Believing Caleb / Winning The Wolf

March 17th, 2017

Today is going to be the best day of my life. I have chosen to believe Caleb about the promised land and skip Numbers chapter 14 and all of the rest of the wanderings of that book. The Gospel gives me (us) a land overflowing with milk and honey and giants that will make a big thud when they fall.

A Rhema (divinely inspired word) for me today... We can agree with Caleb this morning when the day is fresh and new and skip to Joshua 1:2 or we can deal with Korah and Balaam for the rest of our lives.

There may be no wedding today... no babies born... no graduation planned... just the Gospel makes this potentially the best day of our lives.

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March 18th, 2017

"But David said to Saul, 'Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears...' " - 1 Samuel 17:34-36a ESV

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." - Isaiah 11:6 KJV

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD." - Isaiah 65:25 KJV

Is nature normal? Seems like an odd question. Secular science says, 'Yes, Of course it is.' but the Bible says that what we see now is not what we will see later.

Wolves don't live with lambs but they will.

Dogs are canines but they live with us they are close to wolves.

I heard an account a while back on radio about an area that had a large number of dogs go missing. One wolf would appear near a dogs yard and play with him or her. Then one day the dog would just disappear. One dog can play with one wolf but then the pack shows up and that dog has no place there. It becomes food for the pack.

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." - Luke 11:21-23 ESV

Jesus is the stronger man in this picture. He enters the broken natural world that is influenced by fallen angels and He binds the strong man in his own fortress. He pulls the wild man out of the pack and makes him into something else. That man gets saved not eaten. He is transformed. He or she is made into a family member.

Fitting in (if it is even possible) only makes us vulnerable to a vicious nature. God wants to restore normality. Being with Him is normal and right. This world has been wrong for a long long time. It has been wrong for as long as anyone can remember.

Win a soul today and make it right again.

In this age this restoration is done one person at a time. Walk with the stronger man who isn't lying in wait to shed blood. He is a king who has taken on the role of a servant. He Is the royal lion uncorrupted by the world and the lamb who is no one's victim. He is the Savior and He has come into this world to seek and save the lost. He washes feet and wins hearts and minds with his gracious kindness. We can be 'about' His Father's business.

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Defrauding and Taking A Stand - Colossians - Part 49

"Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind," - Colossians 2:18 NASB

Very interesting study this morning.

If you have ever read 'The Screwtape Letters' you know what it's like to march through the muck of evil. I liked that book but I had to keep putting it down and coming back to it because you can only handle evil's perspective for so long before needing a shower.

Passages like these are that for me. I don't gravitate towards them. I'd rather talk about hope, grace and mercy but then I do a study like this that is systematic and I can't avoid the mud puddle. The boots go on and right through the center I go.

The unique Greek words here are katabrabeuō (Strong's G2603), translated here as 'keep defrauding' and embateuō (Strong's G1687) translated 'taking his stand' and they are actions that are continuous. The person in evil keeps defrauding, in part, because they keep taking a stand on what they see. Natural evaluation causes a vicious circle. Faith makes an entrance and an exit but walking by sight always cycles a person into a deficit. People become takers because they 'worship angels' and walk by sight. They deprive themselves and then deprive others in the name of what is good but it isn't God's good.

That word 'visions' is thrown in there making it seem spiritual but in the Greek it just means 'things seen' that inflate the mind. Communism was such a concept. Large groups imbraced an artificial system that they thought would better mankind but it brought destruction. People 'saw' a coming eutopia but it was a mirage based on natural reasoning.

It is amazing how wrong smart people can be. This year I am amazed again about how wrong so called experts have been about so many things.

God's mind is proven.

"For no word from God will ever fail." - Luke 1:37 NIV

(translated 'For with God nothing shall be impossible' in the KJV but it actually says the Rhema of God will accomplish it's purpose)

The God of all grace isn't going to defraud you. Jesus' Father is that God. The God of men's philosophies is a pale comparison to this glorious person. The Father can only be known through the Son. If there is no Jesus at the center of the concept it can't be trusted. It is just fruit from the tree or the knowledge of good and evil and that has proven to be a deadly place to get nourishment.

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What Are We Becoming?

'We are becoming what we already are.' is a theme that is repeating again and again in the booklet I'm reading.

Our world view is so vital isn't it? The theory of macro evolution states that change is happening slowly. Some change is useful and some isn't. The useful change will survive and the less useful change will die out. But Christian thought makes a distinction between natural replication and spiritual replication making the claim that the natural is missing something vital and that over time that missing piece causes a more and more degraded product.

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;" - 2 Corinthians 5:16-18 ESV

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain." - 1 Corinthians 15:10a ESV

When what was missing (spiritual life) has been restored we are what we are by the grace of God and we are becoming what we are by the grace of God.

The flesh isn't 'regarded' in this dynamic because our bodies continue on the course they were on from birth. They age and experience quickenings at times but our identity is new. This new person can live in newness. The new person can glorify God in the moment. The new person can love, forgive and have mercy. The natural person can dabble in those elements but the new person thrives in those concepts. A new person inhales mercy and exhales forgiveness.

If a person hasn't believed in Jesus they have an identity based on the fall. The God of the Bible sees two identities. One is found in the fall and the other is found in His Son Jesus.

"And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." - Hebrews 9:27-28 ESV

Yes, I am convinced that we are all becoming what we already are. Are we hidden in Christ or do we have only one birth to identify with?

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Be Transformed

Some one who is being conformed feels the responsibility to be different. A person who is transformed is different.

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." - Romans 12:1-3 ESV

I see people who try to conform and others who rebel against the idea. I have been both of those types of people. People feel the pressure in all kinds of circles. Both secular and sacred ones. Conforming is a middle voice action. English doesn't have the middle voice. Greek does. It is an action that people perform to themselves.

Conforming is like that. We try to reshape ourselves. This concept reminds me of this seemingly contradictory passage.

"But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." - Matthew 5:28-32 ESV

The context of the passage above is marriage and commitment and it is brutal because divorce is brutal. Lust outside of commitment is torturous but people live in it. They live wanting something else and torn between two worlds.

Transformation is the only true release. Cutting off the old identity is what has to happen in order for there to be freedom.

The natural man feels the pressure to change and the lure of lust very keenly.

Paul speaks of the 'grace given to me' like it is his possession... and it is his. It is what gives him the disconnect to talk about these pressures as if he is outside of them and they are outside of him. He isn't trying to be anything. He is discovering again and again who Jesus Is and who Jesus has made him to be in his new identity.

Someone can explain this over and over but until grace becomes 'your grace' it isn't going to make sense. We can't change ourselves. We can't be what we need to be. But when grace is ours we realize that we are what God has made us to be.

"Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." - 1 Corinthians 15:8-10 ESV

Paul spent his youth untransformed. The other Apostles walked with Jesus and he was converted later. In a sense it gave him an advantage because he was unfamiliar with grace. It was a contrast to him in a profound way.

I see people who grew up in Church struggle to conform but God doesn't have any grandchildren. He only has children and they are born in transformation. The old identity must become old. Then to live day to day there must be an act of will that reckons that the old is old and must be replaced by grace.

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 ESV

You can keep on being a good little girl or boy or you can keep running from God and every authority that reminds you of Him. The answer isn't ever going to come by you changing yourself. It can only come by you choosing Him.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." - 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV

I can talk about this but I can't cause anyone to experience it. Christ is the water. It is your choice. Are you thirsty enough? Are you tired of trying yet or do you want to spend a few more years trying to change what you can't ever change yourself?

For those of you out there who have experienced this and have tasted of the goodness and graciousness of God... isn't this a good reminder. The pressures from outside don't need to make their way inside. We can live in transformation and not even feel the heat when it comes. Hallelujah. Thank You Lord.

When water freezes and turns to ice it expands with a power that can crack those things that try to contain it. Please use us that way Lord. Thank You God. Just seeing You changes us. You are amazing.

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Awakened To The Supernatural

It is amazing how people adjust. The very abnormal can begin to seem normal. Natural seems normal. Seasons seem normal until you move to a place where there are no seasons. Abuse can seem normal until you are in an abuse free relationship. We see things and the alarm bells are ringing somewhere in our soul but we do not know the source of the sound. They are muffled or they are so loud that a person is surrounded by the noise and just reacts.

People can go through life like a sleeper who turns off their alarm clock in the morning but it doesn't wake them up.

The Bible teaches us that there are two supernatural kingdoms that overlap humanities experience. God's eternal kingdom and the powers of darkness that form as a seamless web.

"Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?... Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; for him sling stones are turned to stubble." - Job 41:1, 26-28 ESV

Darkness dwells in powerful arrogance. Humanity can not pierce it's armor.

"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel... Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." - Hebrews 12:22-24, 28-29 ESV

Darkness is not normal and neither is light. Darkness is an aberration and light is eternal. Forces overlap on us and even inside us that are not us. Sickness isn't normal. Death isn't normal. Hatred isn't normal. These are common things but not normal things. Immorality is not normal yet we adjust to it. The alarm bells are ringing but we don't know why.

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." - Romans 14:17 ESV

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." - Romans 15:13 ESV

When will will wake up? What will will it take to show us that being victims is not normal? What friend needs to come and show us another way. When will we listen? Much energy has been invested in adjusting, rationalizing and explaining. Denial can seem safer because it is done on our terms.

Hope makes our expectation of the future wonderful. We expect things that are not normal. We look for the side effects of blessing and we can live like a child on their way to an amusement park that they have never been to before.

Grace awakens us to God's dynamic. We see kingdoms and things begin to make sense to us. See what is natural and what is not. We begin to discern.

Faith is not normal but it is real and it has power because it is aligned with God's kingdom. Faith is revolutionary. It always has been and and it always will be.

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Cherish The Walls And Use The Gates

"Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?' Jesus answered 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. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.' " - John 14:22-24 ESV

It is very possible to live in a theological of philosophical bubble. If you are surrounded by people that all think the same way and function in similar ways. There is a sense in us that discerns the group dynamic and either wants to blend into it or break out of it.

Subcultures and countercultures are born from the desire to do something different and be free from social pressure to conform.

Life with God is a different life. You can be buried in the social workings of a Church and not have God's culture. The difference between a Church and other social structures is that God initiated it and God moves inside it's workings if God has liberty to do so.

The disciples thought that the group they were apart of was social group that formed around Jesus. But, Jesus revealed to them that it was formed by the Father.

What is a family? Is it a social group formed by people who just wanted to get together and think in similar ways and have babies? Evolutionary thinking would tell you that. No, A family is something God has made and He has a mind for it. So is a marriage. So is a Church.

God's thinking has gates and walls. Walls that preserve the sanctity of the structure and gates that allow entrances and exits to reach out of that structure. His thinking is large and broad in that is covers all of humanity and yet it is Holy and therefore specific in it's desires.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." - John 12:24-25 ESV

It is easy to love your life in a comfortable social structure and if you don't love your life to think that leaving your current structure will make it better.

Jesus had to leave the Earth for us to get it.

"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." - John 16:7-11 ESV

He had to die so we would not have to die. He had to go so we do not have to. We can experience the thoughts of the Father when we no longer see Jesus as just a man and His Church as a place were people live in natural social circles.

There are plenty of dead Churches that bear the name but have no life. It is sad. But, There are also living ones where the people have been like a corn of wheat that has fallen into the ground and died in order to live in the multiplication of God's life.

"A Song of Ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!" - Psalms 133:1-2 ESV

I want to use the gates God has provided.

"I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 ESV

I don't want to be stagnant. Missions is the way we break out of our culture and into another one. Missions abroad and missions at home. The live of faith is not natural. Going shows us that again and again.

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Order We See Versus Life In Christ

"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." - Colossians 2:6-8 ESV

Human tradition and the elementary spirits (principles) of the world both appeal to us on some level. One is human order and the other is natural order... things people do and things we observe in nature.

People have traditions... cycles and methods they have developed. They are not spiritual though they may seem that way.

Nature reveals things about it's creator... those things don't go far enough. Nature is a creation and great to study but we must move beyond it.

Spirituality must zero in on Christ and Him alone. Communion is spirituality. Communion and fellowship... Everything else is window dressing.

"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. " - Colossians 2:9-15 ESV

In Christ something supernatural has happened and is happening. It is not common sense oriented. Traditions give structure and nature gives patterns but resurrection gives LIFE! That is what we need and what people need. If there is no life the structure is an empty husk. If there is life then there is reproduction.

Grace can not be passed on by tradition and it is not found in nature. It is fresh and from the throne or it is not present at all. There are no substitutes. Love, if it is Love, must be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Today we can live in a natural way or we can live as those who are raised from the dead. We can be filled with our own thoughts or we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. We can live for ourselves or we can reckon ourselves dead and made alive in Christ. Common sense can guide our decisions or faith can give us eyes to see the invisible.

A new year is coming and perhaps we start to think about what we want that new year be like. Does this year belong to God or to us? Who do we belong to?

God, Help us. Truly... We need you. We want to see You and be led by You. Before it is even here we give 2014 to You. We are Yours in it. We know nothing as we aught to. Our sight is limited but Yours is forever. Fills us, help us and go before us.

If this year is established 'In Him' it will be a wonder filled year.

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The Decent Order of Grace - Part 10 - The Natural then the Spiritual

"But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual." 1 Cor 15:46

“And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed.” Matthew 26:39

The spiritual is a few steps beyond where the natural would ever go... could ever go. How do we get there? Faith gets us there. Christ's faith gets us there. The Spiritual life is a response to grace by faith.

Beholding may be natural but responding is spiritual.

"And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus." Matt 14:28-29

How rewarding is the moment when we step out and join Jesus? We marvel when Peter walked on water but is a marvel when any person takes those steps beyond to join Jesus where He is.

The natural man may try to go farther by effort. We can never get those extra steps that Jesus took by effort.

"He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.' Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping" Matt 26:39-40a

It is the cross! Or even more specifically the person on the cross. His mind... His life... a relationship with Him. A relationship to the Father made possible by the Son.

Let's take the extra steps of a laid down life today. Only God can beckon us out unto that water. Only Christ in us and the love of Calvary makes that sacrifice possible and meaningful.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Rom 12:1

Only Jesus makes that sacrifice reasonable.