Self-Esteem What?

My wife and I were listening to the mid week Into The Wild pod cast from the Free Believers Net work entitled Rebuilding Self-Esteem as she was driving me to the hospital for an appointment, you can if you like, listen to it here.

What I want to share here in light of listening and not agreeing with pretty much most of what was being shared, is hopefully going to shed some light on this whole thang dealing with self-esteem.
It seems that because of the blindness in us all especially dealing with the self, there is an impetus behind the scenes working most clandestinely usually keeping us oblivious to any inkling of its insidious affect upon our seeing straight.
After listening to the aforementioned pod cast, I want to point you to a few thoughts by Oswald Chambers, you can read them here. And Every Virtue We Posses.

I’m going to include a few thoughts from a brother who wrote a book a number of years ago entitled “Christ-Esteem, (Where the Search For Self-Esteem Ends) and how this, along with what Oz shares is most elucidating.

"Most Christians today do not realize how important weakness, failure, discouragement, disappointment, suffering, testing, and trials are in the development of their Christian life. Through these dealings of God our natural sinful pride is being dealt with. God calls us away from ourselves so that through burying, rejecting, and denying self we may turn in faith unto our Lord Jesus and experience life, peace, joy, and power. The apostle Paul wrote, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

The Real Enemy

Even though the Bible clearly teaches that every branch that bears fruit gets pruned and that “the Lord disciplines those he loves,” many Bible teachers today promote the heresy that Jesus has taken upon himself all the dealings of the Father so that we might experience his positive blessings, be enlarged, and be comfortable and prosperous in this world. They fail to recognize that we are the problem and God’s purpose is to daily deliver us to the work of the cross so that we might leave self behind. Those who offer this teaching to the church are thereby confirming the children of God in childish immaturity.
Because of this error, many Christians have failed to learn the value of the disciplining work of God and never come to the place of turning away from self. Rather, contrary to his will, they seek God to enlarge and prosper self. For this reason, they never mature in their relationship with God nor discover all their sufficiency in Christ Jesus. They are unable to understand how it is that they can experience various sufferings and even be allowed to fall into sin. Even though they go through their ritualistic binding of the devil and confess the positive promises of the Word of God, nothing works. This seductive “faith teaching” is embraced by many Christians. It is far more popular to blame the devil than to see yourself as the cause of your own problems. To claim “the devil made me do it” is a cop-out.
In dealing with Christians, the devil does not operate through direct confrontation. While he is shrewdly working behind the scenes, the manifest enemy is not the devil, but our sinful, self-centered, and proud human existence. In the Garden of Eden, it was not the purpose of the devil to tempt Eve to make a choice between worshiping him and worshiping God. Eve would have never given into that temptation. The choice was between human pride—the desire to be like God—and worshiping and serving God himself. After Adam and Eve fell into sin, the devil drops out of the picture. You hear very little about him in the Old Testament. Once man is corrupted and turns in on himself, he will disobey God and destroy his fellowman without the devil reminding him to do so.

When Jesus determined to do the will of his Father in heaven and thereby deny his life, the devil appeared on the scene. The three temptations that he used in the wilderness against Jesus were not directed at committing and great sins against God but were temptations directing Jesus to live unto himself, to be concerned with his own comforts, and to preserve his own life.
Many people are concerned today by the increase in occult activities and the growing popularity of Satan worship. While these activities are certainly dangerous and destructive they also serve as a smoke screen blinding us to the real enemy in the church which is self-esteem, positive confession, and positive-self-image teaching. These teachings seduce the people of God into focusing their attention upon enlarging themselves, feeling good about themselves, and even in some situations, desiring to be like God. Many people today have fallen into this snare of the devil.
The devil doesn’t care how religious we are as long as we live for ourselves, remain consciously wrapped up in ourselves, try to feel good about ourselves, and cover up the nakedness of empty, meaningless lives through a spiritual charade. Martin Luther wrote concerning self-indulgence and human pride: “Against this secret villain we must pray God daily suppress our self-esteem.”

Rich

Broken Hearted

As long as our love is unknowingly defined by something that is so totally laced and contaminated with unspoken expectations and conditions, what is in it for me, then our hearts need to be broken and as often as required to be set free from the illusion of “love.”

My heart much like what Keith Green once sang about said, “What can you do with an old heart like mine,” has been freshly broken in many pieces, but as always in His doing this, it is for the purpose of making it holy whole.

My son has carried in his heart (for over three months, if not longer) something of a magnitude of love that continues to humble me in every breath I take. November the 14th I turned the corner in life to discover I was now 60 years old, and it was because of this mile stone that my son had purposed to covertly along with his mom, sister and friends to lovingly deceive me only to use the ruse of a well planed distraction to lead me into the lair of untold and over whelming ecstasy and merry making.

Along with his treasured and beautiful girl friend they crafted and put together I surprise Birthday party for me, wow!

I want to further address this thing of what becomes of the broken hearted, you see there are things in us all, hidden from sight deep within our hearts that would try to keep us perhaps not consciously but continually swept away by a continuous eroding under tow as prisoners to memories of the past and so many broken things that almost always involved people, relationships.

The prefix to the word ‘illusion’ is dis, and that is what it takes however it might unfold in our loves, to be disillusioned from what we thought was love, it will always be spelled out as in being broken hearted.

The question is: Do you want to be healed? God’s word says, “He heals the broken hearted.” Psalm 147:3. And broken hearts probably account for more sickness and
dis...ease, more people in hospitals then all the germs and viruses this world has to offer.
My heart in being shattered and deeply broken is turning out to be a way of escape from so much death and hopelessness, and for that I am deeply grateful to my heavenly Father.

When our children were just little ones, I their dad was at best a man and father missing in action, so much and so many missed time on my part of being so preoccupied with something, anything other than giving my children my undivided attention. But I have discovered that too was all covered for by a loving God and Father that he has been and continues to awaken me to.
In my mind I could visualize how easy it would have been for my children and wife to have written me off, discarded me like a badly soiled garment never to even be remembered, but instead, Father has done what is humanly impossible to do, not only work secretly and deeply in hearts, but to lovingly remove the bitterness and poison that filled them as a result of having been so wounded.

All I can say is I know what has become of this broken hearted man, husband and father, he is being restored to a wholeness of heart and mind that most including me only remotely dream of!

To my wife and precious friend, and to my beloved children, I humbly say, Thank You!

Rich

Simply The Best

In coming back to work after three weeks of holidays on Monday of this week, I was greeted with many warm expressions of welcome back, and how were the holidays, to which I replied, simply the best I’ve had in many years.
Wow, where did you go, what did you do they asked?
In explaining that I really didn’t go anywhere or do what they might have considered to be something really important, I could see this quizzical looks on their faces, huh, that does not compute!

Isn’t it a mind bender to think that we can discover pleasure in the One whose pleasure in us makes the Seven Wonders of the World seem like yesterdays news? I am becoming more convinced than ever that if I could travel to the hottest of hot spots on this planet and not know what it means to be loved so unconditionally right where I am, then that so called paradise place would be nothing more than stale bread.

Without the reality of the Father’s love for us reaching deep inside and totally altering the death and fear that keeps our minds filled with smog, we will be nothing more than caged lab rats keeping the spinning wheel turning in our relentless pursuit of happiness.
I remember the first time I read how Joseph’s (of the Bible) life turned a 180 when he discovered that his prison became a palace in discovering His presence, I thought yeah right, but lets be real, we live in a real world buddy.
Well although that didn’t make a dent in me then so I thought, today is another day of discovering that there is no place where he isn’t working in secret to bring into my consciousness the unfathomable knowing of His intense delight and pleasure in me his son! When this becomes much more than a sterile and distant theology, life and its abundance erupts from within, spilling out all over everything I do and where I go.

The wide open door to His heart is there right in front of you, simply step through the portal of grace and right before your eyes, all that you have ever longed for will BE yours!
In Him we live, move and discover our purpose in life is to be fully alive expressions of being desired.

Rich

Crusades And Causes

I simply loved reading what Os Chambers had to say in the quote below, such wonderful succinct and to the heart revelation this is!
It is so appealing joining a cause or crusade to try and get this world of nasty liars cleaned up, without revelation of His heart and how He has treated us, we will in our own polite way become hate mongers.
When is the Son going to rise and awaken in our thinking, that apart from revelation, it will be either a blatant or subtle form of trying to legislate some form of ‘Christianized morality’ on people.
Whether it’s trying to get men to be manlier, or to see the injustices within our governments to get their act together, or whatever, if it isn’t you and me simply loving every person He loves and has forgiven, then ‘IT’ sadly becomes a cheap substitute.

This in particular spoke to me, “The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself.”

Which one of us was NOT ruled by that disposition of “self-realization-I am my own god”?
It talks about us having been by nature ‘children of wrath, sons of disobedience’ and how was that altered in us, by someone laying their own brand of morality on us, or was it simply choosing to respond to his relentless invitation to accept His full to overflowing heart of love for us?
Then how do we think anyone else is going to begin to want to respond, choose life over death unless they see something much more than cleaned up versions of morality much like freshly fallen snow covering up a pile of shit?
If a person isn’t at a heart level transformed, then simply getting whatever results we think are needed and necessary from them, is only going to put a pretty face on the Devil.

Rich

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26) - an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When Our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and up right, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.
Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "And this is the judgment" (the critical moment), "that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light."

Shattered Illusions

Don’t you find that life has a way of happening and you seem to have no options when it comes to avoiding crises? Why do they occur? Well, all of us live with so many illusions that when life does happen, more often than not these illusions need to be shattered!

Something that came to mind dealing with this shattering of illusions is found in the story about Joseph. He wasn’t too old before some cataclysmic events swallowed him up alive. If you haven’t read the story, it’s worth the read. Long story short, Joseph ends up being transplanted into a very far away, foreign country – Egypt. Wow! Talk about life happening or as the guy in the commercial puts it, “Life can come at you fast.”

Let’s back up just a bit first. After examining the so-called evidence, Joseph’s torn, blood-stained coat of many colors, we read that his father Jacob lived with a dark cloud over his head everyday and was consumed with a great sadness. But his spiral into depression was based upon a lie because his beloved Joseph was not dead as he supposed!

Back to Joseph: I’m sure there were some major illusion-shatterings transpiring in his life, yet two different times we are told that the favour of his God was a discernible, recognizable and tangible reality to Joseph and it was evident to the Egyptians who surrounded him night and day. First, how would godless heathens see or know of such a thing? Whatever this ‘favour of the Lord’ was, somehow I don’t think it was anything apart from an inner transformation that infected and affected his attitude.

I’m sure that every Egyptian fridge had a papyrus copy of “Joseph’s Guide to Success” taped to it as a reminder of how to succeed in life~ha! 
Here’s a question for you: when did God love Joseph more – at his birth, or as a teenager spewing out his prophetic dreams, after he was assaulted and left for dead in a pit, living as a slave in Egypt, or when he was overnight promoted to become the second most powerful man in the world (second only to Pharaoh)?
I’m using all of this to try and paint a picture for any who have not recognized the liberating power of Christ’s total unconditional love FOR us right where we are!

Because of life happening, I see so many siblings in Christ living with innumerable shattered illusions and pining for that which at one time made them feel good, where they use to really (according to them) shine, and even more sadly living with a morbid fixation on some prophetic word that they hope will somehow sustain them while living in their foreign country.

If there was ever anything bang-on, it was in what Joseph was permitted to experience in the dreams God gave him. But Joe’s identity was removed from what was happening in the centrality of his life. What I mean by this is he derived purpose and fulfillment by revolving in orbit around the Son.
To my way of thinking this story (one of my favourites) graphically portrays the needed shattering of illusions, or more to the point, a bringing down of every false god in a person’s life! The kicker is that Joseph was surrounded by a people who had a plethora of gods and the shocker to Joseph’s dismay was in finding he too was worshiping a strange god: the name it and claim it God, the healthy, wealthy and wise God, the God who would never allow bad things happen to good people. Prior to his imprisonment, Joseph had been using God for his personal fulfillment. There’s no doubt Joseph wanted God, but there was a need greater in his life than just having his needs met or in seeing his dreams come to fruition.

Corrie Tenboom, a sister in Christ whose life experiences were borne out of enduring years in a Nazi prison camp, was fond of saying, “Bloom where you’re planted”, but how is that possible when life shattering-events are not exactly conducive to blooming? Without an invasion (no, I’m not talking about the Nazi killing machine type of invasion, but an invasion of the Father’s total 100% unconditional love for us that lays the foundation of our true worth and value)... and as we become more deeply rooted in that infectious, invasive love, it frees us to prosper and be in health even as our soul prospers. This love has the power to free us to live fully in the moment to the extent that life-shattering events no longer shatter us.

Rich

Have You Ever Seen

Have you been to a grocery or department store or perhaps a Mickey D’s and seen some kid just going berserk, wailing, possibly screaming, throwing themselves down on the floor and other colorful antics? Isn’t it an almost a knee jerk reaction of wanting to go over there and straighten this messy situation up, not just dealing with the kid but the parent/s as well? The thing is, we’re not responsible it’s not our child.

To my way of thinking this sure paints a picture of God’s kids acting up, perhaps into stuff that is at best questionable and a busy body thinks it’s their job to deal with His kid/s, cause if God was really on the ball He would have done something about this mess sooner than later.
Really, isn’t this all about the lack of trust in God’s ability to grow His sons up without the aid of some self-appointed spiritual deputy? Can you smell the stink of rules and regulations or is that just me?

Our journey began in a re-birthing, it always has been and is about Life, it has nothing to do legal wrangling, and the institutional religious organizations will always struggle with this. So much of religious teaching revolves around the salvation message being basically a “get out of hell card free” the focus not having anything to do with Love or Life, but all about escape~wow!

In reality salvation is principally about an exchange or renewal of life and only secondarily about eternal reward. This misplaced emphasis on salvation’s purpose leads many Christian’s to miss the benefits of living a renewed life in this world. Many born again believers are robbed of their blessings of new life in the present time by the mistaken teachings of church organizations that emphasize rebirth in terms of the next life and reconciliation with God in terms of effort which traps them in needless worry about their salvation.
This salvation-by-grace-life thing is a forever proposition, as a result of our salvation coming through God’s working as opposed to our own, there can be NO possibility of our efforts mattering in our salvation status.

What religion and its teachers do not want you to realize is that our empowerment comes from the life of God operating in us and our salvation comes as a result of this life alone!
If any who read this want to read some great thoughts shared here on Life, my good friend Bill Landon has a few of them he shares in his book, The Life That is Real Life, as well as, My Father and Your father, both are obtainable at iUniverse.com.

Rich

Sinless Perfection, Or Sinning Less, Or?

The following are but some of my thoughts shared with Barb on her blog A Former Leader’s Journey, you read her thoughts here that I am responding to.


Barb,

What I truly find amazing about the “sin” issue is, that from our Father’s perspective it IS no longer an issue at all. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews said, “If God permits, let us lay aside the A,B,C, elementary basics, and let us move on to perfection (full maturity). The perfection I see being available to us in our fully growing up into whose we are is addressing the issue of fear within us. John shares His heart with us, “As long as we are fearful, we are not yet perfected in love.”

The perfect one is perfectly joined to us, we are one, and yet that reality of perfect love flowing like a river within our union has seemingly got a kink in its hose somewhere, as far as my unspoken fears are concerned pertaining to my day in day out life encounters, and this all ties in with the ‘sin’ issue.

Is it really the sinless One we’re are desiring to know, the one who perfectly unconditionally loves us NOW for who we are, or is it still about our behaviour, being driven to reach some unobtainable mark?
Also in John’s letter is contained one of the most frighteningly sobering and liberating revelations regarding our moving forward into perfection, in my opinion all dealing with our Abba, birth-right! “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be: We know that when He appears, we will be like (as) Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

The issue of our ‘seeing’ Him is meaningless if we are not already seeing, experiencing him right here within the nasty-now-in-now events of life where by our buttons are being pressed within us, revealing fears that get us focused once again on our behaviour, good, bad or otherwise. These very fears being exposed are for our continued deliverance, extrication, it is there in these boogie man assaults He wants to meet with us.
What is finally meeting (our final destination) Him really all about if his grace has not fully provided this side of heaven the very reality we stand in need of regarding our hidden fears? The perfection of His love is something he chose to hide for us not from us in Christ, Christ is the Life and the Way he has opened up for us, now, today!

Rich

Are You Ready

Last Friday morning giving into my regular coffee fixation; I ventured up town (just minutes away) to one of several Tim Horton’s for my daily extra large double, double, and a fresh pastry, yum. After waiting in line for a bit, Diane one of the regular employees asks, “Are you ready for another exciting day?” I quickly replied. You bet I am!
Funny thing was, there was this nudge in me that this was in fact my heavenly father asking that of me through Diane, yup, right then and there in Tim Horton’s, cool. I went back home as I don’t start work until 10:15, but I pondered on the juxtaposition of this invasive question posed to me.
Little did I know at the time that what sounded like an invitation into a most exciting day was in fact going to be just that, only sandwiched in numerous road blocks, set backs etc.

Isn’t it witty and maybe this is just me, but when we think there is only one way to define adventure, excitement, that when it turns out to be something far removed from a feel good time we can so easily slip into a funk?
The more I am discovering, experiencing, the wonder of his total unconditional love for me, I am witnessing a disarming, a defusing of potential volatile and explosive reactions that had such hair triggers to them.

This isn’t me remotely bragging on any perfection, but it is me whole heartedly bragging on the perfect one in me perfectly loving me, embracing me, accepting me for who I am. This unseen but all invasive infection of his love for me (us) is turning into something far more than being governed by outer rules and regulations or codes, the transformation is simply an overflow of the root source, that God is love in Rich.

The habitual sin habit patterns that were established within my soul are being displaced not by might or by power, but by an increasingly knowable, inviting and consuming love.
What most of humanity has witnessed regarding this entity called Christianity is in fact only a partial real deal, yes having been received of/by God the Father their dead spirit was instantly revitalized in it becoming joined, one with God. But, not allowing Him to invade the other portions of our being has sadly produced a mere religious sentiment; Christian’s aren’t perfect, only forgiven!
The perfection I am emphasizing has nothing to do with us directly, but everything to do with his love freeing us to live loved, openly live before humanity that they might see and hear not just another religious mantra, but experience the invisible God living and breathing in everyday folks standing in line waiting to be served with their Tim Horton’s coffee.

“Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

Rich

The Simplicity Of The Message

Without revelation of the finished work of God in Christ, although perfectly there in us as us, we will do what we never dreamed we would do, try and cover up our hounding nakedness. “Who told you, you were naked?”
In Colossians 2 it says, “Just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in Him.”

It was by hearing the truth and believing it that we received Him, our continued growth simply follows suite, being continually exposed to the same truth of Christ IN you, the hope of glory, and setting our minds on it.
Unfortunately, this is too arduous for those wanting a quick fix.

I love how Paul puts it here, “My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything. “

There are so many who have this fixation of returning to that Edenic place that Adam held before his mutinous rebellion and tried to be “like God.” Thing is, the glory of God covering his nakedness was only exterior to him, and yes, as great as that was, it paled in comparison to Christ IN you, the hope of glory!
It is out of seeing and knowing this glorious One we are transformed more and more, “put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.”
As we gaze intently on this glorious one in us, the scriptures assure us, that we continue to BE changed from, glory to glory.

From Brennan Manning’s book, Ruthless trust, “The late Karl Rahner insisted, ‘In the days ahead, you will be a mystic, i.e., one who has experienced God or nothing at all.” If Christianity is merely an ethic, a moral code, or a philosophy of life, it will not withstand the incursion of suffering. The graced experience of the divine kabod is not something esoteric reserved for an elite few. When Thomas Merton was asked who might receive this gift, he replied, “The answer is obvious: everybody.”

Rich

Let's Make It Fit

Are we trying to make the essence and structure of religion to fit with what it means to be a new creation in Christ?
Isn’t it His life in us as us, the only thing that is able to bring any definition to our lives individually and collectively?
The kicker is, that with an old world mind set, we can not simply abide, allowing Him to bring forth, express through us a living expression of His personality, aka, the fruit of the spirit!
The structure (essence) of His love for us is that which will produce the fruit, but perhaps not fruit that lines up with an old world mind set.

Rich

Unfolding Mystery

I said to my wife this morning after sharing the quote I have here, it is so liberating to me to hear His heart and voice for me and it doesn’t matter how that miracle comes to my awareness, but as it does, it continues to be in me the absolute forbearance needed as the continued transformation (metamorphosis) unfolds in my life.

It has always been the imprinted desire of my heart to KNOW HIM, nothing less will do and after reading some of what Dena has put into print from her own ongoing transformation, my newly discovered delight in Him (embracing His delight in me) is catapulting me forward into all that is mine.
As Oz Chambers was fond of saying, “Never look so much for the person who can tell you something new, as much as the one that simply puts a name and face to that which has been initiated
by Him working in you.”
This in fact is being done in hearing His heart beat for me through Dena. It feels as if a damn has been broken afresh in seeing and hearing this One who has called me to BE His very own.

Rich


“Transformation is not only terrifying to those who go through it, but to those who witness it. Transformation upsets status quo ... it can throw relationships off-balance - particularly if the relationship was invested in following a script (subconsciously, of course). When our equilibrium is threatened, we tend to self-protect ... to shut down, to hold back, to go within. So it can be in relationships when one is transforming in a particular way, and the other is not. All too often, the relationship can be sacrificed, in favor of feeling "safe and secure" with what's familiar. I wonder how many transformations have been cut short and abandoned, because the one transforming couldn't take the abandonment of those who didn't understand...? How many quit the journey, in favor of conforming to group-think?”

Stranglehold of Acquiesence

If the foundational and fundamental building block in our lives in those who profess to be Christian is that “God is Love,” then where and how does all of the other shit fit into that indisputable reality? Either God is full of crap and a full blown liar or, there is someone who continues to infiltrate and unknowingly influences a (Christian) person through the ‘true lies’ they have accepted as their reality.

I know in my life and relationship with the Lord, these buried and undetectable lies that continue to try and influence, run, and rule me, are being exposed, causing them to surface and in so doing causing great consternation within my thinking, but I am beginning to see them in a whole new light.

It is as easy as in a learned behaviour to simply acquiesce to the inbreed lies that continue to superimpose a distorted and twisted way of seeing things and in the process keeping one a spiritual quadriplegic. I am beginning to see these lies for what they are and whose they are that have and continue in measure to define me, my worth, value, and my identity!

The covert and obscure workings of the Matrix of religion are not easily detectable in the Christian’s life, why, they have been groomed from their first birth in the natural wherein the lies they were told even in the womb are the basis and only reference point they know for certain. Anything contrary to this deeply inured fusion of true lies within them is seen as a personal assault which must be aborted rapidly before there is a system over load.

In becoming re-birthed, these embedded ingrained true lies we have believed and in my case acquiesced to, were not and are not instantly vaporized. Ergo, the required effort on our part which is all part and parcel of Christ working in us to both, ‘will and do’ of His good pleasure, to continue the very necessary ongoing transformation required by being renewed in the spirit of our mind (soul).

I want to say this regarding the internal struggle and battle I face of these inbreed learned behaviour patterns in light of God being Love, if others have faced this and more and have somehow been removed, extricated from it and not pointed to the power of His grace being the impetus for their deliverance, then what the hell is there any need to look to Him being my I AM????

Rich

Sifting Out the Heart's of Men

I have always loved the song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic and for those wanting to know a bit of its history you can read of it here.
As I have often over the years reflected upon the lyrics, recently I have seen these in a whole new light, especially this stanza, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.”

It is truly amazing how His grace and love powerfully and silently works deep within the mind shafts of ones heart, as in mine. Seeing and experiencing such awe and wonder of this One who is passionately and compassionately working to sift, and purge my inner being from any and everything that desires to try and destroy me.
As I continue to wade out into the untold and fathomless depths of His total unconditional love the unpronounceable is happening. The very spirit and nature of this God and Father is breathing clarity, sobriety and depth of meaning and purpose to words that formerly scared the hell out of me.

This in particular did just that, “For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.”
This all ties in with the fore mention stanza from the song, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.”

Fear being the spirit we were born with in the natural is taking a back set in the rebirthing, it is the residual and collateral carnage being slowly displaced, cast out, as we begin to see and experience the reality of His Son-shinning and branding affirmation of Whose we are. We/I, bear the marks of ownership, the spirit of son-ship and adoption are the blazing and burning awareness of increasing and liberating intensity.
Not always, but more often than ever before am I now wanting to embrace His scrutinizing, purging work of continued salvation, exposing, analyzing, and judging the very thoughts and purposes of my heart.
His motivation is never to destroy man, but in fact His longing is to destroy that which has purposed to seek our destruction.

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

Oh, I Know That!

Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you?
“Oh, I know that, it’s old hat.”

We believe so much, but in the bump and grindings of every day living, where is this One we say we love and trust?

I so love how the Father of my spirit is always calling me unto a far greater revelation of the unlimited insatiable love He has for me.
The following words from Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel) have been used to freshly pierce my heart in the upward call, “That I might know Him!”

“Several years ago I made a 30 day silent retreat in the snow-covered hills of Pennsylvania. One word sounded and resounded in my heart throughout that month. Jesus did not say this on Calvary, though He could have, but He is saying it now: I’m dying to be with you. I’m really dying to be with you. It was as if He were calling me for a second time. I realized that what I knew was straw. I had scarcely glimpsed, I had never dreamed what His love could be. The Lord drove me deeper into solitude seeking not tongues, healing, prophecy, or a good religious experience each time I prayed, but understanding and the quest for pure, passionate Presence.”

Rich

Shenanigans

Galatians 2:4 (AMP) … false brethren who had been secretly smuggled in [to the Christian brotherhood]; they had slipped in to spy on our liberty and the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might again bring us into bondage [under the Law of Moses]. (Bringing us under the life-sucking influence of that rooted in an exterior and measured performance based approach to life and living it)!

Isn’t it always the same old thing, no need of trying anything new to mislead the child of God, except for the old deceitful trickery wrapped up in a new format?

Performance based anything just doesn’t cut it when and where Love comes into play. I realize there are those who do not like the term (prefix) “unconditional” attached to the word love, but if all any of us has ever known is a love based solely upon predetermined expectations and conditions, please, don’t ever call it “love!”
Without the incursion of the furious love of God’s evaluation of our total bankruptcy, we will continue to live under the intoxicating influence of a performance based love, all the time being convinced we are loving others unconditionally.

I find it so fascinating that those who would swear (they have been raised with pure true love), what I’m trying to differentiate from, conditional love verse unconditional love, in most cases are those who are steeped in self-righteousness. Not seeing their constant state of brokenness, ergo the desperate need for a living grace.

I love what Brennan Manning has to say from his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel dealing with is matter, “Jesus, who forgave the sins of the paralytic (thereby claiming divine power), proclaims that He has invited sinners and not the self-righteous to His table. The Greek verb used here, kalein, has the sense of inviting an honored guest to dinner. In effect, Jesus says the kingdom is not a subdivision for the self-righteous nor for those who feel they posses the state of secret salvation. The kingdom is not an exclusive, well trimmed suburb with snobbish rules who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.”

“The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become-the more we realize that everything in life is a gift. The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving. Awareness of our poverty and ineptitude causes us to rejoice in the gift of being called out of darkness into wondrous light and translated into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.”

“Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God. It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him-as nothing else can-and opens us anew to the flow of grace. While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own. To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace. It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become ‘as’ Christ.”

Rich

My Friend Ron

I had another wonderful conversation with my brother and friend Ron this evening, what a privilege it is to be privy to the amazing grace and unconditional love of God the Father, Son and Spirit working mightily in his life.

The Father’s heart is always directed toward establishing and grounding us in the true experiential knowledge of His 100% unqualified love for us.
He is by His spirit making us eye-witnesses of the one who asks, “Who do you sat that I Am?” I see this very thing unfolding within my brother as he continues to be won over to trusting the Father of His spirit by discovering a depth of love for him he has never experienced especially in light of his being so crushed/pulverized through a series of life’s unfolding.

“You get hammered in life, but you get hammered into interesting shapes. Like most, I’d prefer my blessings to come without disguises! And then Life happened…..”

I want to express my heart gratitude toward those whom Father has spoken to in keeping Ron and his wife Linda in prayer, as Father continues to invade the lies that keep us focused upon ourselves.
I look forward to the day when with Ron’s permission I can share openly what Father has been doing in the secret places of his heart.

Rich

What Has Stopped You

A little child shall lead them!

What is it that has buried you alive, shattered you in a million pieces, enveloped you in an ocean of grief, disemboweled you with the heartless and cruel razor slashing of daily living, what is it that has caused you to become immobilized, detoured you from following Him?

Just hear the heart of the Father of our spirit in these words spoken by our dear brother Paul to BE your ability to take the next step forward: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Part of the meaning of the name Papa chose and gave to me, by my earthly parents is “bold.” Richard the Lion hearted. It derives from Proverbs 28: “The wicked flee when no man pursued: but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
The key word I am seeing in this verse is not bold, but “Righteous,” it is the Righteous One in me as that bold one!
This Righteous One in me is allowing me to partake of my birth right, my inheritance, He is becoming more and more my daily bread, His strength is becoming so perfectly displayed in my absolute, total weakness, it is His boldness that is taking hold of me and turning me into a mad man for Him.
It is becoming a roaring and intensified mandate within me, to see His freedom established in His saints the church which IS His body, spirit, soul and body!

Father is using whatever it takes to bring us to a “knowing” of Him in us as us, as our ONLY life, and for me this morning it was in beginning to read from the book of Daniel. The orchestra begins its musical score in a minor key, foreboding and tension fills the air.
A great ruler, King Nebuchadnezzar has just conquered Jerusalem and besieged it. In claiming as his sole possession all of Jerusalem and all within it, he takes along with his army many captives, but four Jews in particular, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the names given to them by the prince of the eunuchs.
Here’s where the musical score takes on a major key, Daniel it says, “Purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.”
Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs. Please read all of this here.
My point in all of this is to point you to the One, the only One who is your ability to, ‘having done all stand’ or, to take the next seemingly impossible step forward in spite of all logic or myth understand.

I want to close this with a quote from He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen: “For the first time since that cruel day in Eden, God was sitting down with people he loved and they were not cowering in fear.
For centuries men and women had stood at a great distance from God, shamed by their sin and intimidated by his holiness. With only a few notable exceptions, people wanted nothing to do with the immediacy of God’s presence. When Mount Sinai shook with thunder and earthquakes, the people begged Moses to go to God for them. God was a terrifying figure, and feeling safe with him was unthinkable.
But God had never thought so. He was unfolding his plan to restore the fellowship with humanity that Adam and Eve had lost in their fall. In Jesus, he was able to sit down in the company of those he loved, and they were comfortable enough to engage him in a real conversation. What an incredible moment that must have been for Jesus, to be with people who were not so awed by him that they could not enjoy his presence.
Of course, it happened only because the disciples had no idea that it was God who stoked the fire as they sat around and laughed. For although we now know that Jesus was God incarnate on Earth, they had no idea, and that made all the difference.”

By His grace I intend to become that safe place for many to discover the Righteous One, their boldness, as I simply love them as he loves me!

Rich

Uncharted Waters

The caption that went with the picture I have used here was as follows: “A trek, a journey, takes me to uncharted waters, to a world of wonders.”

I have sensed for a while now a new uncharted direction Father is leading me into, he definitely has my undivided attention.
It has been much like being swept up into a whirlwind ever since my friend Ron has been here, a week ago last Wednesday. For those who have been following my blog, they will understand. These very intense times of so much of His life pouring out of me has stirred up a wonderful unsettledness within my soul!

I shared with my wife today while we were out of town; I have and am feeling as if I am like a moth being drawn toward a bright light shinning into the darkness, problem is the moth usually ends up getting killed as it keeps crashing into this light.
The other image I had today that is deeply connected to the first one along with great inner stirrings is not seen as a warm and fuzzy experience.
I see Father as it were holding me forcibly under what appears to be water, I see myself drowning, but in fact as I see myself expiring, its then that I suddenly become alive, only its in a way that does not resemble how I use to be alive.
Welcome to the bizarre the sign post up ahead reads.
In this drowning episode, I sensed I was being drowned in and with His love for me. Several times today I literally felt as if I was drowning, being inundated with a dimension of His love I have not yet experienced.

Back to this picture I have chosen here, for a very long time Father has clearly reinforced the knowing in my heart, unless I become like a child, I will miss out on so much He has hidden for me. So I venture forth into this "God" trek, journey of uncharted waters with an elevated and heightened sense of a world of wonders just waiting for me.

Rich

Losing My Religion

I was awakened way to early this morning by my woofing, barking dog, I tried to get back to sleep, but it just wasn’t going to happen.
But more than this disturbance, there was something far more disturbing, Papa speaking to my heart. He is so good at disturbing the comfortable, and comforting the disturbed!

I guess I’m going to discover afresh what I might be thinking with regards to Him disturbing me, what I truly believe by living and thinking out loud here one more time.
For whatever reason over the past couple of days I have been thinking of Naaman the leper in the Bible and how his story is what Father is speaking through to me as far as loosing my religion. Let’s take a look shall we?

During the course of his ministry Jesus returned to Nazareth. The people were amazed at how different Joseph’s and Mary’s son had become. They expected him to do miracles as he did in Capernaum, but because familiarity breeds indifference, if not contempt, Jesus told them that God’s special people don’t always receive the blessing: “But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:25-27).

The whole story of Naaman in 2Kings 5 intrigues me. What launched this man on his journey of wholeness was the Father working through a young captured Israelite girl that was a maid to Naaman’s wife. This maid says to her mistress, “If only my lord would betake himself to the prophet in Samaria! He would have cured him soon enough of his leprosy.”
Long story short, Naaman has permission from his master to go and seek out the prophet regarding his leprosy and possibly being healed. There are a great number of hindrances and obstacles that would try to discourage us from stepping out of our comfort zones simply being obedient, and this man was no exception.
Naaman was no different than any of us with his preconceived expectations of how this was all going to unfold.

The prophet doesn’t even appear to this powerful and influential man seeking him, but in fact simply sends his servant out to speak to him. Naaman is instructed to dip himself seven times in the Jordan River, please read 2Kings 5:9-13. This important man is so infuriated with this blatant display of disrespect, he is ready to forget the whole thing and turn around and go home, until, once again a servant says to him. “Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean?"

In the process of choosing to be obedient dipping himself seven times in the dirty river, Naaman first lost his anger, then his pride, then his leprosy.

What is it going to take in our discovering all that Father has for you and me apart from simply being obedient to whatever he is saying to us? Remember the foolishness of God is greater than all of man’s wisdom. He continues in this hour to offend our minds in order to reveal our hearts. Not to shame us or condemn us, but to make known to us we do NOT have to remain in our present state whatever that might be, there is a way of escape, and it’s called Grace!

I’m going to close by once again quoting Darin Hufford here, “What are you willing to give up, if it meant by giving it up you would open a part of your heart to know the truth about God? What separates those you get it and then continue to get it and grow in it and continue to get more and more and more of the real heart of God, what separates those people from other people has to do with blockades that we have in our minds that restrict us from hearing or from seeing and actually getting the message.
I’m beginning to see things in peoples lives that don’t get it, and you can see immediately why they don’t get it, like its immediately you can see they don’t get it because they refuse to let go of this that and the other and because of that they will be blinded and until they are willing to give that up.”

Rich