You get hammered in life, but you get hammered into interesting shapes.
Like most, I'd prefer my blessings to come without disguises! And then Life happened.......
A son discovering the reality of God as his Father.
Words that do not become flesh in us remain "just words." They have no power to affect our lives. If someone says, "I love you," without any deep emotion, the words do more harm than good. But if these same words are spoken from the heart, they can create new life.
It is important that we keep in touch with the source of our words. Our great temptation is to become "pleasers," people who say the right words to please others but whose words have no roots in their interior lives. We have to keep making sure our words are rooted in our hearts. The best way to do that is in prayerful silence.
The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
'Until the crisis-dis-illusionments come into our lives, the greater-higher purposes of the Father remain hidden.' (totally obscure to us)
No assembly, no church, no movement, no testimony, no fellowship, is justified in its existence from God's standpoint except insofar as Christ is expressed by it.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
Ever since I heard this question posed by Darin Hufford over at the Free Believer’s Network- Into The Wild pod cast (Worship in the Wild), “What is worship to you” verses, “This IS worship,” I have been freed, launched, catapulted even further to abide within ‘what is worship’, ‘what is church’ to me, etc. etc!
Within the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is NO divorce, schisms between what it says in the letter (of the Scriptures) and the life quickening-empowering spirit, nor will there ever be one! It’s the natural man working, operating independently from His spirit that produces such an un-malleable rigid template that keeps so many from enjoying and experiencing the reality of His abiding closeness in them as them.
I continue to marvel over the corrupted and erroneous thinking that it all boils down to the “right way verses the wrong way” of doing things, but what about His Way, and that is spelled Jesus! The template he uses is who He is, Love, but to those who have not experienced the essence of who God the Father is, love is but a cryptic message that cannot be deciphered.
Knowing “Who’s we are,” is not attaining to some lofty spiritual level as much as it is the God purposed and inborn birth-right of those whom the Father has received unto Himself. It is out of this regal presentation of Who’s we are, that an unrestricted unmeasured flow of power (virtue) invades the child of God, defining who they are which releases them to further cooperate with the divine teacher, the spirit of truth moving them from being His child and little by little becoming a fully matured son!
Our battle has never ever been with ‘flesh and blood’ but we need to be constantly reminded of that which we say we know. I see this being especially crucial and relevant to those who have been lead out side of the religious (circus) camp. It is incongruous to our thinking that not only have most if not all ‘leaders’ within organized religion been deceived by the father of lies (Satan) but also those who were addicted to them. Could this be like the blind following the blind, I think so. It is vital and most sobering to clearly hear and take to heart what Jesus said regarding the religious Pharisees. He didn’t say, “Beware of the Pharisees, but of the leaven of the Pharisees.” The religious indoctrination (brain washing) has been a regular and staple part of our institutional diet for as long as we have imbibed from the man made cisterns.
Do you honestly think for one second the father of lies ever wants the child of God to KNOW Who’s they are, hell NO! As long as that innate imprinting is ignored, we will be held captive to every whim and wind of doctrine that comes a blowing our way, keeping us in a perpetual state of infancy and addicted to the foster or surrogate people that will convince us that without them, we are in grave and serious danger. The blinding that has kept so many of God’s children for so long in the prison house of the religious Matrix is slowly being invaded with the true knowledge of the one who calls Himself the I AM! As this begins to register within the spirit of those who are His, its as if an inner damn is broken, and out of seeing and knowing Him as our only Life is released an unparalleled accelerated growth that catapults us into what we never dreamed possible!
Right now I see what is happening within the body of Christ being something like this illustration. Have you ever had your hand, arm, leg, or foot fall asleep, you know, somehow the flow of blood has been cut off and when you go to use it, its all limp and prickly having no strength to support you. So what do you do, you begin to shake it and the life which is in the blood begins to invade that part of your anatomy that has fallen asleep and soon it regains its proper vitality and is of use to you.
I see this pointing to a much greater liberation within His body, which is you and me. He is bringing those ones to SEE and KNOW Who’s they are, and as that living surge of indestructible life begins to be quickened, imparted to them, they become so much more energized and begin to function according to their divine imprinting. It is these living parts of the body that are realizing His life as their only Life that releases them to resonate with a vibrancy that stimulates those other parts of the body that have fallen asleep!
It never has been by might or power, but by His spirit, and yes He is waking His children up to what has been theirs from day one when He first received them. Behold I show you a mystery, not all shall sleep, a mighty awakening is unfolding before our very eyes, an awakening unto Righteousness!
“Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth” (2Peter 1:12).
What is the present truth that is calling for your and my attention, and is this call something we find easy to respond to, are things super convenient for you right now, no disturbances, and no inner or outer wars going on in your life? When is it ever convenient to be established in the present truth?
What, or who is your fulcrum, lets take a look at the word for a minute, Fulcrum-“An agent through which vital powers are exercised.” I don’t know about you or what you are facing or going through, but for me I find it much easier to bitch, gripe, complain and basically wimp out, by making excuses for me.
All one has to do is look around and see that many are either in over their heads right now because of the global domino effect of the recession and its snow balling or will soon be one way or another. That which has defined who they thought they were is turning to ashes right before their eyes. Today in California a married man who lost his job ended up killing his wife and five children all because of the unfolding out of control pressures coming upon him.
In this world we as believers are told by Christ Himself there will Be trouble, and with these troubles there is an avalanche of pressures that come with them. Why in God’s name would anyone not knowing the Lord ever want Christ when they see so many Christians mouthing verbal religious bull shit, but all the time scared shitless and hoping for the Rapture to soon come and get us the hell out of here?
What the hell does this mean other than just freaking ink on paper, “Greater is He in you than he that is in the world?” Is it remotely possible He, the Father of our spirit is wanting to establish us in the present truth and reality of who’s we are, freeing us to BE hope, peace, joy, hope to those who’s identities are being eroded bit by bit?!
The thief only comes for the purpose of stealing, killing and destroying, but I (Jesus) have come that you might have life and have it in abundance! If His life in us as us is NOT our fulcrum, then I see it being totally legitimate to be whining about loosing my joy, peace, whatever. If this stuff was but external crap then expect the shit to hit the fan when the heat and pressures are turned up in your and my life, and discovering at best I only had a form of godliness, but NO power!
It doesn’t have to be this way folks, our loving Father is only too willing to bring us to see and know Who’s we are and who we are in Him. It takes what it takes, but I hope and pray it won’t end up in another person taking his or her own life along with others.
I remember reading years ago about how in Africa they trapped monkeys for the local zoo’s. They would take (at that time) a hollowed out gourd, cut a hole just large enough for a monkey’s hand to slip in, and inside of the gourd they placed a sweet treat the monkey’s couldn’t resist. The kicker was that when the monkey seized his prize and then trying to pull it out from within the gourd with it in his clenched fist, the opening in the gourd was too small to allow this. He was trapped! All he had to do was “relinquish” his cherished trophy and he would not have become another prisoner in a zoo.
To me this entrapment, becoming ensnared in a believers life is clearly evident to me when we tenaciously cling to our pet doctrine/s, teaching, personality, or whatever else has become more attractive to us than simply wanting to BE wholly His!
Isn’t that what His spirit was pointing out through our brother Paul,“The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.”
Isn’t in interesting that God our Father is dealing in direct proportion, going to the depth of the ingrained habitual sin habit pattern in our lives? There is a potent innate desire within the very spiritual DNA of our make up that spells out how He wants to make known to us experientially that there is a way of escape from those ingrained sin habit patterns that have imprisoned us all. “If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?”
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Before anyone says, Rich, you’re too sin focused, let me clarify that, “Anything not done out of faith, IS sin!”
Most of “Christendom” has been operating out of and from a natural soulish stance, you know, that which is but the meager remnants of the first Adam, purely soulish, with no imparting (quickening) power. For those being extricated from the corrupting toxic pollution of the Religious Matrix many are experiencing for maybe the first time in their lives the serious withdrawals (the D T’s) of being all on their own, with no other mediator between them and God the Father except for the man, Christ Jesus.
So many are crying out to the Lord in the abyss of their intensified loneliness, isolation, being as it were cut off from those who use to tell them everything they needed to do and know. It would ‘appear’ that God has answered their cry for bread with a stone, or a snake or scorpion instead of some mouth watering morsel. Is He really neglecting us, or is He actually using this pain filled season in our lives to cause a further expansion, enlargement from within for the needed and required preparation for the unfolding revelation of “Who’s we are and out of that Who we are!”
I do NOT apologize for the repeated redundancy of this statement, “It’s NOT a seminar, it’s a revelation!” There is so much engendering Father is bringing to pass in my journey with Himself, at times I feel much like a very pregnant woman about to explode.
In the heart beat of a moment in being received by God the Father we instantly became His 4-ever child, but that is so far from His ultimate purpose and intention for us individually or collectively. His intension is to move us in and through grace, to become fully mature Son’s!!! I want to encourage you to NOT settle for the good at the risk of it turning out to be the enemy of His best for you in Christ.
It has always been this way and will continue to be this way, apart from within our spirit-union, birthed out of our living relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, having NO revelation of Him as our ALL our Only Life, folks will simply get caught up in semantics, knit picking over the meaning of ‘right verses wrong wording.’ It’s a revelation, not a seminar!
I’m leaving but an excerpt from a nine part article my friend and brother Art is sending to me, but I want to give you a link to his web site so that you might see it the way he has written it out in greater clarity The series is entitled, “Spirit of Life.” Here is his link. The quote I have here is from the sixth part of the nine part series, as of this morning he has yet to put this part up on his web site, so you can at least read the first installments if you so choose.
Here is the quote,“What a remarkable statement from Paul. Jesus of Nazareth no longer exists as such for the Christian under the grace dispensation. We are not to practice living by pondering and questioning “What would Jesus do (WWJD)?” Rather, we know the resurrected “Spirit of Christ,” by our Spirit union with Him, and we hear Him by having the sense of Him in us and we walk in accord with Him; we live as He chooses to live through us. “
No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.
Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.
If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that He requires of you.
Thanks Mark for letting me use this picture. This is but one of many Mark has done re: Oswald Chambers writings. This painting was inspired by the moving devotions penned and published by Oswald Chambers in the early 1900’s. His powerful book, My Utmost for His Highest, continues to touch my life and draw me closer to Jesus. I hope that this art and verse do the same for you!
From the first time we wept as infants left alone by our mothers, we began learning that no one can be happy without love. By ourselves we are helpless, threatened, anxious, and fragile as cut flowers. Without our roots deep in the common soil, touching the roots of others, we dry up and wither. Only by touching another do we know where we leave off and the mystery of the other begins; only by love can we penetrate that mystery. As babies raised without the touch of love pine and die, so do adults if they separate themselves from those who would love them and be loved by them.
The energy of God meets itself coming and going when two of God's children meet heart to heart, eye to eye, loving and being loved. That love that moved the sun and other stars precipitated the Word, Jesus Christ. He was enfleshed as man so that we could by knowing and loving Him be gathered up in the arms of God the Spirit, out of the swaddling clothes of our flesh.
God wants to give Himself to us in every possible way: first through Jesus, who loved and touched His people with human heart, human hands; then through the Holy Spirit, who knits us all into one seamless cloth that wraps the world; and finally through the hands of another human being, laid on us in love, as ours are laid on that other person. When we open ourselves to this other person, we open ourselves to God and God can touch us, like the sun touching the heart of an unfurled flower. Closed, we can't be reached. But a life spent loving is a life spent open. To reach out and receive, we must open our hands; to be loved, we much first love. The wife or husband [or friend] next to you is more than your spouse [or buddy]. He or she is your path to God. In the face of a wife laboring in birth or a husband crushed at the loss of his job, you see the face of God, open to your love, wanting you to give it.
Deeper, deeper you go, till you touch the place in the other where God is, dropping your own veils of ego, self-defense, falseness as you go, until you both stand before each other and God naked as newborn babies. At this moment when you see God in each other, you see. . . the image of Christ as He might have looked walking the earth. As the veils fall, we see God not through a glass darkly, but face to face in the light of love, in the one through whom God sees and touches us. And each moment in which we give and take love, we touch God.
Without God, we cannot love; without the other, we cannot show our love. . . In our love for others, we express the link between flesh and spirit, as God expressed it in the Incarnation. Like God, we are an intimate community of love, pouring ourselves out so that we can fill others and be filled.
Growing up means 'growing out,' dropping our walls and opening in selfless love to another. We become a two-way channel through which the uncreated energies of God flow. The more love we give, the more love grows in the place we have planted it.
Love has everything to do with the ordinary events of daily living, since the giving of all we are and the receiving back of all we can be happens in the workshop, the nursery, the office. When we discover the energies of God in each other, we pour those energies into all we do, reconciling the world to the Father.
True love - God's love - is to see others as God sees, knows, and touches them. To love truly is to see with the eyes of God, to go beneath the skin and plunge straight to the heart, where the other shows him or herself to be as unique as if alone in the world, the sparrow whose fall God notices, the lamb for whom Jesus died. True love is caring for the other, mindful only of the other's good. It is being quick to hear the other's need, to serve the other's growth toward his or her true self and carrying the other into deeper touch with God. The prayer of Jesus before he underwent death was that we would be ONE as He and the Father are one (John 17:21-23). It happens as we love one another.
Without the very heart-beat, (essence) spirit in and through the words in the Scriptures, is it any wonder we feel as if we’ve been bludgeoned by the “truth” when applied to our lives?
We have all been born into a world filled to over flowing trouble, anguish, suffering and pain. Funny in a sense, when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness by Satan and he offered Jesus all the splendor-kingdoms of this world if he would bow down and worship him, was Jesus ignorant, blindsided and not aware that behind the so called glitter and splendor was a humanity totally cut of from their true source, a God and Father of love.
For love to become a tangible reality and available to all men, Father is once again fleshing Himself out in us, to us and through us that others might see this invisible God we say we love and that loves us.
While doing my route yesterday I saw this huge make shift sign on a front lawn that read in big bold pink letters, “IT’S A GIRL!” This was so cool to see, it evoked within me a wondrous sense of Father saying to me, “Son, this is but a reflection of how I rejoiced over you the day I heard your first cry-breath as you came into the world.”
I am the Lord your God and Father; I rejoice over you with great joy and with shouts of gladness, you have captured my heart!
Wow, could it be that he loves me that much?! I am inclined to believe it is so.
“Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
I so appreciate this thought from Oz Chambers today.
Rich
“I have to convert the natural life into submission to the Spirit of God in me and not say-I will never do anything natural again; that is fanatical. When by the providence of God my body is brought into new conditions, I have to see that my natural life is converted to the dictates of the Spirit of God in me. Because it has been done once is not proof that it will be done again. ‘Except you be converted, and become as little children…’ is true for all the days of the saintly life, we have continually to turn to God. The attitude of continuous conversion is the only right attitude towards the natural life, and it is the one thing we object to. Either we say the natural is wrong and try to kill it, or else we say that the natural is all there is, and that everything natural and impulsive is right. Neither attitude is right. The hindrance in spiritual life is that we will not be continuously converted; there are ‘wages’ of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says-‘I will not; I am going to be boss.’ We cannot remain boss by sheer power of will: sooner or later our wills yield allegiance to some force greater than their own, either God or the devil.”
I’ve posted on both of my blogs as far as I remember, different articles that my wonderful friend and brother Art has shared with me. Here is a sample of what I mean. For any who want to delve into other articles Art has written, you can check his site out here.
Rich
Part 3 of – A Profound Change in The “Triune Godhead” Over the years I’ve heard preachers say God never changes. This is true, but also not true. God’s nature and character never change, and He keeps His word (Psalm 15:4), but God’s “form” has experienced two great changes. As we consider the processing of God’s life to become available to man as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” we must note the words “became” and “become”; indicating these two (2) great changes in God’s form.
Change #1 - We know that Jesus was and is God, and that He was in the beginning with God as the Word. John 1:1 (KJV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We also know that “The Word became flesh … John 1:14 (NIV) Question: Wasn’t this a change in God’s form? Of course it was. That change was from the eternal Spirit form of the Word to the Spirit limited to Jesus of Nazareth’s human flesh, the body of His humiliation.
Change #2 - Paul tells us another great change that occurred when Jesus of Nazareth died and rose to become the life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NASB) So also it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Here we see change number two. This 2nd change carried with it some profound implications. This first change I noted above brought God into a man (“the Word became flesh”), but the second change brought an uplifted “humanity” into God.
Romans 1:3-4 (NASB) concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh (as a human), 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, This verse tells us the processed Jesus, who “has become both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), has added humanity into the Godhead – bearing the marks of the body of His humiliation – His human essence. The resurrected Christ still bore the nail and spear scars.
Romans 1:3-4 (KJV) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; (flesh - His humanity essence) declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, (Spirit – as His divine essence) by the resurrection from the dead: Do you see it? One day there was a divine “declaration” by which Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of Man” according to his humanity, was declared to be the “Son of God.” In other words, the Godhead was altered forever when the resurrected human essence of Jesus of Nazareth was added into the Godhead.
It is by the addition of Jesus’ human essence into the Godhead that we now have a God who can now be “touched with the feelings of our infirmities.” Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest (Christ) which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. By Jesus’ human living, death, and resurrection as “the spirit of life in Christ,” He became able to know us intimately, and be life to us, to be what we need in order to endure living upon this earth.
“We are [looked upon as] fools on account of Christ and for His sake, but you are [supposedly] so amazingly wise and prudent in Christ! We are weak, but you are [so very] strong! You are highly esteemed, but we are in disrepute and contempt! (It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around.)”
I love more and more how in growing in the true knowledge of God the Father’s total unconditional love for me; I don’t really mind being seen as a fool, His fool. There is such a stigma that tries to embed itself into our identity in being duped into saying, doing stuff simply because of believing what someone else has said, and all the while sensing from the get-go something was not right about it.
This is all leading to something that spoke to me this morning in reading an article by Chip Brogdan, “DISCERNMENT: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.”
Here is an excerpt from the article.“As more and more voices try to get our attention we need to be able to distinguish between true, false, innocent, and dangerous. Christ-centered discernment recognizes and approves of those things that lead to Christ, while rejecting and refusing to be influenced by the things that distract from Him. And believe me, there are more things that distract than there are things that lead to Him. Most people have great discernment but they don't trust it. They don't give themselves permission to say "no" to something that is wrong. They put aside their uneasiness and for the sake of "unity" and "keeping the peace" they permit things that should not be permitted. Please consider this week's article in that light. Even the Question and Answer was carefully selected as yet another example of why trusting your own discernment is so important. Don't ever be led around by someone else's opinions when you can be led by the Spirit. The crowd is usually wrong."
There is nothing more freeing then having the Father of my spirit breath his very heart beat into so many lifeless, static, cold words. Without knowing the spirit behind, in and through these words, is it any wonder that living, and real life is being missed all around us? My wife and I listened today to a recent pod cast by Darrin Hufford entitled “Worship in the Wild,” a wonderful and encouraging story of one brother’s insights and thoughts as to, “What worship is to him.” Not, “what is worship.” He shares some additional thoughts here, “Going for the Worship,” and here, “What is Worship?”
According to Scripture, God is spirit, not “A” spirit, and God is seeking such that will worship (love) Him “in spirit and truth.” Is He simply looking for me/us to gratify some self-centered need within Himself by having us spout off none stop a barrage of religious worshiping blather? As God is actively seeking us out, wanting to engage us in that part that is like wise as He is, spirit, there is something evoked within us that logic, mere common sense knowledge cannot produce, a spontaneous combustion. It is out of the truth of His heart being revealed, exposed to us that we find a God ability to worship Him in and with that very spirit, Truth.
The letter kills, but the spirit makes alive, breathes life into what we say, sing, proclaim. As in anything of real importance there are those self-qualified authorities that pronounce, “This is worship,” you must do it exactly the way we have laid it all out here for you. On the other hand as our loving heavenly Father engages us and reveals Himself to us, it is from this inner knowing, experiencing his closeness in us, that we are freed to love-worship Him. Out of the constancy of Him time after time making his heart known to us, worship becomes less and less an IT, but a intimate and personal close encounter.
What worship is to me will not be what worship is to you, for true worship will never happen according to a fixed choreographed script, but by the intensity of His love bursting into our consciousness, this will evoke an expression of a most intimate nature. I love the heart-insight God gives to us in knowing and seeing what true worship can look like. “It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Taking a good look at them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus' feet, so grateful. He couldn't thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you." (Luke 17:11-19)
The implications here are, there were ten lepers; nine of them were Jews, and one being a Samaritan. Even Jesus had said to a Samaritan “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” Nine of these lepers (Jews) from what I can see received nothing more than a miraculous touch from God, healing their disease ridden bodies, but this non-Jew receives along with his outer touch an inward revelation of being loved which evoked, releasing within him the ability to worship. This event in my opinion what was experienced here in this account was but a shadow picture of what was to become so much more than mere touches from God, but in fact brought into a vital life-union with Him, which is far more than a mere touch from Him.
Let Him make Himself known to you His way, then be prepared for the dam to be burst within your heart!
“In Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the gravitational (law) pull of sin and death.”
My heart is so full right now, feasting upon this Living one who continues to resonate within me. As I shared with a friend recently, the one thing that continues to captivate my attention is how within the body of Christ, my siblings like wise are catching these inward glimpses of this exceeding and great treasure, Christ in us the hope of glory and how it is furthering their inner transformation.
It’s this inner transformation that I want to try and look at here and its implications of how we have been deeply infected and affected by the invasion of His life. I’m sure I will be writing much more on this, as I said, my heart is so full, much like a beggar child invited into a candy store and told to freely enjoy anything my heart desires.
It never ceases to amaze me how this spirit-union I/we have in Christ has at best been nothing more than great theology-doctrine, a topic of conversation, but so little enjoyed experientially. Please hear me I am neither criticizing nor beating anyone up over this, we have all had more than enough of this brutality and its crippling effects. There is no ability to “reckon” apart from receiving new light (revelation).
It takes what it takes to move us inwardly by Father using outward circumstances and situations to produce a desire to want to be set free from the inside (to be transformed) from those things which have kept us spiritually retarded. “HOWEVER, BRETHREN, I could not talk to you as to spiritual [men], but as to non-spiritual [men of the flesh, in whom the carnal nature predominates], as to mere infants [in the new life] in Christ [unable to talk yet!]” (1Corinthians 3:1).
It took the better part of 400 years to bring the decedents of Jacob held in bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt to begin to “cry” out! “However, after a long time (And it came to pass in process of time) [nearly forty years] the king of Egypt died; and the Israelites were sighing and groaning because of the bondage. They kept crying, and their cry because of slavery ascended to God” (Exodus 2:23). God heard their cry, but why did it take 400 years?
Eventually Israel was loosed from their exterior hellishness-bondage and led out for the purpose of being “led” into a “Promised Land,” (which should have taken about eleven days) but apart from only two of that original company-multitude, Joshua and Caleb, the rest all perished, disintegrated (wilted) in the wilderness.
Although this first generation experienced extraordinary-miraculous intervention right from the get-go until their demise in the dessert, there was no evident impartation of His miraculous life altering ability, to transform them from deep within. This leads me to the thrust of my pondering on what I am beginning to see as “an out of body experience,” experiencing the resurrection reality in Christ that wants to flow out of my/our spiritual union.
"All over the world today there is an inward spiritual groaning for right relatedness to the stream of His will and authority. And what is happening? God has heard this cry! He is raising up those who see as Copernicus saw, and who will dare to challenge the authoritarian religious systems by insisting that man is only a related center, and not the ultimate center of all things. There is a forth coming living expression of proper relatedness unto Him that is making the religious gestalt very nervous. (From, Unto Full Stature). Once we sought deliverance only, but now we cry for inward development (transformation) first.
We know that line from Sherlock Holmes as he once again effortlessly cuts through what seems to be utterly impossible to understand by any normal person to his side kick, Watson. Elementary! In seeing but the basic principles of the doctrine of Christ, things redundantly played before our eyes like flash cards is it any wonder we have seen much ado about “churchianity” and very little to do with God visibly being seen in His church, us flesh and blood people?
Let’s look at what our brother Paul lays down as a divine challenge or as I like to say, “provoking us unto love and good works.’ “So come on, let's leave the preschool finger painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on "salvation by self-help" and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we'll stay true to all that. But there's so much more. Let's get on with it!”
I had to laugh listening to the last pod cast “learning To Fly” from the God Journey where Wayne and Brad were engrossed in a conversation revolving around Amy (one of) Wayne and Sara’s grand children that Wayne was teaching to fly, using a very sophisticated soft ware flight simulator program.
As long as Wayne did everything for Amy she might have the flying principles and doctrine down pat, but in not being permitted to slowly take control of “the controls” she will not become air borne except possibly in her imagination.
As Wayne shared this story he slowly gave Amy much more latitude to venture out on her own, Wayne of course being right there with Amy on his lap prepared to augment any needed course adjustments, but as her inner confidence began to soar, she and Grandpa discovered that flying wasn’t just for the birds! I am always attracted to anything pretty much dealing with flying as my earthly dad was a bush pilot, aircraft engineer and one who made flying look so elementary. I still remember in a flight I took with him that glorious day he relinquished the controls to me, and I was flying that plane. For interest sake, I was eleven months old when I first flew with my dad…oh God how I miss him.
Our rehearsed theory, of conceptual principles of what it means to be air born, soaring in the heavens will at best keep us earth bound, without hearing and seeing modeled before us someone like Wayne toward Amy with a tenacious confidence in His life in us, to live out what they see as being so elementary.
Rich
High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sun ward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark nor even eagle flew— And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
This Christmas as great as it was just sped by way too fast for my wife and me. So much has transpired over the years spending Christmas together as a young married couple without children for the first seven years until our first-born came along, and then three years later our last child. So many Christmases and so many emotions attached to this seasonal highlight, some wonderful and some not so good at all. This past Christmas was one of the best, if not the best one ever. Our son lives not that far away from us within our own neighborhood and our daughter was home for two weeks from university.
Normally when our daughter is home we get to see her in bits and pieces as she is one very popular girl amongst so many friends home at the same time for the season. This time was so different; she recognized her felt need to decompress and chill-out after a grueling time of studying so hard all year, accelerated with some major pre-Christmas exams. She didn’t tell any of her friends she was coming home. Compared to other years, it was like having her home all the time; so cool to walk out into the living room or where ever in the house only to see her enjoying herself so richly.
It is always a joy to see the growing, deepening, healing and reconciling taking place between our son and our daughter after so many very difficult years in their teens. Siblings can be so hurtful to one another.
A week ago last Friday I had to go our family clinic to see the staff-appointed doctor because ours was on holidays, because of a week long lung/bronchial chest cold that had started the Friday before with but a very sore throat. I was prescribed a very powerful medicine along with an antibiotic. The stronger of the two made me feel as if I was on speed, just vibrating, not a good feeling at all. In much of my past as a Christian in not truly, really experientially knowing the power of the Father’s love, I acted more like a son-of-a-bitch than a son of God. I am making NO excuses or trying to scapegoat on this at all, just sharing how at a deep, deep level within me experiencing what it means to be loved so totally and unconditionally has slowly freed me to begin living loved.
My children are seeing for the first time over the recent years what a true dad/father might just look and act like only because of me being Fathered all over again, only this time it’s being done with a perfect God and Father. All of my time this Christmas, whenever I had time to spend with our daughter, it was rich beyond words. But last night an old button got pushed in me when I simply asked our daughter a question - only to totally misinterpret her reply. I took it the wrong way and was hurt, going to bed without saying good night to my wife or daughter, but not being able to sleep because of the speed-like medication I was on, I slowly saw the truth of the situation and relinquished my stupidity to His healing heart.
I couldn’t wait for morning to come that I might ask my daughter for her forgiveness. In sharing what I wanted/needed to about the previous night’s fracas she said, “Dad, there is no need to apologize at all. I didn’t take your actions the wrong way.” I said, “But my precious daughter, I need you to forgive me. I was so wrong, and there’s no excusing myself because of my medication either.” I went on to share with her that I never want ever to hurt any of my loved ones, wife, son or her. She said “I know, but I also know the truth about who you are now.” Wow, what healing in those loving and powerful words she spoke to me as we embraced each other with me crying like a baby.
A broken and contrite heart is a pleasing thing to the father, unlimited healing, restoration; reconciliation flows from our inner being, as if a dam has been broken. I so want to continue receiving His total love for me that I might live loved and see Him free so may others.
“In this expanded quote we have been describing how many believers may go along for years-testifying to ‘some very real’ miraculous acts of God in their behalf-and then suddenly God allows them to go into the deep valley. They cannot understand why God (the Father) does not respond as before. But it is for this reason: That He may lead them into a separation from the old source and dependence-because only in death can they be cut loose that they might truly experience the vital union with the God of Resurrection.”
“All this would emphasize clearly two levels of life: Those who enjoy an occasional “touch from” God are most often still secretly wishing to use Him for their own ends; whereas God desires to bring each one into this vital life-union with Himself that ours is a continual participation in Him. Such a life can only be experienced as we live unto Him and His pleasure. On the first level the attitude is escape for us; on the higher level it is a life of fulfillment for Him. Once we sought deliverance only, but now we cry for inward development first.”
Is it not evident that as individuals we cannot have any effective ministry, flowing through us until there has first been a spiritual building-up within us? Even so in the corporate Body of Christ, there will come this effectual flowing out-the touch of God upon lives-as there is a spiritual building-up of the corporate Body. And in God’s own time, those who have been “touched” will come to also experience their vital participation in living union of the Body of Christ.”
“How often as we encounter folk who are facing the bitter experiences of life, do we hear them insist: “Oh, I’m trusting in God.” And we are sure, for the measure of light they have-this is true. But God wants to press each one to a much different relationship than merely trusting Him for things. He wants to give us a vital union with Himself. As we have seen, this was God’s plan from the very beginning-not because Adam sinned-but because in His master-design He has desired for us to live by the life of the Lord Jesus-thus enjoying all things which includes health-not merely healing.”
It is the longing compulsion within my heart to see a continued awakening in the heart of the Church which IS His body, to continue from here to Go-without having the outer knowing!
Emancipation Proclamation, proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States. It took the better part of almost another one hundred years for the first ‘black man-Jackie Robinson’ to be integrated into major league baseball. The epitaph that appears on Robinson’s gravestone is one that he wrote himself. It reads: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
High and lifted up, suspended between heaven and earth impaled to a wooden cross, a tool of barbaric torture devised in the hellish minds of Roman superiority was one who once resembled a man, only this was “the Son of Man”, Christ Jesus the Lord. Before Jesus yielded up His spirit, he with a loud voice cried out,” It is finished”! This set into motion in the spirit realm a holy tsunami of unparalleled portion, where sin had once abounded, grace was now going to super-abound.
I am no scholar, but yet I maintain with a certainty I am in the school of the Spirit, the best school according to the Father when he revealed that to me several years ago. This school choose me; it definitely was not something I would have signed up for. This being unknown to me at the time, revelation of having been brought into His training school, I was beginning to dimly see the out line of what it might encompass to move from Christ in me, to my Being in Christ! Christ coming into me was that which facilitated and was meant to fully integrate me IN-to Him. This work has been contested ever since the perfect work of the Father through the Son on the cross cried out with a strong voice, “It is finished.” The emancipation was instantaneous in the spirit realm (delivered out from the kingdom of darkness into the family of God the Father) as it always is, but this inner work of its integrating us into Him is a life long process.
At best only revelation from the Father, not some seminar is the only weapon that can realign us and center us in the true knowledge of His intended transformational work of grace. Sin very much alive in our members is a moot point without there being a very real impetus aka Satan, the father of lies, out of which he spawned the very spirit of religion in all its hellishness. It is this unseen-felt entity whose purpose is to oppose-contend-resist our being fully integrated In Him. This continued work of grace is not unfolding by mere osmosis; we have been lovingly engaged and invited into an intimacy of being included and conformed to His death.
I love how the spirit has illuminated this from the Amplified Bible this cry of the spirit within us, “And that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [[spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]."
Becoming rightly centered in Christ is that which experientially emancipates us from being ruled by the father of lies through our soul and living as a carnal or mere babe, “rather until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” There is a vast unexplored realm within the heart of the Father that so many are but experiencing for the first time since being re-birthed, but in tasting how Good He is, there is NO turning back, even so Lord, come!
The best that religion can offer us is but a concocted custom designed filled with leaven (corruption), “placebo.” This word (placebo) jumped out like Jumping Jack Flash into my mind as my precious daughter and I were sharing and listened to and later discussing what Father was trying to get through to me/us in the following interview with Alanis Morissette, talking about her newest production, “Flavors of Entanglement.”
The kicker is that I am not someone who listens to this artist or many for that matter, this was truly an adventure of His making-doing for my further being Fathered and being lead into a depth of His heart for me that as of yet, I Know Nothing of!
I would encourage you to first read-listen to my previous thoughts on my other blog that delve into a rich overflow of Father’s heart to mine.
Father out of my bareness, brokenness, and as you have been laboring within me, you alone are bringing me into You. Out of my mourning the joy of your living presence breathes deep into me newness, a freshness of Who’s I am.
When all of the world says you are done - Hope whispers - "hang in there . . take a chance that someone will see the real meaning and beauty of what was once thought finished"
I was encouraged today by many things, these were but a few.
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