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

Letting Go of the Old Ways

I recently listened to a pod cast by Andrew Farley, author of his recently published book, The Naked Gospel, in this pod cast he was sharing about his needing to upgrade on his older computer. He said he was a died in the wool PC man and never even gave it a second thought in upgrading, to consider anything other than a newer PC, until a chipper big smile on his face sales person greeted him and asking, “how can I be of assistance to you.”
As Andrew told him what he was looking for the sales person then asked, what about a Mac this time? No way Andrew said, that is not remotely close to what I want, until the sales person said these magic words to Andrew, “but sir, you can now use PC operating software on the Mac and actually with recent improvements you can do so even better than on a PC.’ Wow, Andrew said, I’m hooked!

In our having been re-birthed according to the scriptures, “(This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun-all things are become new)” there is a new operating system (law) in that we have been spiritually joined to God. “But the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.”
Thing is, that in the re-birthing it was just our spirit that became fully alive by being joined to His, making us one in our spirit union, the soul and body need to experience the same transforming grace.
It is within our flesh which encompasses our soul that therein lies the old operating system that draws from the reservoir of the knowledge of good and evil. The master of disguise, aka, the father of lies, of religion, the one who is the prince of darkness is masquerading as an angel of light has infected us all, but for some this has spilled out into religious rolls such as pastors, teachers, prophets etc.

Without seeing and getting to know the anointed and gifted One, Christ in us, then we will see ourselves “as” being gifted, as in being separated from the only one who can produce within and through us His life however He chooses to do that.
Revelation is the very air that fills our inner being with the free flow of His love, life and light that is designed to make real to and in us experientially what we already have in Christ Jesus.
Because of having next to no vision (the eyes of our heart being opened) of the resurrected and glorified living Christ in us as us, then what appears to be merely something like Christ operating through certain “gifted” ones is that which steals the affections of our heart from Him.
For these individuals to let go of their old way of thinking would be tantamount to committing spiritual suicide, their identity would cease to exist, they would be made of no reputation, they would be left with nothing more or less than what each of us has in Christ.

Rich

Disguised

According to Paul formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, “he saw his life being consistent with the Law and found blameless,” until his life was derailed in a head on collision with the resurrected and glorified Christ, the embodiment and fulfillment of the LAW!

If it took this head on collision to bring Saul/Paul to a beginning place of humbly acknowledging his total ignorance of this one who was addressing, confronting him, how is it that we apart from some kind of real catharsis, crisis, and possibly many more crises, is it possible for any of us to experience the living reality of Christ in us as us?

It so often appears to me that for many, it’s simply a choosing, a decision they make to leave the “church” life they have been a part of for however long, a lot like a New Year’s resolution or something. As if its simply turning over a new leaf in coming into a proper alignment to God our Father without having to experience the explosive reality of Him in us as us, colliding with all of the religious shit that has defined us apart from Himself. As if this new phase is nothing more than simply adding grace (as an add-on) to our new walk with the Father.

I am seeing and have been seeing for some time now with the reality of Him making Himself known to his sons that there is a major cataclysm set into motion as a result of this encounter of the most holy kind, turning our religious and orderly world amuck.
Without the God and Father of all grace making Himself known to us in this agonizing time of upheaval, we are ripe for that which appears to be disguised as ‘grace’ nothing more than tips and techniques.

I like what Steve McVey said when questioned about his dramatic and unsettling encounter with the Lord as to whether this was a “second’ work of grace in his life. He replied, I have no idea about that, but it seems it has much more to do with the initial work of grace that apprehended me that I knew nothing of in its fullness.

Rich

Chasing the Wind

From the time the Lord apprehended me in 1972 up until 1994, I was chasing the wind, not ever realizing that within me was what I WAS looking for. Twenty two years of being a child of light yet living in total darkness to the reality of Christ in me as me, wow, go figure.
Maybe that’s why I’m stuck on redundantly repeating, “It’s not a seminar, it’s a revelation.”

It is what it is and it takes what it takes to bring us to see, but for sure it will never happen apart from the Truth being pointed out to us. It’s the spirit of grace and truth that takes the truth and applies it to our lives. Too many want to piddle around trying to use some litmus test to see if a person is able to grasp, understand what it is we’re trying to share with them, as if had anything to do with our natural prowess.

The natural minded man sees the things of the spirit being utter foolishness, in other words what the Father communicates is spiritually discerned, understood.
For three and a half years Jesus was constantly sharing the heart of the Father with the twelve, and not until He was crucified and raised from the dead and His spirit poured out, did they begin to GET it!
Jesus like any of us today totally relied upon the Holy Spirit to penetrate the heart and cause the truth to explode from the inside out.

I see so much religious BS being used by the father of lies in keeping so many as spiritual quadriplegics all because they are still firmly convinced their identity is all about what they know, their calling, anointing, gifting etc, it breaks my heart.
I will be sharing with a friend this question regarding what I’ve said here above. “What if there never has been a calling, anointing, gifting or will there ever be one?”
What for example if I were to stop today and never (talk or share Christ) write another word, never share, speak another word via Yahoo Messenger, or Skype or email, or snail mail, would I cease to exist, would I loose ALL worth, value and significance, would I be like the wicked witch in the movie The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy threw some water on her friend the Scarecrow whom the witch had set on fire and some of the water accidentally got onto her, and screamed out; “I’m melting, I’m melting?”
I don’t think so!

I am fully cognizant of the insidious lies the father of lies is using in those, especially those who have determined they are “called” of God. It is Satan using their knowledge of scripture and the many different experiences they have had to keep them blinded from not knowing how this stuff is preventing them from hearing the TRUTH. I hope this makes some sense.
It is a wonder seeing folks especially those believing with everything within them that they are called of God to do thus and so, using their vast knowledge of scripture to substantiate and validate their calling, and yet their lives are crumbling along with their marriage and family into entire ruin.

If it were possible the very elect will be deceived Jesus said, without a recognized foundation of the Father’s love causing us to be rooted and established in Him alone, the master of disguise, the angel of light, Satan, will obligingly use the plethora of biblical knowledge the believer has to securely keep them as his prisoner.

This has nothing to do with missing out on heaven, it has everything to do with being taken out of action in the here and now of every day living.
It’s not a correct theology or doctrine Jesus is asking for when He comes to us and asks’ “Who do you say that I AM?!”

Rich

Prince Charming

“When God’s presence loses reality among his people we always retreat to codes of conduct.” (This is from the Naked Church, by Wayne Jacobsen).

I remember when our children had just learned to crawl which opened up a whole new world of continued learning for them as well as for their parents.
Often in venturing out further into the larger world of our house, they would inevitably become fixated on some object that caught their fancy, usually something that was costly and precious to us, and or, harmful for them.
What became a smooth, clever and painless exchange for the potential harmful situation in taking away from them the object of their delight was done through distraction. I would take some bobble that was usually bright in colour and had a noise that it made, waved it, and rattled it in front of them only to see them instantly loose their firm grip on that which we wanted to save.

There is no possible way for our senses becoming honed or sharpened without vigorous and rigorous testing. “For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

The heart cry I believe Father God has put into our spiritual DNA is to know Him, and anything less is simply missing His best.

"For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully."
The warning is as real today as it was then, becoming distracted, and in these distractions is hidden a diabolical charmer desiring to lead us astray from the simplicity of real heart to heart intercourse.
You might ask yourself, why doesn’t God simply eradicate once and for all this deceitful snake charmer, persistently trying to keep us bewitched? Folks, without these needed and necessary distractions there would be no opportunity to continue growing in grace.

I find it most astute in the flow of the language used here by Paul; “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray.”
Our soul is under construction/transformation, it is being renewed in true righteousness, therefore the needed emphasis of hearing the voice of our Father, it being that which effortlessly cuts through that which is intended to cloud our thinking!
As I shared with my wife this morning in light of a most serious decision she is in the process of making, our security is not in what we possess materially much or little, it is only available in hearing His voice will true permanent, now and ever lasting security be hers/ours.
There are so many things, distractions the father of lies is permitted to bring to our attention whereby we are tempted to look at the instant gratification at the expense of loosing our birth-right. He comes to each of us just like I did in distracting my children to let go of their prized trophy, in my case it was to save them needles harm, in Satan’s case it is his ploy once again to get us to surrender, give up our God given authority to rule in this life and in the life to come.

Finally brethren, having done all, stand!

Rich

Heretical Good News

What I am about to share here from my friend Bill Landon and his book, “The Devil You Don’t Know”, is one of the best kept secrets from ever showing up on our built in radar screens.
Is this some new thing, or has it been something that has been made known by the Father through his spirit down through the centuries. But with its visibility is an assured unleashed assault from the father of lies through the flesh of even those we would call brothers and sister of the faith.
But really, has it ever been other wise, as soon as what was shown to us of the Father becomes the primary object of our heart focus rather than receiving what He wants to impart to us through the opening of our eyes, we once gain begin to worship things (even good things) instead of this lover.

My heart breaks over the blood and the lives sacrificed all in the name of the “right doctrine’ or “theology”, or something that was seen to be more valuable than rejoicing in Him the giver of every good and perfect gift he has bestowed upon His church!
There is a resounding knowing and ever increasing witness within my spirit, shouting out a loud amen to the one who said, “And I will build my church and though the gates of hell will lash out against it, they will not overcome it.”

What I am about to share I know will be offensive, and yet I know in this hour we are living, He is offending our minds in order to reveal our hearts, for it is out of our hearts-union with the Father that Life flows.
The constipation or crappy thinking we all have is going to be lovingly, but firmly addressed/undressed in each of our lives, that’s a given, aren’t we a privileged people!

Rich

God in the Flesh Jesus---God Comes in the Flesh

It may seem blasphemous to many Christians to say that Jesus had the presence of Satan alive in Him in His physical body. Many people will refuse to accept this truth out of a perceived sense of reverence. Nonetheless, I believe this exactly what happened when God came in human form as Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus got his physical body from Mary who was a sinful human being. Mary was sinful as we are all sinful: (Galatians 4:4-5). The human body that Jesus received from Mary was fully human. In being fully human, this body must have had both physical (bodily) and metaphysical (fleshly) components. I appreciate that this is extremely difficult for many people to accept. We can get some feeling for how hard it is for many to come to terms with this fact from the veneration that Mary receives in some religious denominations.

What people do not seem to understand is that if you deny that Jesus had a physical body that included a fleshly part, you deny the full humanity of Christ as Jesus. While many Christians find the idea of Christ with Satan in his flesh near blasphemy, I contend that God has a much different view of this situation. For the Father, Jesus having a fleshly component was essential to God’s plan. With out Satan in His flesh, Jesus could not have been fully human. If you deny the full humanity of Jesus Christ you deny the full glory of what God has done through Christ in Jesus: (1John 4:2).
Further, if God is all powerful He should have no problem dealing with His adversary face-to-face. In fact, the Father has no problem with this situation.

For the life and sacrifice of Christ as Jesus to make a difference at all, He needed to be made just as we are, except that He was without sin. As we have said before, to have Satan in our flesh is a source of temptation. This condition does not, in itself, constitute sin. This part of the makeup we receive as our human heritage. Sin is giving that fleshly nature the use of our minds, wills and emotions to control our physical bodies: (Romans 8:13).
We can have Satan in our flesh and not sin. This is our state of being when we give our souls over to the leading of Christ’s life in our spirit. This was Jesus’ state on earth. He always followed the leading of the Father from His human spirit and, in so doing, denied the leading of the flesh. In this act alone we see the defeat of Satan by God in our world and in our lives.

In closing, these couple of lines from two different movies speaks loud and clear to me of that which I have shared from Bill’s book.
From The Matrix: “The Matrix 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.”

And from the movie, The Italian Job: “I trust everyone; it’s the devil within them I don’t trust.”

Deception

Wallowing in Vomit

If a person, most specifically a ‘Christian’ can ask questions such as this, “How come people choose to live in fear, bondage and settling for the status quo, and more to the point, how can a person call themselves a Christian, and choose to continue to imbibe from this stream of lies and deceit? Then maybe they have never had a fresh opening up of all that and more within their very flesh! Yeah, you heard me right, like a boss I use to have many years ago said, “Remember when you’re pointing that finger at whomever, three are pointing right back at you!

Lets look at this true proverb, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”
Don’t shake your head in disbelief, thinking, how in the hell would/could anyone do such an asinine thing? Well, that’s why we so desperately need Him to become our total and objective in/sight, why, because we are apart from Him totally blind deaf and dumb. Now if that doesn’t piss someone off, I’ll try harder-ha!

We were as it were born in a ‘still born’ position, no Life, oh yeah we were alive in the physical, emotional sense, heck we even had the spirit of life in us because of what God did when he formed man from the dust and blew into that lump of dirt, the ‘breath of life’, but we were and are designed to be made fully alive by Him placing within us the Life of another-Himself.

The setting of the first man and woman was a place of innocence, they were unknowing of any shameful thing, ‘The man and woman were naked before the Lord, and were not ashamed’. But innocence was never to have been their permanent abode. They (according to what my good friend has shared with me) thought that acquiring knowledge was the only smart available option verses eating from the ‘Tree of Life’, as they figured they were already ALIVE.
The father of lies successfully baited and hooked this couple (all of humanity) with his delicious mirage of a promised smorgasbord, only to discover in supposedly gaining they lost everything.

In acquiring this false nature, the one that permeated the father of lies, a nature rooted in lies, fear, murder deception, and most importantly, independence, he, Adam, was now totally blinded by his selfishness, and becoming a self that only lived for self.
This blindness has imprisoned all of us, and no matter how much of His (the Father’s) unconditional love and acceptance we’ve experienced, hidden from sight but within our flesh is a bastion of that which will try to entice and snare us all over again, if we but give a mind to it!
Ergo, the increased need to be tender and kind hearted, forgiving, compassionate towards one another, or as Peter so aptly put it, “I know you know these truths, but as long as am able, I will continue to remind you of what you say you already KNOW!”

Rich

Askew Reality

Was it fruit from a dream tree that Adam and Eve imbibed from, only because of the promise of enlightenment, only to enter a world of virtual reality?

I enjoyed this quote from my friend Bill Landon in his book, ‘My Father and Your Father’ page 81.

‘Our life reality in this world is this: there is a part of us that will never submit to God. This is not an indictment of our weakness and failure. Rather, it is the legacy of the fall. (The residual-collateral effects of the fall). When we opted for knowledge of good and evil, we gave up a God-given knowledge of reality. We now must spend the rest of our lives learning from the Father how to be submitted to Him. Through this process of submitting we regain that God-knowledge we originally had. This comes back to us, in pieces, from the Father by revelation. As we progress through and submit to this teaching, we die to the influence of that independent-self.’

Is it because we have yet to recognize, have revelation with regards to the total depravity within our flesh that grace has and is most lop sided within Christianity? Meaning, one of the most persistent themes in our Lord’s teaching was his submission to his Father.

Like a water mark on paper, has the embedded mark of independent living stained even those of us who have been embraced by His grace? Didn’t Jesus address this mark/stain that had permeated all flesh, ‘people going where they choose, when they choose and do what they choose.

This operation of submission within Jesus’ life was clearly made evident to his disciples as he said to them, they could go where the chose because they were the gods of their own lives. But the Lord could only do the things of the Father. The enlightenment that spread like a cancer and permeated all flesh prevented man from seeing or knowing anything related to submission to another, see here.

In the near future I want to share my thoughts on something I am putting together called, ‘The Vulgar Message of Grace’.
Stay tuned!

Rich

God’s Daily Grind

It is within the crucible of life, daily living that the fashioning and the forging of the Life of God in Christ is either becoming fully formed within us, or we try to go the path of little or no resistance and settle for having a form of Godliness, knowing all about Him, but experiencing NO power. (Knowing about God’s love and not experiencing it is far to much of a serious issue to dismiss).

In a recent episode on the Oprah Winfrey show, four out of five people quizzed in a CareerBuilder.com survey are unhappy at work—that's 84 percent of the nation's workforce!

It is not enough to simply be re-birthed, but the re-birthing is that which was meant to facilitate what the scriptures point to, Jesus being the first born of many sons.

Before the fall of man within the garden there was effort, but there was no sin, no sweating or strain. All of that suddenly changed when man committed high treason in willful and defiant rebellion by declaring he was in control of his own life. . As Dave Coleman, (Wayne Jacobsen’s friend) so succinctly put it on the most recent pod cast; (Why Religion Doesn’t Work) that sin is simply us wanting to have control.
Funny how pride blinds us, in thinking that we can obtain control over our own lives without seeing the inevitable and devastating consequences that turn our lives into a forgery.

It was into this arena of death and grinding devastation that the Word (Jesus Christ) became flesh and lived here with us on planet earth. The mortar and pestle of everyday circumstances and situations were used of the Father in the perfecting (forging) of His Son. It says, though he (Jesus) was the Father’s only begotten, yet he was made perfect (fully forged) through that which he suffered, or, he learned obedience through that which he suffered.

I need to touch upon what I said earlier re: the episode on Oprah about 84% of (the nations work force in the USA) people being unhappy at work.

In my opinion there is so much ambiguity regarding, ‘I love my job, I am unhappy with my job, I love my kids, my marriage etc’, without qualifying (elucidating) the adjectives being used, it all becomes a blurred generic smear.
I for one love my job, but to qualify this, it has to be understood that mixed into this love of my job is a grinding, a forging, straining as it were.

In my opinion, simply stating, “I love my job…I am unhappy with my job…I love my kids…I love ice cream…I hate broccoli” etc. isn’t clear. How does the speaker define the words ‘love’, ‘unhappy’ and ‘hate’? One may love one’s job – but intermixed with all that a person’s job entails has to be a certain amount of strain. To elaborate: Jesus said that but for the joy set before him, he endured the shame of the cross. It wasn’t easy sailing, by any stretch. In the same way, when believers declare they love something – it’s important that they qualify the word ‘love’. For example: I love my dog, but when my wife and I have to spend hours de-matting his 10 inch long hair, or clean the yard of his excrement, or suffer the pain of his puppy nails raking down our bare legs in his exuberant excitement of seeing us…the word ‘love’ takes on a bit of a different meaning.

I am seeing that by either omission or intent, without elucidating with as much clarity as possible, (which encompasses both positive and negative, chaffing, grinding factors) regarding, ‘I love my job, marriage, kids, co-workers, the street I live on etc,’ will leave those struggling with the notion that if they are beset with anything less than warm, fuzzy, happy feelings, there must be something radically wrong with them.

It was through Jesus that a door was opened up for all of humanity to clearly see how the Son of God/Son of Man was going to attain perfection…and that it was not going to be achieved by his Father removing the grinding, chaffing, forging circumstances and situations needed to accomplish this perfection.

Rich