“Thy statutes have been my songs
in the house of my pilgrimage.”
Psalm 119:54
The Pilgrim Path
Clarity comes through sacrifice
Truth emerges for the pilgrim to see
Only in following Him
Are we enabled to BE.
Vision requires likeness
To see and understand
The grandness of His Being
The unfolding of His Plan.
Truth being more than fact
His Life is more than words
lost within all the data
Is His Spirit pressing onwards
Like gold inside and dross without
We are assailed by fears within
We stand against our own self-doubt
With implicit trust in Him.
The pilgrim’s tread does not waver
Though surrounded by unbelief
‘Tis truth alone we savour
His Presence our lone relief.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
– Galatians 2:20
Related Post: The Brook in The Way
“I will guide thee with mine eye ” — a glance, not a blow — a look of directing love that at once heartens to duty, and tells duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in sympathy with Him to understand it; but when we do, we must be swift to obey.”
— Alexander Maclaren.
The Pilgrim Path
Brian Troxel
Romans 12:1-3 (MSG)
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
“So, grace is God’s initiative of extravagant generosity, offering all He is and has freely and without cost.” Dr. John B. MacDonald
The dearest, the nearest, and the clearest of the Pilgrim’s progress is the the winning walk in the Way, which lingers long, looking full into the Face of our God of all glory and all grace, mercifully lifting us into His liberating, loving likeness, from one measure of marvelous glory, munificently to ever yet more Truth transforming treasure, of His telling transcendence of total triumph.
Seeing and savoring the superscendent Splendor of Himself is surrendering and submitting to His sovereignty and supremacy over spirit and soul, gladly, gloriously grateful for the goodness that is His unearned, unmerited, undeserved grace.
Glory In Him, the God of All Grace and All Glory!
2 Corinthians 3:18 (EXB)
·Our faces, then, are not covered [L With an unveiled face…]. We all ·show [reflect; or behold; or contemplate] the Lord’s glory, and we are being ·changed [transformed] ·to be like him [L into the same image]. This change in us ·brings ever greater glory [or is from one degree of glory to another; L is from glory to glory], which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 12:9 (NJB)
“I am very happy to make my weakness my special boast, that the power of Christ may stay over me.”
“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain*; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
1 Corinthians 15:10
Grace is the inspiration of His Works. Grace is the power of God within those who have not received its wonder in vain.
“Yet not I”
Such glorious words! Not I but His Grace, moving, pressing and causing us to be “workers together” by the unifying and unrelenting inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
Strong’s Concordance defines the word translated grace as the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life. Grace received and embraced will always be accompanied by the evidence of His works through us – “but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Radical grace produces radical living.
Blessings
BT
“…yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:10
All that is of God, that is His goodness, His grace, and His greatness, including our receptivity of and responsiveness to Him, in any and every regard and instance, mercifully originates and magnificently consummates completely in every detail, by Him and for Him and to Him, for His infinitely deserving glory and our utmost loving outcome through eternity.
I never tire of soaking in and being saturated with the sound of the Spirit’s soaring song of Supreme store and Sovereign supply everlastingly over us and eternally for us at Romans 8:
28 And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew [and loved and chose beforehand], He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son [and ultimately share in His complete sanctification], so that He would be the firstborn [the most beloved and honored] among many believers. 30 And those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified [declared free of the guilt of sin]; and those whom He justified, He also glorified [raising them to a heavenly dignity].
31 What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us? 32 He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. 34 Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us. 35 Who shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 Just as it is written and forever remains written,
“For Your sake we are put to death all day long;
We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. 38 For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Corinthians 12:9 (NJB)
I am very happy to make my weakness my special boast, that the power of Christ may stay over me.
I much appreciate you, brother. The Three-Person’d God keep you wrapped evermore in His beauty and hearing His words of kindness.
I so love looking at, gazing on the beauty, realizing the beneficence, of grace in our cherished lives as:
No less than Himself is grace, the all-magnificent and Almighty Holy Trinity of lovingly merciful, enjoying relationship restoring, liberating, living Infinity.
Grace is not a mere means or manner of mediation between man and Maker, but is Christ Jesus of the One Beautiful Triune God, Who is both saving and sanctifying divine Enablement and holy Empowerment.
God, the Spirit of grace, conforms our character and conduct to that of Christ, the chiefest of compliments conferred and change chosen for any of His creation.
God of all grace evinces the supreme, sovereign scale, intensest, intimate involvement, and divinely dimensional diversity of grace, ever and exclusively initiated and effectuated, supported and sustained by the Spirit Who Is Grace.
Of all the Three-Person’d God’s wondrous works, the expressions. Manifestations and demonstrations, I wholeheartedly believe, grace permeates and prevails as the magnum opus of our majestic, magnanimous Maker.
“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me…”
Blessings
BT
Yes, the exceeding riches of God’s glorious grace, which is no less than the lovingly merciful, utmost, undeserved giving/giveness of Himself!
Such is your excellent example of Paul, a former fierce persecutor of followers of The Way, who tells us that he considers himself the least of all saints because, wickedly, he gave himself to wasting Christ’s church.
Ephesians 1:3-6
3 Blessed and worthy of praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ,
4 just as [in His love] He chose us in Christ [actually selected us for Himself as His own] before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy [that is, consecrated, set apart for Him, purpose-driven] and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined and lovingly planned for us to be adopted to Himself as [His own] children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the kind intention and good pleasure of His will—
6 to the praise of His glorious grace and favor, which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved [His Son, Jesus Christ].
2:4-10
4 But God, being [so very] rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were [spiritually] dead and separated from Him because of our sins, He made us [spiritually] alive together with Christ (for by His grace—His undeserved favor and mercy—you have been saved from God’s judgment). 6 And He raised us up together with Him [when we believed], and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, [because we are] in Christ Jesus,
7 [and He did this] so that in the ages to come He might [clearly] show the immeasurable and unsurpassed riches of His grace in [His] kindness toward us in Christ Jesus [by providing for our redemption]. 8 For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God; 9 not as a result of [your] works [nor your attempts to keep the Law], so that no one will [be able to] boast or take credit in any way [for his salvation].
10 For we are His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us].
Romans 8
32 He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?
Galatians 3
3 Are you so foolish and senseless? Having begun [your new life by faith] with the Spirit, are you now being perfected and reaching spiritual maturity by the flesh [that is, by your own works and efforts to keep the Law]? 4 Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing—if indeed it was all for nothing? 5 So then, does He who supplies you with His [marvelous Holy] Spirit and works miracles among you, do it as a result of the works of the Law [which you perform], or because you [believe confidently in the message which you] heard with faith?
2 Timothy 2:1
So you, my son, be strong [constantly strengthened] and empowered in the grace that is [to be found only] in Christ Jesus.
Love the poem and your thoughts too.
May His Blessings and grace be your portion!
BT
Thank you, Brian.
Brian, this is amazing and exactly what I needed to hear! I am saving this for future reference!!! Thank you!!!
Thank you Mandy for stopping by –
Blessings to you and Nathan!
BT
Amen 🙌 Beautiful …
Thank you for the encouragement.
May His rich Blessings abound to you both.
BT