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?

Is Being His Enough

In listening to the recent pod cast on the God Journey-“Thoughts on Structure” I was jerked up straight when I heard Wayne saying to a couple of folks he was recently with, even though you are not wearing the official badge of being a “pastor” you are pastoring these people you are engaged with.

Look, let’s cut to the chase okay, what the hell does having an official or unofficial name-title have to do with being His?
The pastoring, equipping that is being done in the church which IS His body, is being done in and through us (that’s you and me) as us.
I’m convinced it’s only because of not knowing whose we are that we need someone to confirm to us by saying stuff like this that we are pastoring, equipping the saints even though we wear no official name tag.

Folks it’s the gifted One in us as us that is doing this miraculous further transforming work of grace in each of our lives.
Is He not fully able to touch, impact, arrest, and get their attention through you, through me as you, as me?

I love what Paul has to say, “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

In another translation it says of the Christ, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”

More and more I am wondering if Jesus just might have known what he meant when he said, “He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.”

Folks I want to say this as lovingly and truthfully as I know how, it’s NOT a seminar, it’s a revelation of Whose we are, and only He is able to make that yours personally!

The reality of His life this new wine is that which is wanting to transform us fully into His likeness and image, spirit, soul and body from the inside out, and in the process of being processed folks will be drawn to Christ in us as us, without any official or unofficial tags or titles except for BEING His!

Rich

My Father’s Voice

This is a repost from last year that spoke to my heart in light of His growing intense fondness of the one He chose to call Richard.



The entrance into the Kingdom (or the Kingdoms entrance into you) is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man's respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life.

The above quote is from Oz Chambers.

I woke up this morning with the clear and distinctive sound of my Father's voice saying to me, 'Why do you call me good?' I believe this was Him wanting to further illuminate what I had been pondering on from Oz's quote, and how it was used to speak so deeply to me.
You can read the full account of this (in the bible) dialogue between Jesus and the young rich ruler who came to Jesus and asked the quintessential question, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life"? Then Jesus says, "Why do you call me good?" Following this it gets real dicey.

I do not see God the Father coming to lost humanity and saying to those like this young rich ruler, you've managed your life well, and have such admirable and sought after qualities, I'm going to now simply add (grant you your one wish) Me to all of that which has been working so well for you in your life~ha!

I think what Oz says in his quote is most fitting in this unfolding drama, not just with this so called self-made, self-righteous young man but of all humanity.
It is my understanding that this fallen world system, aka, the Matrix is something that far surpasses any form or flavour of religion, but in fact has become a diabolical woven scheme that has all of us firmly believing, we're doing our own thing, living our life. It is the only reality any of us have ever known, and that reality has so tainted, so warped our perception, that apart from the normalcy of who God the Father is, and experiencing His love, no one will convince us that what we are seeing, experience is anything but real.

Maybe David was seeing and coming into a dimension of reality that seems to fly way beyond any radar detection?
From one of the illuminating times in his journey he said, "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part you shall make me to know wisdom.
I love this saying, "Nothing is as it appears to be".

Was it as Oz said, the Holy Spirit being responsible for these crashing panging pains that were hidden as it were from this noble pursuer of exemplary living that were soon to go off in his life as if stepping on a land mine?
I do not know how any of us can begin to understand this God of love when its through such devastation that He brings into our lives. Yes devastation, why, because we have only known a false reality, a lie that has defined who we think we are.
Again as Oz says, this most needed and necessary crashing intrusion into our lives is the preliminary steps our Father takes in "forming the life of His son in us".
Those whom He foreknew, he predestined them to BE conformed into His likeness and image.

I trust this will be something from His heart to mine, to you that will provoke you to think way beyond what we think is the norm.

Rich