The Soldier

I'm never far from the memory, and even now if I pull it up I can feel the heat of that day. Sun beating down, not a breeze stirring anywhere. Thoughts of home and family swirled in my mind like a bothersome fly. "Focus," I told myself. Why? I've done this hundreds of times. Now wouldn't be any different than the others. The dark fact was that each time I found myself participating in this ritual, I lost a little piece of my soul. Each face, each cry for mercy fell on ears that had become deaf and a heart that had become cold and hard. It was business as usual and I was good at it.

I don't remember any of the names. Too many...
I barely remember the faces, after a while you don't even pay attention any more, you just go through the motions.
But I'll never forget his.
I didn't really give it any thought during our journey to the hill. We simply plodded along, keeping that nameless criminal or insurrectionist upright, tyring  not to let them die before we got there. That was our business. Keep the condemned alive until we could kill him. Almost seems laughable now.

Here we were in a strange land, with a people we didn't understand, who had customs and laws we couldn't make sense of. So these rituals we carried out daily helped us to vent our anger and hatred. Each day that passed, I felt a little less human. This scared me. Would my wife know me when I returned home? Could I ever tell my children what I had done during my tour of duty?
Or would my time in Jerusalem become nothing more than whispered tales spoken among comrades at reunions. 

There was always a strange mixture of people who followed to the hill, as well as lining the streets as if this were entertainment for their boring lives. Cries from the crowd ranged from "Mercy!" to "Make him pay!" Such hatred was directed to the one we were guiding to death. Steep inclines coupled with the weight of the cross beam caused many a man to stumble and fall. We would snatch them up quickly, placing the beam on their shoulders, striking out at an even faster pace in order to complete the days task.

There was one though...
A particular man....
A teacher that seemed to draw a strange mixture of praise and derision every where he taught.
Some of the locals felt that this man was what the referred to as their Messiah...a deliverer....If this be true, it was all the more reason for us to crucify him. Shut down this fledgling movement before it gained popularity and keep the populace in line.

Pilate, the Roman governor, was under great pressure from Rome to put down any insurrection and to keep the peace here in Jerusalem. Caught between the religious rulers, who threatened him with correspondence to Caesar himself, Pilate walked a fine line between duty and keeping the populace in line, placated and satisfied. The last thing he needed was to be pulled from this duty station and called back to Rome. With this weighing on Pilate, he gave the crowd what they wanted........crucify the Galilean. This teacher, this rabbi, this Jesus.

Once on the crest of the hill, I knocked him to his knees and rolled him over on his back, cross underneath. Tying ropes to his hands, we stretched them out so they could be nailed in place. Funny. I remember the feel of that mallet even to this day. The weight of it as I lifted it off the ground. The balance that it carried, knowing the force needed to penetrate flesh and muscle. Wrapping my fingers around the handle of that mallet, Jesus' arm stretched out to the fullest, I swung the hammer over my head. The target? A six-inch Roman spike...forged in fire to strengthen the tinsel of the metal. This would hold any man in place. Mustering up all my strength, at the height of the arch, I brought the hammer down full force. To this very day, i will never forget the sound it made when that mallet would connect with the spike. A sickening, dull thud that pushed the nail through flesh, muscle and humanity, down into the wood. Repeated to the other side, arms were now securely in place. Turning my attention to the feet....they too were also nailed in place. The one thing I remember about this Jesus....He never cried out....He endured this like no other man I had ever seen.

Attaching ropes, we lifted the cross up and dropped it down into a hole, driving wedges all around to keep it from tilting or falling over. Then we waited. This was the hard part. Not that I felt anything, I didn't. I had lost all sense of feeling. No...we passed the time waiting for death to claim the latest victim, by casting lots to see who would possess the personal belongings of the condemned.

This man named Jesus kept talking from the cross. I don't remember much....
"Forgive them...they don't know what they're doing." I don't know who "THEY" were, didn't make any difference.
The end came after about three hours. It was as if this Jesus had summoned up every ounce of strength he possessed so he could make a final declaration....
With a voice of authority, he cried out...."It Is Finished!"
That was it.
He died...
Strange weather that day also.
Eclipse of the sun brought darkness over the entire land. This was followed by an earthquake that seemed to shake the very foundation of earth itself. Then quietness. Strange, eerie quietness.

The days that followed were filled with outrageous stories about this Jesus.
Some say he rose from the dead and was seen at different parts of the city.
Others said that his disciples had stolen the body and were perpetrating this resurrection story. All I know is that his followers didn't disband. In fact they seem to grow in numbers. They were every where talking about a coming kingdom....how we needed to change our hearts and our ways. That this Jesus had paid an eternal price for our lives. I was very intrigued by what I heard. I didn't share it with my fellow soldiers for fear they would accuse me of treason. But I never forgot what happened that day.

Now here I am back in Rome...
Back home...
Back with my wife and children.
I have traded in my long years of service to Rome in foreign countries for a softer job.
I have been assigned to over see the house arrest of one of these followers of Jesus....Someone named Paul.
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Thanks for letting me be creative this morning.
I hope you enjoyed the story....
God on you....
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To Murray

I don't know if it is just me or not, but the days seem to be rolling on at a furious pace.
Here we are, already into September by 6 days and it seems like we were celebrating New Years just a little while ago.

Received a phone call yesterday that Murray Miller had died. Murray was a unique individual. Carpenter and all around fix-it man by trade, there wasn't anything he couldn't do. He loved cowboy hats and boots (but you know...I never saw him ride a horse). Drove an old beat up pick up truck that had an 8-track tape player in it. How cool was that. The tape player didn't worked, but Murray just liked the idea that it was there for viewing to anyone who wanted to see it.
Murray had ad an old dog named Bo that rode with him every where he went. Murray always had a red bandana tied around Bo's neck. I'm not sure, but I don't believe that Bo or Murray had any gang affiliation.
Murray liked coming out to Rapha to talk with the guys, share his story and just encourage those he could. He was hard core "12 Step" believer.

I married Murray and his girlfriend, Pat, back in 2004. It was an impromtu kind of wedding but one that was part of Murray's plan to make amends and put things right in his life. He had walked a hard road, one filled with a lot of pain. Some of that pain was self-inflicted, some wasn't. I lost track of Murray about two years ago. I think he moved to South Alabama to be near his mother. She was getting to the point that she really didn't need to be living by herself, so Murray was trying to take care of her.

The person who called yesterday told us that Murray died of Cancer.
I will miss him.
Seems to be an all too familiar thing now.....phone calls and such telling us that someone has died.
I know it's a part of life.
Doesn't mean I have to like it. I accept it.
The older you get, the faster the death's seem to come.
How can anyone make it through this life without Jesus?
I'll never understand that.
Of course, in my simple mind, I have a hard time trying to figure out why everyone doesn't want to quit using.
So this morning.......this Thursday morning........September 6, 2012, I will go to Rapha to teach and council and love on those who have come looking for help. I go in the knowledge that not everyone is sincere in their recovery. But I go in the knowledge that what we teach works. Jesus is that Higher Power we all have been looking for. 
Why not give yourself to Him and to a program today?
God on you....
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Breathing Back To God in Worship

There are times when the questions in my head come so fast that I feel lost and living on the edge. Most of my questions cannot be resolved and appear to be very deep philosophically. Truth is, they aren't. The questions that come to my brain are really vain attempts by me to understand someone who is beyond understanding. The nature and character of God is so complex and so intricate, that God Himself stated in John 17:3 that the reason we have been given eternal life is so that we might know Him. I see evidence of this in the journey we call life, as I grow and mature under the direction of His Holy Spirit. The God I know today, is far different than the God I knew 20 years ago....or even 1 week ago.

I mean that very statement is enough to hurt your head. God has granted eternal life to those who are saved, so that we may know Him. Not know as in a collection of facts and truths, but rather a knowing that comes from experiencing Him. I read the truth of this in I Corinthians 13:9 -- "We know in part, and we prophecy in part." In other words, there is coming a time of consummation in this relationship I have been given by God. A time where I will understand and know Him on an even greater level.

So what do I do in the mean time? How do I get to "Know" God here on this side of eternity?
I worship!!!

I understand that my very being has been filled with the Spiritual DNA of God. Bible tells us in I John 4:7 - "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." I am born again through the infusion of God's Holy Spirit into my life. I am free from sin! I am forgiven for my sin! If that isn't enough to worship, I don't know what is. I am the proverbial new creation. The Old Michael has been killed and buried and the new resurrected Michael is ready to be about the Kingdom business.
So I want to get down with God!! Praise Him!! Shout to Him!! Raise my hands to Him!! Lay on my face before Him!!! Scream out ..."I LOVE YOU, LORD!" I have been called by God to be a worshipping machine. Contrary to what Bruce Springsteen may say, I was not born to run.......I was born and created to worship. Giving my props to God for who He is. This is the reason for living. To worship God is number #1 in my life. I want to worship Him with every thing in me.

Worship is more than just music and words...it is an activity driven by an intense love I have for God.  Worship involves every thing in my life. It is a state of being that I live 24/7. The decisions I make, The way I carry myself daily in front of the world.....should reflect my belief and faith in God. My life becomes worship. Hopefully when you look at me, you don't really see Michael Bynum....You see Jesus! Notice I didn't say that you should see someone who is religious. I said you should see Jesus. My life becomes the only Bible that some people may ever read, so i want Jesus to be seen in everything I do and every word I say. I want to love those who love Jesus....I want to love those who don't love Jesus.

I realize that at 60+ years of age, my view of how all of this should play out...the worship...our daily life....seeing Jesus in me....may sound a bit strange. Rest assured, it isn't. I think the strange part is when others view me as having "sold out to Jesus." Becoming a "Jesus Freak." Well, you know what? I o.k. with that. I guess if you've got to be a freak...you might as well be one for Jesus. Sometimes the freaky-ness can cause strange things to happen. I remember a meeting where I was teaching, near the end a young man came up to talk to me. You could kind of tell by his actions and facial expressions that he wasn't too impressed with my Jesus. Sure enough, he lit in on me......"That Jesus you claim to believe in is just a crutch for weak minded people." He proceeded to tell me how drugs and alcohol were his god. That they provided a way out from the darkness of this world. I told him that I agreed with his statement that Jesus was a crutch for people who were weak. "If you're cripple, then you need a good crutch....but (wait for it...) I went on to tell him that I didn't have to guzzle my crutch and snort it up my nose just to get through the day." I looked him in the eyes and fired the shot that did him in....this young man with all his anger against God. I told him..."Hey! God love you.....and so do I." I got a chance to pray with him and he gave his life to Jesus. Last time I talked with him, he was clean and sober and had become a freak for Jesus. 
I don't mind being a freak for Jesus, how 'bout you?

C'mon! We sold ourselves to drugs and alcohol.
We gave ourselves willingly to relationships we knew would not work out.
We surrendered our moral compass to embrace a life of wanton destruction.
For what?
A feeling.
Getting high...
This was as good an escape plan as we could come up with.
Kind of sad isn't it?
Now....
Today....
Get yourself addicted to Jesus.
Be filled to over flowing with the Spirit and presence of Almighty God.
Let Him fill you with light and drive away every dark presence and every evil voice that only seeks to hold you in place.
Become the person that God originally created you to be.

God on you....
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Forgetfulness Or Wilfull Disobedience?

Sometimes it is very hard to read scripture and not see yourself in every line or hidden away behind some verse. Of course when we run across something hard or to the point, we want to look at it with selective vision. After all, we are told in Scripture that it was given for examples. Sometimes those examples are "how not to do" something.

From time to time, I come across different verses which tell of the Israelites inability to follow directions. More than just not being obedient, they seemed to be defiant and, as the Bible puts it..."Stiff-necked".  I think that term, stiff-necked, is kin to the Southern-ism of "Bowing up." In other words....there was a portion of pride, coupled with a dash of stubbornness, wrapped up in a heaping of willful disobedience thrown in for good measure. In other words, we see the fruit of the fall of man moving down through the ages and generations, not losing any momentum at all.
Such behavior is common today as people reject God to turn to their own ways, bringing destruction and misery upon themselves.

In Judges 3:7. we read...The Israelites did what was evil in the LORD's sight. They forgot about the LORD their God, and they worshiped the images of Baal and the Asherah poles.  Now when it says that they "forgot about God," what it really means is that they turned their back on Him. Rejected Him to pursue the sinful desires of their dark hearts. Such actions and intent always lead to no good, doesn't it? Sure it does.

I read those verses about Israel's "forgetfulness" and I think to myself, "Man! They really messed up. How could they do such a thing? Turn you back on God! You've got to be kidding me!" Then I suddenly realize the potential that lives within me. Some may disagree with what I am about to write, but I know that it is true. God's Spirit that lives within me, strengthens me and empowers me, is the only thing that keeps my old nature in check. That old sin nature tries to rear its head from time to time but the Holy Spirit puts him down. When I read the verses that tell of the disobedience of the Israelites, I give thanks to God that He lives in me and keeps me on the right path. You see, I've come to the conclusion that there isn't much difference between me and those Israelites, if you take God out of the equation. I think maybe that is why it says....For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Now I can truly rejoice that God is a "making up" God. By that, I mean that whatever the shortness is that I have fallen to, God makes it up through the saving grace imparted to me. It is his free gift and offer of salvation to ol' stinky (me) that makes up this separating distance and puts me in right relationship with Him. That, my friend, is the good news.

Have you had much good news in your life?
As Larry Norman so aptly put it...."What don't you check into Jesus, He's got the answers."

God on you...
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Into The Abyss

False Belief # 4
"I am what I am...I cannot change....I am hopeless."

Hopeless....
Even the very sound of this word as it rolls off my lips causes an emptiness to rise up in the pit of my stomach.
Hopeless has such a finality to it.
It echoes with the sound and whispers that there is no solution to my problem.
It wraps itself around me like some evil python, squeezing the very life out of me until I am so constricted, there isn't any room for hope of any kind to come to me.

The common sense definition of hopeless would be 'One who is without hope."
To me, I see hopeless as being "One who is without God."
To be hopeless is to be outside the will of God. To be out from under his protection...his love....his mercy and grace. In other words, we have allowed ourselves to buy into a lie.
A sin lie.
An addiction lie.
This lie has beat us down to the point that in our own minds we have surrendered to a bleak and empty future. A future without hope.

We read in the book of Jeremiah where God is pleading with the people to turn from their evil ways....in fact Jeremiah 18:11 says..."Turn back, each of you from his evil ways, and reform your ways and deeds." But the people would not listen. God knew that they wouldn't. In verse 12 we read..."But they will say, 'It's HOPELESS! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart."
God has offered them freedom and a way out of the judgment that is coming because of their sin, but they refused. Their reply....It's HOPELESS.

I don't know what you may be struggling with this day.
Maybe it is relationship issues.
Maybe it is an addiction problem.
Maybe it is so many things that your just bone tired and you have somehow bought into this thought that your situation is hopeless. Well, it isn't.
God will come to you and restore you.
He will fill you with hope.
Not a hope of sunshine and puppy dogs...lollipops and rainbows...but a real hope. A hope that is firmly rooted and grounded in Him.

Romans 15:13
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a LIVING HOPE through the resurrection of of Jesus Christ from the dead.

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness...
I dare not trust the sweetest 'frain...
but wholly lean on Jesus name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand..
All other ground is sinking sand...
All other ground is sinking sand....'

Find God...
Find Hope...
Find Hope....
live!

God on you....
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A STONE'S Throw

Luke 22:41
He (Jesus) walked away about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed.

How far is a stone's throw? I guess it depends on the arm that is throwing it.
But in this case, a stone's throw is the greatest distance ever traveled by man.
It is this "stone's throw" that took our Lord deep into a garden to wrestle with an event that lay before him. That "stone's throw" separated Jesus from the others to face his coming death alone. Left to his thoughts and his desire to see the Father's will carried out, Jesus knelt down in prayer. Everything else disappeared from his mind. His heart was heavy and the emotions were weighing him down. "Father, if possible take this cup from me....not my will, but your will be done."  We're not told how long Jesus tarried there in the garden, but what we do know is that at some point, he arose and went to meet those who were sent to arrest him. He went in the power of the Holy Spirit. He went secure in the knowledge that he could face the cross and everything it stood for. But you have to go back to that garden, to the place where the decision was made to go on, to not turn back or run away. It such places like this, time like this when we are facing the hard facts about our own lives, that we must go "A stone's throw."

We must go into our own garden.....in our hearts and minds. We must separate ourselves and face the things that are seeking to kill us. It might addiction...it might be an abusive relationship. Truth be known, it is probably a heart not yielded to God. A heart that still desires to have our old ways. We want to quit doing drugs or drinking....we want to quit living in dead end relationships....we just aren't willing to commit to the change. Jesus told some people who were following him that if they wanted to save their life...they will loose it. But if you wanted to lose your life, for his sake, you would save it. Kind of a conundrum isn't it? What he was saying is that we must die to our old ways. The power of sin is at work in us. It directs us and leads us. It influences us and we become slaves to it. I guess the greatest deception sin ever perpetrated on the human race, was the idea that we were in charge of our own lives....when in fact we have sold ourselves into "sin" slavery.

Just as in Matthew Chapter 4, were we read that after Jesus' baptism the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness...it takes the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to drive us into our "stone's throw" where we must face up to the truth that we are in need of a Power greater than ourselves who can restore us. It is in such times and faced with such truth that we can see the light of God's love. A God whose desire is for us to give ourselves, will and life (Step #3) over to his care.  Once that decision has been made, and we have prayed confessing our sin and asking for his forgiveness, we can know that we are now "a new creation" (II Corinthians 5:17). We no longer have to live under the power of sin. We no longer have to fear the penalty of sin, and we no longer have to be weighed down by the presence of sin. Now I don't know about you, but that dog will hunt.

Think on these things....
God on you....
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Happy Anniversary....40 Years!!!!

Here she is with our grand daughter.
My wife.
Today we celebrate 40 years of sharing life together......legally, might I add.
40 years! Man that is something that old people do.
Oh yeah, I'm old.  Notice that I said that I was old, and not her. She is still my bride, the love of my heart.
I could write a billion pages about this woman and not even scratch the surface of what an incredible person she is.
She loves the Lord and each day is a celebration of that love.
She is the most unselfish, giving, caring person I have ever known.
She is my wife.

We met on January 19, 1970 at the Campus Crusade for Christ office in Gadsden. She was a Junior at Gadsden High School and I was a freshman at Gadsden State Junior college. I had been a part of CCC since my senior year in high school, so me and my best-est friend, Jim Bentley had stopped by to hang out. I happened to have my guitar with me and was working on a song. I'd like to say that it was a masterpiece but the truth be known I don't even remember what it was. But I do remember that young girl that came strolling through those doors and into my heart on that winter afternoon. Miss Vicki Campbell! She didn't even know I was alive. Quick, I had to do something. "Think of something, Michael...." She disappeared into an office (she was working as a secretary for one of the staff members). I took my guitar and tracked her down. Going into the office where she was working, I sat down and continued to work on my song. She thought I was staring at her....but I was in deep, poetic thought. Naw...not really, I was staring at her, but I couldn't tell her that.

One thing lead to another and after much research and info on this beautiful young lady, I mustered up enough courage to call her and ask her out on a date. She accepted. Our first date consisted of us going to the OTHER DOOR (the coffee house that was ran by CCC) where I played a set, and then to Pasquale's Pizza. There among the horde of other young people, with our 6 inch cheese Pizza and two cokes, I serenaded her with tunes from the juke box. mainly Edwin Starr's "WAR".  I would love to say that it was all sunshine and lollipops, but our first year together (remember when you went steady?) was rocky. We were together, we fought, we broke up, we were apart. We were back together, we fought, we broke up, we were apart. Ahh!! Such is young love.  In 1971 I asked Vicki to marry me. She accepted. On September 1, 1972, Vicki and I were married in the courtyard of 12th Street Baptist Church, in what her grand mother referred to as "That hippie wedding."
I remember standing down front with the pastor's when Vicki came out in her wedding gown. Never had such a beautiful woman ever been seen before. She was radiant and beautiful and a few other descriptive words that don't even exist. She took my breath away.

Forty years have passed and what I thought was love on that September night back in 1972, pales in comparison to what I know is love today. We have shared a life together and the Lord has blessed us beyond measure. We have two sons who love the Lord and their lives reflect it. They, in turn, have married two wonderful women in their own right. I am blessed to be the father in law of Robin and Heather. We also have two incredible grand children (but isn't every grand child the most wonderful thing to ever come along?) Like I said, God has blessed my wife and me in ways that money or material possessions could never replace.

Tonight Josh and Heather will be driving in from Athens, Georgia. Chad, Robin, Tyler and Ashley will be coming over from Southside. We will all load up to go out and celebrate the big 4-0. Where might we be going for such a hoo-ha? Why Pasquales of course. I don't know if they'll have Edwin Starr on the juke box or not, but I know that the young girl that I will take there is still the love of my life.

Happy Anniversary, Vicki!
I love you.....

God on you....
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