There is likewise a timing in building. The breaking down of the old and the cleaning out of the rubbish accumulated over the past must precede new construction. Repentance is the first condition of a new heart; we must turn from in order to fully turn to. To rush the job by leaving out the first steps may result in delay or damage to the intended project.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Jeremiah 13:16: Give glory to the LORD your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. (KJV) 

To become blind is the ultimate nightmare for the visual artist; to become spiritually blind the ultimate judgment on our art. No one who intends to reach the heights ought to plan the journey in darkness; when your world is turning to grey, be very careful where you walk.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Isaiah 24:19: The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. (KJV) Centuries ago such extreme statements were held up as evidence of the archaic and ignorant nature of Scripture. Where, men said, would you ever get a fire hot enough to melt the earth? More to the point, what could rip apart (untie) the very elements, the building-blocks of matter? So they argued in a pre-atomic age. Now we hope we can hold it in check.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Three disqualifications .... mirror the concerns of three men that came to Christ seeking to be His followers. They involve daily cares... the security of a house, a loved one and personal safety. And what is wrong with having a vineyard, building a house and having someone you love waiting in the wings? It is not always the bad things that take us from the best. It is not just unrighteousness but our own righteousness, not just wrongs but unyielded rights that cause us to lose focus in the war and lose our life in seeking to save it. God never said, “You shall have no other bad gods before Me.” Just gods. 

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

...There was this guy now on the beach. He had a fire going and seemed like he saw them there all catching nothing and he said, “Kids - you catch anything?” What does Jesus know about fish? Peter did what he told them to do; cast the net on the other side. The net almost broke with the fish. Yes, Jesus does know something about fish. Actually about anything and everything. And tides. And oceans. And fishing. He is much more than the Messiah. And He still calls people to fish today, and one of His gifts is rooted in Who He is and God is the Fisher. Do you have the calling? Millions fish today around the world. And so certainly also does God. 

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

In the calling of a warrior always remember this; that this gift you are given from God is not to be the one the world is to take as its ultimate treasure. The war in which you must now fight and in which others too may die is not to be the final focus of the future. As we are called not to be mere pacifists but peacemakers, so also our ultimate end is not to be forever exalting blood and death but the end of conflict in which weapons now are no longer needed.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Often almost unnoticed in Scripture is the one Divine thing that cannot be counterfeited in life. While various forms of false fun and many prevailing perversions of pleasure are sought as proposed purposes for enjoyment, none of these can bring what will be finally seen as something most fundamentally supernatural. It does not depend on circumstance. It transcends any human expectation from any exterior provision. It may function in the most frightful onslaughts of fear, a formidable enemy fury or ongoing furnace of pain. It is joy.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

...Here, (unlike some posing purple pansies promoted as “precious” and “pure” in the supposed world of the holy) are real warrior descriptions; bands of brothers; fathers of families; men of might, portraits of valor; chosen as the chief and the choice, apt to the war and fit to go out and fight. 

...These are they whom God recorded as His representatives in battle. They all bear the colors of their calling, the reputation of their rankings, the marks of their military reality. “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.” (Flanders Fields)

From the Chapter, "God is a Warrior"

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

It is not only right to ask God for wisdom and inspiration in our work; it is part of the original precedent. The power of the Holy Spirit is not only for ministry in special circumstances and spiritual situations; it is also given on a day-by-day basis to those not only conscious of His calling, but conscious of their dependence on Him in faith.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

It is the binding and weaving work around an empty place that makes it strong and marks it as God’s own work and God’s own devising. Loss is not always tragedy and the missing places and pieces may also make up the beauty of a work put on display to the world.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

What is the purpose of Sabbath? It is a covenantal reminder that all we have flows from God and all we do is to be for God. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. It is not primarily a legal restriction but a relational opportunity. It is not for God’s sake, but for ours; for a single day it boundaries all labor apart from that which rests, refreshes and replenishes our lives. It hallows forever the necessity of periodic release from pressure, and reminds us recreation is in a real way a re-creation.

The consequence of working seven days without rest or respite results in death. Though the execution of legal national penalty is no longer in effect, the inescapable principle remains; when people and their livelihoods, industries and companies begin to prematurely die, much of this needless suffering and loss will trace back to attempted violations of what is unchangeable. Without a sacred break, you habituate acceleration to burn out.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

Work is not a curse but a sacred calling. It was not given us as either a liability or limitation but as a holy right and responsibility. The curse that came to the first family for sinning was not that they would have to work but what work they did would now become ensnared in extra effort and a burden within a blessing. Whatever your work, there will be powers and principalities set to make all your needed effort troublesome and tiring.

~Winkie Pratney
     Spiritual Vocations

In Modernism, miracles also are suspect if not “impossible.” Forced to deny plain words of the Scriptures that expose and condemn all natural man’s selfish actions, the Modernist has to question ALL Scripture that does not agree with his life. The God’s Divine Directory becomes a book “written by man” full of “mistakes.” Its plain demands become “Misinterpretations.” Modernism joins Satan by asking “Has God said?” when He very plainly HAS! (Genesis 3:1). 

This philosophy tries to take the supernatural from Scripture and society, undermining faith in God and His Word. Here, the Bible is not our absolute guide for life under the light of God’s Holy Spirit. A Modernist rethinks truth in a way that clouds Christ’s clear commands. He makes darkened reason, not intelligent trust in the Word of a wise and holy God, his rule. Subtle changes in understanding of truth, double-thinking, and silence on issues that clarify sin are all marks of Modernism.

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Jesus did not promise all His followers popularity, but LIFE. We need only to remember that “friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4; John 15:18-19; 1 John 2:15). Men who conform to the world will not change it. Early Christians were often deeply hated, despised, and persecuted. Some were even murdered, but the Gospel spread; “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” Ten of the twelve disciples died violently for their Lord. Jesus Himself said, “The world will hate you because I am not of the world.”

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

The Gospel has built-in power to change society. Society is simply a lot of separate people living together and no one can change people like God. To alter the living conditions of people is really only a useful side-issue. The Bible shows us that changing social conditions alone will not necessarily change the ultimate choice of a man or woman’s heart. Environment only influences our decisions, never creates them. We are much more than our food, houses and books. Giving selfish people better homes or nicer food will not transform their natures; they will simply be more refined sinners. If we center our hearts on God, our life will change deeply enough to affect both our living conditions and our world, but simply moving a man’s home will not move his heart.

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

There are serious flaws in the good deeds philosophy mentioned under Humanism. Jesus taught a life of good works not FOR salvation, but as a natural result of His own inner transformation of our hearts. True Christians do good flowing from the love that is a consecration to the highest good of God and His Universe, in glad service for their Heavenly Father John 9:4-5). Jesus too, was moved with compassion by human need. But He did not come merely to start relief programs. He had the ability to supply food for others. He fed multitudes, BUT always did these miracles within a limit of spiritual response. He wanted to meet the needs of the whole man. In fact, He distrusted those who followed Him for the supply of physical need alone (John 6:26).

~Winkie Pratney 
     Youth Aflame 2.0

We cannot just TEACH man to be good. Today’s highly educated generation are only smarter sinners. The city killer is no less evil than the jungle head-hunter. Both have selfish hearts, expressed in more or less educated ways. Our conscience needs to be cleared and reawakened; we need forgiveness and cleansing from our past; we need a force inside of us to guard our hearts and minds as a block to future wrong. We need power to live above ourselves and not be a slave to selfishness. God, by the Holy Spirit, can do this. He can point out what man without God cannot see — the “exceeding sinfulness of sin” (Romans 7:13). A pig in a sty cannot tell what a “clean” home is like. It has a wrong idea of “clean” in the mud. Only God can show us both our wrong and conquer it. He wins our rebel hearts by His great love, then takes up His own home in our lives by His Holy Spirit (Revelation 3:20; Ephesians 3:17).

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Modernism grows out of religious humanism. A Modernist lives by his feelings like other selfish people, but the desires that may seem to move him most are the needs of the sick, uneducated, poor and hungry. And who is not touched by human need? How noble such efforts seem, even when a man merely uses human plight to gratify his selfishness or appease his conscience. What a tragedy that such deeds of giving can be used as excuses for not doing the first thing God asks of a man; surrender to Christ. Although Modernism has attempted many needed relief and social programs that have been of help to the world, it has helped keep alive a terrible lie, that man can make it to perfection and purity on his own.

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Humanists try to deny or ignore sin. To justify themselves they may do many “good works.” These may seem acceptable in the sight of men, but God searches the heart and sees our real motives. All of our works will be exposed by the light of Heaven. We all know deep inside that “it is appointed to man once to die, and after death the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27; Acts 17:31). Psychiatry can at best EXPOSE the CAUSE of our guilt, leaving psychology to make an attempt to help us live with it. But none of our studies can REMOVE it. Only the Law-Giver Himself can pardon; only the blood of Christ shed “for the forgiveness of many” can rescue us through God’s conditions of our repentance and trust.

~Winkie Pratney  
     Youth Aflame 2.0

A Humanist’s answer is not real. It does not account for the disgusting dictatorship of sin in the human heart. Good FUTURE deeds (even if made from the right motives) cannot cancel out bad ones. If wrong has been done, the penalty of God’s broken law must function. God must be strictly fair. His justice cannot simply excuse, for instance, a murderer on his promise of some future behavior. Selfishness unchecked would murder God’s Universe.

~Winkie Pratney 
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Humanism’s fatal mistake is to confuse ability or CAPACITY with CHOICE. A man can know right and how to do it. From the dawn of moral awakening, however, the whole record of Scripture and history is that we choose instead to do WRONG. Even the seemingly “good” actions of unchanged men and women are done from secret selfishness (like hope of self-gain or fear of punishment and disapproval). “Too much good in even the worst of us” is not what the Bible says but — “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God… there is NONE that does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:23, 10; 7:18). Sinful people cannot please God with their excuses for rebellion in “good deeds” (Isaiah 64:6; Matthew 7:21-23; Galatians 2:16; 1 Corinthians 13:3).

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Hedonism,  once popularized by Hefner’s “Playboy Philosophy,” fits in here. The strange thing is that if we seek pleasure for pleasure’s sake, we will never find it. It is like trying to find the pot of gold at the proverbial end of the rainbow. The man who tries to save his life by living totally to serve himself actually LOSES it because he becomes a slave to his lusts, and pays the penalty of sin (Luke 9:24; 1 Timothy 5:6; Romans 6:16).

~Winkie Pratney 
     Youth Aflame 2.0

The foundation of moral freedom is self-love in the context of self-denial; this is not a paradox. Self-love simply means unselfishly choosing your own highest good; self-denial is the willingness to subordinate personal desires to the revealed will of God, whether that implies sacrifice or not. A by-product of a holy life is happiness. We were never meant to live on the level of an animal (Luke 14:26-35; 18:29-30; John 10:10; Ephesians 3:14-21; 2 Corinthians 9:8; 1 Peter 2:11; 4:2).

~Winkie Pratney  
     Youth Aflame 2.0

Materialism makes CREATION, not the Creator the object of devotion. The man who would be Christ’s disciple must hold lightly to the world and tightly to God (Luke 14:33; Colossians 3:2). A disciple of the Lord Jesus is no longer his own. He is “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0

When people get settled and comfortable they tend to pay less attention to their Maker and more attention to the things He made. Even useful or needed things can take first place in time and affections that rightfully belong to the Lord. Jesus knew the danger we call Materialism, for His land had many Materialists. When He multiplied by a miracle the loaves and fishes to feed a hungry crowd, people tried by force to make Him their “King of Things” (John 6:13-15).

~Winkie Pratney
     Youth Aflame 2.0