Resting Reconciled

Being made in His likeness, we awaken to our authentic identity in Him. He decimates our man made, circumstance fashioned, false identities by assuming our likeness and dealing with what we can't imagine a holy God can comprehend. Satan brings temptation upon man in the Garden, and later God tempts Himself (led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted) in a garden.  In the Garden of Eden God calls out to man 'where are you' as God forsaken. On the cross Jesus cries out to God as man forsaken. He faces down the identity of atheism by assuming the identity of the atheist in the most radical way imaginable. For in the garden and on the cross, God annihilates the separation anxiety of Divine and human rejection in that for a brief instant God Himself appears to be an atheist, crying out, "Why have You forsaken me?" And from that place of lonely isolation, He reconciles the cosmos to Himself, dying and raising from the dead not just for us but as us.  That's grace and goodness beyond the realm of understanding, but not beyond the realm of experience. The grace of Jesus is most often experienced long before it is understood. I would even say without the experience there is no understanding.

Moving on...

Having been both a father and a son means that there are people on either end of the spectrum of existence that have claimed a stake in the soil of your soul and when they are gone they are missed. There's not a day that goes by where I don't miss both my father and my son.  One has moved out and the other has moved on.  Somewhere in the middle here we are.  Now my son works in the same place where my Dad carried me around on his shoulders in the pic below. Britain gets up before dawn and took this pic of the Magic Kingdom and the castle in the distance on a quiet cool morning. I'm so proud of him. There's something of that place that meant a lot to my Dad and that my son cares for it now is fitting. Sorry to drag you along on this personal journey but thanks for reading. 

 

God is For You

Liberty and Law

"For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near." HEB 1:1

The Law was at best a dim representation of the grace of Jesus.  The Law was pointing to a future event, while the Gospel is good news.  News is reporting that which has already taken place.  Recognize the time you are living in.  The Gospel is not merely encouraging a holy lifestyle to become worthy of something to come, but a lifestyle of freedom in response to the holiness already imparted by the grace of Jesus Christ. 

The establishment of law isn't the mark of a civil society, for it's our lack of civility that prompts their establishment in the first place.  As the hearts of people begin to reflect their authentic identity, (made in the image and likeness of God reflecting His love and goodness), one would think that we would reward ourselves by eliminating laws one by one in due time.  Instead, we continue to make new ones.  

Ignorance would say that which is legal is also righteous, just as it would say that we are righteous because we don't break laws.  That is what defines a legalist. It is one who defines righteousness by law.  But Jesus dares us to live in perfect liberty by making us righteous apart from law.  It is how we respond to freedom that reveals the heart of a people.  What reward is there for walking a path that you are chained to?  The fact that we need laws defining our behavior is proof enough that we don't truly know who we are.  But we're waking up...

Questions and Answers

Who is the Holy Spirit? What is His role in the Trinity? Are there other spirits? How can we distinguish between the unholy and the Holy?

 The Holy Spirit is the kindest most gentle expression of God’s heart that I’ve ever met. He guides into all truth (Truth is Jesus) so He always leads me to Jesus, all of Jesus. Hebrews 5:14 talks about solid food is for those who have their senses exercised (trained) to discern good and evil. So it’s possible to sense the presence of God and the presence of something other. It does take training. This is important because most people have the ability to discern evil but the challenge is to discern good. It doesn’t just come by having the letter of the Word as your sole litmus test for what’s of God or not. (Dangerous thoughts ahead…) The Pharisees knew the Word better than you and I and couldn’t recognize the literal manifest presence of God standing right in front of them. Matter of fact, they claimed devotion to God but the presence of Jesus stirred contempt and hatred, so clearly their senses weren’t exercised simply by devotion to the letter. Abraham got a legit word from God to sacrifice his son. God doesn’t condone human sacrifice. God’s word to Abraham at the bottom of the mountain was different than what He told Abraham at the top of the mountain. But the word of the Lord stands forever, right? Hosea got a legit word to marry a prostitute. How many Pastors today would agree with Hosea if he came and said God told him to do that? Jesus emphatically tells a crowd to eat His flesh and drink His blood, so strongly that they all get offended and leave. God doesn’t condone cannibalism. Bottom line to all of this, unless the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to us, we will kill ourselves and each other with the letter all day long. (Read internet message boards on Christian bloggers. Brutal, loveless, people more concerned with being right than revealing Truth.)

Questions and Answers

What is being drunk in the Holy Spirit and where is the basis in Scripture?

 This gets muddy when we put these two concepts together because it implies that one isn’t complete without the other. First, what is being drunk? It’s being given over to alcohol to the point where one loses control of his/her faculties or behavior. What is being in the Holy Spirit? It’s righteousness, peace, and joy. (Romans 14:17) I’ve never liked the term drunk in the Spirit, but I’m not offended by it because I understand that the joy and bliss of the presence of God transcends the limits of linguistic description. (I’m getting happy just writing this. Associative meditation perhaps, but He’s just soooooooo good!!) The difference between chemical intoxication and Spiritual ecstasy is different internally but sometimes generates similar physical responses. Hence the Acts 2 scene where onlookers made the assumption by the behavior of the church that they were drunk. Eph 5:18 says don’t be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. The implication there is that one experience is the counterfeit of another. When you get the revelation that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, that the Prince of Peace has made you His temple, and that fullness of joy is found in His presence, the result of these concepts can fry the formerly limited ability you had previously assumed was possible when it comes to tasting His goodness. I dare anyone to spend five minutes meditating on John 14:20 and not be effected Spirit, soul, and body.

Looking Up

I don't know how else to say it, but to see, really see Jesus, sometimes it doesn't come from hearing a great sermon or reading an amazing book. Sometimes it comes through falling so hard into the dirt road of failure that the gravel marks are permanently imprinted on the palms of your soul. The hand that reaches down to bring you to your feet again, that's the hand of God. That's the encounter with Love that changes everything.

Freedom

"With Grace comes the revelation that your sin or behavior does not have the power to manipulate God or dictate to Him whether He can love you or not. The love of a father would seem to make him vulnerable to pain, so mankind wants to retain the power, through sin, to be able to hurt God if God disappoints or offends us. 

You may think that you have the ability to threaten God with the pain of loss, but I would ask to what extent could your child cause you the greatest pain? The most pain one person could inflict upon another would be injury to the point of death. And that's exactly what God's children did to Him.

Yet in both His death and resurrection He embraces you in reconciliation, grace, forgiveness, and love.  He embraces you in your ignorance declaring, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do."  He embraces you in His defeat of death, by unveiling love, not revenge upon humanity.  It is the resurrection that validates your innocence and is that premeditated decision to love you that nullifies your ability to control God with any past, present, or future behavior. While you were still lost in the blind confusion of sin's identity, He died for and as you.  This union with literal righteousness Himself completely liberates you from sin by removing any power that sin had in controlling and manipulating your life. Authentic Love produces authentic freedom, and you are authentically loved by God, right where you are today." )