There Were Five Porches

John 5:1-18.

I do not know whether this was in John's mind, but I do see that he had a great deal in his mind which we do not always notice. What I mean is this: Why was it that when John spoke about the Pool of Bethesda he said that there were five porches there? Was it the artist giving a little touch to the picture? Well, John was an artist in words, but the Holy Spirit was writing this thing through John, and five is the number of grace. Wherever you look in the Bible five is the number of grace. You and I carry that very number on both hands and both feet, if we are normal people; and more than that, we have five physical senses. Why, we are made up of fives! God meant us to be people of grace. This poor man was in bondage to the law, but "the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). And right there, in the presence of the bondage of the law, was this testimony to the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

What is this sign, then? It is a wonderful sign! This man is a true picture and representation of what it means to be under the law. Jesus stood and cried: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden" (Matthew 11:28). What did He mean? The burden of the law was upon the people, indeed, it was a heavy burden for them. The Pharisees gave more than two thousand interpretations to the law of Moses, and said: 'The law of Moses does not mean that you have only to keep ten commandments; it means that you have to keep two thousand.' There was not a point in all their human life where this law was not applied and made their lives difficult. And all this was gathered up into the Sabbath: 'You must not make your bed on the Sabbath! You must not carry your bed on the Sabbath! You must not poke your fire on the Sabbath! You must do nothing on the Sabbath - you may not even walk more than three miles.' Two thousand regulations for their lives! The one thing that they were meeting every day, and especially on the Sabbath, was 'You may not'.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28). What has happened? Jesus has appropriated the Sabbath to Himself. It is no longer a day of the week - it is a divine person. (If the Seventh Day Adventists saw that, the whole of their system would go in five minutes!) No, Jesus is God's Sabbath. He is the end of God's works, and in Him God has entered into His rest. This is the 'rest which remaineth for the children of God' - not a day of the week or on the calendar, but a divine person, the Son of God. In Him we come to rest, and that which was our bondage is now our servant. In Him that against which we were always struggling is now our victory. Oh yes, Jesus is the Sabbath, and if we live in Him we shall not spoil the Sabbath. Every day should be a day of rest to our souls. Oh, this is a mighty thing that the Lord Jesus has done!

Now note: the Lord Jesus looked upon that which He did for this man as a very great and serious thing. When He found him in the temple He said to him: "Thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee" (John 5:14). Now back to the Letter to the Galatians: "Ye were running well," said the Apostle, "who did hinder you?" (Galatians 5:7). 'You are returning, or are in danger of returning, to the old bondage. You are listening to those Judaizers who want to bring you back under the bondage of the law, and if you go back there the last state will be worse than the first. It is a worse thing to fall away from grace than never to have been in grace.' That is what the Word says - 'a worse thing'. Oh, dear friends, we have been liberated from this whole law through faith in Jesus Christ. Let us walk, and continue to walk in our liberty. "Ye were running well" - that is better than walking. Let us not stop running the race!

Rich

Ascension

The following thoughts are from T.A. Sparks. I have been and continue to be so richly encouraged in the Lord through so much I have been reading and gleaning through his writings.

I want to preface what he has said with this, that I see things some what different than how he has laid this out, but that does not stand in the way of being enriched!

Rich

The Relation of Grace and Gifts

With that we will draw to a close. We will just refer to two passages of Scripture: Ephes. 4:7: "But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ".

Note what that means, "the gift of Christ"! "When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men". The gift of Christ! Grace according to the gift!

Romans 12:6: "And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us..." Grace according to the gift! Gifts according to the grace! Grace given by the gift, that is one side. The other side is the gift given by grace. There is a Divine gift in sovereignty through the members. It may be one of the gifts mentioned in Romans 12, or it may be some other gift for helping, for administration. God has made you a gift to the Church. If He has gifted you to the Church (in office that is) as an apostle, the office is that of an apostle; if as a prophet, your office is that of a prophet. If God has given you to the Church as a gift, you cannot fulfil your office except in so far as the grace comes up to the measure of the gift. That is to say, the vital force must be according to the vital function. It may be, and it should be. But so often when men have thought they were apostles, or evangelists, pastors or teachers, they have viewed the matter in this way: I am an evangelist, I am a pastor, I am a teacher; God has made me that, that is my gift! and they have tried to fulfil their function simply because it was the gift, and were resting upon the gift rather than upon the grace. It is a very dangerous thing to become an official, and not to keep the vital force, the grace, in proportion to the office. That is what has made professional ministry. To express it again the other way, the gift is according to grace.

How can we best illustrate the point? The import of the matter is that the two things have to be kept together in equal measure, gift and grace, or gift and function. If you divorce them, or if you over-rate one of them, there is either a complete nullifying of any fruitful result, or else the loss of balance, and the whole thing becomes lopsided. For instance, supposing you build an electrical station, and you put in your dynamos, your generating plant, and set it going close by a city. You generate tremendous electrical power, capable of lighting the whole of that city and driving all its machinery, supplying that whole city with lighting, and yet you have no wires, and no lamps, and no switches. What is the good of it? You have vital force without vital function; a tremendous amount of power, but unrelated power. Or suppose you go round the city, wiring, with splendid insulated wire, and fixing switches, and yet have no generating station, and you attempt to switch on. What happens? There is no result. This is the opposite case; you have the office without the power. To make good you must needs have both. And if you overload your wiring and your lamps with power you are going to meet with disaster. The gift has to be adjusted to the grace, to be according to the grace. If you divorce the two you have nothing at all.

That may be a poor illustration, and it may only serve to help us a little, but we must remember that God's resource is according to the purpose to which He has called us. We shall not receive more than that. If we stretch ourselves beyond our measure the vital force will not come through. If we try to step into something for which God has never chosen us we shall lack in resource. If we try to take on something more than the apportioned gift that is particularly ours it will be disastrous. It is God who has appointed, adjusted, and arranged the Body. We can never take it upon ourselves to say what work we shall do for the Lord. It is a most disastrous thing when people decide for themselves how they are going to work for the Lord, and what kind of work they will do. It is a terrible thing for a man to try to fulfil a teaching ministry when God has appointed him to be an evangelist. It is a disastrous thing. We use that by way of illustration. God has sovereignly decided what our work shall be, what our gift is to the Church, and we have to function in that position and keep there, and not stretch ourselves beyond our measure. If we do, the power will not follow. Many take up more than the Lord intended them to, and they break down. To express it in the other way, if the Lord has called us to a work, then His resources are available right up to the fulness of that calling. The supply is there according to the gift, the grace according to the gift, the vital force according to the vital function. It is all there. Blessed be God, that is true. If the Lord calls, then His resources are available for that calling right up to the hilt. But we must be careful that we do not of ourselves manufacture the calling or the appointing.

That is where our union with the risen Lord is of such account. We are to be governed by life, through union with the risen Lord. It may be that some things are not quite clear to you, and you cannot follow. Well, ask the Lord to enable you to understand. Our point is that these resources, these heavenly resources, are related to a Divine purpose. The resources will be forthcoming as we enter into the purpose, keep within our measure, and draw upon them. They are there for the purpose of God. There is strength to be derived from the resources for the purpose, and there is strength to be derived from the fact of the purpose itself.

The Lord instruct us, and teach us still further in the way of life.

Relationship Not Rank

More often than not whether intentional or not there seems to be a devise attitude and spirit that can smack of an “us verses them” especially when it comes to this grace exodus that is unfolding all around the world.
Many are being led by the Spirit to venture out and experience so much more than what has been obscured by religious ritualistic rites.
Please here me here, I have no hesitation in believing with all of my heart that at the same time there are those like wise being lead and directed into these religious establishments, not as show room trophies to impress those still ensnared by the matrix of religion but to be an unobtrusive witness to Christ plus nothing.

Just as the leaven of the Pharisees that can totally corrupt as Jesus pointed out, in my opinion there is like wise a ‘holy leaven’ that equally corrupts only this is something that infects and affects on a personal level that impresses others with the invisible God seen through our daily actions.
“Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

There are too many colors and nuances of the multifaceted displays of God’s amazing grace to relegate it to voila, "this is IT" mind set!
One thing I know for sure there is a definite propensity to fraternize and flirt with prideful thinking, but even this is not sufficient to deter us from ultimately going on with God.

The crud that is accomplished out of the energy of fleshly activity does promote and establish a superior rank and status amongst likewise fleshly minding siblings, but this is a moot point in those who are being lead by His spirit, the fruit coming from this leading is an obvious and tangible humility.
I love what my friend William (Bill) Landon has to say about this from his book “The Rise and Fall of Self” (The problem with us is us); “The old ways of thinking and understanding I speak of here are seeing God’s work in us as a means to obtain status, rank or some other worldly gain. This is an example of falling back into thinking in terms of comparison and reputation. If we are unguarded in our living, the work of God in us can be turned against us. If we allow the growth that God is working in us to become an issue of status or comparison we will suffer loss. In this diversion we can let the independent-self turn the great blessing of spiritual maturity into just another issue of legalism and pride.

The truth we need to keep in mind here is that walking with God is never to be an issue of rank or comparison. It is never a question of who is further along than someone else. We are all the children of God. This is the only distinction that matters. If we allow into our lives the kind of thinking that places people in orders of rank then we have fallen into the trap of thinking like the world.

If we are truly surrendered to the process of God’s influence growing in our lives the outcome of that growing will be humility. As we go on with God we should become more and more aware of our smallness. When we do this with God’s leading and resource we will not be diverted into seeing smallness as insignificance or unimportance. We are small compared with God’s greatness but the Father’s love for us makes us the most precious things in this world. This kind of humility is the natural outcome of seeing God’s true power and awesome abilities in ever clearer ways.”

Rich

Self and Grace

Probably one of the most lasting influences on me in the recent years has been how the Lord has used my love of movies to speak so powerfully into my life, especially through the movie The Matrix. The following lines from the movie keep me seeing, with increased awareness, how pertinent they are to so much happening in and all around me:

Morpheus to Neo: “I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?”

I want to emphatically say that I believe there is a world of truth in this quote. From our very beginning in the re-birthing, there was an innate knowing that there was something wrong with this world into which we were born. As time progressed, because of this world we were ‘in’ but not ‘of’, we discovered that there was a sense of an undertow trying to move us away from the reality of further discovering who and Whose we were; but in every case we slowly but volitionally acquiesced to this inner entrapment, fully alive in our spirit union with our Father but sadly, having only an outward form of godliness without any real power in our daily living.

Morpheus: “The Matrix? Do you want to know what it is? 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.”

Neo: “What truth?”

Morpheus: “That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

In light of where I currently find myself in this journey of discovering that I didn’t receive a spirit of fear in being received of the Father, but a spirit of overwhelming love whereby I cry “Father”, and as His love continues to wash over me from within, the fear-based cloudiness of my thinking is being displaced with a definite knowing that nothing is as it appears.

Morpheus: “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

It’s important to state that I do NOT see my fellow siblings as the “enemy”, but I do see the influence of our common enemy working to keep us from a mutual love affair revolving around the Son alone - and nothing else! It is the religious system. It has permeated humankind and its alluring, flirtatious seduction has deeply embedded itself in all flesh, ergo the quote, “And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

The turning point in the reformation that gripped the ensnared hearts of so many was as follows, “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, wherein we boast.” No matter how well any of us channel these words of truth, it seems at a heart level most have no idea of their liberating power. This is evident in the fact that we blindly continue to try and earn His favour, desperately craving His approval and affirmation.

The grace of God has been turned into a Velcro add-on to our independent self’s desire to be seen as something that increases our personal reputation or status.
Consider this quote as written by my friend William (Bill) Landon in his book, The Rise and Fall of Self (The Problem with Us is Us).


“In order for us to receive the full blessing of grace we must give up all idea of earning God’s favour. You cannot work your way into a system founded on grace: “And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” The independent self cannot have any part in the work of grace except to receive it. If we cannot earn God’s grace then we cannot get any personal reputation or status out of that receiving. It is for this reason that the independent self finds grace an unacceptable and unsavoury idea.
The independent self would rather work for God’s favour than receive that favour freely. This may sound idiotic (and it is) but it is neither incomprehensible nor is it without a certain logic. The independent self shrinks back from grace because the cost of grace is the denial of independent living. What allows the independent self to continue to strive is the deception that we can achieve God’s favour by our works. The independent self has been deceived by the evil one into thinking that if it works hard enough it can please God on the merit of its own efforts. Our independent self believes that if we pile up enough “good deeds” God will love us on the merit of those deeds. If this is the case, then we can get God to be in our debt. What this amounts to in the end, is an attempt to gain a measure of parity with God. The reality of our living as the bible reveals it is that parity with God has never been possible.

Rich

Mind Over Mattress

Every morning it’s a gargantuan feat defying gravity just getting out of bed, or as I like to call it “mind over mattress”. In the spirit sense, the parallel would be rising from the muck and mire of our previous ‘stinking thinking’ in order that our minds be transformed: “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. This phenomenon doesn’t ‘just happen!’ as if by osmosis. It requires effort – usual considerable effort. How so? The scriptures describe the miracle of God’s grace impacting our lives as thus,
“For the law of the spirit of life has freed us from the (gravitational pull)of the law of sin and death.”
However, it kills me every time I hear of someone dismissing this vital aspect of our being as if at the point of conversion we were instantly made perfect in our soul. I wish! In the nasty now-and-now of every day living we are being confronted with a stark reality that another component of our being has yet to transformed or altered, that being our soul, our mind, will and emotions.
Is it possible (as I hear all the time) that we might in fact be experiencing perfection in motion, i.e. becoming fully perfect? And I’m not talking about human perfection here, but a perfection that we already have in Christ within our spirit union, but NOT yet within our needy soul.

If I didn’t know better, it would appear that some believers are on “auto-pilot” or “duct taped” to a permanent ‘on’ position. Let me elaborate (and this all comes back to my original illustration of ‘mind over mattress’): everyday we are confronted with issues that force us to make a choice, my way versus His way. If there were no choice where would there ever be an opportunity to expect any further growth or maturation in my walk with Christ? We learn, grow and mature by our choosing. We learn to cooperate with his grace in these instances.

Although a believer is no longer operating or living out of the flesh, he still has sin within his members, and the impetus for that sin is the sinner from the beginning, Satan - the father of lies who continues to assault the believer through a lack of experientially having the truth fleshed out within his/her soul.

There is nothing missing in His amazing grace in as far as it as been applied to our lives in being reborn, or “birthed” by the spirit of God! Instantly within our spirit there was a resurrection as it were, the Spirit of God being united (becoming one) with our state of deadness, quickening us and making us to become fully alive within our spirit. That area has obtained perfection, but our bodies are yet to obtain that which is yet to come - a new glorified earth suit - and it’s a promised deal, just another display of His life transforming grace transforming the corruptible into that which will ever be incorruptible.

Rich

Who Chose Who

If one wants to see any so called sanity fly out the window, just watch what happens when one is unplugged from the Matrix of religion. The manic, mania, and frenzy that comes soon rushing to replace the loosely veneered coating of 'sanity' is mind boggling.

Is He, the God and Father of our spirit enough to see us through whatever it takes to bring us into touch with reality (TRUTH) no matter what, or how prolong the painful, dark, isolated, separated, living in no man's land season might be??

By the way, this done in secret inner release from our opiated addiction to religion isn't accomplished by applying a Jesus nicotine patch stuck on my butt!

Rich

Grace

I was pondering on something the other day that I haven’t been able to write much of anything of real heart importance, and was simply musing upon that when He subtly but powerfully invaded my thoughts.

The reason for your malady son, is only because I am taking you through what you need to face, experience, go through, and in going through your daily routines, I am writing my life into you whereby you will be my living bill-board, and out of what I am writing into you, you will indeed write about it!

“Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.
We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!”


His grace much like the chemical solutions used in the photographers dark room being applied to the cameras film, releases, brings to observable recognition that which was already there but hidden from sight.
His grace is to exalt only One, His son Jesus Christ the word made flesh and who IS being fleshed out once again in many forth coming sons.
Therefore I look unto the author and developer of my faith as he has my permission to submerge me over and over into the depths of His grace to bring forth Christ in me as me to this world!

Abba, Father!

Rich

Putting up Blinds

I am so enjoying this book, “Unto Full Stature.”

Rich

“We have on rare occasions observed individuals who developed their soul until there was a natural loveliness to behold in the window. They have discovered some of the natural laws for producing love, joy, gentleness, etc. Yet for everyone who has attained this natural mastery there are ten thousand who have put up blinds over their windows. By this their soul is saying: “Please don’t look in. I am ashamed that you will not see love, joy, meekness, etc. My natural factory has become bankrupt. I am forced to defend myself with these blinds. Please don’t look in my windows.”

“This leads us secondly to see who so many insist upon putting up blinds. Whenever you see a drab, stoical, unexpressive person, you are looking at a life that has somehow become disappointed, disgruntled and warped in their soul by wrong conceptions. Circumstances have seemingly dealt a severe blow and the soul has become passive. The mind cannot be challenged into thinking; the will has become unexpressive. The blinds are the mechanism of the self life which insists upon wearing a mask to hide the emptiness and barrenness of the inner soul.”

“There are many who admit, “I am caught in a web of circumstances that have put blinds over my windows; it is like being in a dungeon. I can’t see out, and I’m not willing for others to see in. Is it really possible under such circumstances to live with open windows?”
In answer I refer you to this passage which explains how God would use the dungeon to work His inward graces. It would seem if you find these inner graces at all it is through the crushing, the breaking, the darkness. Like Jeremiah, you will “find grace in the dungeon” (Jeremiah 31:2 Moffatt). It is not abnormal to be caught, that is, to find yourself unable to get out of the dungeon.
So often that is God’s way-His hour of opportunity. In that moment of complete despair as he offers His grace we discover He is getting the dungeon out of us. It is when HE comes in to bring His Life, Light and Love that the old blinds will come down and there will be a glorious expression out of our inner being. Thus wherever we are there is light. He is that Light which changes every dungeon circumstance.”

Life Displacing Death

Without continued revelation, we will busy ourselves much like a person trying to tear from a tree in the winter, those stubborn fall leaves that refuse to fall to the ground like all of the others.
Rather than simply waiting for the appropriate season of Spring to be set into motion, and as the sap-life of the tree begins once again to flow more rapidly, it easily pushes out/off those dead leaves, replacing them with a new and living foliage.

Isn’t it ludicrous trying to assist our Father in trying to do a similar but inane task, trying to get rid of the death remnants within our flesh by mechanical spiritual parlor finagling?
His Life in us as us, is most adequate in displacing the fig leaves we still hide beneath with such effortless unforced rhythms of grace.

Rich

What’s on Your Screen

My wife said to me this morning, “I don’t know how you can do what you did last night, spend so much time helping sort things out with your friend Ron.”

There are some of you who have read on my blog about my brother, friend Ron who came to spend some time with us, he came here all the way from the Maritimes, a very long distance to allow Father to make/set him free.
Last night he phoned me twice, each time was a very prolonged time of listening and sharing hopefully the Father’s heart.
I said to Margi (my wife) I come alive in those settings, it’s as if I was born to be that Zen like, honestly.

Later that evening, around 11:30 my dear friend and Brother Dave came on Yahoo Messenger and we talked for about 90 minutes, and in some of our sharing I mentioned that I had just got off the phone with Ron.
As Dave and I continued to share it came up in conversation about a recent movie he had rented and said he thought seeing as how I love movies I might consider renting it.

Here’s the cool part, he says to me, I really enjoyed the movie but I know if you were to watch it and then share with me all the great stuff Father says to you through the movie then I will really be blessed!
He went on to say, Rich, I usually never catch or see what it is that you seem to pick up like metal shavings to a powerful magnet, so easily, in watching movies. Most times what you seem to see and hear from Father’s heart isn’t even on my radar screen.
I couldn’t help but laugh in hearing this, because I suddenly saw and heard Papa speaking to me through what Dave had just said.

I hope I can articulate this that it makes perfect sense, please bear with me.
As I said to Dave, I am being introduced at a subliminal level something that has been unfolding within me for some time now.
There are unique things that each of us has been wired by Father to see, catch right away on our radar screen. It’s as normal as breathing, and yet those things differ as much as day is from night on a personal basis.
I know for a fact there are things that Dave for example, immediately sees, picks up on that simply shoot over my head, why is this?
Is this stuff happening so that we might compare/compete with one another at the expense of loosing out on how our Father has uniquely wired us-NO!

It is the security of knowing I am loved as His son, where in I derive the fullness of my true identity, but upon that foundation of security I am freed to allow Father to complement my relationship with Him through the rest of His family.
There is NO need for me to get jealous in how Dave or any other sibling seem to catch things so easily and for me, not so and vice-versa.

I see this being just one of a myriad of ways I am learning His love, freeing me to live loved.
Only His deep, deep unconditional love for us the church His body, frees us to see a dimension of his wonder and majesty that we are incapable of seeing on our own. It is through the manifold, multi-coloured, hues of His grace that He wants to clearly shine through each and every member of the body.

Rich

The Grace of Wrath

I receive regular news letter emails from a brother who freely shares how Christ is continuing making himself real in his life. This last email he had a link to a short article that significantly tied in with things Father had put upon his heart, it’s this article I want to share here, The Grace of Wrath.

If the bottom line is that God IS Love, then we are going to have to line everything up that touches our lives as well as the lives of all those around us, with the truth of that unshakable, undeniable reality, but guaranteed this is going to be a white water shooting over the rapids ride, so buckle your seat belt, this is not intended for the faint of heart.

“My beloved friends let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.”

For way too long the suffering have had to settle for such empty religious platitudes regarding the injustice, heartaches, and compounded hurts they have endured with pointed and heartless jabs such as this: “God’s ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are not His thoughts,” so stop your moaning and groaning and get on with life no matter how cruel and unfair it keeps getting!

The eternal purpose and plan of God the Father was to have a house, his house filled with sons and daughters. Our spiritual birth right is that we were and are created to be filled to over flowing with the true experiential knowing (day in day out) of his unconditional loving acceptance of us.
It says in Romans 8:28 a most often misquoted verse only because it is unfortunately separated from the rest of the good news that flows with this one isolated verse. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” And that unfortunately is where it ends for way to many sadly.
It goes on to say and define how this working together of all things is going to be accomplished: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predetermine to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.”

I like this from the Message Bible: “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.”

Apart from an initial and continued revelation of this God and Father of love, this so called life most of us live is nothing more than a sadistic cruel joke muffling out any laughter. There is no way to even approach this God with out faith it says, but guess what, He is wanting to do just that, offer the intangible to us, His abounding love from deep within to ask Him directly what the truth really is about your pain filled and broken lives!

I’m going to end here with a most powerful word from the Scriptures, I hope any reading this will go directly to God by simply asking Him, I want to know the truth for myself.
There is so much more to His grace than what we have settled for, allow Him to set you free from all and any lies, He LOVES you!

Rich

Grace is Not a Thorn Remover

What the ingrained, seemingly indelible stain living under law has done to an individual is meant with malicious intent, to keep a person trapped in bondage and fear, even those who have been re-born, received of the Father.

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

I love this from Hebrews 2; “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Romans 8:15 infers that bondage and fear are removed from born again believers. That is a reality made instantaneously available to each and every person who has been received and adopted into God’s family.
Unfortunately this is not good news as long as it is but great stuff we agree with, but have never ever experienced it in the nasty now and now grindings of every day living.
My understanding is growing with greater clarity, sobriety that grace is not a thorn remover, but is the most powerful force available to us in Christ to address the fear and bondage that once tormented us living under the law.

It says that Paul asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn in his flesh, and the Lord said, “No, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness.”
In my opinion what the Father did for Paul was open the eyes of his heart even further, to see and experience a power so great, and as it was unleashed within him, all bondage and fear was expelled.
Grace did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh because it was not a hindrance that would prevent him from preaching Christ in you. But bondage and fear would have been a colossal hindrance to the gospel if allowed to remain in Paul.

As the Father breathes into you, be prepared to know, and experience what true freedom is all about, He is making real in the hearts and minds of His beloved children an experiential participation in the freedom over the slavery and fear of death that has so crippled us in our walk.
I hear it, I sense it, the sound of thunder, the sound of His voice setting free from the inside out, those who have been damned up all their lives.

O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?

Rich

Living out Loud

My Response To Pete

I thought because of the length of this, I would reply with a separate post regarding Pete’s question/s comments when I put this blog entry up.
Pete's thoughts etc. are in white, mine are in green.

I had listened to Darin on the God Journey podcast and I have friends who are very much part of Darin's Free Believer's Network, who encouraged me to look at the site and listen to some of the podcasts. The first thing I noticed on the home page was the introductory SERMON and the request for donations of $20 or more. That was two red flags!

Pete, All I know is that our heavenly Father has always made himself available to those seeking Him for Himself. I love how in Luke it says of Jesus, he sent the full away empty, but the empty, he sent away full! Not sure how that ties in here, but it is the truth just the same then as it is now.

I guess what I am pondering is, is my life, the life of the Father in us, as us, is it creating a hunger to want Him, to know Him without any unnecessary props? Are we more concerned in making others disciples of my/our opinions than of Him?
It seems that there is this mentality that has a firm grip on the hull of our thinking much like the barnacles on a ship, that if there is indeed a genuine hunger that has been birthed in the life of an individual then I must be that special someone they must have in their life in order to accurately hear Papa for their continued walk in grace. Is this the Truth?


BUT I did look at several articles and listened to a couple of podcasts. Some of the material is excellent but ...

I expressed my concern to another friend who pointed out that Darin was still giving sermons and that it seemed to him as if Darin was on a journey but hadn't yet had the courage to really step out of the box.

As I mentioned on my blog , Father has wonderfully enriched me personally through things he has written, on his pod casts etc, but I no longer see anyone especially those who are looked upon or on as being someone special. I kissed way to much ass in my former days playing the game within churchianity.

I am in the process of reading Wayne Jacobsen’s book, The Naked Church, and although in the very start of it I am seeing things he shared back more than 10 years ago being MOST relevant to some of what I have expressed in my thoughts re: this blog entry as well as in my reponse back to you.
By the way, before I forget, there was something you posted on a blog somewhere not sure where a line/phrase you said you had heard once that goes something like this; “I don’t really know what I think, until I have spoken it out loud.” I probably have misquoted you, but I loved that.
So in saying that even now in my pondering and sending this on to you, I too am learning, discovering much about what I really think, by voicing my thoughts out loud.
I love this part from Wayne’s book, and I intend to use this in a letter I'm forwarding to a good friend that has recently contacted me.

“Anyone who does not gush with admiration for church institutions and activities today is accused of being arrogant, rebellious, or judgemental. That’s our modern equivalent of being stupid or unfit. So, even though our Christian experience feels empty, we think we’re the only ones to feel that way. To admit this is unthinkable, so we rationalize those nagging thoughts that tell us this can’t really be what God had in mind. After all, there is always more to be gained by exploiting a system than there is by exposing it.”

We could both see that Darin had a lot to offer primarily younger people, who were beginning their journey outside of traditional Churchianity.

Pete, in my opinion, NONE of US has ANYTHING to offer anyone apart from Christ in us as us, period!! We are all placed in our journey of discovering at different times we are both students and teachers.
We are all being discipled by Christ Himself through His spirit working in and through each of us.

But this raised another question. How would we answer someone who suggested that had an elitist attitude?

Great question Pete; I love the story in Acts where it talks about a brother, an ‘Apostle’’ named Apollos who was an ’eloquent’ man, and he was mighty in the ‘Scriptures’. (Acts 18:24-28) This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He was according to the Scriptures speaking fervently in spirit, teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John, none the less spoke out boldly in the synagogue.
But, it says, and this is the heart beat of my response to your question; Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more ACCURATELY!

In my opinion when one sees them self being as a ‘someone-body’ as in, who do you think you are trying to tell me, don’t you know who I AM!
I am NOT saying this is how Darin sees himself, all I know is the church was fortunate back then that Apollos didn’t get all puffed up on who he was, but in fact a very real spirit of humility seemed to set the stage in his life in receiving a greater revelation of who this Christ was/is through what has often been referred to as ‘lay people.’
These two ‘lay people’ were fellow workers, colleagues with Paul himself.

I believe we miss so much in being puffed up vs. Being established and built up out His love 4 us ALL. It says in the Scriptures that the whole body is to be built up as a result of speaking the truth in love to each and every member. Our reliance is on one man, the man Christ Jesus as our only mediator between the Father and us!

I NO longer see any heroes, great men of God, but slowly as the eyes of my heart are being opened, I am SEEING the greatness of Him, our Papa in all that have been received of the Father.

We all NEED to see, especially those who might feel a bit superior to those ordinary garden variety type believers that He continues to oppose the proud, but graces the humble.
We are in great need of His grace and truth to NO LONGER recognize-know anyone after the flesh! Until this becomes the norm within the church, the cast systems will reign even outside ‘the box.’

And for the record, if I was able to sit down with Darin I would lovingly and calmly speak my heart to him expressing his need for me as much as my need for him, no more or less!!!

Rich

The simple answer is that I can't. I know the journey I have been on - outside the box to some extent for about 40 years - and how my thoughts and beliefs have changed gradually in that time.

Any thoughts?

You Can’t Imagine Grace

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

My daughter is home with us from University and in our catching up on life, she delighted me with this rich living nugget of truth.

These scriptures speak of such violence, such wastefulness, His love and grace lavishly offered freely to us.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”

What a wonderful invasion, not just 2,000 years ago in our space, time and history, but He snatched up my dead carcass and invaded me with Life.
Talk about an awakening!

Rich

The Last Gospel

For those wanting to read some wonderful and encouraging insightful words of hope, my friend Art has started a discussion on, "The Last Gospel".

Enjoy part one .

Rich

Sticky Issues

Mark Twain once observed, “ A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.”


I have been wondering about a few things and thought I would pose these thoughts and questions here for others to ponder on as well.

I am one who loves reading, I super enjoy listening to pod casts etc, but as good as all of this is, that which is readily available to us, what would happen if all of this fine stuff were dropped?
I’m going to be pointing out something here that ties in with my question above, and in so doing I will be pointing to an individual that my heavenly Father has communicated through and greatly encouraged me in my own personal ongoing journey. That would be Darin Hufford. I have been listening on a regular basis to his pod casts and have just about finished his book, “The God’s Honest Truth” and like I said, I’ve been wonderfully encouraged. So what’s the deal then?

Here is a link to his membership page, and a quote from that page; “So you want to help spread this message?

The best way for you to help spread this message is to become a part of The Free Believers Network and sign up to give a monthly donation of $20.00 or more. At this amount, you may not even notice it’s missing! In return for your generous support, we will make available to you, everything that this site has to offer. Our products section has literally thousands of dollars of teaching materials available for purchase. We will give you monthly access too ALL OF IT if you become a part of this network. If you believe in what we are doing and you want to help us spread this message around the world, please consider helping us out with your monthly support. “

As I said, I have No bone to pick with him at all, just asking questions, please hear me!

It appears to me that if I am willing to avail myself of that which is there free for anyone accessing his site, such as the pod casts and his blogs then I freely partake, but if I want to get into the Holy of Holies, then based upon my financial monthly gift I will then gain access and be permitted into much greener and richer pastures of spiritual insights.

Here’s where it gets sticky, is this revelation of the father’s love something we can obtain without having to rely upon Him alone, are there short cuts to obtaining it and growing in His love? Is there actually in fact another mediator between us and our Father other than the man Christ Jesus?

Are we really willing to settle for how and what Father has made real in another’s heart and life and try to tap into it by simply listening to another’s revelation of Him?

In my opinion, I wonder if we would all become, (those who haven’t made their financial contribution) like fish suffocating, fish thrown up on the shore, trying to live outside our natural element?
Is there no hope in heaven of there being any remote chance or possibility that we could have a thriving, vital, growing, experiential relationship with the Father of our spirit, by being cut off or shut out from this vast plethora of secret knowing?

Is it Him we want, done His way in the ‘asking, seeking and knocking,’ becoming eye witnesses of Him, as in Jesus’ question then and now, “Who do you say that I AM” or is it simply settling for parroting what others have actually seen in their close up encounters with Him?

Rich

Where Are You Now

I want to conduct an inquiry here especially directed toward those who have been heavily involved in the Charismatic back ground and now, are either ‘outside the box’ of institutional organized religion or you’re some place else.

My inquiry has to do with this; those of you who were visible and vocal with regards to the prophetic, preaching, teaching, worship leading-leader/s, whatever, where are you now that you have NO outlet for your specific ‘gifting/s, calling, anointing, ministry?’
Where and what is your identity now apart from the holy place, holy huddle, with the holy folks?

I hope to be enlightened here if I’m wrong, but from what I can see especially with those who have been heavily involved within the Charismatic stuff, e.g. the Vineyard and others, folks are either, POW’s, statistics-casualties of the war, simply settling into some form or expression of religion or have come to know and experience Life totally apart from the religious land of Oz.

Also I am aware of those trying to reinvent the religious wheel of ‘church’ only trying so very hard not to call it that if possible. Please hear me I am not judging anyone; this is but an observation on my part.

Another thing I’m going to throw in here is this. What’s with those, the ones many of us have looked up to as viable ‘leaders’ who likewise came to a crash and burn reality and encountered the God of Grace, and then slowly walked away from this personal sobering grace wakeup call, and established yet another ministry (identity) only this time its based upon the ‘truth’ of grace verses law?
I find it amazing how this encounter with the grace of God can, like anything else be turned into a means of promoting self and profiting big time by it!

I know I’m drifting away from my original question, but hey, let’s go along for the ride.

If I were to ask one of these folks who have turned grace into a (their) new ministry-calling how and why they did so, I think I might get this kind of explanation. How could this not be of God, just look at the many, many, many cards and letters and emails and on and on that I get in response to what the Lord has spoken through me, ‘my ministry-pod cast-books-my-my-my-! I guess one can’t argue with cold hard facts, or can one?

With the fresh and sobering news leaking out from the Lakeland Florida-Todd Bentley thing, it is very easy to see how as Brad Cummings said on a recent pod cast, ‘It’s not the wickedness of my heart that alarms me as much as it is the ability to be deceived by my own thinking, rationalizing.’On a blog I was led to, I posted this comment regarding the author’s comments revolving around the Lakeland/Bentley issue.

“The carnage continues and will continue as long as we choose to drink the holy 'Kool-Aid’ offered by the angel of light himself. The kicker is that the enemy of our soul is powerless until we give a mind to him. I share this as one who has been resurrected from the dead, one of John Arnott’s former assistant pastors.

It is truly amazing how we allow ourselves to be deceived through the deceitfulness of our own hearts. Father loves us too much to violate us, to force us to choose life verses death, and yet it takes a death to witness His power to turn that which was intended for evil, into the Good only He can bring out of it.

Here is something I want to say as well. If we persist in going our own way the Father will allow us to do so. He will allow us to live with the consequences of those actions. The demonstration of the Father’s love in these situations is not in getting us out of them but in what He does with them. There is no one who can get so much good out of a lousy situation as God can. The Father allows us to experience the consequences of our follies but He is also right there with us in them.”

I look forward to any who wish to respond to my inquiries,
Rich

Blinded by the Light

As a result of man choosing to live separate from God, and because there are no vacuums, a whole new ‘reality’ plunged us all into a world where the flesh became the dominate ruling force.

All of us are born separated and alienated from the Life of God. Every person comes into the world with a flawed life—a life directed by the flesh, or as the Scriptures say, “All have sinned and fallen short of His glory.” True to our newly acquired nature, everything in man’s living was now directed after the flesh. Most people refer to this as ‘human nature’, but there was nothing ‘human’ about this nature! Jesus said, “a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit and a bad tree is powerless to bring forth good fruit.’ Because of the nature of the beast (Satan in our flesh) and the sophisticated shape-shifting ability this liar has as a maniacal master of illusion, we have all equally been blinded to what is real.

I like what Kent shared here, as I see it pertinent to my thoughts regarding this reality of the flesh and how an erroneous identity has been formed in us all.

“Who knows, maybe I would have been a drunk, a drug addict, a flaming liberal, a Muslim, a Communist or a thief, to name a few possibilities, had I been born somewhere else to different parents and shaped by a different environment? These might be barriers humans rarely desire to cross over if they are vastly different experiences than what they have ever been exposed to....but Jesus knows no barriers and grace and love have no rivals.”

All of these descriptions Kent has used here are expressions of the nature we all have been born with, and yet there are so many other features of this nature that are misunderstood. It is very easy to see the overt expressions of the flesh in many people: liars, cheaters, killers, abusers, etc. but what about the slick, polished expressions of this same nature such as politeness, morality, kindness, consideration, caring, dedication to one’s community, volunteering at the YMCA, becoming a Big Brother/Sister ad infinitum? These are the ‘socially acceptable’ expressions of the flesh, or as Bob George put it in “Classic Christianity” U.S.D.A. Choice Flesh – but it’s still flesh, nonetheless! Some people have explained away this ‘socially acceptable’ flesh as being some sort of remnant of God’s goodness in mankind, but this is a bogus assumption. Without God’s spirit indwelling the human spirit, there is no ‘remnant’ of God whatsoever. We are lost and irreparably depraved, desperately needing a Saviour to set us free. Yes, we needed forgiveness, but much more to the point is the fact that we needed LIFE and within that life was the very nature of God.

Is it possible that the father of lies within all of us has established within our thinking a categorizing of those who are good and those who are evil? Since we’ve all been born with a faulty nature, any expression of our flesh is totally void of any goodness.

It is only the one life, the Life of God the Father that is good, and it is that very life that has been made available to all who were born lifeless. When we accept the gift of life through Christ we are made new by the transforming power of a new life in our spirit. In salvation we have a replacement of our old life situation by a new life opportunity. This is entirely Christ’s work and none of our own.

I am convinced that apart from the goodness of God the Father opening our eyes - especially those who still see themselves as being ‘good’ apart from His life - those who didn’t get hammered into the overt ugly fleshly expressions, might see grace as being something they have earned by their own ‘goodness’.

Consider the Prodigal Son story in the Scriptures (Luke 15): the older son, who faithfully stayed home serving the Father, looked with horror and disdain when he saw his father lavishly pouring out his deep affections upon his way ward brother. How could bad behavior merit His favour, what he with his good behaviour had worked so hard to obtain? To further illustrate this graphic picture, what was obscured in the life of this self-righteous older brother’s view was his failure to see that his very nature was no different than his brother’s, that when we give a mind to the flesh, we cut ourselves off from our only source of Life.

Read Addendum to this post here.

Rich

Unmerited (Grace)

I’m wondering if the church has been trying to live vicariously via paltry intellectual knowledge that has filtered down through the centuries meaning, we usually rely upon what people have said versus having experiential knowledge. But is there any ‘knowledge’ we can claim as ours apart from the Father revealing it to us?

Let’s take a look at an absurd illustration for a moment: let’s say you desperately need to get into a room within your house but the door is stuck. You have become intensely focused on doing your best to open this door! You fail to realize in your heated frenzy that you are in fact already in that very room. “Balderdash!” you say, “How could I be so dense? I am in my right mind…aren’t I?”

Maybe being in our “right mind” isn’t going to attain what grace has already achieved for us!

There has and continues to be so much carnal maneuvering and attempted manipulation of the scriptures on our part to try and get God to cooperate with us or for us to ‘get it right’. However, Paul emphatically stated that his encounter with and ongoing transformation by Christ was NOT received of man, nor was it taught by man, but in fact was a direct revelation of Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ himself. Parroting truthful facts are no substitute for the Lord’s ability to awaken within me an inner knowing of this same Christ Paul knew.

I have to believe that our introduction into God’s marvelous grace was precipitated by an awareness of how empty and depleted we really are, and the knowledge of that bankruptcy prepared us to simply receive of His unmerited favor. Does it stand to reason that although we started on this miraculous journey by God calling us unto Himself that we can now resort to fleshly means of seeing this walk brought to completion?

It is ludicrous to think that the power of His grace, having been made available to helpless, needy and lifeless creatures, was going to be pushed aside for what we think we can do to merit that grace - rather than acknowledging that the Christian life is all about Him living it in us as us.

Is it possible that much, if not all, of institutional religious ware-housing has fostered a mentality where we keep learning, but never come to the knowledge of the Truth - as if the truth were something separate from the embodiment of truth (Jesus)? The price we pay for not accepting God’s justification as born-again believers is that we continue to toil fruitlessly in a vain attempt to earn what we already have!

My conclusion to all of this is that we have gone dreadfully wrong in allowing such overwhelming pressures, of trying ‘to get it right’ to come upon us. The Father is opening our eyes to see that ‘unmerited’ grace is already ours - not something we have to attain by our own efforts.

The reality of this Christ must invade our souls with a despair so intense that we throw ourselves at his feet in a fresh recognition that what we think He requires us to do, apart from what He has already done, is impossible and fruitless. Somehow in the heated frenzy of trying to ‘get it right’ we fail to recognize Him! He said, “I will build My church”! It is crucial that we learn the answer to His relentless question, “Who do you say I AM”?

Rich