A New Way Of Living

I have posted here before on both of my blogs wonderful and encouraging insights my friend Art has shared with me, this is but a continuation on a theme he is still working on.
I trust you will enjoy!

Rich

The Necessity of Suffering

“Glory” is a word that seems so amorphous and indescribable. In practical terms and for our purpose it actually means the inherent expression of a life. We can see the matter of glory as the inherent expression of a life by the metaphor of the seeded flower’s life in its full expression as a blossom. The flower’s life, derived from the life in its seed, is ultimately fully expressed in the flower’s full blossoming. Each flower contains seed needed for life to beget life, which is reproduced after “its own kind.” The blossom of the flower is the glory or expression of the life that is in the original flower seed. God the Father in Christ, as the original seed, is the original eternal spirit-life who begets eternal spirit-life in the believer – all believers share His one life.

For the flower’s seed to germinate, it must first suffer death to its outer shell. The life is then released out of that death, to grow to maturity. This is similar to the allegorical description of the life-process Jesus spoke of concerning the release and multiplication of His life. “Verily, verily, I (Jesus) say unto you, Except a corn (seed) of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24 ). Here Jesus is saying, by His death His life would become germinated, multiplying itself. The Father’s life-plan would bring “many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10) out of Jesus suffering and death. All the believers are the multiplication and enlargement of God’s family that comes by sharing the one life of the “seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16, 1Peter 1:23). We now possess the Christ-seed within our spirit and we thereby have the potential of being the “glorious expression” of the Lord’s life. We contain His life in our spirit, so that His expression may flow through our souls as He wills. Only His life released brings forth the genuine fruit of God.

I have described “glory” in terms of the flower in order to explain the necessity of suffering in the believer’s life. The flower’s seed has a “shell” that must be broken to release the life within. Our shell, which is our independent soul-self, must be broken, in order to release the life of Christ from within our spirit. Thus we see that there is a great connection between suffering and glory (expression).

Suffering deals with our being deceived. With no suffering, there can be no knowledge by realization of who we are NOT. We are Not the gods of our own life. We are wayward souls, separated from God often living waywardly independent from God even after our salvation. Suffering exposes this truth to us. We are NOT adequate within ourselves to live the Christian life overcomingly, as evidenced by our lack of rest and peace.

We may think we can do what we need to do, but we are not really in control of anything. We learn this only by suffering the failure of self-rule and self-effort. To me, the greatest suffering is not necessarily physical, but rather the loss of control. God desires that we give up control to trust Him and His leading, moment by moment. Suffering situations and circumstances that are beyond our control brings us to the realization of that need and His desire.

Satan has inspired the illusion of control in all of us since the day he tempted Eve, saying if you eat of the forbidden tree of knowledge “you shall be as gods” (Gen 3:5). This illusion must be broken before we will turn our hearts to trust Christ in us as our life. Without suffering failure, we cannot come to the knowledge of who we really are – we are the dependent children of God, the Almighty Father who loves us and cares for us. He is fully sufficient to father us, and guide and protect us in love.

The Lord suffered for us, but we also will endure suffering. The cup of suffering (Mark 10:39) is crucial to our being able to realize the truth of our state, as it was for Paul when the Lord denied his three pleadings to remove the thorn Paul suffered in his flesh. The Lord told Paul “my grace is sufficient.” Christ Himself is the very grace of God and His life in us is sufficient for all that we will endure.

The cup we drink from in life is always at the hands of our loving Father. Jesus willingly took the cup of suffering at the hands of His Father, so that His glorious life might be multiplied to us and expressed in us. “…Jesus unto Peter… the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” John 18:11

Taking the cup revealed Jesus’ true state of utter yieldedness and dependence upon the Father. Paul admonished the Philippians Christians to have the same attitude or mindset of Jesus, who suffered obedience unto death of the cross (Philip 2:5-8). The Father now administers the cup of suffering to us, that we might let go of self-dependence in order to trust Christ in us as our life and innermost guide. Only then may we go from a “Christ in you THE HOPE of glory” to His actually being glorified or expressed in and through our lives?

Living Out Loud

Here are some additional thoughts being shared with Lydia-Joy over at, a joy to be me.
You can read this first to see what has been discussed.

Lydia-Joy

For what its worth, I can't wrap my mind around the reality of not just Christ being for me, and in me, but in me as me, wow, how can that be?!

From what I have been discovering the very things that I have struggled with I am learning that His life becoming fully formed in me as me is happening within that very struggle.

The bottom line is what He the Father of your spirit is saying to you, not what I think or what others might presume. It isn't about the right way verses the wrong way, it’s discovering His way, and he calls that Way-Truth and Life, Jesus!

The very things you have mentioned wanting to get over in your life I see being an inner gnawing something in fact He your loving Father has initiated in you, and that is the reason behind the turmoil imo (in my opinion), causing such unsettledness, its a divine tension as in a woman who has never been pregnant before, growing in her is a new life that eventually in the fullness of time wants to be seen and embraced!

It is the fruitful One you are joined to that is in fact producing in you the deep longings of your heart.

I love the majesty, beauty and wonder as Mary the mother of Jesus said, "He that is mighty has done great things in me this day, and my soul does magnify His name."

She like us are being brought to the same place, if we so choose to avail ourselves of His grace, Lord, I have no idea how the miraculous can BE done in my life, but BE it done in me according to your Word Father!!
Becoming pregnant through His imparted word!

Rich

Growing or Dying

Much like trees, we are either growing or dying. One of two options waits our choosing, existing within the false stability of spiritual death (stagnation), or to be corrected and to further experience the fullness of life offered to us in knowing Him.

Without the merger we have in being one with God through our spiritual union, there would be no possibility of any uploading (transformation) taking place in our continued maturation.
In my opinion continued growth is contingent upon what Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that is given to us from the mouth of God.”
With the increase of new insight and information there will be at first a contesting as we are prone to become very static in what we believe, the integrating is never done seamlessly.
The influx His life brings within us will always cause a radical disruption to fixed and established previously held “incomplete” thoughts.
It is this very rigidity that Jesus spoke of in connection with pouring new wine into new wine skins. It is within the every day encounters we face that I see Him using to keep us inwardly malleable, which allows Him to further expand our capacity to further emerge from the fairy tale way of looking at life and what it means to be a “Christian.”

I like what my friend and brother Bill Landon says about this, “What most people see (and practice) in this world is religion and not Christianity. Christianity, real Christianity, is a state of being and a personal relationship with the Father. Religion is outward works, rites, and rituals. Religion is primarily about looking good and smelling good and doing the “right things.” Real Christianity is about living and further, Christianity is a life not to be seen. Jesus addressed this reality by saying, “What you do in secret, your heavenly Father will reward you openly.”

Rich

Many Are Called

Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready when God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the ready soul, it is ablaze with the presence of God.

Rich

This Can’t Be Good

I’d like to think on these thoughts for a while here.

Why is it when we are set upon by various hellish and painful situations do we seemingly gravitate toward looking for an easier way??


“If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus' sake, which makes Jesus' life all the more evident in us. While we're going through the worst, you're getting in on the best!”

“Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.”

I thought we wanted to KNOW Him, then why are we trying to avoid the Way He has opened up for this miracle to unfold in us?

I am seeing that it is only through experientially becoming identified with Christ in the circumstances and situations we each face that we are being delivered over to death, that Life might be more than just a groovy concept!

Why is it that we all seem to know so much about suffering, and yet when we are lovingly subjected to it, we begin to move totally away from what he has made clear to us.
“Trust in Me with ALL of your heart, lean NOT unto your understanding, acknowledge Me in ALL of your ways, and I WILL direct your path-goings!”

True, living, meaningful relationship will only come about through dying. “If a seed falls into the ground and it doesn’t die, it abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.”

I am discovering that the stuff I am being exposed to on a daily basis is more than sufficient to bring to the surface in my life the head trip I’m on, knowing a lot of stuff, or "knowing/experiencing" the reality of His life in me as me that is more than adequate to address anything that comes my way.
How about you?

Rich

Living Loved

In my opinion because of the innate desire within us (in our flesh) the hunger for knowledge, the father of lies is constantly appealing to our independent self, we are consumed with learning facts about the “Christian” Life.
Why, well of course that we might live it as best we can, right..wrong!

Maybe the all consuming burning desire of the Father of our spirit is, in us learning to live in a confidence of Papa’s unfailing, never ending stubborn Love for us?

If this isn’t the central focus of our hearts, discovering moment by moment, the truth of how loved I am of the Father, then that void will be filled with, not necessarily bad things, but if you have ever seen the majesty of the ocean, how could you dare compare a little side eddy with such grandeur!

In my heart I continue to hear His voice, “I AM.”

Rich

Stay and Die, or Go and Live

Those were the words spoken into my heart that fateful day fourteen years ago. It’s too long of a story to put down here right now, suffice it to say I was a dead man walking, going through the motions of sitting once again in my old institutional ‘place of worship.’
This is after having my coat of many colours stripped away from me and left naked and hung out to dry, or was that to die?

Many, many months prior to this particular morning, I told God I did NOT want to ever make any more irrational knee jerk impulsive choices to jump into any more fires, and that I would stay firmly fixed here until he said differently.
Little did I know that, that Sunday morning was going to be what has been said so well in a movie I saw, “Everything you’ve known, is about to change.”

The Father’s offer to me was vividly laid out to me and with this visual presentation he says, “You can stay and die, or go and live.”I was reflection on that turning point in my life and this jumped out to me today.

The children of Israel had barely left behind their former land of bondage, living in Egypt under the cruel hand of Pharaoh Lord of Egypt, when Pharaoh has a change of heart and continues to peruse these liberated slaves he once owned.
It is in this setting that the Israelites begin to freak out and say; then they said to Moses, "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt?Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, 'Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

As I was reflecting on this I sensed the Lord saying, ‘You’re darn right I did bring you out here in the wilderness to die.’
This could not be the Lord, in fact I remember Him asking me if I wanted to ‘stay and die,’ or ‘go and live,’ what’s with the dying part if I was going and not staying?
With this invasion of Life that happened in being reborn, it set into motion a whole new realm of struggles, and here is a comment from my friend Bill that speaks into this reality.

Rich

The Nature of the Struggle

In truth entering the Christian life is an entry into a series of struggles. The struggle that each child of God must confront is not what most Christians would imagine it to be. Our struggle is not with the physical world directly. We know this from Scripture: Ephesians 6:12. What most Christians would find surprising is that our struggle is not even primarily with Satan or demons. No, our most fundamental and long-standing struggles are with self.

Nurture or Nature

After all, if I’m ok, then you’re ok ...

A few years ago, I saw a cartoon that depicted the two thieves and Jesus hanging on the cross. At that time, the book “I’m O.K, You’re Okay” (a self-help guide for people with deep-seated mental problems) was very popular. The two thieves were talking. One of them said, “If I’m okay, and you’re okay, then why’s that guy hanging on the cross?”

Over the past while I have been delving into this mind field (be careful where you step) of whether or not man was born with or without a nature, and it’s this very nerve I want to poke one more time, damn it that hurts!

I have a question right off the bat for you, did Jesus actually say, ‘apart from Him we could really do nothing,’ or apart from Him whatever we did or could do, would cease to exist the moment we took our last breath?

Also I want to say right up front here, I am not someone who is good at arranging my thoughts in a lucid and coherent grammatically correct way at all, heck, maybe I’m dysfunctional.
When my wife is able to proof read my stuff, it is most appreciated as she is an English lover with an intense passion and she is able to magically turn my bowel of alphabet soup into a more coherent menu.
My point is, anyone reading this and you stumble over my jumbled ramblings, please feel free to ask, Rich, what the hell are you saying, this doesn’t make sense or, could you please explain what this means?

I hate the word ‘dysfunctional’, hate it, but for conversation sake I will use this word because it is applicable for further illustration.
If the whole of humanity is not (born in sin, shaped in iniquity) dysfunctional, then why the hell did God become incarnate, the Word becoming flesh-a man and living here among us?

I love how the Scriptures do not try to cover up the reality of a fallen, broken, bankrupt, dysfunctional race of people that Jesus’ very genealogy included.If by dysfunctional I mean that this race of people were void of Life, His Life, then yes they, we, are all hopelessly dysfunctional!
Don’t you find it stimulating that something within our ‘nature’ is able to separate the bad from the good, functional from the dysfunctional? Maybe it was this rationalization that Jesus threw the monkey wrench into by saying when someone asked, “Good master, what must I do to..” and Jesus replied, “why do you call me GOOD, there is no one good but God”? Was this simply a case of reverse psychology Jesus was using, or was it actually being directed like a laser beam cutting right to the heart of this insidious cesspool of malignancy within man?

If I seem to be rambling here, please forgive, it's what I do best.

At the moment my wife is desperately (and has been for a very long time) wanting to see light, hope in this prolonged time of darkness in her life that has everything to do with what this post is about- ‘nature or nurturing’.

I grew up with two parents that loved and cared for me as best they could, but the God factor was never there, more specifically knowing God as Life. Many know God only as a religion, and some of that smattering touched my life but had NO impact within the place of lifeless empty heart. It wasn’t until I was twenty two years of age that the miracle of my world being violently invaded, to this day, I remember so clearly saying, not in a religious, pious head bowed, eyes close way, but-God, Jesus, whoever you are, if you’re real, I need you-BAMM, like a bomb going off from within me, I knew somehow I was not in that moment the same son of a bitch I had been the moment before. I see here that is going to take much more time and thought to try and put together my story which over laps into my wife’s story as well, so I will stop here and continue later.

Rich