Waking Up

The origin of our reconciliation is in the perfection of our inception.  God exists beyond space-time, encompassing the end and beginning together, so He knew you before He formed you and in your origin is the artistic expression of a master designer.  God created you as a way to express Himself.  You are the mansion He has chosen for Himself to dwell in, and His heart is to receive you unto Himself.  Our creation has never stopped.

Though the work is finished the manifestation of that work is revealed as we awaken to our authentic identity.  Throughout our awakening there is revelation and rest.  Revelation comes from knowing the Answer and rest is when you realize that the Answer knows you.  Even more so, that the Answer has united Himself with you, and even in your blindness He empowers you with identity.  Your identity is not dependent upon your ability to fully understand who you are.  You are fully capable of adopting a false identity, acting out the role of a fictitious character, and presenting it to the world around you as if that is who you really are.  But it's what God knew before He formed you that is the true you, and He is thoroughly committed to you being fully revealed and known by yourself even as you are fully known by Him.

Forgetting to Remember

Experience is the most vilified necessity of your life. Religion promotes works (activity) while demoting experience (the result of activity). At its base level, a moment of servant hood provides God opportunity to form within us what can never be learned by mere meditation and contemplation. So religion creates confusion, working against itself to create a system that creates structure by confined activity. God is constantly working, loving, creating, in the most intimate and beautifully hidden ways to place memorable moments in our lives that anchor us into His heart. In the Old Testament man is admonished to pass down in declaration what God has done before so that the now generation lives with the awareness of what He is doing now and will do tomorrow. In the New Testament Jesus maintains this priority by commanding the disciples to remember again and again. Even communion is given for the purpose of remembering what He has done. We are told to remember because He knows that it within your capacity to forget. I'm convinced that the ability to forget is not a glitch in put design, but a gift that we abuse when the mind is not renewed. In 2 Peter 1:9 we are told that the only reason we lack in the area of virtues is that we tend to forget how pure we really are.

Freedom to Choose

Jesus gave mankind the freedom to hate, the challenge to love, and enough verses in the Bible to support both vengeance and grace.  What you do when you are free to choose anything says so much about the God in your heart and your eyes.  A prison cell has never produced a pure heart.

Dad's Radio Broadcast

I'm continuing to broadcast for my Dad's radio show that he had for more than 30 years.  I don't personally receive payment from the ministry, but rather, the program helps to take care of Mom Vanderbush and also generously supports quite a few trusted missionaries, ministries, and Bible sending organizations worldwide.  It's a small way that I can honor Dad's life, legacy, and desire to continue to share the love of Jesus Christ beyond his own lifetime.  The website to hear the podcast is vanderbushministries.com.

The End From the Beginning

You are designed with a blueprint that originated in the mind of God. You are a product of Gods imagination. When He created the cosmos, He spoke it into existence. When He created you, He expressed to Himself a declared intention. "Let Us make man in Our image, after our likeness. And let him have dominion..." You were created to be and to have. You exist by identity, but you have by authority. Adam and you have the same assignment, to rule and to reign. You reign according to your identity but you rule by authority. Lest we for a moment get serious about this, the very essence and presence of the Lord is marked by joy. Its the fullness that envelopes Him and the pervasive nature that surrounds Him. So it was within the context of joy that the One Who is Love prophesied you into being. You were chosen to be in Christ from before the foundation of the world. He is your home and you are His. He is the destination of this journey of revelation. (John 14:20) And that's the point of all human existence. That the romance of God would be fully manifest to us as it is to Him.

Moments That Matter

I know it probably seems like I'm on a social networking binge but that's about all there is to do here. We have spent a few days now sitting in the silence and solitude of the Midwestern winter and, yes, I am sure that I'm not quite ready to become a monk just yet. Dad's passing itself was glorious in every sense of the word. The eerie stillness that follows is what's difficult. I went out to the trailer to gather some things for Mom and saw dad's chair with his bible and reading glasses sitting by it. I'm not sure how long I stood there just watching the chair through the steam of my breath but eventually reality snapped into place and I realized I couldn't feel my toes. Things like that have happened a few times. Where the spine of a book, the sound of a train, creak of a step, the smell of a suit will just arrest my attention in a most uncomfortable way. Memories are ghosts of the moments that mattered. And right now they're all awake and wanting attention. So there's that.

A General Goes Home

My Dad passed away tonight. He is at peace, and so am I.