Truth In The Inward Parts

Jesus enters with us into a kind of marriage relationship, and our earthly marriages are comparable to this spiritual union with Christ. This is why it's so essential for believers to try to salvage and work through problems in our marriages. We usually enter into matrimony wide-eyed, dreamy and full of hopes for the future. We gaze at each other and see mirrored in each other's eyes mutual wonder and admiration, but sooner or later we are faced with a dilemma – the faults and foibles that we have hidden so well inevitably become visible to our mate. Nobody likes to see what we like to keep hidden reflected in the eyes of a loved one, especially when s/he keeps bringing it up, exposing it to the light of scrutiny. Whatever happened to that gaga, blissful, you-can-do-no-wrong ideal of the honeymoon? In the harsh light of marriage, we are laid bare in the Petri dish of life, and our self-centered attitudes and childishness become evident. How do we behave in the nasty now-and-now of daily matrimonial humdrum, such as when we have to take out the garbage, clean up someone else's mess, take care of kids when we'd rather be doing something else, etc. etc. Many people these days want to walk away from their marriage when things just get too tough or irksome. Yet these are the very floodlights the Father chooses to expose the sin in our soul.

And, similar to a marriage relationship is our first encounter with the living Christ. We look into each other's eyes, as it were, and see reflected passionate, adoring love. As time goes on, however, we become aware that Jesus can see the perversion of our hearts, and we don't like that! We try to hide or even run away from his all-seeing gaze. We may become so uncomfortable with our soul's perversions being made bare and brought to the surface that we 'divorce' Him, rather than acknowledge that by Jesus exposing our hearts is the only way He can heal us. Remember He is revealing to heal us!

And the Lord is relentless in bringing our sin to the surface (please remember anything that is not of faith is sin). It's like a band-aid covering a wound. When it's time to remove the band-aid, Jesus doesn't pamper us by gently lifting the edge, asking permission to continue: "Oh, is that too uncomfortable? Okay – we'll try again another day". Instead, he rips that band-aid off, regardless of our howls of protest! Marriage is not supposed to be for hurting, but for healing…but first we have to learn to work through the hurting before we can access the healing. If both partners are willing, a marriage relationship is the perfect crucible for the Father of our spirit to be able to demolish, tear down, pluck up and uproot all that is contrary to Whose we are.

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

Failing the Vision Test

I want to point anyone interested in reading something I read over at Ruth's blog, "Come Away My Beloved" it is just too good to pass up!

Rich

Don’t Sweat It

If you cannot accept the simple fact that you are God’s child by birth then the promises of the Bible will not be terribly effective in your trails. Many Christians shake verses like the one from 1John 4:4; (“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world).” at Satan in the same way a medicine man shakes a rattle to scare away the evil spirits. The energizing of the effectiveness of God’s promises and truth come only by faith. Our faith must come by Christ Jesus (see Hebrews 12:2). We cannot work up faith out of our own strength.

The wonder of the Father’s love sets into motion the beginnings of a knowing, that we do not have to work anything up.The truth of this, (His) unconditional love is what begins to address/undress our former mis/understandings and further frees us in a loving surrender to the Truth of His Way and Life.

Rich

Without Faith

"It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him" (out).

In our semi regular getaway on the weekend which happened today, my wife and I have a wonderful time of connecting without the usual work related distractions and most often we are able to listen to the current pod cast with Wayne and Brad from the God Journey.
In our time of listening and thinking, my wife asked the question regarding the love of God. If God so loves, then why when a person is/seems to be so committed to following Him are there so many incongruent and contradictory pain filled happenings that leave a person stymied?

Could it be that even though the miracle of the re-birthing has happened in a persons life, they might still be operating with the currency of this world, aka, performance based behaviour-acceptance?
One of the reasons I harp on the ‘unconditional’ love of God is to illustrate the stark contrast between acceptance based upon how well I am doing, trying to please Him, verses being totally embraced-accepted because He loves me period.

Could it be that at best apart from God the Father opening up the eyes of our heart to see how He defines Love, we will predictably end up very frustrated and down right livid at Him for not loving us and looking after us.

Rich