Myth-Understood

These lines from The Signature of Jesus speak of His doings in my life-that you Father!!

The pernicious myth “once converted, fully converted” creates the impression that in one blinding bolt of salvation Christ expects our lives to be freed from contradictions and perplexities. The curse of perfectionism triggers episodes of depression and anxiety.
Who will acquit us of guilt? Who will deliver us from the bondage of perfectionism and failures? Once again, it is the signature of Jesus that rescues us from ourselves.

The crucified Christ reminds us that despair and disillusionment are not terminal but signs of impending resurrection. What lives beyond the Cross is the liberating power of Love, freeing us from the ego-centeredness that says, “All I am is what I think I am and nothing more.”

Mature Christians are those who have failed and learned to live gracefully with their failure.

I love how Father spoke this to Brennan: “I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself.”

Rich

Ultimate Good

It has always been the Father’s intention that we experience His heart beat, Life and life in its fullness.

I’m speaking here primarily to those who have had an encounter of the most holy kind, having been reborn. At one time as the Scriptures succinctly put it, we were, “by nature children of wrath, and son’s of disobedience.”The only source of guidance we had operating within us before being reborn was the moral guidance from the father of lies, ‘you are of your father the devil” Jesus said.

There are many who see it this way in being reborn, Satan out when God comes in. Unfortunately I do not see the devil being vaporized in our being saved, but his moral guidance was NO longer our source for living. Nonetheless he is very much present within our flesh, and if we so choose to not abide in Him our only life, then because there are No vacuums the amoral soul-self will be governed by the one who use to be our father, the devil.
It is important to realize that Satan never was a real father; in fact he was the one who usurped the rightful place of God in our lives through our free will choice.

The knowledge of good and evil has so corrupted our thinking we are no longer able to discern or recognize the truth apart from having to discover it as a result of going a way that appears to be right, only later to discover, how could I have been so blind to not see?
This is usually after much hurt and pain that was self inflicted through our blinded choices we made in trying to live independently from the life of our Father.

I was finally finishing up a book by Paul Anderson-Walsh, ‘Until Christ is Formed in You’ when I came across some thoughts that seemed to confirm what I believe I am seeing to BE the truth of Christ being fully formed in us.

“Of all the grace lessons I have ever had to come to terms with, this is certainly among the most difficult. I was so wedded to self-effort and self-authentication that it was necessary for Him to allow me to be swallowed up with the pain of trying to make my life work apart from Him before I would turn to Him.”

“The only desire of the Lord is to bless us but He blesses on His terms and herein lies the conundrum- what He calls a blessing, we often think of being accursed and vise versa.”

I am seeing more and more the wisdom of my loving Father allowing me full freedom to choose His way or mine, and often it does come down to wanting my way. The beauty of this is He is not neglecting me, but knowing full well that there will BE consequences to those choices, and hopefully the intense pain and anguish from this will be a wonderful motivation in turning from self-reliance to Him, a goal He is ruthless in His pursuit of.

Rich

Misunderstood

I love how God is so wanting to engage us, to draw us unto Himself. The following is but one example of that reality, the Word that became flesh, the man Christ Jesus sharing his heart with a very smart man, but still not able to grasp the meaning of such simple words.

"So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."

Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?"

Like the blowing of the wind, His ways are a wonder to behold. For instance, I have sensed his direction in picking up a book I've read many years ago from my library and seeing some wonderful insights as I am in the process of reading it again.

Here is but one example from the book Baffled To Fight Better, by Oswald Chambers;
"Eliphaz claimed to know exactly where Job was, and Bildad claims the same thing. Job was hurt, and these men tried to heal him with platitudes. The place for the comforter is not that of one who preaches, but of the comrade who says nothing, but prays to God about the matter. The biggest thing you can do for those who are suffering is not to talk platitudes, not to ask questions, but to get into contact with God, and the "greater works" will be done by prayer." (John 14:12-13)

Rich