I've been that bruised reed,
I've been that smoking flask,
I've been so weak,
I could not even ask
for what it is my heart should seek
but You did not abandon or forsake,
You did not quench
and You did not break
me beyond repair
but You took great care
and patiently You suffered long
every wrong.
Is my soul worth that much to You?
I know the answer before I ask -
You care for the mentally ill
and ever suicidal one about to take those pills
and the lonely homosexual,
knowing fleshly lusts cannot satisfy
and every raped and abused one
crying out to You, why?
You care so deeply
You see each tear
You hear their weeping
You know their fears
And You've offered to take it all upon Yourself
every sin, every stain
till all that remains
is the yoke that keeps us
close to You....

Run my son, run.
Run with all your strength and might.
Run from the darkness into the light.
Run to the One
who runs toward you
when you choose to forsake
the pig slop you're accustomed to.
Run to the One
who became flesh and died
that you may now dwell forever by His side.
Run, dear one, run.
Run to the One who alone is Holy,
who covers you and feeds your heart
and keeps you in the bosom of His mercy -
Run.

Part Two

Butterfly's are easily controlled by the wind (Jn:3:8). They are light - more wings than flesh! They come and go as the wind directs them, using their wings more to stay aloft than to fight the wind. So are believers who walk (and fly) in the Spirit - when we die to our own will, we become Holy because it is never His will for us to sin. So it's only when we die to our own will that we can live for the Father's will. In Gethsemane, Jesus crucified his will. It then became easy to allow his body to be crucified. When we allow our will's to be crucified, it is easy then to allow our bodies to be led by him, rather than by ourselves, to go and do and say whatever pleases him, whatever the Father's will is for us on any given day. Jesus testified he only did what he saw his father doing and he only said what he heard his father saying (Jn:5:19) Indeed, he testified in Jn:10:17 that the Father loved him because he laid down his life (his will).
The Tree of knowledge of good and evil represents man's will exalted over God's simply because God said not to eat of it and man, at Satan's urging, chose to exalt his will over God's. The Tree of Life represents God's will exalted over man's. Choose you this day - life or death? Spirit or flesh? Your will or God's? Will you choose a religious form of Christianity centered on the tree of knowledge, on the pursuit and consumption of an endless supply of knowledge? Or will you choose a Christianity centered around Christ himself, our tree of eternal life, who we engage and commune with within our hearts? Will you be a doer or a hearer only? A follower of Christ in mind only and not in heart is a caterpillar - they have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (to transform them). They honor God with their lips (they sing songs to Him or about him, they sit, and listen to endless sermons) but their hearts are far from him. Notice the order here - Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Spirit, soul, than body. Heart first, always, then mind. Religious, Babylonian, apostate Christianity is always mind only.
Engage God with your heart. Embrace him wholeheartedly, and become that butterfly believer he has invited you to be - live free! Unwrap, remove those grave cloths that stink of death, of your old, sinful lifestyle and join Jesus in unending fellowship - supping and drinking together with him and others like you at his table. Never hunger and thirst again! Be fully filled and satisfied. Say with me "He brought me to his banqueting house and his banner over me was love!" He wants to be your source of pleasure forevermore. Say "I will seek him whom my soul loveth". You well know, if you seek, you will find (Mt:7:7). His garden is full of his love for you, full of delights, full of delicious fruits. Invite him now into YOUR garden as well, say "let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits". Invite him to be as intimate with you as a lover would be. Let him know he is your source of pleasure, not any fleshly desire or lust. Say "My beloved is mine and I am his and I have kept myself for a time such as this. His coming is near as the dawn to my eyes, this longing of mine is soon satisfied. Come quickly, Lord Yehsua, says the Spirit, says the Bride, I'll not arise complete till you draw me to your side. My God in my heart is an all consuming fire, come quickly my beloved for it's you that I greatly desire".

Part One

Jesus was sorely tempted in the Garden. How fitting that he faced and overcame in a garden the same temptation the first Adam succumbed to, in a garden - the temptation to exalt his will over the Father's. His reply must also become ours - NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE
Essentially, Jesus was tempted with the same temptation we are all faced with, perhaps the greatest temptation of all - to abandon our calling from God. To quit our God ordained destiny. To exalt our will over God's, which is Satan's original and continuing sin.
Jesus was called to be crucified on our behalf - so are we. He was physically crucified, we must sacrifice our souls. We must willingly lay down our wills, our souls and die to our fleshly, carnal desires in order that we may live. This is the true born-again process - from selfishness to selflessness, from childish to childlike, from carnality to holiness.
Unless a seed falls (Jn:12:24) willingly lies down and dies (1 Cor:15:31) it cannot be transformed into it's God ordained destiny - it cannot become "much fruit". It will never fulfill it's original reason for being created. Only when our old man (sin filled,  self willed man) dies can our new man (Holy Spirit filled, Father's will fulfilling) live.
Romans 12:2 speaks of this transformation, likening it to a chrysalis, the transformation a butterfly goes through. It looks nothing like it's former self and it is no longer earth bound (flesh bound) but it can fly! When we are transformed into the image of Christ we break free of our flesh's lusts and desires and we become (spiritually) like the angels or as scripture puts it, like birds. We can soar and fly far above earthly things to our hearts delight (Rev:19:17).
Too many churches are full of caterpillars pretending to be butterfly's (some don't bother to pretend, having no idea that they aren't butterfly's, deceived into believing they are who they should be while remaining caterpillars). If anyone makes it to butterfly status they'll fly away from the religious mess most churches have become. When the jail is shaken and the prisoner is freed - they leave! So Pastors (or whatever your leaders calls themselves) in their all encompassing drive to keep people in their seats, will not allow that kind of spiritual freedom in their midst. Who knows, if one soul should be transformed and set on fire with the liberty the Holy Spirit brings, they might free others. Can't have that. Especially if they are anointed by the Holy Spirit's presence within them and the Pastor isn't. This will expose the Pastor as a fraud, so the threat must be removed. Yes, the usual response to someone with God's presence alive within them is to kick them out of the church because the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us into all truth! Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will clearly see the religious bondage they were in, they will see the truth about their church and how much the people are being deceived,  We are told to "quench not the spirit" precisely because so many do just that.
The poor souls caught in this type of religious bondage, caterpillars all, are precisely the ones Jesus came to set free when he announced publicly his ministry on earth - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord".
(a bit of balance, there are very humble Pastors who have the opposite problem of pride, their churches do not give them enough respect and authority. We need a balance between the two).
Pastors jealously clinging to their positions, making sure all are subject to their will alone sounds so fleshly and carnal because it is. Instead of esteeming other's more highly than themselves, many Pastors esteem themselves more highly than everyone else in the congregation. They must not realize it was never God's will to exalt one man over all others in the church but rather that he (God) himself would be their head - using only men who are so filled with the Holy Spirit that they do not put forth their own will but the Father's alone, whom have a complete absence of fleshly ego and desires for attention and power over the people. "You have many teachers but not many fathers" Paul declared. This lament is so true today. So many attend a Bible college where they learn to use their minds to lead God's people instead of attending the "School of the Holy Spirit" where they are taught to lead with their hearts first. They believe that teaching is the primary function of a leader of God's people, teaching by speaking primarily, teaching using logic and the understanding of men, instead of becoming fathers whose hearts are broken and fully given in love to their children, who will lay down their very lives for their children, whose goal in life is to see their children succeed and surpass them, not have them continue to remain in their own home (church) and never become parents for themselves, leaving and going forth and starting their own family (congregation)

Part two soon....