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.
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.
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.
I just finished reading a wonderful book I heard of through a brother called Identity Theft, by Kevin Avram and Wes Boldt. The following is an excerpt from this book.
“Each of us has a unique mixture of gifts, though one of them tends to dominate and influence the way we see and respond to situations and establish priorities. If we walk with the heart identity of Sons/Daughters, our hearts will be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and our giftedness will be a practical extension of what the Father is working in us. We will minister with the grace He gives in the way He indicates we should. The focus will not be the gift, but the Father.
If we do not have the heart identity of Sons/Daughters, our focus will be on our own fulfillment and what we can do with our gift. It is an erroneous disposition that has led more than a few people to falsely conclude that their gift and their identity are synonymous. Gifts exercised apart from a hearing heart can actually oppose the purposes of God. In fact, much of what we call spiritual warfare is simply God resisting our efforts to use our gifts to build or achieve something that He never called us to do. God resists the proud and self-determined. (1Peter 5:5)”
It never ceases to amaze me of how our calling “to be His” has been funneled by so many into the old wine skin format of religious thinking along with all that that encompasses. Church has been sadly defined by some geographical location usually confined to a building location.
I am seeing with increased clarity within this (for lack of better terminology) grace awakening that the foundational and fundamental corner stone that all and everything else rests upon is that which Jesus said the church He is building would rest upon, the “unconditional love of the Father.” Because there are NO vacuums, we will either have deeply defined in us our true identity of whose we are Sons/Daughters of the Father, or, we will be defined by something no matter how good, as an alternate identity!
I think these words from Paul address some of this lack of identity within our siblings in Christ. “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”
Rather than simply being living breathing extensions of our God and Father as His Ambassadors in this fallen world, so many have gravitated toward becoming an expression of another religious organization instead. Look what they’ve done to my work I initiated in them, I can hear the Father saying to His sons!
Rich
"...Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ... having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." (Eph. 4:13; 2:15-16). "...And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all." (Col. 3:10-11). "...And put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." (Eph. 4:24). "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27).
I want to put this in here as I see it tying in well with my thoughts, it is a quote from A Sparks.
Am I to take upon my own shoulders the whole matter of my usefulness to the Lord, my vocation, my service, my ministry? No, never! How many of the children of God have been beaten, and broken, and buffetted about by the question of ministry and usefulness to the Lord. That is not our affair in the first instance. What is to be done with our lives depends entirely upon our walking with the Lord. We have altogether false ideas of ministry. We have set ministry before our eyes as some kind of order of things, something into which we get, something that we take up, and ministry is nothing of the kind. Ministry is the spontaneous outgoing of Christ in us, and the more there is of Christ to go out through us, the greater will be our ministry. Let us get away from mechanical ideas of service for the Lord. The Holy Spirit, Who has introduced Christ into us, is going to construct everything upon the basis of Christ in us.
Seeing God means having ears that hear and a heart that is able to receive and abide in that which the Father bestows. It means knowing His thoughts (1Cor. 2:11-12), even as sons and daughters come to know the thoughts of their natural father. Seeing God also means not fleeing obstacles or times of barrenness.
Those who see God, rest in, feed upon, and submit to His faithfulness in the midst of the issues of life (1Cor. 1:9; Ps. 37:3), for the know He makes even the desert to bloom (Is. 51:3), and will perfect that which concerns them (Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:28). Their identity and dependence is not within themselves or upon themselves, but in their Father.
The inability to see God was the great dilemma of the Israelites after they departed Egypt. They saw His “work for forty years” but went “astray in their heart” (Heb. 3:9-10). They were blind to see that the circumstance in which He placed them was the very avenue through which He intended to bless them. In resisting the circumstance, they resisted God. They either forgot or didn’t know that all spiritual life is conceived in the barrenness of an empty womb. Sons and Daughters know their lives are empty, and that if they do bring forth a bounty or blessing, it is because, in the midst of their barrenness, the Father plants within them that which is born of Him!
Here are some thoughts I offered in response to comments a friend shared in one of my recent blog posts.
“It is my opinion that because there are NO vacuums in life, out of necessity if it isn’t going to be about life, then it is all about death. Most, however, do not or would not see it quite this starkly!
“Self was intended to be clothed inwardly and outwardly in the adornment of the living God (life). In forsaking this God-designed expression, self then had to be defined apart from its original purpose. Self-reliance became part of this craving to carve out and establish an identity apart from God (death). I see self-reliance as one of Self's offspring, others being self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, etc. All these things emanate from the corruption within our soul. Everything pertaining to 'self' is opposed to God, and feeds into our inherent sin/Satan nature. When Satan said, "I shall be like the most high God...I will ascend..." etc. I think he was trying to carve out an identity for himself separate from his maker. When we rely on 'self-anything' aren't we doing the same? As born-again children of the most high God, we are to live out of his indwelling spirit. Putting us into impossible situations forces us into a position whereby we canNOT resort to relying on 'self' but on God alone.
“Out of defying God and trying to become like God, man, having his eyes opened, was plunged into total darkness, and in this darkness the father of lies and religion began to make his presence known in the world through human agents.”
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” The construction of man consisted of body, soul and spirit, and each of these three components were to be united when man freely chose to eat from the Tree of Life; this spoke of a ruling nature that up to that point he was yet without. Consequently, the other tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil likewise figuratively represented a nature.
In my opinion, Satan, the fallen archangel who once radiated all light, glory and worship back to God, grew tired of being in a subservient position and up to that point was found blameless until, pride welled up in his heart, “I will ascend to the highest heights, I will be greater than God.” This insidious malignant cancer became the inward impetus that propelled his meteor-like crash landing upon the earth. I love this quote from Jesus, “I was watching Satan falling from heaven like lightening.”
Jesus highlighted who and what Satan was, “a father of lies” (a usurper) but it is important to realise that only God has the capacity to create. Satan can only replicate. Satan was never ever a bona fide father like God, so Satan, knowing this, had to lie, cheat and trick Adam into acquiescing of his own choosing to swallow his baited pitch, hook, line and sinker.
What and how much Satan knew of God’s purposes and plans for man was obviously enough to do what he did in his covert, stealth-morphed disguise. He knew that man had or was to become a fuller expression of what Satan (Lucifer) had once been, a glory-bearer, one who would radiate the wonder, beauty and majesty of this living God!
In his mutinous defiance, man then became a host for Satan to have his spirit, likeness, image and nature represented throughout the earth. The only thing was, that man was blinded to his now having a nature that he would think was 'human', but in fact (according to Jesus) he became by nature a child of wrath, a son of disobedience.
It is out of this that man carved his identity. Prior to the fall, he lacked an identity - much like a pumpkin which lacks an identity until a face is carved into its flesh. Man's craving for identity was metaphorically carved into his flesh the moment the father or lies entered his soul.
But isn't that just what the Father of our spirit has purposed - to introduce a custom-designed and unique application of the cross to my will? If God the Father is love (and He is), then be prepared to embrace the "goodness and the severity" of the Father, at times simultaneously! And although your immediate thought might be, "This can't be of the Father" think again…or better yet, think it NOT strange what has befallen you!
Let's take a look here into Hebrews which plainly speaks of this blessing that goes hand in hand with our being received of the father. To further illustrate, a couple of verses from the King James translation is particularly sweet:
"If ye endure chastening, God is dealing with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."
From my perspective, the reality that none of us sees is the reality that deals with the unseen current of our hearts. I love the story of the pastor who allowed his youngest son to have a sleepover with a parishioner's son. The next morning the pastor called his friend to inquire about his son's behavior. To his surprise, the pastor was informed that his son was simply a delight, but experience led him to add ruefully, "I guess you never had to cross his will."
The story in Luke 15 of the generous father is a graphic illustration unveiling the hidden reality of our hearts, and how without being disciplined, corrected, and extricated from the Matrix of religion our needed and continued growth is aborted: "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons". It would appear as if this father's sons were outwardly perfect – until their wills were crossed. Likewise, we are our Heavenly Father's forever children, but His ultimate intentions are for fully mature (perfect) sons!
Isn't it amazing how, at a heart level, we can divorce ourselves from the Father of our spirit simply because we choose to go our way? The kicker is, because of the intensity of His love for us, He grants us that very freedom. Sooner or later as truth-filled sobriety invades our inner senses, we begin to see the stark reality of this being a divine conspiracy which harmoniously flows between Father, Son and Holy Spirit - that there really is only One way, His way, Jesus the Way! Because of the innate inclination of our foolish "wisdom", we try to go the right way versus the wrong way, and in that process blindly miss out on the best way - His! However, thanks be to God who allows us to go wrong before we learn to go right.
Anything dealing with this life and love of God in Christ stems from His initiative, “We love him because he first loved us.” Jesus spells this out so very clearly and yet for most of us simply going by the letter without the breath of His spirit that always accompanies the letter, we will be set up for an alarming upheaval in our journey.
Listen to what He says here; “If you continue to abide within this relationship I have called you into, you will know the truth and the truth will make, set you free.” As well as, “Whom the Son makes free, is free indeed.”
Many who have been and continue to follow Christ have run into unimaginable nightmares and this is happening while they are wide awake. What none of us ever thought would erupt within us walking, abiding in this relationship He called us to, was that the Truth was going to establish itself in our innermost being and in doing so, that which we have blindly mistaken as the real us is being radically altered!
We have all been born in sin and shaped in iniquity, that was our introduction coming into the world, but it didn’t stop there. Yes when we were received of the Father we became a whole new creation, but, for most, they were led not by the spirit of the Father but by their natural inclination. Rather than allowing the Father of their spirit to further enlightened as to what happened in being apprehended of God, they became religious without really knowing its corrupting death influence happening.
For many throughout the earth there is an inner revelation of the Father's deep love gripping the hearts of those who want to respond to the Father of their spirit, an awakening of unparalleled proportion. Much like the Prince in the movie Sleeping Beauty, he fights to save this one he cherishes and loves by kissing her and waking her from her death sleep. Unbeknown to us is that we have had established within us an erroneous identity fashioned, formed by the spirit of this age, the Matrix of religion, the impetus being the father of lies and all religion, Satan.
Before experiencing and enjoying our freedom promised by the Father, the truth is going to make you miserable! This inner work of demolition, tearing down, plucking up, uprooting that which is contrary to who’s we are and who we are is being displaced. In that unfolding process, you will be convinced at times you are loosing your mind, even to the extent thinking it is the devil himself have free course with you.
The saving of our soul is nothing to take lightly and for most of us the words spoken by our precious brother Paul who knew suffering and persecution more than most offered these words of living encouragement, “All who will live Godly lives in Christ Jesus will go through much tribulation!” A man’s life does NOT consist in what he has or what he hopes to have. In coming to know Him as our only Life, we will suffer the loss of all things, but on the flip side gain more in our poverty than ever dreamed.
Impostors in the Spirit prefer appearances to reality. Rationalization begins with a look in the mirror. We don’t like the sight of ourselves as we really are, so we try cosmetics, makeup, the right light, and the proper accessories to develop an acceptable image of ourselves. We rely on the stylish disguise that has made us look good or at least look away from our true self. Self-deception mortgages our sinfulness and prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are—ragamuffins.
I really don’t know of a better description of how religion in any flavor does what it does best, covers up, masks not a defect, but the defiance within fallen man. But is it any wonder that it should be any different, meaning, the father of lies-religion is a master of disguise, as it were transforming himself (an angel of darkness) into a angel of light!
The quote was from The Ragamuffin Gospel.
While we were in conference we were infiltrated by spies pretending to be Christians, who slipped in to find out just how free true Christians are. Their ulterior motive was to reduce us to their brand of servitude. We didn't give them the time of day. We were determined to preserve the truth of the Message for you.
“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.
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.
I have been reading the story of Joseph lately and wanted to share the following.
Joseph is entering God’s rock tumbling machine. He’s going to be between a Rock and hard place for many years. When God’s purpose is at work, you can expect others to be jealous. In reading the story of Joseph it is clearly visible that he was insensitive and not without sin, and we see the wickedness of his brothers. But in all of this, God’s higher purposes were set into motion.
Often we have no idea what God has in mind for us, but his purposes will be fulfilled. Where sin abounds grace does much more abound (Romans 5:20). God’s eternal purpose is at work whether we consciously feel it or not. Sometimes when we don’t fell something we wonder if God is working. But the fact that you don’t feel something proves nothing. God works silently behind the scenes. At the bottom of the brother’s motivation (regarding Joseph) was: “We shall see what will become of his dreams.”
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.”
The caption that came with this image was; “we are often blinded by the truth, even when it is right before our eyes.”
I find the Truth defined in the person of God the Father’s son, Jesus Christ is most relevant no matter how many years have gone by or will pass. “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.” The quotes I’m using here are from about ten years ago or so from the book, The Signature of Jesus, by Brennan Manning.
“There has never been a time in Christian history when the name of Jesus Christ so frequently is mentioned and the content of his life and teaching so frequently ignored. The seduction of counterfeit discipleship has made it easy to be a Christian. In a climate of mutual admiration, the radical demands of the gospel have dissolved into verbal Alka-Seltzer, and prophetic preaching has become virtually impossible. By and large, American (and please know that this is not relegated to just the USA) Christians today are spoon-fed on the pablum of popular religion.”
“The gospel of Jesus Christ is no Pollyanna tale for the neutral: It is a cutting knife, rolling thunder, and convulsive earthquake in the human spirit. The Word lives. But in the words of Bonhoeffer, many Christians “have gathered like ravens around the carcass of the cheap grace and there have drunk the poison which has killed the following of Christ.”
“If the gospel were proclaimed without compromise, the roster of card-carrying Christians in this country would shrink. Most televangelist distorts the gospel. Therein lies the Cross except as a theological relic, no clarion call to the body of Christ that we are crucified to the world and the world to us. In half an hour the electronic evangelist has to convert you, heal you, and guarantee your success. Everybody is a winner; nobody loses his business, fails in marriage, or lives in poverty. If you are an attractive nineteen-year-old and accept Jesus, you become Miss America; if you have a drinking problem, you conquer alcoholism; if you are in the National Football League, you automatically go to the Pro Bowl.”
Incredible as it may sound, the Word itself has become a source of division and self-righteousness. Jesus said that the foremost sign of discipleship would be our love for one another. “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). His teaching is unequivocal here. We would be known as his followers not because we are chaste, celibate, honest, sober, or respectable; not because we are church-going, Bible-toting, or Psalm-singing: We would be recognized as disciples primarily by our deep and delicate respect for one another, our cordial love impregnated with reverence for the sacred dimension of the human personality.”
“We have come a long, sad journey from the first century, when pagans exclaimed with awe and wonder, ‘see how these Christians love one another!’ to the twentieth century, when all over the world nonbelievers dismiss us with contempt; ‘see how these Christians hate one another!’ We have deprived the world of the only witness the Son of God asked for during the supper of His love. Our present disunity cannot be God’s will for us; it is a scandal to angels in heaven and human beings on earth.”
Blessed are the disturbed, for they shall know the God and Father of all comfort. The storm was brewing even before going to bed last night, it wove its relentless burrowing way deep into my inner being even after entering the land of snooze. The energizing of His spirit was already starting to get my attention before I went to bed, in so much as I felt directed to put up a new piece on my blog that deeply spoke to me. While sleeping, a world of the unexplainable opened up to me, as it is most often that way when I dream, all I know was as I was waking this morning I was certain of these words which I kept saying over and over, “I will not apologize anymore.”
Reflecting on this and sharing it with my wife as she was getting ready for work I began to see this erosion that had been creeping into my soul, as it were a drifting away somehow from the One who is my ALL. The subtlety of this invasion was most disturbing, but sobering. Somehow I had given over to entertaining thoughts that had nothing to do with the truth of Who’s I am, almost as if I was allowing myself to become invisible, blending in much like a chameleon does in camouflaging its-self and for all intents disappearing.
I sensed Father lovingly but most firmly speaking to me, "Is this who I have called/made you to be, are you going to settle for fear misshaping and disfiguring you? Are you going to hide behind the lies I have broken over your life, or are you going to rise up in my strength, and BE the man/son I have purpose you to be?" In answering from deep within my heart-YES, there was awakened a surge of power/strength I knew was not due to anything I could muster up.
Your signature of love is deeply written into my being, Father you’ve called me to BE a communicator, to speak forth your heart of love and encouragement to those whose arms are falling at their side, whose knees are beginning to buckle, whose hearts are about to cave in. As Peter launched out onto the very word Jesus spoke to him, “come” and stepped out of the security of the physical and walked on water, I too am stepping out and embracing Him and in so doing embracing His delight in ways I have yet to imagine.
Reading from Oz Chambers, this was one of those laser beams thrust into the nether regions within my heart, you know that hidden land where the motives and intentions and attitudes of the heart reside!
“There are no nations in Jesus Christ's outlook, but the world. How many of us pray with out respect of persons, and with respect to only one Person, Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced by distress and conviction of sin, and this is the harvest we have to pray that labourers may be thrust out to reap. We are taken up with active work while people all round are ripe to harvest, and we do not reap one of them, but waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities. Suppose the crisis comes in your father's life, in your brother's life, are you there as a labourer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, one who is not above his Master, one who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls to no special work: He calls to Himself. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer circumstances and thrust you out.”
How many special things have identified me, a special work, I have a calling to do thus and so, continually being defined by still seeing myself after the flesh. It’s amazing the bull shit lies we are all so quick to imbibe in. Any secret hidden faults undetected by us within our soul will become a landing pad for the lies of the enemy of our soul to bring us into his captivity! Those lies are always going to be dressed up and exude a tantalizing desire from within us to reach out and take whatever is being offered.
“There's more: God's Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure. Otherwise how will we find our way? Or know when we play the fool? Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh! Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work; then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin. These are the words in my mouth; these are what I chew on and pray. Accept them when I place them on the morning altar, O God, my Altar-Rock, God, Priest-of-My-Altar.”
“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.”
If there is any other love other than His working within my heart, it’s only a matter of time before we wake up in just another expression of imprisonment/bondage.
This is NOT being shared with a underlying message of fear laced tactics, I see it being a wake up call to allow our hearts to BE engaged with his! This is pointing to Him our Prince of Peace, thing is, He has a very sharp sword in his hands, and he is most skillful in its application to that within our hearts!
I want to close with this freeing, but sober picture, and know this in what Father is saying through our brother Paul is an opportunity to experience the freedom from the deceptive inner heart divorce and simply going on doing all the “right” stuff, but totally lifeless!!!
“Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. 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.”
Last week on the God Journey pod cast Wayne and Brad were discussing, “Troublesome Scriptures”, and its part of that I want to address, share the following thoughts. The following scriptures in particular were some of those seen as troublesome. Was Jesus really describing ‘self-mutilation’ or as Wayne suggested, figurative language pointing to a far more serious form of dis-figuration?
Any fool can cut their right hand off, as well as gouge out their right eye, but in doing so I think sooner or later the sad conclusion they will arrive at is, the problem was far deeper and rooted within their flesh. Even in their maimed dis figurations, those inner inclinations were still very much in tact.
There is only one self that the Father of our spirit intends to display the wonder of His son in and through, but that transformation can be badly marred by listening and agreeing to the lies that we believe are in fact the truth. The internal gouging, disfiguring, self-mutilation that is purposed by the father of lies within our flesh is keep the world from seeing the reality of the many forth coming sons being birthed as result of Jesus being the ‘first born’ of many sons.
We need to be as real as we know how to be with our Father. Here is an example that hopefully will shed further light on my previous thoughts. We are told to “put on the new self” what does that look like? If the best we have ever experienced is an unabated deep hunger every time we go to a restaurant, and while there we look at not only the description of the contents of a cheese burger deluxe, but the mouth water picture as well, is it any wonder when we leave without ordering what all of that pointed to, we go away hungrier than when we came in.
Our Father is not trying to torment us with just a pretty book; heck some even have wonderful pictures in it, the Bible. He is inviting us to cry out to Him to make as real as only He can do, what it means to have His life fully formed in us as us.
There is a surgery that we are under going; it is with this One who has fully died only to become fully alive in order to fully form Christ in us! This ongoing and deeply necessary surgery is only going to cut away that which is trying to keep us from a deepened knowledge of the Truth. It will be this true knowledge of the Truth that will bring this self-mutilation to a halt.
In hearing what Father was saying through Brad and Wayne on the last God Journey pod cast, (no need to validate) addressing an email sent to them from a brother/pastor Dave, from Alabama, I want to share what I am learning about that very reality.
Can God be that REAL, YES! Wayne went on to say to Dave, ‘you may not hear from Brad or me, but you need to hear in your heart from the Holy Spirit that’s saying, yes! Asking, Jesus would you just show me the way forward.
I love this thought from a brother, “Many catchwords are used by God's people, both Scriptural and homemade, to express the highest aims of their goal in God: some speak of the fullness of the Spirit, or entire sanctification, or power for service, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, or full salvation, or victorious living. All these are useful but we would like to speak the basic, simple all-inclusive word of Scripture, that was such a favorite with the Saviour: Eternal Life; or rather, just ''Life,'' for, as we shall see, nothing but this is Life. ''I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,'' said the Saviour; and Moses put it in the plainest terms to Israel: ''I call heaven and earth to witness this day. . . that I have set before you life and death.'' Not a religion, not a philosophy, not a way of life called Christianity, but LIFE. And we are to discover that there is only one Life, all else is death. It is absolute in definition and experience, ''straight and narrow'' as the Saviour said; there are no deviations, no alternatives; and it is foolproof in every conceivable situation or problem. Also, being life, it is entirely natural, not something strained, or rather hopelessly aimed at; but just lived, and lived exuberantly.”
Without partaking of our birth right, feasting on Him, our loving Papa, the true bread from heaven, we will simply continue going through the motions, maybe even establishing a even better form, but lacking and knowing the substance of Him, our only Life.
I want to say this as well, unless the Father of my/your spirit definitively addresses you as His child, because there are NO vacuums, we will be defined by something or someone else, that’s a given. Because of the ingrained imprinting of who we once were, born dead in our sins and trespasses, there is no way of escape from this no matter how much right scriptural, biblical good stuff we say we believe. There must be revelation from one source, our loving Father, and in receiving a revelation of the One we are joined to, the Truth Himself, and as that true knowledge increases, that which use to bind us begins to loose its hold on us from the inside out.
So many believe in so much wonderful, great, true things, but without revelation, its but window dressing, simply a form of godliness. Our Father wants to establish us in the truth of whom He is and who we are in Him. How many of us as His children believe that what happened to our brother Paul was for him alone? The revelation that he received of Jesus was as he put it, not taught of/by men, and he did not receive it from men, but by His Spirit alone. It was a revelation of Christ in him (Paul) as him, that he might share Him where ever he was directed by the Father.
There are two father’s operating within our lives, one, the Father of our spirit, the other, a usurping deceiver, the ‘father of lies within our flesh’. Nothing can hinder or impeded the continued spontaneous intuitive flow of revelation into our lives apart from choosing to give a mind to the flesh, ‘the mind set upon the flesh is death!’
In my life He is becoming more and more a living sobriety. As I was sharing with my friend Dave the other day, where it says in Proverbs 1:7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding, wisdom, or in Galatians where it says to, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What if this fear thing was seen in the light of sobriety instead? I took the bother of checking out the word ‘sober’ in the epistles of Paul alone, finding at least 12 different places being sober is mentioned, I think this is pointing to the One who IS our only sobriety!
This is getting way too long, so I will ramble on more, later.
It's a quote that actually raises several questions. What place head knowledge or heart awareness? A few people respond to a revelation 'out of the blue' - and I've known a few who then started attending 'church'. One attended for 15 years and has since spent some 15 years coming out again! I've spent so many years in dead traditions but then came freedom and liberation from the slavery of legalism - but that was ten years ago. Why has it taken so long?
For those wanting a lead in to this conversation that has been going on here for a while, please read here.
Hi Pete,
Please here me, these are by no way definitive hammered into stone answers, merely one brother reaching out to another, wanting with all that is in me to continue to grow in the grace and the (TRUE) knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I like what my brother Warren Litzman shared once, it was his understanding that ‘we ALL have to go wrong before we learn to go right’. Saying that to say this, because of the innate indelible residual imprinting within our soul, (mind-will-emotions) working wonderfully through the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ we have come to the solid conclusion it choosing to do things the ‘right way vs the wrong way.’ Into that soupy mix, I would ask, what about His Way, is that even a consideration, I don’t think so.
In my opinion the right way and the wrong way are one in the same, disguised and morphed into a blended mix of evil, through and through.
I do not know of too many that when they received revelation of His heart wooing them and then choosing to respond to his invitation to become part of His 4 ever family, aka being re-born, shortly there after finding them self learning from a surrogate, foster parent within some religious club.
It is my opinion that after Joseph died, after having his entire family brought to stay, live in Egypt, that any real substance to the reality of God actively being a part of their daily lives, God raised up another Pharaoh and brought the children of Israel into captivity, why, because they no longer knew Who’s they were or who they were.
Our birth-right and all that it encompasses has never been revoked, it is held in good hands, our Father, waiting for the fullness of time, e.g. Galatians 4:1-3 “NOW WHAT I mean is that as long as the inheritor (heir) is a child and under age, he does not differ from a slave, although he is the master of all the estate; But he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date fixed by his father. So we [Jewish Christians] also, when we were minors, were kept like slaves under [the rules of the Hebrew ritual and subject to] the elementary teachings of a system of external observations and regulations.”
I see these scriptures being most relevant to what has happened since the birthing of the church, Christ in us, the hope of glory, although fully received of the Father, heirs and joint heirs with and through Christ Jesus, as long as we think as a slave, Papa keeps us under the tutelage of the institutional settings until the appointed time of the Father for each and everyone of us! Once again, these are very fluid in flux thoughts, not intended to become a new and missing but just discovered epistle to the church. I trust this will provoke us both unto love and good works as we look to Him to breathe upon what might be mere abstractions to us.
Please read Pete’s response to me first (here) before reading what I have shared here with him.
Pete,
I so love your heart, it so exalts the one who is our Life! A friend of mine once said, “I know God is no respecter of persons, but maybe He is a respecter of hearts”
As far as my ‘former ministry,’ looking back, what I now see was my trying to be someone something other than whom He had purposed for me to Be, and without a revelation of His unconditional total love for me this could have easily turned into a greater nightmare than it already was. Prior to Him burying us, my wife and family and I alive, I was rich in some of the most incredible experiences a person could encounter, and that all followed my very powerful and dramatic re-birthing.
The day before I was (euphemistically) ‘let go’ from the ministry, I along with my fellow colleagues were together in one of our weekly staff meetings, I won’t bore you will all of the details, suffice it to say, when we opened up in prayer, I was immediately aware of the Lord wanting to show me something, so I mentioned this to the others as we were praying, they encouraged me to go further into seeing where this might lead to.
What followed was almost like something from a science fiction movie. You have to understand what was unfolding before me although wild; I was use to encounters like this, only this was far different. In my spirit I saw Jesus in a shadowy silhouette approaching me and as He got closer I could see/make out he was holding a communion chalice, and it being filled to the brim. He was not saying anything with his lips, yet I could hear His words in my heart. He motioned that this cup he held was for me, and somehow I knew that I could receive it and drink it or I could say no thanks, and somehow I knew His love for me would be the same. I could see in His eyes/heart a love for me that was so foreign to anything I had thus far experienced, I choose to symbolically reach out and take this chalice/cup from him under No compulsion, putting it up to my lips, and drinking it all. Then for the first time He spoke to me, and this is where it gets wild, He says, “I now give you permission to enter into the fellowship of my sufferings.” The next day I was called into the senior pastors office to be informed, I was being let go~yikes.
This set into motion my being brought into what I call, ‘the school of the spirit,’ I was being brought into a living encounter with the One who had called me to BE His, not a call to be someone apart from Him. When I was let go from the ministry, I was not only being stripped of my many colored coat, much like Joseph was, but SO much more. We were living in a postage stamp sized house, renting it, why, because we lost Everything, another story to be shared another time.
I slowly began to see and learn of a Father that was smitten by me, this was unfathomable to my thinking, but He had my attention big time. As I learned and am learning of His love, I have been awakened into an understanding of His grace that is so transforming my life, I no longer resemble the person I was for so long, even as ‘a Christian.’ I dare anyone to ask my wife and my kids as they are able to cut to the chase and speak the Truth re: this progressive ongoing transformation in my heart, thoughts, words and actions.
Pete my dear brother, there is so much I could share, but won’t right at this time, only to encourage you as you have done to me. You are such a priceless and vital living expression of His hearts purpose and to us His body, and for that reality I say, thank you Papa! I love your rambling please never stop, many would be greatly refreshed and encouraged of His spirit living in Pete, as Pete.
The plan and purpose of the entire creation is about life. To put it another way, we do not do to be—we do what we do out of our surrender to our being (nature). What I mean by this is that the life we are submitted to determines our actions and not the other way around. Every living thing produces actions that are consistent with the nature that operates in them. The born again are a little different in this aspect of living because of our free will. We still produce actions consistent with a nature; however, we can choose a nature to obey.
With the born again, we choose to either follow a false life nature (the flesh) or our true life nature (Christ in our spirit). The important point here is that we never produce a nature by doing. Rather, our nature dictates the doing of our life. You cannot grow in the life of the Father by doing. You can only grow in the Father’s doing by growing in your living by the Father’s life. The problem with the view of much of Christianity in this topic suffers from an error in sequence. Our doing can only properly come out of the life we have in us. We do the work of the Father only as we let our doing flow out of the influence of the life of Christ in us.
This is the doing that arises out of the spontaneous living of the Father’s life. This kind of living cannot be directed by an external organization or by another individual or even by oneself. When we are engaged in the Father’s business we are letting the life of Christ rule over us. The important thing to remember is that our doing comes out of our life and not our life coming out of our doing. This is why you cannot work your way into God’s favor.
In this we see the same principle at work in each individual as it is at work in the universe. Remember, God will correct the problems of the world by replacement and not by repair (Revelation 21:1). The father does the same thing with each person. We are saved from our original life condition by replacement. Every person comes into the world with a flawed life—a life directed by the flesh. When we accept the gift of life through Christ we are made new by the transforming power of a new life in our spirit: (2Corinthians 5:17). In salvation we have a replacement of our old life situation by a new life opportunity. This is entirely Christ’s work and none of our own. The only thing that is acceptable to the Father is the Son. This is why every born again believer is right now totally and eternally acceptable to the Father. Do what you will; you will never be more acceptable to the Father than when you consented to let Christ become your only life. If you have never submitted to letting Christ live in you then the converse is true. Without the life of Christ in you no amount of works or doing will make you acceptable to the Father. Your acceptability to the Father is a result of the life that now operates in you. This is exclusive of any doing.
Posts
