No longer numbed by culture and my own ego I find the movement of my heart tough to bear. The energy and pain it takes to follow Jesus is much more than I ever expected. The church does not tell us the reality of this and they go so far as to tell us that Christianity is full of bliss and reward; the easy way. Maybe that’s numb Christianity, the so called DOING Christianity they are referring to. Numb meaning I shied away from any type of pain or sorrow. I avoid any sort of situation where compassion was needed. It felt awkward when someone told me they were hurting. I did not know what to say or do. Funerals no way! I looked for any excuse not go. I remember a good friend of mine died in college from a tragic car accident. His funeral was so unbearable to me. So I did life with an unreal positive outlook and convinced myself that if I was just positive enough nothing would go wrong. People that had problems just had bad karma from not being positive. How wrong I was, how dumb, how insensitive I must have been. In short I thought I was a little god that I controlled my world. Well in a way all that pain and sorrow built up in me stored in my heart and then over time I cracked. God started the process of cleaning me out. He took it all my marriage, a successful business, and all my materials thing after that he called my name and gave me my heart back clean and opened up. Now I can feel my heart again the numbness gone but not forgotten.
There is almost a guilt I feel when I tell people about my faith and love for God. Guilt in that I am telling them if they choose a life like I have (God chose me to have) they will no longer be numb and without the numbing medication of culture and their ego life will be painful. The pain I feel is seeing so many people losing their hearts and living for their own neediness and self satisfaction. I see the effects that anger and pride have on those they love. The harm this causes their wives and kids is hard to bare. I see through them into their brokenness; of the wounds their loved ones inflicted on them over the years. I see people walking around bleeding and in silent pain. I pray Jesus heals them; stops the onslaught from the devil on their hearts. Only thing that quenches this pain is love. Love of a woman, love for my kids and family. This only gets me back to feeling even, far from the joy the church promises. It is loving God that gets me above and beyond the pain.
So I tell you my friends that my life of old was like comparing a black/white TV when we had the old rabbit ears and most stations came in a little snowy/fuzzy to that of our modern color LCD flat panel TV. However, I am not seeing the Kingdom in high definition. I ask God every day to give me the eyes, ears, and heart to see His Kingdom. Lord will you give to me high definition for I want to know You more? I cannot go back to old way of life, no way I would rather die. In a way I am dying. In this process of dying to things of this world, I no longer find a need to acquire material things, conquer woman to make myself feel like a man, keep up with the Jones’, needing to make myself look good in the eyes of others, or worry about the judgments’ of others. I look forward to dying and my soul being released to be with God and loved ones who have passed before me. I look forward to eternity with those that I love.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
My Salvation
I am being conformed to the image of Christ through God’s Grace. This Grace is the calling from God for me to follow His will not mine. His will for me was set before I was conceived. This Grace is brought about through the complexities and experiences of my life. The choices, events and circumstances of my life are all a part of the process of forming me to the likeness of Christ, His one and only Son He sent to us in the flesh so we could have a tangible teacher to show us the way to God our true Father. God provides this Grace and path to me for the sake of God’s Kingdom and the world around me. I experience God molding transforming me in the innate driveness inside me that is never content that I am always striving to be a better man and now that I have heard His call a holier man. What Jesus has taught me is both and accession but also a sense of losing myself or better put a dying to my own will (self actualization or self fulfillment). As I pick up my cross I learn to live not for myself but for the Father.
Interweaved through my life is the constant presence evil. A counter spiritual presence that wants to keep me from God’s love and will. I know deep within me there is something set against me trying to prevent my relationship with God. I understand I am living in a fallen world, one of intense evil and good. Good things happen and so do bad things. What I have come to experience is God makes good out of those times when I do succumb to evil and fall away from his Grace. For God understands the evil one is so adept to getting me to go the opposite direction from God’s love. I also know that God gave me a choice to choose His good or the devil’s fallen way. Choice is the foundation of Love. For God’s knows that Love is not something born out of any kind of force or coercion. I must understand there are two realms to the world in which my soul and body reside. One is the world of what I can see that is tangible this where my body resides. The other realm is that of my spirit. This spiritual realm is much like the physical world in that it has an order and a process to it. The major difference is that the physical world is bound by time where as the spiritual world is timeless. Both worlds invade each other or better put they are intertwined. God uses both realms in order to conform me to be in His image (don’t be conformed to the things of this world).
One of the biggest dangers that evil uses against me is to make me believe is the absence of a spiritual world. This lie is the foundation of the fallen world or as we call it culture to a great extent. For evil teaches me only to believe what I can physically see and what my human rational mind can validated. This is where God’s calling comes into place in my life. He nudges me and if need be He invades my life with His presence to bring me a reminder that I was created in His image to be more than I being. These nudges and invasions if not paid attention to go unheeded by me sometimes for years and years. I can recall now so many nudges and invasions by God in my past. I just did not know how to listen or understand what God was saying to me. Most of the time they came in the form of irritations; broken relationships, failures, and more often just sadness and depression feelings of something is not right with my heart. It is for me that looming thought “I am not where I am supposed to be.” As if I want to say out loud “Mike stop go the other direction.” This is to me is what repent means. I am learning to respond to God’s call more often. As I let God into my daily life He begins to purge those things in my life that have gotten in the way of knowing Him. I see life differently now. I have begun to have a deep personal relationship with Him. He has grown to be my best friend, my confidant, and my ultimate power. I love Him more than life or anything in it.
Now that I am listening God is always purging me of my old ways. He is now my General my true Father. I do nothing without Him. I have a passion to follow Jesus and to learn how He lived how he brought the Kingdom to Earth. So I see life differently and do things differently. I am trying to become of servant to the world just like Jesus did by giving up my wants and needs so I can serve others with my skills, talents, wisdom and most importantly with the love in my heart. This pouring out of myself often empties me. I become worn out, burned out on life and religion. I must therefore go back to the well of the Lord to fill up. The only way I find to fill up is to spend time with God; to BE with God to seek is His company and to speak with Him, to let Him put things upon my heart. As I spend time with Him, He pours into me his Grace and love. It fills my heart and soul so that I can again pour out to others in my life. This pouring out illuminates me, it shows me the Kingdom and I experience in my heart God’s true love for me. I feel on purpose, alive like I have never felt before. I now have the eyes, ears, and heart to experience how I was made to be; a Kingdom builder!
Being with God requires activities that put me in a place to recognize and receive his Grace which means the way he communicates to me. These activities are contained in my survival kit which consists of fasting, a letting go of or dying a little, removal of things in my life so that I can focus without distraction on God. I am learning to silence the world around, so that I hear His still small voice, that heaviness on my heart. I seek solitude to find Him then I sit back and notice what He is doing in and around me. My priorities are to remain in Him, loving all God’s children, and bearing witness to God’s goodness to all that will listen and watch in me.
In order to stop the onslaught of evil in my life I must be disciplined and I must take up the battle against evil. I need to train, practice, and go to war in order to maintain my relationship with God. He has provided me the spiritual disciplines as weapons and tools to keep his Kingdom in my life. It is this regular practice and training that always me to win the war and to work out my salvation for the good of God. I ask God my Father for the heart, soul, mind and strength to do His will. Lord I am yours do what you will with me. Save me from evil. Let me see the Kingdom. Take me from here to be with you.
Interweaved through my life is the constant presence evil. A counter spiritual presence that wants to keep me from God’s love and will. I know deep within me there is something set against me trying to prevent my relationship with God. I understand I am living in a fallen world, one of intense evil and good. Good things happen and so do bad things. What I have come to experience is God makes good out of those times when I do succumb to evil and fall away from his Grace. For God understands the evil one is so adept to getting me to go the opposite direction from God’s love. I also know that God gave me a choice to choose His good or the devil’s fallen way. Choice is the foundation of Love. For God’s knows that Love is not something born out of any kind of force or coercion. I must understand there are two realms to the world in which my soul and body reside. One is the world of what I can see that is tangible this where my body resides. The other realm is that of my spirit. This spiritual realm is much like the physical world in that it has an order and a process to it. The major difference is that the physical world is bound by time where as the spiritual world is timeless. Both worlds invade each other or better put they are intertwined. God uses both realms in order to conform me to be in His image (don’t be conformed to the things of this world).
One of the biggest dangers that evil uses against me is to make me believe is the absence of a spiritual world. This lie is the foundation of the fallen world or as we call it culture to a great extent. For evil teaches me only to believe what I can physically see and what my human rational mind can validated. This is where God’s calling comes into place in my life. He nudges me and if need be He invades my life with His presence to bring me a reminder that I was created in His image to be more than I being. These nudges and invasions if not paid attention to go unheeded by me sometimes for years and years. I can recall now so many nudges and invasions by God in my past. I just did not know how to listen or understand what God was saying to me. Most of the time they came in the form of irritations; broken relationships, failures, and more often just sadness and depression feelings of something is not right with my heart. It is for me that looming thought “I am not where I am supposed to be.” As if I want to say out loud “Mike stop go the other direction.” This is to me is what repent means. I am learning to respond to God’s call more often. As I let God into my daily life He begins to purge those things in my life that have gotten in the way of knowing Him. I see life differently now. I have begun to have a deep personal relationship with Him. He has grown to be my best friend, my confidant, and my ultimate power. I love Him more than life or anything in it.
Now that I am listening God is always purging me of my old ways. He is now my General my true Father. I do nothing without Him. I have a passion to follow Jesus and to learn how He lived how he brought the Kingdom to Earth. So I see life differently and do things differently. I am trying to become of servant to the world just like Jesus did by giving up my wants and needs so I can serve others with my skills, talents, wisdom and most importantly with the love in my heart. This pouring out of myself often empties me. I become worn out, burned out on life and religion. I must therefore go back to the well of the Lord to fill up. The only way I find to fill up is to spend time with God; to BE with God to seek is His company and to speak with Him, to let Him put things upon my heart. As I spend time with Him, He pours into me his Grace and love. It fills my heart and soul so that I can again pour out to others in my life. This pouring out illuminates me, it shows me the Kingdom and I experience in my heart God’s true love for me. I feel on purpose, alive like I have never felt before. I now have the eyes, ears, and heart to experience how I was made to be; a Kingdom builder!
Being with God requires activities that put me in a place to recognize and receive his Grace which means the way he communicates to me. These activities are contained in my survival kit which consists of fasting, a letting go of or dying a little, removal of things in my life so that I can focus without distraction on God. I am learning to silence the world around, so that I hear His still small voice, that heaviness on my heart. I seek solitude to find Him then I sit back and notice what He is doing in and around me. My priorities are to remain in Him, loving all God’s children, and bearing witness to God’s goodness to all that will listen and watch in me.
In order to stop the onslaught of evil in my life I must be disciplined and I must take up the battle against evil. I need to train, practice, and go to war in order to maintain my relationship with God. He has provided me the spiritual disciplines as weapons and tools to keep his Kingdom in my life. It is this regular practice and training that always me to win the war and to work out my salvation for the good of God. I ask God my Father for the heart, soul, mind and strength to do His will. Lord I am yours do what you will with me. Save me from evil. Let me see the Kingdom. Take me from here to be with you.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Pain
Why is there so much similarity in the pain of pure joy the one that brings us to tears and the pains of failure, losing a loved one, and those wounds of our heart that our closet loved one’s inflict. Love is at the foundation of this pain for our brokenness which is really our failures and loses that having led us away from God. However God uses these to change and move our hearts close to how God wants us to be. Joy is having found God’s Grace in the midst of this painful life for we were made for something greater and we know that deep within ourselves, we were made to be hero’s and lovers. Take a close look at the joy you experience I will bet it wasn’t about any material thing but about an experience where we found our true selves in loving someone else and/or loving ourselves not in an ego self centric way just that feeling I like who I am for that moment.
We find it difficult to love our closest friends and family because this is where we get most of our pain. However we still love them and it is this love contrast of joy and painful wounds that allows us to understand that love is so painful. Why do some of us strive for the middle ground that place of numbness where there are no highs or lows, no tears of joy, no wounds to be had? I would say most of us strive to cut out the bottoms the place where we are wounded. We avoid situations where there is risk of failure or rejection of our true self. But in reality those wounds and rejections just happen even those we avoid them at all cost. This cost is that numbness or middle ground. This is where we find ourselves most of our lives numb, busy and terribly unconnected to our hearts. If we slow down, get quiet and pear into our own hearts we discover the lack of Joy and there is so much pain in that because like I said above we were made for much more, we know it. We need to take the time ask God to give us the eyes and the ears to experience the real contrast of His Kingdom. For God’s is in all the pain. Blessed are those that get to experience the complete pain in the tears of joy and also see God’s redemption in the most painful failures and loses. God knows that if there was no pain that we would not notice Him. So he uses pain for our good. It’s the way he shapes us to His purpose. Pain is necessary and no one is able to avoid it in their lives.
Pain moves us to action. Yes sometimes it moves us to the middle ground but that is good. This is God’s way of protecting us from too much or better put he give us the middle ground as a release valve. He does not want us to stay there but soon after the pains and wounds we usually get a choice to experience joy and redemption this is God’s way of filling us up and making us whole. This where we say “God is Good”.
Let’s get back to Joy and why it hurts. Joy hurts because we know it is fleeting, so temporary for most of us that the middle ground feels like joy to us. Wounds are different those last. They lie under the surface and stay there sometimes for a life time. We bury them in the numbness because we have not let God have them. This numbness and burying is the work of the devil. He uses this as a form to keep us under his reign. This is one of the devil’s main strategies just to keep us numb and lifeless. He knows his kingdom will increase just by shear accumulation of wounds.
However, when we abide in God’s grace we have more opportunities for joy but make no mistake there will be plenty of pain. All pain forces us to change to let go of something for God’s purpose. He uses it to change our hearts. Jesus was very clear about this when he said “Take up your cross and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). What he meant was die to your ego self live for something else. This takes the pain off of us and gives to God. No longer do we bear all the burden of our pain. God is the pain. He wants us to experience with Him. Look for God in the Joy and the wounds. He is there!
We find it difficult to love our closest friends and family because this is where we get most of our pain. However we still love them and it is this love contrast of joy and painful wounds that allows us to understand that love is so painful. Why do some of us strive for the middle ground that place of numbness where there are no highs or lows, no tears of joy, no wounds to be had? I would say most of us strive to cut out the bottoms the place where we are wounded. We avoid situations where there is risk of failure or rejection of our true self. But in reality those wounds and rejections just happen even those we avoid them at all cost. This cost is that numbness or middle ground. This is where we find ourselves most of our lives numb, busy and terribly unconnected to our hearts. If we slow down, get quiet and pear into our own hearts we discover the lack of Joy and there is so much pain in that because like I said above we were made for much more, we know it. We need to take the time ask God to give us the eyes and the ears to experience the real contrast of His Kingdom. For God’s is in all the pain. Blessed are those that get to experience the complete pain in the tears of joy and also see God’s redemption in the most painful failures and loses. God knows that if there was no pain that we would not notice Him. So he uses pain for our good. It’s the way he shapes us to His purpose. Pain is necessary and no one is able to avoid it in their lives.
Pain moves us to action. Yes sometimes it moves us to the middle ground but that is good. This is God’s way of protecting us from too much or better put he give us the middle ground as a release valve. He does not want us to stay there but soon after the pains and wounds we usually get a choice to experience joy and redemption this is God’s way of filling us up and making us whole. This where we say “God is Good”.
Let’s get back to Joy and why it hurts. Joy hurts because we know it is fleeting, so temporary for most of us that the middle ground feels like joy to us. Wounds are different those last. They lie under the surface and stay there sometimes for a life time. We bury them in the numbness because we have not let God have them. This numbness and burying is the work of the devil. He uses this as a form to keep us under his reign. This is one of the devil’s main strategies just to keep us numb and lifeless. He knows his kingdom will increase just by shear accumulation of wounds.
However, when we abide in God’s grace we have more opportunities for joy but make no mistake there will be plenty of pain. All pain forces us to change to let go of something for God’s purpose. He uses it to change our hearts. Jesus was very clear about this when he said “Take up your cross and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). What he meant was die to your ego self live for something else. This takes the pain off of us and gives to God. No longer do we bear all the burden of our pain. God is the pain. He wants us to experience with Him. Look for God in the Joy and the wounds. He is there!
Monday, December 01, 2008
When God Wants To
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He's about.
--Unknown Aurthor
Just thought this poem was so perfect! It so desribes our Salavation and God conforming us to His will.
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He's about.
--Unknown Aurthor
Just thought this poem was so perfect! It so desribes our Salavation and God conforming us to His will.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Breathing
This is a continuation of my thoughts on the divine breath. I was so taken back by God as he unveiled the following to me over a sermon and video from Rob Bell pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan. So I continued on a did a little more research using the Net Bible. If you have not used this tool it is awesome to look at the Greek words and definitions. Enjoy for it brought tears to my eyes and how good the Lord is to me.
DEFINITION and Greek translation the English word LORD= yeh-ho-vaw' (it is the sound when we breath try it say it slow a few times:)
Spirit in Greek is the word Pneuma who’s root word is Pneo which is defined as; to breathe.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Luke 23:46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last.
John 20:20-22 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
The lyrics from the song : This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence
Living in me
When we breathe each other “in” we are experiencing God’s life giving force, His spirit that is living in us, in every breath we take. In the act of making love of sharing this intimate time of connection, the pure love of God is strong and evident. The breathing of each others spirit ties our hearts and souls together which makes us one with God sharing in His life given force which is pure “love”. This breathe (God’s Love) is linked to directly to our sexuality or better put our complete intimacy with Him. This is why a sex act without love violates the spirit inflicting wounds at the deepest sense of our lives. Rape incest, pornography, lust, and sex for the sake of sex are all acts outside of Love and rob ourselves of God’s breath and in the true sense leaves us empty inside when done.
GOD DOES GIVE and TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY.
DEFINITION and Greek translation the English word LORD= yeh-ho-vaw' (it is the sound when we breath try it say it slow a few times:)
Spirit in Greek is the word Pneuma who’s root word is Pneo which is defined as; to breathe.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Luke 23:46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last.
John 20:20-22 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
The lyrics from the song : This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence
Living in me
When we breathe each other “in” we are experiencing God’s life giving force, His spirit that is living in us, in every breath we take. In the act of making love of sharing this intimate time of connection, the pure love of God is strong and evident. The breathing of each others spirit ties our hearts and souls together which makes us one with God sharing in His life given force which is pure “love”. This breathe (God’s Love) is linked to directly to our sexuality or better put our complete intimacy with Him. This is why a sex act without love violates the spirit inflicting wounds at the deepest sense of our lives. Rape incest, pornography, lust, and sex for the sake of sex are all acts outside of Love and rob ourselves of God’s breath and in the true sense leaves us empty inside when done.
GOD DOES GIVE and TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Kids: "We Are At War!"
There is an unseen world that exists around and within us. A world inhabited by God, the author and Father of all creation, His son Jesus the Christ, His Holy Spirit, angels, and demons. There is an order to this unseen world, just like in the seen world we inhabit. There is war in the unseen world, just like in our world. There are times of peace, but where there is free will, there is good and evil, and where there is good and evil, and there will always be war. There is only one created being that can and does exist in both worlds; us. Humans. We are souls who “temporarily have physicality”. Our primary state of existence is not our present physical state, but our future spiritual state. The knowledge of the eternal existence of our souls is a primary instruction for living out our physical existence. If we truly believe that God exists and that we have both physical and spiritual natures, then we will live and love differently than someone who believes in only the physical, being slaves to our appetites and emotions. Differently too from an animal who understands only the physical and reacts in fear and instinct to the world around it.
As Christians we believe in this dual nature of mankind and that God, through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit seeks out His elect and speaks to us through the scriptures, through His creation, through our hearts and through other people. God speaks to us in joy and pain, life and death, work and play. The gentle wind of His Spirit. The peace which surpasses all understanding. A kind word spoken or written at just the right time. He speaks to us in silence. The silence that requires of us faith, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."The silence that calms our hearts and minds to sense His presence deep within our own souls.
Now our biggest challenge as parents is not teaching about Jesus, but teaching of this "unseen world" inhabited by a triune God: The creator, the savior and the counselor. But also inhabited by messengers and warriors, princes and dragons all locked in battle for the elusive, eternal souls of man. If a child can believe and understand that this seeming fantasy, this mythology, is true, real and urgent, then all of a sudden the entire landscape of their lives will be transformed and the quest for hearing God's voice changes from an "ought" and "should" to a "need" and "want". Knowing the savior becomes a soul-searching need to find our king rather than a story told for fifteen minutes after crafts on Sunday before brunch. The world fits with this story.
The world can be understood through this story. This story is bigger than us. Bigger than our comprehension. Bigger than science. Bigger than the grandest ideas of history. Unless our kids understand the whole story; the hard parts and easy parts, the logic and paradox, the difficulties of faith and free-will, good and evil, pain and fear they will never be fully committed. They need to know where and how they fit into this TRUE story, and what they will be up against, who they are following and why. They need to be taught how to follow Jesus, how to pursue Him, how to be with him and how hear the Father's voice like He did. Only then will they be prepared to do the will of The Father which is the purpose of all of creation. Only then will they truly, truly believe.
Notes and Ideas:
We have grown so accustom to seeing and hearing evil that we dismiss it as a normal part of life.
This paradox the physical world and its issues are just hard tangible version of what is going in the spiritual realm. However, we must fight the spiritual war much different than how we fight in the physical world. Jesus spent much of his ministry teaching us how he fought the physical world with spiritual weapons of love, forgiveness, truth, repentance, healing, casting out demons, and most importantly asking the Father for instructions our supreme commander.
Hearing God’s voice and will for us is an absolute if we are to be true followers of Christ. My life is now: I HAVE to talk to God. I HAVE to know what my next orders are! I HAVE to be trained. I HAVE to be reprimanded by the LORD. I HAVE to be healed of my battle wounds. I HAVE to follow Jesus for God sent his One and Only SON to teach us reality of being warriors for God and for the SAKE of building/defending his Kingdom.
Thank you to my great friend PH for being a such a source of the light for me helping me write this so clearly.
As Christians we believe in this dual nature of mankind and that God, through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit seeks out His elect and speaks to us through the scriptures, through His creation, through our hearts and through other people. God speaks to us in joy and pain, life and death, work and play. The gentle wind of His Spirit. The peace which surpasses all understanding. A kind word spoken or written at just the right time. He speaks to us in silence. The silence that requires of us faith, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."The silence that calms our hearts and minds to sense His presence deep within our own souls.
Now our biggest challenge as parents is not teaching about Jesus, but teaching of this "unseen world" inhabited by a triune God: The creator, the savior and the counselor. But also inhabited by messengers and warriors, princes and dragons all locked in battle for the elusive, eternal souls of man. If a child can believe and understand that this seeming fantasy, this mythology, is true, real and urgent, then all of a sudden the entire landscape of their lives will be transformed and the quest for hearing God's voice changes from an "ought" and "should" to a "need" and "want". Knowing the savior becomes a soul-searching need to find our king rather than a story told for fifteen minutes after crafts on Sunday before brunch. The world fits with this story.
The world can be understood through this story. This story is bigger than us. Bigger than our comprehension. Bigger than science. Bigger than the grandest ideas of history. Unless our kids understand the whole story; the hard parts and easy parts, the logic and paradox, the difficulties of faith and free-will, good and evil, pain and fear they will never be fully committed. They need to know where and how they fit into this TRUE story, and what they will be up against, who they are following and why. They need to be taught how to follow Jesus, how to pursue Him, how to be with him and how hear the Father's voice like He did. Only then will they be prepared to do the will of The Father which is the purpose of all of creation. Only then will they truly, truly believe.
Notes and Ideas:
We have grown so accustom to seeing and hearing evil that we dismiss it as a normal part of life.
This paradox the physical world and its issues are just hard tangible version of what is going in the spiritual realm. However, we must fight the spiritual war much different than how we fight in the physical world. Jesus spent much of his ministry teaching us how he fought the physical world with spiritual weapons of love, forgiveness, truth, repentance, healing, casting out demons, and most importantly asking the Father for instructions our supreme commander.
Hearing God’s voice and will for us is an absolute if we are to be true followers of Christ. My life is now: I HAVE to talk to God. I HAVE to know what my next orders are! I HAVE to be trained. I HAVE to be reprimanded by the LORD. I HAVE to be healed of my battle wounds. I HAVE to follow Jesus for God sent his One and Only SON to teach us reality of being warriors for God and for the SAKE of building/defending his Kingdom.
Thank you to my great friend PH for being a such a source of the light for me helping me write this so clearly.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
A Sense of Heaven
There is a phenomenon that God lets us experience that give us a taste of what our senses will experience in heaven. This overwhelmingly intoxicating experience is truly a divine gift. This experience starts with gaining a deep sense of intimacy with each other. Really opening our hearts to each other becoming totally vulnerable, totally connected, totally naked, a place where there are no secrets.
We begin settle into a very holy place. A place where the heavens meet this awful world. God comes to meet us with his unsurpassed Love. Here He lets us experience co-creating with Him in this divine act of totally coming together. As our talks deepen we feel drawn to touch each other, we begin to kiss. Our lips touch softly we look into each other’s eyes wanting to know each other’s soul secrets. In this closeness the world around us disappears, we have arrived in this place where our souls and hearts can join together that rib God removed to make Eve is replaced and we are made whole once again.
This is not sex but making love, big difference. As we continue to kiss and breath we notice something different. Each breath through our nose and mouth draws in something peculiar yet familiar. It's not a smell but a stream of energy which when processed through our lungs and nose enlivens our connection to each other drawing us deeper into each others souls and hearts. It is so powerful it makes each of our physical bodies sing with an aliveness. Again its not a scent but an energy, a force. It give us what I call love fuel it fans the fires deep within each of us. The energy is so strong at times I think it will suffocate me.
This must be what heaven will do to our senses upon the death of our bodies. Maybe this is a brief glimpse of what eternity with Him will be like, so intense, so beautiful, so good, so amazing, so worth all the pain of this world. May you breath each other in, may you experience the Love of God in Worshiping Him through this gift.
We begin settle into a very holy place. A place where the heavens meet this awful world. God comes to meet us with his unsurpassed Love. Here He lets us experience co-creating with Him in this divine act of totally coming together. As our talks deepen we feel drawn to touch each other, we begin to kiss. Our lips touch softly we look into each other’s eyes wanting to know each other’s soul secrets. In this closeness the world around us disappears, we have arrived in this place where our souls and hearts can join together that rib God removed to make Eve is replaced and we are made whole once again.
This is not sex but making love, big difference. As we continue to kiss and breath we notice something different. Each breath through our nose and mouth draws in something peculiar yet familiar. It's not a smell but a stream of energy which when processed through our lungs and nose enlivens our connection to each other drawing us deeper into each others souls and hearts. It is so powerful it makes each of our physical bodies sing with an aliveness. Again its not a scent but an energy, a force. It give us what I call love fuel it fans the fires deep within each of us. The energy is so strong at times I think it will suffocate me.
This must be what heaven will do to our senses upon the death of our bodies. Maybe this is a brief glimpse of what eternity with Him will be like, so intense, so beautiful, so good, so amazing, so worth all the pain of this world. May you breath each other in, may you experience the Love of God in Worshiping Him through this gift.
Where I am at today!
A letter to a friend this week reads:
All is well in the war over my heart and the hearts of my family and friends. I still listen to both Piper and Boyd. I enjoy the two points of view. I love Greg Boyd for his view of the Warrior Jesus who came to save us and show us how to fight the real battle for our hearts and how evil so is present in our lives. I love John Piper for his solid theology and reverence. I don’t get too caught up in any one preacher. My faith is not based upon any preacher, pastor or priest. These are men with their own beliefs and take on God’s word. I find little comfort in religion or denominational churchs. I find my relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit much more grounded in the Word and in talking, praying and watching God at work in my life and in those around me. Life to me now is much different; it is all Spiritual, it is all about evil and good(love) nothing in between. I don’t DO Christianity, I walk with God and try to do what he ask me to do. I try to live like Christ somehow and read how he said to do life, to do life from the heart and build his kingdom. I find no value in rational thinking, I find value in love. Where that takes me I have not a clue I just try to live differently as did Jesus.
In Service for God!
All is well in the war over my heart and the hearts of my family and friends. I still listen to both Piper and Boyd. I enjoy the two points of view. I love Greg Boyd for his view of the Warrior Jesus who came to save us and show us how to fight the real battle for our hearts and how evil so is present in our lives. I love John Piper for his solid theology and reverence. I don’t get too caught up in any one preacher. My faith is not based upon any preacher, pastor or priest. These are men with their own beliefs and take on God’s word. I find little comfort in religion or denominational churchs. I find my relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit much more grounded in the Word and in talking, praying and watching God at work in my life and in those around me. Life to me now is much different; it is all Spiritual, it is all about evil and good(love) nothing in between. I don’t DO Christianity, I walk with God and try to do what he ask me to do. I try to live like Christ somehow and read how he said to do life, to do life from the heart and build his kingdom. I find no value in rational thinking, I find value in love. Where that takes me I have not a clue I just try to live differently as did Jesus.
In Service for God!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sex Part II: A Divine Rejoining
Do we not experience a profound deep sense of a rejoining when having sex/making love to a women? This all came to me in what Moses and Jesus taught us about “becoming one flesh”. Moses explains this to us in the creation story in the Bible.
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:19-24 NIV)
Jesus reaffirmed Moses in Matthew 19:4-6
4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (NIV)
In the act of sexually worshiping each other we get to experience the rejoining of that missing piece that God withdrew from each on of us men. As we unite our flesh in this pure act of worshiping our creator, God lets us go back to how he created us in the beginning, taking a piece of Adam(us men) to create Eve(you women). Making love to each other gives us the opportunity for a moment to replace the missing piece within us, thus completing what was once lost long ago. We get to relive part of God’s creation story in the intimate act of sex. Ths missing piece may be the root of our internal sexual drive not only to create new life but to replace this missing piece. How else do we describe where this urge or need comes from? We don’t know what drives us so passionately and strongly but this need/urge does not go away until we have been reunited with our own Eve, who holds our missing piece. Our hearts long for each other to dive deeply into the purely intimate sexual act of rejoining and becoming one again with each other. For God wants this union to be a special one, one out of love, commitment, and joy.
This rejoining is so deep, it does produce laughter but brings on a feeling of holiness, of gratitude, and amazement or better put ecstasy that something so wonderful could feel this good. Webster’s dictionary defines ecstasy as “rapture from the contemplation of divine things”. Don’t you think our divine creator God wants us to have a divine contemplation of the eternal life with Him? Maybe it’s through this uniting of our hearts in the act of sex that God whispers into our hearts this secret that not many of us fail to hear. Once you have really listened to Him and have heard the secret you so would love to tell everyone, but you just cannot find the human words to express it to the next person. It is such a big secret God wants us to keep it safe within the context of marriage and not to share it with just a random person. It is so deep and profound, to share it with an acquaintance or friend would be reducing sex to a physical act of pleasure much like drinking a glass of water when you’re thirsty. Is not sex so so much more than just satisfying a bodily function or control need? See Part I: A Divine Gift
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:19-24 NIV)
Jesus reaffirmed Moses in Matthew 19:4-6
4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (NIV)
In the act of sexually worshiping each other we get to experience the rejoining of that missing piece that God withdrew from each on of us men. As we unite our flesh in this pure act of worshiping our creator, God lets us go back to how he created us in the beginning, taking a piece of Adam(us men) to create Eve(you women). Making love to each other gives us the opportunity for a moment to replace the missing piece within us, thus completing what was once lost long ago. We get to relive part of God’s creation story in the intimate act of sex. Ths missing piece may be the root of our internal sexual drive not only to create new life but to replace this missing piece. How else do we describe where this urge or need comes from? We don’t know what drives us so passionately and strongly but this need/urge does not go away until we have been reunited with our own Eve, who holds our missing piece. Our hearts long for each other to dive deeply into the purely intimate sexual act of rejoining and becoming one again with each other. For God wants this union to be a special one, one out of love, commitment, and joy.
This rejoining is so deep, it does produce laughter but brings on a feeling of holiness, of gratitude, and amazement or better put ecstasy that something so wonderful could feel this good. Webster’s dictionary defines ecstasy as “rapture from the contemplation of divine things”. Don’t you think our divine creator God wants us to have a divine contemplation of the eternal life with Him? Maybe it’s through this uniting of our hearts in the act of sex that God whispers into our hearts this secret that not many of us fail to hear. Once you have really listened to Him and have heard the secret you so would love to tell everyone, but you just cannot find the human words to express it to the next person. It is such a big secret God wants us to keep it safe within the context of marriage and not to share it with just a random person. It is so deep and profound, to share it with an acquaintance or friend would be reducing sex to a physical act of pleasure much like drinking a glass of water when you’re thirsty. Is not sex so so much more than just satisfying a bodily function or control need? See Part I: A Divine Gift
Monday, June 09, 2008
Sex Part I: A Divine Gift
God gave us sex as a gift which bonds a woman and a man together to create a union of our hearts and souls out which we are given a role in Co-Creating with Him. Sex is holy which we have learned that being Holy is entering into God’s Love. This act of Love is co creating with God therefore is not something to take lightly. So sex is a Holy act. Secondly, God created sex as a way for us to share ourselves completely with one another, to become totally naked, vulnerable, and open to one another. Sex when shared and honored in this way becomes truly an act of worshiping God. This is what true worship looks like, to worship our creator God and one another at a super intimate level.
Sex in its purest form is so intoxicating and deep that we can only linger in the moments before during and after an orgasm for minutes. As we become one flesh (Matthew 19:4-6) in those moments we melt into each other giving us the act of pure union meant for a marriage only. When we make the first penetration into the woman we both feel this utterly amazing feeling of “ah” it is that moment we say no verbally to each other “I love You”. This act ties our souls and hearts together in a way we may never fully understand. I do know this we cannot share this intimacy, this bond with more than one person at a time. I do believe there are differences between a man and a women in how each experiences this union. For us men the act of entering into a women with our flesh while having her flesh wrap is like diving into pool of perfectly tempered crystal clear spring water. We immerse soul into hers. This is very different from the woman’s point of view. For her it is an invitation to the man to come in, to open her heart and soul like a door that is being unlocked and as we enter the room where she says none verbally “come deep into me” and she provides you that look that you just found something out so deeply about her that words cannot describe it. In this time we are completely together even though how we got here was different for each but now as we are heart and souls one flesh one body bound together are inclination to finish kicks in. We want to finish it, have an orgasm. Now little time is left, for the finish of an orgasm is minutes away ending our union. I suppose God made it this way because most of us would if given a choice would stay in that feeling, that union forever and we would not get any sleep or anything else done that day.
As we progress towards the finish of the union we worship each other through each movement and each sensation. This in and out movement representing song we are singing to each other. As the orgasm approaches something more profound takes place this heightened sensitivity brings us that feeling of “I would do anything for you and this love and nothing in this world matters”. Our concentration is so focused and so intense nothing can stop it. We now are at the climatic end. We call it a climax for a reason for what is about to be unleashed in the orgasm is life creating and soul bearing. I can only speak towards the male orgasm for that is my only internal experience in which I can reflect upon. As we start to ejaculate the impulse and reaction is to thrust as deep into her as I can. Trying to pull out at this point is so counter intuitive to do so ends something so abruptly it takes discipline most of us don’t have and it why we should teach our young people that this is not a good form of birth control. This sense of driving deep into her can only mean I am putting something so special so profound and meaningful, I want it to go to the depths of her heart where she will remember my soul and keep it locked away telling no one else this secret, this intimate detail of my being. In the midst of this explosion of love something else is going on. A release of life that when combined with her life with the help of God will form another child of God. This love explosion then puts God’s creation capabilities into action. It is much like a prayer but instead of verbal or through a thought this prayer is a physical one. It says to God here you go we want to create a human being in the image of you Lord and hey can you make this child of yours look like Mom and Dad?
So it is finished we lay there together in a heap of sweat and bodily fluid looking at each other with such satisfaction and love for we cannot fathom a better place to be in those moments. We know then that something of that union stays with us forever only to be broken when we choose to break this bond by loving another in that same way. To reduce this amazing act of worship to just something pleasurable would be a travesty and false as to the power of this immeasurable gift from God. This is what true worshiping of God should look like! Thank you Lord for this gift, this glimpse of Heaven and what true union feels like. Continued Sex Part II: A Divine Rejoining
Sex in its purest form is so intoxicating and deep that we can only linger in the moments before during and after an orgasm for minutes. As we become one flesh (Matthew 19:4-6) in those moments we melt into each other giving us the act of pure union meant for a marriage only. When we make the first penetration into the woman we both feel this utterly amazing feeling of “ah” it is that moment we say no verbally to each other “I love You”. This act ties our souls and hearts together in a way we may never fully understand. I do know this we cannot share this intimacy, this bond with more than one person at a time. I do believe there are differences between a man and a women in how each experiences this union. For us men the act of entering into a women with our flesh while having her flesh wrap is like diving into pool of perfectly tempered crystal clear spring water. We immerse soul into hers. This is very different from the woman’s point of view. For her it is an invitation to the man to come in, to open her heart and soul like a door that is being unlocked and as we enter the room where she says none verbally “come deep into me” and she provides you that look that you just found something out so deeply about her that words cannot describe it. In this time we are completely together even though how we got here was different for each but now as we are heart and souls one flesh one body bound together are inclination to finish kicks in. We want to finish it, have an orgasm. Now little time is left, for the finish of an orgasm is minutes away ending our union. I suppose God made it this way because most of us would if given a choice would stay in that feeling, that union forever and we would not get any sleep or anything else done that day.
As we progress towards the finish of the union we worship each other through each movement and each sensation. This in and out movement representing song we are singing to each other. As the orgasm approaches something more profound takes place this heightened sensitivity brings us that feeling of “I would do anything for you and this love and nothing in this world matters”. Our concentration is so focused and so intense nothing can stop it. We now are at the climatic end. We call it a climax for a reason for what is about to be unleashed in the orgasm is life creating and soul bearing. I can only speak towards the male orgasm for that is my only internal experience in which I can reflect upon. As we start to ejaculate the impulse and reaction is to thrust as deep into her as I can. Trying to pull out at this point is so counter intuitive to do so ends something so abruptly it takes discipline most of us don’t have and it why we should teach our young people that this is not a good form of birth control. This sense of driving deep into her can only mean I am putting something so special so profound and meaningful, I want it to go to the depths of her heart where she will remember my soul and keep it locked away telling no one else this secret, this intimate detail of my being. In the midst of this explosion of love something else is going on. A release of life that when combined with her life with the help of God will form another child of God. This love explosion then puts God’s creation capabilities into action. It is much like a prayer but instead of verbal or through a thought this prayer is a physical one. It says to God here you go we want to create a human being in the image of you Lord and hey can you make this child of yours look like Mom and Dad?
So it is finished we lay there together in a heap of sweat and bodily fluid looking at each other with such satisfaction and love for we cannot fathom a better place to be in those moments. We know then that something of that union stays with us forever only to be broken when we choose to break this bond by loving another in that same way. To reduce this amazing act of worship to just something pleasurable would be a travesty and false as to the power of this immeasurable gift from God. This is what true worshiping of God should look like! Thank you Lord for this gift, this glimpse of Heaven and what true union feels like. Continued Sex Part II: A Divine Rejoining
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The the following is a compilation of passages of The New Testament using the verses 10:10. This number sequence I have used for years going back to the sports number 10 I used on many jerseys. I hope this speaks to my story and my life to come taken through God's Divine word.
Do not take along any gold or silver no bag for the journey. Who divorces his wife and marries another woman. The kingdom of God is near. May have life, and have it to the full. He saw heaven opened. It is with your heart that you believe. Who trusts in him will never be put to shame. And do not grumble warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. We will be in our actions when we are present. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, take away sins. You must prophesy again about many peoples.
Do not take along any gold or silver no bag for the journey. Who divorces his wife and marries another woman. The kingdom of God is near. May have life, and have it to the full. He saw heaven opened. It is with your heart that you believe. Who trusts in him will never be put to shame. And do not grumble warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. We will be in our actions when we are present. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, take away sins. You must prophesy again about many peoples.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Yes or No Not "OR"
Have we lost the ability to tell each other YES or NO? It seems like we are so afraid of giving someone a definitive answer in fear of offending the other person or them thinking less of us. This is especially evident in the business world. The standard "great job, we'll get back to you." Then we spend the next few weeks with no answers either no or yes with numerous attempts and they don't even have the decency to return a call or email in fear of offending me with a "NO".
Jesus said "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Matt 5:37(NIV)
Take a look at your life. How often do you sit on the fence, blow people off just because you don't have the fortitude to tell someone the truth with a simple yes or no? The truth is "NO I am not interested". Then sometimes we say yes and then quickly figure out we should of said no in the first place but by then we have blown them off hoping they will figure out by our non-communication that it should of been "no" in the first place.
Yes, Jesus was right on spot and the human condition has not changed in two thousand years. Nothing good comes from not sticking to our commitments. Say no and mean no and let others go on their way and in the end we will all offend each other less and keep more friendships.
Jesus said "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Matt 5:37(NIV)
Take a look at your life. How often do you sit on the fence, blow people off just because you don't have the fortitude to tell someone the truth with a simple yes or no? The truth is "NO I am not interested". Then sometimes we say yes and then quickly figure out we should of said no in the first place but by then we have blown them off hoping they will figure out by our non-communication that it should of been "no" in the first place.
Yes, Jesus was right on spot and the human condition has not changed in two thousand years. Nothing good comes from not sticking to our commitments. Say no and mean no and let others go on their way and in the end we will all offend each other less and keep more friendships.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Feeding God's People
We(family) spent a few hours the weekend of March 30th helping prepare and serve food at Central United Methodist in Kansas City Kansas. We served about 120 individuals and families most of which are homeless or less fortunate. This video clip is a compilation of some photos my daughter took that day. Try it sometime it is moving to know we are all just a few months financially away from being in the same position.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Movies To See
Here are some great movies I have watched over the last few years. I have ranked them 1=Good, 2=got to watch it sometime, 3=Put it on the list, 4=Must See, 5=Foundational go get it today
Freedom Writers 4
Luther(2003) 5
King David 4
How to Know God 3
Beyond the Gates 4
The Final Inquiry 4
Gabriel 4
Into the Wild 4
Last Sin Eater 3
Kingdom of Heaven 4
The Gospel of John 5
Off the Map 2
The Man from Snowy River 4
The Cowboys 4
One Night With the King 4
A Good Year 3
The Ultimate Gift 5
Conversations With God 5
Amazing Grace 5
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 3
Jesus Camp 3
Sweet Land 3
The Passion 5
Water 4
The Nativity Story 5
A History of God 4
Born Rich 4
Peaceful Warrior 3
God Grew Tired of Us 3
Braveheart 2
Gladiator 2
This list is not meant for entertainment purposes but to offer you and I an opportunity to feel our hearts, see our faith, and experience love. Seeing the pain, joy, and love of other's stories moves us to discover our own hearts. There is some much for us to learn about how life really is not just this surface busy life, where we are all just trying to get ahead or keep from going backwards.
I hope will at least watch the movies with a 4 and 5 next to them. As always if you have a 4 or a 5 rated movie drop a comment to me so I make sure I add it my list. Most of these movies where recommendations from others and I am eternally grateful for their suggestions.
Freedom Writers 4
Luther(2003) 5
King David 4
How to Know God 3
Beyond the Gates 4
The Final Inquiry 4
Gabriel 4
Into the Wild 4
Last Sin Eater 3
Kingdom of Heaven 4
The Gospel of John 5
Off the Map 2
The Man from Snowy River 4
The Cowboys 4
One Night With the King 4
A Good Year 3
The Ultimate Gift 5
Conversations With God 5
Amazing Grace 5
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 3
Jesus Camp 3
Sweet Land 3
The Passion 5
Water 4
The Nativity Story 5
A History of God 4
Born Rich 4
Peaceful Warrior 3
God Grew Tired of Us 3
Braveheart 2
Gladiator 2
This list is not meant for entertainment purposes but to offer you and I an opportunity to feel our hearts, see our faith, and experience love. Seeing the pain, joy, and love of other's stories moves us to discover our own hearts. There is some much for us to learn about how life really is not just this surface busy life, where we are all just trying to get ahead or keep from going backwards.
I hope will at least watch the movies with a 4 and 5 next to them. As always if you have a 4 or a 5 rated movie drop a comment to me so I make sure I add it my list. Most of these movies where recommendations from others and I am eternally grateful for their suggestions.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
There is MORE!
Take a minute to listen to someone who has acheived it all. How many of us would want to have what he has $50 million salary and a super model for a girlfiriend. Could a man want anything more at the age of 30?
This is an excerpt from Tom Brady's Interview on CBS 60 Minutes New Magazine show at the end of December. Tom is the star quarterback of the New England Patriots football team. This audio is a little over 4 minutes long.
This is an excerpt from Tom Brady's Interview on CBS 60 Minutes New Magazine show at the end of December. Tom is the star quarterback of the New England Patriots football team. This audio is a little over 4 minutes long.
Yes, yes! Tom there is much more to life than attaining fame and fortune. We were all created by God with special unique gifts. I know by the way Tom talks in this interview that God has blessed him with a bigger and better gift than quarterbacking a football team. When he does find that within himself with the help of God's word, he will then find the joy he has yet to experience. This is evident in his comment that the next superbowl ring will be the best one. False, the next thing he will finding that means anything at all is his real purpose. The reason God created him for and once he gives that gift to the world so many more people will have their lives changed from versus the last game he won. So Tom if you read this and only by the Grace of God would you find this blog post, go ahead and read.
--Romans 12:3-8
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Find your gift and give it!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Communication Break Thru
Once upon a time I awoke or better put opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart then did I hear God say to me “Mike my son I will Father you . I will show you your purpose. I will shine your gifts upon the world. You are mine and I need you build My Kingdom. Your prior attempts to fill your life with material things, and the pursuit of getting ahead, of financial freedom for yourself, career success, money and the useless pursuit of your ego. Those things of the self will no longer any part of you. I am the only thing that can fill you up and if you attain any of those things then it only happen through building My Kingdom.”
This simple summary is the story of how my life has changed dramatically. It’s not about some intellectual battle or revelation of my mind or something in particular I read or heard spoke but an overall communication from God. His deliver methods ranged from everyday experiences; conversations with friends and family, a movie or two, a bunch of great books including the Bible, and some awesome sermons in person and through podcasts. I must admit I laid everything heard and seen against the cold hard truth of my past life experiences. God’s communication to my human mind is somewhat like a puzzle. But once I understand how to arrange the puzzle pieces like organizing the straight edges first and so on does then God’s messages become much easier for me to understand. My only regret looking back is often he did communicate with me, I just did not listen or was unable for some reason receive his posts, probably because no one every taught me. It’s an amazing conversation now. Hey if want I will let you listen in!
This simple summary is the story of how my life has changed dramatically. It’s not about some intellectual battle or revelation of my mind or something in particular I read or heard spoke but an overall communication from God. His deliver methods ranged from everyday experiences; conversations with friends and family, a movie or two, a bunch of great books including the Bible, and some awesome sermons in person and through podcasts. I must admit I laid everything heard and seen against the cold hard truth of my past life experiences. God’s communication to my human mind is somewhat like a puzzle. But once I understand how to arrange the puzzle pieces like organizing the straight edges first and so on does then God’s messages become much easier for me to understand. My only regret looking back is often he did communicate with me, I just did not listen or was unable for some reason receive his posts, probably because no one every taught me. It’s an amazing conversation now. Hey if want I will let you listen in!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
What are we teaching?
"The Desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but deep people." Richard Foster - Celebration of Discipline
What is with this idea that the smarter we get the happier we will be? I agree to the point that we need a level of intelligence to make the wild world in which we live tamer thus making it easier to fulfill our basic needs of food, water, and shelter. But beyond that trying to make our kids happy intellectual geniuses is ridiculous. There is an underlying current in our schools to drive our kids like race horses in training. If you don't think it's evident look at all the standardized testing our kids go through to see if they are keeping up with everyone else in the basis studies Math and English. What about teaching and testing the ways of the heart; relationships, love, communications skills of compassion, understanding, and helping one another. I think this system is doing a great injustice to our kids future by leaving out the learning of our heart. We leave making them deeper people up to chance. That’s pretty risky because as we leave the educational system and our thrown into the world we lack the understanding of the internal compass of our heart. We then rely on our schooling derived intellect that tells us to pursue what our mind wants which leads us to the whole culture thing of materialism and a life filled with whole lot of superficial stuff.
Our only hope is real life experiences of failure, loss and God to bring us back to the realization that it is depth of our hearts which really matter. Maybe it’s no coincidence the most popular book every written the Bible whole premise is teach us the way of our heart. It has taken loss, failure and most of all God to take my life's experiences to bring me this deeper level. The deeper I get, the more in touch I get with my heart, the more joy I experience. I just wish someone would of taught me this matter of the heart just like I was taught science and math. I agree with Foster, the world needs deeper people. Deeper people know the truth of the heart. Think about a happy joy filled person that you know. Are they the smartest? Are they the wealthiest? Wait don't make the mistake of just looking on the surface to judge their level of joy. You probably will need to get deep with them to really KNOW.
What is with this idea that the smarter we get the happier we will be? I agree to the point that we need a level of intelligence to make the wild world in which we live tamer thus making it easier to fulfill our basic needs of food, water, and shelter. But beyond that trying to make our kids happy intellectual geniuses is ridiculous. There is an underlying current in our schools to drive our kids like race horses in training. If you don't think it's evident look at all the standardized testing our kids go through to see if they are keeping up with everyone else in the basis studies Math and English. What about teaching and testing the ways of the heart; relationships, love, communications skills of compassion, understanding, and helping one another. I think this system is doing a great injustice to our kids future by leaving out the learning of our heart. We leave making them deeper people up to chance. That’s pretty risky because as we leave the educational system and our thrown into the world we lack the understanding of the internal compass of our heart. We then rely on our schooling derived intellect that tells us to pursue what our mind wants which leads us to the whole culture thing of materialism and a life filled with whole lot of superficial stuff.
Our only hope is real life experiences of failure, loss and God to bring us back to the realization that it is depth of our hearts which really matter. Maybe it’s no coincidence the most popular book every written the Bible whole premise is teach us the way of our heart. It has taken loss, failure and most of all God to take my life's experiences to bring me this deeper level. The deeper I get, the more in touch I get with my heart, the more joy I experience. I just wish someone would of taught me this matter of the heart just like I was taught science and math. I agree with Foster, the world needs deeper people. Deeper people know the truth of the heart. Think about a happy joy filled person that you know. Are they the smartest? Are they the wealthiest? Wait don't make the mistake of just looking on the surface to judge their level of joy. You probably will need to get deep with them to really KNOW.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Longing
In our relationships and especially in our marriages there is a longing to be special to someone and most of us are severely disappointed when this longing for someone to know our heart is never pursued. Rare indeed is a women who has been sought after for who she is not because of what she can do, or what others can gain from her(money, sex, company), but simply for herself, for what God sees her as. Can you recall a time when a significant someone in your life sat you down with the sole purpose of wanting to know your heart more deeply? We wonder if there is anything in our heart worth KNOWING. If I am not pursued is it because there is something wrong with me, something when found out about me they will retreat even further away or not love me anymore or will it tarnish my outer beauty which is fading anyway. Fear rises to the surface and we suffice to tell ourselves it’s safer not to let others discover our true heart and we go on with the mundane busy life keeping things on the surface level. Then something huge interrupts our busy life like a death of someone close or a broken relationship/marriage do then realize that we wanted our heart to be known to them. Maybe them knowing it would of made a difference. Maybe it would of changed our relationship for the better. Maybe it would of ended a relationship that was doomed for failure before we both wasted years of over lives together. Maybe it would of saved their life or mine!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Coincidences
I am convinced all coincidences are messages from God. If you will a form of communication from the Divine. A communication that God needs/wants you/me to hear or understand. If coincidences come through both people, actions and objects it must mean God is in us and everything else from the wind to the car we drive. He is at the root of our intenstions, the place wher creation manifests itself. There are no coincidences in this life. God uses this form of communication to help us. I find that most coincidences make life easier or solves a present or potential future problem. Here is a example. Lost Something: I have been looking for my keys and having not said anything to anyone that I was looking for them, my son comes up to me and says Dad here are your keys you dropped them in the garage.” Thanks God I have looked all over for them.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Relationship
The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein
Supposedly a childrens book but much more than I can describe. Here is the video version of the book about 6 minutes long. Go ahead read/view it although I cannot be responsible for the outcome.
I read this book one night at a friends house and it grabbed my heart and squeezed it. Sometimes friends, lovers, spouses stagnate and some regress or deteriorate and what made a great relationship now does not work. We no longer fit together until we realize its not about fitting together but rolling side by side taking part in the STORY of each other's changes good and bad.
I am betting you felt some pain in your heart after reading this or for the rare person a feeling of satisfaction came over you. Which ever one I am glad it pierced your hear.
Supposedly a childrens book but much more than I can describe. Here is the video version of the book about 6 minutes long. Go ahead read/view it although I cannot be responsible for the outcome.
I read this book one night at a friends house and it grabbed my heart and squeezed it. Sometimes friends, lovers, spouses stagnate and some regress or deteriorate and what made a great relationship now does not work. We no longer fit together until we realize its not about fitting together but rolling side by side taking part in the STORY of each other's changes good and bad.
I am betting you felt some pain in your heart after reading this or for the rare person a feeling of satisfaction came over you. Which ever one I am glad it pierced your hear.
Holey Heart
My first poem.
In the center of my heart lies a hole
It is not a wound
It is not a lonely feeling
It is not a scary feeling
It has not gone away by ignoring it
It has not been filled by material success
It has not been filled by marriage
It has not been filled by having children
It has not been filled by any amount of attainment
Culture says it has the solution “the American Dream”
I know this not to be the truth, tried it
I cannot tell you why this hole exist
I know it is really deep or even bottomless
I know my mind wants to fill it by being busy
I know God created this hole
I know it takes faith to live with
I know it takes dependence to exist with
I know it has everything to do with my purpose
I know without it I am a robot
I know it is to know God
I know I can always find Him there
In the center of your heart, is there a hole too.
Here is a quote by Blaise Pascal which describes the hole and its diagnosis.
“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”
In the center of my heart lies a hole
It is not a wound
It is not a lonely feeling
It is not a scary feeling
It has not gone away by ignoring it
It has not been filled by material success
It has not been filled by marriage
It has not been filled by having children
It has not been filled by any amount of attainment
Culture says it has the solution “the American Dream”
I know this not to be the truth, tried it
I cannot tell you why this hole exist
I know it is really deep or even bottomless
I know my mind wants to fill it by being busy
I know God created this hole
I know it takes faith to live with
I know it takes dependence to exist with
I know it has everything to do with my purpose
I know without it I am a robot
I know it is to know God
I know I can always find Him there
In the center of your heart, is there a hole too.
Here is a quote by Blaise Pascal which describes the hole and its diagnosis.
“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”
Monday, January 21, 2008
What Hurts
In my experiences the truth never hurts it’s the not knowing of the truth that hurts the most. The hurt is following the false cultural phenomenon and losing my hearts truth. That is true hurt.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Moving My Heart
Intimacy
Connecting to someone on a deep level. Sharing with them my heart, my passions, my dreams, my fears. To let this person find me out even at times when I don't know myself. To let the ego go and reveal to her who God wants me to be. The need to bring my heart to a even deeper and deeper knowing. God knows my depth already, the challenge is sharing this story with others and this sharing which is so not respected or taught in our culture.
Beauty
I see God threw the mountains, a sunset, the feminine and mother nature. As a man I view God in very masculine ways, most of which God created to move a me to action. A beautiful women, a mountain to climb, a sunset to chase, a river to fish, a new road or trial to ride my bike.
Adventure
I need like the little boy I have always been to be outside exploring new places, conquering physical feats, getting lost in God's Kingdom. I need to discover new things about myself and others. Not knowing whats going to happen next adds to the adventure. Does she really want to join me and can she take the risk?
Action
God calls me act on each of these areas of my heart with absolute truth. This call to action is so ingrained in me that I can only describe like an innate instinct bred into from birth. Intimacy brings the feeling of "I want to see inside of you to see what makes you tick." Beauty brings the feeling of I want to acquire, feel, touch, to soak in the beauty of Gods work he has done in you or in the world around me. Adventure brings the feeling of "let me discover something new, let me get lost, let me see something I have never seen before."
Connecting to someone on a deep level. Sharing with them my heart, my passions, my dreams, my fears. To let this person find me out even at times when I don't know myself. To let the ego go and reveal to her who God wants me to be. The need to bring my heart to a even deeper and deeper knowing. God knows my depth already, the challenge is sharing this story with others and this sharing which is so not respected or taught in our culture.
Beauty
I see God threw the mountains, a sunset, the feminine and mother nature. As a man I view God in very masculine ways, most of which God created to move a me to action. A beautiful women, a mountain to climb, a sunset to chase, a river to fish, a new road or trial to ride my bike.
Adventure
I need like the little boy I have always been to be outside exploring new places, conquering physical feats, getting lost in God's Kingdom. I need to discover new things about myself and others. Not knowing whats going to happen next adds to the adventure. Does she really want to join me and can she take the risk?
Action
God calls me act on each of these areas of my heart with absolute truth. This call to action is so ingrained in me that I can only describe like an innate instinct bred into from birth. Intimacy brings the feeling of "I want to see inside of you to see what makes you tick." Beauty brings the feeling of I want to acquire, feel, touch, to soak in the beauty of Gods work he has done in you or in the world around me. Adventure brings the feeling of "let me discover something new, let me get lost, let me see something I have never seen before."
EGO
Ego is not an assistant to getting what you want/need or to who you really are deep down inside. Your God given talents are who your heart/soul really is about or what it quests for! Stop flexing, bragging, lying, being deceitful, manipulating because in a very short time you will be found out for what you really are! Look, Look, and look at who you really are. Have you lost touch with your heart? That true self.
Definition of PRIDE: a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
Antonyms 1. humility
I will bet that pride has something to do with this disconnect. This pride driven system that our ego relies on to protect it's false self causes many of personal issues and failures which lead to deep wounds. I can trace issues of financial stress, divorce, and struggles with friends over this pride issue. I would venture to say most of my friends do not think I am at all egotistical. I would hate to be so full of pride as a true egomaniac. We all battle with pride to some degree. Looking down on anyone or anything is an indication of ego/pride.
We cannot love someone or even ourselves if we look down upon threw the veil of pride. I aim to be humble, God will you help with this?
Definition of PRIDE: a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
Antonyms 1. humility
I will bet that pride has something to do with this disconnect. This pride driven system that our ego relies on to protect it's false self causes many of personal issues and failures which lead to deep wounds. I can trace issues of financial stress, divorce, and struggles with friends over this pride issue. I would venture to say most of my friends do not think I am at all egotistical. I would hate to be so full of pride as a true egomaniac. We all battle with pride to some degree. Looking down on anyone or anything is an indication of ego/pride.
We cannot love someone or even ourselves if we look down upon threw the veil of pride. I aim to be humble, God will you help with this?
Sunday, January 06, 2008
The Matrix- Red or Blue Pill CHOOSE
Here is a excerpt from one of my favorite movies. Oh there is so much to the this movie. Remember the seen when Neo choose what pill to take from Morpheus? The Red or Blue?
Pay special attention to the red text. I have placed in green text my take on what it symbolized for me and my walk with God.
He nods to Trinity (as Neo's teacher and battle mate she represents God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in one) and she exits through a door to an
adjacent room. They sit across from one another in
cracked, burgundy-leather chairs.
MORPHEUS
I imagine, right now, you must be
feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling
down the rabbit hole?
NEO
You could say that.
MORPHEUS
I can see it in your eyes. You
have the look of a man who accepts
what he sees because he is
expecting to wake up.
Ironically, this is not far from
the truth. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. Can you tell me, Neo,
why are you here? The Ultimate question we all ask about ourselves.
NEO
You're Morpheus. You're a legend.
Most hackers would die to meet
you.
MORPHEUS
Yes. Thank you. But I think we
both know there's more to it than
that. Do you believe in fate, (Do you believe you have a plan a fate set by God?)
Neo?
NEO
No.
MORPHEUS
Why not?
NEO
Because I don't like the idea that
I'm not in control of my life. (Our ego's don't want to lose control, so but deep inside us we realize we control nothing.)
MORPHEUS
I know exactly what you mean.
Again, that smile that could cut glass.
MORPHEUS
Let me tell you why you are here.
You have come because you know
something. What you know you
can't explain but you feel it.
You've felt it your whole life,
felt that something is wrong with
the world. You don't know what,
but it's there like a splinter in
your mind, driving you mad. (we all know there is something very wrong with our lives and we feel it, something has gone very wrong. We ignore it or cover it up with what culture(matrix) says should make us feel right or happy or fulfilled none of it works.)
It is this feeling that brought you to
me. Do you know what I'm talking
about?
NEO
The Matrix?
MORPHEUS
Do you want to know what it is?
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is everywhere, it's all
around us(our culture or better put Evil's Kingdom designed changed or modified to keep God's reality from us. He even sent his Only Son to show us how to take it back.), here even in this room.
You can see it out your window or
on your television. You feel it
when you go to work, or go to
church or pay your taxes. It is
the world that has been pulled
over your eyes to blind you from
the truth. (the truth of how God wants us to be like)
NEO
What truth?
MORPHEUS
That you are a slave, Neo. Like
everyone else, you were born into
bondage, kept inside a prison that
you cannot smell, taste, or touch. (the enemy is very good he works to keep of us slave by little things, white lies, pride, prejudice, keeping up with the jones, egos, and materialism, hate, self fulfillment etc.. )
A prison for your mind.
The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.
MORPHEUS
Unfortunately, no one can be told
what the Matrix is. You have to
see it for yourself. (Most of us cannot be told we have to experience the pain of living in the matrix before we can really know this)
Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red pill.
In the left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS
This is your last chance. After
this, there is no going back. You
take the blue pill and the story
ends. You wake in your bed and
you believe whatever you want to
believe. (most choose the blue pill, to believe in themselves that they can figure why they were born, stuffing themselves in the false belief they can find it with God's help. Good Luck I have tried that way it did not work.)
The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
MORPHEUS
You take the red pill and you stay
in Wonderland and I show you how
deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Choose Red means choosing to walk with God and to serve Him and not what culture tells you. God will take you place you never imagine to dreams, fulfillment and ultimately eternal life in Heaven.)
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture
growing in his palms.
MORPHEUS
Remember that all I am offering is
the truth. Nothing more. God offers you the real truth just try it. You can always go back to the Matrix. The enemy is always recruiting.
For those wanting to watch this part of the movie again. 4 minutes long.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Confessions - What's gotten in the way.
I must admit the things that have gotten between me and God in the past. Watch this video first before you judge me and watch it unil the end its worth it I promise. How about you tell me what has kept you from knowing Him!
Materialism
My Ego
Greed
Anger
Liquor in excess
white lies and blat ten lies dishonesty
the pursuit of women
perfectionist
trying to fit in
self fulfillment
not going to church
believing/thinking I don't need anyone I got it under control.
Sorry, this is part of my story. A great story I promise to tell you.
Materialism
My Ego
Greed
Anger
Liquor in excess
white lies and blat ten lies dishonesty
the pursuit of women
perfectionist
trying to fit in
self fulfillment
not going to church
believing/thinking I don't need anyone I got it under control.
Sorry, this is part of my story. A great story I promise to tell you.
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