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The truth is, that apart from the Truth experienced in the person of Jesus Christ, religions best, is but an opiate induced stupor, dumbing us down even further.
Our spirit was created to be filled with His spirit, the Life giving spirit, “I have come that you might have life fully meeting every need within your heart.”
There are many ‘gos-pills’, but what our Father has to offer us is not an escape from reality, but showing us the way through the portal of grace and having our eyes opened to reality.
In the movie The Matrix, when Neo was finally confronted with what was really real by Morpheus, it physically caused him to over load and throw up, it was too much to handle.
Friends we were created for the Truth, and if we continue to follow Him, we will know the truth and the Truth will make/set us free.
The following quote from The Naked Church so encouraged me., by Wayne Jacobsen.
“Elijah is fortunate that he didn’t come to me for counseling a few years ago! I know how hard I would have tried to get his mind off his feelings. “You can’t run on feelings, you know. God is always with us no matter how bad it looks. Just trust Him and everything will work out okay.” In doing so I would have robbed Elijah of perhaps the most important moment in his life. God instructed him to go to Mount Horeb and stand on the edge of a mountain as he watched a mighty wind and a devastating earthquake. Then in a gentle whisper God came and Elijah stood before him.
Elijah knew he NEEDED the presence of God, and he found it.
He trusted God enough to risk being honest and vulnerable before him, and found God was bigger than his own doubts or fears. The same opportunity is yours. You’ll find that he wants to BE a practical part of your life, and that reality is nothing to fear at all.”
I remember when we (my family and I) were with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) back in 1985, Dr. Bruce Thompson was teaching on the ‘Divine Plumb Line’. He was a medical missionary over seas and was very good at what he did, until one day he was brought up short. The Lord brought it to his attention that what he thought he was doing so well was in fact merely anesthetizing the symptoms in his patient’s lives, as it were putting a gag in their mouths, muffling their desperate cry for help.
It was soon after this loving but caustic encounter with the Lord that Bruce was instructed of the Lord to address the real problems these symptoms in his patients were pointing to.
This has always been a powerful story to me that reveals how much our Father delights in us being real. Mark 10:46-52.
This man needed to see, nothing was going fill the void in his life apart from a miracle, and by damn if he was going to sing the party line and just simmer down and be NICE!
When he was told raising his voice was uncouth, he yelled out even louder. Funny thing is, God’s not deaf, but we are, both deaf and blind, and all it takes is to acknowledge that before the Father, and guaranteed you will never get a placebo from Him.
Instead of praying to the Father on behalf of those who are questioning, struggling with life, the religious minded ones are doing their best to mute, gag them with more doctrine, just say this after me, there, now you’re a Christian, everything is all better.
The desperate cries I am hearing from so many are but the symptoms of needing revelation, not more leaven laced gos-pills.
Rich
Our spirit was created to be filled with His spirit, the Life giving spirit, “I have come that you might have life fully meeting every need within your heart.”
There are many ‘gos-pills’, but what our Father has to offer us is not an escape from reality, but showing us the way through the portal of grace and having our eyes opened to reality.
In the movie The Matrix, when Neo was finally confronted with what was really real by Morpheus, it physically caused him to over load and throw up, it was too much to handle.
Friends we were created for the Truth, and if we continue to follow Him, we will know the truth and the Truth will make/set us free.
The following quote from The Naked Church so encouraged me., by Wayne Jacobsen.
“Elijah is fortunate that he didn’t come to me for counseling a few years ago! I know how hard I would have tried to get his mind off his feelings. “You can’t run on feelings, you know. God is always with us no matter how bad it looks. Just trust Him and everything will work out okay.” In doing so I would have robbed Elijah of perhaps the most important moment in his life. God instructed him to go to Mount Horeb and stand on the edge of a mountain as he watched a mighty wind and a devastating earthquake. Then in a gentle whisper God came and Elijah stood before him.
Elijah knew he NEEDED the presence of God, and he found it.
He trusted God enough to risk being honest and vulnerable before him, and found God was bigger than his own doubts or fears. The same opportunity is yours. You’ll find that he wants to BE a practical part of your life, and that reality is nothing to fear at all.”
I remember when we (my family and I) were with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) back in 1985, Dr. Bruce Thompson was teaching on the ‘Divine Plumb Line’. He was a medical missionary over seas and was very good at what he did, until one day he was brought up short. The Lord brought it to his attention that what he thought he was doing so well was in fact merely anesthetizing the symptoms in his patient’s lives, as it were putting a gag in their mouths, muffling their desperate cry for help.
It was soon after this loving but caustic encounter with the Lord that Bruce was instructed of the Lord to address the real problems these symptoms in his patients were pointing to.
This has always been a powerful story to me that reveals how much our Father delights in us being real. Mark 10:46-52.
This man needed to see, nothing was going fill the void in his life apart from a miracle, and by damn if he was going to sing the party line and just simmer down and be NICE!
When he was told raising his voice was uncouth, he yelled out even louder. Funny thing is, God’s not deaf, but we are, both deaf and blind, and all it takes is to acknowledge that before the Father, and guaranteed you will never get a placebo from Him.
Instead of praying to the Father on behalf of those who are questioning, struggling with life, the religious minded ones are doing their best to mute, gag them with more doctrine, just say this after me, there, now you’re a Christian, everything is all better.
The desperate cries I am hearing from so many are but the symptoms of needing revelation, not more leaven laced gos-pills.
Rich
3 comments:
Geesh, Bro, kinda fits with my ranting on you earlier, eh?
Rich,
Thank you for including that excerpt of Elijah's experience with Father. Indeed, how awesome that our Papa meets us in the reality of whatever we are going through, accepts us there, and even understands that we NEED to experience our feelings honestly and fully because they bring wisdom, understanding and draw us nearer to Him.
As well, Dr. Bruce Thompson also understood the beauty in simply being raw and real about what we're going through. God can handle it! It's such a lie to tell a brother or sister not to "have a temper tantrum" or "rile at God" because it "does no good."
The Truth is that God honors a sincerely seeking heart for Him. He'd rather us come to Him honestly than withhold an opportunity to engage in fellowship with Him, no matter how "messy" it may look externally. Besides, we are safest with Him during those moments of extreme emotion and mental turmoil. HE'S the One who can effectively and most beautifully, above all, bring us through completely to the other side.
Unfortunately, I think many institutional churches have been much like what Dr. Thompson was speaking of. It has only acted as Duct Tape or Band-Aids to "cover over" the "ugliness" (as it has so decided) of our pain. How incredibly uncaring, really! It's left numerous people continuing on in turmoil. And the even more unfortunate thing is that some congregations actually KNOW that this is occurring and they do things to continue to maintain this system. Why? So that it's "customers" or "patients" will continue to keep repetitively coming back to try and find the answer, cure or fix for an underlying problem. It's much like an auto-repair shop that decides to fix almost every problem with a customer's car but one or two. Why? Because the mechanic hopes that the owner will return later, for further business, in order for those "over-looked" problems to be fixed. It's just plain wrong.
(Wow. I really had quite a bit to say there, eh?! Ha!)
Blessings,
~Amy :)
http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com
Amy and Dave,
Thanks for your interacting here.
I liked what you said here Amy.."The Truth is that God honors a sincerely seeking heart for Him. He'd rather us come to Him honestly than withhold an opportunity to engage in fellowship with Him, no matter how "messy" it may look externally."
Isn't it cool if it is Him we really want, we don't have to get all bummed out with what we don't yet realize, meaning.
Unless He opens the eyes and ears of our heart, why would we expect our Father to berate us being deaf and blind..let's go a bit further..In Acts 8:26-40, it shows us who really sees and hears all those wanting Him even though we see, hear nothing!
I especially love verse 35, where Phill begins to share the reality of Jesus with this God seeking gentile.
He is by His grace making us witnesses to a knowable and very close Father and Friend in Jesus. :)
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