Giving All

Michael gives an outstanding analogy that provides much needed insight into one of the most widely quoted but perhaps least truly understood verses in all of Scripture.  Read carefully this day’s writing and see how you will begin to “love the Lord your God” (and “understand” many other truths) in stages as the days go by…

Giving All

Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. --Mark 12:30           

Many make the mistake of wanting to understand exactly what is entailed in their commitment to give all to God before they take the step. They must realize that giving our all cannot be understood before it is revealed over the years we live with the Lord. We will not know what giving all means until we die; all that Jesus personally means to us is not revealed in one day, but rather over the course of a lifetime. A good analogy is marriage. In the wedding ceremony we pledge to give all, but we will not know exactly what all is involved in that until the day that we die. In giving all to God, the important thing is that we do it once with our mouth; though we may feel nothing or experience no change, He will reveal in stages what we have done with those words.

When will we ever learn “just doing” without having to have “understanding before doing”???  When we learn just that, we move giant leaps forward in experiencing God.  Perhaps the “now” generation (I want it now! …instant gratification generation) has hindered many from ever abandoning themselves to trust and obey God.  I wonder how many Christians will live a more relaxed and comfortable and productive “life as  a Christian” with just the simple understanding that Michael gives us today about “just doing” before we “have understanding.”  Should help a lot of Unbelieving Believers or Doubters…

Barbara and I have been married a little over 48 years…and, I now know that I am still getting understanding as to all that is involved in the pledge (marriage vow) that I made a little over 48 years ago!  Get this…til death do we part.  And NOW, I can begin to see that I verbally gave all to God back in June of 1980 when I was Born Again…and I can look back and see that all the years since, God has been revealing (and it has been in stages!) what I had done with those words.  Well, amen!

And, isn’t it beautiful that it takes so much pressure, and so many questions, off my plate!  I can relax and trust God to reveal more and more as time goes by, and watch my understanding expand all the while!  Hallelujah!

The Demonic Affects Us All

Many contemporary Western Christians think we only engage in spiritual warfare when we encounter somebody who is exhibiting bizarre, demonically-inspired behavior, such as the demonized people Jesus confronted in the Gospels. Since most Western Christians rarely hear about, let alone personally encounter, such people, the concept of spiritual warfare plays little to no role in their lives.


Once we understand that people can be demonized to various degrees (see the post from yesterday on this), we can begin to appreciate that spiritual warfare cannot be restricted to these sorts of extreme cases. Rather, spiritual warfare encompasses every area of life. Consider these biblical teachings that speak to a pervasive demonic presence in our world:

• Whenever we try to buttress our credibility by taking oaths, Jesus says our speech “comes from the evil one” (Mt 5:37).
• Our thought life is a battlefield. We must continually resist the enemy by striving to take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor 10:3-5).
• Legalism is a doctrine inspired by demons (1 Tim 4:1-3).
• Christians are to live life as if they are soldiers stationed on foreign soil, always focused on pleasing their commanding officer (2 Tim 2:4). As soldiers, we are involved in a constant struggle not against “flesh and blood” but against principalities and powers (Eph 6:12).
• Christians are to live life as if they are soldiers stationed on foreign soil, always focused on pleasing their commanding officer (2 Tim 2:4). As soldiers, we are involved in a constant struggle not against “flesh and blood” but against principalities and powers (Eph 6:12).
• Whenever we let anger simmer in our heart, we give the devil a foothold (Eph 4:26-27), and whenever we fail to forgive others, we play into Satan’s schemes (2 Cor 2:10-11).
• When Paul was prevented from going on a missionary journey to Thessalonica, he interpreted this as Satan blocking his way (1 Thes 2:18).
• Satan is called “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Eph 2:2), the “prince” of this world (Jn 12:31, 14:31, 16:11) and the “god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4) who controls “the whole world” (1 Jn 5:19). He owns all the authority of the world governments and gives it to whomever he wishes (Lk 4:5-7). This implies that the world outside the kingdom of God is, for all intents and purposes, owned and operated by Satan.
• The NT views all infirmities as being ultimately due to the oppressive work of Satan (Lk 13:11ff).

From this small sampling of passages, it’s clear that spiritual warfare is not an activity that’s limited to freeing overtly demonized people. Rather, our entire life is engulfed in spiritual warfare. We live in the middle of a spiritual battlefield. Though the vast majority of Westerners are completely unaware of it, there are, if you will, spiritual bombs and grenades going off all around us. Our job as Kingdom people is to remain aware of this warfare and to continually seek to please our “commanding officer” by carrying out his directives.

Can Christians Be Demon Possessed

The Greek word that is usually translated “demon-possessed” in the Gospels is demonizomai, which literally means “to be rendered passive toward a demon.” It’s unfortunate, in my view, that the term is usually translated “demon possession.” “Possession” implies complete ownership whereas the concept of being rendered passive toward a demon can be reflective of many degrees of passivity. A person can be a little passive or completely passive toward a demon. And a person can have one area or many areas of their life rendered passive toward a demon. But “possession makes it sound like demonization is an all-or-nothing thing. For this reason I prefer to simply transliterate demonizomai as “demonized.”


This point is of some importance, for the question of whether or not a Christian can be “demon possessed” is at stake. One school of thought cites numerous examples throughout church history of Christians who have needed, and benefited from, exorcism. On this basis they argue that Christians can be “demon-possessed. The other school of thought argues that this is impossible, for Christians are owned and indwelt by God, a fact that rules out the possibility that they’re also owned by Satan and indwelt by demons (1 Cor 6:19-20, 1 Jn 4:4).

In my view, there’s truth to both sides. Christians can be, in varying degrees, demonized. They can have areas of their life rendered passive with regards to a demon. Despite the fact that we are owned and indwelt by God, we can give the devil a “foothold” and can have demonic “strongholds” in our life (Eph 4:27; 2 Cor 10:4). This demonization may, on occasion, be strong enough that it leads to a person manifesting bizarre behavior—the sort often associated with exorcisms—when the stronghold is being confronted.

At the same time, however, I think the other school of though is correct in maintaining the impossibility of a person being simultaneously owned by God and owned by demons. A person whose life is authentically surrendered to God may continue to have significant strongholds, but they cannot have every area of their life rendered completely passive toward a demon. In other words, Christians can be demonized, but not demon possessed.


And when Christians are significantly demonized, it’s appropriate, and sometimes necessary, to engage in deliverance prayer (exorcism) on their behalf.

- Greg Boyd

Are the Charismatic Gifts for Today's Church

This week, we have offered a brief series on the Holy Spirit touching on what the Spirit does, how it changes us, and how the fruit of the Spirit is produced. Now we will look briefly at the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and more specifically the “charismatic” gifts.


In the church today, Christians can be roughly divided into three groups on this topic. First, cessationists believe that the charismatic gifts ceased as soon as the NT was completed. The continuationists believe that the charismatic gifts are for today and thus should be pursued and practiced. In between are those who are not theologically opposed to the exercise of charismatic gifts, but they are cautious.

The following is a brief introduction that supports the continuationist view.

In the various passages where the gifts are spoken of in the NT, (1 Cor 12, Rom 12, Eph 4 and 1 Pet 4), we must ask this question: Where is it stated that God did not intend for these gifts to continue throughout history? Isn’t it arbitrary to suppose for example, that the gift of teaching is still valid but the gift of speaking in tongues is not? Isn’t it arbitrary to allow for exhortation, giving, showing mercy while excluding Spirit-inspired words of wisdom, prophesy, speaking in tongues, and healing?

In addition, to exclude these is actually unbiblical. Paul affirms that Christians should not lack any spiritual gift as long as they “wait for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ” (see 1 Cor 1:4-8). He uses the same word (charisma) in this passage to refer to spiritual gifts as he uses in 1 Cor 12:1 when discussing the charismatic gifts. The implication is that Paul believed the charismatic gifts would be in operation until the Lord’s return.

In Eph 4:11-13, he explicitly mentions the charismatic gift of prophecy that along with other gifts are meant to build up the saints “to the measure of the full stature of Christ,” which will not occur until the Lord returns.

Along similar lines, John instructs that “the anointing” they received “abides” in them and shall do so until the Lord returns. Hence, they “may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at this coming (1 Jn 2:27-28). The assumption is that nothing substantially changes with the “anointing” the church receives until the Lord returns.

Other aspects of the NT confirm the view that all the gifts are intended for the entire church age. For example, Paul explicitly commands believers to “strive for spiritual gifts” (speaking specifically of the charismatic gifts listed in 1 Cor 12). Believers are especially to “strive for” and be “eager” for the gift of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1, 39). Paul commands believers not to “quench the Spirit,” “despise the words of prophets,” or “forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Thes 5:19-22; 1 Cor 14:39).

While cessationists insist that these verses apply only to believers who lived before the NT was completed, Paul gives his instruction in these passages without any temporal, cultural, or theological qualification. To the same audience and in the same context he also gives his beautiful teaching on the supremacy of love (1 Cor 13). If we believe he is talking to contemporary Christians about love, we have no reason to conclude he is not talking to contemporary Christians when he gives helpful instruction regarding the use of the charismatic gifts.


—Adapted from Across the Spectrum, pages 237-240 - Greg Boyd

How to Produce the Fruit ot the Spirit

When the New Testament tells us to be loving, joyful, peaceful, kind and so on, it is not giving us a new set of behaviors that we are to strive to accomplish. Striving to attain them means nothing if they are sought as ethical ideals or to meet a set of religious rules. They have meaning only insofar as they manifest the new life that is found in Christ.

They are descriptions of what real life looks like, not prescriptions for how to get life. These descriptions Paul calls the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23) and they are manifested in our lives as we cease trying to produce them on our own and yield to the Spirit’s loving influence in our lives. They are the fruit of the Spirit, not fruit of our trying harder. 

Peace is one of the fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul. However, it is an incontestable fact that believers are frequently plagued with anxiety. Sometimes were are overcome with worry, anxiety, and stress, just as much as unbelievers in some cases.

One way to deal with this is to challenge ourselves to trust God more, to have more faith, and to take God at his Word. The way to peace according to this solution is to try harder to do the right things. If you want peace, you have to work at it. But does this approach actually succeed in replacing a person’s anxiety with peace? Not usually!

 It does not get to the root of the problem.

The most fundamental reason why believers do not experience the peace they can have in Christ is that their experienced self-identity is rooted in the flesh and therefore not in line with their true identity in Christ. The way they see and experience themselves, God and the world is not in conformity with the way things actually are. They may intellectually believe the truth, but they do not experience the truth as real and thus do not consistently live according to truth. To the extent that our fundamental orientation is fleshly, destructive works of the flesh will characterize our lives.

Anxiety, worry, and stress are but one set of symptoms of this flesh orientation. And as long as our minds are rooted in the flesh, no amount of self-effort is going to free us from the destructive attitudes and behaviors that arise from the flesh. Life and peace come when our orientation is according to the Spirit, and thus our minds are set on the Spirit. As our rooting in the flesh is confronted by the Spirit of God, we are “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Rom 12:2).

When the Spirit of truth frees us from deception at the core of our being, we begin to experience in our own lives what is true about us in Christ. The peace that characterizes our relationship with God by faith becomes experienced as the peace that transcends all understanding. The key to experiencing the peace of God as an ongoing reality in our lives, then, is not in trying hard to achieve it. This can only make us more anxious!

The key, rather, is to cease from our own striving and let the Holy Spirit do his work in pointing us to Jesus. The key is in allowing the Holy Spirit to make Christ real to us and to rest, just as we are, in this reality. In doing this we allow the Holy Spirit to overcome deception in our lives with truth, performance in our lives with grace, hiddenness in our lives with openness, and thus destruction in our lives with wholeness. As we through the power of the Spirit experience the peace Jesus offers us as we are, in the midst of all our anxiety, the peace that characterizes his life becomes ours by grace.

 —Adapted from Seeing Is Believing, pages 53, 177-180 - Greg Boyd

How The Holy Spirit Changes Us

The Bible is full of stories of people who experienced the presence of God. If we are to experience something similar today, we must, through the Spirit, cultivate the spiritual capacity of an inner life to see and hear spiritual things. Paul wrote:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:17-18)

 This Spirit-inspired “seeing” of Jesus changes our being. As we see his glory, we are transformed into his likeness “from one degree of glory to another.” This is, in essence, how the fruit of the Spirit is produced in our lives. When we cease from striving in our own effort and yield to the Holy Spirit, and when our faith ceases to be merely intellectual and rather becomes experiential and concrete, our lives begin to reflect Christ’s image. It is what we see, not how hard we strive, that determines what we become.

 This “seeing” is of a spiritual sort. Paul uses the Greek word katoptrizo, which literally means “to look at a reflection.” This reflection is in our minds. According to the teaching of Paul that follows the passage quoted above, believers have an ability to see in the mind. The “image of God,” the “face of Jesus Christ,” enlightens the mind of the believer. The mind of the believer can be “controlled by the Spirit” (Rom 8:6).

 The place where the Spirit produces a reflection of “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6) is in the regenerate mind of the believer. It is through this spiritual mental vision that we are “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds” (Rom 12:2) and set free from the pattern of this world. While all believers have this capacity, however, we don’t necessarily use it.

Though we are regenerate and have a new nature, we still struggle to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). We yet have aspects of our minds veiled and thus experience ourselves as through we were not all God says we are in Christ. Our tendency to trust our own efforts to bring about transformation plays into this ongoing veiling of our minds.

We need to recover our sense of dependency on the Spirit of God rather than our own effort and recover the use of the imagination in our relationship with God to experience the transformation of which Paul spoke. We need to learn how to “fix our eyes on Jesus” and “set [our] minds on things that are above.” 

We become what we imaginatively see. If all we imaginatively see are the vivid re-presentations that have been instilled in us by the pattern of this world, we will be conformed to the pattern of this world. But if we learn to imaginatively see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 4:6), we will be transformed “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

 —Adapted from Seeing Is Believing, pages 86-94. Greg Boyd

What Does The Holy Spirit Do?

The true God breaks into our deception-filled world to reveal himself to us in the person of his Son. In and of itself, however, this doesn’t lift the deception of the flesh from our hearts and eyes. We are yet dead in sin, blind, and lovers of “darkness rather than light” (Jn 3:19). As long as the god of this age blinds us (2 Cor 4:4), we inevitably and habitually suppress the truth. Thus the light of God’s revelation in Jesus would fall on blind eyes and never benefit us if God’s plan of salvation stopped there.

Yet God didn’t stop there. God knew that if we were ever to enter into a saving relationship with him, he not only would have to be revealed to us, he would have to be revealed in us. So God didn’t stop with sending his Son to dwell among us; he also sent his Spirit to reside within us. God not only speaks to us and lives the truth for us in his Son, he also opens our eyes and ears to see and hear this truth by the sending of the Spirit.

The main work of the Holy Spirit, then, is not to supplement what the Son did but to apply what the Son did to the lives of God’s people. He glorifies Christ by revealing him to his children (Jn 16;14). He does not speak of himself (Jn 16:13) but rather causes people to behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ, thereby transforming them into this glory (2 Cor 3:17-18).

Whereas Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers, the Holy Spirit opens our minds and causes us to see the truth—the truth of who God is and the truth of who we are. The Holy Spirit manifests the truth of our fallen condition and thereby produces conviction and repentance in our lives. The Holy Spirit opens the hearts and minds of people so we are able to receive the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord and in him become children of God. The Holy Spirit also infuses people with the love of Christ so that we may live in the truth.

In doing all of this, the Spirit of truth is simply pointing people to the one who is truth, Jesus Christ. He is confronting and reversing the deceptive assumptions of the flesh in our lives. He is unveiling the true God for us, revealed in Jesus Christ, so that he might reveal our true identity as people who are loved by God.

 —Adapted from Seeing is Believing, pages 56-57. - Greg Boyd

Gospel Tragedy

The great tragedy of the man-run-gospel is that the event-driven-programs are so well organized they have limited church to a meeting-event that can operate void of the Spirit of God. It behooves us to stop and examine our lives to see if we have become satisfied with a form that simply uses His name as magic words in a formula rather than having an intimate love relationship with Him that gives power to His name. A relational relationship with Jesus provides the dynamic power of a Living Christ, who in reality never leaves us. The seven-day-relationship with Him has been replaced by a  Sunday-Event-Driven-Business and we are too busy preoccupied with the distractions of this man-made business to be aware of His Presence therefore, unable to move in His Power in living life.

Each of us must take responsibility for our personal relationship with Christ. When He begins to take His proper place in our daily living, He ceases to be merely a event-driven-meeting God,  just a great teacher from the past, the Christian's Santa Clause in  the sky, the sinner punishing  God or the “founder” of the “Christian” religion. He becomes your teacher in the “NOW” with whom you are in relationship with. He ascends in our hearts until He fills all things! He becomes to us the Head of His Church that He has always been, He empowers us to do His will instead of us doing man's will

When everything revolves around a two-hour-weekend-meeting, a sermon and a program, people are taught about God, but little is learned about one another. So many misunderstandings develop between leaders and God, leaders and people, and between the people themselves simply because of the lack of understanding the Gospel and genuine relationship communication. There is little or no One-Anothering!

Void of a dynamic relationship with God and settling for fellowship about God, this man-made church system has become a business, maintaining its own existence on the tithes and offerings of misinformed people. This is not the church Jesus is building. His church is on the move, driving back the forces of darkness! She rises to work with Him and with those she is called to serve. She ministers to the hurting and abused of society. In this we find a deeper part of His Heart, and tap into a wellspring of Love’s power that empowers the believer for relationship that relates with and loves to one-another people.
- Glenn Regular

Go Slowly, Do Not Get Depressed, Take Your Time

I have read studies where somewhere between 80-90% of all Believers come to know Christ by age 18.  And now Michael gives us a staggering statistic from another study on “the average age of coming to see that Christ was actually IN a person”…  Very interesting and comforting read for many today!

Go Slowly, Do Not Get Depressed, Take Your Time

You have shortened the days of his youth. --Psalm 89:45

I was talking to a fellow who was discouraged that at age 22 he had not seen that Jesus was his life. I laughed. “Brother, if you could know all that you need to know before entering heaven at age 22, God would not have set the length of man’s life at seventy years! Relax.”God has created this world for a purpose, and it functions under His permission. There are things that can only be learned here. We are in the process of losing all in order that we might gain everything in Him.In one study the average age of coming to see that Christ was actually in a person was said to be between 55 and 70. We simply cannot receive it all at once! We are not intended to get it all at once! We are in a process!

Perspective affects so much of what we believe, and therefore how we act.  Do we truthfully perceive that all things in this world function under God’s permission?  If so, we can trust God as opposed to “hoping” He will be involved.

It is a great relief that God has us in a process, and that we will grow into what He has for us in due time.  If we don’t get in too much of a tizzy at age 7 that we aren’t as physically developed as we will be at age 17, why should we get in a tizzy early in our spiritual life…knowing we will “mature” with time?  And, maybe better still, can those who are teachers and disciplers show a little patience with their students who are first getting revelation of some truth like “Christ is IN us”?

I KNEW who I was IN Christ for 15 years before I KNEW who Christ was IN me.  Well, amen.

The Purpose of the Church

Concerning the preaching of the Gospel, Paul wrote that God’s intent was that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places … in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:10-11).


The Lord is using us earthly benefactors of his cosmic victory to display to the angelic society of the heavenly realms, including now the defeated powers, the greatness of the Creator’s wisdom in defeating his foes. We who used to be captives of the Satanic kingdom are now the very ones who proclaim its demise. The church is, as it were, God’s eternal “trophy case” of grace and we are this because we evidence God’s brilliance and power in bringing about the destruction of his foes, and thus the liberation of his people.

On a natural level this plan appears absurd. For it is painfully obvious that the church is, and has always been, full of a great deal that does not in any way glorify God. Let us be honest: the church has always been a very human and a very fallen institution, exhibiting all the carnality, pettiness, narrowness, self-centeredness and abusive power tendencies that characterize all other fallen human institutions. On the surface we hardly look like trophies God would want to showcase.

What we must understand, however, is that far from disqualifying us from this divine service, this radical incongruity between what the church looks like and what God nevertheless uses it for is precisely the reason why God uses it. The church’s very weakness and vulnerability is what displays the strength of God in freeing us and in using us to finish up his battles (2 Cor 12:7-10). The enemies of God are mocked (Col 2:15) by his employment of their own former slaves to finish up the war.

This is consistent with how God has operated throughout history. He has always chosen to use the foolish and weak things of the world to overthrow the “wise” and “strong” in the world who resist him (1 Cor 1:18-30). Thus for the same reason that God chose to save the world through the “foolishness” of preaching about a crucified first-century Jewish carpenter (1 Cor 1:18), so the Lord now chooses to carry out his coup de grace of the enemy by the foolishness of his church, these weak, struggling, imperfect people whose only qualification for spiritual warfare is that they have said yes to the Lord’s gracious invitation to be set free.

The church not only is a benefactor of Christ’s cosmic victory but is also called to play a vital cosmic function in Christ’s victory. We the church, in all our foolishness, are called to manifest on earth and in heaven Christ’s kingdom-building ministry, taking what is already true in principle because of what he has done and manifesting it as accomplished reality by what we do. In this way “the wisdom of God in its rich variety” is declared to the principalities and powers.


\—Adapted from God at War, pages 252-254  Greg Boyd

Two Keys to Understanding the Love of God

There are two ideas I have been mulling over the last couple years which are central to understanding the heart of God, and which most Christians do not seem to understand. These two keys are based on God’s omniscience, that fact the He is all-knowing. While it is amazing to think that God knows everything, I think we have not grasped what this means when it comes to heart of God.

These keys are summarized by some quotes I heard from somewhere … (I cannot recall where or from whom … sorry).

There is no person you would not love if you only knew their story.

I think this quote might be from Darin Hufford, though I am not certain.
It is often easy to judge and condemn other people when all we see is their outward actions or behavior.

We all tend to hate people who treat us with spite or anger.
We even get frustrated at loved ones when they do not do what we think they should in the way we want them to.

But God, who is the only being in the universe who knows everything about everyone, loves each and every person unconditionally.

When a person is rude to you, you get angry in return. But if, like God, we saw the fight they had with their spouse that morning, or the way they had been treated by their boss when they showed up late, or how the person they had encountered right before you had cussed them out, we would be able to love that person in spite of their rudeness, because we would know their story. We would know what led up to them being rude.

You do this with yourself all the time. If you are rude to someone, you might feel bad about it afterwards, and you might even apologize. But you probably also know everything that is going on in your life which caused you to react rudely toward someone else. Since you know your own story, you are often able to keep loving yourself despite the things you do.
Since God knows everything about us, He is able to understand what led up to our bad behavior, and He loves us anyway. He loves us in the midst of our bad behavior, because He knows what led up to it.

This is the first key to knowing the heart of God. The second key is like it:

To know all, is to forgive all.

I think I might have heard this from Greg Boyd, but again, I cannot be certain.
This second idea is almost exactly the same as the first. God is willing and able to forgive us for everything, in part because He knows all the events and circumstances which led up to whatever sin we committed.

It is not that we get to blame others for what we do, or even that God lets us off the hook for our sin, but that God forgives us for what we do, partly because He knows what led up to it.
Since God is omniscient, He alone knows everything that happened to the rapist which caused that man to become a rapist. He is still at fault for what he did, and made some terrible choices en route to such a terrible crime, but God is able to forgive the rapist because He knows that led up to the man committing such a terrible sin.

So How Then Should We Live?

You and I do not know everything about everyone. So does this mean that we do not have to love them or forgive them?
No, it means that we do need to love and forgive them, for we know that God, the one being who does know everything, loves and forgives.


Our job is the unconditionally love and freely forgive others, despite not knowing everything about them.

- Jeremy Myers

Finding Home - Part One

 Our Insatiable Hunger

  

            The only kind of life animals care about is biological. If their basic physical needs for food and shelter are met, they’re satisfied. Humans also want their basic physical needs met, of course, but that isn’t enough. We hunger for more. Not only do we want to be alive, we want to feel fully alive. We hunger for Life.

            Love so insatiable as the love of God can never be satisfied until we respond to the limit.

            Frank Laubach

            This craving for Life can be described in many ways. Among other things, it includes the profound desire to feel loved and the desire to be happy. But one of the most fundamental aspects of the Life we long for is our undeniable, universal need to experience worth and significance. Though we may be unaware of it, all of us are driven by a desperate need to feel like we matter. Even if all our basic physical needs are met and we enjoy all the comforts the world has to offer, still, on some level, we will feel empty, unless we sense that our life serves an ultimate purpose.

            Many things can make us feel worthwhile and significant, but our deepest hunger is only satisfied when we’re rightly related to God. Only our Creator can give us the fullness of Life we crave. Jesus’ death on the cross is proof that we could not possibly have more worth and significance to God. Despite our sin, our Creator thinks we are worth experiencing a hellish death for. In fact, it was for the joy of spending eternity with us that Jesus endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). In other words, Calvary reveals our unsurpassable worth and significance. At the core of our being, this is what we long for.

            All he wishes is to be the sole object and only enchantment of our hearts.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            Why did God create us with this hunger? Because he wants to share himself with us. He wants us to participate in his divine nature (1 Peter 1:4). As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he longs for us to join in his eternal dance of perfect, ecstatic love. Our insatiable hunger for a depth of Life that only he can give is a sort of built-in “homing device” intended to lead us to him. The Trinity is our home, and we are never fully satisfied or at peace until we rest in him.

            Yet because God wants a loving relationship with us, he does not force us to accept his invitation. We have the ability to refuse it if we so choose. If we want, we can pretend we’re self-sufficient and able to meet our own needs. In fact, were it not for God’s grace working in our life, this is what all of us in our fallen condition would want and what all of us would choose. For apart from Christ, Scripture says, we are all dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5).

            When we push God away, our homing device doesn’t shut off. It simply gets redirected. Instead of leading us home to the Trinity, we try to satisfy our hunger for worth and significance by turning to other things.

Finding Home - Part Two

 False Gods

             We often think of an idol as a statue, but an idol can be anything we use to meet the need that only God can meet. In other words, a false god.

            If a Christian is to truly practice the presence of his Lord…then the heart of that Christian must be empty of all else. All Why? Because God wills…to be the only possessor of that heart.

            Brother Lawrence

            There is no end to the false gods we create when our homing device gets misdirected. In Western cultures we often strive to feel worth and significance by acquiring money, possessions, and power. We bow down to the false gods of materialism and control. Some try to relieve their inner emptiness by trying to get approval for being sexy, talented, or successful. They bow down to a false god of fame. Some feed their hunger for Life by convincing themselves they’re special to God because they believe all the right things and engage in all the right behaviors—in contrast to others who believe the wrong things and engage in all the wrong behaviors. These bow before the false god of religion. And still others try to assuage their pervasive sense of emptiness by feeling superior on the basis of their family name, ethnic heritage, or national identity. These bow before the false god of tribalism.

            The list goes on, but the point is clear. Whatever we try to derive our core sense of worth and meaning from is our god.

Finding Home - Part Three

Beliefs and Reality

 Of course, when we chase after false gods, we seldom realize what we’re doing. We don’t think of it as idolatry. In fact, it’s possible to bow to false gods while believing you’re bowing to Jesus Christ. For what we believe often has little to do with reality.

Are you awake?

            I’ve observed that we in the West—especially Christians—tend to attach great importance to what we believe. We treat beliefs almost as though they have magical power, as though merely believing something makes it so. For instance, many assume that believing Jesus is Lord of their life magically makes him Lord. This is undoubtedly why so many evangelical churches place so much significance on getting people to believe in Jesus and why so much is made of the moment sinners raise their hand or go to the altar to profess their faith in Jesus. This one-time event, it is often assumed, makes Jesus Lord of their life forever.

            The truth is, merely believing Jesus is Lord no more makes him Lord of my life than believing Kim Jong-il is the leader of North Korea makes me his follower. For Kim Jong-il to be my leader, I would need to submit my life to him and become a citizen of North Korea. So too, for Jesus to be my Lord, I need to submit my life to him and become a citizen of his Kingdom.

            Research shows that however emotional people may have been when they raised their hand or responded to the altar call, fewer than 4 percent reflected any change in their lives several years later.

            We should seek our satisfaction only in satisfying his will.

Brother Lawrence

            I’m not trying to minimize the importance of beliefs. Obviously, it’s impossible to surrender to Jesus unless you first believe that he is Lord. Still, the belief is not itself the surrender. Embracing a belief is something you do in your mind. Actually surrendering your life is something you can only do with your will. And since the only life you have to surrender is the one you’re living in this present moment, the decision to surrender can only take place right now.

            The important question, therefore, is not what you believe. The important question is what you decide to do, moment-by-moment, on the basis of what you believe.

Finding Home - Part Four

 The Futility of Idols

              While our culture conditions us to place great hope in our idols, the truth is that they never permanently satisfy us. However successful we might be by the world’s standards—through money, wealth, power, fame—we always hunger for more. Regardless of how much we get, sooner or later we want more.

            Most of us try to sustain the illusion that we’re self-sufficient by denying our emptiness. But the symptoms are undeniable. For some, this inner emptiness is manifested in anxiety or anger. For others it’s a gnawing sense of alienation, depression, or frustration. Still others experience it as relentless boredom or apathy toward life.

            Money, praise, poverty, opposition, these make no difference, for they will all alike be forgotten in a thousand years, but this spirit which comes to a mind set upon continuous surrender, this spirit is timeless life.

Frank Laubach

            Some try to distract themselves from this hole-in-the-soul by obsessing about work, sports, politics, or a hobby. Others numb themselves to their inner pain with alcohol, drugs, or sexual addiction. But whatever relief such strategies offer, it’s temporary. Sooner or later the painful hunger returns.

            As long as we refuse God’s invitation and continue to buy the lie that Life can be found outside of a relationship with God, we continue to think our problem is that we simply don’t have enough. If only we had more of our idol, we imagine, or perhaps if only we tried a different idol, then we’d feel alive. It’s all a grand illusion.

Finding Home - Part Five

Living “As Though” 

             The Bible refers to this grand illusion as life in “the flesh” (sarx), and it’s the main obstacle that keeps us from finding true Life.² Our minds are blinded by “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) so that we keep living as though what is true is false and what is false is true.

Are you awake?

            When we live as though we were lords of our own life, capable of meeting our own needs, we are living in the flesh. When we treat people, possessions, or achievements as though they were the source of our worth and significance rather than God, we are living in the flesh. In fact, insofar as we live as though God were not present, moment-by-moment, and as though this wasn’t the most important aspect of any present moment, we are living in the flesh.

            Living as though God was not our only true source of Life forces us to live most of our life in the past and future—as though the present moment was not the only reality. While the true God lives in the now, false gods always live in the past or future. Chasing them to find our worth and significance always takes us out of the present moment.

            If you doubt this, investigate your own soul. How much of your thought-life is spent in the past or future, and what is the purpose for this nonpresent thinking? You may be so accustomed to living in the past and future that you find it difficult to notice how much of your thought-life is spent there, let alone why you spend so much of your thought-life there. But if you are completely honest with yourself, you’ll probably find that most of your past and future orientated thoughts revolve around you and are centered on your attempts to feel worthwhile and significant.

            When we live perpetually hungry in the flesh, we spend a great deal of our thought-life savoring past experiences or possible future experiences that make us feel more worthwhile and significant. We also spend a great deal of time ruminating over past experiences or worrying about possible future experiences that will make us feel less worthwhile and significant. All the while we are strategizing over how to position ourselves to have more of the worth-giving experiences and how to better avoid the worth-detracting experiences.

            Discard idols, and the senses will cry like disappointed children, but faith triumphs for it can never be estranged from God’s will.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            Most of us are so accustomed to being hungry for Life and living in the past and future that we don’t realize this is what we’re doing. It’s hard for a fish to notice the water it swims in. But the fact of the matter is that we are rarely in the present moment when we’re hungry and chasing after false gods. This is yet another aspect of the grand illusion that entraps us. The very process of trying to acquire Life on our own forces us to miss most of life, for real life is always in the present moment. When we live as though we can acquire Life from things other than God, we inevitably live as though reality wasn’t always in the present moment.

            Only a person who is no longer driven by an insatiable hunger can consistently live in the present moment, and only a person who has learned how to find Life in the present moment is no longer driven by this insatiable hunger.

Finding Home - Part Six

Reorienting the Homing Device

 I can lie down anywhere in this universe bathed around by my own Father’s Spirit. The very universe has come to seem so homey!

Frank Laubach

            The only way we can experience the fullness of Life is to give up trying to acquire it on our own. We must surrender ourselves completely to God. This is not merely a matter of believing that our attempts to acquire worth and significance are idolatrous and unsatisfying. A person can easily believe this and yet fail to relinquish their idols and surrender to God. We enter into the Life of God only when our false gods have in fact been relinquished and only when God is in fact reigning over our life.

            To the extent that our sense of worth and significance is caught up in the grand illusion—to the extent that our identity is rooted in the “flesh”—abandoning our false gods will feel like a kind of death. In fact, it is a kind of death, for the “old self” that relied on idols to feel worthwhile and significant is being killed. This is why Jesus says we must lose our life in order to find real Life and why Paul testified he was crucified with Christ (Matthew 16:25; Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 6:14).

Are you awake?

            Still, as scary and as difficult as dying to the false way of living may initially be, nothing could be more liberating. Living with perpetual hunger, spending most of our mental life in the past and future, chasing after pathetic false gods, is complete bondage. When we cling to things that are perpetually threatened and that we know we’ll eventually lose, it inevitably creates in us worry, anger, jealousy, envy, frustration, strife, violence, and despair—things Paul referred to as “works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19 KJV). To die to the flesh is the greatest liberation possible. Now one is in a position to live in the moment and feel fully alive.

            As we are freed from the grand illusion that we can meet our own needs, our built-in homing device begins to work correctly. We’re on our way home. And we don’t have to strive to find it. On the contrary, the instant we relinquish the world of idols and turn to God, he is there. He has always been there. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). He never leaves us or forsakes us, whether we are aware of him or not (Matthew 28:20). There is nowhere we can run and hide from his presence (Psalm 139:8).

            The moment we surrender, we are home. In fact, the moment we stop chasing and clinging we discover that we never really left home. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we wake up from a dream and discover that all we’ve been looking for surrounds us at every moment. When we stop looking at the world as though God didn’t exist, we find we are surrounded each and every moment with a love that infuses our life with a worth and significance that couldn’t possibly be improved on. This is the home we were created to eternally live in.

            Coming home is simply a matter of waking up from the illusion that you aren’t already there. Yet, while the belief that the love of God is our home can be embraced at one moment and then forgotten about, the actual decision to release the illusion and embrace the truth cannot. As with everything else that pertains to our actual life, this act can only be done one moment at a time.

            The only thing that matters is that we—right now—cease our striving after false gods and become aware of God’s ever-present, perfect love.

Are You Awake - Part One

For the Supersaints Only?

 

            When many Christians first hear about the practice of the presence of God, it strikes them as an impossible discipline. Perhaps supersaints locked up in monasteries can attain this level of awareness, but not us average folk who work nine-to-five jobs and raise families! It’s hard enough to pray ten minutes a day and make it to church once a week! For us ordinary Christians, trying to remain aware of God’s presence moment-by-moment seems like a hyperspiritual pipe dream.

Are you awake?

            If you’re inclined to feel this way, it might be because, like everyone else in modern Western culture, you’ve been brainwashed by what is called “the secular worldview.” In this view of the world, what’s real, or at least what’s important, is the physical here-and-now. When we’re brainwashed by this worldview, we experience the world as though God did not exist, for we habitually exclude him from our awareness. We may still believe in God, of course, but he’s not real to us most of the time.

            Because of this we go about our day-to-day lives as functional atheists. We may pray and worship God on occasion, but these are “special times,” isolated from our “normal,” secular day-to-day life. So thoroughly are we brainwashed by the secular mind-set that the very suggestion that we could routinely experience the world in a way that includes God strikes us as impossible.

            If you’re looking for an explanation why so few contemporary believers experience the fullness of love, joy, peace, and the transforming power that the New Testament promises, I think you’ve just found it. The secular worldview causes us to compartmentalize our life, isolating the “spiritual” from the rest of our experience. Our relationship with God is boxed into special prayer and devotion times along with weekend church services, all of which have little impact on us. But in the process of segregating God from our “normal” life, we block the love, joy, peace, and transforming power of God.

            I wish to make all see that everyone can aspire…to the same love, the same surrender, the same God and his work, and thereby effortlessly achieve the most perfect saintliness.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            If we’re ever going to experience the fullness of Life that the New Testament promises us, we’re going to have to tear down the walls that compartmentalize the “spiritual” and “normal.”¹ We’re going to have to accept a new definition of “normal,” and this means we need to get over our mistaken idea that the practice of the presence of God is only for the “superholy.”

            God is only asking for your hearts. If you truly seek this treasure, this kingdom where God alone reigns, you will find it. Your heart, if it is totally surrendered to God, is itself that treasure, that very kingdom you long for and are seeking.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            The call to practice the presence of God is not a hyperspiritual exercise. On the contrary, it’s the core of what it means to surrender our life to Christ. Though few realize it, this practice is woven into the very fabric of the New Testament, written for all followers of Jesus. Aspiring to remain awake to God’s ever-present love is simply an aspect—a foundational aspect—of what C. S. Lewis referred to as “mere Christianity.”

Are You Awake - Part Two

 Living Out the Pledge of Life

 

            We began our walk with God when we confessed our need for Jesus and pledged to surrender our life to him. But we often fail to notice that our pledge to surrender our life to Christ isn’t itself the life we pledged to surrender. The life we pledged to surrender is the life we’ve lived each and every moment since we initially made the pledge to surrender our life. For the only life we have to surrender to Christ is the one we live moment-by-moment.

            Think of it like a marriage. Thirty-one years ago I looked into my wife’s gorgeous eyes and pledged my life to her. But my pledge wasn’t itself the life I pledged to her. My pledge didn’t magically give us a good marriage (would that it were that simple!). Rather, the actual life I pledged to my wife was the life I have lived each and every moment since I made that pledge. The only life I have to give to my wife is the life I live moment-by-moment.

            The quality of my marriage, therefore, isn’t decided by whether I made a pledge thirty-one years ago. It’s determined by how I live out that pledge now. The same is true of our relationship with Christ. The important question is not, Did I once surrender my life to Christ? The important question is, Am I surrendered to Christ right now? For the only life we have to surrender to Christ is the life we’re living this moment.

 
            Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have a “magical” understanding of Christianity that leads them to assume their life is surrendered to Christ because they once pledged to do just that. They pray a “sinner’s prayer” and think that this somehow—magically—means they have a real relationship with Christ. But it doesn’t, any more than making marriage vows magically produces a loving relationship between two people.

Are You Awake - Part Three

Are you awake?

            I believe this is the most prevalent and tragic misunderstanding that afflicts contemporary Western Christianity. We make a vow to submit our life to Christ but then spend 99 percent of our time excluding him from our awareness. We make him Lord over our life in theory, but we do not make him Lord over most of the moments that make up our life.

            All that matters is…to belong totally to God, to please him, making our sole happiness to look on the present moment as though nothing else in the world mattered.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            For Jesus to be our Lord, he must be Lord over our actual life—the one we live moment-by-moment. The only relevant question is, Are we surrendering our life to Christ as Lord right now? Is this a moment in which we are aware of, and surrendered to, Christ’s Lordship? Is this a moment over which God reigns as King? Are we, in this moment, living within the Kingdom of God?

            The supersaints aren’t the only ones who need to ask these questions. Living in this way is simply what it means to surrender our life—our actual life—to Christ.

Are you awake - Part Four

            The more we train our minds to remember God moment-by-moment, the more we discover an entirely different kind of motivation for doing things. We no longer engage in activities in a desperate and futile attempt to acquire Life we don’t yet have; rather, we engage in them as a means of expressing the fullness of Life we already have—apart from these activities. The irony is that when a person no longer needs to succeed to feel fully worthwhile and significant they will tend to be more successful than if they did need this. When we need to achieve, acquire, and accomplish things to find Life, the pressure often compromises our passion, creativity, and flexibility.

            O boundless submission… Let the senses feel what they may, you, Lord, are all my good… I have nothing more to see or do, not a single moment of my life is in my own hands. All is yours, I have nothing to add, remove, seek or consider.

            J.-P. de Caussade

            A clear example of this was a student I had in one of my introductory theology classes at Bethel University a number of years ago. She was clearly brilliant, as evidenced by her class participation, but she was performing poorly on her tests. When I looked into the problem, I discovered that this young woman was putting incredible pressure on herself to succeed. Among other things, she believed her parents’ approval hung on her getting straight A’s and graduating as the valedictorian of her class, just as her two older siblings had done. If ever there was a class she feared not getting an A in, it was in theology, a topic she said she’d always had trouble relating to.

            After some counseling I was able to help her realize that her core worth didn’t depend on how she performed in school or on what her parents thought about her. Her real worth was rooted solely in what God thought about her, and this was unconditionally expressed on Calvary. I encouraged her to remain aware that she was surrounded by this love throughout the day and especially when she took her theology tests. She immediately began getting near perfect scores in my class—precisely because she no longer needed to.

            The bottom line is that we were meant to live life as a celebration of a fullness of Life we get from God rather than as a desperate attempt to get fullness of Life on our own. People whose identity is solidly rooted in God’s love moment-by-moment still try to do their best. But they do so because only this expresses their unsurpassable worth and significance. Moreover, they are now doing all that they do for the Lord who of course deserves our best.

            If disciples who practice the presence of God fail to acquire the wealth, fame, and power that others do, it’s because these things hold no interest for them any longer, not because they aren’t motivated to do their best in whatever God calls them to engage in.

How To Overcome the Flesh Mindset

Unless you have taken intentional steps to change, the way you presently experience yourself and the world around you was mostly chosen for you, not by you. 

 Think about that. You inherited a way of interpreting the world. Your brain has been in the process of becoming programmed by factors outside your control from the moment you were born. Your parents, friends, culture, media, and life experiences all played a part in this programming, much of which has undoubtedly been true and beneficial, but much of which has been untrue and unhelpful.
One of the reasons ReKnew was created was to help people take intentional steps to change, to “re-think” how we interpret the world, God, ourselves, and others. As the ReKnew Manifesto states, “ReKnew exists to encourage believers and skeptics alike to re-think things they thought they already knew.”

In all probability most of our thinking has been developed by viewing and experiencing the world as though God was not present. In other words, most of the programming gave us a mind that is “set on the flesh” and conformed to the pattern of this world” (Romans 8:6-7; 12:2). We’ve been conditioned to have a “flesh-mindset” that habitually pushes God out of our awareness moment-by-moment.
What is particularly insidious about the flesh-mindset is that it largely operates without our knowing it. Once a program is installed, it becomes part of your brain’s autopilot. You don’t have to think about the way you experience yourself and the world. It just happens.

For example, you don’t have to think about the meaning of each word you’re reading right now because your brain automatically associates each group of letters with a meaning, according to its programming. The brain uses this same autopilot to give meaning to everything.
To the extent that we remain in bondage to the flesh-mindset, we will not fully experience the forgiveness, new nature, and abundant Life God has given us. We will, to some extent, experience and live our lives as though we were not forgiven, did not have a new nature, and were not given abundant Life. So long as we remain subservient to out brainwashing in the flesh-mindset, the way we experience ourselves and the world will be largely determined by whomever or whatever programmed us.

Regardless of what we believe, it’s our preprogrammed flesh-mindset that determines how we experience the world and how we live moment-by-moment—if we allow it. We believe in God and his Kingdom, but as slaves to our preprogrammed flesh-mindset, most of the moments that comprise our actual life are spent thinking, feeling, and acting as through God and his Kingdom are not real.
The Bible calls this “double-mindedness” (James 1:8). No amount of resolutions, sermons, Bible studies, self-help books, or conferences will rectify this situation if they just provide us with more information. There is only one thing to be done, as James says, and that is to submit ourselves to God—not just intellectually, theoretically, or abstractly, but to do so in the now, in this moment.
We only have the now to submit to God. This is to become single-minded. Whatever else is going on—whether we’re taking a shower, engaging in a discussion, watching television, or reading a blog—we must try to remain conscious, anchored in the present.

When we can experience all of life against the backdrop of God’s ever present love, moment-by-moment, it makes us single-minded. Every moment we remain aware of, and submitted to, God’s presence becomes a Kingdom moment, for it is defined by the reign of God. In these moments we are defined by God rather than whomever or whatever programmed us. In these moments Christ is our actual Lord rather than whomever or whatever programmed us. In these moments we are truly free rather than pathetic slaves who are mindlessly “conformed to the pattern of this world.”

—Adapted from Present Perfect, pages 84-90

Dressing Up The Deeds Of The Flesh

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. --Proverbs 16:18

In certain countries there has been an emphasis made by foreign preachers that God wants us wealthy. These "teachers" say that they can demonstrate their faith by how many material possessions they have. This has been a very vexing message for the local pastors to deal with, because many people are poor and have a tendency to see poverty as a curse. A cow zipped up in a horse suit is still a cow. Likewise, it is amazing how deeds of the flesh can be worked around until they are actually presented as spiritual virtue. Someone may say with pride and boldness, "I told him he offended me!" That person just admitted complete spiritual defeat. Another admits spiritual defeat when he says, "I believed God, claimed a jet airplane, and God gave it to me." We are to be seeking the things above. One fellow even said, "I cannot look at pornography too long because it is vexing to my spirit." He can look at it for a while, but he is too spiritual for a prolonged look? It is one thing to avoid thinking about our flesh, but quite another to actually make it out to be something spiritual; that reveals the heart of a true Pharisee.

Michael’s title for this day’s writing speaks volumes, doesn’t it?  How sad, man is so prone to doing just that.  We love our flesh.  We love “dressing it up.”  To the point that we can zip ourselves up in another suit and play like we are something we aren’t.  That’s a beauty, isn’t it?  Not.

What’s crazy is that we can even do as Michael says, work the deeds of the flesh around “until they are actually presented as spiritual virtue.”  How far fetched is that?!?  When the mind is not in tune with God, anything can be concocted. 

And so it is that pride can rear its ugly head…  Pride is the root of every sin and evil.

Truly, as Michael says, “We are to be seeking the things above.”  That is a remedy for pride.  That is the direction of humility.  Andrew Murray has said, “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God…is the root of every virtue.”  Well, amen.

The Ministry of Damnation .......Is it the Gospel?

God paid the price for every act of disobedience and transgression of man so that He could reconcile man to Himself. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19). 

God has not committed unto us the word of DAMNATION in hell fire as is preached and taught by many...He has committed unto us the word of RECONCILIATION reconciling people unto Himself...which is practiced by few!

Man must understand, that he is not responsible for the condition he was born in. Men's fallen condition is a result of Adam’s fall and they can take no responsibility for their fleshly carnal nature. God showing His love for fallen man, was why Jesus went the way of the cross, and would understand that God knows that man, in his fallen condition, can't do anything in and of themselves to be reconciled to Him, so Jesus came to do what we could not do. He came to be the reconciler to reconcile mankind back to God. When Adam and Eve fell, God didn't throw a tantrum and condemn them nor did He abandon them; He had already made provision for their redemption before they fell, He reconciled them unto himself.. 

Here is a profound truth...Adam and Eve's redemption was based on God’s choice, not on their choice...Did you GET that!

WOW, does that not mean that...OUR REDEMPTION IS ALSO BASED ON GOD'S CHOICE NOT OUR CHOICE!

- Glenn Regular

What Jesus Is Saying to Us Through the "Washing of the Disciples Feet"

Jesus washed the disciples feet..what was He saying through that act of servanthood and humility?  I love what my friend Woolly hears Him saying to us in that act:

“You might not understand what I’m doing now, but you will, you’ll get it yet. See, a person’s feet get dirty from the journey that they are on, but not the rest of him/her. By what I’m doing here on this Earth, living and dying for you, I’m going to show you that you are already clean and that you’ll only get dirty from the journey that you’re on.

While you’re on your journey through this world you’ll feel pretty dirty on the outside, all of those outside bits, the bits that are outside of your heart, outside of that special place where we already are One. Those bits that are subject to the troubles of this world, your faults, your failings and how you feel because of your circumstances or upbringing or religion or culture, all of the things which are put upon you by forces outside of your control, they’ll all make you feel unclean, but you’ll come back to me and I’ll make you clean once again.
 

I want you to go and live and whenever you get dirty, go and find me in each other and let them clean you up once again, let them remind you of who you really are deep down underneath all the layers, all of the dirt. If you can, go and find me in a still place and remember who you are, who I say you are. And don’t worry, I’ll see you again, one day all the layers will fall away once again and you’ll plainly see that there was nothing to fear all along the way.”

Isn't this such a relief to know?  The dirt and grime we see, that makes us feel we are so dirty, is only outer muck and unrelated to the treasure we truly are beneath.  Through it all, we've never been anything but clean and holy deep down.  Jesus knew that all along, and He makes sure we know it, too.  To realize this in the ultimate way is to truly know that "There was nothing to fear all along the way.."  :) 

 

- Under the Waterfall

The Good News That’s Really “Good”

Often we view our relationship with God in terms of a legal contract. For instance, people often ask questions about salvation in this way. They see God as the judge, we are defendants, and salvation is about staying out of prison. With this perspective, questions about salvation and the Gospel—which means “good news”—are about the specific terms of a contract between God and us that allow us to remain acquitted and thereby stay out of prison. 

 When our relationship with God gets framed in terms of a legal contract, people are inclined to treat the Bible like a confusing litigation manual, the purpose of which is to resolve technical theological disputes and clarify ambiguities surrounding the terms of our contractual acquittal before God. All of this presupposes a picture of God as a judge who leverages people’s eternal destinies on how well they can litigate theological disputes or at least how lucky they were to align themselves with a competent expert (a pastor/teach) who correctly interprets this legal manual.

Is this the “good news” Jesus and his earliest followers were so excited about proclaiming?
Not by a million light years! God isn’t interested in entering into a legal contract with us; he wants a profoundly interpersonal, covenantal relationship with us that is characterized by honesty, trust, and faithfulness. Along the same lines, salvation isn’t primarily about receiving an acquittal so we can avoid prison when we die. It’s about participating in the abundant life and ecstatic love of the Triune God, and doing so now, in this life.

If we understand it in biblical terms, faith isn’t primarily about our beliefs—as if God were an academic who was obsessive about whether you arrive at the right intellectual conclusions. Even less is faith about engaging in psychological gimmickry as you try to suppress doubt to convince yourself your beliefs are the right ones so that you can feel accepted, worthwhile, and secure before God.
Rather, faith is about trusting in the beautiful character of Christ, about being transformed from the inside out by the power of his unending love, and about learning how to live in the power of the Spirit, as a trustworthy partner who increasingly reflects his love and his will “on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is the real “good news.”

—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 118-121 - Greg Boyd

The Impossible Command of God

Paul tells us we are to be “imitators of God” (Eph 5:1). The word for “imitate” (mimetai) literally means to “mimic” or to “shadow.” This means we are to do exactly what we see God doing, nothing more and nothing less, just like our shadow does exactly what we do. We are to imitate God’s every move, just as Jesus did.

Paul then fleshes out what this mimicking looks like in the following verse: “Live in love … as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” We are to love others just as Christ loved us, dying for us on Calvary while we were yet sinners. The call of Jesus followers is to ascribe unsurpassable worth to all others, at cost to ourselves, the way God ascribes unsurpassable worth to us, at cost to himself.
Notice that Paul says we’re to “live” in this love. Manifesting Christlike love isn’t something we can choose to do sometimes but not others. It’s to characterize our life moment-by-moment. There is to be no “off” button. Jesus tells us we’re to love others the way God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall—indiscriminately (Matt 5:44-45).

This love fulfills the whole law (Rom 13:10). If we live in this love, everything else we’re supposed to do will be done. But if we fail to live in this love, it doesn’t matter what else we manage to do; it was, from a Kingdom perspective, worthless.

This may sound too basic, even boring. Perhaps on some level you suspect your time might be better spent if we were discussing hot topics like the end times, gay marriage, abortion, open theism, church growth strategies, or something of the sort. Our addiction to information inclines us toward mentally stimulating material that requires no sacrifice of our life and makes us restless with the profoundly simple topic of love that requires everything.

This costly command to love is not only difficult to obey, it’s impossible—if we’re trying to obey it on our own power. If we’re not operating out of the fullness of life that comes from God, everything we do—including our noblest attempts to love—is inevitably motivated by a desire to acquire life for self. If this is our motivation, we can’t help but “love” those who feed our sense of worth, significance, and security and despise those who threaten our sense of worth, significance, and security. Operating out of our inner emptiness we invariably love our friends but hate our enemies.
The challenge, then, is not first and foremost to love like Christ. The challenge is to live in Christ’s love, for only then can we love as Christ loved. And as with everything else about our lives, this can be done only as we experience the presence of Christ in each moment.

The quality of our life as followers of Christ isn’t determined by how much we know or don’t know. Nor is it determined by what we did or did not do in the past. Nor is it affected by what we may or may not do in the future. It’s determined by our awareness of the love of Christ for us in this moment.
Will we open ourselves up to God’s ever-present love? Will we allow our thoughts, attitudes, and actions to be ruled by this love? Will we allow this moment to be a sacred Kingdom moment, or will it become just another “ordinary” moment, conformed to the pattern of the world?
—Adapted from Present Perfect, pages 102-109 - Greg Boyd