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.”

Perfection

Free to Live, Free to Love

To my way of thinking this Mystery, the Message of Christ in us the hope of glory, is something that has me wanting to firmly rest in a posture of, speak Father for your son is listening.
I am learning that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Father’s mouth, and how it is the longing of His heart to share the ‘secret’ things with those who are His.

In talking, discussing more on “Considering the Flesh-Two Natures?”, I want to highly (strongly) recommend much of what I am sharing here either directly (and from my own ponderings on this matter) from Bill Landon’s book, “The Devil You Don’t Know” from iUniverse.com, as well as anything else he has written. As a matter of fact I just had returned to me another of his books I loaned to a brother called, “The Life That is Real Life (The Search for Our Real Nature).

I love the thought that in most instances the emphasis on buried treasure is on that particular word, ‘buried,’ one has to dig, look for it, I guess if it was lying all around on the surface, it wouldn’t be buried, hidden then would it?

The following I found to be of great consolation and comfort from the God and Father of ALL comfort.

Rich

The state of the child of God in the issue of sin is the sate of freedom and love. Our true condition before God is completely and perpetually forgiven. We do not need law, guilt, judgment or bondage to appease the Father’s anger. We are free to be the children we were created to be. Our only need is to abide in the life of Christ that is our actual life source and condition.
We are not perfect because we were not created to be perfect. We are perfectly forgiven. It was never God’s intention for the Christian life in this world to be a life of sinless perfection. God desires the Christian life be a live lived in the perfect love of Christ. Perfection is God’s realm and He will grow us up in that realm as He sees fit.
We damage and stunt our growth when we try to raise ourselves to any state of perfection based on any human standard or effort. This is equally hurtful whether the human standard is ours or someone else’s.

The children of God must allow the Father to give them an understanding of the place of sin in our lives.
The child of God sins, make no mistake about that.
However, these are not errors that arise from our spirits (our nature) and that is the difference. This is why John can say: 1John 3:9. Those who are born of God are perfect in their spirits.

In my soul I may foolishly listen to Satan in my ‘flesh’, and do something hurtful to others or myself. I need to repent of that foolishness, and accept the consequences of the action and let God teach me through it. That teaching may include some unpleasant circumstances. This unpleasantness is not very important in the long term however. What is important is that I have relationship with my Father and with my brothers and sisters. What powers that relationship is something that is far greater than any folly I can commit.
The children of God can be free from all guilt and all weight of law and striving. We have been set free to live and to love. Christians should be the least bound people on the face of the earth. The children of God have the perfection of the life of Christ in us (in our human spirit). That is our empowerment to be free to live and free to love. Sin no longer has any necessary power over us.

Imagination

For an added aesthetic, click onto the youtube video below and listen while you're reading this post:

In our prolonged but frequently interrupted conversation today via Skype, Dave and I were carried aloft by a mysterious, intoxicating breeze from the Father himself. It was as if we were being effortlessly borne “on a current of the unforced rhythms of his grace”, being taken into places of thoughts and ponderings that seemed staggering to our sense of what is real or credible…and most intriguing of all was a sense that He was reaching out to us and inviting us to imagine what it means to be child-like. What He was offering in this ‘close encounter’, in a moment when we were simply thinking out loud, was so overwhelming that our senses were rapidly spinning into sensual overload. Why? Because it was as if we were no longer talking about him - but that He was there, present, pulling back the veil. I sensed we were leaves on a flowing river or feathers in the wind. Was it all but a dream, a mirage, the over-active collateral effects of cups of java, or was it a fresh introduction to “unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God”?

For the sake of wanting to provoke readers to think for themselves, I will refrain from trying to nail down the ‘right’ language/interpretation of what is meant by the phrase, “the kingdom of God” for now. All I know is that I am now pondering the spirit behind those words and how He, the Spirit of Truth, has my undivided attention, at least at this moment in time.

When I consider such writings as C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, common fairy-tales or movies such as Field of Dreams and The Matrix, I am persuaded that they are pointing to a much greater present reality. It’s as if within these stories there exists a portal to another realm. Whether it’s through a looking glass, a wardrobe door or a ploughed field of corn, these dreams and nuances depict the availability of this reality (the kingdom) being within our reach.

Dean Sherman (Youth with a Mission) states that the themes of romance, conflict and adventure are interwoven in all stories from the beginning of time. Why do these themes speak so profoundly to us, almost as ‘deep calls unto deep’ and why do they cast such magical spells upon us? I believe it’s because we inadvertently have become like Peter Pan, all grown up on the outside though still children within, and it is to these childish hearts the spirit of God speaks.

This child-like wonder sneaks up on me and surprises my heart. Jesus Himself said words to this effect: “Except you become like a child, the reality of this present realm and all that it encompasses will be hidden from your understanding”.

The Prince has prepared a sumptuous meal and stands at the door of our hearts, offering a warm embrace, bidding us to partake of this heavenly realm in the here and now. Will we accept the invitation?

Rich

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

Living Loved

Not long ago my wife and I went to see the movie Wall*E, funny, the older I’m getting the younger I seem to feel, anyway, there was this one line from the movie where the Captain of this huge space ship said something that resonated within me: "I don't want to survive. I want to live!"

In sharing with a friend tonight this (living as the result of the life of another) came up and became a major part of our time of sharing, discussing, and pondering things such as life, and what it is ‘all about.’

If the original intent of God was to be a Father, then how could that become a reality apart from children? Well, we all know that He had/has a Son, the only begotten son, Jesus Christ, but maybe Jesus was but the ‘first born’ of many sons yet to come forth and ultimately fill the Father’s house.

If His loving design for us was to be alive and to live and not just merely survive (exist), then maybe it was not going to become a living reality apart from the miracle of another’s life placed within us to BE our ONLY life!

I want to throw this thought into this mix here for further and hopefully extended conversations with anyone who might choose to read from my thoughts here.
More often than not unless one is a ‘trained professional’ it is best to not try to do what you think you can do at home, ergo, the need to rely, depend upon another?
Here to the point is what I want to say, is it possible that for a very, very long time so many Christians have suffered, being emasculated by someone putting us in our place simply because we were NOT trained professionals when it came to spiritual things, discussions etc.
In other words, if we do NOT understand what we are talking about, then how dare we have the balls to start talking as if we did understand or know anything?

Maybe there is an understanding, (revelation) that flows intuitively out of the Life of the Father, or, the life of another that has become in fact our only Life.
As I shared with my friend tonight, I said, ‘Bro I really do not know how much of anything I truly understand in so many things I have shared with you, but I believe it all to be the truth nonetheless.'
Does that mean that everything I see-feel is the gospel truth, that nothing can be added or subtracted from what I say or see, of course not, but I have always believed it much easier to drive a bike while being on it than talking about bike riding while the bike is leaning up against the porch.

Getting back to this ‘life of another’ issue, maybe this is why so many things have been and continue to be at best just stuff that keeps us surviving rather than living, in not knowing that true, real living will only happen as a result of having the life of another being placed in us, and being led to its reality, not merely just a Jesus add on pinned on us.
I love how Paul so clearly makes this reality and its power up close and available for all. Here, and here.
What more could there possibly be available to us through His death for us than to be reconciled, and the answer is enthusiastically spelled out; “we shall be saved by his life.”

I want to encourage anyone reading this to NOT let, allow, anyone to dumb you down into a fetal position of believing that you do not, can not live a spiritually vibrant romantic loving adventure in discovering His all for you apart or without their guru and exalted saintly status of directing you as someone who is so naive and ignorant.

This ongoing, unfolding revelation of being loved, and in turn living loved is in my opinion the out working of His divine design; “until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. No prolonged infancies among us, please. We'll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love."

Rich

The Stability of Christ

In chapter one we were seeing Christ as the foundation and the great factor of stability. It is quite obvious to us all that if there is not real spiritual stability about us, if we are not people of certainty, of assurance, of spiritual confidence who can be relied upon spiritually, counted upon; if we are people who are of more than one mind, up and down and so on, there is something very much wrong with our foundation, our apprehension of Christ, our relationship with Christ. We saw how stability was wrought in Him to perfection; through all the storms, adversities, trials, sufferings; how sure, how steadfast He was, how unwavering. And then that the Spirit of Jesus Christ has come to work that into us progressively, and, while we will not reach final stability in one bound, it ought to be true that there is a very distinctly marked progressiveness in this matter, that whereas at one time we were easily moved, we are not easily moved about that now. Whereas before we could be shaken by certain things, those things do not shake us any longer. We have got past that. We may still have our shakings by new forces and situations which we have not met before and we are going through new experiences where this rooting, this grounding, has still to take place. Nevertheless, we have moved on, and we are no longer the old flabby things that we once were, knocked about and carried about by all those more elementary forces of adversity.

There is much in the New Testament about steadfastness in Christ, being strong in the Lord, always abounding, unmovable, and unless that is true, we are not going to get through at all. All the building that we are putting up on top of that is going to collapse. We may know all about the eternal purpose, the counsels of God from eternity, the church, its great calling and destiny, and the whole thing will collapse like a pack of cards if underneath we are not rooted, grounded, settled, steadfast, unshakable; that is, unless we are in oneness and keeping with the Foundation, the unshakable Rock, and we are taking the rock-like character from Him Who is the rock foundation.

And, while this is a call and a challenge, let it also be an encouragement, for we are going to be put through many mysterious inexplicable adversities and sufferings, things that we cannot explain, things that we cannot explain even from God’s side. We cannot see God in them, we cannot see why God should allow it, how that can be consistent with God. Oh yes, that is not saying a wrong thing, it is true in the experience of many - the mystery of God’s ways, altogether beyond finding out. We are going through things that could shake our very foundation, our faith, cause us to come to a standstill in the grip of an awful question. Now the Lord takes us that way, and the history of stability is the history of a tree which, having been planted, with every successive storm, finds for the moment its roots a bit loosened, things becoming a bit precarious, but its reaction to every such effect of storm is to root down deeper, and the mighty tree which cannot be moved by the greatest gale is simply the history, the sum of many shakings which have sent its roots deeper to lay hold more strongly. That is the way of the Lord with us. Yes, not one of us is beyond being terribly shaken, raising the greatest questions, wondering with the biggest ‘Why?’ But that is the way of being established. Do not, then, be discouraged if you pass through a time where everything for you is an open question after all. Just remember that that is the time in which the Spirit of Christ has His opportunity for bringing that mighty rock-like stability of Christ into fuller expression as the very foundation of your life.

This was taken from Chapter 3 - The Indestructibility of the Life of Christ

I liked this very much. The one consistent expression of the Father’s love for me I am seeing over and over again, is in Him subjecting me to situations that are not just difficult, but in fact impossible to deal with being that I was created to BE dependent upon another for life and living-His!

That was a great line from the movie Mission Impossible~” Mr. Hunt, this isn't mission difficult, it's mission impossible.” This discovery of His ways is only possible to discern by simply turning from self unto Him. I say simply, but you have to realize that this is going to go so against the ingrained lies that have been seemingly cemented within our soul’s history, but is it going to be just settling for the understanding of a word ‘grace’, or experiencing the power hidden within that word? And yes, it is the Word Himself that is bringing us face to face with these impossible situations and circumstances whereby there unfolds within the core of our being a fresh discovery of the I AM!

Rich

Hooked on a Feeling

Is it Christ that is being seen, made evident in our lives, or, is it the by product-effects we are clamoring over such as, peace, joy, contentment etc? The good is always the enemy of the Best, and there is NO substitute for knowing Him, the one who has called us to BE His trophy’s of grace.

The mistaken notion that God has called me to this or that, ‘office-calling-badge-button-anointing-ministry,’ pardon my French is pure shit!! He has called us to BE his and His alone, and because we do NOT yet see that if you or I can add anything to this family status we have received freely in the Father’s love, then we do NOT yet have a revelation of what it means to be a son-daughter of the Most High God, our Father!!

We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes.

How much of our ‘birth-right’ is being pissed away for a bowl of trying to fit in, belonging, kissing ass, all in the name of not feeling left out, or perceived as a fruit-loop?

I loved what a brother said years ago regarding the lack of revelation we have simply because we may have been inclined to think it is held out for only a selected few~ha!
He went on to say, regarding our place in His loving acceptance is much like a person trying their level best to go-get into another room, they are straining and grunting trying to force the door open, only to discover like an epiphany that in fact they are IN that very room.

Is it possible that His ever present amazing grace is the impetus for the miracle of experiencing this, “Except you become like unto a child, in no way will you and I have any meaningful intercourse, you will miss my present and active involvement in your life?”

Rich

To Better Understand

Part 3 of 5 - TO BETTER UNDERSTAND OUR POSITION AS AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST

Let us consider the position of ambassadorship itself.

1. An ambassador is an official representative of a ruler or state. It would do us all good to realize anew that God has left us here for one great purpose: to represent His Son. Our first responsibility is not to build the Church or even to get souls saved—it is to represent Christ and to bring His message to the world. As God beholds us in Christ, so the world must behold Christ in us. As Christ represents us before the Father, so we must represent Christ before the world.

How far even the fundamental Church has departed from this! Imagine the Lord Jesus or John the Baptist or Peter or Paul using some of the methods our modern evangelists are using to attract crowds and get people saved! Let us write it down as a principle and never depart from it: We are ambassadors for Christ in this world of sin—the official representatives of God the Son. If we are true to our calling souls will be saved, to be sure, and not only saved but established and knit together in love. They will not be won to Christ merely through some emotional story or the thrill of a crowd or a prolonged invitation, but because the living Word of God has exercised its mighty power in their hearts.

We realize that this is contrary to popular opinion, but “What saith the Scripture?” Where in its pages do we find room for the shallow, frivolous entertainment which is being offered in many a fundamental church today? All about us Christians are saying: “Our first business is to get people saved.” The Church has been putting man first instead of putting God first. The result of this philosophy is that many of our leaders are stooping to the most unscriptural practices to get souls saved somehow. And as they forget the dignity of their position they lose their spiritual power as well as the respect of thinking people. No wonder the apostle exhorts us to “walk worthy of the Lord!” (Col. 1:10). Let us then remember it and never forget it: “We represent God in this world of sin.

2. An ambassador is always sent to another nation, never to his own. It may at first seem unnecessary to point this out but it is most important here, for the fact that our Lord is sending ambassadors to all the world implies that He has no nation on earth which He can call His own. All mankind has been alienated from God by sin. We speak of Christian nations, but in reality there is not one single government on earth of which it can possibly be said, “This is the kingdom of God. Christ reigns here.” Indeed, our blessed Lord is quite left out of the best governments on earth.

Israel was once on the way to becoming the kingdom of God, but she refused the King from heaven and the kingdom of heaven and has been cast out of God’s favor until “the day of His power” when He will make her “willing” (Psa. 110:3).

3. An exchange of ambassadors denotes a state of peace. It must be remembered that until the kingdom was offered to Israel, her position before God was very different from that of the Gentiles. As we have said, all mankind had been alienated from God by sin, but whereas the Gentiles were enemy aliens, God still maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. There were covenants between God and Israel and they exchanged ambassadors. There were the priests to represent Israel before God and the prophets to represent God before Israel. The Church of Rome has reversed this order, for her priests assume the position of prophets and presume to speak for God. In the Scriptures, however, the priest is the pray-er while the prophet is the preacher. From the very beginning of Israel’s national existence it was so. Aaron the priest appeared before God on behalf of the people, while Moses, the prophet, brought God’s Word to the people. Whatever may have been Israel’s unfaithfulness to God during the centuries after; there was still a state of peace, a covenant relationship, so long as God and Israel exchanged ambassadors.

There is a wonderful sense of peace and assurance I have only because of the One who said, "And I will build my Church" is the same One who said, "I will make you witnesses unto Me"!
Likewise Christ said, "I have called you to Be me to this world.

Rich

Religious Atheists

Those who don’t know the Lord are often contemptuous of those who do. They think believers are stupid at best or brain-washed at least. They don’t realize that they, too, have been totally duped by the enemy of their souls.

EVERY person alive exists within the confines of his/her own personal matrix, custom-designed to keep him/her blind from seeing the truth. What is this matrix? It’s religion, pure and simple. But how can people who don’t pretend to believe in God be entrapped in religion? It’s because we typically think of ‘religion’ as being something which goes hand in hand with one’s particular faith, when actually religion is one’s lifestyle. It’s how people choose to live their lives. “I may not be the best person in the world”, they say, “but at least I don’t abuse my sick days at work”. “I don’t claim to be religious, but I am kind to others and give money to charity.” “I don’t believe in God but I consider myself to be a moral person” etc. etc. etc. In this sense, even atheists are religious, because they live their lives according to their own personal moral code.

Religion was instituted by Satan in the garden as a means to circumvent having dependency on God. Merriam-Webster defines religion thus:

- a personal set or institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs and practices
- a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

What better temptation could Satan have contrived than one that would persuade humankind we don’t need God? That we, by virtue of our own ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ could decide for ourselves what is an acceptable code of conduct, or what is ‘good’ and what is ‘evil’? What people don’t see (because they have been blinded) is that apart from Christ, there IS no ‘morality’. Why? It’s because at the moment when Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation, a cataclysmic event disfigured their souls, and Satan has been able to replicate himself in the flesh of every person born since. That’s what the scriptures mean when humankind is described as having been ‘born in sin and shaped in iniquity’.

The truth is, without knowing Christ as our life, we are eternally, totally lost and without hope - and no religion or religious set of beliefs is going to alter that fact one whit. Non-believers (and many believers) have absolutely no concept as to the utter depravity of their own souls. They blissfully live their lives in utter ignorance, endeavouring to be ‘good’ people by following the rules, playing nicely with others and adhering to social mores.

This religious veneer, however, is incredibly thin. No one has any idea what s/he is capable of when backed into a corner. When consumed with fear, rage, jealousy or hunger, people have done horrendous things (check out the daily newspaper). It’s at those moments that people come face to face with the evil inherent in the core of their very beings. “I would have never thought she was capable of murder!” Oh, really? We are ALL capable of the most horrific, despicable acts. There is not one of us better than any other.

This is the good news/bad news scenario. The bad news is that we are irreparably flawed, depraved and rotten to the core. The good news is that we are irreparably flawed, depraved and rotten to the core! It’s bad news for those who live their lives according to their own moral code, who don’t recognize that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the only hope. It’s good news for believers, because it testifies to the fact that we can do NOTHING to measure up or to try to attain to God’s holy standards. It sets us FREE from trying (and failing) to keep the rules and agonizing over our total inability to change ourselves – because HE HAS DONE IT ALL FOR US (but that’s another blog entry)!

My wife wrote this, but it is most definitely a collaboration of a similar heart beat.
I'm going to launch out from here using these thoughts to share some things I know Most will find extremely offensive, but hey, is it the Truth we want or just our ears tickled?
I will be sharing from my good friend Bill Landon's book, "The Devil You Don't Know" in up coming blog entries.

Rich and Margi

Faulty Perceptions

The following is a wonderful quote from Bill Landon, in his book, ‘My Father and Your Father’.
Although I would say this is even much more of a fitting quote from his book, ‘The Devil You Don’t Know’, that I am reading again.

"In Jesus' rebuke to Peter (Mark 8:33) "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." It is not the things of Satan but the things of men. Why is this? I believe that the Lord uses this phrase to express the true situation in this world. That situation is that Satan has NO ability in himself to work out his evil desires. The only way evil is manifested in action in the physical world is by people allowing themselves to be led and manipulated by Satan in their flesh. The idea of a devil exclusive of human beings that runs around creating mischief is not biblically supportable."

"We must be able to come to the Father in an intimate, personal relationship if we are to be able to turn from Satan's leading and walk in God's way. There is NO possible way that anyone of us can turn from Satan's leading if we don't see that there is something (One) to turn to."

I have always liked this quote.. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”- (Kevin Spacey) in The Usual Suspects (1995).

Are things heating up yet, no, well then lets spice things up a bit regarding this quote. ”We have met the enemy….and is us”. To, ‘we have met the enemy (Satan) and he is in our flesh’, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Wow, what a trip this turning out to be, in discovering just how deep this rabbit hole really is.
Buckle your seat-belt Dorothy, cause Kansas is about to go by-by.

By the way, as much as I or you claim to want to know the 'truth', maybe more to the point its like this, Jesus said, "There is much I want to make known to you, but you can't bear or handle the 'truth' right now."
It will never change in how He does things, and one of those being in my opinion, He is allowing our minds to be offended in order to bring (revelation) truth to our hearts.

Rich

Our Position on Earth

I find it interesting in following along here with what my friend Art is sharing regarding the 'Mystery of the Gospel' and how it proved to be a catalyst that launched Paul into a prison ministry, by being incarcerated himself for making it known...now what is that all about, why such bent out of shape reactions from folks??
Is this mystery of Christ in us, just an elaborate disguise, a new improved rendition of Dale Carnegie's, 'How to Win Friend's and Influence People'?

Is this mystery and its unveiling alloted to only those as in some religious settings that have reached a 'higher frequency'? Interesting this is!

AMBASSADORS for CHRIST - by Cornelius Stam
Part 2 of 5 - OUR POSITION ON EARTH

Twice in Paul’s letters we find the word ambassador. In II Corinthians 5:20 the apostle tells us whom He represents: “We are ambassadors for Christ,” while in Ephesians 6:19, 20 he gives us the burden of his message: “the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds.”

Paul rejoiced in his position in the heavenlies, in Christ, but he realized that he also held an important position on earth. As Christ had once suffered and died in Paul’s stead, Paul now rejoiced in his commission to stand before the world in Christ’s stead, pleading with men to be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20 (KJV) Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

The world would not have Christ, so Paul, who had once so bitterly persecuted Him, went forth in His stead, with an offer of grace and peace. If Christ was willing to delay the judgment of the nations and remain an exile from the world which was His by right, Paul was more than willing to represent Him here. He counted it all joy to suffer in the flesh and fill up that which remained of the afflictions of Christ. He considered “the fellowship of His sufferings” a great privilege and a great honor (Col. 1:24; Phil. 3:10).

Yes, Paul was in Christ, but Christ was in Paul too, pleading with sinners to be reconciled to God through His merits. And the position that was Paul’s as the ambassador of Christ is our position too.

In fathomless love and mercy our blessed Lord has delayed the judgment of His enemies for more than 1900 years while He still remains an exile. As the world’s rebellion continues He still leaves us, His ambassadors, here to offer terms of peace to all who will accept them. And what terms! “The forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace!” “Peace through the blood of His Cross!”

Still the world blasphemes and despises this wonderful Savior, but He no longer bears the suffering. The time of His sufferings is past. It is given to us, His ambassadors, to fill up that which still remains of His afflictions. Thus the apostle declares: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29). And notice what Paul adds to these words: “Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me” (Verse 30).

Rich

Ambassadors

The following is from my friend Art, this is just too good not to post here.
Enjoy!

Rich

Introduction to: AMBASSADORS for CHRIST - by Cornelius Stam

Part 1 of 5 - AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION

Those who seek to “rightly divide the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) and “test the things that differ” (Philippians 1:10) soon discover that “the kingdom of heaven” must be distinguished from “the body of Christ.”

Concerning the former God had “spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began,” whereas the latter had been “kept secret since the world began” (Cf. Acts 3:21 with Rom. 16:25). Or, to put it in another way: The former was the subject of Prophecy, whereas the latter was a Mystery (Greek, musterion, secret), hid in God, until He revealed it through the Apostle Paul (Cf. Dan. 2:44 with Col. 1:24-26).

Or, to put it in still another way: “The kingdom” will be the fulfillment of covenants God made with Abraham, David and Israel, whereas “the Body of Christ,” the Church of this age, is the product of “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Cf. Luke 1:68-75 with Eph. 3:1-11).

We are convinced that the most important division in the Bible is not that between “The Old Testament” and “The New Testament,” but that between “prophecy” and “the mystery,” between that which concerns “the Kingdom of Heaven ” (for the believing of Israel as Abraham's seed) and that which concerns “the Body of Christ.”

Those who see this one distinction hold in their hands the key to an ever clearer understanding and an ever growing appreciation of the wonderful Word of God.

A WORD OF CAUTION

In making this distinction, however, we must be careful not to make the mistake of supposing that members of the Body of Christ have no connection whatever with “the kingdom,” or with Christ as King.

A few simple questions and answers will prove that there is a very vital connection: Where is the King today? He is in heaven, a Royal Exile, unwanted by the world. And where is the kingdom today?

That too, like many a government since, is in exile. It is vested in the King Himself. It remains in heaven while its earthly establishment is held in abeyance. And where is the believer’s spiritual citizenship today?

It is in heaven! Paul tells us distinctly that “our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20) and that God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13).

Why then are we left here in the flesh?

For just one purpose: To represent Christ—and the very title Christ means “the Anointed One,” the King.

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ” (II Cor. 5:20).

Misplaced Anger: Self-Deception

I’m curious about something. When Jesus advised the disciples that they were to beware of the leaven (or the teaching) of the Pharisees, what was that all about? Why was Jesus so insistent about this issue that he would take the time to warn them?

Later, Paul had to address a very similar situation with some other followers of Christ: You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

A lot of believers who have made the exodus from organized religion are angry, hurt and wounded at the institution and its leaders. But could it be their anger is misplaced? Note that Jesus did NOT say to beware of the religious leaders - but to beware of their 'leaven' (a type of yeast that caused fermentation in bread or liquid). Could it be that He knew how easily we would fall for this well-disguised, baited hook of corruption masquerading as truth? I mean, is it possible that Jesus initially gave this warning to ‘beware of the leaven' of the religious leaders because He knew that in our very flesh exists an innate liking, appetite or desire for this very leaven? Could it be that at one point in our lives leaven, or religion, was mighty attractive to us? Maybe our heavenly Father wants those who are still blaming their former religious leaders to take a sobering look at the possibility of the real fact - that hidden within their very own flesh is the very same spirit that was working in and through those they now blame for all of the religion-induced pain they are grappling with today. Why, then, should those who have left the institution be so angry at its hierarchy? Have those leaders not been duped by religion as well?

Here in my opinion is a real brain freeze! All of this misplaced anger is amounting to nothing but keeping believers locked up even further and longer in their own self-made prison. "But" many would argue, "I was but an innocent lamb, a pawn, duped into this entrapment! And the leaders were the ones who kept me enslaved!" Seems to me, if you read the biblical account of the fall in Paradise, that after Adam and Eve's moment of supposed enlightenment proposed by the father of lies (the serpent) Adam, speaking to God, retorts, 'I would have never been deceived or wouldn't have disobeyed you, had it not been for this darn woman!'. Then the woman goes straight for the jugular: 'I too am not responsible! It's all that darn snake's fault! He made me do it!'

I know of no greater lie or deception than being SELF-deceived, and then passing the buck and blaming everyone else rather than seeing all that we have gone through as a wonderful wake-up call from our loving heavenly Father. Maybe He is bringing us to the place of recognizing for the first time the depth of the utter and total depravity of our fleshly thinking and the hidden inclination within US, to turn our lives over to somebody or something other than the Father of our spirit? Could it be that religion was instituted by Satan himself in the Garden for the sole purpose of enticing humanity with a substitute for the real thing (freedom) - and from that point on ALL humanity has fallen for the lie?

Jesus once said to his disciples that there were many things he would like to have told them but that they weren't able comprehend it (like Jack Nicholson's character says in "A Few Good Men": "You can't handle the truth!). Maybe coming to grips with the fact that it's not the religious leaders, but the pervasive world-system of religious thinking, which is the leavening agent within our corrupt flesh - that is to blame for our deception. However, it is necessary to note that this covert and subtle suducing away from Christ as our only Life is totally impotent as long as we don't give a 'mind' to it (see Galatians 3:1-3).

Rich

No Short Cuts

In response to my friend Dave and his quick wit demonstrated over here, I wanted to share the following.

A popular movement in Christianity in the past few years has been the attempt to live our lives by applying the question, “What would Jesus do?” to the situations in our lives.
This sounds good but it completely misses the point. What we commonly look for in asking this question is some kind of specific guidance such as, “Would Jesus buy a Ford or a Chevy?” It pains me to inform you that Jesus didn’t know what a “Ford” is. The object of seeking specific guidance is really to allow us to live independently instead of living through the moment by moment operation of the Father’s life in us. The Father’s life is spontaneous and operating in that spontaneity requires the walk of faith. Being told what to do, even by God, is not faith. It may be obedience but it is not faith.And obedience apart from faith is dead obedience.

I don’t mean to imply here that we cannot expect to get guidance for our living from the Father. We can expect to be led by the Father in our daily living. This is not the prescriptive “go and do” type of guidance we are often taught to seek. Rather, when we live by the Father’s life leading from our spirit we are guided moment by moment. This is most often the leading of “God’s unspoken yes.” We have God’s leading from our reborn human spirit continually. The life of Christ in us is continually operating. We go through our days confronted by a series of choices. As long as we are making choices that are acceptable to the Father we feel no hesitation. If we consider a course that is harmful (to ourselves or others) we will experience a “check” or sense to not go there. We can heed the check or we can ignore that check and live with the consequences of walking in our own way. These consequences need not be dire but we will see our plans fail and our expectations not be met.This is not a BIG deal. We learn to follow the Lord’s leading by our mistakes as well as our successes. The Father knows this is part of the process---this is why Christ died for ALL our sins everywhere; past, present and future. (1Peter 3:18)

As we gain experience in listening to the Father’s leading we will make fewer mistakes. We will learn to listen better and turn more quickly. In the end there is NO substitute for dependence on the Father’s life as our only life and resource for living: (John 15:5)
Living independently from the Father is bankrupt living. There is no legitimate reason for walking apart from the moment by moment resting in dependence on the Father for all things. This is the way we were meant to live. This is the ONLY way we can live effectively.

Once again this is taken from Bill Landon’s book, ‘My Father and Your Father’.


I am so thrilled that NO man can teach us this operation of the Law of the spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and its unfolding work of grace within us, liberating us daily from the gravitational pull from the Law of sin and death!!There are NO short cuts for any of us. In being awakened to the depths of His matchless grace and unconditional love, we are freed to join Him in discovering just how deep the rabbit hole really is.
Yahoo!!!!

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

The Father's Love

Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it 4-ever.



Rich

Knowing About

I don’t know about anyone else but for me I find it very easy to accumulate much knowledge about God and yet still be barren and living in a most impoverished state.

I know it must sound so trite, a mere wrangling of words talking about ‘knowing about verses knowing Him’, but one will keep me a prisoner to the past while the other not only touches my past, but present and all of my tomorrows.

"Then Jesus said, "God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time!"

Love, real love, His love is what I was created for, and in receiving His love the mystery of the incarnation is happening all over again, the Word (Christ Jesus) being fleshed out in and through me.
So many have heard ‘about’ God-Jesus, but the prompting in my heart seems to be in the direction of showing Jesus to the world I live in, rather than just telling them about Him.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Rich

Moving Forward

I’m following the on going series my friend Art is writing and I wanted to post these two portions that spoke to my heart as I continue to move forward in experiencing His overall unconditional love.

Rich

Is Confession of Sins Necessary in the Ongoing Life of the Christian?

As noted in Part 7, the believer’s confession of sins occurring after salvation is not necessary for forgiveness of sins under Paul’s “gift of the grace of God” (Eph 3:7). This is because ALL sin was forgiven at the moment of salvation – past sins, present sin, and future sins; thus, we were accepted in Christ. The requirement for Christians to practice confession of sins for forgiveness is a false doctrine, as if to say a believer “can fall out of grace”; with the result that one minute you’re saved by grace, and then next you’re not. The grace of God’s forgiveness of our sins is freely given and unconditional, covering ALL our sins for all time.

However, there are a few cases that require our confession of sin(s), but not for forgiveness; rather it is that we might come to “the light” of a restored union and fellowship with the Lord, as well as with those around us. These are serious matters of understanding because they affect our daily walk, not to mention the sanity of our mind.

1) There is a place of confession that is not confession to gain forgiveness of sins. It is confession to God concerning sin toward another, such as forgiveness that we may hold against another. Such an acknowledgment before God releases us from the burden of sin.

2) There’s also a place of confession before another believer that is admission guilt before God for past sin. Such an admission releases us from the choking burden of past sin that we may have long cloaked in the darkness of our hidden self-life for many years. We’ve perhaps been locked into a jail of our own making by some sin(s) that we may think of as unforgivable. Sin makes us fear exposure. Sin wants each of us alone. Sin wants to draw me into myself, and away from God and others. The more isolated I am the more control the Sin nature can have over me. Sin seeks the shadows. Sin holds me in the dark, robbing me of complete fellowship with God and others. Others may sense the wall that keeps me from being genuine with them.

Under such darkness, we are easy prey for the accusations of the Devil, whose goal is to literally destroy us. Though the Devil cannot touch God, he tries to destroy God’s image in us.

Jesus said believers are to be lovers of the light. Jn 12:36 While ye have light, believe (pisteuo, trust in, cling to, and rely upon) in the light, that ye may be the children of light… We have these words from the Apostle James to point us to the remedy. James 5:16 Confess (exomologeo, acknowledge, admit) your faults (paratomah, side slips) one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed (iaomai, cured, made whole). The effectual fervent prayer (deesis, petition) of a righteous man availeth much.

Sin toward others brings pain to our own self. Bringing our hidden life into the light of God is not so we may gain forgiveness, but to heal us of sin’s pain. We may be a Christian who is forgiven of ALL sins, and yet be self-condemned due to our supposed unforgivable sin. We may think we were not lovable, not loved of God or by those who we think should love us – all because we don’t accept our self; so we can’t and don’t accept God’s forgiveness.

The problem is our view of our self because we’ve not accepted God’s forgiveness. Since we don’t believe we are forgiven by God, the pain of this is self-inflicted; it’s due to our own forgiveness of ourselves for some sin(s) in our past. The fact is God has long ago forgiven us of ALL our sins, but we have held ourselves as reprehensible.

We are locked into what is a hopeless and helpless condition unless God intervenes. This condition must be brought into the light; therefore God our Father may force the real us to become exposed to our self and/or to others…that we might be healed.

How does the Lord expose us to the light?

The pain rooted in our unacceptance of our self may manifest itself in mental instability and/or physical illness. This may be the end of the road approaching, since our sickness may do for us what we could not do for ourselves, forcing us to be exposed. God does this because He loves us and wants us free of the power of our supposed unforgivable sin(s). The answer is for our self to become exposed, brought under the curative power of the divine radium of God’s light, where it may be confirmed that we are totally forgiven and loved of God, standing blameless before Him in His love.

In the next installment, Part 8B, I will offer my personal testimony of God’s forced exposure of His light upon my needy soul.

Guard Your Heart

I think Jesus once said, ‘Guard your heart, for out of it flows the issues of life.’

I am thankful and grateful that I have a heavenly Father that continues to make known His compassionate and loving heart toward me that I might show the same love to all.

Religion, any religion has defined defilement basically on outward stuff, do’s and don’ts, but as Jesus said, true defilement is not what goes into a man, but what proceeds from within.

In learning what it encompasses to BE loved and to live loved by the God and Father of love is a living freedom beyond measure, but, this freedom will never be a license for me to act unloving toward anyone else, ever. This inevitably spells impossibility in our own strength, but all things are possible with God!
Regarding this freedom in Christ my heart reflects upon the beauty, wisdom and sobriety of these words from Paul, ‘It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

One of the liberating traits of His unconditional love is it frees us from the oppressiveness of sin and its torturous assaults.

I found this quote from Kathleen Norris’s book Amazing Grace unpleasantly sobering.
“But oppression is a slippery thing, and labeling a tricky business: the twentieth century has given us plenty of evidence to suggest that the quicker we are to accuse others of oppression, the more we risk becoming oppressors ourselves. The past hundred years has forced us to look straight into the murderous heart of oppression, alerting us to its presence in our most cherished ideals. Over and over, we have seen patriotism turn into fascism, liberation movements solidify into totalitarian regimes, struggles for religious freedom translate into intolerance of the faith of others.”

Father I want to learn what it means to know no person after the flesh, but to receive every person as Christ.

Rich

Motive and Intent

The intent and focus of our Father's heart and affections are addressed toward our need, and that need above all and everything else is to KNOW-EXPERIENCE His love, that is what we were recreated for.
To this end He ever works. His focus is pure, it is focused without any distractions. Its not our fears, our sense of shame or anything else that detour's Him from ever moving forward in this divine romance, wooing our cold lost hearts into the security and warmth of His forever loving heart.

His gaze is intense, it looks far past my faults/sins and sees my need, and that need is to KNOW some of the depth and intensity of His jealous love 4-me!!
This is the only thing that matters, coming to see that even my ability to respond to all and anything related to His love for me is but His grace actively working in me.

I am seeing ever more clearly that without Papa and His love for me, my life will be defined by something, I was created to be complete in having worth, value, significance, but that will only be possible as a result of experiencing His pure intense jealous love for me.
There are no vacuums, without knowing, experiencing daily His love, I will be either conformed to this worlds currency, performance based living, or I will be transformed into His likeness and image, and that option is totally possible only because of BEING Loved.

Rich

Impoverished but Enriched

The increased knowledge of the grace and love of the Father at least for me is spelling an intensified awareness of a noticeable limp. You know much like Jacob of old encountered in his wrestling match with an angle.
In the process of this struggle Jacob is adamant; I will not let you go until you bless me.
The blessing was all about a change of identity, removing his past, formerly known as Jacob, and bringing him into the present, now to be known as Israel!

Here’s the kicker, this transformational wrestling match of identity marked him for the rest of his days in his body, he walked with a limp!

For sure you say that you are craving to see Him in an even greater clarity, why not, go ahead, heck just think of the wonder of it all.
Remember Paul and those out of the body heavenly God encounters, things he saw and heard that he wasn’t permitted to share with anyone, oh, and don’t forget about this, as a result of those close encounters of the most holy kind, his receiving of a most wonderful gift~a messenger of Satan to buffet him lest he become a pontificating peacock.
Interesting how a deepened insight into His love and grace not only frees us, but enslaves us as well.

A question for you, what the heck good is it in being permitted to have these glorious spectacular encounters with the Father, and you can’t say a word (brag about it) about it to anyone?

Rich

Status Quo Turbulence

Morpheus: The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location.
Neo: What does that mean?
Cypher: It means fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.’
Have I ever mentioned that I love the movie, The Matrix~ha!

Luke 1:52-53 these words echo the song of Hannah in First Samuel, as well as the anguish of the prophets. They are a poetic rendering of a theme that pervades the entire narrative---when God comes into our midst; it is to upset the status quo.

Rich

It's a Darn Shame

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

It’s pithy how such little words as ‘in’ can have such a powerful momentum/impetus. Kind of like my classic illustration of, ‘Even a blind man can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of orchards in a single seed.’

Because there are NO vacuums, if we are not deriving our true identity based completely upon the love of God the Father, then we are going to establish it another way, interesting when you consider that He is the only Way…hmmm?

From the fall of man there has been an indelible stain that his sin has permeated him with, and that is shame. Sin and its fruit sins, are specifics things we have done, but shame, well this is a twisted monster for sure. It has manifested itself in blatant overt ways, and in just as hideous covert ways. Shame is that which has defined all of man kind, and the only hope for man is pointing to that illuminating word ‘IN’ Christ!

None of us know what real love is until it is experienced in a face to face encounter with the God that IS Love, and even then it can take a very long time as the soul is being transformed, weaned from its strangle hold on us, hidden yet within us the under current of sin still trying to dictate-define who we still are, no matter what we say we believe God has said/done.

I am experiencing along with so many others, the slow day in day out transformational workings of the grace and love of this Father who has promised to finish in my life what He alone started.There is NO healthiness or well being outside of His love and its power freeing us from the vicious lies that keep multitudes endlessly trapped in the unnecessary cycle of either seeing themselves as unfit, unworthy, or, ‘hey, look at me I’m mister wonderful.’
If we have (in the natural) come from ‘poor stock-pedigree’ we are always trying to cover up our shame, but those who see themselves coming from ‘good stock-pedigree’ do not as easily recognize their hidden shame. Funny thing is all stock according to the flesh, good and bad has had a collision course encounter at the cross in the person of Gods son Jesus Christ.

The wonder of His love is invading so many hearts and lives and with it bringing in a living message of hope and freedom. In experiencing His love, we are learning to NO longer define our worth, value or significance based on our color of skin, our education, our sex, our financial status, the neighborhood, the car we drive or don’t drive, having friends or no friends, go to church or outside the church, etc!

Rich

Confounded by the Mystery of Grace

Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness." Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

I haven’t really delved into many books in a long time, as I do most of my reading on line, but having discovered Kathleen Norris’s books thanks to Jim over at, Lord, I believe; Help My Unbelief! I am feasting on sheer ecstasy. This book, Amazing Grace; A Vocabulary Of Faith is almost magical with such wonder filling each page, sometimes to the extent I have to close the book and shut my eyes and just reflect, soak it in, but more often than not I feel like I’m being impaled, rendered helpless with mere words.The abiding under current of humility and profound but simple wisdom and insight in each chapter is enthralling.

The unfolding mystery of grace is most confounding, especially to us humans who have been so deeply discolored within with the stark and haughty insignia of smugness.It seems to be an often repeated event in our lives whereby the Lord seems to deliberately offend the mind, in order to reveal our heart condition, not to shame us, but to expose, make known to us our desperate need for the only one who can heal and make whole our devastated hearts.The following is such a picture, as a matter of fact the content of this quote is something my wife and I were discussing just last week, only this brought so much more insight and clarity with what I tried to think out loud.

“We all need to be told that God loves us, and the mystery of the Annunciation reveals an aspect of that love. But it also suggests that our response to this love is critical. A few verses before the angel appears to Mary in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, another annunciation occurs; an angel announces to an old man, Zachariah, that his equally aged wife is to bear a son who will “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” The couple are to name him John; he is known to us as John the Baptist. Zechariah says to the angel, “How will I know this is so?” which is a radically different response from the one Mary makes. She says, “How can this be?”

I interpret this to mean that while Zechariah is seeking knowledge and information, Mary contents herself with wisdom, with pondering a state of being. God’s response to Zechariah is to strike him dumb during the entire term of his son’s gestation, giving him a pregnancy of his own. He does not speak again until after the child is born, and he has written on a tablet what the angel has said to him: “His name is John.” This confounds his relatives, who had expected that the child would be named after his father. I read Zachariah’s punishment as a grace, in that he could not say anything to further compound his initial arrogance when confronted with mystery.When he speaks again, it is to praise God; he’s had nine months to think it over.

Mary’s “How can this be?” is a simpler response than Zachariah’s, and also more profound. She does not lose her voice but finds it. Like any of the prophets, she asserts herself before God, saying, “Here am I.”There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds---as we must do in life---making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead.

I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it can not answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile clichés, the popular but false wisdom of what “we all know”? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a “yes” that will change me forever?

Amazing Grace!



Rich

Amazing Grace Thoughts

I am enthralled with this book, definitely one that has snuck up on me, meaning there was a time i would not have gotten to far into it without thinking, nope, its not for me-ha, does Papa have a wonderful sense of humour and timing.

I so appreciated this passage from the chapter entitled 'Exorcism'.

"When I think of the demons I need to exorcise, I have to look elsewhere; inward, to my heart and soul. Anger is my best demon, useful whenever I have to go into a Woman Warrior mode, harmful when I use it to gratify myself, either in self-justification, or to deny my fears. My husband, who has a much sweeter nature than I, once told me that my mean streak grieved him not just because of the pain it caused him but because it was doing me harm. His remark, as wise as that of any desert abba, felt like an exorcism. Not that my temptation to anger was magically gone, but I was called to pay close attention to something that badly needed my attention, and that was hurting our marriage. It confirmed my understanding of marriage as a holy act: one can no more hide one's true faults from a spouse than from God, and in exorcising the demon of anger, that which could kill is converted, transformed into that which can heal."

It's this kind of reality that so draws me ever deeper into knowing, experiencing even greater depths of Father love for me.

I love the image that comes to mind in reading this quote, as it were rolling up my sleeves and availing myself of His abundant grace and simply moving forward in working out my own salvation, or working out what He has miraculously worked into me.
So very often I have the mind set that is waiting for some angelic messenger to come and pay me a visit that will either vaporize my demons-problems, or energize me, funny how a lazy mind thinks. But as a brother once said, and I love this in its daily applications, "God doesn't give us over coming Life, but gives us Life as we over come"!

Rich