It’s A Girl

While doing my route yesterday I saw this huge make shift sign on a front lawn that read in big bold pink letters, “IT’S A GIRL!”
This was so cool to see, it evoked within me a wondrous sense of Father saying to me, “Son, this is but a reflection of how I rejoiced over you the day I heard your first cry-breath as you came into the world.”

I am the Lord your God and Father; I rejoice over you with great joy and with shouts of gladness, you have captured my heart!

Wow, could it be that he loves me that much?! I am inclined to believe it is so.

Rich

Becoming Like a Child

“Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I so appreciate this thought from Oz Chambers today.

Rich

“I have to convert the natural life into submission to the Spirit of God in me and not say-I will never do anything natural again; that is fanatical. When by the providence of God my body is brought into new conditions, I have to see that my natural life is converted to the dictates of the Spirit of God in me. Because it has been done once is not proof that it will be done again. ‘Except you be converted, and become as little children…’ is true for all the days of the saintly life, we have continually to turn to God.
The attitude of continuous conversion is the only right attitude towards the natural life, and it is the one thing we object to. Either we say the natural is wrong and try to kill it, or else we say that the natural is all there is, and that everything natural and impulsive is right. Neither attitude is right. The hindrance in spiritual life is that we will not be continuously converted; there are ‘wages’ of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says-‘I will not; I am going to be boss.’ We cannot remain boss by sheer power of will: sooner or later our wills yield allegiance to some force greater than their own, either God or the devil.”

Change

I’ve posted on both of my blogs as far as I remember, different articles that my wonderful friend and brother Art has shared with me. Here is a sample of what I mean.
For any who want to delve into other articles Art has written, you can check his site out here.

Rich

Part 3 of – A Profound Change in The “Triune Godhead”
Over the years I’ve heard preachers say God never changes. This is true, but also not true. God’s nature and character never change, and He keeps His word (Psalm 15:4), but God’s “form” has experienced two great changes. As we consider the processing of God’s life to become available to man as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” we must note the words “became” and “become”; indicating these two (2) great changes in God’s form.

Change #1 - We know that Jesus was and is God, and that He was in the beginning with God as the Word. John 1:1 (KJV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We also know that “The Word became flesh … John 1:14 (NIV)
Question: Wasn’t this a change in God’s form? Of course it was. That change was from the eternal Spirit form of the Word to the Spirit limited to Jesus of Nazareth’s human flesh, the body of His humiliation.

Change #2 - Paul tells us another great change that occurred when Jesus of Nazareth died and rose to become the life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NASB) So also it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Here we see change number two. This 2nd change carried with it some profound implications.
This first change I noted above brought God into a man (“the Word became flesh”), but the second change brought an uplifted “humanity” into God.

Romans 1:3-4 (NASB) concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh (as a human), 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
This verse tells us the processed Jesus, who “has become both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), has added humanity into the Godhead – bearing the marks of the body of His humiliation – His human essence. The resurrected Christ still bore the nail and spear scars.

Romans 1:3-4 (KJV) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; (flesh - His humanity essence) declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, (Spirit – as His divine essence) by the resurrection from the dead:
Do you see it? One day there was a divine “declaration” by which Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of Man” according to his humanity, was declared to be the “Son of God.” In other words, the Godhead was altered forever when the resurrected human essence of Jesus of Nazareth was added into the Godhead.

It is by the addition of Jesus’ human essence into the Godhead that we now have a God who can now be “touched with the feelings of our infirmities.”
Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest (Christ) which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
By Jesus’ human living, death, and resurrection as “the spirit of life in Christ,” He became able to know us intimately, and be life to us, to be what we need in order to endure living upon this earth.

Who’s Fool Are You?

“We are [looked upon as] fools on account of Christ and for His sake, but you are [supposedly] so amazingly wise and prudent in Christ! We are weak, but you are [so very] strong! You are highly esteemed, but we are in disrepute and contempt!
(It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around.)”

I love more and more how in growing in the true knowledge of God the Father’s total unconditional love for me; I don’t really mind being seen as a fool, His fool.
There is such a stigma that tries to embed itself into our identity in being duped into saying, doing stuff simply because of believing what someone else has said, and all the while sensing from the get-go something was not right about it.

This is all leading to something that spoke to me this morning in reading an article by Chip Brogdan, “DISCERNMENT: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.”

Here is an excerpt from the article. “As more and more voices try to get our attention we need to be able to distinguish between true, false, innocent, and dangerous. Christ-centered discernment recognizes and approves of those things that lead to Christ, while rejecting and refusing to be influenced by the things that distract from Him. And believe me, there are more things that distract than there are things that lead to Him.
Most people have great discernment but they don't trust it. They don't give themselves permission to say "no" to something that is wrong. They put aside their uneasiness and for the sake of "unity" and "keeping the peace" they permit things that should not be permitted.
Please consider this week's article in that light. Even the Question and Answer was carefully selected as yet another example of why trusting your own discernment is so important. Don't ever be led around by someone else's opinions when you can be led by the Spirit. The crowd is usually wrong."


You can read the whole article here.

Rich

What is Worship to You?

There is nothing more freeing then having the Father of my spirit breath his very heart beat into so many lifeless, static, cold words.
Without knowing the spirit behind, in and through these words, is it any wonder that living, and real life is being missed all around us?
My wife and I listened today to a recent pod cast by Darrin Hufford entitled “Worship in the Wild,” a wonderful and encouraging story of one brother’s insights and thoughts as to, “What worship is to him.” Not, “what is worship.”
He shares some additional thoughts here, “Going for the Worship,” and here, “What is Worship?”

According to Scripture, God is spirit, not “A” spirit, and God is seeking such that will worship (love) Him “in spirit and truth.” Is He simply looking for me/us to gratify some self-centered need within Himself by having us spout off none stop a barrage of religious worshiping blather?
As God is actively seeking us out, wanting to engage us in that part that is like wise as He is, spirit, there is something evoked within us that logic, mere common sense knowledge cannot produce, a spontaneous combustion.
It is out of the truth of His heart being revealed, exposed to us that we find a God ability to worship Him in and with that very spirit, Truth.

The letter kills, but the spirit makes alive, breathes life into what we say, sing, proclaim. As in anything of real importance there are those self-qualified authorities that pronounce, “This is worship,” you must do it exactly the way we have laid it all out here for you. On the other hand as our loving heavenly Father engages us and reveals Himself to us, it is from this inner knowing, experiencing his closeness in us, that we are freed to love-worship Him.
Out of the constancy of Him time after time making his heart known to us, worship becomes less and less an IT, but a intimate and personal close encounter.

What worship is to me will not be what worship is to you, for true worship will never happen according to a fixed choreographed script, but by the intensity of His love bursting into our consciousness, this will evoke an expression of a most intimate nature.
I love the heart-insight God gives to us in knowing and seeing what true worship can look like.
“It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Taking a good look at them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus' feet, so grateful. He couldn't thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you." (Luke 17:11-19)

The implications here are, there were ten lepers; nine of them were Jews, and one being a Samaritan. Even Jesus had said to a Samaritan “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”
Nine of these lepers (Jews) from what I can see received nothing more than a miraculous touch from God, healing their disease ridden bodies, but this non-Jew receives along with his outer touch an inward revelation of being loved which evoked, releasing within him the ability to worship.
This event in my opinion what was experienced here in this account was but a shadow picture of what was to become so much more than mere touches from God, but in fact brought into a vital life-union with Him, which is far more than a mere touch from Him.

Let Him make Himself known to you His way, then be prepared for the dam to be burst within your heart!

Rich

Bending Toward the Light

“In Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the gravitational (law) pull of sin and death.”

My heart is so full right now, feasting upon this Living one who continues to resonate within me. As I shared with a friend recently, the one thing that continues to captivate my attention is how within the body of Christ, my siblings like wise are catching these inward glimpses of this exceeding and great treasure, Christ in us the hope of glory and how it is furthering their inner transformation.

It’s this inner transformation that I want to try and look at here and its implications of how we have been deeply infected and affected by the invasion of His life. I’m sure I will be writing much more on this, as I said, my heart is so full, much like a beggar child invited into a candy store and told to freely enjoy anything my heart desires.

It never ceases to amaze me how this spirit-union I/we have in Christ has at best been nothing more than great theology-doctrine, a topic of conversation, but so little enjoyed experientially. Please hear me I am neither criticizing nor beating anyone up over this, we have all had more than enough of this brutality and its crippling effects. There is no ability to “reckon” apart from receiving new light (revelation).

It takes what it takes to move us inwardly by Father using outward circumstances and situations to produce a desire to want to be set free from the inside (to be transformed) from those things which have kept us spiritually retarded.
“HOWEVER, BRETHREN, I could not talk to you as to spiritual [men], but as to non-spiritual [men of the flesh, in whom the carnal nature predominates], as to mere infants [in the new life] in Christ [unable to talk yet!]” (1Corinthians 3:1).

It took the better part of 400 years to bring the decedents of Jacob held in bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt to begin to “cry” out! “However, after a long time (And it came to pass in process of time) [nearly forty years] the king of Egypt died; and the Israelites were sighing and groaning because of the bondage. They kept crying, and their cry because of slavery ascended to God” (Exodus 2:23).
God heard their cry, but why did it take 400 years?

Eventually Israel was loosed from their exterior hellishness-bondage and led out for the purpose of being “led” into a “Promised Land,” (which should have taken about eleven days) but apart from only two of that original company-multitude, Joshua and Caleb, the rest all perished, disintegrated (wilted) in the wilderness.

Although this first generation experienced extraordinary-miraculous intervention right from the get-go until their demise in the dessert, there was no evident impartation of His miraculous life altering ability, to transform them from deep within.
This leads me to the thrust of my pondering on what I am beginning to see as “an out of body experience,” experiencing the resurrection reality in Christ that wants to flow out of my/our spiritual union.

"All over the world today there is an inward spiritual groaning for right relatedness to the stream of His will and authority. And what is happening? God has heard this cry! He is raising up those who see as Copernicus saw, and who will dare to challenge the authoritarian religious systems by insisting that man is only a related center, and not the ultimate center of all things. There is a forth coming living expression of proper relatedness unto Him that is making the religious gestalt very nervous. (From, Unto Full Stature). Once we sought deliverance only, but now we cry for inward development (transformation) first.

Rich

Elementary My Dear Watson

We know that line from Sherlock Holmes as he once again effortlessly cuts through what seems to be utterly impossible to understand by any normal person to his side kick, Watson. Elementary!
In seeing but the basic principles of the doctrine of Christ, things redundantly played before our eyes like flash cards is it any wonder we have seen much ado about “churchianity” and very little to do with God visibly being seen in His church, us flesh and blood people?

Let’s look at what our brother Paul lays down as a divine challenge or as I like to say, “provoking us unto love and good works.’
“So come on, let's leave the preschool finger painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on "salvation by self-help" and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we'll stay true to all that. But there's so much more. Let's get on with it!”

I had to laugh listening to the last pod cast “learning To Fly” from the God Journey where Wayne and Brad were engrossed in a conversation revolving around Amy (one of) Wayne and Sara’s grand children that Wayne was teaching to fly, using a very sophisticated soft ware flight simulator program.


As long as Wayne did everything for Amy she might have the flying principles and doctrine down pat, but in not being permitted to slowly take control of “the controls” she will not become air borne except possibly in her imagination.

As Wayne shared this story he slowly gave Amy much more latitude to venture out on her own, Wayne of course being right there with Amy on his lap prepared to augment any needed course adjustments, but as her inner confidence began to soar, she and Grandpa discovered that flying wasn’t just for the birds!
I am always attracted to anything pretty much dealing with flying as my earthly dad was a bush pilot, aircraft engineer and one who made flying look so elementary. I still remember in a flight I took with him that glorious day he relinquished the controls to me, and I was flying that plane.
For interest sake, I was eleven months old when I first flew with my dad…oh God how I miss him.

Our rehearsed theory, of conceptual principles of what it means to be air born, soaring in the heavens will at best keep us earth bound, without hearing and seeing modeled before us someone like Wayne toward Amy with a tenacious confidence in His life in us, to live out what they see as being so elementary.

Rich

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sun ward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

A Broken and Contrite Heart

This Christmas as great as it was just sped by way too fast for my wife and me.
So much has transpired over the years spending Christmas together as a young married couple without children for the first seven years until our first-born came along, and then three years later our last child.
So many Christmases and so many emotions attached to this seasonal highlight, some wonderful and some not so good at all.
This past Christmas was one of the best, if not the best one ever. Our son lives not that far away from us within our own neighborhood and our daughter was home for two weeks from university.

Normally when our daughter is home we get to see her in bits and pieces as she is one very popular girl amongst so many friends home at the same time for the season. This time was so different; she recognized her felt need to decompress and chill-out after a grueling time of studying so hard all year, accelerated with some major pre-Christmas exams. She didn’t tell any of her friends she was coming home. Compared to other years, it was like having her home all the time; so cool to walk out into the living room or where ever in the house only to see her enjoying herself so richly.

It is always a joy to see the growing, deepening, healing and reconciling taking place between our son and our daughter after so many very difficult years in their teens. Siblings can be so hurtful to one another.

A week ago last Friday I had to go our family clinic to see the staff-appointed doctor because ours was on holidays, because of a week long lung/bronchial chest cold that had started the Friday before with but a very sore throat.
I was prescribed a very powerful medicine along with an antibiotic. The stronger of the two made me feel as if I was on speed, just vibrating, not a good feeling at all.
In much of my past as a Christian in not truly, really experientially knowing the power of the Father’s love, I acted more like a son-of-a-bitch than a son of God. I am making NO excuses or trying to scapegoat on this at all, just sharing how at a deep, deep level within me experiencing what it means to be loved so totally and unconditionally has slowly freed me to begin living loved.

My children are seeing for the first time over the recent years what a true dad/father might just look and act like only because of me being Fathered all over again, only this time it’s being done with a perfect God and Father.
All of my time this Christmas, whenever I had time to spend with our daughter, it was rich beyond words. But last night an old button got pushed in me when I simply asked our daughter a question - only to totally misinterpret her reply.
I took it the wrong way and was hurt, going to bed without saying good night to my wife or daughter, but not being able to sleep because of the speed-like medication I was on, I slowly saw the truth of the situation and relinquished my stupidity to His healing heart.

I couldn’t wait for morning to come that I might ask my daughter for her forgiveness. In sharing what I wanted/needed to about the previous night’s fracas she said, “Dad, there is no need to apologize at all. I didn’t take your actions the wrong way.”
I said, “But my precious daughter, I need you to forgive me. I was so wrong, and there’s no excusing myself because of my medication either.” I went on to share with her that I never want ever to hurt any of my loved ones, wife, son or her. She said “I know, but I also know the truth about who you are now.”
Wow, what healing in those loving and powerful words she spoke to me as we embraced each other with me crying like a baby.

A broken and contrite heart is a pleasing thing to the father, unlimited healing, restoration; reconciliation flows from our inner being, as if a dam has been broken. I so want to continue receiving His total love for me that I might live loved and see Him free so may others.

Rich

Going on From Here

Quoted from “Unto Full Stature”~

“In this expanded quote we have been describing how many believers may go along for years-testifying to ‘some very real’ miraculous acts of God in their behalf-and then suddenly God allows them to go into the deep valley. They cannot understand why God (the Father) does not respond as before. But it is for this reason: That He may lead them into a separation from the old source and dependence-because only in death can they be cut loose that they might truly experience the vital union with the God of Resurrection.”

“All this would emphasize clearly two levels of life: Those who enjoy an occasional “touch from” God are most often still secretly wishing to use Him for their own ends; whereas God desires to bring each one into this vital life-union with Himself that ours is a continual participation in Him. Such a life can only be experienced as we live unto Him and His pleasure. On the first level the attitude is escape for us; on the higher level it is a life of fulfillment for Him. Once we sought deliverance only, but now we cry for inward development first.”

Is it not evident that as individuals we cannot have any effective ministry, flowing through us until there has first been a spiritual building-up within us? Even so in the corporate Body of Christ, there will come this effectual flowing out-the touch of God upon lives-as there is a spiritual building-up of the corporate Body. And in God’s own time, those who have been “touched” will come to also experience their vital participation in living union of the Body of Christ.”

“How often as we encounter folk who are facing the bitter experiences of life, do we hear them insist: “Oh, I’m trusting in God.” And we are sure, for the measure of light they have-this is true. But God wants to press each one to a much different relationship than merely trusting Him for things. He wants to give us a vital union with Himself. As we have seen, this was God’s plan from the very beginning-not because Adam sinned-but because in His master-design He has desired for us to live by the life of the Lord Jesus-thus enjoying all things which includes health-not merely healing.”

It is the longing compulsion within my heart to see a continued awakening in the heart of the Church which IS His body, to continue from here to Go-without having the outer knowing!

Rich ~Even so Lord, Come!

Proclamation of Emancipation

Emancipation Proclamation, proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States.
It took the better part of almost another one hundred years for the first ‘black man-Jackie Robinson’ to be integrated into major league baseball. The epitaph that appears on Robinson’s gravestone is one that he wrote himself. It reads: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

High and lifted up, suspended between heaven and earth impaled to a wooden cross, a tool of barbaric torture devised in the hellish minds of Roman superiority was one who once resembled a man, only this was “the Son of Man”, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Before Jesus yielded up His spirit, he with a loud voice cried out,” It is finished”! This set into motion in the spirit realm a holy tsunami of unparalleled portion, where sin had once abounded, grace was now going to super-abound.

I am no scholar, but yet I maintain with a certainty I am in the school of the Spirit, the best school according to the Father when he revealed that to me several years ago.
This school choose me; it definitely was not something I would have signed up for.
This being unknown to me at the time, revelation of having been brought into His training school, I was beginning to dimly see the out line of what it might encompass to move from Christ in me, to my Being in Christ!
Christ coming into me was that which facilitated and was meant to fully integrate me IN-to Him. This work has been contested ever since the perfect work of the Father through the Son on the cross cried out with a strong voice, “It is finished.”
The emancipation was instantaneous in the spirit realm (delivered out from the kingdom of darkness into the family of God the Father) as it always is, but this inner work of its integrating us into Him is a life long process.

At best only revelation from the Father, not some seminar is the only weapon that can realign us and center us in the true knowledge of His intended transformational work of grace.
Sin very much alive in our members is a moot point without there being a very real impetus aka Satan, the father of lies, out of which he spawned the very spirit of religion in all its hellishness. It is this unseen-felt entity whose purpose is to oppose-contend-resist our being fully integrated In Him. This continued work of grace is not unfolding by mere osmosis; we have been lovingly engaged and invited into an intimacy of being included and conformed to His death.

I love how the spirit has illuminated this from the Amplified Bible this cry of the spirit within us, “And that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [[spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]."

Becoming rightly centered in Christ is that which experientially emancipates us from being ruled by the father of lies through our soul and living as a carnal or mere babe, “rather until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
There is a vast unexplored realm within the heart of the Father that so many are but experiencing for the first time since being re-birthed, but in tasting how Good He is, there is NO turning back, even so Lord, come!

Rich

Placebo Religion

ALANIS MORISSETTE SPEAKS ABOUT NEW ALBUM!
by PrivateSessions



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.

Rich

Fresh Thoughts For 2009

When all of the world says you are done -
Hope whispers - "hang in there . .
take a chance that someone will see the real meaning and beauty of what was once thought finished"


I was encouraged today by many things, these were but a few.

Rich

Would you be made Whole.

Centered on self-or Lost in God

Romanticizing The Early Church

Maturity

We must be convinced that both God and life will maturity. But they do more than passively will our maturity; they conspire in every possible way, short of breaking down our wills to make us mature. Life makes us discontented and unhappy in our immaturities. Suppose we could settle down happy and contented in being a half-person, then that would be a tragic situation. But we cannot. Divine discontent is a goal that impels us into higher, fuller life. Life won’t let us settle down-to nothingness.

And what kind of Father would God be if He did not disturb us toward maturity? No earthly parent could be content to have a child who refused to grow up. The parents’ joy is in development, in growth, in going on toward maturity. God cannot be otherwise and still be God, our Father. So the disturbances we feel in our immaturities are not signs of His anger, but a manifestation of His love. He loves us too much to let us settle down in half-wayness.

But if God should stop at that point of making us discontent, then He would this side of being God, our Father. To be our Father, He must provide literally everything for our maturity. And He has! He has put at our disposal all the resources for our being what we ought to be-everything except coercion. There He draws the line, for if he coerced us into maturity-then of course we wouldn’t be mature. The will to be mature must be at the center of our maturity.

If God and life and we ourselves will maturity, then there is nothing in heaven or earth that can stop us from being the mature persons we ought to be. We are destined to be mature, and that destiny is written in every cell of our bodies. We can slow down or block that destiny. The choice is ours.
Hope begins to spring up within my heart, for if I am destined to be mature then I can and do accept that destiny and make it my own.

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity (perfection).
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (mature) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:

Rich

A Working Model-Pattern

Please read these thoughts first if you can, to enter into the flow of what I sense Father saying.

Within the revolution happening amongst so many people wanting to embrace the only truth and reality found in the person of God’s son, Christ Jesus, there are so many outer expressions that folks are trying to manipulate into a “working model-pattern,” that will somehow differentiate them from the religious clubs they exited from. At best a mere cosmetic makeover will never replace or substitute His divine imprinting upon our soul.

“Unless the Lord builds (establishes) the house, the laborers work in vain.”
Without seeing His divine perspective, calling upon our lives, we will inevitably try and clone a lifeless facsimile, (working model) template instead of that which can only flow out of/from His purpose for us!

Without the Father initiating at a spirit-heart level, His divine Pattern, Purpose for us individually and corporately, simply moving out from, out of some religious establishment will never bring lasting satisfaction. Our calling far exceeds a mere cosmetic rearrangement of meeting with one another, and hopefully I might capture some of what that might look like.

If the veneer were to be stripped away from us “Chrischuns” there would be in most cases a very visible display of emptiness and artificiality. It is simply we have tried to change our minds without having a change of heart or nature. The New Testament standard of conversion demands regeneration-and this we have largely missed in our man-centered appeal for decisions. It is true the religious vocabulary is used, but one essential has been by-passed. God cannot change the heart and nature where there has been NO governmental change-no turning from our own lordship to His lordship. With a true change of government comes a change of purpose and appetite. Instead of seeking to use God for one’s own purpose this means giving one’s being to Him for His purpose. In this crisis of giving ourselves unto Him, God begins the impartation of His own divine nature, and our responses change accordingly.

As long as man still desires things, he cannot be satisfied with just God. Was it not so with Abram? God had first offered to give him Canaan land, to make of him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great. How responsive was Abram to all this? He forsook his homeland and in due time left his father. But it was not until Abram had deliberately refused to take the spoil of battle that God could move in to announce to him: Abram, “I am your exceeding great reward” (Gen.15:1).

Until God changed Abram’s inner desires and helped him to say, “I will not take any thing lest you should say I have made Abram rich”; what would it have meant to him to offer Himself as an exceeding great reward?
God’s way then is to change our inner being-to make us partakers of the divine nature so we will have an appetite for spiritual things. God does not change goals to fit our appetite, but works upon our inner being that we might truly come to have a hunger for God Himself!
Until that inner change has been fashioned, all religious life is completely exteriorized. Those who have no longing for God Himself, become preoccupied with things and events-nor can they understand or appreciate the song writer’s depth of meaning in the following lines: “My goal is God, Himself, not joy or peace, Not even blessing, but Himself my God.”

There is more to follow, as he continues to open the eyes of my heart.

Rich

Divine Vision

“Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish.”

Where there is NO vision, the people disintegrate-go to pieces-cohesiveness breaks down.
The divine foundation of the Church as a whole is a revelation, a vision-a “having seen the Lord.” The Church started with this and took its rise from a seeing the Lord, high and lifted up, exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Church went forth on the basis of that vision as a cohesive testimony, as a corporate vessel, and what is true of the Church must be true of the relationship of all believers. You and I can never hold together by certain rules and regulations, or by a creed. It can only be as we are one in vision, one in revelation of Him.
If this vision is necessary to hold us together as individuals and to keep us from falling apart in ourselves, it is equally necessary to keep us together as the Lord’s people-and that is going to be one of the tests of these days!

There can be no doubt that we are soon to face some desperate times. We can hardly imagine (nor would we predict) just what might come to produce the “shaking.” Consider the scattering now taking place amongst God’s people. On every hand there are little groups forming and seeking to become a New Testament expression of Christ. Some are merely seeking escape. Others are really after fulfillment of God’s purpose. The old line of corporate expression and fellowship along creedal or denominational lines is breaking fast.
Now, is this outward breaking apart going to be the end, or is there going to be with all that a spiritual cohesion triumphing over apparent division? Is there a larger spiritual vision which can truly unite these smaller group expressions to become one glorious expression? What cohesive element will manifest a living testimony to the religious world?

As this “shaking” progresses, it will be seen that all the work of the enemy, all the division and confusion, all the breaking up and outward disintegration can have NO effect upon those who have really seen God’s purpose and His methods. There still remains, in the unseen before God in heaven-and here on earth as a testimony-that oneness and cohesiveness of God’s people which Satan cannot destroy. Those who have begun to live in the divine vision know its cohesive power.

Rich

Perfect, But Incomplete

Like most things, I think we see just about everything incomplete, especially that hidden within the scriptures. I can just hear those saying, “But it says were complete in Him.”
I see it much the same way only different in respect to the creation of Man, God saying of his handiwork,” This is very good,” but as good as this was, man, was incomplete.

What is the reasoning that most of us have that seems to negate the ongoing needed transformation of that part of who we are, e.g. our soul, it is yet very incomplete, but His grace that in a instant perfected our spiritual union with God becoming our loving, caring Father is the same grace wanting to bring that perfection into this part of who’s we are!

“Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.”

An apple in the middle of the summer is perfectly right for where it is in its growth (transformation), but I sincerely doubt you would enjoy eating it, but wait until it is fully processed in its continued maturation, and then, wow, what a delicious treat.
How much more so us in our continued maturation, moving, being changed from ‘glory to glory’, we’re either settling for a form of godliness or we’re pondering on the Mystery of Godliness and our being intertwined in this forward, onward God journey.

I’ll have more to share on this soon.

Rich

I Relinquish

I am so grateful for the deepness of His love for me speaking into those unknown, unrecognizable places within me, bring forth an undeniable definition to who’s I am!
Father in his most perfect way was messing with my heart the other day, Saturday morning, as I took my over the speed limit excitable Breaded Collie for walk out into the winter wonderland of over a foot of freshly fallen snow.

I guess at a heart level I have been secretly harboring a real loathing/resentment toward winter, the coldness, ice etc, especially having to work out IN it every year.

As I was walking Atticus, my treasured friend and pup, I was awestruck in the pristine splendor and beauty that captured my heart. I stopped and saw Him right there in the midst of something that has never been a friend to me, Mr. Winter. It was like breathing what then came forth from my heart, “Father I relinquish this dislike/hatred for winter, I choose to let it go, I no longer want to miss seeing/knowing you in any season that I must go through.

In a heart beat, I was instantly freed to further experience His abiding closeness in and to me as I breathed in the cold morning winter air, knowing that a door had just been opened up to me to dive even further into experiencing His love for me, even within, “Winter.”

Rich

Broken Dreams

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.”

Rich

Discovering His Love

A situation occurred last week wherein my attention was drawn to discovering something that happened after the fact.
I’m not even sure now looking back on it as to what it was; all I know is Father pointed it out to me. “Do you know why you didn’t react in that particular situation; it was because of my love freeing you.”

The weird thing about it was in pondering this situation it seemed perfectly natural for me to simply respond the way I did, and had it not been for Father pointing this out to me I would have totally missed it.

What I saw in this was a wonderful sense that He was doing far more than any of my senses were able to detect from deep within me.
It became startling clear to me if this most natural response came forth from me as a result of His love freeing me, then I could continue to rest in the security of this same love to bring forth all He desired in my life.
Wow, what a discovery!

I found what Darrin and Amy where sharing over at the Free Believers Network so illustrated even further what Father was making real to and in me. Take a listen to, "The Essence of Christianity."
In my opinion Father is so wanting to bring further revelation and understanding into my/our lives regarding the fact that we are alive only because of the life of another living in us as us.

Rich

Preoccupied

Don’t you just love it when you get past the clouded symptoms and begin to see what might be causing them?
Such is the case with me, in further reading from Brennan Manning’s book, The Signature of Jesus; Father put His finger on a real nerve.
The following is but a quick quote from much more I want to share possibly later, bottom line, this unveiling from within me was and is so liberating.

Rich

“In my personal life the greater part of each year is devoted to writing, thinking, and speaking about God, Jesus, faith, contemplative prayer, the gospel lifestyle, and so forth. It is a curious phenomenon that such noble Christian enterprises distance me from God. (I assume that this is true for all Christian writers, preachers and teachers, as well as songwriters, musicians, and singers). Constantly holding forth about God does not of itself lead to being with God. Writing about God somehow takes me away from directly responding to God in the present moment. Preaching about Jesus somehow clouds my presence to the Reality I am proclaiming. In both situations what is missing is any sense of felt intimacy with God through faith. Yet my beliefs remain vigorous and rooted.”

“Seek first the kingdom of God.” This requires taking time out from family, friends, career, ministry, even ‘doing good’ to enter into the great silence of God.
Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard. Without such silence we will drown in the inner cacophony of dialogues, encounters, meetings, discussions, and conferences where there is much speaking and little listening.”

Myth-Understood

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

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

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

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

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

Rich

"A little child shall lead them....."

“For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.”

When the disciples were discussing who should be thew greatest, Jesus took a little child in His arms and said, ‘Unless you become like that, you will never see the kingdom of heaven.’ He did not put up a little child as an ideal; if he had, he would have destroyed the whole principle of His teaching. If humility were put up as an ideal, it would serve only to increase pride. Humility is not an ideal, it is the unconscious result of the life being rightly related to God and centered in Him.
Our Lord is dealing with ambition, and had He put up a little child as a standard, it would simply have altered the manifestation of ambition. What is a little child? We all know what a child is until we are asked, and then we find we do not know. We can mention his extra-goodness, or his extra-badness, but none of this is the child himself. We know implicitly what a child is, and we know implicitly what Jesus Christ means, but as soon as we try to put it into words it is escapes.
A child works from an unconscious principle within, and if we are born again and are obeying the Holy Spirit, we shall consciously manifest humility all along the line. We shall easily be the servant of all men, not because it is our ideal, but because we cannot help it. Our eye is not consciously on our service, but on our Saviour. There is nothing more awful than conscious humility, it is the most Satanic type of pride.

Rich

Trouble and Peace

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” (John 14:27)

As sure as the sun is coming up today, we will experience what Jesus said, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
We are surrounded on all sides by distress, trouble, seen and unseen forces but, in the midst of all of this He the Prince of Peace is there IN us wanting, desiring to awaken within us a knowing though these things are actually touching our lives, they are not the final reality.

At no point are we kissing our brains good by pretending that what I see, feel, sense, is but an illusion, but in the very midst of all of this there is a way of escape, and that is in knowing something! This something is the overflow of being called by God the Father himself into an eternal ever lasting relationship that begins now. It is in this secret place He shares the secrets of His love for us. Perfect love is His prescribed medicine.

Here is something to ponder on where you are at, what you are facing, going through. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” Have we allowed the wonder of it to enwrap us round and soak us through until we begin to realize the ample room there is to grow there? Let’s live in the secret place of the Most High, absolutely secure and safe.

Let Him the Father of your spirit speak peace to your heart this day!

Rich

Blinded By Truth

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.”

Rich

Hidden With Christ

The caption under this picture reads as following; "A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him to find her."
This spoke powerfully to me of Him hiding as it were Himself, not from me but for me, to seek Him with all that is within me!

"I remind every follower of Jesus that discipleship means nothing less than being ready to obey Christ as unconditionally as the first disciples. Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes. Never confuse success in ministry or knowledge of the Bible or mastery of Christian principles and ideas with Holiness and authentic discipleship. They may well be the corruption of discipleship if your life is not hidden with Christ in God."

Rich

An Opened Door

For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Yikes, commandments, what’s that got to do with grace and living outside of a yoke, is there something I’m missing here?

Every prayer the Son of God prayed is going to come true, not one word will fall to the ground; it will accomplish that which it was sent to do!

The Father has opened a door for any and all to fully experience his offer of life in its abundance all revolving out of His heart of desire and intimacy with us.
I so appreciate how Father was making his heart more real to me from what I read here in Brennan Manning’s book, “The Signature of Jesus.”

“Further along in his ministry, Jesus would say: “The Father and I are one,” indicating an intimacy of life and love that defy description. To Phillip he would say, “He who sees me sees the Father.” And again, “It is the Father living in me who is doing this work.”
Jesus is the human face of God, with all the attitudes, attributes, and characteristics of the Father.
So many Christians I know stop at Jesus. They remain on the Way without going where the Way leads them-to the Father. They want to be brothers and sisters without being sons and daughters. In them, the lament of Jesus in John 17 is fulfilled: “Father of all goodness, the world has not known you.”
As the Father loved him, so Jesus would love us and invite us to do the same. “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Rich

The Secret Things

The secret things belong to the Lord and unto those he chooses to reveal them to.
Our true identities will forever at least this side of heaven remain a well kept and guarded secret, as it were a secret identity, and no one apart from God the Father is able to share this secret with us.
Who we are will only be defined in and through His heart of love for us, a love that knows no short cuts in going the distance to win our trust and affection.
Although the lies we may still believe are designed to bring havoc and destruction into our daily living, it is His nature to destroy that which is trying to destroy us.
What a Saviour this one who calls me Brother and his friend, who whispers in my ear. "You Are Loved!

Rich

Celebrate the Darkness

“The contemplative is not the man or woman who has fiery visions of the cherubim…but simply he who has risked his mind in the deepest desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say, in the surrender of our poverty and incompleteness, in order no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves, as if thinking made us exist. The message the contemplative offers is not that you need to find your way through the language and problems that today surround God, but whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present to you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are like nothing you have ever found in books or heard in sermons.”

Rich

Now Faith Is

In our words and deeds we give shape and form to our faith every day. We make people a little better or leave them a little worse. We either affirm or deprive, enlarge or diminish the lives of others.

Rich

Fire

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

When disciples surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, when we submit to the truth that we reach life only through death, when we acknowledge that the grain of wheat must vanish into the ground, that Jonah must be buried in the belly of the whale, that the alabaster jar of self must be broken if others are to perceive the sweet fragrance of Christ, when we respond to the call of Jesus, which is not come to a church meeting but “Come to me,” then the limitless power of the Holy Spirit will be unleashed with astounding force. The discipline of the secret will be a compelling sign to the Church and the culture. The body of Christ will be plunged into a revolution.

Our God is a consuming fire!

The rule of His reign is not a matter of words but of power, a source of transformation and information. The spiritual life is simply life itself lived with the vision of faith.

From the book, Storytelling, Imagination and Faith, William Bausch shares this.

“An old Mississippi country preacher believed in his bones that the Word of God is a two –edged sword. One Sunday morning he mounted the pulpit and prayed: ‘Oh Lord, give thy servant this mornin’ the eyes of the eagle and the wisdom of the owl; connect his soul with the gospel telephone in the central skies; illuminate his brow with the Sun of Heaven; possess his mind with love for the people; turpentine his imagination; grease his lips with possum oil; electrify his brain with lightning’ of the Word; put perpetual motion in his arms; fill him plumb full of dynamite of The glory; anoint him all over with the kerosene of salvation, and set him on fire.”

Rich

Though He Slay Me

This is going to be brief, my good friend Ron who had spent some time with us coming all the way here (to Ontario) from the Maritimes back a few weeks ago has been back home trying to walk out what Father has been bringing to light regarding his circumstances and situations within his family/marriage.
I spoke with him three times over this past weekend, the last call from him yesterday was from all human perspective very heart crushing news.

When there is more to share, and with his permission I will continue with updates, in the mean time I am asking for Father to continue to comfort him, and trusting Him to touch Ron in any way he chooses to do this.
If Father is speaking to your heart regarding this situation without knowing any of the facts, please embrace His nudges.

Rich

Finding our Place

The unobtrusive and unbreakable connection that is happening through out the earth is one of the heart, and the designer and choreographer is no less than God the Father. Scripture talks about, “A three fold cord is not easily broken.” I see that three fold cord being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, (faith, hope-love) intertwined with me and with so many others that I am slowly meeting this side of heaven, wow, talk about God having a very big house.

I was out this morning walking my dog Atticus (a Bearded Collie) communing with Father, basking in the unseasonable warmth for the 2nd of November, but also savouring the warm and deep affection of his heart for me. Aren’t you glad that He is the one that defines what it means and how it looks to have a spirit-soul and body connection with Him? The kicker is that each and every day it could look just a tad different if in fact a relating, connecting with Him in a way/s that you’ve not yet experienced.

As I continued with my walk it was still resonating within my heart something I read the other day while waiting for Margi to come back from her shopping.
I am slowly but surely becoming more and more a ruined and broken man as Father continues to invade my soul.
Here a few of the things that lovingly wrecked my day.

“The following year, Dominique, a lean, muscular six-foot, two inches, always wearing a navy blue beret, learned at fifty-four that he was dying of inoperable cancer. With the community’s permission he moved to a poor neighbourhood in Paris and took a job as night watchman at a factory. Returning home every morning at 8:00 A.M. he would go directly to a little park were the marginal people, drifters, winos, “has-beens,” dirty old men who ogled the girls passing by.

Dominique never criticized, scolded, or reprimanded them. He laughed, told stories, shared his candy, accepted them just as they were. From living so long out of the inner sanctuary, he gave off a peace, a serene sense of self-possession and hospitality of heart that caused cynical young men and defeated old men to gravitate toward him like bacon toward eggs.
His simple witness lay in accepting others as they were without questions and allowing them to make themselves at home in his heart. Dominique was the most non-judgemental person I have ever known. He loved with the heart of Jesus Christ.
One day, when the ragtag group of rejects asked him to talk about himself, Dominique gave them a thumbnail description of his life. Then he told them with quiet conviction that God loved them tenderly and stubbornly, that Jesus had come for rejects and outcasts just like themselves. His witness was credible because the Word was enfleshed on his bones. Later one old-timer said, “The dirty jokes, vulgar language, and leering at girls just stopped.”

One morning Dominique failed to appear on his park bench. The men grew concerned. A few hours later, he was found dead on the floor of his cold-water flat. He died in the obscurity of a Parisian slum.
Dominique Voillaume never tried to impress anybody, never wondered if his life was useful or his witness meaningful. He never felt he had to do something great for God. He did keep a journal. It was found shortly after his death in a drawer of the nightstand by his bed. His last entry read: “All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.”

In Dominique Voillaume I saw the reality of a life lived entirely for God and for others. After an all-night prayer vigil by his friends, he was buried in an unadorned pine box in the backyard of the Little Brother’s house in Saint-Remy. A simple wooden cross over his grave with the inscription “Dominique Voillaume, a witness to Jesus Christ” said it all. More than seven thousand people gathered from all over Europe to attend his funeral.

Any spirituality that does not lead from a self-centered to an other-centered mode of existence is bankrupt. For many of us the journey out of preoccupation with self begins with self-acceptance. In order to live for others I must be able to live with myself.
Years ago the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung asked:
What if I should discover that the least of the brothers Jesus, the one crying out most desperately for reconciliation , forgiveness, and acceptance, is myself? That I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved, what then? Will I do for myself what I do for others?

Rich

A Passion for Truth

Do you share in this same passion of desiring with all of your heart, a longing to know what/who the truth is. Remember that there is no ability to know the ‘truth’ apart from the person who declares he IS the ‘truth,’ God’s son Jesus Christ.
It’s out of the generosity of his spirit we are invited to pursue the one who has been pursuing us from before the foundations of the world. Hopefully we can be as generous with one another as we share our experiences of how the truth of who’s we are and what it means to be loved and to live loved. What an opportunity to see so much more of who He is, the Truth.

There’s a couple of things I want to point out here in a way of trying to see things a bit more objectively in our journey of discovering the truth, take a peak at this from Barb over at ‘A Former Leader’s Journey’-Same God-New Covenant: Speaking to the Church, and over at The Free Believers Network with Darin Hufford in the pod cast, “Tradition.”


The traditions and teachings of men have according to Jesus made the word of God of none affect.
As Barb so clearly pointed out in her thoughts, there was a time when God spoke to people within a group, or as a nation, it was a uniform blanket, and one size fits all sort of thing. The door that Jesus opened up to us within this dispensation of grace, has moved us away from the group dynamic speak. It is a personal one on one engagement between Him the Father of our spirit and the individual believer, knowing and experiencing Him personally.

To borrow a quote from Albert Camus, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that our very act of existence is an act of rebellion.”
It was and is for freedom that Christ set us free. The offer he extends is totally available to us in this hour no more or less than it was 2000 years ago, “If you continue in this relationship I have called you to be engaged in, you will know the truth, and the truth will make/set you free.

Father I pray you will apply the saving, keeping, delivering caustic grace and love we stand in need of to strip away from within us those traditions that are lifeless and have stolen our heart affections from you our living Hope!

Rich