My Father’s Voice

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



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

The above quote is from Oz Chambers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich

Listen Up (Can You Hear Me Now?) 2

Having lived in a world of darkness all our lives, the introduction of light can be very bewildering or discomforting at first. Funny how the Lord is like that, disturbing the comfortable, and comforting the disturbed. The nerve of this God!

In John chapter 8, Jesus begins sharing from the Father’s heart for those wanting to escape the darkness that has blinded them: “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life."
Wasn’t it for the blind that he had come? Later he goes on to say, “Those who know they are blind will receive sight, but for those who say they can see, they will remain blind.”

There were those who saw themselves as being cut from a different human cloth, these being the religious leaders, who always seemed to misunderstand what Jesus was saying. This time proved to be no different: “They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father.” Nonetheless, despite their opposition, a wonderful thing transpired in the hearts of others: “As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.”

As we are learning to discern the voice of the one who is the Truth, the familiar voice of the one who has been our source of direction, in our flesh, is going to be exposed. There will be set into motion a violent hatred and reaction towards the voice of the Lord bringing us illumination, freeing us to step out of the darkness. This hidden enemy within our flesh knows that he cannot stop a person from being reborn, but through his continued trickery - using lies and deception - his efforts are aimed at one purpose: to keep us stunted and deformed within our soul. He knows if he can keep the believer turning to himself (Satan) as his point of reference, the available resources of grace will be cut off from him.


We just do not see, apart from the revelation coming from the voice of the Father, the subtle ploys of pride within us. When we have ourselves as the point of reference the spirit behind it is pride, but when we turn to the Lord the abundance of His grace is available for further transformation, bringing us ever more so into the fullness of the stature of Christ being fully formed within us. So Jesus ended up adding insult to injury, as he always does, to those being ruled by the flesh.

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!

Just as this made no sense to those who saw themselves as being free already, or to those of us who think we are likewise “free” (because of the father of lies within our flesh), we will oppose the Lord.

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

We once were nothing but natural men, but through the quickening of the last Adam, Christ Jesus, we are now spiritual and discovering daily just what that might encompass.

The liar’s voice is being challenged as we are growing in the true knowledge of Papa's love for us. As my friend Dave shared with me: “This whole voice thing – and whose voice we are going to listen to… Papa's wooing voice seems like a foreign language to us because we are so used to listening to the father of lies.”

Jesus asked then and asks today: "Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.”

Our souls have been and continue to be veiled or clouded as a consequence of giving a mind to the father of lies. A clouded mind sees nothing!

The real blow to the heart is what Jesus said, not just to this people grouping but in my opinion all who are ruled by the flesh: "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

There is an unnatural inclination within us to agree readily with the voice of the father of lies, as it has been the only voice we are familiar with, but in hearing the voice of our true Father there is a dynamic released whereby the needed and necessary transformation, the renewing of our minds, is made available. Without this ongoing inner work of grace regarding our soul (mind, will and emotions) we will inevitably and blindly become an active or armchair participant in “Holy Crusades” launched to ‘righteously’ deal with the ‘infidels’ who are marching to another beat (voice).

Rich

Listen Up (Can You Hear Me Now?)

We have all been born in sin, separated from the Life of God: by nature, ‘children of wrath.’

The reality is until we are reborn, there never was a real you or me, and having no other point of reference other than the one we like to call ‘human nature’, where do we begin to see that there is another realm available to us that will release us from this prison we think is actually our home?.

We all have been conditioned to believe the lie that we are alive and doing our own thing. Such is the power of deception, but what if that was nothing more than a custom designed matrix pulled over our eyes to keep us blinded from the Truth?

The truth, to my understanding, is that man was created nature-less, and as a result of his disobedience in the Garden forfeited the real life offered him as represented by the “Tree of Life.” Further in my understanding (and because there are no vacuums), by default man received a nature other than God’s. In the fall there was added to man’s physiology a metaphysical component called the ‘flesh’, better know as ‘human nature’, that now has been passed onto all of his progeny. When we were reborn, we received the nature of God the Father to become our only Life which was not just an add-on. However, this miracle of grace did not vaporize this component within us called the ‘flesh.’

There was nothing altered in the miracle of being reborn - apart from our spirit being made alive, quickened through His life-giving spirit. Our soul and body are exactly the same as before. Our bodies were designed by the father to be disposable. The real us is not confined to our looks, age, skin color, I.Q., gender, or anything else external. On the other hand, our soul is a vital component that has to be integrated into a spiritual union of oneness with God as our Father.
This sets up the battle scenario we all experience on a daily basis. In all of us, this ‘coming into union’ will be misunderstood at best and resisted at worst. Welcome to the real world!
This sets the stage for what I now want to try and share regarding, “Listen Up.”

As in everything related to God, a.k.a. true or real life, there are the counterfeits as well. If God is the Father of love, truth etc. (and He is), then as Jesus pointed out, Satan is the ‘father of lies.’

We, having lived for however long in sin before being reborn have all been conditioned to only know one voice: Satan’s, our surrogate father of lies. We see nothing strange or alien about this familiar and seemingly friendly voice…until the ‘voice’ of another is introduced to us. In fact the introduction of the voice of the Father is perceived as one speaking to us in a foreign language!

As Kevin Costner, playing the role of Ray Kinsella in the movie ‘Field of Dreams’ said: I'm 36 years old, I love my family, I love baseball and I'm about to become a farmer. But until I heard the voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole life.

This voice, the voice of the Father is about to turn our world right side up, but according to our whacked-out so-called equilibrium, we see this intrusion being not of God because our world (according to us) is already, ‘right side up.’

To be continued...

Rich