In Him We Live...

I love the following thoughts.

Rich

That leads us on, then, to further things, and to our seeing that for the Apostles Christianity and the Church were not a system of doctrine, nor a system of orders of practice, but for them Christianity and the Church had relation to the living Christ. Christianity and the Church existed on the ground of Christ being alive, after having been crucified and buried. There is much more bound up with that than maybe would appear.

Christianity was the expression of Christ's being alive. The fact that Christ was alive was being expressed and the Church simply became the corporate vessel of that expression. Christianity and the Church had no being, no existence, only in that Christ was alive. Therefore neither Christianity nor the Church could be anything in itself, only in Christ as living.

That is what we mean when we say that the pre-eminent, predominant issue is life. It is not an abstraction, it is a Person; it is Christ living. Thus the basic and all-important reality with the Apostles and the believers of those days was the risen Lord, and living union with Him. That which was basic to everything was Christ as alive, and their being alive together in union with Him. We have to see what that union was, but we leave that for the moment.

Out of this every other thing arose. All doctrine came out of the fact of Christ being alive, and believers being in union with Him. And all order of assembly came spontaneously out of that two-fold fact; Christ alive, and believers livingly joined to Him. It came out of that. There is no other way in which to get either doctrine or order in a living way. That which spread its power and its significance over everything for them in those days was the resurrection of Christ. You find it touching everything on every hand.

Be Like This

This afternoon while waiting to finish up my shift I was sitting outside on the dock reading, thinking, and praying, in the midst of so many things swirling around in my heart, I happened to look into the back of my truck which was but inches away, when I heard my caring and loving Father speak to my heart.

“Son, be like this.” Immediately my mind kicked into gear thinking, what do you mean? I then sensed he was making a point to me right where I was, in my daily routine, “I want you to be like what you’re seeing here, “be empty” so that I might fill you afresh to over flowing with a greater understanding of my love.”

Somehow I knew intuitively that the different ones that were so set upon my heart with the intensity of their struggles, that their needs like my own could only be realized and met in a similar manner, a fresh knowing that in their emptiness, He would be their fullness!

Rich

Good News

The Gospel is not the news that you can be involved with Jesus, if only you get your religion right. The gospel is not news of what can be at all. It is the news of what is. It is the news that you are involved. It is not a dream.

Through bearing our rejection, Jesus has access to us in our darkness. Indeed, he used our rejection to establish a relationship with us at our very worst.

The stunning truth is that Jesus exists in union with his Father and the Spirit, and with us in our darkness. He has included us in his world, in his life and communion with his Father, in his anointing with the Spirit. He is sharing his own heart, his own knowledge of the Father, his own assurance and hope and joy with us all. He is putting his communion with His Father inside our endarkened souls.

Quoted from Baxter Kruger-Across All Worlds.

Rich

It’s Not About Being Right

One of the most liberating things as an inner and out working expression of learning to live loved is, that I do not have to have anyone agree with what I think or say.
To quote an old fast food chain motto, “Different is good” in living and thinking out loud, not necessarily better than.
It is no longer living with the mind set of, “what if I get it wrong” but knowing I am unconditionally loved whether I get it right or wrong! My stability and security is becoming more and more of a fixed yet malleable growing and expanding reality rooted in the certainty of the Father’s stubborn love for me that refuses to let go.

The much needed continued transformation and the renewing of our minds is either a marvellous out working of living loved or something we end up once again striving for, and back to, what if I get it wrong.

Rich

The Quick Fix

Barriers to Experiencing the New Covenant

Do you know your identity in Christ but still feel “stuck”? Do you know that Christ is your Life but still feel “stuck”? Maybe you aren’t the one who is “stuck” but you know someone who knows the New Covenant who is. In this webinar, you will hear about how to deal with these barriers. One of the key elements of this Webinar will be the emphasis on listening to God to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal your ‘stuck” places. Space to attend this live webinar is limited to 100 people and we still have room for you and anyone you want to invite.

The following was the lead in to an email invitation I received, along with who knows how many others, to take advantage of discovering where the kink (barriers) in my spiritual hose might be and presumably preventing me/us from experiencing the “New Covenant.”

This isn’t about casting aspersion's or to disparage the person sending this email invitation, but somehow to cut through the bull shit smoke screen discerning what is really true and what isn’t .
It seems without fail in situations similar to this that the holy “trump-card” is usually pulled out, “judge not lest you be judged.” What the hell ever happened to where Jesus qualified judging, “when you judge, judge righteously?”
Somehow exercising any discernment is tantamount to black-balling a person, oh God help us!

Rich

Richard'z Rantz

Please feel free to check out my newest blog, http://rantz72.wordpress.com/

Rich

Simple Truth

The purpose and goal of God has always been life. This may seem like a simple truth but it is nonetheless one we very often lose sight of. God’s love makes Him interested in the doings of the world but this is not His primary focus.
What I mean by this is that God is not centered on cleaning up world government or stabilizing the economy. The Father is not even primarily working toward social (bight my tongue) justice. How can I say this? I can say this because if any of these things were God’s primary focus they would have been accomplished long ago.
Rather, the Father is principally interested in our living. It is only when we have a proper focus on life that we can produce proper doing (activity).

Take as an example all the religious doings and law keeping that many in Christianity and other religions engage in. In all this activity that fills our days the simple issue of life is often lost in the bustle. As a consequence, all this effort comes to little enduring result. We were created by the Father to live in and by the life of Christ. The works and doings are really only secondary issues to God. Further, these are negative issues to the Father when they interfere with the operation of His life in His children.

Rich

Richard'z Rantz

Hopefully soon this will be the name of my newest blog. Often the connotation with the word “rant” is seen as negative, that is not my intention, more to the point, I see it simply as a fleshed out version of what I do best, think out loud.
Often folks who are more fear filled than dwelling in the security of Father’s love see this, my ranting, aka thinking out loud as an emphatic “thus says the Lord”!
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Something that once again got my attention in listening to a pod cast was this, “we are all gifted so differently.” What the???
From where I sit, my perspective is that all who have been received of the Father have been given God’s unspeakable gift of His son, which is in fact the most gifted, treasured gift any and all could ever receive. Is it more to the point that He the “gifted One” in us as us, simply wants to uniquely express his giftedness through each of us?

For both my wife and I, it’s as simple as breathing when it comes to this issue of ‘gifting, giftedness.’ Christ was NOT an add on to a great thing we already had going, he came to BE our only life, and out of that life was a love we hade never ever known, and I don’t care how or where anyone cares to point to a certain someone that stands out to them as being “loving”!

Jesus seemed to be quite toxic in not patronizing the suggestion offered to him one day, “Good master what must I do, etc etc.” Jesus spins around and point blank addresses this blatant lie, “Why do you call me good, there is NO one good but God.”
It’s no wonder we have such erroneous misconceptions seeing that it was in our initial conception (born in sin and shaped in iniquity) we were all born into the world (matrix) system of seeing things all ass backwards, not so for Jesus, he addressed humanity’s skewed and twisted misconceptions in its tracks.
“Unless you see the source of all goodness in me as me, then it’s nothing but your version of ethics and morality thinly coating the external so not to see the inward depravity lurking less than skin deep.

Using my wife’s words here, when Jesus’ words penetrate our lives, addressing our blindness, there is a “seismic shift” that is unleashed; it is that which unsettles our neat and tidy sane world of orderly chaos!

Rich

Heeding

At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God's hand until we learn to hear Him. "What I tell you in darkness" - watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.
After every time of darkness there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at all), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation - What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it all these days and weeks. Now He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now. (By Oz Chambers)

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

"Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler."

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut"

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." (Quotes by Albert Einstein)

Rich

I Know You Are, But Who Am I?

One of the many lines from the Pee-Wee Herman Show that I loved was, “I know you are but who am I.”
Have you been experiencing the wonder of your lovely little world like a rug, only it’s who you thought you were, being pulled out from under you? I have!
I love how certain we think we are; I’m not moody, subject to emotional swings, given to depression, I’m stable as they come, yeah, right you are. Most likely you haven’t met up with this lamb that is a lion, yet. Concepts at best might give one a bad case of mental diarrhea, but turning your life upside down, hardly.

It doesn’t take much scraping off of the veneer of so called stability we think we have to realize that any steadiness we have is but the gracious way our loving Father insulates us from grief. He only has to peel back a little in one tiny area of his protection in our lives and we learn right smartly how empty we are in ourselves.

I personally believe that what each of us is facing, going through, has no known man made template available to assist us while we are being extricated from the matrix of religion.
There is an intriguing definition of unbelief based upon Hebrews 3:12, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.” In the sense of that verse, unbelief is “turning away from God.” Conversely then, faith is “staying in the face of God.” When you’re in the furnace of affliction, sometimes the only expression of faith you can muster is that of placing yourself in the face of God.
Many of the Psalms are the chronicles of men who in times of great personal pain cried out-but they cried out in the face of God.

I love how the Father of our spirit hears and sees the cry, longing of our hearts. This morning on my way to breakfast with my friend, brother and boss, Father interjected a thought that turned my day into one filled with a fresh sense of His wonder in and all around me. “Son, you are not free from your circumstances, but you are free to follow me.”
As always, I was being given a wonderful new invitation to receive His embrace in discovering that even my circumstances can’t prevent him from opening up doors that no man can shut.

Rich

Don't Worry, Be Happy

These are a few additional thoughts to something I shared the other day, you can read it here, “The Tail Shaking the Dog.”

Rich


While all of the positive-thinking techniques seem on the surface to be worthwhile and positively influence human behaviour, the teaching is a major deception. The philosophy that undergirds the technique is not based upon truth. While the principles seem to be in line with Scripture, Jesus is eliminated!
Positive thinking and possibility thinking lead unsuspecting Christians away from looking to Jesus for their identity and life and push them back into focusing their minds upon themselves. While the Bible teaches us to judge the content of our natural life through self-accusation, positive thinking directs us to think highly of ourselves and to hold wonderful thoughts about ourselves. Many positive thinkers consider the consciousness of sin and guilt as negative thoughts which produce negative energy and should, under no circumstances, be confessed. Dr. Paul Vitz of New York University is correct in pointing out that possibility thinking is based upon faith in one’s self and turns God into a mere servant who exists in order to help us achieve our goals.

Loving One Another

I so enjoyed these thoughts from my reading this morning, I’m including them here.

Rich

Loving One Another
George A. Maloney

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 others good. It is being quick to hear the others 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.

--Excerpted from Loving the Christ in You.

Affirmation is a Big Deal

Because of sin and the impetus of its source entering into humanity there was set into motion this insatiable craving for identity, purpose, definition, worth, value, significance, and affirmation to mention just a few things.
Self in the fall became blinded in having its eyes opened, blinded to the reality of knowing that true lasting acceptance and affirmation had nothing to do with our feeble efforts but everything to do with His unspeakable total unconditional love for us!

This week I was listening to a pod cast that Father used to spell out, flesh out in my thinking some wonderful additional insights to something I harp on a lot, “the Matrix of religion.”
If you are interested you can listen to this here at the Family Room Media, entitled, Spiritual Abuse. Just scroll down until you see the pod cast.

As brought out in the pod cast, our need for affirmation is genuine but apart from the Lord himself unveiling, revealing to each of us, all that we have been looking for became ours when we were received of the Father and we received the spirit of adoption, the spirit of son ship.
What none of us saw in becoming part of the religious system, and please know it matters not what label you prefer to pretty things up by calling what and where you went as this church or that church, you where blindly imbibing from a system whose intent was to keep you from knowing who, and whose you where!

It doesn’t matter how sincere you were or the leaders were in the system you were apart of, bottom line we were all sincerely wrong in giving allegiance to something other than Christ alone. This is not an indictment; rather it is a picture of our blindness.
Just a thought for you to chew on, when Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” what do you think he was pointing out? In my opinion he was revealing that which is in man to make him into one of these people, ‘leaven.’
It only takes a very small portion of leaven to do its invasive undermining in the soul of a believer, trust me on this.

Rich

How Does One Get It?

The quintessential million dollar question being asked all the time of those trying to expound upon living out, living loved, sadly falls upon deaf ears of those with un-renewed minds, trying to adapt and adopt this freeing and thrilling good news much like trying to make a new piece of cloth fit with the torn religious garments they have been wearing.
What God the Father is doing in building his church, he has NO need to duplicate or clone to adapt to whatever the buzz-word term happens to be (ex. ‘free believer’, ‘free ranger’, etc.)
This mystery gospel has and continues to be deciphered by one source alone, God the Holy Spirit, aka, the Spirit of grace and truth. To elucidate this further, let’s take a look at what scripture says in this regard. “In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life~So get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble (gentle, modest) spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in your hearts] contains the power to save your souls.”

Until the realization-revelation dawns upon us that it isn’t something we get, rather it’s someone who has gotten (into) us in way and fashion that is irreversible, we will blindly continue clamouring over trying to get into some (one) thing we’re already IN!

I love how my wife dramatically illustrated this “getting it” with me today while listening to a pod-cast. She likened it to any one of us who up to a certain point had been getting swimming lessons, but our experience had been confined to the safety of the shallow end. Along comes the Divine Lifeguard, and what does He do? He tells us simply to trust in Him, leads us to the deep end…and then abruptly pushes us in! Oh, we can see him standing there, smiling, arms crossed across his chest, as we struggle and sputter. “Save me!” we scream in our panic. “Oh, you’ll be just fine!” He calmly replies, totally unconcerned with our crazed thrashing. “I’m right here! Just stop struggling. I’ve given you the ability to float! Just relax!”

Upon the initial discovery of his direct and personal involvement in our life (and this seemingly becomes often more apparent when one has been led out of the matrix of religion), we thought our growth and maturation was dependent upon the swimming principles but in fact what we thought was ‘swimming’ was being done in the safety of three feet of water.
What none of us sees at first is that within the overwhelming seriousness of suddenly finding ourselves in over our heads, lies the newly engrafted innate ability to discover who and whose we are. It is out of the abundance and overflow of his consuming love for us we begin taking the necessary baby steps, drinking in of his unconditional love, freeing us from the knee-jerk reactions that are so deeply entrenched, freeing us from being consumed with fear.
Rich

Assimilation or Celebration

To quote a friend, “I have become quite content with sharing Jesus and pointing others to Him right where I am in my little, unadvertised neck of the woods. Anything beyond that seems more intended to bring the focus to ME.”

Is it just another religious (grace) cause, crusade, we have been called to join, or is it rather that we through grace have become joined to Christ himself?
There is such an insatiable hunger and longing I detect in so many for real authentic community without the covert toxic additives of some man/woman’s (unbeknownst to them) desires to exploit them even further.
I love where Paul illustrates (in my opinion) this divisive maniacal undetected heart exploitation of men to make merchandise of those the Father has re-birthed.

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:”

In being detoxed from our own undetected leaven a whole new world of sobriety begins to cut through the religious malaise we use to accept as the norm. I can hear so clearly the voice of His spirit imploring me (us), to not become entangled all over again with that (or any) yoke of bondage again, so stand fast!

Is being Jesus to others right where we live enough or should we refuse to resist such a crazy notion and simply allow ourselves to be assimilated much like the Borg from the Start Trek series; "resistance is futile, you will be assimilated into the collective.”
Rather than celebrating our uniqueness in Christ and being Jesus to the others God places in our daily living, the charming incantations and potions (cunning craftiness) of men are once again being activated in the “grace awakening” bent on attempting to dupe the dopes into believing that by signing up, joining their own particular brand of Jesus Manifesto the world will stand up and take notice, but I want to ask, take notice of who?

Rich

August Rush

"The music is all around US, all you have to do is listen."

I just got through watching for the second time the movie August Rush in as short a time as a week. I can't remember having being so profoundly touched by a movie in a very long time.

Those of you who know and are getting to know me, realize how much I love the medium of movies, how Father speaks to the deep places within me, those places that are much like a desert until His voice comes, then they blossom like an oasis.

I found myself unable to halt the tears in different places in watching the movie not once but twice, as David the King said, "at the noise-sound of your voice, deep calls unto the depths within me". Oh how I too resonate with His holy dissonance as He continues to play upon the strings of my heart. What wholly devastation He wreaks as he magically weaves into my life using both the intensity of sorrow and joy. The continued zeal of His love in not wanting me to rest, settle for that which is so good only to miss His very best.
Through whatever crushings are yet to introduce themselves to me, I know in a growing and learning way, to be fully identified with Him lies no short cuts, and for that my heart is enraptured.

I want to finish with a quote from Henri Nouwen…"Joy and sorrow are never separated. When our hearts rejoice at a spectacular view, we may miss our friends who cannot see it, and when we are overwhelmed with grief, we may discover what true friendship is all about. Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth."

Rich

There Are None So Blind

Through a series of things, mostly movies, I have been so richly encouraged this week. My wife rented three movies, Doubt, August Rush, and Changeling. I also watched the TV movie, Defiance. All spoke to me to the depths of my being.

We have all adapted and adopted a false singularity because of being born sinners establishing an alternate identity, one rooted in lies, or as Morpheus said to Neo, "The Matrix (aka religion) is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." (What truth)? " That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind."

Apart from direct revelation from God the Father there is at best an insidious entity disguised and operating as me and you - the person we think we actually are. Because of sin and shame that have almost totally assimilated us we exist or go through the motions of living people, much like dead men walking.

I love the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. He could have done the whole thing from the get-go but for some reason he invited humans into this miraculous event. First he told the people to remove the stone covering Lazarus' grave. After commanding Lazarus to come forth, he then instructed the people to loose him from his grave clothes.

Those of us who have similarly been raised from the dead are, in my opinion, much like Lazarus, walking around with the clothing that had formerly been our identity. Grave clothes are suited for the realm of the dead, not for the living. There have been so many tags and labels we have given ourselves, along with other people in our life, that have defined who we believe we truly are. It is my contention that the Father, working in the lives of my siblings throughout the earth, is using the very circumstances and situations we are finding ourselves in to remove our invisible grave clothes - which keeps us alienated from the truth of Whose we are!

Here is a quote from a book my wife just finished (which I hope likewise to read) The Elegance of the Hedgehog which spoke life to me: "They didn't recognize me," I say. I come to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk, completely flabbergasted. "They didn't recognize me," I repeat. He stops in turn, my hand still on his arm. "It is because they have never seen you," he says. "I would recognize you anywhere."

Who we are is undefinable apart from a revelation of Whose we are, period. One follows the other; the order is not reversible. He recognizes the real me, the real you anywhere. When we catch a glimpse of Whose we are, the grave clothes of sin and shame are loosed and we are free to become, essentially, ourselves. All of creation is standing on tiptoe with baited breath longing to see the manifest sons of God being called forth.

Rich