Category Archives: Photography

open door

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rembrandt-eyes

I long to peer
inside your heart
to feel the things
that urge new start.
entrancing words
roll off your tongue
like the sheltering breezes
boughs hide among.
the imprint of wiser paths
across impending icy field
leads me upon stinging frost
with progress’ fruitful yield.
I yearn to see your face today
and know a warmth once more
to travel on my pilgrim’s path
and pass through open door.

(c) 2016-2017 rickjstassi

Release, My Bound Heart

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Artist: Loriann Signori

9 How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.
10 With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
Psalm 119

O Father I give all of myself to You now to do with as You wish. Amen

Our heart was and is defiled. We have come from a place where our heart is putrefied in the ungodly ways of the world. All of us have been and are still sinners. We know that our journey is a constant one in His way. He is perfecting, ever-completing us until the day of the Return of Christ Jesus. Yet as we were defiled we need not lay claim and pay homage to that defilement now! We shall acknowledge our sin and make an oath of repentance. For in His way, we walk without a defiled heart. O our once contaminated heart! We believed the world. We were deceived because death has a deceiving sweet fragrance for which to lure the outwitted.

So how can I cleanse my heart? I was tasked with this endeavor recently. I searched my heart thoroughly. I took note of all things that currently and in the past, have bound my heart in sin. The list is long. Follow the Lords precepts and count your sins. Write them so you may see them. It serves you well, this exercise. We will see the clutter of the lack of forgiveness, lust, dislike, foul language, distrust, and more. Is this just me?

So how can I cleanse my heart? In this inventory we now have the chance to acknowledge past and present clutter held tightly against the walls of our heart. The very place we are promised the indwelling of the Spirit. The Light. The light and darkness – we cannot appease both simultaneously. We cannot straddle the fence of light and darkness. To cleanse our heart -to purge darkness, we acknowledge and cast off the darkness with an oath of repentance, a vow to cast burdens on the shoulder of Jesus.

We take heed according to Your word, Father. Cast our burden onto the shoulder of He whose burden is light. According to Your word Lord: Matthew 11:30

The cleansing of our heart is a special invitation to the Spirit who already works in us. Now with less clutter thus clearing a conduit between us and God! With the clutter in our heart, we walk on God’s path with ankles chained. Slow progress. With clutter cast off,  we have the brisk gait of a Spirit-filled life. Our one-on-One relationship with the Holy Spirit and the precepts of our Lord are now clear. Clarity brings growth. His commandments ring in all fullness. However, if we do not choose to do this inventory, the burdens from our past-our present, delay our walk into godly fruition and hold firmly against the walls of our heart like a plaque. We do not know the fullness of the Lord’s work. Our progress is slow but he will progress us. He is the Master surgeon Who will perform the work that is well required on our hearts.  We choose: Quick or drawn out.

With a cleansed heart and with clarity, we hear God. We see Him with a greater clarity. The Spirit moves in us with greater fluidity. We adhere closer to His commandments. His laws. His freedom for us. Chains are broken and we are restored in greater fullness today than yesterday. This process is giving ALL of ourselves to God. Not a portion. We already stated that oath! Yet, we see that all of our self isn’t necessarily all.  Acknowledge the past pain, hurt unto others, lusts of the flesh, hatred for man, gossip… Cleanse the past. Cast it away. We are saved to be sure and clear. But to see the fullness of God’s work today through His spirit, we clean house. With a clean heart, the Spirit is able to give His gifts, and we will see Him. Feel God. Know the perfect law of liberty as freedom – the response from God, as we first respond to Him with obedience.

Believe He does a great work in us. Even as we walk with chains. But also believe, we can loose these binding chains to walk with a brisk gait along His path.

For a new day dawns and we are thus refreshed. Release my heart that is bound, In Jesus’ Name.

Rick Stassi

February 24, 2012

The Violin of Our Heart

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Artist: Rick Stassi

1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:1-3

We are thus restored.

Jesus Christ has renewed us from lifeless ash

To the flourishing green leaf of spring growth.

Vigorous.

Full of life, we are.

We unfurl as we grow,

Ever-reaching toward the glow of our Father, the warmth,

The Light.

He is our Lord.

He is Lord of all Creation.

…and I have patience. I wait on Him. For He welcomes our inquiries, our wonderment, our marvel, our seeking. He answers in His time. But know we are blessed! As we ask, He inclines an ear. He bends down toward us to show us He cares about what we are asking. He has His timing but He wants us to know in our period of waiting and patience, He leans toward us as a Father to His child. “Bless you my child”, He may say. “You wait in perfecting patience and I will answer”, saith the Lord, again, He may say. He hears us. Discouragement is released. For here in these verses God promises He hears us. Discouragement is a lack of trust when indeed we are promised. Rest in His promise.

…and I am delivered. My feet may sink well up to my ankles in clay that holds my gait from movement.  I stand in a well and look up thousands of feet and see a pin-sized light that is the top of the pit and my impossible exit. Yet, He removes me from a pit I have probably created myself and now reside in, entrapped. He frees my feet from a path where in each impossible step I become more and more trapped. I chose this path? Why did I stray? However, I have faith He will deliver. He returns me to the path that is built upon a solid foundation. Jesus. “You have shown perfecting trust, child”, He may say. I am empowered in growth.

..and He blesses me. A new song pours forth from  my mouth; no from my heart to my mouth. It rings out, a beautiful sound. The peel of a bell. The violin of my heart in symphonic rhapsody. I am blessed and all sound is in His glory, from Him, to Him, for Him. Many will see. Many will hear. It is to His glory we respond. He delivers, restores, and we sing a new praise. We are evangelists.

For what man digs a pit, climbs in, is entrapped, rescued, and then thanks himself? Foolish. His rescue is God’s hand.

For what man strays onto a miry, clay path and sinks to his ankles unable to move, is freed, walks again on solid ground, then thanks himself? Foolish. It is God’s hand. We grow stronger in our faith. It is Him helping us in our follies.

Finally, what man sings a new song for our Lord each day? The man who knows Jesus Christ who is our bedrock, our Salvation, our Deliverer! A godly man – in character and integrity all from God.

See this: There is an internal deliverance, an internal trust – ever-perfecting us. Then as we are willing to wait on and trust  Him, we sing forth praises so all will hear. Praise God for His way. He appoints a time to listen, a time to  hear, and a time He will act. We learn these stages-they are part of our perfecting process. Then He tells us: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World”. This is our song! We shout it out. The peel of the bell. The violin of our heart.

Rick Stassi

2/19/2012

…O foolish man

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13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy  Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:13,14

We accept Jesus Christ into our lives and we are reborn. We accept the Spirit as our Helper, into our hearts where He abides. He Helps in the understanding of God’s will and intentions for us, I pray I write under that condition.

We are humble servants of the Lord – speaking and comparing spiritual things with those spiritual. Man cannot teach us this. His wisdom will not approach the realm of which we are spiritually taught:

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:25

 Comparing  spiritual things is our discernment of comparing those things God imparts upon us to things of the nature of the abiding Spirit. It is our spirituality:

“…plainly declared the doctrine of Christ, in terms also taught them by the Holy Spirit. He not only gave them the knowledge of these things, but gave them utterance.” Matthew Henry

Henry explains what our spirituality is: hear and speak the things of the Spirit. Man’s teaching will not approach this. As the verse says: The [impossible] foolishness of God, and the [impossible] weakness of God is still wiser and stronger than man. I say “impossible” because God is omnipotent and all-powerful. There is no foolishness or weakness in Him. It is but a sarcastic example from Paul to illustrate the relationship between God and man and who man is in comparison to God. That is why we have fear, or reverence. That is why we are humble. We are in the midst of the Creator who made all things but still knows us personally.

Man will not teach this because man is confounded and is distracted by the depths of the seas, the distance of the stars, atomic structure, and the single-cell beginning of life. Do not compare what the Spirit teaches with what man observes and utters. They are not close in relevance. But compare what the Spirit teaches with the results of the wonders of God in our life. How is God working in our lives? What miracles has He performed? We must not be absorbed into the teaching of man for it is not us that is confounded yet we may become deceived. Thus we seek the teaching of our Helper who leads us in the ways far above the leanings of man. Man will not see this separation until he has asked Jesus  for forgiveness and submitted to His loving-kindness. It is not possible for man to understand but he can see Christ in us. That is a connection between our purpose in God and God’s will.

Reflect His image. Emanate His joy. Shine His love. Divert the fading spirit of man to the Spirit.  It is man’s salvation that he will be led to. Not by us, but by what we are taught, hear, and utter from the Holy Spirit. God as our Helper.

Rick Stassi

December 2, 2011

…rejoice in testimony

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12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

2 Corinthians 1:12

Paul describes the ‘spirit’ in which he delivers the message of God to the Corinthians. Rejoice in the testimony of God in your life. Your conscience is your inner intuition that ‘impels’ us to right or wrong. By this statement, I believe Paul is stating that he is rejoicing in the testimony that is in agreement with God. When in agreement, we are confident of His good work. We are joyful in our choices. We are satisfied in our minds and hearts that our intuition is more than a simple thought of whimsical good. It is God’s direction that we have:

  • Recognized
  • Understood
  • Conveyed

 When we are communing with God, our heart speaks with the voice of Jesus within us. It is clear and concise. It is not complicated and it is only through the grace of God.

Sincerity:

“Sincerity in Greek implies the non-admixture of any foreign element. He [Paul] had no sinister or selfish aims…” A.R. Fausset (BlueLetterBible) 

The satisfaction of our testimony rises out of a sincere heart. We can rejoice because we are clear that the core of our testimony is from God. We are clear it is not self-centered. We are clear it is not mixed with ulterior motives. Our wisdom through God precedes all rejoicing. be secure in your words and know your heartfelt words are from a deeper wisdom of which the source is not of the world, but of God, Himself. The hierarchy of our testimony release:

  • God
  • His Wisdom
  • Our Understanding of Him
  • Our Conveyance of the Testimony of this Understanding

What is our rejoicing, actually? It is the joy we feel when we are praising God. We have edified Him and we know it. We have a right conscience and a sincere heart. These are two litmus tests that we can use on ourselves to test our motives.

The message is to convey a simple message to the world and to individuals, as well. Be self-aware which will happen when you are communing with God in a deeper, personal relationship. He searches our hearts and shines His light in our dark places. As we seek Him,  He will reveal who we are, what are motives are, and guide us so that we may rejoice because we have edified Him to the world. There is no better place to be than in God’s will. It is a selfless place and all of our heart is one with Jesus. That is not worldly – that is the grace of God.

So, edify Him today. Seek deep in your heart and read the Bible. His word. His wisdom permeates our stubborn nature and humbly we can be sincere. This can be through words, a hug, a conveyance of hope, or a demonstration of our faith. Above all, however, it is our love – actually His love that we have been given by grace. Seek to know this love. Seek to know and understand Him. I pray I have now. I rejoice and my conscience is clear. Praise God.

Rick

Thanksgiving

November 24, 2011