All these years!

I was in a discussion with a childhood friend of mine calling from the US yesternight and he made a statement. He said man might be able to remove another from the mud but that it's only God that's capable of removing mud from a man's life. How true especially in matters of our walk with God and religion. How very true!

Many times we take conscious steps to remove us from the mud of religion to be able to see clearly the blazing light of the life of our Lord. But we end up entrapped in our own personally contrived religion. How true that we can make all the efforts we want, we can even be very radical and oppose the religious practices around us but then it takes a definite baptism of the Lord to rid us from the mud within. No wonder it was prophesied that the coming Lord would baptise us not just with the Holy Ghost, but also with fire. I'd for long wondered, why the fire? Sometimes the truth would flittingly filter into my heart but then it would lift again and give way to the creed of my life, of my daily life.

I do not pretend to offer a revelation or deep truth here. This is more a diary of my thoughts written to me, that in days come-I pray-will be a mileage in my walk in the baptism fire of my Lord...

I looked at the years I've known the Lord and I trembled to think all these might have been a walk of blindness. Maybe you too reading my thoughts have been in this shoe. I had been called unto the Lord and I have come to behold the beauty of His ways. I have learnt He's my sufficiency and so have I experienced but then I still have come short of walking in this fire. This ravaging fire of Heaven that handles a man and consumes the mud of religion. How I wish You would walk me through Your words, through Your blazing words! How often have I come by my strength distracted by my need to be holy and righteous for You and so lost sight of the feast of the holiness You have prepared before me. How often have I counted myself as a citizen of this world and subject of the law of creation and forgotten who I am. How often have I these years overlooked the grace of Your name, the exceeding great value of Your shared flesh and shed blood. How often have I let slip those seemingly simple truths that have delivered my soul and affection unto You from the enemy that held me bound...Every time I sinned I had overlooked the eternal truth of Your death and resurrection saying sin no more has dominion over me. Each time I have gone defeated I have attested to it that I was a sloppy soldier, and ignorant heir of these great heritage we have in You.

Now this is my prayer that You will walk me by Yourself, by Your Spirit, again through Your word. That by the fire with which You baptise You will take the mud of religion out of my heart and life and make me behold You as You are. Be my Church O Son of David, and Your Spirit the Minister. Let my walk henceforth be purified by Your fire and by Your Spirit. When I knee down to pray, or stand or sit to do so, whether with a shout or by the silent voice of my heart, Jesus Christ let it be that with You I speak Eternal Father and let me hear the listening of Your ears by faith and the response of Your lips. As for my heart and me, we have made no other choice that to walk with You and make every remaining day a feast of love and obedience to You.
Purify me and mine by Your word, Your word is true,