The Power of Praying 'Arise'

(this post was originally written on 11/13/12)

Today I am reminded, 

"Each one should be careful how he builds."

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;  Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.  If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.  If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

I used to pray "Lord, open a door for this ministry, Lord, open a door for that message."  Then, I prayed, "Lord, Arise, open a door for Yourself, and come in."  He has come, He has arisen.  He is passing through this church.  I see stubble in me.  I have feared men, made them weighty in my heart and mind.  This is a sin.

The word "splendor" also means, "weighty."  God should be the weighty one in my heart, the one of splendor, the one I alone fear.

I see God who is fearsome.  Ezek. 21:16-17

Swords at the ready!
Thrust right!
Set your blade!
Thrust left--
Wherever your edge is ordered!
I also will beat My fists together,
And I will cause My fury to rest;
I, the LORD, have spoken.

Do I dare believe He will spare me just because I have the gift of eternal life?  No, God is no respecter of persons.  He did not spare His own people from fire.  Isaiah 27:10-11,

Yet the fortified city will be desolate,
The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down
And consume its branches.
When its boughs are withered, they
will be broken off;
The women come and set them on fire.
For it is a people of no understanding;
Therefore He who made them will 
not have mercy on them,
And He who formed them will 
show them no mercy.

These branches are the same mentioned to the church in John 15:5-6,

I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

This is a verse for Christians, and everyone else who might have appropriated the righteousness of God's living water into their lifestyle.  The word "branch" means ruler, son, king (Matthew 24:32, Zecharaiah 6:12, Isaiah 60:21, Psalm 80:15).  That is why I will never forget worship dancing on Palm Sunday, when King Jesus enters Jerusalem and the people ushered Him by waving palm branches.  Palm branches are a symbol of a victorious son or a ruler.  What sort of rulers am I replicating into this world I will leave behind - righteous sons, or wicked sons?  This is what it means to be a branch for Jesus that bears fruit in the world.  To the church Jesus warns in Romans 11:20-22,

Do not be haughty, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.  Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness.  Otherwise you also will be cut off.

Not our whole life will be cut off from the presence of God.  When it says, "you" will be cut off, I believe it means, "in regard to any work of your life under consideration at the moment."  I believe for our delight God gives saints the command to lift holy hands.  Take a look at your hand, your palm.  I believe every time a Christian raises his hands he thanks God and agrees with the Spirit for a righteous branch, a righteous people, coming out of their life.

It is only because a Christian's heart continues to pursue Him that a Christian is favored.  God has mercy on sins done in ignorance.  He has mercy on those who want to know Him.  God gives grace to all who ask, however some choose not to seek it.  When the light comes, and it is coming now, the wicked and the righteous are freshly discerned.  Isaiah 25:10-11,

With my soul I have desired You in the night
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the LORD.
LORD, when your hand is lifted up, they will not see.

I want to see Jesus as He arises for His people, to bring them every depth of salvation.  I can't make Him give the depths of salvation to me.  I can't earn His mercy with anything I do for Him.  He gives it freely.  Psalm 40:13,

Be pleased to save me, LORD...

I love how God's Word gives me boldness to say what is both true and significant before the dawn has made everything apparent.  Those who fear the LORD have assurance.  Malachi 3:16-4:2,

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another,
And the Lord listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the Lord
And who meditate on His name.
“They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,
“On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”
Then you shall again discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him.
For behold, the day is coming,
Burning like an oven,
And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“That will leave them neither root nor branch.
But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings;
And you shall go out
And grow fat like stall-fed calves.

The jewels, those precious things I can build upon the foundation of my salvation - what are the jewels according to scripture?  In Malachi above, Jesus calls people His jewels.  What are jewels for NT saints?  The same: they are people.  This prophecy in Isaiah below was fulfilled by the woman at the well in John 4.  Isaiah 49:18, 22-23,

Lift up your eyes, look around and see;
All these gather together and come to you.
As I live,” says the Lord, “
You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament,
And bind them on you as a bride does.
Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,
And set up My standard for the peoples;
They shall bring your sons in their arms, 
And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;
Kings shall be your foster fathers,
And their queens your nursing mothers;
They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth,
And lick up the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord,
For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.

The power of praying "arise" is that He makes me get out of the way.  He stands out alone as pure.  Being judged as sinning feels like fire, now.  It is unpleasant to discover that my choices are stubble to Him.  It is much more wonderful afterward to see His Kingdom developing in me!  I'm thankful that He saves me because He is pleased to do so.  And I pray that through repentance, God would help me stay in step with Him as He passes through.

Thank you Jesus, for your life on earth, your death and resurrection, which makes this hope for jewels my greatest opportunity.

Strangers, An Offering to the LORD

What is an offering that would please the LORD?  Malachi 3:8-10,

"Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it."

Does God want an offering of your money? Sometimes. I suppose if it has the power to bring the nations to Christ, then yes. But on the other hand sometimes God likes to accomplish things without our resources, so we can see the difference between our effort and God's power; so He can increase His own fame.

Simon trying to buy the Spirit he already had as a believer, Acts 8

The prophetic book of Isaiah ends with an interesting take on offerings made to God.  It describes STRANGERS as the offering God is seeking. Isaiah 66:18-21,

"For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish ad Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the LORD out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem," says the LORD, "as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD. And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites," says the LORD.

While some of the evangelism described here makes us think these verses are fulfilled in the church age (now), all brothers from all nations have not been brought to Jerusalem (being referred to as the holy mountain which speaks of the future dispensation).

If the age of the 1000 year reign of Christ is characterized by this, shouldn't our Spiritual duty today look the same?   From the beginning of the promise uttered to Abraham, God has been patiently seeking the redemption and transformation of unchurched people!  The excellence... of the power of God on display in lives being changed.  What if that is what He will have His servants offer Him?

And if in the Kingdom era there will be literal pilgrimages to Jerusalem of new believers in Jesus, shouldn't that be fulfilled now in a Spiritual sense?  Malachi 1:7-8,

"You offer defiled food on My altar,
But say,
‘In what way have we defiled You?’
By saying,
‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’
And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice,
Is it not evil?
And when you offer the lame and sick,
Is it not evil?"

If this is true, ...  Then what, do you think possibly...

Lame  = ?

Sick = ?

Blind = ?

Disciple Making Means the Unchurched will Follow Him

We quote God's Word in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) a lot, but what does a discipling movement look like? The word "disciple" means "follower, learner".  Disciple-making therefore means making disciples of the unchurched. Wait a second, you might say: I make disciples of the people who already attend church!  Isn't that also disciplemaking?  Well, of substance yes, but let me explain a little further.

By definition, a disciple is someone who is willing to follow Jesus. Once someone is willing to follow, then your engagement in making a disciple is done.  The disciple is made - and a certain amount of maintenance remains.  We might differentiate disciple-maintaining from disciple-making.

Help me tell the story of Jesus....  Jesus saw the crowds following Him, picked out 12 to be His first missionaries... and then: did He send them to minister to the crowds already following Him on foot?  

Is that how the story goes??  No :)  On two occasions (prior to Pentecost) Jesus gave the 12 the power to speak and do as He did.  Who were they sent to?  They were empowered to reach the nearby villages where people had not heard the good news so they could be given the chance to follow Jesus too.

The Necessary Work of "Disciple-Maintenance" (Shepherding)

"Disciples" are the willing.  They showed up.  How about at church?  Who shows up at church, usually?  Isn't it the willing?  Those who have chosen in some motivation to follow Christ?

Jesus didn't concern Himself with developing the 12 missionaries' Christianity very far at all before He anointed them to successfully make followers of the LORD. They weren't intelligent, they weren't professionals.  It's not necessary for a "movement."  We all want Christians to have character, granted; and they will by God's grace.

God has a plan in disciple-maintenance, and maybe that is your passion to serve Him.  What I mean by "disciple-maintenance" is the giftings of Shepherd and Teacher.  In His concern for sin, Jesus said, "You follow me because I fed you the bread."  He continually ministers to develop godly character. This is the sanctification process and we're all working on becoming who He has destined us to be.  We come together as a Body to refresh and strengthen our willingness to follow, to learn.

There is a small percentage of followers that aren't what they seem.  But even that God has under control.  On occasion, disciple-maintenance leads us down a road of departure.  Followers "work themselves out."  1 John 2:19,

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

His Power is in Disciple-Making Movements

How big is the testimony of God in the world if we only offer up the incremental faith of the already faithful? Compare the faith of Paul from the writings of 1 Timothy to 2nd Timothy - can you see his faith grow between writing these two books?  Probably not, I'd guess.  By contrast, can you tell the difference between Saul the persecutor of Christians, and Paul the convert of Jesus?  Absolutely!  Conversion is His renown!  Isaiah 61:5,6,9,

Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
And the sons of the foreigner
Shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers....
You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles,
And in their glory you shall boast....
All who see them shall acknowledge them,
That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed. 

Would our God be more awe-inspiring, and be more glorious if we could bring the unchurched, the un-gathered, the non-following?   Saved... from the grip of hell on earth, transformed like nobody's business?  Can you remember the last time you heard the story of someone who just accepted Jesus as Savior?  What happened to your soul?  The newly converted remind us of what is important.  I love to hear how touching it is for a person to finally meet God in all His love for them.  How "lame" in transformation are wonderfully but predictably faithful Christians compared to a babe in Christ?  Malachi 1:12-13,

"You also say,
‘Oh, what a weariness!’
And you sneer at it,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick;
Thus you bring an offering!
Should I accept this from your hand?”
Says the Lord."

Stolen = Researchers have been reporting that most church growth statistics come from transfers from other congregations of people who are already Christians...?

What if the most beautiful offering in God's eyes is the testimony of His presence in a stranger's life?  What if He loves to hear a new people overwhelmed to discover God as alive, as powerful, as near, as protective, as saving, as gracious.

It can't be bought with money.

Can you give it to Him?

Children of Comfort

This blog post starts a new post emphasis (label) titled, "Mother Jerusalem's Advice."

What am I replicating in this life -- for all replicate!  Everybody is bearing fruit, but only some fruit lasts to eternity.  What I make of my life will be counted as "children" before God.

Children = good works, the Holy Spirit manifested through me, people accepting the gospel, disciples, eternal life, godly fruit, being clothed properly for Jesus at His coming.

"I want the women adorned with good works..." 1 Tim. 2:10

According to Isaiah 51:18-19, in the next life, "children" are the ones who comfort believers:

Stand up, O Jerusalem...
There is no one to guide her
Among all the sons she has brought forth;
Nor is there any who takes her by the hand
Among all the sons she has brought up.
These two things have come to you;
Desolation and destruction,
famine and sword --
By whom shall I comfort you?
Your sons have fainted,
They lie at the head of all the streets
Like an antelope in the net;
They are full of the fury of the LORD,
The rebuke of your God. 

According to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit (John 16:6-7) is the one who comforts believers:

But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

We need offspring, we need a child for the next life whom God will be pleased with, Isaiah 52:1,

Awake, awake!  Put on your strength, O Zion;
Put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Shall no longer come to you. 

God gave such an offspring!  Isaiah 9:6,

For unto us a child is born,
Unto us a Son is given

Any person who has believed in Jesus for eternal life has a certificate of having adopted a child.  Jesus has been adopted as our Son, though, His true monogenes (pedigree) is that He is the Father's Son.  Why did the Father give us His Son to be our son?  Because there would be no hope for us to bear godly offspring and make disciples of all nations without this gracious gift.  Inside the Jewish nation He was hidden as the lone eternally fruitful legacy of humanity.  Isaiah 49:1-2,

The LORD has called Me from the womb;
From the matrix of My mother He
has made mention of My name.
And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword;
In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me,
And made Me a polished shaft;
In His quiver He has hidden Me. 

But when He hid Jesus as the son of Israel within the Jewish Nation, God also hid Jesus as a child for all the world. Isaiah 49:5-6,

And now the Lord says,
Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him,
So that Israel is gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,
And My God shall be My strength),
Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

Every "offspring," every "child," every practice and manifestation in our lifestyle that bears out in our community to take people away from faith in God will be destroyed before God's face.  As He turned to destroy earthly Jerusalem, so He may destroy us.  God will not be mocked, we will reap what we sow.  Isaiah 63:10,

But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit;
So He turned Himself against them as an enemy,
And He fought against them.

Our lives are either manifesting this Son or else our deceptive idols of gaining peace with God.  1 John 4:17,

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

And how was Jesus in the world?  John 4 shows us that Jesus was busy making disciples of God wherever He was accepted.  He equated His own work at evangelism and disciplemaking (evangediscipleship) so critically as whether or not He would have access to food and water stored up in the next life.  John 4:4,

But He needed to go through Samaria.

When has God ever needed ANYTHING...?  John 4:7,

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.'

Jesus plays as much by Kingdom rules as we must.  He was both thirsty and hungry.  He needed to make babies.  He knew this woman would make babies with Him.  Her word of His gospel made the city believe.  A whole city of believers were born.  He taught the 12 how to prepare for the next life, by storing up food NOW.  John 4:34, 36,

Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.  ...  And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life...'.

Her children rise up and call her blessed....
Give her the fruit of her hands,
And let her own works praise her in the gates.
Prov 31:28, 30-31

There will be desolation and famine for all who have not birthed with Christ a team of fellow Christ-followers from among the nations.  They will eat in the next life, but they will have to find food from those who have it.  Jesus equates "evangediscipleship" throughout the Old and New Testaments as essential to survival that He calls it:

Food.

Water.

Clothing.

(No wonder Jesus relates to the least of these!)

I believe that evangediscipleship is the oil in the lamps of the virgins.  I believe that evangediscipleship will be the measure for our personal bodily resurrection described in Romans 8 and Philippians 3.  I believe it is the purpose for Abraham's family.  And more.  There are so many theologies to unpack from the Bible.  And I don't have the mind for it so much these days, even though I think about these every day.  I just want to paint this quick picture for those reading here.  Isaiah 62:5,

For as a young man marries a virgin,
So shall your sons marry you;
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
So shall your God rejoice over you.

I know the most important thing I can do after attending to my own inner persevering faith in God is to create disciples.  To me, it is exciting to know that the sojourners I choose to bind as a community, as a team, as my Body, my church in this life are the people I will be in network with for all eternity.  Is. 49:18,

'As I live,' says the LORD,
'You shall surely clothe yourselves
with them all as an ornament,
And bind them on you as a bride does.'

If you want to make babies, God has given you His Spirit through which you can exponentially redeem the lives of so many.  It won't look as tangibly productive as literal childbearing or adoption.  It won't feel like this awesome thing that is "done" like holding a baby in your hands and giving him your last name.  You may never see or physically hold or call them your own, but God will cause them to come running back to you in the end.  Isaiah 49:20-23,

The children you will have,
After you have lost the others,
Will say again in your ears,
'The place is too small for me,
Give me a place where I may dwell.'
Then you will say in your heart,
'Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have lost my children and am desolate,
A captive, and wandering to and fro?
And who has brought these up?
There I was, left alone; But these, where were they?'
Thus says the Lord GOD:
'Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,
And set up My standard for the peoples;
They shall bring your sons in their arms,
And their queens your nursing mothers;
Then you will know that I am the LORD,
For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.'

The Prayer Closet

I need to listen a whole lot to what God says, more than I do everything else.  The solution is to regularly use "the prayer closet."  When I listen to anything else there isn't as much bigness for Christ to tell me who He says that I am.  It means that even when someone throws something as gritty as judgment at me, I excuse myself politely and say I've gotta go. I've gotta have a prayer closet where I go spend some time and I come out afterward victorious... cleansed of whatever wasn't quite in alignment or affirmed that I was already on the right path... or whatever God discerns that needs to be discerned.

It's a miracle to see God do this in a Christian's life.  After a continuous experience in the prayer closet Christians care very little with whether they have been abandoned to some expectation because Christ has met that emotional panic inside their heart.  Have you seen Christians who come out of a prayer closet?  What do they look like?

We ought to receive discipling-judgment from other Christians, because their voice often is one and the same Spirit; God.  However without that prayer closet, it can cause a believer stalemate.  Christians can overtake Christians with their Christian judgments which are actually true from His Word.  These judgments are the tool that God wants to use, but it quickly should become God using them, after we first receive them from the Body of believers who know us.  Why?  There are several reasons why this is important.  First, whether or not we attain victory over our failings is on the line.  Second, our Savior wants to use these truths in a mentoring way.  Christians are not always capable of imitating the mentoring, advocating grace of Christ.  Most importantly He wants the glory for our having been mentored.

Paul was a figure in the early Corinthian church upon which the congregation was deciding if he was the choicest orator of doctrine.  It could have crimped his confidence.  1 Cor. 4:3-4,

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court.  In fact, I do not even judge myself.  For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.

For Paul, their odd use of him as a role model caused him to write back to the church about the spiritual mind of Christ.  He was given this message to write to the church after first being set free in the prayer closet.

I have seen Christians come out of the prayer closet who passively admit to their Body of people who know them, any variety of evils with a smile on their face because they recognize that they are forgiven.  It's no longer a part of their lives because Christ has told them in the prayer closet that that unconformity is no longer a part of who they're seen as.

But that's in the case where there is actual sin and I don't know for sure what God will bring out to me in the prayer closet.  Sometimes the prayer closet is an experience where He acquits me, and the joy and power of the Holy Spirit only gets more incredible because He explains that I have an opportunity to share Him with them.  Think Job at the end of that Book and how he advocated in the end for his critics.

I desire that when my heart receives someone else's opinion, my heart is already full of God's voice. Man's judgment either adds or subtracts only a little as it passes through the prayer closet. I want this for myself today, this morning, at this moment.

I love the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings chapter 19.  Criticism has come against him and Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18:19-25,

Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?  You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?  Now look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.  But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?”’  Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them!  How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?  Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”

Hezekiah tore his clothes.  To say it too simply, he was upset.  He might have trusted in the chariots of Egypt but to do so would not have been singular trust in God alone.  He took the letter of criticism and literally spread it out in the house of God.  2 Kings 19:14-16,

And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.  Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.  Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.  ... Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone. 

In Your Prayer Closet

We believers have got to pour out the whole story before God.  Literally spread it out on your bed, or whatever.  Ask Him to look on those words said to you.  Ask Him to speak to you about your heart in it.  If you've ever experienced a moment where Christ sets you free so powerfully, it gets addictive and I'm sure that you've had a moment like this in times past, but today I want a rush of His opinions toward us to overtake us... because God is so much better of an Advocate than any man aspires to be.  Including the closest friend in your life.  Or a Christian you respect.  Or a spouse.  Or a crisis or confusion.  Our low moments when we're judged means only "a little" in the hand of a God who prepared in advance good works that we should walk in them.

coming out of the closet

Don't let anyone have too much of the judgment seat in your heart before He does.

The Emotions of the Righteous

Psalm 41 begins, 

Blessed is he who considers the poor;
The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
The LORD will preserve him and keep him alive,
And he will be blessed on the earth;
You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.
The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness;
You will sustain him on his sickbed.

We've been meditating on calling out the image of the Son of God in the people we love and serve. In the previous post, the Beatitudes have opened a door for us to understand how God has already been on mission to bless the wounded since before we ever dreamed up a mission ourselves. He shares a heart with the elemental struggles of everyday living to bring about what is good on earth. 

A broken and contrite heart God will not despise - Ps 51:17

The wounded are the sorts we find identified in the sermon on the mount. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor, both financially and of other humble states. Blessed are those who are grieving. These people seem to have pain, and it is unending, always there like a thorn that never gets taken out of their flesh so it can heal. Their pain lasts for a long season of their life. 


A not-yet-believer could really feel oneness with God through hearing the Beatitudes. So then: is it supposed to be different for a Christian to read that passage? We Christians are blessed, right? Are we cured of our wounds because we are in fellowship with God? Not always. 


The Psalmist's Emotions 


The Psalms are a blend of two intense meditations: the introspection of attuning in to one's own plight, and praise and faith in the character and promises of God. So if these are written as part of the infallible Word of God why do Christians sometimes feel guilty for attending carefully to their emotional needs?


How does God feel about the emotional person? Do emotions play an important role in your relationship with God and others? While they should not overtake truth as God's Word depicts, God's Word depicts the centrality of emotions in the relationship we have with God and with others. Right after discussing the blessing of caring for the poor, the Psalmist turns inward to his own state.  Ps. 41:4-8,

I said, "Lord, be merciful on me;
Heal my soul for I have sinned against You."
My enemies speak evil of me:
"When will he die, and his name perish?"
And if he comes to see me, he speaks lies;
His heart gathers iniquity to itself;
When he goes out, he tells it.
All who hate me whisper together against me;
Against me they devise my hurt.
'An evil disease,' they say, 'clings to him.
And now that he lies down, he will rise up no more.'" 

He admits he sins and asks for healing. Then he immediately pivots to describe the choices of others around him. Sometimes the Psalms tattle to God about the sins of others. More frequently it is even more elemental, issues of exclusion, for example. Yes, God cares for so small a thing as exclusion. It is a word Jesus used in the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke to describe persecution for which we should leap for joy. 


The more I read the Psalms, the more elementary I think about God's vengeance and the need for Body unity, and I fear the LORD. It did not take anything more than crossing the Psalmist's (a righteous man in Godly pursuits) emotions for God to comfort him with promises to battle against these who otherwise might have gone on their way. Ps. 56:8-9, 

You number my wanderings; 
Put my tears into Your bottle; 
Are they not in your book? 
When I cry out to You, 
Then my enemies will turn back; 
This I know because God is for me. 

How Quickly Does God Heal? 


Romans 8:18-28 teaches us that in Christ we can expect a "firstfruits of the Spirit" - which means instantaneous healing and redemption in our life. It then teaches that we are nevertheless subjected to this system of futility to be "saved in this hope" for some part we do not have yet. We will not have complete redemption and healing till the next dispensation. That means that God sovereignly chooses to heal some things right now and will not heal other parts, till later. I believe that it is always right to pray, for all kinds of healings and restorations, because we do not know what God will choose to honor now - and whatever requests we have to wait to see be answered in the next life - these are our treasures stored up in heaven. We know that from the perspective of eternity, He answers every good thing we ask. 


The Psalmist's Wound 


Psalm 42 begins with a most famous verse "as the deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you O God." But I don't think we often notice the context. Thirst according to the Beatitudes has to do with longing to see righteousness in the community. This is the context for his requests to be granted before God. Verse 4, 

When I remember these things, 
I pour out my soul within me. 
For I used to go with the multitude, 
I went with them to the house of God 
With the voice of joy and praise 

He isn't included at this time, probably out of God's slow developments and others noticing. "Where is your God?" This is a similar question to the enemy asking, "Where is your husband?" It is a challenge to the presence and headship and provision and wisdom the Saint has been given. It claims that if God were truly vested in the cause of the Psalmist, God ought to have healed and restored it all instantaneously. But, God does not restore everything instantaneously. All the wounds described in the Beatitudes could stand more than prayer to God to resolve; a picture of health includes the scope of the community to settle in an organic manner through intimate corporate discipleship. 


But the Psalmist doesn't have community as an option for healing. Ironically his bodily "evil disease" seems to be the reproaches of others. Ps. 42:10, 

As with a breaking of my bones, 
My enemies reproach me,
While they keep saying to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

The Lament Psalms are categorically about misuse of language and distrust and deceit in relationships with others. Ps. 56:5, 

All day they twist my words; 
All their thoughts are against me for evil. 

He seems to understand his own fallen contribution to the situation -- he does confess his sins. But it doesn't help clear up the matter and that is why it has become a wound. Ps. 55:20-21, 

He has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; 
He has broken his covenant. 
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, 
But war was in his heart; 
His words were softer than oil, 
Yet they were drawn swords. 

When Your Hope Is In God Alone 


Continue to seek good on the earth. Know that God's reputation is also on the line. Psalm 50:23, 

And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God. 

The Psalmist did not trust in himself but in God alone to act through a desperate situation. God's objective is to show His glory and power so that all may fear Him. Ps. 40:2-3, 

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, 
Out of the miry clay, 
And set my feet upon a rock, 
And established my steps. 
He has put a new song in my mouth-- 
Praise to our God; 
Many will see it and fear, 
And will trust in the LORD. 

Dear Christian, what is your story? Did you lose a loved one? Are you suffering from the tragic effects of divorce? Have you never known job security and a decent paycheck? Or are you like the Psalmist in the Lament Psalms? Do you know your own story, and can you tell it to God? 


Ephesians 5:19 tells us to speak to one another "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord...". How seriously should we take that? 


What good could possibly come from speaking and singing Lament Psalms to members of the Body of Christ? I hope your answer will be to continually identify with the Beatitude sort of man. The kind of man who is more like the not-yet-believer-in-Jesus than we could ever understand. If, in your position of woundedness you need God like the not-yet-believer, you just might lead a person to the fountain of living waters to drink eternal life for the first time. Give yourself permission to make much about your own emotional condition and also much about God's life. 


"Blessed is he who considers the poor" - it will require that you meditate carefully and identify emotionally with such a state. May the LORD grant you the joy of suffering for the sake of His gospel.

Perichoresis

(This is the final post in the series, Our Savior, the Abider)
Previous two posts:
Frenemies
Who's Your Daddy?

'Perichoresis' by Derrick

Perichoresis - To "dwell," to "abide," to be "with God."  It is the flow of "resources" (John 8:44) from the Father which fund the truth-promises of Jesus Christ.  In a community, perichoresis is mutual-permeation of the Father's love, strategies and interests.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus displays His perichoretic relationship to God and then invites His disciples to widen their own flow of the Vine, through Himself.  It culminates in John 17:21,

...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us...

In the first two posts we considered the faithfulness of Jesus Christ in contrast to Satan's betrayal. "Knowing God" was meant to be an eternal affair and Jesus called this affair, "eternal life" (John 17:3).  What we have not yet examined is how perichoresis is received by community.  Limiting this post, we will examine only the first stage of response, which has no capacity for hearing the truth. *

Those Without Ears to Hear

Joseph's brothers were all sons of the same man Jacob, but Jacob and Joseph had a special connection.  Joseph was determined to see righteousness be done.  Jacob called Joseph "my son" (Gen. 45:28).  It was the source of trouble in the family, feelings of disunity.  At first it seemed easy to blame Joseph as the disturber of the peace.  Even Jacob was troubled by his proud prophecies of greatness (Gen. 37:10).  But it was the brothers who left Joseph for dead, not the other way around.  They might argue that because Joseph held the righteousness card in the one hand, he couldn't have also held the unity card in the other hand.  He held both.  In fact Joseph even named his children to represent healing over his family (Gen. 41:51-52)!

 

This man channeled massive power from God through his servanthood.  (For more on Joseph, read the post titled, "The Ignore-Accuse Prison".)  Pharaoh plainly observed the value in making him second in command over all Egypt.  Pharaoh gave him the name Zaphenath-Paneah which means "one who reveals secret things with ease."

In another previous post, "Learning Life," we saw Mary drinking in deeply the presence of Jesus when everyone else saw it as a moment to be busy.  Martha's rebuke on Mary doesn't amount to suffering; nevertheless in a small form that is exactly what is going on.  In a later chapter we see Mary able to read "the signs of the times."  She pours on Him a year's wage of perfume for anointing His burial.  Exclusively she foresaw He was about to die.

"Son" in the Old Testament

Does perichoretic intimacy last?  "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26).  Those who are familiar with the New Testament are accustomed to reading the phrase "son of God."  But "son of God" is so rarely used, in the Old Testament!  I wonder.  It may be because, excluding angels (Gen. 6:2), there were so few!  Isaiah 51:18-20,

There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth; nor is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.  These two things have come to you; who will be sorry for you?— desolation and destruction, famine and sword— by whom will I comfort you?  Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

Early in the history of Israel, she was called "my son."  Exodus 4:22-23,

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn.  So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me.

Matthew reviews the lineage of Jesus Christ calling Adam "the son of God."  Luke 3:38,

...the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

By the grace of God, God calls Adam and Israel and even born-again Christians "sons" before they have ever proven themselves to live up to the calling.  He gives us our identity anachronistically, before its time, to show His kindness to us, to show that perichoresis, the flow of God's grace, is the means by which our identity as sons becomes son-like in-deed.

Children graduate into sons through abiding belief in the promised Seed, Jesus Christ.  Galatians 4:1-7,

Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.  Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.  But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”  Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Witnesses involuntarily witness whoever they have been spiritually intimate with.  A son characterizes his father.  The Hebrew word "son" and the Aramaic word "son" are not theologically vacant words.


"Son" in the New Testament

We have the same theological arrangement in the NT as well.  Romans 8 says every believer is already adopted in the Spirit in verse 15,

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

And then speaks of the adoption as not having happened yet, conditioned upon our perseverance in verses 23-25,

Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.  For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

We are sons by gracious design.  We are sons indeed if we appropriate it into how we live [1].

Prophecies of Greatness

Being a son was rare enough in the Old Testament that when they saw it, most loved their own lives more.  It's not as if there were not "sons" in the OT.  Moses, David, Abraham, Joseph....  Israel by and large does not understand that as much as they study these prototypes of the Messiah, these were all rejected in their day because of their close association "with God."

Wherever perichoresis becomes incarnate, it incarnates as the servant not the ruler.  Sonship is not just servanthood.  It is also rulership.  This is why God's servants are accompanied with divine appointments, power, signs, miracles....  "The one who rules is the one who serves."

Dreamers Die for Community

Sons don't care about earthly status quo, at all.  They only care about serving the will of the Father.  It is the impartial way they devote their whole life.  Some people think that this makes a Christian very careless toward God's people, but the secret is, the opposite is true.  Hebrews 1:1-3,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person

His Son, is, the image of God.  Genesis 1:26, 27,

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Man, is, the image of God.  To be the image of God, is to be a son and to be a son is to be the image.  Do you see this?  Jesus is Adam as he ought to be, as we can be, and in a portion, how we will be.  How wide the divide -- between mankind and God?  Romans 8:29,

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Setting sonship aside - this is the divide - and it eternally wide: Jesus is in essence deity, a true son; the only begotten at that.  We are not essentially deity, of course; we are adopted.

Jesus lives as a Son, and He invites man to the same. The day man gains ears to hear, man will fulfill the oneness of John 17:21.

Perichoresis Has a Price

The Pharisees wanted to do the violence of divorce.  They still do to this day.  Malachi 2:10, 16

Have we not all one Father?  Has not one God created us?  Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?  ...  For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence....

They wanted to end their relationship with Him once for all. They wanted to kill perichoresis so badly, that they wanted to kill him.  Their belief system was religion without sonship.  Religion, without adoption. Religion without transformation.  They don't believe in it.  They don't believe a man could get that intimate with God, because they have tried to obey God and have violated their consciences beyond repair.  This is notwithstanding believers, who oftentimes lose their taste for deliverance from sin.  "Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all" (Gal. 4:1).

The religious will use their religious rules, tragically interpreted from the mouth of God, to justify their departure.

God 'With Us' is the Testimony of John

The title "Son" is used 39 times in the Gospel of John, and it is the common way Jesus refers to Himself in reference to the Father.  It is the summary of His identity upon which he invites Nicodemus in chapter 3 to believe.  Nicodemus must be born literally "from above," just as the Scriptures teach in Galatians 4:6,

but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.

It is what He meant when He spoke the most famous passage in the bible: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17).  It is why He invites the blind man to believe in "the Son of God" in John 9.  It is why Jesus taught, "Therefore if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed" in John 8.  It is why Jesus told them to prepare for the world to hate them also.  All of the signs and miracles and power that Jesus demonstrated invited believers to become great in the Kingdom of God.  Hence the final invitation in the Gospel of John writes like so in John 20:30-31,

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Do You Believe in the Son of God?

There is so much of the image of God reflecting in fallen man, that it makes no sense to praise God and curse people (James 3:9)!

The things that partner with God we long for in our souls; "He has put eternity in their hearts" (Ecc. 3:11).

Do you want a Father who is willing to bust His butt to prove that He is knowable through sons (John 14:11-14)?  I hope that, amidst all the trials you may have in being set free of sins, you still believe God wants to deliver you from bondage, through the intimacy of knowing God and being filled by Him and being ministered to by His amazing grace.  Nowhere does it say that we have to be perfect instantaneously.  A great life's legacy is to ongoingly receive God's forgiveness and patience.  Don't give up on righteousness as the final destination. God is looking for Christians who stay in a perichoretic relationship with God till they're taken home.  We imitate our short life's version, of Christ's "forever."   This is the design for so many NT passages conditioning perseverance.  Revelation 21:6-7,

I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.  He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

*   For a framework depicting the stages of reconciliation between Jesus and His people through the Gospel of John, keep watch for upcoming posts.


Scene from Jesus of Nazareth the Movie, in an extended interpretation of John 7:45-52 & 11:46-53


[1]  Dillow, Joseph C.  Life in the Spirit.  Reign of the Servant Kings: A Study of Eternal Security and the Final Significance of Man.  Hayesville, NC, Schoettle Publishing Co., 2006; pp. 368-371.  

Nobody Told Me About 'Good Flesh'

...And by saying "nobody" it obviously isn't the case, I have learned about it through a mentor and I am so thankful!  Since I used the term "good flesh" over and again in conversations last week, the Spirit is leading me to just put it in a blog post.

Most believers can easily explain how sin happens; it happens when someone isn't obeying God's commands.  "Do not steal.  Do not lie.  Do not dishonor one's parents."  We could call failures in these ways, "bad flesh" - when the flesh acts out in ways that are in disagreement with God's law.  But there is a more insidious case of fleshliness, one that is much, much harder to discern from the Spirit.  Why is it harder?  Because it looks and acts just like someone who obeys God's laws.  At least, as far as most believers can detect on a less intimate level.

What does "good flesh" look like?

When I'm in good flesh, sometimes, I'm quoting scripture.  Sometimes, I'm leading someone through the gospel.  Sometimes I am getting groceries out of my pantry for a neighbor, or helping a friend across town.  Sometimes it's when I raise my hand in Sunday School.  I can be in good flesh and start a blog post.  (Okay, I'm praying right now to get me out of good flesh, because believe it or not, this is difficult to deny in myself!)

Don't all those things sound so Godly?

Don't be deceived.  I'm trying not to be.

"But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way..."

Let me explain what is at stake, the best way I know how.  Anytime anyone takes you on a tour of God's commands to disciple you, what happens in your soul?  I will tell you what happens in mine.  When someone shows me God's standards, I have tried to be the most willing and pliant of people.  Unfortunately I hear only at a certain depth, the first time I am told about God's goals for me.  This first depth is almost always, "good flesh."  It tries.  It is ready for a challenge.  It wants to grow, to develop, to be proven a good student.  It wants to perform when told there is something important at stake.

And there is a negative response in "good flesh."  It feels pressure when the discipleship program comes back for round two, three, ... fifty.  "Good flesh" looks at the same challenge on some days, and doesn't get excited.  It wants to hide.  It wants to avoid.  The mind gets foggy, not knowing where they are and where they are ultimately going.  It causes hurt.  It causes confusion.  Then later, the fog lifts because the soul gets tired of the path of pressure.  Just like it became tired of challenging itself.   There is a constant oscillation of "I'm ready for a challenge, again!" and then disillusionment and confusion come back once more.

There is no middle ground, with "good flesh."

Fortunately for us, God uses the law in a Spiritual way, oftentimes, for us after our first hearing.  He has mercy on us and intercedes for the will of God in our lives.  If our hearts are truly repentant, we will "hear" later, that same program of discipleship all around us.  We will hear it in the words of other believers and even unbelievers.  We will hear it in the Bible when we were reading for another purpose.  We'll hear it in our escapist tv programs.  And most importantly, in our experiences and our attempts to understand God's will in the moments of our lives, we'll hear it when it's time to attempt a new level of obedience.

I have a feeling that Paul's number one concern of sin in the Epistle of Romans, is "good flesh," not "bad flesh."  Think about chapter 2 when he tried to reason with the righteous as measured by God's law.  Think about chapters 6 through 10 which Paul uses to save us from the mistakes of Israel and their fate in Romans 11.  He wants our experience of salvation to be actual "saving" from the flesh in every aspect of life.  Let's read through Romans 7 and into Romans 8, 9 and 10, with the idea of "good flesh" being enemy #1.  I'm so glad God showed this to me recently.  Romans 7:6, 8-9 -

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.  What shall we say, then?  Is the law sin?  Certainly not!  ...  But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire.  For apart from the law, sin is dead.  I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.  And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.  

Any program of discipleship or shepherding using commands and ideals from God's Word cause good flesh to respond.  It is an imperfect program of sanctification.  Not because the law itself is bad.  The law is Spiritual.  But we still have flesh and it wants to respond.  Does the law not tell you, "perform"?  Of course!  And this is exactly why, after some time of investing heavy personal efforts, those who are taking us through a tour of God's Word say... "Umm, you still don't demonstrate that you get it."  How frustrating!  I call this stage, fog.  I think Paul does, too.  Romans 7:15,18, 22-25

For what I am doing, I do not understand.  For what I will to do, I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.  ...  ...for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.  ...  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Anytime we fall short of perfection, guess which realm made it happen?  The flesh.  Our minds can "hear" on that first level every single day what God is leading us to become. But how to become it, defies us, as soon as our will is to manifest it.

The good news is, God understands the problem very well.  Let's read Romans 8:1, 3-4 -

There is now no condemnation, for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  ...  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us....

Jesus stood in the place of attempting the will of God; His attempts stand in the place for our attempts.  He gave us a way of being in response to the expectations of God, and have complete and utter victory.  So this is what is at stake: we can walk in what Christ accomplished, or we will walk in the realm of getting all fired up to live up to the challenge of God's Word.  Every Christian deed we attempt will be judged this way: Romans 8:13 -

For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The law was meant to sanctify us.  Even though it can't.  There is still a way that it can.  "But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect.  For they are not all Israel who are of Israel" (Romans 9:6).  Let's read Romans 10:5-9 -

For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, 'The man who does those things shall live by them.'  But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, 'Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, 'Who will descend into the abyss?' " (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).  But what does it say?  "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe that in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

There is a perfect picture of the silly maze of good flesh.  It either gets pumped up to rise itself to the occasion (ascends), or it wants to run and hide in fog and surrender (descends).  But faith offers a sane middle road.  It believes what Romans 8 just taught.  What the flesh could not do, God did by sending Jesus Christ on behalf of sinful flesh.  If we want to escape good flesh - we call out Jesus Christ as Lord.  If we put to death the deeds of the body through resurrection power (Rom 8:11), we will live!

Remember, Paul asked "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24).

Israel stumbled over and rejected the righteousness available by faith.  Faith says this when it hears the law: "The word of God is near you."  Another words, The Word is a Presence!  He is in your heart (Jesus was raised from the dead) and He is in your mouth (confess that Jesus Christ is Lord).

Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame (Romans 10:11).  Paul experienced that shame as a Christ follower in Romans 7, he even called himself wretched.  Christ followers are thus taught how to escape the error that the Israelites made - they did not call on God in Isaiah 28:16 -

Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; whoever believes will not act hastily.

My hope for myself, is this.  When I hear the Word of God, and a fellow believer most thankfully has aspirations to see my life embody it, I will stop where I am and not be inspired to try.  I will believe that Jesus is available and ready to obey it perfectly in my place.  He is the sane middle road.

Face Death

Look Death Square in the Face

In October I took a car trip south to Phoenix for a conference.  The conference was awesome, but God was much, much more.  He showed me unspeakable love turn after turn and opened my eyes.  I became aware of a deeper calling to live the image of Christ.  Less of me, more of Him.  This was right when I was doing great in my life, that I received a vision of His love.  He loves precious and cheerful sacrifices.  Remember Christ when they wanted to make Him King, and He slipped away from the five thousand to escape to a mountain and be alone (John 6:15)?  I can assure you, no one is knocking on my door forcing me to be King, and it's not likely to happen anytime soon for sure.  But the application is usable.  Christ-follower, are you feeding the crowd with the Bread of Heaven?  If you're not running hard against the grain of self-sufficiency, find a friend who will covenant to discipline you to be different.

'The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning' Ecc. 7:4

Jesus' temptation was living in His own strength and His own identity.  That is why He described discipleship as continually hating one's own life (John 12:25).  What happened in the incarnation of God in the womb of Mary?  Jesus set aside the favor & exercise of deity.  What happened in the early hours of prayer every morning for Jesus during His three year ministry?  Jesus set aside the favor & exercise of deity.  When His potential was its zenith He fled into the image of an unrecognized attendant and died.  He looked death straight in the face.  He didn't just gaze at it on occasion.  No; it was a continual mirror by which He corrected all His steps.  "Better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting" (Ecc. 7:2).  Mourning allows the heart to connect with the disenfranchised, who God is already passionate to undertake.  Mourning allows a whole community to hope in God as one.  Abundant salvation awaits those who continually take up a fresh image of brokenness.  True harmony and Body unity awaits.

Death means holding perfectly still, "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10).  It also means "the life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God" (Gal. 2:20)  There is no way to measure how much power could come into our works, if we would pursue the discipline.  I have found that when I come up for air out of a time of stillness, there has measurably been more of God's power happening through me and around me.  People get right with God left and right.  I'm getting right with God too.  It is a great place to experience.

It is hard, at times.  Very, very hard because it hurts.  It's confusing.  As soon as the pain comes from the emptiness to go without "things to be doing to remember who I am," even if you thought you were trusting God in those do-ings, trust me, you might go a little crazy when you surrender "do-ing" completely.  But this is where deeper trust develops.  Busyness delays what God desires to demonstrate.  Bring death to kiss self-effort.  Repeat it, over, and over and over, till it becomes practice.  Looking back, I am so thankful that the LORD invited me to pure death.  Recall Abraham, who waited 25 years for the promise of having a baby.  He started off, trusting God to do it.  Later he seemed to have forgotten that his body was already dead.  His flesh wanted to "help God out" who he still trusted, mixing faith-with-self-effort, and he acquired Hagar.  Don't give in to Plan B!!  (I know, it seems impossible!)  God wants to be the hero of your story.  If you have an accident, if Plan B and Plan C continually make you trip and fall down into self-sufficiency, don't surrender to the mistake.  Get up.  Go back.  Trust in God, alone.  Sarah stopped sweating and then brought forth Isaac.  God's faithfulness is not dependent on whether you conceived Ishmaels here and there as a Christ-follower.  It is dependent on His integrity alone.  Dear Christian, God is unconditionally the hero of your circumstances.  He will unconditionally perform His promise.

Don't Wait for False Life to Kill You

I'm still on this journey that started in October.  I am not sure where I am going.  Yes - that hurts, a lot.  Faith-alone, instead of faith+my own contribution, is more challenging and more counter-intuitive than any other Spiritual discipline.  Even blogging tempts me back to self-sufficiency.  Don't wait till you fall in exhaustion from false sources of life.  Offer yourself to His discipline well before you see signs of corruption.  Get uber-upset with any force in your life which feels phony, beginning with the log in your own eye first.  Could you stop right now, and pursue Him afresh through mourning and sacrifice of 'the great Christian life'?

May the LORD enlighten your eyes and mine too, to pursue the full measure of the love of God!

'No eye has seen, No ear has heard, No mind has imagined what God has in store for those who love Him.'

1 Corinthians 2:2

Isaiah 54

"Sing, O childless woman,
you who have never given birth!
Break into loud and joyful song,
O Jerusalem,
You who have never been in labor.
For the desolate woman now has more children
than the woman who lives with her husband,"
says the LORD.
"Enlarge your house; build an addition.
Spread out your home,
and spare no expense!
For you will soon be bursting at the seams.
Your descendants will occupy other nations
and resettle the ruined cities.

Fear not; you will no longer live in shame.
Don’t be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you.
You will no longer remember the shame of your youth
and the sorrows of widowhood.
For your Creator will be your husband;
the LORD of Heaven’s Armies is his name!
He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,
the God of all the earth.
For the LORD has called you back from your grief—
as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,”
says your God.

“For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with great compassion I will take you back.
In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while.
But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD, your Redeemer.
“Just as I swore in the time of Noah
that I would never again let a flood cover the earth,
so now I swear
that I will never again be angry and punish you.
For the mountains may move
and the hills disappear,
but even then my faithful love for you will remain.
My covenant of blessing will never be broken,”
says the LORD, who has mercy on you.

"O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted!
I will rebuild you with precious jewels
and make your foundations from lapis lazuli.
I will make your towers of sparkling rubies,
your gates of shining gems,
and your walls of precious stones.
I will teach all your children,
and they will enjoy great peace.
You will be secure under a government that is just and fair.
Your enemies will stay far away.
You will live in peace,
and terror will not come near.
If any nation comes to fight you,
it is not because I sent them.
Whoever attacks you will go down in defeat.

I have created the blacksmith
who fans the coals beneath the forge
and makes the weapons of destruction.
And I have created the armies that destroy.
But in that coming day
no weapon turned against you will succeed.
You will silence every voice
raised up to accuse you.
These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the LORD;
their vindication will come from me.
I, the LORD, have spoken!"

Who's Your Daddy?

How long has the Godhead been in close-quarters intimacy with each other? From eternity. John 1:1-2,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.

Jehovah's Witnesses think that they have crucified the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ (removed Jesus from being equally God as the Father is God - as we would reply in our doctrines, the Godhead is Trinitarian) by changing "was God" to "was a god." But the evidence of a Trinitarian relationship between Jesus and the Father is made much more resounding by one other word, used two times in this very first introduction to the identity of Jesus Christ: that word, is "with." Jesus was God and With God, from the beginning. Amazing, then, that at the end of the Gospel of John what He is inviting his faithful disciples in the upper room to do (John 13-17) is be "with God" and therefore have the same experience of abiding with God that He has always had. Our Savior is an Abider. He has always been abiding with God. He is at the core of God and has been in the Bosom forever, and will continue to be so. What does an abider look like?

1 - In tune with the needs and wishes of someone else, always carrying around the interests of another as a framework for what choices need to be made.

2 - Obedient, listening and subservient to the heart of someone else. Makes a good representative to a foreign nation (and we are "ambassadors" for Christ).

3 - Intimate relationship is made possible through deep love. Love overlooks the differences (and in our case, sins) to see the value and innate image of God inside their soul, even if on the outside not everything matches or is identical or is cleaned up.

This is parallel to a read of Romans 4-8, where we discuss how we involuntarily replicate the "image" of the "first Adam," until Romans 8 when we employ the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh, after reckoning our minds dead to sin in chapter 6, and after we have received the Spirit as a unearned and unstrived for gift-of-God like Abraham in Romans 4. In Romans 8 we finally take up the image of the "last Adam" (Jesus Christ), who is the image of God, and we are also made in that same image - yet we do not have the power apart from God to carry it out in our lives (Rom. 5:17).

Love sees the image of God, and confirms the image, and aids the image. Identifying with another NEVER means we are identical. There is great variety and diversity in the house of God (2 Tim. 2:20). So it is with the Godhead. The Son will always be the One heard and seen, the Savior who came and will have a body of flesh forever. The Father is always seated (as far as I know?), never rises. When God spoke on Mt. Sinai the voice of God was so terrible that His people said, "if we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, then we shall die" (Deut. 5:25) so they asked Moses to go and talk to God to save them from further experience.  God met their desire by giving His people the Word, Jesus Christ, who was not terrible in voice but like a Lamb, completely approachable.

Variety is something God has in His heart. He designed this world choc-full of variety because differentiation is a part of who He is. With all the differences between the Father and the Son, they know each other, intimately. The word for their kind of "knowing" is perichoresis. They are always listening to each other, and finding each other fascinating, being willing to represent each other, giving their own will over, wanting to gain the satisfaction of the other. That is the intimacy Jesus had With God. When Jesus comes to earth and walks and teaches and does signs, what is He doing, but showing us in everything He does, in everywhere He goes and everything He says, that He is "With God." He talks about it from start to finish. He models it, too. Jesus models the answer to our need for salvation: Be like Him. Be "With God." "Abide in Me and I will abide in you." When we abide with Him we are the Image.

'Perichoresis' by Derrick

When Moses came with the law, God appeared hierarchical. "Do this, do that." Not much development of why we should. Just a whole lot of fear if we did not. Alternately, how do we feel about obeying God when the stage of God becomes the Godhead, with their differences and needs on display to each other and the world?  Have you watched a man and his wife make a decision together?  What did it reveal about their character to watch them respond to each other?  The Israelites largely thought it difficult to believe God as approachable and available for relationship. Moses seemed special because he was a prophet.  It was not the best portrayal.  But the price-tag of revealing their relations is immeasurable; that Jesus would leave heaven and die. That's why it says in the beginning of John that "the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (1:18).

We never "learn" that God is approachable until we see that Jesus is in relationship with God, and God answers all His prayers, and Jesus obeys Him completely because of the Father's love.  Now that we have seen the character and love of God in action between the two, we can see that God is wide-open with an invitation for us to experience the same relationship. And just in case we were wondering if the invitation is official, it is - but only faithful followers in the upper room discourse have categorically attained it.  Consider how exclusive Jesus is with most believers in the Gospel of John....

Be a Somebody - Be an Ambassador

In John 2:24 Jesus talked to those who were starting off well because they "believed in Jesus." But they hadn't been yet sanctified to abide.  Jesus knew what was largely "in man" and it wasn't the Father.  For that reason, "Jesus did not commit Himself to them." The word "commit" is the same word used as "believe" or "faith" in the Gospel of John. John was explaining, "But Jesus did not believe in them." Later, Jesus does believe in (commit Himself to) His disciples, and John 6 is the dividing line.  In John 6 He teaches that if anyone wants eternal life they must eat Him and drink Him for their daily needs. When they get to the other side of hearing that, most disciples turn away permanently (6:66) because it's so difficult to understand and believe, but Peter says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." These disciples are sanctified and willing to stay with Him and take Him in.  By the time of the upper room Jesus has found viable candidates for replicating the image of the Abider-God.  John 14:22-24,

Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”

After Judas departs, Jesus reveals His emptiness apart from everything the Father has given via intimacy.  John 17:6-8,

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.

It is very similar to say, "If I were by myself, this would mean nothing, and I would have no purpose. But because I choose to represent the heart of another, now I'm a somebody."

Even the Demons Believe and Tremble

It's the mutual giving of honor that honors each person of the Godhead.

Who do you honor?  Who do I honor in the moments of my life?  Everybody wants to be an advocate for significance. Everybody wants to represent goodness or God Himself.  Maybe you are an orthodox believer in God.  You believe that Jesus Christ is who He says He is.  That's good.  You will certainly go to heaven when you die.  God is faithful, and He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim 2:13).  Maybe you once believed in Jesus Christ -- maybe you have evolved to embrace atheism.  You also will go to heaven because of God's faithfulness toward those who are His.  What distinguishes an abider from everyone else, from the orthodox to the atheist?  The answer is, where their "resources" (8:44) come from.

Unless believers stay in that submissive, perfect, loving closeness with God (which does at times require some honest obedience, Romans 8), we get CUT OFF from that flow (resources) of God sharing Himself - His heart, His thoughts, His strategies, His purposes. Again, Jesus is speaking to believers in Him (Jn. 8:31) in the context of this passage of scripture I refer to as the "who's your daddy?" passage.  These are brand-new believers from the moment earlier who need to catch up.  They really need to hear the recent sermon Jesus presented on the Bread from Heaven, so He tells them the theological jist of all John 6 in a single sentence: "If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed" (Jn. 8:31).  But they are offended at abiding in God.  John 8:37-55,

“I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.”  They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”  Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.  Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”  Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.  And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges.  Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”  Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’  Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?”  Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God.  Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word.

In eternity past, Satan stopped being an ambassador for God's purposes.  He stopped honoring the heart of God.  He started to speak for himself.  Though he knows about God and trembles, he is condemned.  He is out of fellowship with God and has never been offered redemption.  He is forever excluded from the flow of perichoresis.  Therefore: even though Satan was made to desire significance and to be an ambassador for God, he can only speak of God as an outsider, CUT OFF from intimacy.  He can only guess about God as the most remote of observers.  He can only?  Lie.

It's the abiding intimacy that funds the truth-words, the promises, the power and the significance of Jesus Christ.  His whole life was the perichoresis that accompanied Him.  Witnesses involuntarily witness whoever they are spiritually intimate with.

Every moment of Jesus' ministry was pulled off by one tiny little secret of success:

And He who sent me is with Me.

John 8:29