The Mark – No.24 The Treasury

The commands of Jesus are the Mark, the target for the perfect life. To aim for and to hit the Mark is to conform to the image and likeness of God. To ignore, neglect, or miss the Mark is to sin. The commands provide stepping stones through earthly life, upon which the child of God survives tempests and deflects the boomeranging darts of pride. Adhering to the Mark aspiring immortals gain victory.

                                                                                                                                                                    Don't store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life which the Son of Man will give you for it is on Him that God the Father has set His seal.

John 6:27

Wake up, look around. What you see with your eyes is a world highly salted with death and shadows of death. Nothing lasts here. It is even hard to hold on to goodness here because everything changes. This is the dark and dangerous world of thieves and murderers. This is the world of starving desire. 

Oh lying eyes, if only you could let us see the safe place of life and light.

"But we can!" exclaims the shepherd boy. “Where you put your treasure becomes more and more real to you. It becomes your room where lay your most precious possessions! In the place of many mansions someday you will find your room all furnished and packed with your souvenirs from this old world, with riches transformed and unimaginable!”

“But what shall I put there? What lasts?”

“That’s easy!” added shepherd boy “Fill your room with acts of love, with friends and family you have helped and prayed for. Fill your room with miraculous moments of hearing God speak. Let your food be the Word of God, and counsel from holy ones, and Holy Communion. My Son and Lord wants you to be aware that your mortal body is only the vehicle for your heart. Your work and your treasures, even your food can be as enduring as He is. Become conscious with every decision you make of what to do and how to spend your money of whether it will land in your “living” room or whether it will dissolve.”

“I think I get it!” I cheered. “What is visible here dissolves like vapor and what is invisible here, is as real as a rock in God’s country. It’s ironic!”

Shepherd boy smiled, nodded, then dissolved!

The Mark – 23, Forgive or Die

The commands of Jesus are the Mark, the target for the perfect life. To aim for and to hit the Mark is to conform to the image and likeness of God. To ignore, neglect, or miss the Mark is to sin. The commands provide stepping stones through earthly life, upon which the child of God survives tempests and deflects the boomeranging darts of pride. Adhering to the Mark aspiring immortals gain victory.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;

Matthew 6:14

Imagine a ball with needles protruding all around it.

Now imagine that you are walking along a path in the woods, enjoying the crisp clean air of a snowy winter’s day when suddenly someone lobs that weapon at you. It cuts you in several places and lands in your hands. You look up to see who hurt you. How do you react?

1. Throw the sharp ball right back and aim for the face.
2. Hold onto the ball and cry very loud to get sympathy, while pointing at the offensive assailant.
3. Drop the ball, look up at the assailant, smile, and keep on walking.    

Every time you refuse to aim for the mark, to obey the commands of Jesus, to be kind, generous, pure of heart, make peace, etcetera you are throwing that poison ball at the heavenly Father. You expect Him to drop the ball, smile at you and keep on walking. 

The Mark of God-likeness requires us likewise to drop all deadly weapons that hit us and keep on walking. Don’t retaliate, don’t cry and blame, don’t look back even for a second.

To forgive means to let it go, with purpose and with great abandon. No one on the path to immortality brings weapons along. Smile and keep on walking toward the light.

The Mark – 22, The Mark of Intimacy

The commands of Jesus are the Mark, the target for the perfect life. To aim for and to hit the Mark is to conform to the image and likeness of God. To ignore, neglect, or miss the Mark is to sin. The commands provide stepping stones through earthly life, upon which the child of God survives tempests and deflects the boomeranging darts of pride. Adhering to the Mark aspiring immortals gain victory.

 

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:6

These precious, pristine, prayerful moments of heart-to-heart communication with Father God form the bond that guides us through this earthly life. Without computer or smart pad, without email or texting, our thoughts and words, songs and silence like seeds in the depth of dark fertile soil grow to unite an aspiring immortal child with our Father as nothing else can.

Of course the Father who sees you in the secrecy of privacy will reward you for He is love and generosity personified. He rewards, because it is His nature to want to share His wealth and wisdom with His children. How joyous is the Father whose child regularly leaves the chaos of this world to enter their secret place. How magnificent that when you go there you may see the Creator of the universe patiently waiting for you to shut the door behind you.

Precious prayer, time to ask questions, to worship and adore Him, to pour out of your heart the joys and tears life has presented this day. How glorious to hear the voice of the wonderful counselor, mighty God, Prince of peace. How much more dynamic praying with the masses is when each of us is so connected. Thank you for the heads-up, Jesus.

Joy.    

The Mark of Christmas

The Mark is the target formed by the commands of Christ. They teach us how to be like God, how to become a child of God. Unlike most teachers and preachers, Jesus Christ shows by example everything He tells us to do, and more. The wisest among us study Christ's life as much as we study His teachings. Even his birth teaches.

I wonder if it was even harder to be born than it was to be crucified. We think that the pain and humiliation of the crucifixion was the ultimate act of love because we can identify with the unfair trial, or imagine people jeering at us with disdain. We can imagine the embarrassment of the public flogging and the grief and agony of leaving behind our friends and family at death.

On the other hand, we can no more imagine the human birth of God’s only begotten Son than we can remember our own.

When Christ told the man to sell all he had, give the money to the poor and follow him, was He reminded of Christmas when He shed the glory of the heavenly throne to become a helpless infant born to modest parents in a stable? Jesus Christ let go of everything He had to give us eternal life in obedience to His Father. He has indeed done everything He asks us to do.

The Mark of Christmas is to find ways to emulate this level of love, humility, and adventure!

Hark! Do you hear herald angels singing?

I pray that this Christmastime brings you the humbling awareness of the enormous sacrifice that became Christmas.

Maybe our extensive debt-making gift-buying is one way to do it! Spend all that you have on your friends and enemies and follow Him.

Peace to you,

Abundance to you,

Light in you,

Evangeline 

The Mark – No. 21 Of Perfection

The commands of Jesus are the Mark, the target for the perfect life. To aim for and to hit the Mark is to conform to the image and likeness of God. To ignore, neglect, or miss the Mark is to sin. The commands provide stepping stones through earthly life, upon which the child of God survives tempests and deflects the boomeranging darts of pride. Adhering to the Mark aspiring immortals gain victory.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:48

I hear the crowd echo the refrain over and over again, “You are only human. Nobody is perfect.” Deeper and deeper is the message pounded into the psyche. Each time lowering centimeter by centimeter our standard, our value, our image; suppressing our potential. “Keep humanity down!” demands the demon superintendent.

Humanity turns upon its earth spiraling slowly into oblivion, unaware of the mission to illuminate the universe, unaware of the demonic determination to dominate.

One bright clear morning, the cool air spreading the aroma of fig leaves throughout the crowd, the Son of Man commanded perfection as if it is possible.

The command to be perfect simply reminds us to aim for the Mark, the bull’s eye, the target.

Without perfection there is contamination. There is no middle ground; no cozy gray corner to hide in while waiting for God’s magic wand to make us instantly perfect. That’s not reality, that’s the fairy tale. The truth is God wants us to choose either life or death with our whole being, His way or the damned highway.

We are perfectionists when it comes to wanting perfect health. A cut finger, a sore tooth, any small defect throws us off, even though it is only one malfunction out of thousands of operations that occur in the body. Physical perfection matters for us, and our Being matters for the Father.

Jesus did not tell us to try to be perfect. He told us to Be Perfect.

The Mark defines perfection. Ready. Aim. Fire! Hitting the target is possible! He told me so. He showed me so!

Perfection defies demons and annihilates evil.

Perfection opens the door to immortality.