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.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
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.
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