The Plaited Basket

Another basket-rescue

This time in the New Testament,

Paul was newly converted

And to be an apostle was his intent.

The Jews sought to slay him

But the disciples would have none of it,

They let him down a wall

In a plaited basket.

Paul was able to escape

And set his sights on Jerusalem,

I guess like Moses, he was a basket-case

But not the kind that’s a problem.

Stewart Russell © June 2020

To Know Jesus

“That I may know him”

What a purpose!

Not knowing about

But knowing Jesus.

Words of the apostle Paul

His purpose and delight

To know the blessed Lord

The obstructions despite.

Some walked with him

But didn’t really know

Though wherever he went

They too would go.

They slept together

And together broke bread,

They saw his miracles

Even saw thousands fed.

Confessed to a revelation

That he was the Christ

But this revelation

Clearly had not sufficed.

Then on a predestined day

He took three on a mount,

In Mark chapter 9

We can read that account.

Its entirety we’ll not detail

 In the interest of time

But take your Bible or cell

And read verses 2 to 9.

There they saw Moses

Of Mount Pisgah’s fame

And there they saw Elijah

Who on Mount Carmel reigned.

But they also saw Christ

Whose glory they glimpsed

Having seen nothing like it

Before or even since.

May we glimpse Christ’s glory

Today as we sing

And also from the Word

In whatever the Spirit brings.

Stewart Russell © October 2018

Absent from My Own Funeral

 

Permit me to be morbid

Just another time,

I need to share something

That is stamped on my mind.

I’ve been attending funerals

More than a few,

These were mostly persons

That I really knew.

In a few cases

Some were relatives of friends

But there were so many

I thought they wouldn’t end.

I have had a break

For the last three weeks

But concerning so many funerals

I trust there’s no repeat.

Sometimes three in one day

I just had to be there

To pay my respect,

I want to make that clear.

One day if Jesus should tarry

You will attend mine

But I will not be in attendance

Not at that time.

I have the Bible’s backing

It is found in God’s Word:

To be absent from the body

And to be present with the Lord.

And while I do not understand

All that this means,

When you come to my funeral

Do not expect me at the scene.

I would have long vacated

My temporary tent

That facilitated the time

That on this earth I spent.

  

This bivouac you see

And in which I now reside

One day will be buried

But not with me inside.

The real Stewart Russell

Would have been whisked away

To await his resurrection

On a divinely appointed day.

So if I go before you do

And that is very possible,

Remember that I told you

I will not be at my funeral.

If you believe God’s Word

You’d appreciate my stance,

Mine is a biblical reality

I am not in a trance.

Turn with me now

To 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 8

To be absent from the body

And to be present with the Lord.

The apostle Paul was confident

And so am I,

The born again believer

Will live again though he dies.

I will not be in attendance

I hope you can now see,

The real me would have left,

They will inter my body.

Stewart Russell © November 2018

The Presence of God

 

It is interesting that you should ask

My view on the presence of God,

I rejoice in the fact of its reality

And the Spirit’s presence I applaud.

Most feel there’s a spiritual presence

Of something, of someone or the other

But whether it is God, Allah or Buddha,

For some that is not a bother.

That spiritual dimension is daily seen

In the way we live and act

And given the way we bury our dead

Spirit is an undeniable fact.

Burying the dead is more than hygienic

There is a sense of something beyond,

Far deeper than burying an animal

Regarding of which we were very fond.

No ceremony regarding any animal

Animals are just interred in the ground,

However, when it comes to a human

So much more in our minds resounds.

For one there's a certain expectation

We will see that someone again

And though the loss may be hard to take

This certainly helps to ease the pain.

This has been so in all societies

Of the distant past and the present

And the idea of life beyond death,

Only a relative few resent.

This speaks to the way we live life

And the way we prepare for death,

Even though we may often refer to it

As going to our final rest.

Regarding the spirit in a man

The Bible is clearly explicit on this:

There are only two spirits that exist,

This is a point we should not miss.

  

There’s a good spirit and an evil spirit

Between the two we vacillate,

In Romans 7 the Apostle speaks to this

As how to these spirits we relate.

There is the regular urge to do the good

But right then evil presents itself,

And we often follow the latter prompt

And this indicates our spiritual health.

A natural disposition to do the evil:

That is the spirit in the natural man,

However, there is also the Holy Spirit

That has to do with Almighty God’s plan.

The “born again” according to St John 3

Is indwelt by the Holy Spirit

And in his walk with the good Spirit

Doing the good becomes his daily habit.

God is ever present with this believer

And such is seen in his daily walk,

This is evidenced by both his life and lip

And of course by lip I mean his talk.

We talk about practising God’s presence

And what this really means I’m not sure

But I know if the Holy Spirit indwells us,

We will be like Jesus more and more.

It is an unmistakable fact

That the Trinity indwells the “born again”,

Jesus himself points out this

Concerning when the Spirit comes to reign.

Jesus in a discourse with his disciples

Found in John chapter 14 verse 23

Assures them of his and the Father’s presence:

A hint to Pentecost’s coming reality.

And so if the Holy Spirit indwells us

God’s presence is progressively clear

And as such we conform to the image of Christ

Whose Holy Spirit we also bear.

Stewart Russell © March 2019