Monthly Archives: February 2012

February 26, 2012 · 10:50 am

a Dilemma

Knowing God and experiencing God. They are two different things.

This maybe where we as christians are confused. We know God on Sundays, we don’t experience Him anytime. Knowing God seems to be just an moment or a time in our life, but experiencing Him is and life long journey. It is being with someone every day,every hour, every minute to know their thoughts,their ways, their will. For the lack of a better phrase “We are in their Head”. But in this sense we are in “His Spirit”.

The next question arises that always put’s us back is “how” do we do this? I also have pondered this. My beginning belief in my life was the “go to church” and this will be the way of God.

My journey has led me to examine this way to see that it is short changing me on God. God’s desire for all of us is to experience Him,commune with Him,be of His own will.

I have and many others I know struggle on this topic but let me maybe shed some light on the answer.

Let’s be truthful in our answers that how we think we are to “do” or “go” or “be” with God. The answers are – I try to be Christ like where ever I go, or do, I always try to represent God in the things that I do.

The underlined word is a critical description of the answer to the question. When we use the word in our answer we proclaiming that in “our world” that God is mentioned,represented,and doing all that He would want me to do. We fail to realize that for us experience Christ we have to be with Him, in his world!

In practicality, we do not understand how to do this. Our human minds and I think mainly our spirit if it is not regenerated into His new Life has a lack of understanding to do this. Just maybe this is the problem, we think we have to “do” to experience God. Our humanness has got to take the back seat or just get out of the car to just experience God.

We have to believe that our problem is the relational experience or the lack of that keeps us from God. I only know that my greatest joy in my life has come when I am reading God’s word(let me point out here,God’s word is not just his words but is “Him” who he is,what he is and Why he is)reading scholars, reading other men and women’ s testimonies of God,listening to audio’s,watching video’s,speakers of all kinds, and walking around in my backyard with my chickens(yes,I have chickens in my backyard), that I am with God in body,mind,spirit .

It is when I am in this state that I feel that I am “with Him,in Him” that I feel joy and oneness in His eternal purpose. I have many giddy times with my God is hard to explain to some people but God is smiling on me and says “He is catching on”,

My overall answer to this is “being with God”. period. The more of Him, the less of this world is what He has always said to us. It’s true!

Ephesians 3:14-19

2 Corinthians 6:16

Colossians1:19

Revelation 21:3 this is outcome of Christ’s eternal purpose.

Colossians 1:19 is important to see, we are not complete until we are fulfilled by Christ’s Fullness.

I pray that we all can  abide,live,dwell in Christ.

I believe that when this happens his church(bride) will be built!   Hallelujah and Hallelujah!

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February 21, 2012 · 10:30 am

Cause and Effect

I am not an scientific person by any stretch of the word. But I do know the meaning of Cause and Effect.

The cause is the action that is the beginning  of the movement. It is the instigator of change, it  is what changes the norm.

The effect is what happens when the cause is changed or started. It is like when you destroy a dam of a river, and the water is free to go where it needs to go.

I use this illustration to show where we as christians have gotten the order in reverse.

We have re-created the effects of effect to make us look like the cause(Jesus). It doesn’t work like that, I know Christ is saying to us now “All I ask of you is to abide in Me,and I in You”. You see Christ knows that He is the “cause” and what follows is the “effect”, it is the attributes that create the things that we as christians seem to be striving for.

Our understanding of trying to be “like” Jesus seems to be our goal, It is if we think that if we “act” like the effects of Christ, we must be like Christ. “like”, is where we start to go wrong in the whole equation.

God’s whole story of the bible is Himself. Who He is,What He is,Why He is,Where He is. It is the only story of the Bible. But we seem to make it about other things, the way he acted, from who he talked to,from where he went,the rules he followed and his all around stature.

Why? God’s story is Jesus Christ and His life. But let us back up and re-evaluate what really happened. God sent His son to us not to show us how to live but to be apart of Him. You see,we fail to realize the picture before us.  God’s picture is Us in Christ,and Christ in us, just as Christ is in God, and God was in Christ.

The message is simple, we have made it hard.

Why? The reason is simple. We are working in our own strength. Not God’s.

God’s realm is not here,yet. But believe me it is coming. It is God’s world coming here, not ours going there.

Matthew 6:10, explains this scenario in the coming realm.

I challenge you to look past the words in the bible to search God’s thoughts in what He is really saying to us and to what is our response to  Him will be.  Our response to Him should be I believe in Jesus Christ and who he is, what he is,where he is,and why he is.

What if, this  scenario was played out, that one by one we believe this, would His kingdom be built as it says in Matthew 6:10?

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February 17, 2012 · 12:13 pm

manual or story?

manual: of,relating to,or involving the hands,work done by hands,requiring or using physical skill and energy.

story: an account of incidents or events,a statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question. the intrigue or plot of a narrative or a dramatic work.

These two words are in a huge discussion on the christian blogging arena as we speak. They are discussing the difference between them, the relevance of them, what is better?, and why it even matters?

You might want to know in what reference that I am talking about in the use of these words.  You might understand it or even know what the big deal is but there is one.

These two words are in reference in how we view the …………… Bible!

Huh? I think that this discussion in the blogging world is Great. It is and has brought up some mighty interested things, and this is one of them. Without knowing it as Christianity has begun some seventeen hundred years ago, we believed the bible in a manual way, without realizing it.

Now let me point out that the jewish ways were just the beginning of this thinking, but we as outsiders or gentile have followed suite without an even a wimper. The understanding of the jewish community was that God’s intention was to give them a king to unite them and give them supremacy to the whole world. In order for this to happen certain things had to happen in their world,or even more so, their religion, to bring about this king from within.

This has led the jewish religion to follow in a manual way to get their king. Commandments,practices,traditions,manuals, and regulations have all continued this line of thinking of manually bringing a king to them.

In a very close scenario we as christians have followed suite with the same thing. We have programs,institutions, leaders, rules, and most importantly we have our evangelical ways. After all isn’t this what it is all about?

This has been from the manual’s side camp.

Here is the story’s camp.

God’s original story was going to be a short story. Adam(his people) accepted life as Him,and He brought them to what is commonly know as the “New Jerusalem”(or Himself)this was even before the old Jerusalem was even thought of.

But because Adam(his people) chose death instead of life(God) He has made it into a longer story.

This story is how He brings his people back to Life! (get it,back to LIFE!)

This is a simple story, God tells us and shows us through His people(Jewish) and their great leaders in their slowly and methodical learning that it was God all along that they were searching for. This is also where there is a great mystery revealed to us,thank goodness. That we too, can be included in this life, even tho we are gentiles(christians), it is the Life that we are to partake of and life to partake of us.

This story is not one where have the ability to change it, but to be apart of it. (The end of the story is Amazing!) God’s desire of us is only to be with Him in Life. That’s all.

If you would like to partake in some of the blogs or even put your 2 cents in mine or other blogs, here are some bloggers that are discussing the topic.

Frank Viola

Milt Rodgrigues

Christian Smith

there are others out there but just search on these guys and just the topic and you will see what is out there.

 

 

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February 15, 2012 · 11:08 am

Knowledge of good and evil

We all know the father of evil,Satan. But do we know the author of good?

You would never know it from  society or heaven forbid christians, of what good is. You see both camps believe that good is good.

When God designed the Garden of Eden it was of his own paradigm of life,it was to be Christ centered(tho not know yet),it was to be a life of “life”, God designed life not as a knowledge of something but a having of “life”.

Our understanding of being good or maintaining “good” is and should be the farthest from our being of the “christianity” crowd, all we have to  understand in the tree that we have chosen is the “title”  good. We seem to go by the thinking of the concept of good as the opposite of evil, so it must be good.

We as Christ followers should ultimately rethink our paradigm of life as just futile. This brings us to to a couple of points that we must consider.

The “knowledge of good and evil” says two things;one is that whether we like it or not we have the knowledge of good and evil, now if we have the knowledge of good and and evil,it would say that naturally be that we will “do” good and evil. Is it no wonder that we do what we do!  It is that Knowledge of “whatever” that will always get us something that is not of God.

Let me also point out that in the description of Genesis 2:8 that God did not describe the “the Tree of Life” as the “the knowledge of the Tree of Life”. Now let us take this a step farther, what if we “do” as we “do” in the knowledge of good and evil, as we did to the Tree of Life? As far as I can see the most damaging part of this is that we think we would have to “do” the tree of Life. Wow! Can you imagine that?

Wait a minute, We are doing exactly that, aren’t we “christians”!

We are “doing” life, when God designed  the garden  he gave us the choice to chose the tree of Life that “life” constitutes all by itself in it the organic being of life. All this means is that it is “self sufficient” in it self. That being said; if Christ is Life and Life is our choice, should we not chose Life and have it more abundantly!

Until we see and understand the difference of the Tree’s and the Tree that we are in, or should be in, things will not change.

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February 14, 2012 · 4:39 pm

This is just not right!

I just don’t know where to begin with this? Maybe if you will allow me to just think out loud this time, you might see where I am coming from.

My father would always tell me something to do in his usual way,and as any son would do, I said “Why”. Which in turn my father would say “because I said so, I am your father”.

I would like to point out right here that I know all kids have done this a million times to their parents, but my point is that I needed to  understand the basis of the whole situation. How does my doing something fit into the great scheme of things? Why do I have to do it? and Why do I have to do it right now? If I knew the process of things, I could see the benefits of me doing something at this time.

Now, this process of thought has carried on with me throughout my life in all aspects of my life. From a job, through family matters, through me taking the trash out for my wife during a nebraska football game to just making a calculated decision in my life, I have always asked “why”.

I love asking the question “why”.

My heritage of being in a Christian family and a pastor’s kid sorta set me up for my biggest “Why” to this date.

and here it is……….

Why do we  do the things we do in Christianity?

This question has led me to the most amazing, interesting, enlightening, powerful, spiritual, Godly and Truth unveiling that I could ever see.

Now, If I was to do this right it would go on forever on this blog. So, I will do this over a few blogs for the next few weeks. Let me start with a BIG one to get this going.

Church.

My journey has brought me through alot in the last 5 years, I don’t want to take you through it now, but just to say that I have searched,studied,read books,history,Bible, and chatted with alot of people. But a very big part of what we have taken for granted as going to church is where and when this practice began.

I would suffice to say that most church going people don’t know. One of the reasons is there has never been an emphasis of this point to tell your church members. This point of going to church is what some would say is what religion is all about. But I would like to challenge you to research and look at how going to church really got started. Now this journey for you is not going to just include the bible, but history,jewish history, and other books or researching that you do will ultimately bring you into so many more questions as I have learned.

By broadening your mind,body and spirit to God’s eternal purpose to What,Who,When,and Why, we will never know the mind of Christ.

If there is  anyone that would like to comment or discuss this topic with me,please do. I can give some references and some notes to go with this.

This subject, I am afraid is just the tip of the proverbial Iceberg of things to come in the coming blogs. It will be challenging to you at first,and maybe unnerving to others but let me tell you that the more we go into this, God’s eternal purpose comes into view, like it never has before.

Hang on, it is going to be Amazing!

 

 

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February 2, 2012 · 12:08 pm

Spirit or word?

I receive daily emails of blogs and bible studies.I am very intrigued by not only what they have to say, but also to re-visit things that I have read in the bible before and see things that I have missed before.

One such instance was yesterday’s email from watchman nee’s study that was over Matt:28 Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you and learn from Mee,for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Now I know that I have read this many times over the years, but I have missed so much in just this one verse. Let me explain.

Let’s start off right here. Let me emphasize here that we read the bible from the flesh’s perspective. We have not been changed to God’s nature in our live’s.

First half of verse 28 mentions the two words that stick out to us, mainly because we are in the same boat, we all toil and are burdened because of it. This is natural only because we work at a job,home,kids,family and other things. We can attach ourselves to this first statement right off the bat. The next half of verse 28 says that God will give us rest.  Now I don’t know about you but I don’t think any of us have seen rest from our rest. So what is Jesus  talking about?

Let’s go on to verse 29, Take my yolk upon you and learn from Me,for I am meek and lowly in heart. I am no writer or master of words to say the least, but what Jesus said is so masterfully said that we have to really look or hear what he says in the next few lines. The fact that Jesus says “take my yolk upon you and learn from me is deceiving to us because our first thought comes to us about two cows stuck in a yolk together prodding in a field. Don’t think that is what God was going for here. It is our understanding of this is usually that we should be yolked together in life and Jesus will be helping me plow the fields everyday, and we will make it through the day no matter comes our way. But let us look at the continuing thought. He says “and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.

Our natural thinking of God and me going together hitched together just prodding through life’s daily ups and downs will not work with this statement. When someone says learn from  Me sounds like He is in control of Life and of the yolks of life. We need to slow down and listen to Christ’s message to us in this way that we can really see Him. God is not only in charge, but He wants us to be in Him.

and now the last part of verse 29.  “and you will find rest for your body.”

If you are an avid bible reader you will notice that last line that I had in quotes is not right, but it seems that this is what we see or read this part.

It is supposed to say “and you will find rest for your souls”.

Now that we see this, this is not a+b=c, it is like a+b=d. something is not right here.

It is not that we can change c because c is the answer, but we can change a and b to our thinking. Our though process has to change to all the answers of God, not only from this one. We cannot go from a body to the soul in the answer. It is from soul perspective with God.

God’s perspective of telling to us of parables and tidbits of what we should know of daily life but life is created in Him,for Him, and in Him.

His Spirit is in us to have Life and have it abundantly!!

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