Forgetting To Be Normal

I'm re-posting this blog entry as it continues to speak so deeply to me, as in, "what really is normal anyway."

The following is what came to mind in responding to a friend, Mike Rule.

I like what you said here: “If I am brutally honest, so do I - at least at the fleshly level. I wish we could all be honest about it, what this death of self life is really like. It gets glamorized somehow, like it is a badge to wear... but I'll be the first to say, it sucks too.”

My wife and I were talking about something very similar the other day coming back from a follow-up consultation about an MRI I had. We had just listened to the latest God Journey podcast featuring Wayne and Brad entitled, ‘Fragrance of the Father’, and it stirred up so many things, for example life’s hurts, pains, disappointments to name but a few. We are still processing it all.

We are beginning to see that we all, for the most part, live (according to us) a pretty mundane, monotonous, lackluster repetitious day in day out lifestyle. If our lives were not as bland or flavorless as they are, then how could we be attracted to the sizzle of the spectacular or sensational?
I said to my wife that we have no idea how much or little those stupendous and breathtaking ‘testimonies’ have been embellished, air-brushed, rehearsed to sell an image or an identity that most if not all of us seem to be so lacking. And yes -that reality sadly infects most believers I know!

So many, having a stirring or some inner discontent, have supposedly mistaken that for His calling to leave the mundane, ordinary, common, daily routines to become heroic, go for broke, press the envelope, leave the pew-warming to the nominal luke-warm believers! Ha!!! As my wife said, maybe it was never His intention for any of this to happen. Maybe His intention was for us simply to live a very normal (super) natural life and in that context experience the reality of His love for us and accordingly, learn to deal with life’s twists and turns.

I think where so many have short-changed a loving God and Father is in not experiencing the perfection of His love right where we/they are. We end up doing stupid things and then expect God to bail us out. After all, shouldn’t He come through for us, we who have sacrificed everything to prove our loving devotion and commitment to Him? In my opinion, whether or not it’s a conscious mindset, the thinking goes something like this: He is obligated to come through for us in light of our “obedience” to His call upon our lives. He won’t let us down or disappoint us, right? After all, He’s on our side!


I am so grateful that He is able to bring forth what is the best for my life through any and all things, but in not knowing the reality of His deep, deep love for me the inner bareness of sin’s fruit, guilt and shame keep some of us obsessed with wanting to do what Peter did in the storms of life: “Lord if that is you, speak the word and I’ll come to you.” Yes, it was the Lord and Peter did walk out upon the power of that spoken Word, only to experience the power of gravity’s tentacles!
The sad thing is (as the scriptures state), later Peter ‘followed the Lord a far off’.
Performing the sensational didn’t address his inner bankruptcy, nor did it undo his fears or his pride. There was something waiting to burst upon his consciousness that would only become real to him on the other side of the sifting process God had fashioned for Peter. And the sifter had Peter’s name on it.

Rich

A Prison For Your Mind

Isn’t that what went down in the Garden, Adam choosing knowledge ahead/instead of Life?
Morpheus speaking to Neo from the movie, The Matrix; “That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch, a prison for your mind.”
Hasn’t it always been us trying to define and establish ‘what is real’ based upon that knowledge (the knowledge of good and evil) that enslaved the human race? Morpheus speaking to Neo; if real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
Morpheus further elaborates on this innate delusion we have been born into; “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”

Of late I have been pondering on this verse from the scriptures, ‘Whatever is not of faith is sin.’
Is it any wonder that in looking to God via the scriptures for example, that as long as one sees themselves as being separate from Him, they have only one out come, to continue living in fear with an impending sense of doom and judgment? Isn’t that all part of the ‘reality’ we have been born into which unfortunately continues long after being birthed of God, the dyslexic anorexia of the soul.
The painful but liberating reality that will shatter those mirrors from within that continue to haunt, shame, humiliate and imprison us, is the total unconditional love of God the Father!

Rich

Sinners, STOP IT!

In light of the thoughts I shared over here, “Morality For Christ’s Sake", I thought this video clip pretty much sums it up for what the morality gospel is doing to those nasty dirty messed up sinners out there. You know the baby killers, the gays, lesbians, and any others that just don’t fit in well with my/our code of ethics or morality!

STOP IT, just STOP IT, sinner, is that too hard for you to grasp? Right, let’s get this morality gospel into high gear, and legislate it without having any relationship with those being condemned with our self-righteous swords, hey, that reminds me of another time period, you know the “Holy Crusaders” "holy" men on a god mission to evangelize those poor backward Muslims, choose our God, or forfeit your heads! Must have sounded so inviting eh?

Like yeah, duh, sure okay, I’ll get the pretending down as good as you if you’ll just be patient with me.

Jesus said, “You clean the outside of the cup and it shines, but inwardly you are not in touch with Love-Life, but are in fact filled with death and corruption.”
There is an inner transformation that is unfolding from deep within hungry hearts, those knowing Whose they are, and in turn are treating with respect and dignity those who are wanting to know they too have untold value and worth and that isn’t contingent upon cleaning up their act first!

Rich

Unfamiliar Territory

There is an inner law working powerfully in us, the law of the spirit of Life has become our inherited DNA, because of not knowing at a foundational depth what is required, simply to continue receiving His love, we remain tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, whatever new thing that comes along, still trying to have something, someone to bring appeasement to the absent but desperately needed recognition-definition to my life that is already there, but Not recognized in Him!

This points to our introduction to the foundational truth of His love for us...”Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Unfortunately, there is an under-tow-current as well within our flesh that tries relentlessly to get us to step into its baiting, grooming bewitching pull upon our soul to once gain try and yoke us to law/s inner bondage to rules and regulations and out of fear, to keep us trapped!

The law of the spirit of Life is a living reality in us as us, but it is not as real or as familiar as the law of sin and death (the knowledge of good and evil) and its strong pull upon our soul, therefore the need to be identified with Him in His death, intimately acquainted in the 'fellowship' of His sufferings, out of this experiential union, his resurrection power frees us to live in Him..There are no short-cuts!

Rich

Devastation and Destruction

During the war, (not sure when they were first used) they dropped depth charges, to sink down to a prescribed depth to either hit directly or as close as possible the enemy ship, submarines to put them out of commission, forcing them to come to the surface where it would be far easier to engage the enemy.

I remember reading once how Jesus in his daily communicating with the twelve disciples would do something very much like what I have described here with the use of depth charges.
He knew that the disciples ability to grasp the spirit behind the words he spoke were at that time hidden from their understanding, but he also knew and relied upon the spirit of truth to bring what he had said to a head in their lives, when the timing was perfect, the right circumstances and situations lined up, much like the depth charge making contact with them and exploding from within their understanding.

If life is found not in a daily ration or an abundance of bread, then it (according to Jesus) must be found in every word that is communicated to me from the mouth of God my Father.
He is the one who said, “I will bring to your remembrance every thing I have said to you”. Isn’t it refreshing to know that I will never forget what He knows I need to be reminded of?

His word/s spoken by the Living Word that he is, is much like time release capsules one would take for a cold or the flu, a capsule of measured medication to be released within a 12 or 24 hour time period. Only in the case of our lives and the reality of what are really true verses what we have believed to be true, this time released action of the word and the spirit lining up in our lives might happen long after that word is spoken.
All I know is, it seems that there must be an inner alignment coming together because I seem to be seeing, hearing with a much greater clarity these days.

I sensed Father speaking these words to me, “You are not a failure, you are not a mistake, an accident, but you are Mine!”
I’m sure I have heard this at least once or more times since He apprehended me in 1972, but like the timing of what needed to come together in my life’s circumstances and situations, I am ready to agree with the truth of those highly explosive and destructive power filled words.
Fear has been for me in so many ways much like being a spiritual quadriplegic, well that is slowly coming to its demise.
The power of His loving assurance for me that is registering from deep within, is coming into contact with that which has so deformed and kept me a cripple.

All I can say is, He that is mighty in Love is restoring to me far more than what the liar, murderer and thief has taken from me.

Rich

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

Forgetting To Be Normal

The following is what came to mind in responding to a friend.

I like what you said here: “If I am brutally honest, so do I - at least at the fleshly level. I wish we could all be honest about it, what this death of self life is really like. It gets glamorized somehow, like it is a badge to wear... but I'll be the first to say, it sucks too.”

My wife and I were talking about something very similar the other day coming back from a follow-up consultation about an MRI I had. We had just listened to the latest God Journey podcast featuring Wayne and Brad entitled, ‘Fragrance of the Father’, and it stirred up so many things, for example life’s hurts, pains, disappointments to name but a few. We are still processing it all.

We are beginning to see that we all, for the most part, live (according to us) a pretty mundane, monotonous, lackluster repetitious day in day out lifestyle. If our lives were not as bland or flavorless as they are, then how could we be attracted to the sizzle of the spectacular or sensational?
I said to my wife that we have no idea how much or little those stupendous and breathtaking ‘testimonies’ have been embellished, air-brushed, rehearsed to sell an image or an identity that most if not all of us seem to be so lacking. And yes -that reality sadly infects most believers I know!

So many, having a stirring or some inner discontent, have supposedly mistaken that for His calling to leave the mundane, ordinary, common, daily routines to become heroic, go for broke, press the envelope, leave the pew-warming to the nominal luke-warm believers! Ha!!! As my wife said, maybe it was never His intention for any of this to happen. Maybe His intention was for us simply to live a very normal (super) natural life and in that context experience the reality of His love for us and accordingly, learn to deal with life’s twists and turns.

I think where so many have short-changed a loving God and Father is in not experiencing the perfection of His love right where we/they are. We end up doing stupid things and then expect God to bail us out. After all, shouldn’t He come through for us, we who have sacrificed everything to prove our loving devotion and commitment to Him? In my opinion, whether or not it’s a conscious mindset, the thinking goes something like this: He is obligated to come through for us in light of our “obedience” to His call upon our lives. He won’t let us down or disappoint us, right? After all, He’s on our side!

I am so grateful that He is able to bring forth what is the best for my life through any and all things, but in not knowing the reality of His deep, deep love for me the inner bareness of sin’s fruit, guilt and shame keep some of us obsessed with wanting to do what Peter did in the storms of life: “Lord if that is you, speak the word and I’ll come to you.” Yes, it was the Lord and Peter did walk out upon the power of that spoken Word, only to experience the power of gravity’s tentacles!
The sad thing is (as the scriptures state), later Peter ‘followed the Lord a far off’.
Performing the sensational didn’t address his inner bankruptcy, nor did it undo his fears or his pride. There was something waiting to burst upon his consciousness that would only become real to him on the other side of the sifting process God had fashioned for Peter. And the sifter had Peter’s name on it.

Rich

Blowing Off Steam

Yesterday afternoon while we were away after getting my third (I think it was) MRI (CT Scan) my wife and I had some time to share a lot of stuff that was building up inside in both of our lives.
It would be more than enough if I was not married and just walked out this relationship I have with Christ, but God has seen fit to bless my life with an incomparable treasure in the person of my wife. What a delight to know that marriage is for healing and not for hurting, saying that to say I love the friendship we have developed and how it continues to deepen as the years go by.
Friday afternoon was a day at least for me one that was terribly blurred, out of focus and by being free enough with one another we were each able to just blow off some much needed steam.

When awakening this morning I was very cognizant of the Lord impressing a knowing that I was to encourage my wife, but not fully realizing the extent of it until later after having breakfast with my boss how much distress she was being engulfed in.
I’m convinced that what I was able to share with my wife in encouraging her was the spill over from sharing with my boss at breakfast. Biblically my name is rooted in this verse 2Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

The power of His love for me is in a continuous deepened knowing of ‘whose’ I am, the fruit this bears in my life is a growing stability and soundness of mind that is able to motivate me to move forward in the thick of a world that increasingly is becoming so totally unstable.
It was only because of His love producing the soundness of mind in me, that I was able to see my wife move from being overwhelmed with fear and stepping out with a newly discovered confidence as I spoke words of spirit and life to here.
As the day progressed I was seeing before my eyes what the power off His love is so capable of doing!

As I continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of His great love for me, I see what Oz Chambers pointed out here today to be much more the norm for what it means to be His.
http://www.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/my_utmost/utm.cgi?0515

Rich

Designed to be Defined

The following quotes are derived from Wayne Jacobson’s latest Body Life article. You can read it here.

Was Christianity Ever Meant to Be a Religion?

“I guess all of this begs the question, did Jesus intend to start a religion called Christianity, or did we do this to ourselves? I suspect the latter. I am wholeheartedly convinced that he came to end all religions, not by lashing out against them, but by filling up in the human spirit what religion promises to fill but never can. Religion seeks to manipulate human effort to earn God’s approval, when such approval can never be earned.”

Losing Your Religion

“What does this mean for us? Should we stop calling ourselves Christian or judge those who do? Should we come up with a new term to franchise so we could separate the ones who live it relationally from the ones who are caught up in religion? If we did, we’d only be making the same mistakes that have diminished our life in Jesus over the centuries. “

“The truth is that Christianity as a religion is a dangerous disfigurement of the God of the Bible. But not all who call themselves Christians live religiously. Given all the excesses and failures of Christianity, I am delightfully grateful that the Gospel of Jesus is still relatively intact inside its doctrine. Unfortunately it only lets new believers live free for so long before burdening them with religious obligations.”

“Ultimately the transformation from practicing religion to living inside a relationship with God is not an institutional battle; it is a personal one. We could tear apart all of our religious institutions today and nothing would change. I’ve been in many a house church filled with people who see the institutional church as the problem and are oblivious to the fact that they’ve just moved their religion into a home, where close fellowship only makes it more oppressive.”

Are we but dust in the wind, or were we thought of long before there was an ‘us’? I believe with all my heart that we were in fact designed in the heart and mind of the Father to be defined, and one example of that is in the following: “Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.”

There are no vacuums. Man was “created born” not birthed. He was born without a nature, (what we love to call “human nature”) and that’s what the two trees pointed to in the Garden - an opportunity to become complete by design, partaking from the Tree of Life. After all, they already had the necessary equipment - a personal spirit to contain the very Life of God. He that is joined to God is one spirit! In thinking they were already alive (and just for the record they were, inasmuch as they had a physical and soulish dimension to their being along with having a spirit), but that alone was not what fully defined them, at least not yet.

In eating, or taking into their being, that which was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they instantly acquired a nature that reflected that of the father of lies. As well, Satan is the father of ALL religion. Religion was conceived at that decisive moment in the hearts of the very man and woman who had originally been purposed by God to be defined by His total unconditional love.

Like everything in our lives, if there is no absolute in defining who we are, then the following quotes from the movie “The Matrix” are applicable: “If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.”

Being born in sin and shaped in iniquity (depravity) we became defined. Let’s look at how the Scriptures clearly illustrate it in brilliant clarity: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

In my opinion, much of what we call “Christianity” is cerebral, conceptual, three-dimensional, muddled thinking at best. Having a high IQ or virtually no IQ was insufficient from impeding us from responding to His amazing grace since “we have been saved by grace through faith, not by works lest anyone should boast.”

Without continued impartation from the life-quickening spirit of the Father, we are doing what we think we know best: trying to fit God into our box of insanity.
A sinner is not someone who does ‘bad’ things. ‘Sinner’ is a descriptive word defining an identity; likewise becoming a saint (not as the Catholic Church defines the term) isn’t about doing ‘good’ things, but is also a definitive word describing identity. But without the spirit of truth breathing upon, or into these very words they are perhaps good, sound doctrine but totally hollow as far as real Life is concerned.

So many have the “right doctrine” but are much like a mausoleum. Everything is very decent and orderly, but full of death!

As Wayne Jacobson alluded to in his article, was Jesus sent here (the Word becoming flesh) merely to establish a new and improved religion called Christianity? Or did he come that we being born still-born might have an abundant LIFE?
The bible says that perfect love drives out fear, because in fear there is torment. Fear is what we all know best, and it is this innate, inbred fear that keeps us alienated from the very life of the Father that wants to fully bring definition to our lives. Without a continued invasion of this life within our soul (mind, will and emotions) we will have but a form of godliness, with no power in our living!
What none of us see with any clarity is that in the fall of humankind, there was something added to man that was not resident within him before his defiant act. A metaphysical component was added to his being which is called the flesh. I see it being much like a timed release pill where over a 24 hour period the medicine is slowly released into the flow of the body.
We don’t know how much time elapsed before a greater observable display of this thing called the “flesh” became recognizable, but it is a certainty that it was immediate in this respect: God had to seek out Adam and Eve. Why? Because they heard His voice and were afraid. They were shamed by the sudden awareness of their naked bodies. Bottom line is, God said right from the beginning, “In the day you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die.”

Long before there is ever an outer expression of a religion or its practices, there has been something conceived within the heart and mind of man – yes, especially those who have tasted of His life, but who have either refused to cling to the one who said he would build His church or who have been blinded by religion’s grasp from doing so.

I love the following illustration from Brennan Manning’s book, “Abba’s Child” because it so graphically points to what I see the Father has for each of those He has apprehended in his love:
“As John leans back on the breast of Jesus and listens to the heartbeat of the Great Rabbi, he comes to know Him in a way that surpasses mere cognitive knowledge.
What a world of difference lies between knowing about someone and knowing Him! We may know all about someone-name, habits, place of birth, family origin, educational background, habits, appearance-but all those vital statistics tell us nothing about the person who lives and loves and walks with God."

“In a flash of intuitive understanding, John experiences Jesus as the human face of God who is love. And in coming to know who the Great Rabbi is, John discovers who he is - the disciple Jesus loved. Years later, the evangelist would write, ‘In love there is no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love."

“I sense this is what happened in the Upper Room. Not only did the beloved disciple come to know Jesus, but the meaning of all that Jesus had taught suddenly exploded like a starburst. ‘I first learned the Word of God when the Great Rabbi held me silently against his heart.’ For John the heart of Christianity was not an inherited doctrine but a message born of his own experience. And the message he declared was, “God is love."

“To read John 13:23-25 without faith is to read it without profit. To risk the passionate life, we must be “affected by” Jesus as John was; we must engage His experience with our lives rather than with our memories. Until I lay my head on Jesus’ breast, listen to His heartbeat, and personally appropriate the Christ-experience of John’s eye-witness, I have only a derivative spirituality. My cunning impostor will borrow John’s moment of intimacy and attempt to convey it as if it were my own.”

In conclusion, the perfection I see we are to enter into, is being perfected in and by His total unconditional love for us. It begins and ends there, so to speak. Yet according to Scripture, does it really end there? “What marvellous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we're called children of God! That's who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or takes us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to. But friends, that's exactly who we are: children of God. And that's only the beginning. Who knows how we'll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus' life as a model for our own.”

Rich

Beached Whales

“Why are you so despondent?” I asked my friend while enjoying a great cup of coffee in our favorite coffee shop. Haltingly, he began to divulge his feelings of hopelessness and despair. “I feel much like a beached whale simply waiting for the inevitable to speed up my demise,” he sighed. “I believe I’ve missed out on God’s best for my life.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Because it was always my intention to remain on the mission field doing what I know God called me to do, but because of a series of unforeseen events, and then life happening, here I am doing what couldn’t be anything further away from that goal!”

My friend had fallen into the trap of believing that, due to life’s circumstances, having to give up his ‘ministry’ to work at a ‘secular’ job meant failure in terms of fulfilling God’s destiny for his life. It’s heartbreaking to see how so many believers have been crippled – essentially rendered spiritual quadriplegics – because of believing such lies.

So many of us, especially those now outside of the institutional religious (church) establishments, feel that we have missed out on God’s best. But, unless we know the surpassing greatness of His total unconditional love for us, and apart from this being our foundation, we will inevitably become ensnared by the father of lies who is relentless in his efforts to keep us from the true knowledge of Whose we are.

Here is Jesus’ definition of success: “And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

Let’s look at how this is defined by our brother Paul: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

If our lives are not defined by, in and through the Father’s love alone, then we have missed His very best. One of the prayers Paul prayed for the church is this: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Maybe His ‘calling’ or specific vocation for each of us is simply this: that we be totally His, and in the process of learning to be His discover a depth of love that has no conditions attached to it.

It is not enough to know God’s forgiveness. If that’s it, then we are eternally ‘beholden’ to the Lord (as we should be) for his sacrifice on the cross and relieved to be in his good books, but that doesn’t in and of itself transform our lives. What does transform us is learning that there is nothing we can add to our title of ‘child of God’ that causes Him to approve of or delight in us more than He does already – even if we never ‘do’ anything for Him! Learning to rest in that love will result in establishing a growing, deepening vibrant intimate relationship with God as our Father, and that is God’s best.

Rich

Created Versus Birthed

Don’t you just love it when the Father breathes into you fresh new insight (revelation) of Whose you are, which spills out into a most practical living expression of who you are? God IS spirit and He is seeking those who will worship –relate, engage - Him in spirit and truth.

“The love of God is not created— it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was.” Oswald Chambers

The rich and deeply encouraging freshness contained within the statement above became a spontaneous and overwhelming fire within me.

According to Scripture, everything ‘created’ is going to be shaken, and that includes our physical lives, but the great (good) news is that our life is no longer restricted or confined to this physical condition. I love the thought that we are at our core, spiritual beings, sons of God the Father, having a human experience!

The first people Adam and Eve were “created” beings, made from the dust of the earth when God breathed into them the breath of ‘lives’ making them living souls. Even though God said regarding his culminating achievement, the creation of man, “this is very good,” Adam and Eve were not yet complete. Although they were perfect for where they were at that instant, they remained created beings.
It has always been the Father’s intention to have ‘birthed’ sons, not created ones, and that is why the birthing is so imperative. Yet it is shrouded and cloaked with a polluted and commingled alchemy of law and grace.

If we do not know and continue to experience in an ever increasing awareness of Whose we are, then I see Paul’s words being most relevant to us today: “Do not live any longer as the Gentiles live. For they live blindfold in a world of illusion, and cut off from the life of God through ignorance and insensitiveness.”
If there was no way possible for us to become alienated, to live in ignorance, cut off from the only true source of life, Christ in us as us, then why would Paul’s warning be relevant?

Rich

My Love For You Can’t Be Erased

His eyes pierce my inner most being with a penetrating longing to make me His own.
He asks, Do you know what happened to you when I received you to myself? Do you not know it is who I am... Love, who has called you in your weakness, to awaken within your total emptiness the kiss of my perfect love for you!

Receive my embrace; receive my love for it will be that which will empower you. It is this fertile place of total bankruptcy, utter weakness that I delight in being forever your true strength.

As I was pierced through and through with the tools of torture for you, it is my love that will now pierce your heart freeing you from all you fear!

You are my Beloved!

Rich

“And We’ve Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden”

(lyric from “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell)

I find it truly amazing how many who are birthed children of the Father and yet who lack revelation of what it means to be His sons, to be more specific: the nostalgic charming of our souls to somehow recapture the supposed idyllic state of innocence and beauty in the Garden.

Somehow this reeks of ignorance, better yet blindness as to Who it is we have been called. Before I go any further, it is expedient that we understand that this unfolding revelation of Whose we are, is limited to a very narrow caste grouping: “whosoever will”! Without knowing the truth that we are called to BE His, is it any wonder that so many are drawn back (to a Garden) rather then forward into so much that Father God has prepared for us, hidden for us, not from us?

The weariness and depletion that so many of us lug around like millstones weighing us down is proof of not knowing Whose we are. Otherwise, why would Jesus have said,
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

It is the Father’s great pleasure to make known to us Whose we are, because it is only out of this living, breathing reality that we are freed to live apart from the crippling tentacles of fear’s chokehold. "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

How many of us, like the early followers of Christ, would agree with Jesus that it was extremely critical that He go to be with the Father so that the promise of the Father could be fully realized in a myriad more “sons?”

What most of us do not understand is that the original couple, Adam and Eve, were ‘created’ beings, and that the supposed idyllic relationship lived out of innocence was purely an external connection they had with the Father. They were at that place, perfect for where they were, yet not completed. That completion was available to them as represented in the Tree of Life, had they partaken of it versus the other tree, because, according to Scripture, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit”; that consummation would have completed it all.

Father invites us to live in the reality of Who’s we are verses looking for the proverbial breadcrumb trail leading to some garden.

Rich

Fear Verses Love

I love this quote from the site I mentioned in this post on my other blog (read it here), “Christians are primarily led by circumstances - they have a survival mentality. They will do things when they are hurt or rejected or times are tough. Christians will do in the circumstances what suits them best. Sons are not led by circumstances - they are led by the Spirit. That's what sons are. (Romans 8:14); "Those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God". It didn't say they are going to be sons one day. If people are led by the Spirit of God then they are sons of God - they are sons! Christians in Christ are going to heaven when they die. There is no question about that. It's not an issue about heaven or hell. If you are in Christ you are going to heaven. But a son is someone who is not led by circumstances - someone who is led by the Holy Spirit.


A son doesn't live in fear. Christians do. Paul writes and says God has not given a spirit to fear again. A few weeks ago that word "again" jumped out at me. I had never seen that word - even though I had read that passage hundreds of times. So I had to ask; "God has not given us a spirit to fear again". What do you mean "again"? When was the first time we feared? The first time we feared was when we saw how severe the law of God is and the judgements of the law of God. When we saw that we felt the fear of divine rejection, we felt the fear that the Father would reject us because we had broken His law, we felt fear of wrath, we felt fear of being abandoned, we felt fear of God's disapproval.


And all condemnation produces stress, anxiety, worry and anger. Modern psychologists have traced all stress, all anger, panic attacks, anxiety - back to guilt and condemnation. The economic downturn in and of itself could not have caused the amount of suicide that is happening in Hong Kong and around the world IF people were taught about being sons because sons have a spirit from the Father in them so they will never fear again.


What's the fear? The fear that the Father will abandon me during the economic downturn - the fear that the Father is not able to supply me with what I need because I am not good enough and I am not holy enough so I will be rejected.


Sons are led by a spirit that will never put them in fear again!

I want to add here even though I’ve said it numerous times before, “It’s a revelation not a seminar!”
When I hear someone saying things like this, “Wow, what interesting concepts, or yeah, that’s a cool concept” I know this is someone still living as a Christian and not as a son!!
Our son-ship comes about because of a revelation! Jesus said; "No one knows the Son except the Father reveal the Son and no one can know the Father unless the Son choose to reveal the Father".

The following quote simply rocks my world; “Now who does the Son chose to reveal the Father to? The wise and learned? It is His pleasure to hide the revelation of the Father's love from the wise and learned, the arrogant and the self-righteous - those keeping the law. But it's His joy and His pleasure to reveal the love of the Father to those who come down in humility and believe that He has not called you to be a Christian but a son who the Father loves!


(v28); "I choose to reveal the Father to the child-like". So we cry; "Jesus reveal the Father!". How do you do that? The very next verse I am quoting in sequence says; "Come to Me all you that are laiden and heavy-burdened and I will give you rest". What is the revelation of the Father's love? Rest. Why? "I can do nothing without the Father". I am not going to bother trying because I can do nothing without the Father! My yoke is easy and My burden is light!

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

Angel of Light

I simply loved what these two brothers have shared here about Systematized Deception. If ever there was a clearer presentation of the insidious unknown reality of the father of lies, for all intent and purpose operating yes, even within the believer undetected!

Rich

But You Don’t Know…

You have no idea what I’m going through, you have no idea how painful this is, this crippling fear, lost my job, rebellious children, someone broke into my house, my dog and cat died, my wife/husband left me, found out I had cancer etc. etc!

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying - Now what are you going to do next month - this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father.

The longing of our heart is to KNOW an absolute security and folks it’s found in one place, person, Christ Jesus the Lord, and frankly I don’t give a rats ass how this may sound harsh or insensitive to any reading this especially those who are in some of the pain filled scenarios I’ve listed above.
Bottom line, “Today” is the day of salvation!

What you need, not what you or I want, is as close as the mention of His name, JESUS!
You ask, “If God loves me so much, then why am I looking up only to see bottom,” great question. It takes what it takes to bring us to an awakened need and somehow believing it can only be met in turning to Him.

Our world is filled with unthinkable terror, horror, pain and defilement, but it is this world that God sent His only begotten Son to become flesh to fully identify with you and me. Our humanity is something that he fully embraced, as a matter of fact; Jesus the Word introduced into the God head forever that very humanity.

Friend, stranger, brother, sister, He loves you as you are, He has removed ever obstacle that would try and convince you that there is NO way to find any reason or purpose for being alive.
I am convinced that anyone who has committed suicide did so not because they were tired of life, but actually tired of NOT having life.

Rich

Flying By the Seat of my Pants

Why is it (merely a rhetorical question) that as soon as God does anything in engaging us, making Himself known to us that we immediately try and make it fit into a natural mind set?

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” to which Nick says, “Are you saying I have to go back into my mother’s womb and be born all over again?”
Or when Jesus engaged the Samaritan woman, here is some of that conversation. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Is there now through the re-birthing a “new me, a new you,” that most of us are totally unfamiliar with, and yet this “new” person we have become is in sync with knowing and hearing the voice of this living God who has become our Father?
The natural minded man does not receive the things of God, hear or understand this reality that has invaded us in being re-birthed.

Without a continued revelation (man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that flows from the heart of our God and Father) is it any wonder that what Jesus is building (His church) has been through the carnal natural minded man turned into a grotesque and hideous monstrosity that so many flock to.

Rich

Does He Come With a Warning Label ??

That came out of a conversation with my best friend Dave, (other than my wife) this morning which at first was one of those strained and over-taxed relational moments, where he said, “Maybe you ought to come with a warning label?”
There is no relational depth-growth without living by ‘faith-Risk’; I am often reminded that the tortoise or the turtle never gets ahead apart from ‘sticking its neck out.’

This was not the first time I have been totally insensitive toward my brother or others for that matter, and I’m sure it will not be the last, but the easy way (pull on my soul) out for me in these messy times is to give into that gravitational pull of sin and death and wallowing in that old fleshly mind-set of self-pity or whatever.
Fortunately the reality of the Father’s grace and love being so real in my brother’s life has kicked in on several occasions whereby we have seen Him (our Father) bring and restore an even deeper sense of family-kinship with Father and (true brotherly love) with each other.

If it wasn’t for being called into His family and His loving embrace of patience to model before us what true unity-fellowship-relationship looks like, none of us would ever do anything but live as wonderful hypocrites, and I think we have seen enough of that depicted in religion to last us for the rest of our lives.

I want to include a little Kodak moment here relationally as to how things can get out of sync at times and then how Father in His loving wisdom draws our hearts back to Him and then with each other.
Dave sharing with me.. “I'm sorry, Bro. I think maybe you hit it there... I’m wired 110 and your 220. You share much good stuff that I am grateful to glean but sometimes I am just overloaded... certainly with my own thoughts and what the Lord is working in and out of me. And so I feel like I'll explode with anything else added.”
“When you and I talked on Saturday, I think it was...you had me in tears there... so much of Him to soak in.. But other times, like yesterday and this morning my brain just goes mis-firing and it won't compute the same.”
Rich said-Learning to communicate is a Jesus art-skill learned by taking big risks
Rich: I’m still trying to figure out the best way to approach any friend, Here is the Litmus test, R U ok to talk today, option 1..
Rich: In sharing-communicating, we're all so different and that is wonderful
Dave: Yeah, then you gotta just trust the other person is honest in replying or just being nice
Rich: YES
Rich: Again it will never unfold apart from Risk taking-right?
Dave: "Sure, lay it all on me, Bro." "Wait, hold on, never mind. Shut up"

I later said to his remark, “Maybe you ought to come with a warning label?” Yes I said, its there but the plastic surgery has covered it up.
To finish up here with this last bit..
Rich: I wouldn't trade what I've discovered of Him through getting to know you for anything-and that’s the Truth!
Dave: I just want to say... and want you to understand that with all my doubts and frustrations I know Him and His working in and around me. My circumstances, experiences sometimes line up very close with yours, other times they don't. You go thru things that I can't relate to and visa versa, but that's okay... that's where He has us. So whether I "get" what you say at a given moment or you "get" what I am saying... that's not what matters. We just need to give one another space to allow Him to work and to do His good will.
Rich: Thanks for sharing this Bro, I so agree, we-are-Loved!

Because of His great love for us, this sacred-divine romance, we continue to be swept off of our feet. We continue to learn and grow!

Rich

The truth be known here, this little fracas really started all because Eye-Gore (Dave) didn’t want to share any more from his bottle of vodka, and I (Ivan) Rich then clammed up on no longer being so caviler with my caviar.
By the way, you can substitute respectively Ivan and Eye-Gore for Dave and Rich to hid our true identities if it helps! Just heed the warning label though, ok?!

What’s on Your Screen

My wife said to me this morning, “I don’t know how you can do what you did last night, spend so much time helping sort things out with your friend Ron.”

There are some of you who have read on my blog about my brother, friend Ron who came to spend some time with us, he came here all the way from the Maritimes, a very long distance to allow Father to make/set him free.
Last night he phoned me twice, each time was a very prolonged time of listening and sharing hopefully the Father’s heart.
I said to Margi (my wife) I come alive in those settings, it’s as if I was born to be that Zen like, honestly.

Later that evening, around 11:30 my dear friend and Brother Dave came on Yahoo Messenger and we talked for about 90 minutes, and in some of our sharing I mentioned that I had just got off the phone with Ron.
As Dave and I continued to share it came up in conversation about a recent movie he had rented and said he thought seeing as how I love movies I might consider renting it.

Here’s the cool part, he says to me, I really enjoyed the movie but I know if you were to watch it and then share with me all the great stuff Father says to you through the movie then I will really be blessed!
He went on to say, Rich, I usually never catch or see what it is that you seem to pick up like metal shavings to a powerful magnet, so easily, in watching movies. Most times what you seem to see and hear from Father’s heart isn’t even on my radar screen.
I couldn’t help but laugh in hearing this, because I suddenly saw and heard Papa speaking to me through what Dave had just said.

I hope I can articulate this that it makes perfect sense, please bear with me.
As I said to Dave, I am being introduced at a subliminal level something that has been unfolding within me for some time now.
There are unique things that each of us has been wired by Father to see, catch right away on our radar screen. It’s as normal as breathing, and yet those things differ as much as day is from night on a personal basis.
I know for a fact there are things that Dave for example, immediately sees, picks up on that simply shoot over my head, why is this?
Is this stuff happening so that we might compare/compete with one another at the expense of loosing out on how our Father has uniquely wired us-NO!

It is the security of knowing I am loved as His son, where in I derive the fullness of my true identity, but upon that foundation of security I am freed to allow Father to complement my relationship with Him through the rest of His family.
There is NO need for me to get jealous in how Dave or any other sibling seem to catch things so easily and for me, not so and vice-versa.

I see this being just one of a myriad of ways I am learning His love, freeing me to live loved.
Only His deep, deep unconditional love for us the church His body, frees us to see a dimension of his wonder and majesty that we are incapable of seeing on our own. It is through the manifold, multi-coloured, hues of His grace that He wants to clearly shine through each and every member of the body.

Rich