As a ruler paints the lines in his own kingdom, God wants to be hands on in His Kingdom as well. He wants to spend every moment with you and show you the way you should go. This is only accomplished by God having ultimate authority and order in your life. In English poet, Alexander Pope, once said “Order is in Heaven’s first law” and this still remains true to this day. Take even a moment to begin to see the things in your life even now that you need order in.

When you drive your child, or even the child you look forward to having in the future, to school your will drop he or she at their class. When you leave, your child’s teacher establishes their authority and brings order to the classroom. One would have to agree that growth only begins when that order begins. God works in our lives each day the same way. He wants to teach us that His authority is the only way to see growth in our lives.

I know there are questions you would ask about how you can walk in God’s authority. There are many steps to establish God’s order, but the first step is submission. Submit to what you might ask? Submission to God, the Word, and His authority is the answer. The devil is waiting to attack our lives and is standing at the edge of our impatient, angry nature looking in waiting for us to fall completely out of order. You are only open to attack when you don’t submit to God.

Have you ever try to perceive what life would be like if everything was out of order? Traffic signals? Government? Wars? These are only a few examples of what we have in our lives each day that we take for granted. What would happen if every traffic signal in the world turned green? There would be no order and chaos would spread worldwide. Think about what would happen if ever criminal was released from our prisons? What we thought was safety is now anarchy. There would no longer be right or wrong in our world. God wants order in our lives through submission to Him. We need to realize we are fragile beings and God wants us to walk in His authority and have Him as our shield.

As we go on to live our lives, there is one area we forget to submit to, which is the church. Early Sunday morning comes and you click your snooze button so easily. Your thoughts say that you will go next week or even the week after next, but whom are you kidding when you think these things. Retrospectively, think about Christians that attend church who spend more time telling someone they need to be in church when they hardly go to themselves. God’s plan was for our lives to have order and our submission to the Church’s authority was in that plan. We serve a God that allows us to have a choice to submit to authority, but only if and when we submit is when our true blessing comes.

Webster’s Dictionary describes order as “to arrange, destine, or ordain”. This is such an amazing word to only have been established in the 13^th century. Order is only a benefit to us. Consider a suit of armor. In Medieval times, a knight was ordered to wear a suit of armor in battle. In the same respect, that knight would need to put his armor on in the correct order to assure his body was safe was the fight had begun. If a military order, or even his armor, was out of order his punishment could be death. This was not God’s plan for us. We can only benefit from God’s ultimate authority if we submit under that authority and be sons and daughters of Christ.

Many Christians refuse to believe that Christ’s authority belongs to the Church today. Although there is no Scripture that in any way hints that His authority would notbe available to the Church throughout time. A lot of people are okay with getting goose bumps by reading about the miracles that take place in third world countries when the authority of Jesus is put to use there. Some of us may go so far as to dare to command a sickness or a devil to be gone from someone we are praying for, but we are pretty accepting when nothing happens. Why is this? Christ did not intend to establish His authority and stand by watching us not use this authority in His name.

Paul the Apostle, in 2 Corinthians 10, exercised his authority in Corinth yet was met with criticism. Paul attributed the Corinthians criticism to their focus on outward appearances in 2 Corinthians 10:7. The rivals of Paul used their credentials as a barometer to determine whether or not a person truly belonged to Christ. Paul knew that use of authority in this way was not only against the order of God, but was as Leo XIII once said “our highest duty is to respect authority”. We as believers should understand that we were created by the order of God.

Take Genesis 1 for example, God created the entire world in a specific order. If God had made man first, He would have given life to Adam and Eve in a void less world. Instead, God made the world in its fullest form to give us true beauty in the Garden. The Garden of Eden would have not been the same in treeless, no animal, sky less, lightless utopia. God’s plan was to not let them wonder aimlessly in Eden, but established His authority to Adam and Eve when He told them not to eat of the tree of life.

We as sons and daughters of Christ need to submit under God’s one true and ultimate authority. His world commands us to submit to Him, but we as believers need to uphold this command and live in Christ’s authority. The next time you make a decision to walk in authority ask yourself, “Am I trying to understand His authority or am I standing under His authority?”.

            There are a million reasons why someone would want to become so empowered by the fire of God they would do anything they needed to do to protect its kingdom, but one man to this literally and his name was Charles The Great. The early years of church history is littered with examples of men and women who fought and died for the cause of Christ, yet this man’s story was forever stamped “by the sword and by the cross” for a reason. Let’s take a look at the early years of “Charlemagne” and what laid the scene during a time where the kingdom’s somewhat inevitable collapse would be prevented and then memorialized.

            Born the son of the Frankish King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, Charles began to learn early from his father that going to war to reclaim what rightfully belonged to the church was not only a good thing, but God ordained. During a time of Western Europe’s height of Merovingian and Lombard stronghold’s, Charles saw a new era that would soon come only by force. Being the brother of Carloman I, who did everything he could to undermine Charlemagne, Charles was forced to at many times not only fight the adversary that would come against the co-ruled kingdom with his brother, but would be stuck in the middle of a feud that raged on until Carloman’s death at 20 years old. Let’s peer in even further to this man’s remarkable life.

            Charlemagne, was a man who was tall, powerful, and tireless. His secretary, Eginhard, wrote that Charlemagne had fair hair and a “face laughing and merry. His appearance was always stately and dignified.” He was very witty, but could be stern also. His tastes were simple and moderate. He like to hunt, ride, and swim. He wore his typical Frankish dress: linen shirt and pants, a silk-fringed tunic, hose wrapped with bands, and, in winter, a tight coat of otter or marten skins. Over all these garments “he flung a blue cloak, and he always had a sword girt about him.” This just showed how Charlemagne spared no fashion in his life, but always knew the fight might come to him.

            At that time the northern half of Europe was still pagan and lawless. In the south, the Roman Catholic church was striving to assert its power against the Lombard kingdom in Italy. After first offering King Desiderius money to return lands back to the papacy and being rejected, Charlemagne did not back down. It only lead to the conquering and surrender of Lombardy. Charlemagne not only became king of the Lombards, but king of Italy. His determination to not settle for ungodliness did not stop there.

            He went on to literally name his sword Joyeuse, which translates to “joyful”. He gave the very thing he took lives with the term which gave him joy. With his sword in hand, he kicked off a 30 year war against the Saxons. The Saxons were considered a belligerent group of Germanic people who long resisted the Christian beliefs and the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles had taken several Saxon cities just before his conquer of Lombard, but rushed back home to find the Saxons were invading his territory and still conquered the Saxons once again. After each successful victory, the Saxons would wait until Charlemagne would turn his attention to another city and would try to reclaim that area. This only caused Charles to call a national diet to the Saxons, attempting to bring them closer to God. This tactic worked and allowed Charlemagne to conquer the entire Saxon territory after a 30 year, 18 battle crusade that would ultimately end in the conversion and baptism of their leader Widukind. Yet, debate remains on how Charlemagne could have such mercy in some regions and in another send 4,500 people to their death for practicing paganism. Charlemagne at this point was a walking contradiction.

Yet, Charlemagne knew what he was doing and what he felt God was calling him to do. Only after having established peace in this land after Widukind’s conversion did the Saxon’s attempt their final ploy by a tribe named the Nordalbingians. Not only did Charlemagne win this battle, he deported 10,000 of them out of their home to what is now Northern France. His undying devotion to restoring power back to the papacy was evident.

Many would not attribute the victory to God, but more to an effective military strategy. Either case, the undeniable truth was Charlemagne’s ability to organize. During his reign he sent out more than 50 military expeditions. He rode as commander at the head of at least half of them. He moved his armies over wide reaches of country with unbelievable speed, but every move was planned in advance. Before a campaign he told the counts, princes, and bishops throughout his kingdom how many men they should bring, what arms they were to carry, and even what to load in the supply wagons. These feats of organization and the swift marches later led Napoleon to study his tactics.

One of the most noted battles of Charlemagne’s was the Roncesvalles campaign in Spain. Many of the Muslim rulers there had vowed to pay homage to Charlemagne in exchange for military backup provided by Charlemagne. When he attempted to defeat the Saracen people, the city did not fall. This forced him to retreat back home, but not being first ambushed by Basques and killed many famous powerful people dead. This would not end here, but would lead to Charlemagne and his son Pippin to conquer Barcelona in 797, drawing an end to the battle with the Muslims.

For many years following his Saxon crusades, Charlemagne began a series of expeditions and extended through what today is known as modern Hungary. The Slavic people, once conquered, not only renounced their practices, but remained loyal to Charlemagne even until his death. He began to extend his victories into Croatia eventually growing his kingdom to unbelievable sizes. This was all due to his relentless pursuit of establishing the papacy back to the way his father would have wanted it to be.

 As his kingdom began to grow, the papacy began to take notice of the accomplishments of Charlemagne and the advancement of the Holy Roman Empire. His sheer ability to convert those who were near complete barbarians to establishing Christian laws into regions where paganism ruled the land. His reputation preceded him so greatly that Pope Leo III, after being completely mistreated by the Romans in 799, asked him to step in a help this attack by Rome. Several days before Christmas, Pope Leo III was gave an oath of innocence. On Christmas Day, Charlemagne was kneeling to pray at Saint Peter’s Basilica and was crowned “Emperor of the Romans” that day. The pope was attempting to remove all papal power from the city of Constantinople to Charlemagne. Yet, Charles claimed to never have agreed to the office before he was crowned Emperor.

This is where the deceit of Charlemagne and the battles he faced truly shined. There would be no way Charlemagne could have not known this was going to occur. At any rate, Charlemagne once again used this to his benefit and claimed he was going to renew the Roman Empire. One would ask why a pope would attempt to make such a shift, but was only possibly explained by the fact that he could use Charlemagne’s influence to increase the papacy and rightfully restore the Imperial stature to Rome and dissolve any constitutional problems that had surfaced. After such sensational conquests, you would almost certainly believe Charlemagne was anointed by God, but after further inspection of Charlemagne’s unique talents and accomplishments did I really start to come to understand him.

Charlemagne was a man driven by the idea of reform. Any area he could change or better he would leap at the chance to do it more efficiently or defeat it by pure strength. One of Charlemagne’s reforms was his military reform. Charles saw many things in battle he did not like. Whether it was the speed of the troops to or the logistics of feeding his men he thought things through. Many have said that the “stir up” was created by Charles, but a sign of this invention of moving infantry to cavalry was as early as the 6^th century. Although as time progressed, Charles saw a bigger need in economic reform.

Many economic problems were raised after Charlemagne’s father passed away. One was the use of the gold sou, a 1,000 denarii, and its required trade routes from Africa and the East to make this necessary as a stable from of money. Charlemagne needed a solution to solidify the economic structure of Europe. He instead made the sou and livre a counting unit as apposed to a form of currency. This allowed him to start an accurate and strict form of accounting purposes which better helped the Romans to record their expenses. Not only that, he performed several micro economical reforms on the price of goods in Rome. It would appear that Charlemagne’s presence in the Holy Roman Empire was unmatchable, but this was only due to his unusual tactics as a ruler of his time. Tactics which include higher learning.

In a time where rulers would encourage others to learn but would not learn themselves, he was taking the time to bring culture back to Europe. Charles would spend time being taught by scholars, but all the while his ability to write and even read have been called into question. Undoubtedly, Charles would not allow this to stop him and would spark his need for reform of the Roman Church.

Charles saw many issues with the church’s non-liturgical practices, especially when it came to music. He was very unhappy that the church was not conforming it’s music to that of Rome. He began a empire wide reform and had his officials and representatives constantly checking the empire’s church bodies to enforce his reform. As this spread throughout the empire, his reform ignited the musical culture of the Holy Roman Empire. The church was very pleased by his enforcement of the church, just as his father would have wanted. His extraordinary ability to organize was paying off greatly.

Charlemagne had sent into place his ability to not only rule his people, but command them. He dealt with all judicial matters and also led his armies. He was known as a protector of the church of the Holy Roman Empire and as a benefactor of the poor. With all this set in place, he could begin to set the scene for his death. Charlemagne’s accomplishments were only matched by his life after death. He was memorialized in European culture via statues, stories, and his influence that spanned literature, arts, and music. Factually, Charlemagne was appointed sainthood in the 12^th century for his accomplishments. This solidified him even further in the Holy Roman Empire.

In a time where the Holy Roman Empire was not established, you have to credit Charles for standing out among the crowd and trying to really make an impact for the sake of papal history. Although, his methods were questionable or even justifiable, Charlemagne thought he was only doing well because of the papacy his father was trying to establish. He had already predetermined that his actions were in the name of the Pope and would not be affected by earthly judgment. One can’t argue his effect on early European culture, his footprint left in the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire, or even the savage killings and massacres he was said to be a part of, but one thing is for sure…this man did what he could with what he had.

Have you ever wondered how to make an anvil float? Or keep a rock from sinking? Of course these are questions of physics bending proportions, but the idea of doing something that people say isn’t possible and making it possible remains the same. Robert Frost once said “The best way out is always through”, which is a motto only one can strive for. Through many steps, either through seeking God’s wisdom and discernment or practical steps, anyone can start to manage their own optimism and look towards the future. Being optimistic is more than just putting a smile on your face, but being active in a renewal of what makes you happy every day. The first of many fundamental things you can do is connecting to others.

            Typically, a person does not struggle with getting along and being happy with those who are their close friends, but those who they have lost connection with. Try and make a list of friends you haven’t contacted in a while, but know that you need to. This is something even I struggle with. Finding that true reconciliation inside your heart that you know you have using it to the best of your ability. Search your heart and find that one true moment where you lost connection and bring yourself back to where you know you need to be. Trying to find your strengths may take self esteem. Let’s discover what true self esteem means to you.

            The world’s definition of self esteem has been defined as “a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself;”, but personally the second definition stuck out to me as the true definition…”self respect”. I respect of yourself is potentially one of the most vital parts of becoming a person who truly understands a optimistic spirit. A good exercise and habit you should make is to next time catch yourself when you are about to make a self depreciating comment to yourself. It will start to change your mind set on what value you truly have to this world. This is a very hard thing to master, but once you do you can begin to find your competence in yourself.

            Have you ever debated how effective you really are? If your a mother and you call for your child the speed at which he answers is a sign of your adequacy. In life decisions, this fundamental becomes amplified. You start to learn that sometimes more is not always better. A simple gesture can overcome a raising of your voice. If you have wondered what to do correctly in a situation you should seriously develop this amazing skill. There are times that you feel your best just isn’t adequate enough, but this is all depending on what your attitude is toward your ability to be satisfied with the task you have just completed. God did not call us to be unhappy with our best. With Him anything is possible and nothing is impossible from being accomplished in Him. I believe this is when you encounter your purpose.

            William Shed once said, “a ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for.” If only we knew that God had a purpose for each and every one of us. He is so willing to give you a vision of your purpose, but you have to be willing to open your eyes and execute that purpose once He shows you! God has always wanted us to have fulfillment and meaning throughout or life. Practically, I encourage you to ask a few close friends and family to describe what they see as their purpose in Christ is or has been. This will ignite a activation of putting on listening ears to God and opening open our eyes to seeing His vision for our lives. This tricky but powerful attribute is something that we sometimes don’t realize until we allow God to take over, but the fact remains that our purpose never leaves us unless we let go. If you truly mean business then this will allow you to disconnect from personal idolatry.

            I don’t know about you but I have walked into Barnes and Noble or even any bookstore and note how many magazines with beautiful women on them. This advertising and marketing ploy is meant to ignite that feeling inside of us that disconnects us from our body. We start to dislike the things inside of our own selves and starts an unhealthy disconnect in our hearts and minds. On the entirely reversed side of things, one could see this as a form of idolatry to beauty and vanity. If we could only see that the unique things we have inside of us is what beauty really is. Optimism can only be revolutionary to those who really see the individuality in it. Look into a mirror for the first time in your life and see you. The real you. Yet, when you see the real you, don’t allow Satan to manifest an overly optimistic attitude. This will quickly blind you to God’s plan for happiness in your life. Let’s take a quick look at the ways Satan tries to attack you.

            An overly optimistic attitude causes you to consciously focus on things which you enjoy more, but your conscious mind can only recognize a tiny amount of things which you enjoy. This is the beginning of Satan’s plan to blind you. In this, you are amplifying a disproportionate amount of emotion in your own mind. That throws things off balance in your life and you start to wonder (consciously and unconsciously) why you are enjoying some things more than others, and it throws off your responses to natural, ordinary events. You actually become numb to His workings. This was not God’s plan for you. Take the time to run from this attitude.

            I leave you with a few thoughts on maintaining God’s happiness and optimism for your life and spirit. We need to focus on the smiling aspects of everything we see. There is brightness and there is also darkness in this life. We should ignore the darker side and concentrate on the brighter side of things. This is what God has planned for our lives.

I MISS ARIEL WATERS

nicolebyrd:

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