"Epistles......................................."

Early Saturday morning, a bit of a chill in the house and I’m sitting in the recliner under a couple of wool blankets with the furnace set to give the two electric heaters a jumpstart for the rest of the day. A cup of hot coffee sits beside me. It’s quiet, a good time to read, pray, and just think in whichever way the Spirit takes me. Sometimes the magnitude of life, in general, overwhelms this old man, the mystery of it all, though, secured by that “anchor-line” restored unto me over forty years ago. I talk with God about my children and my grandchildren, my sister and hers, family my younger brother left behind when he passed, and other relatives of mine whose history gives little evidence of possessing any sort of faith. The latter takes my mind to the Detention Center, those young teens we visit on a bi-monthly schedule, held prisoner, not only by a judicial system, but also by an environment wherein they’ve never known much in the way of hope from the very beginning. How does all that work out, I wonder, when it’s all over and we, as individuals, come before the Judgment Seat of our Creator? Where will the Church stand then? Accountable for but those we’ve managed to “maintain” within our sanctuaries? Does it all, in the end, come down to nothing more than “denominational checkpoints” where our certificate of having adopted certain doctrinal points is verified before entrance is gained? Somehow I fail to see that as the message proclaimed by Christ. As believers, we were meant to be “leaven in the lump”, “Carriers of the Cause”, not “Crusaders of the Covenant”. It is not a religious formula that has been entrusted to me. The Key to the Kingdom is not just an interpretation of chapter and verse, but a resurrection of the Living Word, alive in me and capable, in some strange way, of penetrating others through me. Love, peace, and hope are all elements of this Truth, abiding within and feeding me as I go, yet given me for the purpose of sharing them with all I meet in the journey. In the end, it seems to me at least, it will be as it ever was: an evaluation of each one’s heart and determined by His righteousness, not mine……