disclose that its deal with Sanders was flexible and he could receive anywhere from probation to up to 10 years.

“The state needed the jury to believe Sanders to convict Clay,” the judge wrote.

But the state appealed that ruling, and a federal appeals court later reinstated Clay’s death sentence.

Hulshof said that his involvement in the case ended after Clay’s sentencing, and he was not involved in any sentencing arrangements later made with Sanders.

Clay said he now is focused on continuing his struggle for freedom.

“I just want to get my innocence proved,” he said in a recent prison interview.

The next big ruling

Mark Woodworth is awaiting a ruling in his case that could come at any time.

He wants a new trial and hopes, like Helmig and Kezer before him, that he will be found “actually innocent.”

Among allegations Woodworth’s attorney raised in a four-day hearing this spring in Columbia is that information favorable to Woodworth’s defense was withheld.

Ramsey, Woodworth’s attorney, questioned Hulshof during the hearing about a series of letters written before Woodworth was charged. Those letters showed that a key witness had implicated someone else.

Hulshof testified that he could not specifically recall if the letters were in his file before the trial or if they were turned over to the defense.

But he said it was widely known in the community and by the defense that someone else had been implicated.

Boone County Circuit Judge Gary Oxenhandler, appointed by the Supreme Court to preside over the hearing, also questioned Hulshof about the letters.

“If they were in your file, it would have been appropriate, in your opinion, to deliver those to the defense, correct?” he asked. “There wouldn’t be any excuse for not delivering them, would there?”

“No, sir,” Hulshof responded.

For 11 of his years incarcerated, Woodworth lived in the same prison as Helmig. They often discussed their cases and looked out for each other.

“I think Mark is going to be the next one to go home,” Helmig said recently.

Helmig and Woodworth both declined to offer an opinion about Hulshof.

“I’ve got some thoughts, but I don’t want to jeopardize my case,” Woodworth said.

Yet he hopes that something Hulshof once said in Congress will prove prophetic:

“The passage of time is no reason to deny justice.”

The Star’s Mark Morris contributed to this report. To reach Tony Rizzo, call 816-234-4435 or send email to trizzo@kcstar.com.

Posted on Sat, Aug. 20, 2011 10:15 PM

Ladies and Gentleman, the 2011 Arthur Ash Award Winner, Dewey Bozella

2011-07-13T22:33:00.005-05:00

I'd like to introduce you all to my friend and brother, fellow innocent man and the latest Arthur Ash Award winner, Dewey Bozella. This is Dewey and I in Cincinatti earlier this year. What you see is what you get with him. He's a good man. I'm so happy for him and very proud of him. This is crazy! One of us won the Arther Ash Award! One of us winning means all of us won! God is good!

July 12, 2011, 12:41 PM ET

Dewey Bozella's fight for justice

By Cal Fussman

Special to ESPN.comArchive

Scott DuncanDewey Rader Bozella, winner of the 2011 Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, was sent to prison in 1983 for a murder he did not commit. But Bozella never stopped fighting and won his release in 2009.

Nobody has ever bought a jersey with the name Dewey Rader Bozella on it. There are no sneakers embossed with a DRB logo. Few people in the world of sports have ever heard of Dewey Rader Bozella.

But a week from today, Dewey will step on stage at the ESPYs to speak.

Naturally, he's a little nervous about it. Millions of people will be watching on television. And he'll be at the podium for three to four minutes. That's a long time for an awards ceremony -- though nowhere near long enough to tell all that needs to be told. Maybe it's simply enough that Dewey speaks and is heard.

For many years after he was first suspected of murder in 1977, it was hard for Dewey to talk about it. Murder is actually a kind way of describing what happened.

It's time to vote!

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Dewey was suspected of entering the home of a 92-year-old woman who had just returned from playing bingo at St. Joseph's Church in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., binding her with electrical cord and stuffing 5 feet of cloth down her throat with a tool resembling a chisel until she suffocated.

There were no fingerprints of Dewey's at the scene of the crime. In fact, there was no physical evidence at all to suggest he had ever entered the home. That's because Dewey was bicycling alone miles away when the murder took place.

But Dewey was arrested. If prosecutors were looking for a suspect with a troubled past, they certainly had a good candidate. When he was 9 years old, Dewey saw his father batter his pregnant mother. His mother died from the beating, and his father ran away and never came back. Dewey and his nine siblings grew up in a series of foster homes.

One of his older brothers had a knife stabbed through his heart and out his back. Another brother would be shot dead through the head. A third would die of AIDS. As a teen, Dewey had a reputation for running the streets, fighting, getting high and committing petty crime. He'll be the first to admit he was no saint.

It was a blessing, then, when the case against him was dropped for lack of evidence. It made Dewey realize he needed to turn his life around. He was 18 years old. He enrolled in community college and got a job at an institution caring for people who back then were called "retarded."

In 1983, six years after the murder, two inmates told prosecutors that it was Dewey who'd murdered the old woman. They lied because it enabled them to cut deals that would get them released. The brother of one of those inmates also pointed a finger at Dewey for support. In 1983, Dewey was charged with murder.

One rejection burned so badly that he felt he needed to be placed in solitary confinement. That way, the bitterness boiling inside him would not touch anyone around him. There is no way to request solitary confinement. But Dewey knew how to get there. He howled until he was thrown into the hole.

There's no evidence, Dewey's lawyer told him. The prosecutors have no case. It's your call, but you'd be wiser not to testify.

It was sound advice. That way, Dewey's past on the streets couldn't be brought up to sway the jury. And there was no way he could be tripped up under questioning. Dewey decided not to take the stand. He sat stunned while the three "witnesses" turned on him and the jury's verdict was announced: Guilty.

Dewey was sent to Sing Sing. He had a right to be bitter, and he was. The hardest part was he had to stuff his bitterness inside. There was no way to let it out. Ask him what he was in for, and he refused to say. He knew that even people who've done horrible things don't like a man who has suffocated a 92-year-old woman after she's come home from a night of bingo at church.

Once Dewey did tell an inmate about the case. The inmate spread it around as a way of softening the sound of his own crime. Dewey felt shamed, and he resolved never again to say a word about why he was in prison.

It was "The Death House" that saved Dewey. "The Death House" is the nickname for that building at Sing Sing where electrocutions once took place. The electric chair had been removed and a boxing ring was set up over the same space.

Dewey stepped between the ropes. He proved to be a good fighter and eventually became the light heavyweight champ of Sing Sing. A Golden Gloves champ named Lou Del Valle was brought in to fight him. Del Valle would later knock down Roy Jones Jr. when Jones was the best fighter on the planet. Dewey gave Del Valle all he could handle until the fight was stopped on cuts. But that wasn't the point.

Boxing gave Dewey balance. It gave him a sense of release, of discipline and focus. It structured his time. The heavy bag, speed bag and sit-ups led to educational classes that filled Dewey's days as he awaited his appeal. Seven years after his conviction, Dewey got a retrial.

By 1990, the brother of one of the witnesses against Dewey admitted that he'd made up the story. The other two witnesses continued to testify against Dewey to maintain the deals they'd secured for their release. But those deals were made clear to the jury. The case had no merit the first time. Now, with the brother's admission, it was absurd.

You don't need to go on the stand, Dewey was advised. It's a clear-cut case. Dewey didn't testify.

The case unfolded. It appeared to be so lopsided that the district attorney came to Dewey's lawyer and offered a deal. If Dewey will admit his guilt, he can walk out a free man. Oh, if Dewey could've spoken to the jurors at that point. If he could've told them that he'd been offered his freedom in exchange for his integrity, he could've told them what he told the district attorney: No way! It didn't matter what he was offered. He'd never admit to committing that murder.

But Dewey didn't have the chance to tell the jury. The system doesn't work that way. Dewey waited silently for the verdict. Words cannot describe what it felt like when the jury once again called him guilty.

The sentence was 20 years to life.

Dewey Rader Bozella had learned one thing by the time he returned to prison. He could find himself in a terrible situation, or he could simply find himself.

He punched all of his bitterness into the heavy bag and taught himself to smile. He earned a bachelor's degree from Mercy College. Then a master's from New York Theological Seminary. He became a model prisoner. He met an inmate who had murdered his older brother. But Dewey forgave him. He proposed to a woman named Trena whom he met while she was visiting another inmate. Not only did Trena say yes to the proposal months after they'd met; her father said yes.

They were married. Prison guards wrote letters recommending that Dewey be released on parole. Four times parole hearings came up.

His application should've sailed through with a rubber stamp. There was one problem. A simple step in the procedure called for Dewey to appreciate the nature and seriousness of the crime. In his case, that meant admitting that he'd stuffed 5 feet of cloth down the throat of a 92-year-old woman. Dewey's decision was final. He'd rather die in prison than say those words and go free. Each time, his application for parole was turned down.

One rejection burned so badly that he felt he needed to be placed in solitary confinement. That way, the bitterness boiling inside him would not touch anyone around him. There is no way to request solitary confinement. But Dewey knew how to get there. He howled until he was thrown into the hole.

He wrote the Innocence Project every week for years. The organization uses DNA evidence to exonerate those wrongfully convicted. The Innocence Project finally accepted his case. Then had to drop it because all the physical evidence had been destroyed. Dewey seemed out of options, but his perseverance paid off. The legal firm of WilmerHale was alerted and jumped in to help pro bono. The lawyers tracked down the arresting officer, who had since retired. After 22 years on the job, the officer took home only one file: the case of Dewey Rader Bozella. Something just didn't smell right about it.

The lawyers quickly found that evidence had been withheld during the trials. They put in nearly a million dollars' worth of work and found evidence that proved Dewey had nothing to do with the murder and that another suspect had confessed to the crime.

In 2009, 26 years after first being sent to Sing Sing, the chains were taken off Dewey in a courtroom and he was set free. He was 50 years old.

He had never even had a chance to learn to drive. But he started his new life with a smile. He got a job in Newburgh assisting people recently released from prison. After work, he'd walk across the street to a boxing gym where he could hit the heavy bag and train young fighters. The gym was the one place where he could keep fighting off what haunted him the most.

[+] Enlarge

Scott DuncanBozella intends to spend the rest of his life helping teenagers avoid the fate that befell him.

He was jailed because he'd put himself in the position to be jailed. He was jailed because as a teen he'd been out running the streets. He didn't want to see another kid in the same position. A part of Dewey longed to have one professional fight, yes. But helping get kids off the streets and into the gym was where he found peace.

Then the bills at the gym couldn't be paid and its doors were shut. Now, Dewey wants to open a gym with his own unique name on it. And maybe he'll be able to have that opportunity now that millions of people will get to know who he really is. They'll get to know Dewey Rader Bozella when he receives the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at The ESPYs on July 13.

It's impossible to know how promising the future is for Dewey, now that he can finally speak.

___________________________________________________

This is another of Dewey and I. I cannot over state my pride right now. I didn't even see this coming. I was just laying on my couch and watching the ESPY's and there he was and I was all of a sudden watching his story get told to millions of people in awesome fashion. I even found myself crying and standing up with my arms raised and clapping for him. Seriously! Are you kidding me?! This is crazy! ESPN should seriously consider news reporting. They showed a lot of class with this. God bless them or whoever made this decision to give this award to Dewey.

We're both very serious men, both visionaries in the innocence movement. As such, I'm sure Dewey would want you to continue to pray for our brothers and sisters still on the inside, so when you see this picture and read this, please say a prayer for them. Thanks.

"Judge not lest ye be judged"?

2011-07-11T13:11:00.000-05:00

The following article was provided on Crosswalk.com at http://www.crosswalk.com:80/news/judge-not-cases-child-murder.html?utm_source=Crosswalk_Weekly_Update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=07/11/2011&ps=0

"Judge Not" Cases of Child Murder?

Peter Beck, Professor, Writer
Tuesday, July 05, 2011

All too often some Christians will say that while they might disagree with something or someone, the biblical admonition to "judge not lest ye be judged" prohibits them from handing down a moral verdict on someone else's behavior. Please. That's not biblical. That's not ethical. That's not helpful. That's an out. That's the proverbial washing of one's hands. That's moral cowardice.

Setting aside the exegetical fact that the command to "judge not" is in the context of eternal judgment, and ignoring the fact that Jesus elsewhere in the same book describes the necessity of church discipline (which requires moral judgment) and displays righteous indignation (clearing of the temple), the argument just doesn't hold water. Are we as Christians to stand aside and assume that we are to have no say in matters of clear moral importance, matters that the Bible clearly addresses?

The recent "not guilty" verdict on Casey Anthony for the murder of her toddler, Caylee, has shocked the nation. Quite a different verdict was handed down in the trial of Kimberly Trenor. Remember that name? Horrifying details of the beating death of her child came out at her trial too. A plastic container was found in Galveston Bay in October 2007. In it were the decomposed remains of what police would come to call Baby Grace. It turns out the body was that of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers. The child had been clearly beaten to death, fractures to her skull causing the mortal wounds.

Her offense? She didn't say "please" and "yes, sir." For that, her mother and husband proceeded to spank the child with a leather belt. They held her head underwater. They pushed her face into a pillow. All the while, she begged for mercy, crying out to her mother, proclaiming her undying love.

The response? The daylong torture session continued. The abuse ended only after Royce Ziegler, Trenor's husband, threw the child across the room and against the wall several times. After allegedly attempting CPR, Ziegler handed the limp child to her mother who set the child down and watched her die, afraid to call for help, afraid of the consequences for her own action. They then purchased a plastic tub and lid. The placed Riley in her Wal-Mart tomb and set her to sea.

Should we just look the other way? Are we Christians to deny our outrage, to suppress our grief? To ignore the righteous indignation and anger that rightly wells up in the bosom of any normal mother or father? All because we're not supposed to judge one another? Give me a break.

These episodes sicken us to our core because we know in our hearts that murder is wrong. The Bible says so. The accounts of Caylee Anthony's and Baby Grace's murders anger us because sin angers God. Our response is part of our human nature. Made in the image of God, that which angers God angers us. As Christians our response should be all the stronger because we now have the Spirit of God living in us.

To look away from violent tragedy, since we cannot overlook it, is to deny the truthfulness and authority of biblical teaching. To claim that "it's not my place" to judge is to ignore Christ's mandate to love the little children, to care for the orphans, and to clothe the unloved.

The government and a body of jurors judged Kimberly Trenor and Royce Ziegler here on earth. Ultimately, God will judge them. Their eternal fate is in His hands. "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord." He can have it. It's His. We cannot exact revenge for Riley or Caylee. That job is entrusted to our government by God and our own submission.

However, I am not to sit idly by and pretend I'm not allowed to evaluate and judge the morality of the behavior that has taken place.

As a Christian, I am to proclaim as loudly as I can that the death of these children is a violation of the loving will of God. That requires judgment.

As a father, I am to teach my children such behavior is unacceptable. That requires judgment.

As a citizen, I am to do my part to make sure it never happens again. That requires judgment.

I don't have a choice. I don't have the convenience of saying "that's not my job" or "that's above my pay grade." I am to call sin "sin." I am to judge between right and wrong. If I don't I am guilty by implication. Remember Peter's accusation on the day of Pentecost: "This Jesus whom you handed over to be crucified (my paraphrase)." Those people in the crowd didn't bind Jesus. They didn't beat Jesus. They didn't crucify Jesus. They stood by and did nothing to stop it. And, they were found guilty by silent association.

"Judge not lest you be judged?" Please. It doesn't apply and it doesn't fly. I am angry. I am grieved. I am morally outraged. As a Christian, I'm supposed to be.

Peter Beck (Ph.D. Southern Seminary) is assistant professor of religion at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, South Carolina and a former Senior Pastor.

In response to this article, I wrote the following in the comment section. Please feel free to comment on here or reply directly on the article. As you'll notice, I left the reply link on my comment, which would redirect you to the Crosswalk.com site. Please feel free to comment here as well.

Josh Kezer · Works at Living the Dream / Beyond the Nightmare

You're walking a fine line, Crosswalk.com and Peter Beck. There are far too many people looking for a legitimized reason to hate anyone. Are you sure this is the right article to feature? Consider what I have to say and a question I have to ask.

I agree that "judge not" is taken out of context far too often, but in cases such as this, "judge not" may be appropriate, because of the coverage it's been given and the pre-judgement that was leveled in the media and determined in our society long before the evidence was heard in a court of law. Judging Anthony's character is fair game, but I've found that most Americans assume she's guilty because of her sexual promiscuity, her reaction to her daughter's death (which disturbs us for good reason), the fact that she didn't report her daughter missing (which is the true crux of the case) and her lies (which inflamed the previous points and brought doubt on her credibility). None of these, however, as badly as they reflect on her as a person, convicts of murder in this case. They could, but the facts surrounding each of these power points didn't stand up against the defenses examination.

Since you would still ask us to judge her righteously though, judge this - what if? What if she didn't kill her daughter? I'm not claiming that she didn't, not in this argument, though I could present that argument for consideration. I'm even willing to admit that I don't know. Just consider - "what if" she didn't kill her daughter? Don't bring Scott Peterson into this. Don't bring O.J. into this. Don't bring Kimberly Trenor into this. Let this "what if" stand on it's own and see where it leads.

As Christians, our judgement should not only be righteous but courageous and willing to fight against the tide when it's time. Can you say without a shadow of a doubt that this isn't one of those times? Are you certain that encouraging others to judge Casey Anthony guilty is your calling in this hour? I'm not.

I've been the subject of a homicide investigation. I was charged with 1st degree murder. I once faced the death sentence or life in prison. I was convicted of 2nd degree murder and sent to a maximum security prison with two 30 year consecutive sentences, which was later illegally restructured to a 60, wherein I was then placed under life sentence sanctions in the state of Missouri. 16 years after my arrest and 14 and a half years after I was sent to what was once deemed "The Bloodiest 47 acres in America" as a 19 year old kid, at the age of 34, I was completely exonerated and found innocent. I had maintained and upheld my innocence from the day I was arrested, but I was still "judged" guilty until I was finally "judged" innocent, wherein the Judge blasted those who had previously judged me. Bottom line. I had always been and will always be innocent. Since then, I've been featured on 48hrs Mystery's "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" and On the Case w/ Paula Zahn's "The Long Road Home" and my story's been told in newspapers around the world.

Watch yourselves. Judge not lest you be judged might be the course of action that we need to take. "What if" needs to be considered more often; if not in our country, in our churches. If anything, as reconcilers called of God (2 Corinthians 5:18), it's definitely something we need to be more sensitive to.

Our call isn't to stand with the lynch mobs. It's to reconcile.
Like · Reply ·

Something to ponder

2011-05-17T02:43:00.000-05:00

Throwing our hearts out in the open for the ones we love, making ourselves vulnerable for others is risky and often filled with hurt and pain, but I've been on the other side of the wall, wherein my heart was literally imprisoned and numb. I choose the hurt and pain. These past months have been filled with so much pain, but to feel is better than to not. I realize we shouldn't live by our feelings, but to feel is a blessing, a blessing to faithfully embrace.

What if God Had a Facebook Feed? Compiled & Edited by Crosswalk Editorial Staff

2011-05-16T11:49:00.000-05:00

This is funny.

Proverbs 17:22 (KJV). "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (The Message) "A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired."

Good work, Crosswalk.
_______________________________

If you could take a peek at God's Facebook feed, what would it look like? If His friends list were comprised of biblical characters, what would their status updates and check-ins say?

The staff at Crosswalk.com took at stab at it, and imagined up the following graphic, purely for entertainment purposes. Enjoy!

http://www.crosswalk.com/culture/humor/lists/what-if-bible-characters-had-facebook.html

Her name is Abby Jensen: A Special Prayer Request

2011-05-09T13:51:00.000-05:00

Dear Josh,

There is a little 5 yr old girl here in Oak Ridge who has been battling inoperable brain cancer since a diagnosis last August. Please pray for her, she needs a miracle. Her name is Abby Jensen.

In Christ, Patricia Burke
_________________

On it. I'll pray for a Happy Mother's Day for her mother as well, that every day would be happy and special for her as Abby's mother.
_________________

Thank you so much, Josh. In case you want to read any of her story, it is here:

http://whenabbysmiles.blogspot.com

She was featured on tv here right after her diagnosis. During it, her mother began to weep and Abby, who was 4 at the time, said to her mother, "Don't you dare cry. I'm gonna beat this monster in my head." She is quite a special person.

_________________

Please join me in praying for Abby and her mother.

My Facebook Status Conversations on Bin Laden's Death

2011-05-09T12:18:00.000-05:00

After much consideration, I've decided that the status conversations I had on Facebook on the topic of Bin Laden's assassination would be spiritually beneficial for my blog readers and followers. I thought about posting them immediately but refrained from it due to the volatile nature of the topic. That being said, I woke up this morning and realized that my previous thoughts on whether or not I should blog about this were entirely based on the misconception that I couldn't address the subject in a way that reached(s) out universally. This morning it occurred to me that I'd already done that on Facebook. I hope you feel the same way.

I'd like to thank Justine Finney Guyer for the question that started the tone of every conversation that followed on the topic. I realize that there's literally been millions of conversations regarding this historical event. I pray you see the uniqueness in these conversations and come to appreciate their human and healing value.

Justine Finney Guyer: Dear Josh, Am I supposed to be celebrating the fact that bin Laden has been killed? Go. May 1 at 9:50pm · Like ·

Josh Kezer: I think the answer is yes and no. It is what it is. Yes, because in the rules of war it's a victory, especially in the context of 9/11. No, because death is death and, as Satan's puppet in this theater of world war, Bin Laden is now in Hell and suffering damnation without remedy. Whether we like it or not, it is what it is ... and it's sobering and sad. May 1 at 10:27pm · Like · 1 person

Josh Kezer: Considering the ramifications of Osama Bin Laden, both his evil deeds and his damnation, we should be praying for compassion to rain in our nation right now, rather than celebrating the death of a lost soul. May 1 at 11:26pm · Like · Rhonda Hyslip, Nancy Roe, Emily Mora and 9 others like this.

Emily Edens: I concur x100!!! We should also be praying for the consequences that are going to come over the people in the middle east who may have had something to do with our troops finding him. There are scads of American supporters over there that might be targeted even more now. May 1 at 11:31pm · Like
Brittney Nettles: Amen. I felt the same but couldn't put it into words that well. May 1 at 11:32pm · Like
William Byrne: He killed thousands. May 1 at 11:34pm · Like
Josh Kezer: We can assume he did not know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He was Muslim. That being said, the Bible is clear and absolute on this. St. John 14:6. Thus, we can assume he went to hell. That is harsh, but it is very true. Heaven and hell are the consequence of our decision to receive or not receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Muslims do not, thus the consequence. As I said, it is what it is ... and it's sobering and sad. Still yet, I'm reminded of Proverbs 24:17. William, Easter just passed. Do not forget so quickly that we killed Christ. May 1 at 11:37pm · Like · 2 people
Jasmine Luna: I was thinking the same thing when I saw everyone celebrating that he is dead! May 1 at 11:38pm · Like
Emily Edens: A friend of mine brought up a very good point...why is it that we celebrate the death of a terrorist so freely but a fraction of the people celebrate Jesus dying for our sins? May 1 at 11:39pm · Like · 1 person
William Byrne: Thousands. Thousands were killed. May 1 at 11:39pm · Like
Tara Ray: Wow, your words are very powerful ,well put, and very true. I do agree that our nation does need a lot of prayer and compassion as well as the innocent over too. you right he did NOT know Jesus if he did he couldn't do what he did. May 1 at 11:46pm · Like
Amber Dawn: Your absolutely right Josh! Didn't think about it in that way til now! Is never right to celebrate the death of a lost soul. No matter what they do! It is not for us to judge, tis our Lord's. May 1 at 11:46pm · Like
Josh Kezer: William. Have you made your point as adamantly about Satan or Adam and Eve? Satan's fall has taken millions. Adam and Eve's sin sent sin throughout all of creation. Or do you think your sin less lethal than any others? I'm not saying that he didn't reap what he sowed, but don't forget your sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. Doesn't it disturb you a little how similar this celebration of a man's death resembles that of lynchings, hangings and public executions? I understand the closure, but it's getting ridiculous. People are lauding his suffering in hell. That's going too far, or do you not think that Jesus died for men such as him as well, despite their rejection of His saving grace? St. John 3:16. May 1 at 11:48pm · Like · 2 people
Dawn Holden: Josh, I'd like to thank you for often bringing the sobering truth of the matter to the table of many topics of discussions. Many are high-fiving over bin Laden's death; I'm guilty of it as well. But your comment brings it straight home: Jesus died for even men like him. Thank you for that. May 2 at 12:03am · Unlike · 3 people
Tonya Meuir: Sure this man was a horrible man and may have not known Jesus and probably done a lot of sinning in his time but didn't Jesus at one time say 'he who is without sin cast the first stone.' I for one am not about to throw a stone at anyone as I have my faults that need to be fixed even to this day. All I can say is I sure will be praying for his family that they won't retaliate against us for this and try to harm us again. God be with us. May 2 at 12:24am · Like
William Byrne: You are awesome Josh. You are the best! May 2 at 2:25am · Like
James Jackson: I, in corporate prayer, just prayed this very thing. Trying to explain the sense of relief and at the same time a sense of loss was tough. There are many more heading down the path of eternal separation from God. He would that none would perish without Him, but all come to repentance. Good word Josh. May 2 at 8:48am · Like

Josh Kezer: Comment posted earlier by Laurie Bobbitt. I deleted it until I was able to compose a responsible response. "This may start a conversation I don't have time to finish now, since I am leaving for work. However, I believe that the Scripture teaches that not a drop of the precious blood of our Savior was wasted. In other words, his blood was applied to all who are being saved. His blood is always effective. His blood is not wasted on those who reject Him. That is part of the Reformed Theology our church embraces. It isn't important whether we agree on that fine point of doctrine, but when a person like Bin Laden makes a decision to reject Christ, they have made their decision. Nothing that anyone could have done could change that. No "trying harder" or "praying harder". His heart was hardened like Pharaoh's. He gave himself over to the evil one to be used for his evil purposes. Do we mourn Judas? I don't waste my time doing that. It was prophesied what he would do - betray Jesus. That is not to say that we do not evangelize. Of course we do that. But God is the one who changes hearts, not us. And there are those who harden their hearts beyond the point of conversion. And while one little sin makes of worthy of death, Jesus taught that there are gradations of sin & punishment. Yes, our sin nailed Jesus to the cross. But to celebrate the destruction of evil is not wrong. I am sorry that he gave himself over to Satan. But since he did, I am glad he is gone. He not only caused evil to be perpetrated upon innocent souls, but he deceived many & led them astray. Jesus said the punishment of those who did that would be worse. This was not a lynching. Lynchings killed innocents. This man was willingly a tool of Satan. Adam & Eve realized they had been deceived & repented. Bin Laden did not repent to anyone's knowledge. In fact, from what I hear on the news, he refused to surrender when given the opportunity. Instead he grabbed a woman & used her as a human shield & got her killed as well. He was evil AND a coward. So while I am not revelling in the streets, I do not regret his death one twit. People are celebrating that justice was done. Justice is an essential part of God's character & being. If it were not so, Jesus would never had to come & die. Grace is free, but not cheap. He had to satisfy God's demand for justice. The Scripture teaches that ALL of God's creatures will glorify Him - one way or the other. We will either be a testament to His mercy by willingly submitting to His Lordship now, or a testament to His justice by receiving His eternal wrath. We cannot invent God the way we want Him to be. Let Scripture speak for itself. Respectfully & humbly yours.

Response:

If this is your approach and our church's approach, the approach is wrong. If you assume that God does not weep over lost souls, even souls such as Laden's and Judas and, even, Cain, your assumption is wrong. Your assumption would apply to the people that conspired to murder me in prison. Your assumption would apply to any one not saved. Your assumption is what caused the crusades, what legitimized the Calvinistic slaughters of those who believed in free will and what empowered the wars of history between Catholicism and Protestants. I know this is not the motivation of your assumption or portions of the church, but it is what it is. I know you. I believe you have a good heart. This is the time to show it.

People in this country have plenty of reason to be angry and hateful. It is the churches responsibility to minister the gospel of peace, the gospel of reconciliation. Ephesians 6:15. Romans 10:15. 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. Proverbs 14:9. You're right about one thing. None of Christ's blood was shed in vain or wasted. What that means though is not for us to strictly define, unless we're willing to accept that His love for humanity is so amazing that He even died for His enemies, that He even died for those that He knew would ultimately reject Him. Luke 23:34. Romans 5:6. And I seem to remember Pastor Phil preaching on the gospel of peace recently, so I'm not so sure his theology is as you would suppose.

The argument isn't whether or not Laden reaped what he sowed. We can agree on that. It's that we shouldn't celebrate a man's damnation. Proverbs 24:17

The bottom line is that scripture does speak for itself. St. John 3:16. 1 Timothy 2:4. 2 Peter 3:9. St. Matthew 5:44. As christians and the church, it's not our call to defend Reformed Theology or any denominations theology. It's our call to defend the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His entire word, i.e. the Bible. May 2 at 10:57am · Like · 1 person

Josh Kezer: Some verses to consider. Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; MIcah 7:18. May 2 at 11:54am

Josh Kezer: I pray the entire church gets it like this and wraps their heart around this truth, especially in this hour. " ... Many are high-fiving over Bin Laden's death; I'm guilty of it as well. But your comment brings it straight home: Jesus died for even men like him." Dawn Holden. May 2 at 12:09am · Like · Anne 'Anu' Beshears, Rhonda Hyslip, James McIntyre Cates and 4 others like this.

Francine Bockmon-Ortiz: I think it is celebrating the end of his evilness, not so much his death. I am sure nobody wishes death on anyone. May 2 at 12:26am · Like
James McIntyre Cates: I'd rather seen him captured alive! May 2 at 12:32am · Unlike · 2 people

Josh Kezer: "The God I know, the same one who created heaven and extended grace, also made other provisions not so comfortable. Hell was his creation, not mine. Besides, I don't know Osama's spiritual condition. Hopefully, he met Christ before he died." Russ W. Duker. May 2 at 12:59am · Like · Nicki Burns-Nelson, Jill Schauwecker Sartain and 2 others like this.

Rhonda Hyslip: That is true Forgiveness and Grace! May 2 at 1:00am · Unlike · 1 person

Josh Kezer: Bin Laden's death is not a tragedy. His death was earned and deserved. I mourn not his death or the way in which he was killed. I mourn his damnation, as I mourn the damnation of all souls that pass without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. May 2 at 11:18pm · Like · Terrence Payne, Nicki Burns-Nelson, Kassie Cannon and 8 others like this.

William Byrne: I mourn his victims. May 2 at 11:19pm · Like
Josh Kezer: As you should. But challenge your soul to mourn him as well. That may be difficult, but it is nonetheless the challenge that forgiving the "unforgivable" offers up to us. Mourn not his death. Mourn the deaths of his victims. Mourn, however, his damnation, wherein is no repentance or reprieve. And mourn for yourself. Set your eyes on Jesus. Then move on, yet keep your eyes on Jesus. Let Laden remain where he is - in the past, and glorify Jesus where He is - ever present. May 2 at 11:25pm · Like · 4 people
Lisa Trunzo: My sister in law worked in Manhattan. She watched the bodies fall from the towers, and she and her husband lost many friends that day. Bin Laden's was a life dedicated to evil and destruction of life...and he met the result of the path he chose... May 3 at 6:23am · Like · 1 person
Josh Kezer: I agree, Lisa. He chose his end. He earned it. I'm not advocating sympathy for his outcome. I'm not a death row advocate, for obvious reasons, but his death and damnation were his choice. That being said, you minister to incarcerated men. You're a jail house preacher. You've served in Teen Challenge. Many of them have suffered extraordinary abuses. Many of them have raged out of vengeance and the violation of their "rights". What would you tell them about their past and/or cases? Please. Share your thoughts here. May 3 at 10:00am · Like
Lisa Trunzo: I tell them the Lord has always been with them, His heart breaking at their pain and the damage they have inflicted, even though they walked through this world with their backs to Him...refusing His love. At the heart of violence is anger, at the heart of anger is pain, at the heart of pain is rejection. The pain caused by rejection by our parents or our world is nothing compared to the Lord's pain by our turning away from Him. We can only heal through forgiveness, and by taking our eyes off of ourselves and our own injustice. I cannot change those things which harmed me in my childhood, but I can lay them at His feet and continue to walk onward. Pharaoh's heart was hardened unto death. We have a choice. I also tell them a story about a man I know named Joshua Kezer. May 3 at 10:55am · Like · 1 person
Josh Kezer: Now consider this. These are your words, with a twist. - I tell them the Lord has always been with Bin Laden, His heart breaking at Bin Laden's pain and the damage Bin Laden has inflicted, even though he walked through this world with his back to Him...refusing His love. At the heart of violence is anger, at the heart of anger is pain, at the heart of pain is rejection. The pain caused by rejection by our parents or our world is nothing compared to the Lord's pain by our turning away from Him. We can only heal through forgiveness, and by taking our eyes off of ourselves and our own injustice. I cannot change those things which harmed me in my childhood, but I can lay them at His feet and continue to walk onward. Bin Laden's heart was hardened unto death. We have a choice. I also tell them a story about a man I know named Joshua Kezer. - Interesting. In light of your previous comment, made roughly 5 hours ago, on this status thread, how does this edit make you feel? ... how does it challenge your Christian heart? You're allowed more than one answer. May 3 at 11:38am · Like
Lisa Trunzo: I would rejoice that such as he could come to Christ and be saved and bring glory to the Father. But I cannot judge those who lost those they loved to this man's evil...for being unable to forgive as I could. I cannot begin to fathom the depths of their agony. I cannot even pretend to. But I would pray that as the Lord heals their pain, they would one day know the peace of forgiving. As Corrie ten Boom once said (in my words): when we do not have the strength to forgive, we need simply to stretch out our hand in obedience to the Lord...and He will give us the strength. May 4 at 6:33am · Unlike · 1 person
Josh Kezer: Well said. Very well said. May 4 at 9:31am · Like

Josh Kezer: Bin Laden's passing appears to be offering us an opportunity - to forgive the "unforgivable", to love the "unlovable", to move past the past and to display grace in the face of our shared right to hate, to let Laden remain where he is - in the past, and glorify Jesus where He is - ever present. Laden is dead. Jesus is alive. May 3 at 10:04am · Like · Mike Whisker, Jennifer Gardner, Nancy Roe and 5 others like this.

Brett Barton: Good stuff Josh. May 3 at 10:30am · Like
Mariloli Ramírez: Great thinking!!!! May 3 at 11:16am · Like
Terrence Payne: AMEN JOSH! May 3 at 12:36pm · Like

The Glorious Power of the Resurrection by Michael Craven

2011-04-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

There is no other issue, no other thought more demanding of our attention than that of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. On these facts—and most especially the resurrection—rest the whole Christian faith, mission, and message.

The apostle Paul wrote that if Jesus was not raised from the dead then our “faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14), in fact “futile” (v. 17), and we are without hope in both life and death. Without the resurrection, there would be no hope of deliverance from our fallen state. Humanity would remain forever alienated from God. People could never find true peace with themselves or others; we would be left to stumble through this life bound by our fears and insecurities. Society and nature—all of creation—would remain under the power of injustice, evil, greed, envy, and decay.

Thankfully we who know Christ can proclaim with confidence that “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!” However, the resurrection is not just a personal matter but also the redemptive act of God that touches the whole world! The apostle Paul wrote:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:18–23, NIV 2011).

Paul reminds us that Christ’s resurrection witnesses to us that if we place our trust in him, we, too, will experience resurrection power in our own lives—resurrection from death in every form, including our own sin and the sins of others such as betrayals and broken relationships. But Jesus’ resurrection is not for us alone. It is as Paul so clearly states, a resurrection of all creation, including the corrupted ideologies, institutions, structures, and systems within society that oppress and hinder God’s whole creation from being what it and we were designed to be.

Because of the resurrection, we are more than conquerors at any work to which God may call us, because the risen Christ is in the business of redeeming all of the created order!

You and I, as those empowered by the redeeming power of Christ who is alive and reigns at the right hand of the Father do not bring forth the kingdom of God. This is the work of Christ alone, whose reign will only be fully realized by God’s final intervention in human history. But we are Christ’s body—servants of Almighty God—who are called to be a sign and foretaste of his kingdom, peacemakers bringing shalom to every relationship and to every sphere of life and creation!

If we commit ourselves to work for shalom—seeking first his kingdom—driven by God’s vision for people and the world, we will transform dark places with the light of Christ and the world will see evidence that Christ is alive! That is the Great Commission to which we have been called. Easter reminds us of the great privilege we have been given as we surrender our lives to follow the resurrected Jesus into his world, seeking its transformation into God’s shalomcommunity.

I pray you take time to stop and reflect throughout this week—be reminded of your first love and his kingdom, which you are to seek first as you press into this world bearing witness to the glorious power of the resurrection!

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EASTER: Part One by Pastor Phil Schaefer (4/20/2011)

2011-04-21T00:18:00.003-05:00

I bumped into a fellow pastor and old friend, Bill Yarborough, yesterday. Bill and I have known each other for nearly 20 years, first as a missionary in Mexico and later through his moving to St. Louis. Bill asked me, "Are you preparing for Easter? It's only the single most significant event in the history of all creation." And being my friend, he added, "Don't blow it."

I was in fact preparing for Easter, and as I thought about the possibility of 'blowing it' I thought, the only way one could blow Easter is by treating it like any other day. I could blow it by being so consumed with my work week that I don't have time to think about Easter. I could blow it by treating this weekend like it was any other weekend - run errands, attend soccer games, mow the lawn, go to church, take a nap on Sunday...whatever your routine is.

So, here is the purpose of this e-mail: don't let Easter pass you by. Don't let this world so consume your mind and energy and time that you don't have time to think about what Easter is all about. Don't just leave it to the guys who put together the Sunday service to give you an Easter buzz. Don't just take Easter as another thing on your 'to do' list and check it off. Busy-ness, distractions, lack of energy, and not feeling spiritual are this world's means to get our attention off Easter and on to the things of this life. Don't go there!

Make some time. Carve out an hour (or half-hour) today, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Read, re-read and meditate on the death and resurrection of our Savior, Lord, and God. Even if you find your mind unsettled as you make some time, I promise that you will get a benefit and that the Holy Spirit will honor and use your few hours of prayer and meditation.

On the night that He was betrayed Jesus prayed while his disciples slept - too full from their meal, too unaware of the significance of that moment. The single most significant event in all of creation history and they slept. They slept because they did not know. I confess, I've been busy and distracted these days. I have been trying to get things together for Easter, for company, for home improvements, for lawn care. But more important than my schedule, I am asking myself if I am willing to spend time with the Lord, to commune and meditate on Christianity's most significant message: "He is risen just as he said."

We are gathering for prayer and worship and reflection and communion on Friday evening from 7:00-9:00. That is an excellent time to be with the Lord. That time will be good for your soul. There will be child care for those who need it. But don't just do that one thing. Make an hour today and tomorrow. Trade babysitting with a friend. Sit in your car during your lunch hour and pray and read. Write down your thoughts - whatever they may be. Those thoughts may seem relevant or completely irrelevant, but God can take the least thing and bring it to life.

Don't let Easter pass you by.

Soli Deo Gloria

(to God alone be glory)

Pastor Phil

Christian Fellowship Church

4600 Christian Fellowship Road

Columbia, MO 65203

573-445-8561

www.christianfellowship.com office@christianfellowship.com

Lyme Disease/Fear Disease

2011-04-03T10:25:00.006-05:00

"Lyme disease mimics." Celeste B. O'Neill.

http://www.truthaboutlymedisease.com/

Whereas the proceeding and following quotes were posted by Celeste on Facebook to address an actual disease, I thought it as interesting, maybe more so, that many of us have gone through a similar, more common, experience of torment, a mental/spiritual equivalent of Lyme disease's mental/physical. Fear. Fear disease mimics.

"And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve." 2 Corinthians 11:14,15

"What revelations there will be in the day of judgment, when all impostors shall be unmasked, and when all hypocrites and deceivers shall be seen in their true colors! And how desirable is it that there should be such a day to disclose all beings in their true character, and forever to remove imposture and delusion from the universe!" Barnes' Notes on the Bible.

Lyme Disease/Fear Disease

Isaiah 41:10; Romans 15:33; 16:20; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Hebrews 13:20, 21.

___________________________________________________________________________

It's a pretender. It sends signals to the brain convincing it that it is this disease and that disease. It runs in a cycle that suffocates the brain causing the body to lose functions at various times. It sneaks in and destroys the cells that are needed to provide oxygen to the brain.

The brain is the central nervous system of the body, without all the nerves working together in harmony the way that God intended, it sends out confusion to the different organs.

It mocks the victims, it ridicules them and at times locks them down mimicing paralysis to prevent the victims from being able to move. It mimics the deaf and mute symptoms, it fills the eyesight with a slow moving cloud of darkness and it does not stop there. It renders it's victims completely helpless, robbing them of their jobs, their family, their friends, their lives, eventually killing the entire body and destroying all hope of any kind of healing.

It stops right here!, right now! in the Name of Jesus. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it ABUNDANTLY". St. John 10:10.

Celeste B. O'Neill

__________________________________________________________________________

"Don't be deceived, mislead and lead astray, dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:16, 17

"For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you (as having received and accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior) have received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father." Romans 8:15

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear;but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7

Trip Lee - Yours To Own, featuring Jimmy Needham

2011-04-02T00:58:00.009-05:00

Trip Lee ft Jimmy Needham "Yours To Own" Lyrics:

Verse 1:
Sometimes I sit and reflect on the life I'm leadin
It's goin so fast it is like I'm speedin
Sometimes I wake up and it's like I'm dreamin
Already 22? 16 was last weekend
Been a crazy year, dad died I'm grievin
Man I really miss him, I wish he was still breathin
Two days later got a wife I'm cleavin
Couple weddin pics caught your boy straight cheezin
Now tell me how I'm 'pposed to fight, can your boy stay firm?
In this life when the joys and the pains take turns
You're at work in our world where some things they burn
You're not honoured when your boy can't learn
How I must respond to Your works and the cards that You deal me
Aware of my frailty I'm beggin You to help me
How can I be a steward actin' healthy
I know Your grace won't fail me

Chorus
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done

Verse 2:
You placed me in the city that I'm in for a reason
Sent folks in my life that was friends for a season
Some exposed my flaws and my sin it wasn't pleasin
And others fell from the faith n was leavin
If I respond wrong I'm dishonorin' Your grace
And I'm kind of just a product of my mind and not the faith
But You are my Father the refiner full of grace
And You're the designer of my time and in my place
I could take the easy route and follow all the trends
Of my brothers and my sisters, pastors and my friends
It probably wouldn't lead to a disaster in the end
But I can't be followin the path You givin them
Yup, you made me me, with my own set of gifts
So I won't settle for less You bless You never miss miss
I'll be steward who You made me, steward where You place me
And I pray that You use me like crazy

Chorus:
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done

Verse 3:
You send the sun and the rain on Your servant, Lord
Lord, when You send them my way, I be respondin the right way
You move and orchestrate the things in my life for good
I wanna use em in a way that shows em how Your grace acts
You been consistent every minute like I knew You would
I'm so in love with Your truths, I wanna trust You and move
I feel my confidence is high, Your providence for You I'm good good good
I've got no worries at all since I heard that You call

All of my life is Yours to own (It's Yours to own Lord), You orchestrate it all along (all along)
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done (yea)
All of my life is Yours to own (it's all Yours), You orchestrate it all along (it's all Yours)
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done
All of my life is Yours to own, You orchestrate it all along
And if my life is a cup come fill it up, so the whole world can see what You've done

So the whole world, so the whole world, so the whole world can see what You've done
So the whole world, so the whole world, so the whole world can see what You've done

Trip Lee - Apathy

2011-04-02T00:50:00.001-05:00

Bebo Norman - Nothing without You W/Lyrics

2011-03-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

48 Hours Mystery: The Lost Night, The Ryan Ferguson Story - 48 Hours - CBS News

2011-03-27T01:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360864n&tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesArea.0

This man's a personal friend of mine. I did time with him. I even have a photo of the two of us together on the inside, sitting on the bookshelf in my living room. His parents are friends of mine as well. Please. Click this link. Watch this show. I'm convinced that's he's innocent. PLEASE!!!!! Voice your support for him!!!!!

A Tribute to Rich Mullins

2011-03-24T04:11:00.000-05:00

"I believe in God the Father

Almighty Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth

And in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son our Lord

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit

Born of the virgin Mary

Suffered under Pontius Pilate

He was crucified and dead and buried

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am

I did not make it no it is making me

It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man

I believe that He who suffered was crucified buried and dead

He descended into hell and on the third day rose again

He ascended into Heaven where He sits at God's mighty right hand

I believe that He's returning

To judge the quick and the dead of the sons of men

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am

I did not make it no it is making me

It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man

I believe it I believe it

I believe it

I believe it I believe it

I believe in God the Father

Almighty Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth

And in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son our Lord

I believe in the Holy Spirit

One Holy Church

The communion of Saints

The forgiveness of sin

I believe in the resurrection

I believe in a life that never ends

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am

I did not make it no it is making me

I said I did not make it no it is making me

It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man

I believe it I believe

I believe it I believe it

I believe it" Rich Mullins Creed

__________________________________________________________________

Richard Wayne Mullins

October 21, 1955 - September 19, 1997

"There was always something tragic about Rich Mullins. Maybe it was the ever present hint of sadness in his eyes, which spoke of his personal battle with depression; a battle he only recently had found courage to admit publicly. Maybe it was the bold, brash things he said to unsettle our concrete theologies and theories about God. Maybe it was the vulnerability with which he openly championed celibacy and monasticism.

After all, "normal" American Christians don't try to mold themselves into monks. Rich's referral to this experiment as "The Kid Brothers of Saint Frank" didn't quite take the edge off the sword with humor, as much as he might have thought. The truth is, he made a lot of us uncomfortable in our downy faith nests.

He left you no middle ground. You either loved him passionately or disliked him heartily because he "rubbed you the wrong way." Flying in the face of expected Christian norms of dress and lifestyle, he undeniably challenged all he encountered." ... by Martia Wilson

___________________________________________

Empty and Beautiful - Matt Maher

2011-03-23T12:46:00.002-05:00

Prayer Request

2011-03-21T10:35:00.002-05:00

My girlfriend's grandfather is going in for surgery today (California time) to have a pancreatic cancer spot removed and others biopsied. He's in his 70's. She's under a lot of stress. Her family's worried. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and are willing to intercede [pray] with us, please pray for his healing and their peace. Thank you.

"That is, that I [and her family] may be comforted together with you by the mutual [community and church] faith both of you and I [us]." Romans 1:12

Christ is Risen - Matt Maher

2011-03-17T14:48:00.002-05:00

Today is St. Patrick's Day. This is “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”

2011-03-17T14:16:00.004-05:00

"During the 19th century, a 10th century manuscript translation in Dublin included a hymn called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” Though it was impossible to tell if Patrick actually wrote the hymn, he still received credit for it." Stanley Ward

“St. Patrick’s Breastplate” was a protective prayer. Celtic monks used it to start their day. In my search for this prayer, Youtube and other sources have offered differing renditions. Here is one. Enjoy.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of the holy virgin,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to extend, go and set before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the calm, Christ in the tumult,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.
(Father, Holy Spirit, Christ,
my only hope, my fondest desire,
my salvation.)

Allow me to encourage you to make an effort to remember Saint Patrick [Patricius], as his legacy deserves. As is your opportunity, worship Christ with utmost devotion and selfless service. Love others with the same love wherein Christ has loved you and be an example of His grace and saving power. Opportunities will arise today. Take them.

Arise Today

"You Are The Glory of God" by Unnamed Source

2011-03-15T18:25:00.001-05:00

"You are not an animal. You are the glory of God. You are not a pervert. You are the glory of God. You are not an addict. You are the glory of God. You are not a victim. You are the glory of God. You are not a fool. You are the glory of God.

Psalm 51; Philippians 2:13

We live in a culture of hook up, shack up, break up. Men are marrying later and staying married shorter than ever. The average man is not a man but just a boy who can shave. Many Christian men are enslaved to pornographic lust and live in silent shame, which hinders their growth in Christ and service in ministry.

We are told that God’s men are the image and glory of God shining forth into a perverted and dark world. You need to memorize these words, “(I am) the image and glory of God.” The next time you are out hunting or camping and sitting around a fire, take a long stick and put one end of it in the fire. When that end gets hot and glowing red from glorying in the fire until its heat and light are transferred to it, take it out and look at it. Remind yourself that when the Bible says you are the glory of God, it means that you are like that stick and supposed to draw near to the pure and powerful God who is your Father and radiate His heat and light to the world.

Jesus, who radiated the Father’s glory perfectly, has made it possible for you to be the glory of God. Jesus your King, Warrior, and Lord hung upon His cross in your place to atone for all of your sins, including sexual perversion. If you repent of your sin, Jesus will forgive you for it and cleanse you from it, thereby taking away your guilt, shame, defeat, and filth (1 John 1:9; Zechariah 3:1–10).

As God’s man, you will then be able to rise above your lusts, but not by works or self-willed deprivation. Instead, God’s grace that alone saves you will also empower you to live life with Jesus and like Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-10; Proverbs 3:5-7). As Paul says in Titus 2:11–12, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”

This grace enables us not merely to hide our sin, diminish our sin, justify our sin, or accept it as inevitable. Rather, God’s grace enables us to put to death our sin so that we live dead to sin and alive to Christ where we were previously alive to sin and dead to Christ (Romans 6; 8:1-16; 1 John 1:5-7,9; 2:1-2)."

(Previously shared on Facebook)

____________________________________________

Josh,

Thank you for sharing about sexual issues in the church. Porn is the silent killer of many godly men. Too many pastors and elders hide their addiction from shame. More people need to confront this issue and men/women in Christ need to hold their brothers and sisters accountable. We need to love each other enough to fight to keep each other pure! ♥

By the way, jail ministry has been an amazing blessing. I was allowed to lead last week for the first time and did an expository teaching on Rahab and the Lord's power to transform. His presence was so strong! It has been a life-changing experience for me.

Praying for you in your new relationship and appreciate your openness in sharing your journey.

Shalom ~ Lisa

A Prayer Request for Kiyoko

2011-03-14T13:25:00.000-05:00

Today we should know whether or not the grandfather of someone very important to me will surgically have a cancerous tumor removed from his pancreas or if he will have to have chemotherapy due to a possible and unfortunate spread of the cancer.

It's been a week since the cancer was discovered. Pray it's resolved soon. Pray for the wisdom of his physicians. And pray for his family's peace. Thank you.

Note. The granddaughter loves her grandfather like a father and will have no mention of his passing. She wants him to live. Period. She's putting her foot down and wants him to live. So, I'm asking you to pray in agreement with her and to encourage her position.

And pray for her grandmother as well, as she's native to Japan, speaks very little English, cannot drive, and has relied on her husband for everything throughout the duration of their marriage. She needs him.

In addition, I'm specifically requesting prayer for the granddaughter's peace. Kiyoko needs our prayers. Her heart has been in agony since this started last week. She's gotten very little sleep, has often been overwhelmed to the point of tears and needs some relief. She's done as well as her heart and faith have allowed. Now, she needs our help.

Again, thank you.

A Prayer Request for a Family and a Nation 家族と国家のための祈りのリクエスト

2011-03-11T14:24:00.006-06:00

Her grandfather's Black Irish. He's in need of prayer for healing, as he's been diagnosed, earlier this week, with pancreatic cancer. He's been hospitalized for days now.

Her grandmother's Japanese. As you may know, Japan was just hit with a massive earthquake and multiple tsunamis. Her husband's fighting for his life. Her homeland, and family, in Japan have been traumatized. She needs our prayers.

My girlfriend and her family live on the West Coast in California, wherein more tsunamis are expected to hit. She and most of her family live inland about an hour and a half in Northern Cal. There's still some concern though. Tsunamis are expected to hit the entire West Coast.

She has a relative, in the military, based on the coast of Southern Cal that she's concerned for, a relative, in the military, based in Okinawa, family members 2 hours inland off the coast of Tokyo, an aunt and extended family in Hawaii. Hawaii has been hit by tsunamis as well.

And yet ... before the quake, the immediate concern for her family was her grandfather and his health. She loves him. Her grandmother loves him. He's the man in their lives that's meant the most. He's her father figure and grandmother's care giver. Prior to the quake that hit the nation of Japan, cancer hit their family.

I'm asking. Pray for the peace of our Lord and His compassion to reign over my girlfriend, her family and Japan. Pray for healing. And pray for restoration. Stand in faith with me. Stand in the gap with me. Trust Jesus with me.

Jesus is alive. He's Lord of all and our deliverer. He's our healer. He's our reconciliation and victor. He's our salvation and protector. Jesus is ...

Some are saying we shouldn't pray. They think it's best to leave our hopes in men. Others are crying out for prayer in this hour of need and desire our compassion, love and faith in Jesus Christ our Savior and Ever Present Help to help them through this trying time.

I say we pray. I'm asking you to pray. And when you're done praying, pray some more. Only then, pray a little more ... and then get off your knees and help someone.

It's been a trial of faith for my girlfriend and her family. Some of them believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Others don't. They ALL need our prayers and support.

Everyone in Japan and in my girlfriend's family needs our prayers.

From Jesus, Through Kris

2011-03-08T00:15:00.003-06:00

Dear Josh, March 5th 2011

Hey. Well, I had hoped to send you the video about what I did this evening but because it was on a military base in the Middle East, we cannot release the video publicly. So, I will tell you what happened in a land far, far away. Little did you know, you were here in spirit, mind and heart. What could I possibly mean?

A large group of men and women were leaving for Afghanistan and I was asked to give a motivational speech after two celebrities performed. Many of the people here know me and my struggle as a breast cancer survivor among other things. Many of my close friends here wanted to inspire these folks since many were afraid. Two other people spoke (a former servicemen who is now a contractor) and a triage nurse from the field. I wanted to give them faith and a peace of mind somehow.

I was online recently and saw an article about you and how you were on Youtube speaking with such a strong heart and conviction. Seeing you speak motivated me and ... I cried. ... Then I knew what I could do.

Before these men and women, contractors, other military and friends, I spoke about strength. I talked about faith, believing in their roles as our beloved protectors and how they were not alone as they battled for our freedom. I spoke of other people who, at their most heartbreaking point, found a light at the end of the tunnel. On a giant screen above, I had cued a few people who were not celebrities or earth shattering people but they were inspirations to us all. I saved your story for last and played a few of your moments on Youtube as segments and told your story to a hushed audience.

"I mashed clips from 48hrs Mystery, some of the youtube links posted by the semissourian and parts of another clip. I also read parts of some of your blog. What stunned most was the fact that after you were mistreated in the system and surely would have been broken, your faith gave you strength to carry on. Your ability to overcome and also help others to find their own justice when the system failed them was important to see that out of any situation, a resolution can be found. It may take time and your faith may be tested until you feel you might break but God will see you through. These words gave comfort to those going to war.

Hearing your voice with such emapthy for the incarcerated and abused in the system touched so many." Follow up message from Kris

I saw tears pouring forth and people's lives were changing because of our stories and our faith!

My heart swelled and I spoke with the word of God to see these people on their way to places we see in nightmares. Chances were some would not cross our path again and I would have to tag their coffin in shipping to the states. However, these men and women stood up, clapped and cheered. I truly believe knowing perfect strangers would pray for them and keep them close in our hearts helped a little bit and enclosed them in a hug before they left.

If you ever believe your story is not heard or falls on deaf ears, please know that is not the case. I have always expressed how your story empowered me during treatment and now as I know my remission status is shaky and probably am expecting more chemo and radiation. I look to you and what you endured. I am given a more resilient faith. You helped those men and women. They found courage, strength, hope and a faith that things can turn into something beneficial. We witnessed to people's hearts and I saw forty people walk into the chapel to be saved, Josh. Your words and the others who spoke reached out to comfort them. We will see those people in heaven again one day.

The chaplain is going to release a thank you card from some of those lives you touched and I will forward it to you so you can see in their words how you touched them. I am so proud to know someone like you. I know we have never met and you do not know me and we do not keep in touch that often but when I witness to people, your name is never far from my lips. I wish I could express how you have touched my life and others. I guess this email will have to suffice for now.

I saw that someone captured your heart and I wanted to say congratulations. She is one lucky girl. I know you have requested prayer for your situation and it is on my daily scriptures and prayer list.

Keep an eye out for cards from the military. I will send them personally because I didn't want to give out your mailing address. I hope this finds you well, Josh.

Sending love and prayers.

~ Kris

"My mailing address can be given to any American soldier or group of American soldiers any time. I'm proud of the US Military." Message from myself to Kris

"Per your request, I will forward your address to the chaplain and anyone else interested in contacting you personally. I just called them and requested that all mail be forwarded to you. If I am contacted personally by one the military, I will also forward them your contact information."

"I will be there to send anyone your way and forward anything anyone wants to send to you personally that comes to me. If you have a booking agent or anyone that can have you do talks for the military, you should really consider it. I know it would help some of these precious folks who have lost their faith after fighting up there. We are now getting more troops in to serve on the outskirts of Libya, have stationed people in Egypt and Kuwait serves as the hub for all military before their final destinations and back to the states. I see so many broken hearts and so much ... more. Without saying too much, they need pillars of strength to get through everything happening."

The Power To Get In, The Power To Get Out! by Tim Ross (a personal friend and brother in the Lord)

2011-03-07T21:31:00.001-06:00

"Last year I preached a message that bears the same name as this blog. I was going through some of the messages that the Holy Spirit has given me and this one truly blesses me every time. The simple revelation that God can both get in to any situation and get us out of any situation builds faith and demolishes fear.

The revelation came through two fundamental beliefs of every Christian: 1. The virgin birth of Jesus. 2. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

In a nutshell, we believe that God both impregnated a virgin and resurrected a dead body. We believe that wholeheartedly. No pictures, no video footage. The Holy Spirit (the true Witness to these events) makes us witnesses by living His life through us. We become bold enough to testify that Jesus is Lord. Bold enough to declare that He was born of a virgin, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. We believe this. We preach this. We teach this.

Yet, when it comes to many of our own situations, we forget this. We forget the true revelation of why we even believe what we believe. We testify of Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection from the dead not only to declare His power but also to display His power in us! If we believe that God could get IN to a virgin’s womb, how can we not believe that God can get in to our marriages, our finances, our children, our issues? If we believe that God could get Jesus OUT of a tomb, how can we not believe that God can get us out of our depression, addictions, afflictions, positions (I didn’t try to make those rhyme).

I encourage you to believe for your situation what you believe about Jesus’ situation. That God truly has The Power To Get In and The Power To Get Out! Enjoy."

http://timross.org/blog/2011/02/the-power-to-get-in-the-power-to-get-out/

Tim Ross: I Am Second Testimony

2011-03-07T21:28:00.002-06:00

3 things

2011-03-05T10:24:00.000-06:00

‎3 things are required. 1) A love for His word, the full measure of it. 2) A love for the message of the Cross and Resurrection. and 3) A heart that desires Him for the [my] self and equally for others.

I'm so madly in love with Jesus, His love for me and His love for others. Are you?

JJ Heller - What Love Really Means (Official Music Video)

2011-03-03T11:52:00.000-06:00

Jesus, The Bear, Humanity and Divine Forgiveness

2011-02-26T21:23:00.012-06:00

"I think it's meaningful but I dont think everyone will understand it. I think the bear represents humanity and what we did and still do to Jesus." Kiyoko Ellison

"He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth." Isaiah 53:7

Had He spoken, His judges would have misunderstood His words. His message didn't fit their view of reality. They couldn't see beyond their personal wants and their earthly existence. From their finite perspective, His meekness looked like weakness. His submission seemed like passivity.

But the Lamb was strong, not weak, when He stood silent before His accusers. He modeled strength when He chose obedience instead of resistance. His meekness demonstrates, not passivity, but a resilient power to endure any trial by trustful surrender to the will of God [the Father].

They put Him to death ... or so they thought. In reality, His accusers had no power to take His life. The man they so arrogantly taunted was the eternal King, the Creator of the universe! Nothing would, and nothing could, happen apart from His sovereign will and eternal plan.

That vast eternal plan is infinitely greater than all our human dreams and plots. It far exceeds our finite human comprehension. Yet, wonder of wonders, it includes an unending love relationship between God and those who would trust Him.

For even before the beginning of time, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8)" ... chose to enter our world ... (and) while living among us as man, chose to submit to those who scornfully accused and tormented their own Maker and Lord, chose to submit to us.

"He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

Those words were written centuries before His bloodied, tortured body hung on the cross. Throbbing with pain, He fulfilled that amazing prophecy. "He poured out Himself to death (Isaiah 53:12)", a death that bought our pardon, freed us from bondage to sin and offered up His holy, abundant, never ending life to all who would believe.

Jesus says, “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.” Matthew 11:28-30

Do you believe that? Are you willing to endure discomfort, deprivation and pain ... in order to share His joy and glory forever?

Paul did. Paul was. "What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ," he wrote to his precious friends [the church] in Philippi. "I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death...." Philippians 3:7-10

Remember the Lamb's path of triumph: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain." John 12:24. Through the fellowship of His suffering, we are "conformed to His death." When we surrender our finite lives into His caring hands, He fills us with His victorious life that will never die.

Behold the reigning Lamb: Crowned the King of Kings, the Lamb now reigns from His heavenly throne ... and receives praise.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

to receive power and riches and wisdom and might

and honor and glory and blessing...

forever and ever. Amen."

Revelation 5:12

_______________________________________________________________

Beloved Lamb,

I choose to share in your death and resurrection. I rejoice in the amazing reality that "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." So take my life. Mold me and use me for Your purposes. Let your will, not mine, be done, even when my flesh screams a silent protest to your good and perfect will.

I know that these moments of earthly pain are producing "an eternal weight of glory" that far exceeds both temporary suffering and my limited understanding, even "while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Thank you, Jesus, my precious Shepherd, glorious King and eternal Lamb.... Please prompt and enable my heart to worship you every hour forever.

_________________________________________________________________

"Blessing and honor and glory and power

Be to Him who sits on the throne,

And to the Lamb, forever and ever!"

Revelation 5:13

Credits: Picture, Jim Woodring http://jimwoodring.blogspot.com/2008/01/jesus-and-bear.html. Article, http://www.crossroad.to/Victory/names/lamb.html.

Audrey Assad - Show Me

2011-02-25T12:57:00.000-06:00

You could plant me like a tree beside a river
You could tangle me in soil and let my roots run wild
And I would blossom like a flower in the desert
But for now just let me cry

You could raise me like a banner in a battle
Put victory like a fire behind my shining eyes
And I would drift like falling snow over the embers
But for now just let me lie

Bind up these broken bones
Mercy bend and breathe me back to life
But not before You show me how to die

Set me like a star before the morning
Like a song that steals the darkness from a world asleep
And I'll illuminate the path You've laid before me
But for now just let me be

Bind up these broken bones
Mercy bend and breathe me back to life
But not before You show me how to die
Oh, not before You show me how to die

So let me go like a leaf upon the water
Let me brave the wild currents flowing to the sea
And I will disappear into a deeper beauty
But for now just stay with me
God, for now just stay with me

Credits :
songwriters: assad, audrey; hart, sarah
© river oaks music company; spiritandsong.com