December 2003 archives

If we are to live from God's Kingdom, we must find these keys to the kingdom in a practical way. We must know how to commune with Him in His World. Watchman Nee's little treatise is helpful in remembering our place as seated with Christ before we stand on earth; but I think that there has entered a mystifying of the access to heaven that is unnecessary.
The Cross means that Jesus opened our access into heaven, and we have that access not as a defered gift, but one that has already come. For thought the full expression of His Kingdom on earth has not occured, His parting the veil and allowing us into His World has. SO, how...to remain in heaven and live from that place where He reigns?
Well, here is the sweet light and stringent truth of Jesus. We enter through Him, for He is the gate. His Light, His truth. His Light speaks of His Presence. brother Lawrence knew His Presence through conversation with Him as He did daily labours. for me it is to enter His Orientation towards a person or nation--to feel them as He does. For another it is just to physically bath in the felt Presence of His Spirit. There are also many ways of being touched by His Word. Amy and I read the written word out loud a lot until we feel the spirit touch it, and make it sing. But there is also the opening up and speaking out loud what I hear God impressing on my spirit. The fact is we must enter and remain in Him to do anything of worth.
But more, as the externals get darker (which they will), we must be resting in that place of refuge and communion with and in Him. We enter by His Light and His truth, and we do this in ways that are unique to each of us.
Just thinking how to practice the presence as Brother Lawrence puts it, but more specifically, how to move out from His Spiritual Reality and live from it.
If lawlessness--ie that which is against God's order is going to increase, then there is the need to understand how to live within His Order which is to live in His World. The days of mystifying the heavens to the point that none of us feels able to get about there, are over. We must now learn to live in His Reality in order to survive!

"Send forth your Light and your Truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain."
We often wonder how to get up the mountain. People ask, how can we live from heaven down? How can we shift from visiting God on special occasions, to a lifestyle of being in Him.
And, here it is: His Light--ie His Presence; and His Truth--ie His Word (both written and what He is speaking now through His Spirit). The gate to heaven is Jesus Himself-- both His Presence and His Word.
In this coming season, the externals will shake even more, and it will be even more essential that we know how we enter and remain in His Kingdom. This verse has two keys. Each of us then has to ask, how do I personally enter Christ's Presence, and how to I touch His Word.

"He who dwells in the shelter.."
The shelter is God's womb--the mothery parts of God; then He becomes a shield, rampart and guard--the more masculine parts of God! To receive the fathery parts, we enter the mothery parts. To hear and see, we must hollow out and enter the bossom space of God. The Holy Spirit comes to those who wait. Waiting is a receptive position. The church as a whole will find herself wombing much more in the coming season. From this receptive position, we will reach out a carve spaces for His Kingdom to come...

"He who dwells in the shelter.."
The shelter is God's womb--the mothery parts of God; then He becomes a shield, rampart and guard--the more masculine parts of God! To receive the fathery parts, we enter the mothery parts. To hear and see, we must hollow out and enter the bossom space of God. The Holy Spirit comes to those who wait. Waiting is a receptive position. The church as a whole will find herself wombing much more in the coming season. From this receptive position, we will reach out a carve spaces for His Kingdom to come...

God is not impressed with us making covenants out of our own understanding--whether these unions be between ministries or nations. To build unions from our own understanding is to rebell against His Order, and to rob Him of the opportunity of revealing Himself through the exact couplings He is kniting.

It is like a man marrying another man¹s wife, when a nation makes a covenant with another nation out of its own understanding. We must come to seek His Covenants, what He is uniting to reveal Himself.
Currently europe is involved in making a union or covenant. As far as I know no one has sought out how God wishes to unite europe. As a result what we see are false covenants which if they reveal any part of God at all, will turn out only to reveal His Redemptive nature. For yes, God does redeem things when we unite with another person out of our own understanding, but how much better to let Him do the matching, and thus reveal His full plan!

When we unite with Christ, we are uniting with both His death or sufferings, and His resurrection. This is what it means to unite with the Life of Christ. It is the same when we covenant with a person--we enter both their sufferings and their life. When I married my wife, i entered into union with both her pains and suffering, and her triumphs and victories. This is what union means--to be one with the life of the other.

So we see europe making up its own order of union right now. This will not stand, as it is not God¹s order. i believe that he will use it to allow some of the nations who have not had a voice, speak--but ultimately, we cannot make covenants out of our own understanding which will last.

This is why God told the Jews not to intermarry. It was not because all other nations were bad, for God made all the other nations. It was rather that Isael was in covenant with God Himself, and if they entered covenants with other nations they would be united to both the death and life of that other nation.

Is France really ready to be united to the life and death of germany? Are these two countries that God is uniting to reveal Himself? i don¹t think so. They both have destinies in Him, but these destinies will not be reached in covenant with one another. For this is not God¹s order!

What are God¹s couplings? Well, we must seek Him and see. i think one is England and Germany who are both to partner in fathering europe and revealing God¹s design and Order for realtionship among europe.

But my point here is that when we unite with another out of our own understanding we move outside of God¹s order.

The church is just as guilty of this as the nations in that it too has chosen its own covenants. When it does it makes what looks like a mess to God, for it does not reveal His Order. God wants to make Himself known, and has specific unions between denominations and church groups in order to do that. It is the same with the nations.

i believe that He is tired of men making up covenants from their own understanding. Yes, he honors them, for a covenant is a covenant. If i marry you God honors that. But it is not his intention and only by His Grace can he then redeem it into something that can still reveal Him.

Some of the current covenants that europe is entering are so far off from His plan that he will simply not let them stand. But before this breaking apart, he will allow the ³weaker² nations to speak and voice!

God is tired of watching us choose our own unions, and is making His choices clearer in this hour. Let us listen and obey, in order to allow him to more fully and clearly reveal Himself in who he chooses to bring together to accomplish His Purposes.

"Healing" is this exhange or laying down of our own thought patterns and our own emotions in order to enter His. We must value all of God by giving to Him all of ourselves.
We often don't think of giving Him our emotions as "emotional work is often viewed as less spiritual. But we are to come to know God's emotions no less than His Thoughts..if we are to grow into the fulness of The Head!
All is about getting to know and love more of God which is the primary commandment, then we are able to love others with His Heart and give them His Thoughts. Both are essential in coming to know God!
To enter Paul's affections of Christ, or fellowshiping with Him in His Sufferings, we must value His emotional Life! As we let Him empty us more and more of our own feelings and enter more and more of His, we will know what emotional healing means! Many of us need this cleaning out of our own emotional life in this hour! But our goal is to know His Emotional Life!

God wants us to know HIS emotional life. To do this we must give Him our own. In order to enter "the affections of Christ" we must give to Him our affections. This is true also in the area of our thought life. Our goal is to know God in every area. We are to get to know God's emtional life no less than His Thought Life. Each of us is responsible to give Him each area of our lives so that He may form Himself in us more fully!
This means we want to know God's feelings as well as His Thoughts. Many of us value one part of God above the others. But God wants to be known in full!
This is our motivation for going through "healing" It is so that our own feelings will be more and more His. If we do not know God's emotions we cannot fully become mature, and more than if we do not know His Thoughts.

brad's trajectory principle coupled with seeking revelation about how God is parenting people, nations, situations, denominations....
How is God parenting gen X jews for instance towards transcendance..what about our generation of ex-churchgoers...
since the point of helping others is actually to get to know God
as this is the first commandment
since, we are not really able to help others outside of joining Him in what He is already doing...
then we need to seek what that is and join it.
God parents things to maturity...so where is this nation, this person, this movement in its journey and how is God parenting it.

So if the church as a whole has come into its sonship phase, which commenced at the "formation" or reformation period--which was the period God says He started to form His Son in us on a fuller level. to take the church from her nascent stages of birth, then medieval period wherein she ws learning foundational thought....so, in other words if spiritual development is progressive, then we need to look at what we are becoming as much as what we were at a past stage of development. Many right now are looking back at the first century church as a model for where it should be now, but we are being grown up into the fulness of The Head, so we actually ought to be at another stage of development.
The Sonship phase is one of entering inheritance, possesing land, being a priest, being a co-heir. It is moving also in our authoriy and domain on earth in Him. I am exploring this sonship phase as I think we have forgotten what we are supposed to be walking in.

"..with the affection of Christ..."
How is it that Paul claimed to love people with the affection of Christ? There is this exchange of my own pain for His. So Paul is in prison, writing about fellowshipping with Christ suffering.
Most of us are fellowshipping with our own suffering. The way to tell, is when we get hit, we hit back. But Paul was fellowshipping with Christ's emotional life. So he was able to say that he loved others with Christ's affection. There had been that exchange which is required to enter spiritual maturity, when one gives God their own pain and enters more and more of His.

how everyone I've ever touched was touched by You, for You were always there despite ourselves and in full view, for this cascading Grace You are rekindles even memory into fire ablaze itself, with You

so few books remain past this flood of Your Life on earth, and even these words wind up as smoke...only the heart-essence of them will remain as insence before You and bring You remembrance of Joy...what a good idea to make and then save and then to teach throug increase of thsi knowledge of who You are...to grow up church and jew and rock and stone and hover Your words over bone until there are awakenings...

...and we drop off in silence and alone with You all our programs and schemes and are told by Your Spirit these other names, the ones we were to be from birth, and we suddenly remember that You Yourself created us, so we must be wonderful, as David remembered in his son (psalm 139), and we are no longer these little jobs created by man, but we are these one of a kind, unique poems on earth to teach of You and Your resplendant diversity, and we no longer get caught in hating or mistrusting other, but we celebrate ourselves as we sing the song of others--both as meditations on who You are, and what You have left on earth to speak Your Names.

You take us as children, and whisper to us our other more nuanced names--and this is the growing up of our heavenly identity (oh how You want Your People to know who they truly are-HERE AND NOW, not then and later). Oh how blind we have become through our dulling religious practices or just adrift, we forget our names....but as we come closer, You whisper again the names we had since birth, and grow us from child to teenager to adult...unless a kernel die, and no longer children being tossed...You show us who we are with You above and this becomes our authority on earth, our domain is established from this seated position above with Your Son...and the words are no longer mere or meager, but alive in us and we are radiant ones on earth as Your Actual arms and legs, eyes and ears...

We decide to live in You, so You come live in us, and we grow past basic knowing into Your being itself..Your expression is so full it is contagiously magnetic...truly magestic. And as You form Yourself in us all, we come to look through nations as reflection back onto You.
We go from saying yes into this increasing knowing of You in everything around us. All our letters become these actions of meditation on Your Nature, and we no longer want anything but to know and love You more. And this not because of anything in us, but it is this more and more ongoing glimpse opening in us onto who this One is who first loved us.
We go on from the foundational things about You to enter the very actioning You are in now...we come to hear and feel what You Are being around us and within us, and even our drab neighborhoods light up from within, and This Kingdom, already in our midst, springs up into view, and once again it all leads to You who formed all life as a grand reflection and communioning with You.

If a single tree falls, the bending of its Life is felt in You. So, we come with our griefs and grievances to be alone with You, and You send us out into Your Rains of constant redemption...oh how the cadences of Your Healing touches echo through the city trees themselves, and when man is too blind to turn and know, Your are still here this unseen lover, making sure that his life is not as miserable as imagined by that dying side.
No dead books in You, but the burning words streaming from Your Own side...and from That Throne, these rivers make holy and touched what was barking in the dark of night. Why when we were yet is blindness did You come and still You come and whisper into our dreams themselves life, life Life.

What nation can You not call forth, for even their unwillingness only causes the fires of Your Passion and Love to glow more brilliantly. And when not a single suffer is lost on You, but You are deep within the core of its midst...the ladies crying by the river have Your Heart, and the man who smokes along by the city bridge. This is how You use Your Omniscience.

Unspeakable Fire and Kindler, we want You to be known as You want to BE known. We know that You are busy making Yourself apparent--this is one of Your Ways. A Way in itself made more astounding by Your Grandeur. No we are not super spiritual, we instead have trouble being kind. But You, how is it that You keep being so mysterious and profound and yet so salty and kind. I am amazed by You God as leaves are amazed at their own turning color...so wonder-filled at their own transformation, knowing that someOne is active within them...this Life which came to men.

Unsure daily, we wonder our way into Your Patterns and Life. We enter through Your Gates along these rivers You have made apparent, and we stream them out through the valleys of our friendships and loves, and we watch in this aftersparkle in order to know Your more.
God, Your Ways themselves through this SPirit of knowing we touch and sit back astounded at how You integrate so much within Yourself--not just mercy and judgment, but also kindness with Fire. What can we do but BE more in You, and keep on in this astounding...

All our best words, thoughts, widest feelings compared with You Yourself God...all our schemes and plannings, our categories and musings, and then You here so vast at the Center and Beyond. A Name to unspeakable to approach yet lowered in order to know, to come into contact with this very thing You Yourself have formed. And so we turn again our inner and outer being to This One, and His Incarnation, His Son, and we simply bask and let Him gather us within Him, into Him--just to BE in Him, it is enough for all the life in Life to sing awake again through His Very Breath, oh Holy Spirit always moving, alive active; ever forming new wings onto our inner hearts..oh One who is in Grand Motion, never stuck always free and freeing..Life Itself an overflow from Your Own Communioning...just to be caught up in Your Dancing with Yourself, we are!

God is always taking us from religion toward Him. Put another way, God is always teaching us that it is not by works but by Grace. It is easy to spot religious effort in cultures other than our own, but often much harder to spot the places within ourselves where we are still doing doing things FOR God rather than In Him. When we replace a true relationship with God with things that we do FOR God, we enter religious spirit.

There are many reason we enter this spirit. Mostly, it enters places in us which still have not fully received His Grace--that He loves us as we are not based on our performance, but on who HE is.
John, the disciple, was able to see Higher because He was close to Jesus, not because He was more spiritual than the others! It is not what we do for Him, but what He is allowed to do in us which really matters in the end.
Other times this spirit enter areas of deep wounding or pain which Jesus has not yet been allowed into. In our time, this spirit is rearing its head more overtly to where it will become clearer what is merely religion and what is actually IN Jesus Christ Himself.

Love is His whole process of taking us from infancy to spiritual adulthood. When we look at how God is parenting His People hsitorically, we see certain clear stages of spiritual development.
The one we are in requires a new level of receiving Him into us. This womblike orientation is uncomfortable for many, as it requires us to do less and BE more. This seems especially hard for those in ministry today, but it is absolutely essential if we are to allow Him to form Himself in us on the level He desires!
As Mary was with child, so we are to be with Him--letting Him grow into His Own fulness. This womb- like orientation is especially hard for men, who tend to want to do FOR God rather than let Him do through them...but apart from Him we can do nothing, so He must be IN us more fully.
We must stop doing things FOR Him, and start doing things IN Him! The first is religion, the second is life in Christ.