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.
In some dialogue with a good friend today, Dave said, “That most don’t give one another the freedom to be imperfect, rather we want someone with the answers for all our woes, so you better be that perfect person and not screw up.”
It’s totally liberating to know the power and growing scurrility of Father absolute unconditional love for us, it frees us to perfectly speak of that perfection within all that is so imperfect in us!
None of us being born into a fallen sinful race, shaped in iniquity have escaped the inner desolation, devastation or utter bankruptcy, none! The scriptures paint a clear picture for us all being cut off, alienated from the very life of God, but God who is rich in mercy and kindness loved us and died for us while we were yet His enemies-wow. The work of sin entering into the whole race by the first Adam was such a perfect work of an inner corruption and releasing within us total depravity, or did God get it wrong when He said, “All have sinned and fallen short of His glory?”
Our desperate need is to know of His unspeakable unconditional love He has for each of us, it is a perfect love that wants much more than to simply save and unite us within our spirit, but also to redeem, transform us within our poverty stricken soul. Here in lies the good news, it has nothing to do with us doing things perfectly as much as it is in a moment by moment encounter with His perfect love displacing the residual affects of the hellish tormenting fearful grip of that which tries to cling to us like a blood sucking lamprey robbing us of our very birth-right.
The scathing inner desolation that being born in fear has accomplished in us all is powerless to stop or impede a like wise God breathed inner revelation of His kindness and goodness to us, where sin once abounded, grace (love) will super abound. In some lives the outer evidence of the inner torment of fear is most obvious, but know this, there is no one apart from knowing, experiencing the power of His tender compassionate love who will ever walk free from this under tow. There is NO need to be ashamed by discovering my/our need to be yet further and more deeply perfected in the true knowledge of Father’s perfect love, it is the perfect Christ in us encouraging us all to share, speak of that which has become so real to us coming out from under the yoke of fear and its tormenting oppression.
“For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
If he died for me, then what’s all this being given over to death all about? Perhaps there is a tad more to being identified with this One who was fully identified with us, any thoughts?
How does one not take seriously extravagant and exaggerated statements or figures of speech to be in fact the truth unless we are blinded by the puffs of smoke pushed by gusts of wind?
There are those who continue to see their giftedness as something to benefit others floundering in life, they have what I call a predisposition toward being optimistic, effervescent, seldom given to worry or depression always buoyant in a world that depresses the hell out of most sane folks, surly you know the type. Sadly if these qualities are not the by product of the certain unshakeable power and stability of His unconditional love, then we’re merely building our lives upon cosmetic botoxing.
Becoming further established in the reality of the Father’s unconditional love is the only thing able to displace the fear and torment that continues to try and keep me as a spiritual quadriplegic. God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. The power and sound mindedness are but expressions of what it means to be loved unconditionally. Maybe this gives some clarity to the scripture that says, “The righteous are as bold as a lion.”
The reality of being loved is not a motivational, inspirational pick me up that dissipates when the first wave of assault comes crashing into my no fly zone. I am learning that my Father isn’t nearly as interested in changing my circumstances as he is in wanting to infuse my entire being with the true knowledge and enormity of His love, which frees me to embrace life and all that it encompasses head on!
Are we, no matter who we are or where we are in life, truly without a prayer when supposedly “bad things happen to good people”? I loved this piece from Oz Chambers this morning, it succinctly opens up a whole world of opportunity for us, in that His very life in us as us, is being clearly depicted to a world of people still blinded by the matrix of religion.
Rich
The Habit of Enjoying Adversity . . . that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body —2 Corinthians 4:10 We have to develop godly habits to express what God’s grace has done in us. It is not just a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved so that "the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." And it is adversity that makes us exhibit His life in our mortal flesh. Is my life exhibiting the essence of the sweetness of the Son of God, or just the basic irritation of "myself" that I would have apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, "Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this." Instantly, the Son of God will move to the forefront of my life, and will manifest in my body that which glorifies Him. You must not debate. The moment you obey the light of God, His Son shines through you in that very adversity; but if you debate with God, you grieve His Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30 ). You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God’s sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to "supply all your need" ( Philippians 4:19 ). Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you.
Our prolonged stint on earth, where ever that might be and whatever that might encompass, is worth whatever it takes to establish us in His righteousness.
Here is an example that spoke volumes to me regarding the ongoing separation taking place as the Father continues to deal with inner motives, attitudes of the heart:“Take Job, for example. Job was famous for his patience (James 5:11), he was “perfect and upright” (Job 1:1), but God saw a gross imperfection in Job. Nobody else could see it, for as we have already said, it wasn’t because Job had outwardly sinned that God allowed him to be tested. God put him through the kind of trial that forced that imperfection to surface. No ordinary trial would have caused this. It had to be the kind of trial in which his best friends would ruthlessly accuse him. Job eventually got very self-righteous. In the end, however, Job saw himself as he was. He repented in sackcloth and ashes, and saw that he was a great sinner (Job 42:6).”
Often within a total breakdown, we can experience a great ‘breakthrough’ in our lives as we continue to be established in righteousness. As for Joseph, a very important part of his preparation was that he be delivered from self-pity, self-righteousness, and from any need to manipulate his future.
In my opinion it was these dreams that Joseph was given that were being used to accomplish the following: “There was no known precedent for a true child of God being thrown into a pit to die, much less surviving! For a child of God this might this might even be evidence that he was out of God’s will. There would be no way that Joseph could explain to anybody while in a pit that he was in God’s will! The ten brothers said, ‘We shall see what becomes of his dreams’ Gen. 37:20). They were quite sure that they had him in such a fix that nobody could conclude that he was God’s man.” Long before all of his brothers and Father would eventually (according to his dreams) bow before him, Joseph was going to bow in his heart in recognition of the fact that those very dreams were God’s instruments used to establish him in an inward true righteousness! This has everything to do in my opinion with being “called”! (“God Meant it for Good”, by R.T. Kendall)
Joseph, like us, was going to discover that our gracious God and Father comes from behind to shape our past, so that, if we will believe Him and give him time, we will come to see that his hand was with us even at our worst moment.
The following quote is from the book “Unto Full Stature” by DeVern Fromke:
“It is indeed sad that so many have interpreted adoption as though it were the taking of a child outside the family into a new family. This is Western adoption, but not the Biblical or Eastern conception. The Greek, Roman, or Jewish father, adopted none as a son but his own child. Birth made him a child, preparation and discipline brought him to adoption and the full stature of son ship. R. B. Jones, scholarly theologian has written: ‘To be a son is infinitely more than to be a child, and the terms are never loosely used by the Holy Spirit. It is not a difference of relationship, but in position. Every ‘born-again’ child of God has in him the nature of His Father, and is a beloved member of His family. Adoption cannot make the child and nearer or dear, yet it gives the child a status he did not enjoy before, a position he did not occupy. It is recognition as an adult son, the attaining of his majority, the seal upon his growth to maturity of mind and character. A child has God’s nature; a son has God’s character.”
“Yet in the midst of this traditional pattern of confinement by men (man trying to govern the work of His spirit), God has always had His remnant in every hour-those who are pressing unto full son ship and stature. They know that inner stretching and adjustment of the Spirit, and even though painful seem to delight in it, for they realize that such an inward stretching is God’s way of producing a spiritual elasticity, vitality and capacity they could not otherwise know.”
“Yes that stretching takes place when the life is completely governed by the Holy Spirit. God alone can keep one prepared for every emergency and situation. He can keep one properly balanced in determination and flexibility when the sever test is on.We have the stretching of knowledge. One can look at Peter and see that he had developed a fixed position regarding certain laws of the Old Testament and his interpretation of them. From his rigid, static position he argued, “Not so, Lord.” Until he had “thought on the vision” he insisted, “not so, Lord.” He was neither stretchable, teachable nor adjustable. Yet what a tremendous advance, not only for Peter, but for the whole Church when, without giving away any steadfastness or determination, he adjusted to the new light that the Lord gave, and to a new knowledge of the Lord and His ways. This ability to be adjustable to new insights of truth has been a problem throughout the centuries, not just for individuals but with groups as well.”
Even with the Pharisees were not exempted. It was Jesus’ intention to see them likewise be prepared for the new wine of His presence! Let’s listen to what the author has to say about this:“Finally, what does Jesus say about the wine skins? He would seem to say that either they will remain flexible by continuous stretching, or they become hard and inflexible, and by resistance to His will be usable only for old wine. When He looked at the Pharisees in their rigid positions, Jesus could discern that they were like wine skins fixed, and without elasticity. So He insisted that “new wine must be put in new wine skins…” We can almost hear Him say: “Let me make you anew-and keep you forever new.”
The following quotes are from Wayne Jacobson from his latest issue of Body Life, you can read it here.
“You would think that if one of us was serving the Living God, it would look differently.”
“Religion is the same all over the world. It is a prescribed set of doctrine, rules, rituals, and ethics. It celebrates sacred space, exalts holy-men as gurus and tries to muscle its way into the culture. For 2000 years many have practiced Christianity as a religion, essentially no different than the others, except in who it claims to follow. But if one of us was serving a Living God, wouldn’t it look very different?”
“When we cram the life of God into a box, we rob it of its life and power and only distinguish it from other religions by claiming a more truthful doctrine. Could that be why Jesus didn’t teach his disciples how to gain a following or build institutions. He didn’t teach them how to meet on Sunday mornings at 10:00 with a worship band and a leader to lecture the others. He didn’t give them a prescribed set of behaviors that people were suppose to follow as the means to serve God.” “No, he invited them into his Father’s house, and a reality of relationship with his Father that would transform them and opened the way for them to share that love with others. That you can’t put into a religion and trying to only chokes out any hope of relationship. Putting creed and doctrine above a growing friendship with him supplants the reality he offered us, no matter how correct our doctrine or moral our ethics.”
We’re either coming to Christ as a blank sheet ready for Him to write into our being Life, or we’re coming to him with our already established religious mind set (conceptual thinking) and trying to make what He says fit into what I have determined to be the truth. Isn’t that what Nicodemus tried to do, meaning, it was a ignorant Palestinian ‘ditch digger’ Jesus came to in John chapter 3, it was a religious, pious, educated man of learning. It would be surmised that his morality was well in check, having a good hold on what is good vs bad etc. When he hears Jesus saying to him he needs to be “born-again” he automatically tried to fit a heavenly truth (reality) into his established conceptual reasoning, look out Nick, you’re about to have a brain fart!
Is it any wonder there is such consternation within this demographic called “Christianity?” I hear so many looking at what God is saying which is “spirit and truth” as merely viewed as a “concept” and trying through the energy of their flesh to make it fit into their living! What ever happened to putting (that which is heavenly-spiritual) new wine into a new wine skin anyway?
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