The Good Die Young

Isaiah 57

“ 1 The righteous perish,

and no one takes it to heart;

the devout are taken away,

and no one understands

that the righteous are taken away

to be spared from evil.

2 Those who walk uprightly
enter into peace;
they find rest as they lie in death. “


I shared this verse with some brothers at church once, I’m sure they all didn’t really take it as anything more than me rambling on or trying to exalt myself by acting like I received a revelation from God. Nonetheless, I shared this verse because a brother who I never had the chance to meet, passed away from a heart attack and the entire church was grieving and distressed. I had a difficult time even listening or looking at the sister who had lost her husband because I felt sad for her. Everyone talked about how he had just decided to come back to church, how he realized he needed to turn his heart, back towards God and church. He just bought new suits to wear to church. He was coming back. His heart had turned back towards God. Pastor shared a message with him at his hospital bed from what I recall……….Then God took him away.

I just remember reading this passage and taking comfort in knowing if this brother did indeed turn his heart back to God and accepted the gospel, then he in fact found rest as he lied in death.






God bless.

Brother Jimmy

a Religious life

As I was listening to the sermon this past Wednesday, I realized something that greatly affected or rather, afflicted me.

I think in the past few months, I’ve deceived myself to think I was living in the spirit through deeds and presence within the church, when deep inside, my whole heart wasn’t completely abiding in God. I know this because the passages in Acts 5, about Annanias and Sapphiras brought about shame in the things I do at church. You can’t deceive the holy spirit.

I realized because of the testimonies I’ve shared, the things I did when I allowed myself to be guided by the holy spirit, and the things I had done in the past within church, that all of these things had opened up a lot of opportunities for me to get used by God. It’s just my heart isn’t where it used to be.

There’s a sister in New York who is praying and giving her all in helping a friend of mine become awakened to the scriptures. She’s asked me to do likewise with her friend over here in LA. I tell her, “Yea, of course”, but my heart isn’t really in it. There’s a new brother who received confirmation of his salvation through the past retreat, he tells me he wants to get involved within church and the youth, and I tell him, “yea, I’ll give you a call and we’ll plan something out together!”, but 2 weeks have passed and I’ve yet to engage him in getting actively involved. I request, I plan, I try to DO things with the youth fellowships, but I realized it’s not solely out of a spiritual inclination or because I’ve been inspired and compelled through a new awakening in the scriptures, but it’s merely the flesh wanting to save face, not by grace, but by deeds. It’s all self glorification when I think deep into it. I hope I’m not as vain as I make myself to sound here, but really when I strip away all the pleasing things I say to people about why we need to do certain things for God and church, you see me, jimmy, and not Jesus, not the father, and not the spirit. Seeing me is seeing what God has so graciously covered up for in the past 4 years. My sins, my failures, my offensive personality, my ego, my perversions, my intellectual lackings, my flesh, my filthy, dirty, sinful flesh. Once you forget who you were, how you have lived, where you were headed before being born again, before accepting and obliging to and in the love of Christ, you deny the holy spirit. There is only one unpardonable sin that is written in the bible that can separate you from grace. Yup.

I realized again, how easily I fall into living a religious life, coming and going, being seen and being heard, without abiding in the spirit, without the submission of being a servant to the spirit within, without exalting others before myself, and ultimately serving my own needs before God. We call it worship service, but if we’re generally content and satisfied in our own skin, then who are we really worshipping? To clarify, serving others goes against our natural inclinations of wanting to please ourselves, so if we never feel unease when worshipping God in the flesh, are we in fact giving our whole heart to him? If we don’t feel any sort of discomfort in our flesh, can we truly say we are servants, slaves, a child of, a self defeating, self killing, self denying, soul, bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God? We call it praise, but without the true awakening of the words you sing, what are you really praising? Happy? Here’s a passage that really gave me comfort in my afflictions when I first got saved,

1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen[a] according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

Of course taken within context of the whole chapter, this may not pertain or relate directly to the specific nature of where i'm coming from here, but I remember sitting during service and reading this and thinking, “wow, the holy spirit, it knows what I’m feeling inside”.  This living for God thing is not easy....it's kinda hard actually. The smile and engaging personality I put up at church wasn’t a disguise, it was whom I am, is, when I allow myself to be guided by the holy spirit as compelled by the scriptures. The smile and engaging persona I exude now and had been in recent months I can truly say or rather confess, has been oftentimes a disguise. I hate to admit as much, but yea, I’ve been living a religious life more so than living a spiritual one. I don’t feel like going to service, sermons, and fellowships are a given in my daily life, I feel like it’s an obligatory necessity of not wanting to be called a hypocrite, when in fact a hypocrite is exactly what I’ve become. It’s not what you do. It’s what’s in your heart.

Impulse. There was a time in my spiritual life when I never use to measure the logic or gauge the benefit to loss in following my impulses of wanting to spread the gospel or give attention to those less involved in church. Now, everything is measured, calculated, and the outcome is seldom deemed worth it. The outcome of course, if I had any faith whatsoever, is of getting someone to draw nearer to God, to our church. There shouldn’t be any comparison. It’s not even close. All should be given without hesitation, because we’re living in Grace. By logic, by perfect justification we deserve hell, not Grace, but we are ever so NABAL, we have a tendency to forget.

Life given, simply to abide in grace, and not acting but reacting, not obligatory but in servitude. The spirit embedded in our hearts out of love, not a religious life, but a spiritual one.

God, may I continue to remember the testimonies of my spiritual life, the testimonies of what I became awakened to through scriptures and not a mere spewing of words learned or acknowledged in my head. May I never lie to myself. May I never say things that defiles me or stumble others in fellowship or church. May I be solely guided by the holy spirit.

I fail yet again, and still I rise because it’s “once and for all”. Glory to God.

Damn. How can I ever think this a curse and not a gift?

God bless.

Brother Jimmy