Still Human

What I sense Father saying through this brother to me is my heart's cry!

Rich

The great marvel of the Incarnation slips into ordinary childhood's life; the great marvel of the Transfiguration vanishes in the devil-possessed valley; the glory of the Resurrection descends into a breakfast on the sea-shore. This is not an anti-climax, but a great revelation of God.

The tendency is to look for the marvelous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us. If we do not want medieval haloes, we want something that will make people say - What a wonderful man of prayer he is! What a pious devoted woman she is! If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you, all that is noticed is that the power of God comes through you all the time.

Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God! It takes Almighty God Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty to the glory of God. It takes God's Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that we are utterly unnoticeable. The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions. Our human relationships are the actual conditions in which the ideal life of God is to be exhibited.

Do You See What I See

My wife has been getting estimates on window and door replacements. One representative told her his company was best because it was part of an organization assembled for the sole purpose of ensuring that they were all on the same page when it came to window installation. Apparently, only the most respected contractors were invited to share their input. The guy talking to my wife said it was interesting to watch these big-name contractors, all with huge egos, debating and arguing over the course of two days over the best way to install a window, but eventually they hammered out a consensus.

When she shared this with me, I couldn’t help but see me in this story. I began to see once again how very easy it is to forget that Papa is love, and become so focused on seeing only my point of view at the expense of how much more my life could be enriched in (listening) hearing the Father’s heart being expressed through those like me who are growing and learning of His grace as well.

I love this quote from last weeks pod cast with Wayne and Brad from the God Journey pod cast: “Its not because there's conflict, not because people see things differently, it's how we treat people who see things differently.” I do not want to be blinded by my need to have my ego pumped up at the expense of not extending His love that is poured out on me toward others.

Something else that made His heart so evident to me is what my friend Dave shared recently: “I realized that my passion for photography had somewhat faded. At least the passion part. I do really enjoy it but I concluded that I would have more enjoyed knowing those people. That feeling out of place was a sense that if I joined that club it would be a knowing one another only after the photography (after the flesh, perhaps).”

I realize I am quoting several different ones here, but the combined pieces make up such a living mosaic it’s hard to know when to stop when so much life is hitting you between the eyes. Here is something from a wonderful friend I am just beginning to know, Amy over at Walking in the Spirit.

What is becoming so real, so breath taking to me, is in seeing and hearing how so many of His sons and daughters are being brought into a vibrant, thriving, living encounter with the Father of their spirit, and the kicker is, it’s being done without the aid of any mediator other than the man Christ Jesus!

If we own nothing, then there is nothing to defend, and nothing to loose.

Rich

Not Just Another Pretty Face

I really don’t know of anything that could be a greater insult to our pride than discovering that any deception or corruption within our lives is the direct result of our willing participation, the evil one cannot force us to do anything, therefore this thing of, the “devil made me do it” just isn’t true.

I realize over the past while it would appear that I’m taking up a fascination with the devil in my posts, but let me assure you, I am only being aware of him while being totally impressed with the Father’s ability to lead me into an ever greater love and appreciation for the Truth, verses the devil’s ability to keep me deceived.
Anything and everything that I or anyone else stands in need of for living and not just surviving, is going to be the direct result of His ability to make known to us the untold riches, wisdom and insight because of the life of another (His life) He places within us, as our only life-resource!

It is of my opinion that unless we not only discover experientially the liberty and freedom of Galatians 2:20, of Christ being our reference point, our true identity, but equally, an understanding only possible through revelation that our Father wants to freely give to all, of the evil that lies within all flesh. Again this gets back to finding a scapegoat freeing ourselves from any personal incrimination, let’s take a further look.

The devil’s primary tactic and strength is based upon deception, with Satan, what you see is never what you get. We see this facet of the devil’s working repeatedly in the operation of the unredeemed world. Everywhere we look, we see lying politicians, fraudulent business practices, deceptive advertising, friends who betray and leaders who deceive. This is perfectly in character for a world that is under the control of the father of lies. 1John 5:19

What none of us ‘Saint’s’ really want to hear or discover is, that resident within our flesh are all of these ugly displays of deception.
Our innate inclination to trust in mere appearances more often than not positions us to be deceived. We think we ‘know’ what is “good” and “noble.”
This one who has been called the ‘angel of light’ has within his ability (through deception) to display all of these qualities that the world calls “good.”
The problem with Satan’s “good works” is that they are only a display. Our only trust must be in the leading of the Father to reveal the truth about the things in our lives.
Good does not always appear beautiful or does it always feel good to our soul. On the other hand, evil does not always appear ugly. Wisdom is not always discerned by the intellect. This is why the wisdom of God often appears as folly to the world. (1Corinthians 2:14) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Rich