A Change Of Scenery

I’m all for taking a break, a change of scenery, having a holiday, speaking of which I am enjoying right now, the first of mine this year. But is it my change of scenery as in changing my circumstances that is needed as good as that can be to be able to see things with greater clarity, moving out of the blurred zone to become more Zen like?

Or is it a change of heart, you know, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. I’m slowly discovering that when His unconditional love reaches me deep inside and how the fears that have so distorted my outlook are seen for what they are, mere lies, it is a mind blower to see, discover His present and committed involvement in my day to day living.

I was sharing with a friend that has come to spend a couple of days with me on my first week of holidays how Father has arranged appointed times and seasons for all things, a door opens, and a door closes.
God is the one who closes doors no one can open, as well as opens doors that no one can close, and I’m discovering that going through these opened doors, new seasons have all been prepared in advance by Him.

Once again coming back to the necessity of a changed heart verses a change in my circumstances is to be able to embrace this new season only because of the deep assurance of being loved by the Father.
His love opens the eyes of our heart to see such incredible opportunities where as before the heart change, it appeared to be a much more confining and restrictive prison.

I think I’m going to spend some time soaking up the Son, learning every chance I have what it means to live loved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNiIIvlnbOY

Rich

Grace

I was pondering on something the other day that I haven’t been able to write much of anything of real heart importance, and was simply musing upon that when He subtly but powerfully invaded my thoughts.

The reason for your malady son, is only because I am taking you through what you need to face, experience, go through, and in going through your daily routines, I am writing my life into you whereby you will be my living bill-board, and out of what I am writing into you, you will indeed write about it!

“Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.
We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!”


His grace much like the chemical solutions used in the photographers dark room being applied to the cameras film, releases, brings to observable recognition that which was already there but hidden from sight.
His grace is to exalt only One, His son Jesus Christ the word made flesh and who IS being fleshed out once again in many forth coming sons.
Therefore I look unto the author and developer of my faith as he has my permission to submerge me over and over into the depths of His grace to bring forth Christ in me as me to this world!

Abba, Father!

Rich

Hinges

We’ve all heard statements such as. “So much hinges on what s/he will do with the latest information.” Or, “It all hinges upon whether or not s/he will follow through.”

Big and small doors swing open and close on things that we pay so very little attention to, hinges, but without they’re being aligned and positioned specifically in their designated locations, what normally is an effortless action in opening or closing a door would become most arduous.

I liked this from Oz Chambers this morning: “God's command is - Take now, not presently. It is extraordinary how we debate! We know a thing is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it at once. To climb to the height God shows can never be done presently, it must be done now. The sacrifice is gone through in will before it is performed actually.”

It was this thought that triggered what I want to try and share here. For a more beautiful and fuller understanding of this story please read the following.
Within these verses one in particular resonates within my spirit; “Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."
Reading this word “worship” this morning fills me with wonder, awe, causing my heart to bow afresh in light of what He is calling me to, to KNOW Him, to be fully identified with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings, to be intimately acquainted entwined, to be conformed/transformed as a result of being married/joined to this Holy God, my Father.
Oh Abba, Papa, Father, my heart cries out to you, your kisses are sweeter than wine, the body without the spirit is dead, Father I am dead without knowing You, you are my Life, even so Papa, COME!

In the story of Abraham and his son Isaac so much hinged upon what Abraham was going to do in light of what Father had spoken to him regarding sacrificing his son.
Like wise in our lives, only because of His grace, let’s make this very clear, it’s grace, that we can avail ourselves of, that becomes those hinges that will either open or close doors in our following Him alone.

I am being constantly reminded by my Father that in the seemingly mundane and meaningless things of every day living He is there, he provides opportunities to worship Him, and He is pointing things out to me to do, picking things up, cleaning this or that, writing this letter, doing the dishes, making my bed, vacuuming, shinning my shoes, taking my dog for his delightful romp, etc, etc. and in simply being obedient in these simple little things, a whole universe of wonder opens before my eyes, discovering a meeting place within these very things with Him.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Rich

Seeing is, Believing

Seeing the world through the eyes of others.

The caption under the picture I chose for here was, “You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can encourage others.”

One theme I am permanently stuck in and trust I will never get out of is, the “unconditional love” of God the Father!
The main reason I redundantly use the prefix of ‘unconditional’ with regards to Love, is because at best the only so called love any of us have ever experienced is about performing measuring up, ergo if it is sufficient, we will then ‘be loved.’ Interestingly Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Only in seeing, knowing, experiencing this unconditional love will we ever discover the ability to move away from what is nailed down, obvious, and secure and walk out into the desert without rational explanations to justify our decisions or to guarantee our future.
The journey of faith across the chasm between knowledge and experience is what is calling out to us from within the Father’s unconditional love for us. We prefer to read the map rather than visit the place. The specter of our actual unbelief persuades us that it is not the experience that is real but our explanation of the experience. Often it’s our beliefs—which William Blake called “the mind-forged manacle”—distances us from the grip of personal experience.

Unlike the children of Israel being lead out of Egypt’s bondage, we are being lead out from something far more insidious, Adam.
We are either still in the first Adam, or in the last Adam-Christ. If any man be in Christ he is a whole new creation, the old has passed away and all things have become new.
It says that the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not SEE.
The Father’s intention is to open our blinded eyes causing us to see, and in seeing, we experientially enter into that which He has prepared for us.

Becoming rooted, grounded, founded and established in the truth of the Father’s unconditional love is going to encompass a life time. It is the Father’s good intention to press into our hearts a living knowing, that we ARE Loved!
Jesus, as the revealer of the Godhead, defines God as love. In light of this revelation, we have to abandon the cankerous, worm-eaten structure of legalism, moralism, and perfectionism that corrupts the Good News into an ethical code rather than a love affair.

We have the choice set before us to either keep believing in the distorted, disfigured, unpredictable mean God, the god of this world, (Satan) has and keeps before us or, we can allow ourselves to be fully, lovingly embraced by the God and Father that Jesus came to reveal.

Rich

The Language of Abstraction

In continuing to read further, The Naked Church, Wayne Jacobsen uses a word I was unfamiliar with, ‘abstraction,’ “Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification, wherein formerly concrete details are left ambiguous, vague, or undefined; thus effective communication about things in the abstract requires an intuitive or common experience between the communicator and the communication recipient.”

What comes to mind in understanding the definition of this word is what Paul said here, “The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.”

My question; is it any wonder why ‘Christianity’ is seen as a relic, dinosaur, lifeless, fetish used by some to invoke this mystical deity to save them from having to face the realities of every day living?

I use to like the commercial that came on a while back (it’s not on anymore) for a soft drink, the motto was, “Taste is everything, and image is nothing.”
The Father has never used or operated in using the language of ‘abstraction,’ to my way of thinking the language He speaks is an inner intuitive knowing, an innate recognition, ‘This is my Father’s (thoughts) voice.’

There is so much His children are in the process of discovering. I use to hate it every time my former pastor would say, ‘be patient with us in leadership, as we are on a huge learning curve.’ Again, I mean no disrespect, but this usually meant more academia on top of already piled high spiritual abstractions.

How is it possible for us alive in this hour to become as Jesus said 2,000 years ago, “I will make you witnesses unto me” if he is no longer here with us? Or is He?
Indeed he is here in us as us, but that in my opinion has become another religious abstraction, the ‘right’ form-terminology, but no substance, because of the blindness of our inner eyes.
There is a most wonderful illustration in the Old Testament in Amos 8:10-12; "Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD. "People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, But they will not find it.”

I see this being the norm within the ranks of Christianity viewed through the language of abstraction. As it were an imprinting that is still resident within all flesh, yes that means even in yours and mine, brother, where we have been lied to in thinking there is no way of knowing for sure the heart and mind of the Father without consulting the ‘anointed ones’ that have special revelation and insight into this at best ambitious abstraction called, ‘The Good News.!

I join with the same spirit of the Father that has been very much alive from the very beginning when He poured out the promise of the Father, His spirit into lifeless needy flesh and blood people, and as this glorious God, King, Lord and Father began to make himself real, things such as this were launched likened to heat seeking guided missiles to the Father Himself.

Even so, Lord come!

Rich

I love how our Father is lovingly persistent in wanting to establish us, rooting us in the fullness of His love. This piece from Norman Grubb, entitled "Life's Supreme Secret" is so encouraging to me in light of the thoughts I have shared above.

Eyes to See

One of the expressions of His spirit that continues to chaff, rub me is found in the heart cry of one of our brother’s, Paul, his imploring our Father to open the eyes of our hearts, to SEE!

I want to share a glimpse of what my heavenly Papa is doing, this is a email from my precious daughter who was back home with us for a brief time before starting back into her University schedule.

“What a joy it was to be home, what a sad day to return to reality!
This time was special. It seems as though you two have cleared acres and acres of mental and spiritual space in yourselves and it permeates the space of your house, and it is wonderful to be in. So wonderful, a long-held childhood wish come true. Things aren't supposed to work out so wonderfully.
Money means nothing to me (well, a little bit) but family means EVERYTHING.
With all my heart,
your daughter.”

Out of my death, dying to all that would try to keep me a prisoner to my past failures, that which is in my now moments of focusing on what I think I am seeing, He bids me to come, but come where?

In sharing with my wife this morning as she was getting ready for work, we were discussing recent events with our children, and I was doing what I do best, thinking out loud. As I was unfolding what came to me, I sensed Papa interrupting my line of thinking, the nerve eh?
It was as if he was saying, “You think that is a wild imagination you have regarding your children, well get ready to be blown out of the Water, you haven’t seen anything yet, you are being taught to live in and on the wild side of things, and that is where I live.”

In sharing this morning with my wonderful friend and Brother Dave, these thoughts came to me as I was sharing them with him, realizing he in fact, Papa might just be saying this to Rich.

“I am beginning to believe it is in the spirit realm where our true identity abides in Him through our spirit union, He brings us to see the Truth verses what we think is real about Him, us and those around us, and I also believe in this realm of living that Papa is wanting us to accept this as the norm, this is where we will be instructed of His will, purposes etc. for our lives as well as those he wants to reveal Himself to.
I know this sounds way out there and it is to our soulish thinking, but He has invited us into His world, and as the eyes of our heart are opened more and more, what he has prepared for us is no longer seen as wild thinking, but knowing what He says IS fully possible.”

Rich

You Are My Longing

There is so much brewing in my heart at this late hour, well late for me that is.
Normally I would hopefully be fast asleep by now, but I am just finishing up my third week of holidays. Preceding that I have been off for five weeks with a torn ligament in my right knee.

I really am glad I do not know or am I trying to figure anything out regarding the wonderful disturbance Papa is doing one more time within me. He and I have weathered so many storms, always He is there much like me tonight being with my terrified Bearded Collie at my feet. He is terrorized by the sound of thunder, so I am comforting him with Papa’s love as I type and muse.
All I need in my storms is His assurance, “It is I,” and just like my precious pouch tonight, I will lay my head down later knowing He is perfectly bringing forth His son in me.

One of the things that has deeply stirred me today is in reading what free spirit shared here, Aint It Just Like a Kid.
Those who may be reading here, I encourage you to look at the Father’s heart expressing itself through what she wrote in response to a comment I left on her blog. Even as I write this my eyes well up with tears knowing it is Him wanting to bring us to place in Him where we know we are His, now and forever, no matter what we have yet to face!

I too join with our dear brother Paul and cry out, shout out to OUR Father, that he would give to each of His children a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the true knowledge of Him who has called us to Be His, that our inner most being would be saturated with this inner knowing of Who’s we are, and how smitten He is, over taken with rapturous joy with each of us.

What sounds, what sights are waiting our discovery as He makes known the depths of His heart for you, me.
I was doing some research today on cicadas and in the process found myself over whelmed once again by accident in discovering His delight in delighting me as I slowly step out and explore his handiwork.
I discovered there are more than 2,500 different kinds of cicadas and some that have yet to be identified. Of all the insects of the world, these are able to emit some of the loudest sounds known. Also there are some who emit a sound, a frequency so high pitched no human is able to detect it.

What became clearer to me is, so much that is within His heart for me is waiting yet to be made know. As I said, there are sights and sounds I am blind and deaf to regarding His intense love, but I know he refuses to let go of me. Somehow in the deep places within me, I sense Him saying, ‘Son, you bless me so’.

There is a pleasure that each of us uniquely bring to Him, he so longs for our interacting with him in and with all that touches our lives. He became fully human so that we might be able to fully relate to a God and friend now abiding in us as His house.

I eagerly look forward to discover all that Papa has hidden for me and my siblings, the best is yet to be.

Rich

Shut Up

A memory was brought to mind this morning. Thinking back on it, it seems so very long ago, and yet it is as current as today, the healing touch of the Father’s hands pressing upon eyes that are barely able to see.
Oh the wonder of this one, this King, Lord, and yet He alone has birthed by His spirit a cry from within the depths of my being, Abba-Papa!

The memory was maybe twenty five years ago, I was sitting in the Devonshire Mall in Windsor Ontario, I had done some shopping or had seen a movie, that is still a bit foggy right now, but anyway there I was sitting waiting for my precious wife to show up at the place we’d designated to meet.
While sitting there (trying to be patient) somehow over the mall din this faint but persistent noise attached itself to my hearing. Tap, tap, tap, tap, what the heck was this? I soon discovered it was the sound of a blind man walking around through the maze of this congested mall and the cane he was using was doing the tap dance sound effects I was hearing.
I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought at that moment until several minutes later, here comes that same knowable sound of, tap, tap, tap. What the????
Sure enough it’s the blind man once again, only this time it was different, suddenly I am aware of my Father asking me a question about this enigma. “Son, who is blinder than a blind man?” to which I stood mute within my heart, thinking, you got me on this one, Papa. He then spoke these words/thoughts into my heart, “Only a man who has eyes to see and yet cannot see is one who is blinder than a blind man.”

Who you calling blind - me? Yup! I was there with my pants down around my ankles on this one, but the funny thing about it all was that I was not being condemned, but enlightened and awakened to a much greater reality of knowing Him then I presently thought I had.
My Papa has been and is continually working on my blindness to this day, and my hope is He will never stop. Oh how I long to see with ever greater clarity!

So why have I entitled this blog piece, “Shut Up?” Well this talking of blindness also triggered thoughts about the blind man called Bartimaeus.

"Then they came to Jericho And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him here." So they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take courage, and stand up! He is calling for you." Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him, Jesus said, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And the blind man said to Him, "[Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!" And Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road."

Funny how so many voices, at least in my life, have been telling me to shut up over the years, just as in blind Bart’s life, only to discover that although blind at the time, there was awakened within him a consciousness, a knowing, that Light was about to put out the fear of darkness that kept him and me crippled.
One of the greatest helps to me in seeing things in sharper focus is what I call, ‘thinking out loud.’ It is in putting thoughts, ideas, ponderings out in the visible, audible realm where I can hear myself think, and more often than not without any fanfare there comes such breath-taking epiphanies.

Religion is a static, fossilized, imprisonment, it allows no movement outside the lines/box, and when someone as in my case, me, begins to dare to think out loud, attracts the attention of those bound up in fear and lash out with all kinds of unfounded accusations.
What are you saying, Bro, are you trying to add or take away from the Holy Scriptures etc., etc? To my surprise I hear myself responding, “Nope, I’m merely asking more questions and wanting to see how He is fitting all things together.’

Bottom line, I refuse to ever shut up. Somehow this God and Father that has called me to Himself seems to delight in my stubborn persistence of wanting to know Him more than merely blending in with the darkness.

Rich