Adapting, or Adoption

If the ‘god’ of this world has in fact blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, is it any wonder then how a ‘believer’ (one adopted-received into God’s family) can continue to abide in much blindness when considering all of the religious imprinting that has defined who they continue to think they are?

Is it the Father’s intention to bring continual revelation to His son’s wherein they can know and experience the truth (reality) of what it means to BE His, or is it all about just putting on a good show?
To the degree that ‘truth’ remains nothing more than an abstract concept, rather that it being all about the person of Truth, Christ in us, is it any wonder we are looked upon as just another religious sect?

Rich

God’s Love Our True Identity

Our view of God is what shapes our lives!

If in fact the life of the Father is our only true source of life, then doesn’t it stand to reason that what God our Father is, is what we are?
Meaning, it says that the fruit (nature) of God being love is, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
It goes on to further describe God (our true nature) being love in this manner. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres.”

Here is something that needs to be considered, it says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus said that the world will know you are mine, by your love one toward another!

How can we that have been birthed by God the Father and yet live apart from not only Who’s we are, but who we are?
Why do our actions so often not correspond to the reality established in Who’s we are and who we are at the core of our being?

Why is it that when we see ourselves living contrary to the nature of who God is, that we resort to what we still think is our default position and try to “be” more patient, loving, kind etc. as if it is something we can produce by trying harder?

Is it possible that our loving heavenly Father is dealing, going the distance, deeply infiltrating us, and going to the depth of the ingrained habitual sin habit pattern that has tried to define who we are?

What a wonder-struck sense awaits us as he continues to open the eyes of our heart to see, know that the Law of the spirit of Life has freed us from the gravitational pull of sin and death.
His nature is not an add-on, it IS! The works of the flesh ARE! The fruit of the spirit IS!

This is so much more than mere semantics, remember, it’s a revelation not a seminar. Much like the difference between “like verses as,” are we to “be Christ like, or AS Christ?”
It is so easy to settle for a facsimile (a form of godliness) rather than Christ living in us as us.

This IS everlasting Life that you know ME!

Rich

The Pattern

In being moved further into the Father’s ultimate intention/purpose (fullness of stature) for our lives, is it going to unfold apart from continuing to journey through His “maze of grace?”
What might at best appear to be to some, nothing more than wandering aimlessly or casually without an urgent destination in being called unto Him, a meandering, is in fact something far more to those who see His divine pattern!

I look to and trust the Father regarding the spirit, attitude and intention of my heart in sharing these and following thoughts that they will point you to His longing He has imprinted within your very being, to fully engage in your “birth-right.”

This is a no brainer but without continued revelation from the Father, at best we have established a knowing of the right “Christian” wording-speak, a great outer form, but NO inner substance! Ergo, how easy it is to drift into settling for but a form of godliness, lacking any true power.

“Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; the people are unrestrained, all cohesiveness ceases to hold them together.”
“Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”
Everything within the Scriptures has been written for us, but not TO us, here in lies the absolute necessity to ‘rightly divide the word of truth.’ So that we might not read someone else’s mail, discerning the Truth written to an earthly people verses to us, His heavenly people.
Please remember this has nothing to do with ones adequate or inadequate intellect, it’s a revelation, not a seminar!

During more than four hundred years as strangers in a strange land, the family of Jacob increased into a multitude of people. At first they enjoyed privileges in Egypt, but after Joseph’s time they came to suffering and severe oppression.
Yet most tragic of all is that during these long years in Egypt, Israel lost all divine destiny and purpose. The vision-perspective which passed from Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob had long since faded. Now in their hour of affliction they cried for just one thing: to be relieved from the galling yoke. How conveniently this served God’s plan. He had waited for this hour in order to bring Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land where He would in due time accomplish His full intention through them.
It is my opinion based upon what Father has shown me, that Israel was and is no different than us today in this respect, in being set free from Egypt’s cruelty (sin) they basically wanted to live for/unto themselves. “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.”

To settle for anything less than being brought into the fullness of the stature of Christ Jesus is to spell sooner or later an eroding famine and emptiness gnawing at our impoverished soul.
What is more tragic than to see individuals who are placed here by God to fulfill some unique and glorious destiny, still wandering aimlessly with no awakened sense of divine destiny?
I think the motto for much/most of Christendom would be as follows, “They do not know where they are going, but they are certainly on their way.”
Is our perspective/vision of God the Father likened to this? Is He seen like a sculptor who after hacking and cutting away at a block of marble all day was asked: “what are you making?”
He said, “I really don’t know. I have not seen the plan!” No wonder he was bored, frustrated and the day was filled with emptiness.

There is so much more I intend to write about regarding our Divine Purpose-Destiny, but later.

Rich

It’s a Heart Thing

It is most fascinating how we can keep going through the religious motions of trying to interact with the Father and yet having buried in our heart, attitudes and motives that have in fact cut us off from any real heart to heart intimacy. The kicker is that many have blindly believed that now being out side the religious box’s they use to be caged in, are or have become exempt from their hearts (motives and attitudes) being scanned, sifted, and examined.
The religious motions I’m referring to here are those things done without our heart’s being fully engaged with the Father of our spirit.

Jesus was but eight days old when the following was said loud and clear by Simeon, “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child is appointed forth fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed-- and a sword will pierce even your own soul--to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."
Later Jesus asked this question, “And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?”

A good friend and brother has been visiting with me since last Wednesday, he lives in Nova Scotia with his wife and two sons, he came here to see me but also to have some counseling done regarding some very unpleasant disturbances within his marriage. The counseling is being done with friends of his wife. Funny how it took coming all the way to Ontario rather than simply finding someone right there in his immediate area. I think i hear Papa saying, obedience is better than going through the religious motions.

My brother has been and continues to be crushed since 1998. As we have been able to spend large amounts of time together Papa is doing what He does best, revealing, exposing the lies we had falsely embraced instead of the truth.
In agreement with what my friend said this morning in our sharing, Father has gotten to the root of a huge issue in his life, the domino affect of this deeply embedded house of lies is coming down much faster than it took to go up.

This bears repeating, at the very core of our person, within our spiritual DNA I believe Papa has etched into us a God desire to Know Him, this desire unfortunately like everything else can become nothing more than agreed upon facts, but without revelation, it simply adds additional weight to already being greatly encumbered.
None of the evil, hurt, darkness, crushing’s were of the Father’s doing in my brother’s life, but they were and are being used to answer the cry of his heart.
It’s as plain as this, “Son, I thought you said you wanted to KNOW me?”
Without becoming established in the true living knowledge of Papa’s unconditional love, these unplanned and unwanted pain filled encounters will successfully assist in making us casualties of a very real war we are in until we go to be with Him.

This morning Papa was making known to my brother Ron, that he was fully aware of the weight and intensity of all that was going down upon his life, and yes he was fully capable of stopping it, but was in fact using compounded times of being deliberately ripped off, suffering loss for ONE reason. To know Him, the Father of his spirit!
My brother like every "Christian” out there all know so very much, but at a heart level, in many cases totally disconnected with the flow of life that proceeds from the Father.

As Christ was totally identified with man in becoming fully man, we now are having the choice set before us to be fully identified with Christ Jesus.
There is NO way of the living reality of truly knowing this One who says He is the only life of the believer apart from being subjected to the cruel unfair, heartless, death blows of life’s dealings. It is within this torturous furnace of affliction we are being exposed to what True love and grace and forgiveness is all about. We are being identified fully with and in Him.

It is and will be but a cheap substitute in not being fully identified with Christ offering mere placebos to those like wise being tormented and crushed in daily living. Without being deeply established in the true knowledge of Papa’s love, we will but bull shit others instead of being loving living examples of His grace, love and forgiveness.
My dear brother is being awakened to the reality of all this torturous seemingly unnecessary inflicted pain, was most necessary for Christ to live in him, through him, as him!

We would see Jesus!

Rich

Seeing Him

The picture I’ve chosen here spoke so loudly of this One who seems to be so silent, at least to the natural senses.
Many different times I have pondered on these Scriptures; “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”
Of course this is speaking of Moses, and yes this is a pre-Christ in you picture, and yet this man was able to endure, to persevere, being steadfast all coming out of this invisible One. Wow!

Another passage of Scripture Father spoke through long before I even began to see Him in me as me was this; “I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone."

Once again Papa is making it known to me that if there is anything but Him as my focal point of reference, I will be walking in my own light, and ever so subtly being drawn into having twisted within me a form of godliness, but having NO power.
It is the easiest thing in the world to do being a follower of Christ to settle for anything less than Knowing Him and all that that encompasses.
Like Moses I choose to go outside the camp in order to know Him as my ALL!

Going back to the picture I choose for this entry was this quote from Mark Twain attached to the picture; “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
In my deafness and blindness I am trusting in the visible audible One, although invisible and seemingly mute to the naturally minded man, I am experiencing His kindness.

What joy fills my heart realizing that this loving caring Father is making the impossible possible, slowly but truly transforming me into one who is child like, one who is able to see and hear and enter into all that is barred from those ruled by their wits. And yet I hear the laughter the sounds of freedom filling my inner senses knowing so many more of my siblings are discovering the portal of His grace!

Therefore, continue to grow in the grace and true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rich

Itching Ears

In many different places within the scriptures it speaks of Jesus speaking with authority, and that was witnessed by those very familiar with promised words void and empty of any true substance or authority.

So many crave a gospel that comfortably fits in well with their life style, just take a look around, that ‘met’ need is being offered on every street corner.
I love what Wayne Jacobsen says here from The Naked Church; “In a word, kingship leads to exploitation, even if those involved don’t intend to do so. It stifles the growth of hungry believers and it alienates the world from hearing the gospel.
Nothing has turned off this generation more than people who use Christianity to play political power games for the exaltation of their own ego and charge the poor for it.”

We who have believed that the role/office of the prophet was in tact have refused to let them face us with our own nakedness. “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” (Isaiah 30:10-11).

Doesn’t this ring a familiar bell in Paul’s warning to the church; “For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, And will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions.”

“Humanity has never regarded truth itself that valuable-only an illusion of truth that leads to personal ease.”

As we the church are coming awake to His life in us, and learning that we can indeed live out of/from, every word that comes from the Father’s mouth, He is establishing in the earth words/lives of authority that are being heard through the voices of those once gagged and muted by the cheap tricks of the father of lies.

In sharing with my brother Dave this morning, I jumped for joy in hearing how Father met him and set him free. He was reading an email from a friend he has stayed in touch with over the years. The email was heavily laced in such oppressing and fear filled words. Dave said at first he was simply going to delete the email, but decided to respond. In speaking the truth to his friend, suddenly the Truth, Christ in Dave was unexpectedly speaking to him, and in hearing these words of authority, the lies that had been binding in his own life lost their death grip on him.
In following Him, we experience the truth, and the Truth makes/sets us FREE.

It’s not a seminar, it’s a revelation!

Rich

Lifeless Protocol

I’m sure that might have been one of the many thoughts (religious nut case) crashing into the world of those who were making a huge profit by merchandising the souls of the people in the following account:
In the Gospel of John chapter 2 it talks about several things, but the one I’m focusing on is the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem.
After this cleansing Jesus said; "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business."

Jesus is then challenged by these religious mercenaries; “The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body.”

I would love to hear any feed back on what others might see in what I’m processing here.

As I am continuing to read, The Naked Church by Wayne Jacobsen, I came upon this. “But his words of destruction (regarding the temple) were still directed at the physical building in which he stood. For the temple was more than just a misused place of worship; it was the heart of a theological system unworthy of the new covenant which Jesus had come to inaugurate. The temple represented God in a box, neatly packaged and removed from the mainstream of human experience. This is not what God intended when he gave Moses plans for the tabernacle. He wanted them to know that he lived among his people. Jesus now wanted them to know that God had come to live in them.

So he challenged them to destroy the temple-if not the building itself, then at least what it had come to convey.”

I know our battle, warfare is NOT with flesh and blood, and so what is the Father wanting to establish if it’s not just another religion called, “Christianity”.
I am inclined to believe that from the fall in the garden, what was established as a substitute for relationship with God the Father was ‘religion’, and this all came to be through the father of lies-religion. What we have at best apart from Christ in us as us, is a form of godliness with NO power!
Religion at its best has always devolved into trying to reduce and keep God in a box.
The spirit of religion is infused with the very spirit of the father of lies, and as Jesus said, it takes only a little leaven to totally corrupt everything.

I see as a result of the Truth, Christ in us, making the life of the Father real in us, the church which IS His body, the visibility and clarity that is beginning to permeate us, is drawing a sharp and vivid distinction between a lifeless theological system and that which is vibrantly alive.
Earlier in this entry, I quoted the following: "The temple represented God in a box, neatly packaged and removed from the mainstream of human experience." The modern institutional church is no different from the ancient temple in that it has given rise to ‘God in a box’ religion. This religion is trying to usurp the rightful place of the Father of our spirit being the only one we are to answer to. In temple times, people could not come to God Himself. They had to worm their way through protocol. All that ‘protocol’ has been removed in the finished work of God for the believer.

It was for freedom you were set free, therefore, stand fast in your freedom, and no longer allow yourself to be enslaved by any religious oppression.

Rich

Additional thoughts from The Naked Church.

"Do you see why Jesus was so passionate that morning at the temple? If he couldn't break the mentality of God-in-a-box, he couldn't inhabit their lives, which is exactly what he wanted to do. This is true spirituality, the transcendent God living in us, involved in our affairs and leading us to an abundant life in his love."

"The thought of being a temple of the Lord, Paul said, makes everything else in this life look like the rubbish it is. His ultimate passion was to know Jesus in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. Who in his right mind would not want to live every moment to the will of God?
His desires for us are "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine." (Ephesians 3:20)

Close and Yet Separated

My wife has been watching the Olympics. Yesterday, a remarkable surprise occurred in the women’s individual medley. An American woman was heavily favoured to win, and although it was close, she was in the lead right up to the very end – but she made a fatal error. She touched with the flat of her hand instead of her fingertips, and that 7/100 of a second meant the difference between gold and silver (close but not close enough).

Isn’t it remarkable when you consider particularly from a religious mind set, how two of the greatest figures, Moses and Elijah, from the Old Testament hall of fame, as close as they were to God, there remained yet a distance between them and God. These two men could not yet fully stand in the presence of God because they did not at that time have the right life to do so. By the way, I fully believe that they now have that right life.The closest position made available before the fully processed life of Christ as Jesus was either as a servant, or one step up, a friend.I know personally how often I wished if only I could be a “David or Moses or Elijah,’ not knowing that within me was the only life-nature (totally pleasing and acceptable) available, and along with that, a status no other position could compare with.

The point is that no amount of doing can earn us a place in the Father’s presence. This includes great and miraculous doing that is in obedience to the Father’s will. There is no kind of doing that can win us a place in the Father’s household because no amount of doing can make God “Father” to us.

Relationship with the Father is an issue of life and nothing but life. This is why when God moves it is always His place to take the first step: (Romans 5:8). When the Father made His greatest commitment to humanity there was no question of any action being required on our part. When Christ died for us we didn’t even understand what was going on so action on our part was totally out of the question.

In being brought to see with ever greater clarity that our only Life is Christ, then why are we trying to be ‘like’ Christ verses, ‘as’ Christ? By surrendering to the nature-life of the Father in us, is this a ‘work’ we’re doing or is it a choice totally available to us, trusting Him to fully form his Son in us as us?
Paul clearly establishes this thought from (Romans 5:9-11): "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin's dominion) through His resurrection] life."

Isn’t it but a moment by moment trusting, surrendering (choice) to our Father the author of the real life in us which was initiated by our Father, verses through the energy of our fleshly desires to produce ‘Christ likeness’? Is being close (having a form of Godliness) what we want, or is it the longing of our heart to have Christ fully formed in us?

Rich