Tag Archives: Christ Jesus

Nathan Dooley

I CONFESS

Leave a comment

I confess, I’m not there yet. If I’m not sinning one way, it’s another. I know, “Welcome to the obvious Nathan.” Right? That bothers me though, because I believe that a sinful cycle is broken by the power of the Holy Spirit that puts the deeds of my flesh to death, but saying that doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a result. I can say that I believe with all my heart that the issue of sin in me is broken as I confess “Jesus, my Lord,…”, and the Church in me says, “Through faith, it is, when Jesus returns.” But the Christian in me wonders why I still eat the fruit of sin that Christ took away? How can I eat something that’s been taken away? 

What I’m about to write might be controversial, but I’ll clean it up. 

The Holy Spirit teaches the Scripture for my understanding, not my local church (1 John 2:26-28). I’ve learned through my local church the meaning of fellowship and worship to God as a body within the Body, but the knowledge of the truth is learned by my personal relationship to the Holy Spirit who teaches me all things in Christ for discerning the nature of my spirit and the spirits of the body gathered around the preaching of the gospel. Why is that important? Christ the Lord has bought the world with His blood, and each person who remains faithful to believe in the Word of God is being saved by Him for an eternal life, which is a life in Him, the nature of Jesus Christ; as opposed to the nature of Satan, which is not a life, but an experience of eternal consequence that eternal beings—as such we are—will inevitably wake up to, if found guilty by maintaining the position of denying the very Person who bailed the world out of jail. That Person is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father.

I guess the reason for my writing this is to hope for those who read and believe as I do to pray a prayer of righteousness over my soul, that my conscience guilty of sin will be forgiven and healed. Not that I would escape the necessary discipline as a son of God, on the contrary, I ask for the necessary discipline to overcome the fruit of my sin I desire even now… To eat.

Christian Soapbox, Journal, Nathan Dooley

WAIT ON THE LORD

Leave a comment

“Alexa, play thunderstorm sounds.” So majestic is the sound of thunderstorms that I could listen to it on loop. It seems to soothe the soul much like when David played the harp for King Saul when terrified by an evil spirit from the Lord according to 1 Samuel 16:14-23, not that I have an evil spirit that terrifies me, but I’d like to think I’m aware of such a spirit.

God means what He says because of the serious consequences experienced when disobeying His instructions. And as I discover more and more His instruction to the Church—myself a member—I am terrified at what His instruction means as I come to understand the Spirit of Christ in me. It’s simple to hear and read the words, “whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospels will…find it…save it…keep it…to eternal life”, but to make that spiritual principle of understanding, a reality, is not so simple and in fact, it’s a figure of death to self through the literal death of Christ, the ultimate means of worship and praise to the glory of God. How to exemplify that is envisioned by revelation when looking to the Word of God.

My heart stirs as the spirit moves within me to the skill of a coach. It’s dark in the belly of a fish; scales blind the eyes. To see, one must become blind to this present world of blood lust, pride and sexual immorality. To hear, one must become deaf to the sirens of worldly devices and coins clanging in the pockets of the rich. Don’t go the way of a fool seeking to save their life by selling their soul to secrets of darkness for the pleasures it’s of. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord.