ON A PERSONAL NOTE...

As I leave LA and head east towards home I am struck with a deep sense of fulfillment and meaning. After 24 years of arrogance and rebellion, holding grudges and reaping what I've sown, I look down from the window of my plane with a startling revelation that I'm a part of something profound. I'm a part of a legacy that has impacted people around the world for the Kingdom of God... a church that has birthed almost 2,600 churches worldwide. I have a heritage that supersedes that of flesh and blood... one whose scope is eternal and lasting and the songs God gave us back then still resonate around the world. Today I feel love like I've never known. A stump lives...and branches now shoot forth from my lifeless body... I have been raised from the dead. Though I’ve been lost, now I'm found. God has been kind to me and sent His Word to heal me.

To live in a supernatural existence is not a discussion but a determined action. Hearing His voice requires the willingness to believe you have heard and the extreme patience to wait far beyond the hearing. Trusting God is not imparted to us but is acquired the same way a child understands a parents love as they hold that child from the moment it’s born and cares for them, though that child has no knowledge it is happening. Only as that child grows in knowledge through its experiences does it begin to realize and understand it is loved and therefore trusts its giver without reservation. We desperately need to understand we are being held at all times regardless of what we feel.

As I look out across the horizon and the vastness of its expanse I see the endless possibilities it holds. Though I can't see details I can envision and imagine all that is there. I was blind but now I see. Light shines on the epiphanies as the curtain pulls back. I have wondered for so long… who am I? I am a mouth God speaks through, a man whose paths are carved by Yahweh Himself... a weapon in His hand and a testimony of His love expressed and faithfulness revealed.

It is a brand new Hebrew year, 5777 to be exact! The trumpets blow as the Days of Awe begin. The unveiling has begun. For me, one chapter has closed and another begins; each word being written one at a time, every letter formed by my Masters hand. Each step prearranged. I belong to no one but Him. Whom the Son sets free is free...and there are no restraints. In this moment, at this very second as I look across the horizon, my Father and I are one. What was is no more and what stares me in the face is my destiny...the continuation of the legacy I was thrust into and born out of however it is meant to unfold. But I am confident in this… it bears fruit that will remain.

© 2016/5777 Steven Bliss

THE TRUTH ABOUT A LIE

I made myself do it... I sat through several speakers and then ultimately the biggest philanderer/storyteller in American politics... the great liar, Bill Clinton! And then the ultimate at the end where glass breaks on the big screen after showing all these American Presidents, and it's Hillary... staring out at her wanton subjects like some insane demigod giving an opportunity for all to bow and weep at her feet as she sits in her red Kim Jong-un Premier outfit... pure goddess worship. This level of deception makes the two previous levels of delusion with the Obama elections, pale.

Bill Clinton: the wholesome and upright ("I did not have sex with that woman Monica Lewinsky" or any of the other multitude of women he's raped and abused) and his wicked wife, the most deceptive, corrupt, lying criminal in American political history... A modern-day Ahab and Jezebel acted out in front of us (read the Biblical account).

          We have lost our minds. I don't care if anyone likes me or not... should Hillary Clinton be elected president, America's demise will swiftly follow. It will be a clear sign that the judgment of God has now come to full fruition on a country that once claimed to be One Nation Under Him.

I don't care whether you like Donald Trump or not... this is not about Donald Trump. This is about something beyond comprehension in a realm that cannot be seen or controlled being played out right before our eyes. Let those who have eyes, see... those who have ears, hear.

And I will boldly go one step further. You cannot have the Spirit of God in you, which discerns the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, light and dark... that regenerates the soul from being separated from God to reunited with Him... you cannot for one second consider voting for pitch blackness and say you belong to the Light! Argue you all you want. There is no possible way anyone who is a believer, in good conscience, can align themselves with the truth of God and agree with darkness at its highest level at the same time. What business does light have with darkness? What business does the Son of God have with Belial?(2 Corinthians 6:14) None. If that's the case, and I believe God over all human reason, then what business does a son/child of God have with the Prince of Darkness? Isn't that the war? Isn't the battle waged in our minds? If you are leaning, for whatever reason, towards such spiritual treason, then checking yourself is probably something you may want to do.

© 2016 Steven Bliss

STATUS

Status/ˈstādəs: a superficial illusionary deception based upon material acquisitions or positional dynamics, which are the byproduct of the human ingenuity and superficiality. Humanity, the entirety of it, travels through the mud of delusion that stipulates that because one has wealth, power or possessions that their personal status among men is superior to those who have less; which is curious given the fact that all things are fleeting and can be removed at any given moment by any number of circumstances outside the control of that individual. Just like a loan it can be called in at any time. On this planet every single person, regardless of achievement or power, potential or status must all face a finality that is inescapable. Death is not a stranger; it comes to us all and more often than not, when we least expected. It is no respecter of our accumulation of things or what levels of authority we have attained; it greedily takes what it wants, when it wants.

The only High position in all of creation is actually the lowest one of all, humility. With humility, the greatest is the least, and the least the greatest. Those who are humble when given the most power have the least desire to use and abused such power. It doesn't matter whether you be politician or Fortune 500 CEO, the most famous or the wealthiest in the earth; humility is honorable because it knows death takes you as you came… leaving all you've gained behind.

The only position bestowed upon us in the moment of our exit is humility and awe. A moment of silence, a reckoning of truth; a time in which all you have achieved pales in the light of the One you stand before. Each one will stand before the creator of all things, the Giver of gifts and the maker of wealth, the Author of life itself, the great IAM. Status will have no meaning; what we have accomplished be of no consequence. Only those things that promote the knowledge of God, the very reason we were created, will remain. 

There is only One who is great. Only One holds the keys to life and death. Humility is not something we are given; it is something we must attain on the sojourn of life. God hates pride but gives His grace to the humble. Broken and contrite is the garden of hope. Humility sees the others as more important than us. Humility knows there is no God but Yah. Only then will we learn the meaning of life. Humility is status.

© 2016 Steven Bliss

NOT OVER

I've wrestled with demons

Laid dead on the rocks

Heard the whispers of angels

Cut my hands on the Cross

I've marched out of order

Defied every rule

Imagined I was master

But I was a fool

I've been ruined and shattered

Deserved every blow

You'd think I'd know better

That you reap what you sow

But my Father's not like me

Though I've done what I've done

His arms are wide open

His love never runs

Though I've nothing to offer

No treasure or gold

My heart I lay broken

To be healed, to remold

My story's not over

My lungs still have breath

For His mercy surrounds me

'Til I enter His rest
I'm not over

By Steven Bliss
© 3/10/2016

THE POTTER

            Ancient fingers move through piles of dust as water fills each molecule solidifying the parts. The mass begins to form, yet not fully. What did not exist now takes shape as His hands knead the ruddy clay. No words are spoken as the thickening silt emerges as the Master’s piece.  All at once the sound of the potter’s wheel begins to spin from out of the silence. Such magnificence, such brilliance by the One whose hands flung a million stars and spun the universe into place; for as He knows Himself so shall He be known, for what He creates that day He makes in the image of IAM.  After all, He is the Potter.

            He pulls the mud now brim with life and holds it in His hands. He stops the wheel placing the thickening mass gently upon the stone from which the perfection of His love shall rise. A billion eyes watch in awe. And though they have seen Him work a trillion times before, this time would be like no other that has ever been or any that would follow. They are His witnesses, nothing more, nothing less, for they too were formed from His boundless mind, though not the same, yet His nonetheless. His hands are old yet young, with no beginning and no end, perfect yet worn they are His tools and He is their guide. For He is the Potter!

            Slowly the wheel picks up speed; not too fast, not too slow, and as only it should be, the Potter becomes one with the clay as His masterpiece takes form from the shapeless mass. The speed of His wheel intensifies as does the precision of each touch; pushing here, pulling there, His Divine mind creating eternal lines. With just enough pressure the image emerges from that which was formless and void. As His fingers are all covered with the excess of His brilliance, definition becomes life and that life will become hope. His furrowed brow studies each detail, those hidden and those not; line upon line until with each line He is satisfied. For it pleases Him fully to be fully known as He infuses Himself within the marrow of the form. He is the Potter!

            All stood in silence and watched as He looked upon what He had made and declared, "It is good!" Then with the greatest pleasure and purest joy He inhaled the wind and breathed out into that which had no breath the Breath of Life as all He made in wonder gazed, knowing what He had done. In that moment of awakening, as the clay began to rise, the Potter leaned forward and looked deep into its eyes... and as the mirror reflects like, what happened next was known long ago as He saw Himself and called him, "son!” All creation bowed before the One Who formed from the dust of the ground the one He now calls His own; and it was known in an instant what had finally begun. For He is the Potter and we are the clay that He formed with His hands in His image that day. He is the Potter and we are the clay!

© 2015 Steven Bliss

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