Truth be told

The next several blogs are going to be hard for me to write.  I know how I am going to come across and I know how this is going to sound.  Who am I to question some of the foundations of our teachings?  Who am I to call into question teachings provided by accredited professionals and biblical scholars?  Who am I to call into question teachings that have really made a difference in people’s lives?  The reality is that in this world of accreditations, PHDs, and higher education programs I am a nobody.  I am a general contractor; I have spent my life building buildings.  I don’t have a PHD, I have not had extensive training in biblical understanding, historical context, psychology, sociology, or any other form of human interaction or spiritual development.  So where do I feel justified in questioning what I am being taught, what I have read, and what is being preached?

When I listen to sermons or read books I have a tendency to look for what I disagree with more than what I do agree with.  I hear things and contemplate those things that don’t make sense to me, that just don’t add up, and that just don’t seem to be truth.  I actually believe that this process is a fantastic attribute of my design, the pride and arrogance that has gone along with it is not.  Right now, at this very point in time, God is just beginning to shine a powerful light into a deeper understanding of what this means, how humbling myself to the pride aspects while embracing the nature of how my mind works is the key to the next phase of my discipleship training.  The spirit has used a series of events to bring this realization into light.  I have embraced what He is trying to show me.  My hope is in a future where I know His strength will deliver me into a man capable of fully appreciating the work of others, seeing where what they have produced is not only valuable to others but valuable to me, profitable for my journey, and that what they have provided are the keys to unlocking something deeper that God is asking me to see, understand, and share.

The reality is that we all have been designed with this attribute and that most of us have a tendency to struggle with the pride issues surrounding how we go about expressing what we see, hear, and disagree with.  Because of this we tend to see this tendency as “bad” and work to eliminate it from our thought process.  What I am beginning to understand is that this simply isn’t true.  What I am beginning to understand is that this attribute is actually one of the most important parts of our God nature.  It is the part that helps us discern what is truth and what is not even though we have never had anyone teach us, show us, or share with us anything different.   It is this nature of our design that allows God to speak to us through circumstances of life and the teachings of others.  I think at some point it transitions from an “attribute” to the “voice of the Spirit”.  I would say this is the point where the pride is let go of leaving us empty enough to discern where truth ends and something else begins.  The Spirit helps us use what others have produced to teach us what God wants us to see and know; First by stretching our understanding in what He has shown them, then by showing us what comes next.  The challenge is to share the revelation while extending credit where credit is due…..the work He has done in and through others that He is using to do in and through us.

Let’s take a look at my claim; that this attribute of how our minds work is a “fantastic attribute”.  Many would argue that point.  The reality is, if we didn’t have this attribute we would approach every circumstance with the heart of a naive child; we would accept anything that we were told.  Obviously this attribute is the very thing that protects us in a harsh and dangerous world.  It also is what makes us stop, think, and consider what we are being told and even trying to convince ourselves of.  This aspect of our design is what leads us to deeper understanding as we process and own the truth aspects of what we are being “sold”, and what protects us from “buying” the lies that simply don’t add up.  If we truly understand the nature of things we come to realize that it is this very aspect of our design that not only facilitates our growth and protects us in the here and now, but it is in the observation of the here and now that allows us to use this attribute in growing and protecting us on our spiritual journey as well.  It is the embracing of this attribute that opens the door for us to hear and discern what the Spirit is attempting to tell us, where it is attempting to direct us, how God is working to grow us, free us, and what opens the door for Him to transform our lives.

Let me ask you a question;  What do you think is more dangerous to you and your loved ones, the obvious lie or something that is 99% truth with just a hint of lie in it?

Here is how I see it.  The obvious lie we typically avoid because it is simply so obvious.  The almost truth is a bit tricky.  We have a tendency to do one of two things. 

·         Believe it, accept it, follow it, and share it because at quick glance it looks true, or

·         See the embedded lie and reject the entire teaching as a lie.  In other words, we tend to throw out the baby with the bath water.  This typically happens when people see that the lives of those claiming to follow a teaching are not examples of what that teaching claims to provide.

When we do the later we (and those watching us) are prone to turn to the obvious lies because, well….from that perspective there is no truth anyway.  Please read that last sentence again.  If that doesn’t help you see the importance of taking this seriously I don’t know what will.

The reality is, there are blatant lies, truth with a hint of lie embedded, and ultimate truth itself.  Almost everything we are exposed to falls into this middle category.  Very few teach what will lead to obvious pain, suffering, and death.  At the same time none of us are God and we are limited by our Human understandings.  As such, we simply can’t see what is beyond our understanding.  If we can’t see it, we can’t understand it, and as such we can’t teach it.  This is why Christ’s teachings were so different.  He could see and understand what man cannot see and understand.  It is the process of leaning on God and His Spirit that help us see the lies embedded within what we are being taught that leads us to the revelation of the very essence of what He is attempting to deliver us into.  When we get a glimpse of it we can’t put it into words because it is really beyond words.  This is where the indwelling of the Spirit “should” help us be delivered through the same scriptures that left the cumulative lot of the chosen people turning back to the lies of the world.

Moving from theory to application I want to make an example.  Let’s take a look at just how important this is.  There are a few ways to express this, I am going to use the example of a virus.  Thanks to the help of my oldest daughter I got some help with this.  She told me that a virus works on a cell kind of like a mosquito bite.  The virus “pokes” the cell with a virion.  The virion is very small when it is introduced into the healthy cell.  It then uses the reproductive properties of the healthy cell to spread itself throughout the body and make the entire body sick.  As teachers we need to take this very seriously.  One little lie embedded into a really healthy thing can lead to a spiritual pandemic.  Ouch!!

One more example before I get to the meat of what I want to look at:  If you were hired to build a road through a mountainous region and you decided to build a tunnel through one of the mountains why would you do it?  I would think it would be for a few reasons, it would be the least expensive, and best way to help those traveling on the road get from one side of the mountain to the other. 

Now, take a step back and picture the sun coming up on the horizon of the exit side of the tunnel so that the entry to the tunnel is shaded by the mountain.  With that image in your mind picture yourself driving on the road.  You probably have your headlights on because the sun is just breaking the horizon on the other side of the mountain, it is morning, and you have been driving all night.  Your headlights guide your way into the darkness of the tunnel.  As you progress through the tunnel you are relieved to find that there are additional lights mounted along the walls and ceiling to help guide your way.  In the distance you see a small almost insignificant glow.  As you travel through the midst of the tunnel you notice that what was a glow is becoming a light.  The closer you get to the end of the tunnel the brighter the light gets.  Soon you can’t even see the impact of your headlights as the light overpowers their intensity.  Soon you reach the end of the tunnel but you don’t even realize it because the light is so blinding that even the tunnel walls themselves disappear.  As you leave the tunnel the light is so bright that you hardly even notice at which point you left the tunnel.  As your eyes begin to adjust you look around and see a completely new landscape around you.  Instinctively you know it was there before you entered the tunnel but you also know that it was the journey through the mountain that had to occur for you to see and understand all that was there around you from the beginning.

Now, picture your spiritual condition before you were born into this world as the mountain, the tunnel the circumstances of your life experiences, and the road as your spirit’s journey through infinity.  The sun is the true, pure, clean, selfless love of God.  In essence, the tunnel is everything that God uses to help your soul grow beyond its spiritual limitations through the experiences of this life.  Every aspect of it is created by Him for the purpose of delivering you into His light.  If this aspect of God is ultimate love, than this journey, this life, is about a spiritual transformation that delivers our soul from that which blocks us from understanding that love to one that sees, understands, and embraces it, that love, God Himself.

Here is the point.  God wants for us is to experience the very essence of basking in that light, His love.  He wants us to become one with the very nature of that love.  The interesting thing is that the only thing that keeps us from seeing His light sooner is the fact that we are relying on our own lights and the lights on the walls of the tunnel.  The truth is that if we would stop relying on all those other lights, turn them off, and let our eyes adjust, His light would be more than enough to help us find our way.  In fact, with the light shining onto the walls instead of from the walls the image of the tunnel itself would totally change.  Instead of being blinded by the light coming from the walls, His light would shine forth in such a way to actually see the realty of the tunnel itself.

This is where most teachings fall short.  Most teachings remain focused on doing what we are supposed to do in the tunnel because “the sacrifice” is worth the promise of being delivered into His light once we leave the tunnel, or to make God happy, or…...  If we come to let ourselves fully trust His light, the viewpoint totally changes, we begin to see and understand what we never saw or understood, and we find that looking at life through His eyes changes everything.  We begin to find that the “sacrifice, or the works” was nothing more than an opportunity.  An opportunity to meet someone where they were so we can impact their lives, and an opportunity to feel what Christ felt the first time we let Him meet us where we were at.  And this is the progression of breaking the chains of bondage this world has on God’s most precious possession…mankind.  He wants us to feel His love from His perspective; as we give it to others.  This is what it is to be “one with Him”.

The interesting thing is that it is the very process of turning off our lights and looking away from those other lights that allows God to show us what we must come to understand.  As we begin to see and understand we start to glow with His light, and we start to impact the walls around us.  As we impact the walls around us we begin to find ourselves immersed in a pool of others just like us, once embedded in the wall, now glowing with the love of God, moving along the road, shining His light on those still stuck in the walls around us.  Together we continue pressing on as we begin to see and understand more and more about the very nature of the light that is now emanating through us.  This is the process of being transformed into His image, this is the process of being delivered from the false intimacies of this world into the true love of God.    It is where we begin to understand what “God’s will” is “for us” instead of what He expects “of us”.  It is where we begin to realize that “love is a feeling” not just a “commitment”.

Over the next several weeks we are going to take a deep look into what we have been taught about “love”, relationships, and false intimacies.  We will develop an argument that looks at our own headlights and the light coming from the walls as “false intimacy”, we will consider that there is really only one true form of intimacy and that is the true nature of God’s love.  We will look at what we have been told about various “forms” of love, and teachings that tell us that we were each created with different “love needs” and that these “love needs” are a part of our unique “love identity”.  We are going to try to remove the lies embedded in our teachings, build a foundation with the truths that remain, and build a house on the expanse of what is possible. 

In the mean time I pray that you have a God filled week, that this blog has helped you see and understand something that you previously missed out on, and that you look forward to experiencing a new love, one like nothing you have ever known before.

The Method To My Madness

Have you ever had someone give you a gift that you just didn’t feel you should accept?  I know that there are some businesses out there that have a strict policy of not allowing their employees to accept gifts from firms or people associated with their business operations.  This makes a lot of sense as the “gift” can easily become a bribe or a point of emotional leverage.  Sometimes gifts come not in the form of an item but in the form of a service.  Being in the construction business I hear of things like this from time to time.  Once I heard of a contractor who had a landscape firm who “gifted” him with taking care of his personal lawn maintenance.  Was it really a gift?  Is this something that the contractor should have accepted?  Do you think the landscape firm expected anything in return?  I would say that they probably did.  So, this wasn’t a true gift and the contractor “shouldn’t” have accepted the offer.  The reality is that at some point in time the contractor probably sensed the pressure of the landscape firm to “honor” the “unsaid” agreement.  I would bet that this pressure led to some stress, and a general sense of unrest in the contractor’s life.  I personally have a hard time accepting help from other people.  I tend to get a great satisfaction in doing things for others but tend to deny them the blessing of doing things for me.  Sometimes people offer to help me with this or that and ask that I give them a call when it is time to do the work.  I take their number, nicely say I will call if I need the help, and then do what I need to do myself.  The reality is there are lots of reasons that I don’t accept their help.  I don’t want to be a burden to others, I don’t want to owe others, I don’t feel like I deserve the help, I am to prideful to accept that I need the help, and the list goes on and on.  Whatever the reason I am left with a sense of the spiritual blahs; I stay stuck in thoughts that are all about me while not allowing myself or others the blessing of their extension of love toward me.

There are a few points that we can take from this:

• Some gifts really are not gifts at all.  They are yokes that lead to spiritual darkness, 
• Some gifts are meant for the spiritual gain of both giver and receiver.  Denying the gift leaves both   giver and receiver in some sense of spiritual darkness, and 
• Typically a gift is looked at as a noun.  However, gifts can be verbs if put into the context of a service or action.

 Here is where I am going.  Biblically speaking “salvation” is a free gift offered by God when we enter into the covenant of becoming His servants.  There are many aspects of this covenant.  I am going to approach this from the most simplified form.  We agree to be His servants, He gives us salvation through the atonement offered by Christ on the cross, and He puts the Holy Spirit into us to help us hear and see how we are to be “His” servants.  This indwelling of the Spirit also gives us additional strength to follow through with what the Spirit reveals.  I hope I didn’t ruffle any feathers with that.  Biblically speaking the “gift” is a noun and is our salvation.  The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the verb and is “sanctification”.

In my previous writings I have implied that “sanctification” is God working out our salvation for us.  This has created some challenges for people.  Here is the “method to my madness”.  By breaking up “salvation” into a noun and a verb it implies that they are two distinct and separate things; Salvation being a one-time gift and sanctification being the perfection of us.  This implies that we are free to receive the gift while having the ability to decide if we want to be sanctified.  This is a fleshly response that I do not believe is biblical.  Here is why:

Let’s go back to my previous examples for a minute and relate God’s “gift” of salvation through the covenant relationship.  What we will find is that by looking at this “gift” as a noun and a verb that are separate and distinct from each other our human condition opens the door for Satan to stroll into our hearts and twist what God is attempting to accomplish.

Let’s start with the noun.  God is giving us a gift, but it does come at the price of entering into a covenant relationship with Him.  We have been around the block a few times with “gifts” that come with strings attached.  So our human reaction is to want to evaluate the strings, minimize their impact on our lives, and most of all see them as a yoke.  Our response is to do what we have committed to do “because” of the gift, “for” the gift giver, because of the “sense of responsibility” associated with accepting the gift.  How common is it for people to tell us what we “should” do because “God did so much for us”.  How often do people tell us what we “shouldn’t” do because “God wouldn’t like it”.  In my opinion these responses are the result of looking at “salvation” as a noun.

With sanctification being a verb separate from the gift of salvation we tend to not see it as a gift.  Instead it is more of an offer that we can accept or reject.  We can weigh out if this is something honestly being offered in love and if we really need the help.  We can decide if we agree or disagree with the course of life offered through the Holy Spirit and whether or not we want to lean on God’s strength to follow what He is telling us.

What I believe God, Christ, and all the authors of the bible have attempted to convey is that the reality of salvation is both a noun and a verb.  The noun aspect is the “one-time free gift”, the verb aspect is the work of the Holy Spirit delivering us from spiritual darkness through the sanctification process.  It is the manifestation of the very essence of “salvation”.  By taking this approach we see “salvation” as God saving us from spiritual darkness and delivering us into spiritual light.  It is something totally about and for us (a gift).  At the same time it is necessary in His ability to use us in leading others to Him, His Spirit, and ultimately their own personal transformation.  Read that last line again.  Notice…the final result is personal transformation—in other words, liberty from bondage—“salvation”.

I believe the best scripture that not only supports this thought process but gives us a clear check list to determine if we are being honest and true with ourselves comes from Galatians 5.

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh….

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.  For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.  Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Pulling a couple key verses from this:

·         Salvation is offered for the purpose of freedom

·         Be careful not to pervert this offer of freedom as an excuse to listen to the flesh

·         Let the Spirit lead you away from the flesh

·         The flesh will try to convince you to see the voice of the Spirit as a yoke (Law) but it is not

·         Check list time---is your life changing?  Are you moving away from flesh led and toward Spirit led

·         Be honest with the last question….your inheritance is riding on your willingness to look into the mirror and respond to what you see.

What I believe Paul is getting at here is this.  If we see that Christ went to the cross for the purpose of setting us free from spiritual darkness (a flesh led life) we can’t accept the offer and reject the process.  The work of the Holy Spirit is the very process of our being set free.  As God moves us from flesh led to Spirit led our freedom from spiritual darkness is perfected.  This is the “gift”.

Making this really simple; Salvation is God’s process of delivering us from darkness into Light.  This process requires our consuming the Fruit of the Spirit and rejecting the fruit of the flesh.  We cannot be delivered into the light while eating the fruit of darkness.  As a side note, the vast majority of what we consume is in thought.  The fruit we eat is the thoughts we think.  If our thoughts are filled with anger, resentment, indifference, self-centeredness, judgment, hatred, lust, manipulation, calls for attention, materialism, fleshly desires, our traditions, our expectations, or any other fleshly perspective we are only hurting ourselves.  God loves us too much to let us remain in that bondage.  This is why He put His only begotten son on the Cross to die for us.  He did it to set us free.  The reality is, God loves us so much that He is willing to do anything NECESSARY to move us from flesh centered to Spirit led.

It is our free choice to accept our everything as God’s anything and embrace it as Love.  This is what it is to “Love” God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  This is what it takes to follow the voice of the Spirit, this is what it takes to love our neighbor.

Each of us approaches the “gift” of God’s anything in our lives from a different perspective.  We were all created differently.  We each have had different life experiences.  As such, we each have a different “flesh” response to God’s refinement process.  It is the “flesh” response that makes it so difficult to see and understand exactly what God has offered and how He is bringing it about.

I pray that this discussion has opened up your eyes to an aspect of your relationship with God where you have not allowed His gift to become fully manifest in your life, I pray that you ask Him to guide you through the process of change, and that you feel His hand as He leads you into the spiritual freedom He has offered, extended, and so desires that you embrace.

Dying to be His

One of the areas of Christ’s teachings that we tend to overlooked is the dying part.  Not His dying of course, we like to talk about that.  It is our dying that we do such a great job avoiding.  Did you ever stop to consider that just a few short hours before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion Christ was surrounded by huge crowds that wanted to see Him, hear His words, listen to His teachings, and that sincerely believed that they would follow Him wherever He went?  But within a few short hours they soon discovered that as much as they wanted to, they couldn’t.  Let’s be honest, the fear of pain, suffering, persecution, and death would be enough to make the best of us re-think our commitment.

I love how Christ used the analogy of a road as a part of His teachings.  “The road is narrow, and few will find the way”.  It amazes me how quickly we move across scriptures of this nature.  I look around and I see billions of people in this world who all believe they are a part of the few.  Maybe Christ just said that so the goal would be high and we would shoot above the mark, then again maybe not.  Maybe He really meant it.  Maybe He said it because He loves us and wants us to understand just how blind we are, just how easily we are fooled, and just how difficult it really is.  Maybe He said it because He wants us to find the road, He wants us to travel the road, and most of all……..He wants us to remain on the road until we reach our final destination.

I spend my days contemplating some very interesting questions (at least I think so).  What has He put along the sides of this road for me to simply look at and observe?  What obstacles has He placed before me to slow me down?  What bridges has He placed to make my journey easier?  What has He placed along the side of the road to test me, to see if I turn to the left or the right?  Am I still on the road or I have turned to the left or the right?  How many of those things that I thought were there for my observation, or testing were opportunities to meet others where they were, to help them, and to facilitate more growth in me?  How many of those things were kind of like the transporters in the old Star Trek movies.  You know ‘beam me up Scotty”.  What would have happened if I would have taken the time to slow down, see the temptation as an opportunity, stop being an observer and be Christ?  What would have it felt like, what would have I learned, what aspect of my being would have been resurrected from deep within me?  How much more is buried deep within me just waiting to be reborn or brought to full maturity?

When you read the questions I contemplate you will find that there is one that is most assuredly not present, it was not a mistake, it was not left out by accident.  The reality is, I simply don’t think about it, I don’t question it, and I don’t worry about it.  Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me.  It is not what I put my faith in, and it is not my hope.  I never ponder my salvation.  It is not a question that comes into play when I think about what I am doing, what I should do, or what I should not do.  I do not think about my salvation and I do not think “will this please God”.

Don’t get me wrong.  Of course I want to please God.  But, for me, pleasing God is staying on the road.  Not for Him, for me.  Let me help you understand what I am saying.  If you are a parent what will please you most?  Do you want your children to do what you ask because they want to make you happy?  Or, do you want them to listen because you know that embracing what you share will pave the road to their own personal well-being?  The reality is that if they live “your way” because they want to make you happy they will never fully realize the joy of living that way.  On the other hand, if they live “your way” because they truly embrace everything “your way” is they will come to experience all that you know they are capable of.

Herein reveals two aspects of faith.  First we bend our knee to our parent’s way “because they said so”.  This is putting our faith in them, trusting their love for us, and having faith that they would only give advice that is best for us.  However, for us to truly be free of any aspect of flesh our faith must move from faith in our parents to faith in what our parents taught us.  If our hearts are open, this is a natural transition that occurs as we see our lives change for the better, as we experience more joy, more love, and a greater sense of well-being.  At that moment our faith moves from the parent to the “way of the parent”.  It is at that moment that the heart fully embraces what the head has conveyed and the ways of this world will no longer provide much temptation in that regard.  At that moment true liberation has been realized in that area of life.  This is what God wants for us.  He wants this for us in the greatest and fullest way possible.  It is this liberation that I view as “salvation” (God saving us from the sin of this world).  I know and understand that this is not what most people think of when they contemplate salvation.  However, I think it is an excellent way of conveying the heart of God and what He desires for us.  Regardless, I figure if I simply let my heart embrace all that God shows me, pleasing Him and my ultimate salvation will take care of themselves.  No worries.

One more thing on that before we move on.  Since I am so flesh, and the Spirit is so God, I know and understand that both of these “faiths” will continue for the remainder of my life.  As such, I must keep my faith in the parent, and in the parent’s ways.  Both….  Therefore, my faith first in Christ as He shows me what I must put on the cross, and my faith second will remain in “His ways” as my heart embraces the reality of the transformation of the very nature of my being.

So let’s get back to dying.  One of the things Christ said that keeps coming back to me is that we “must pick up our cross” to follow Him.  Then, the crowds who thought they were following Him didn’t as He picked up His own cross and headed for His own crucifixion.  Later, some of those that were not willing to “pick up their cross” let go of their fears, became His disciples, and ended up experiencing their own version of exactly what Christ experienced.  This was something that they had to do to experience all that Christ offered, and to be His disciples.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."  ….

 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit…..

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life…….

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

How often do we jump to John 3:16 and not even consider that the entire foundation of that most famous verse is a story, a story about people facing their own death, and one where they were called to turn to an image of the very thing that imposed that death as the source of life.

One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!" But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."  And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"  And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

How often do we hear teachings that simply sum up Christ’s response to the second criminal as “and Christ assured him of his salvation because he saw Him as the Christ”.  How easily we miss out on the very obvious point counter point.  The first criminal was not willing to give up his life; he did not even consider that he should have to, or that what was happening to him was exactly what he deserved.  On the other hand, the second criminal fully embraced every aspect of the circumstance, even to the point of rebuking the other.

Can we place ourselves there….on the cross next to Christ?  Can we feel ourselves hanging there, full of self-righteous indignation; can we hear ourselves crying out, arguing our case, and giving our excuses.

Do the echos of our own voices resonate through the very essence of our being?  I believe this is what Christ is talking about when He says that we must be re-born of the Spirit, when He says that “He who holds onto his life will lose it, and He who loses his life will gain it”.

It is the very essence of our flesh that holds onto everything of this world and the self-righteous excuses.  It is our flesh that cries out this isn’t fair, I didn’t do it, it wasn’t my fault.  My parents didn’t raise me right.  I was never told the difference.  People betrayed me, they hurt me, they took advantage of me.  But the circumstances changed, I was justified in what I did.  It was too hard, the money was right there for the taking.  She is the one who dresses like that she obviously wants me to think of her that way.  All the ads show me this is the right way to get attention.  It’s the only way I know how.  It is their own fault they ended up in prison, I didn’t and I had hard times.  It is their fault they don’t have any money, if they weren’t so lazy they could take care of themselves.  It isn’t my fault I was born in this country and they weren’t.  I shouldn’t have to give up my luxury just because God blessed me by birthing me here, at this time, in this place.  I had the right to be angry because they……..  We know who wins in the end.  They will get what they deserve……..and the list goes on and on……need I keep going?

Being on the Cross next to Christ forces us to look deep within.  This is where it all begins.  To be born of the Spirit requires a willingness to let the life of the flesh pass away.  That’s it.  The willingness is the key.  As we open up our hearts to this letting go of the flesh we begin to hear God’s voice.  We begin to hear the Spirit responding to our flesh with statements like: “please….you can’t be serious.  Of course it is your fault, they were taken advantage of too.  Everyone has been betrayed, and everyone has been hurt.  Did you stop and pray for them?  The very things you make excuses for you hold against others.  You justify your anger, your resentment, and your lusts.  Did you ever stop to see the hurt in her eyes?  Did you ask why she needs to seek affirmation that way?  Did you ever stop to see the hurt in his eyes?  Did you ask why he affirms you when you seek it that way?  Did you ever stop to consider that I am the one who gave you the strength to overcome your challenges?  Did you stop to think that I am the one who created you with the character to not give up?  Did you ever stop to consider that is exactly why I blessed you by putting you in this country, at this time?  How many opportunities have I given you to experience what it is to be me?  How much pain, suffering, and hunger must I allow for the simple purpose of giving you a chance to do what I do, love how I love, be holy as I am holy, and experience what you were designed to embrace?  Yes, I will win in the end…that doesn’t mean you will be with me.”

As we allow the Spirit the latitude to humble our flesh we begin to see the world in a different way, we begin to see the truth of things, not the surface level truth that is all about us, a deeper truth, the reality of things based on how God sees them.  As we let the Spirit’s voice grow, and we let God show us the truth of things from His perspective we begin to be set free, free of our anger, free of our resentment, free of our lack of forgiveness, free of our guilt.  This freedom brings about a transformation within us.  As we begin to feel the freedom this transformation provides we being to embrace a part of our being that we never even knew existed.  I would argue that this is the beginning of the re-birth process.  Over time God will send the Spirit to open our eyes to those areas of our life where we remain in bondage, our response is to hold Christ’s hand as we trust Him to carry us through the process and to trust that He will deliver us into a greater freedom than we ever knew possible.  This is not an instantaneous onetime event.  It is a life long journey where we grow from a new born infant into the full maturity of a spirit led disciple.  It is a journey that is not of our own work but the work of God, as spoken by the Holy Spirit, and perfected through the strength of Christ.  This is the freedom that God wants for us….it is this freedom that He wants us to show the world.

I pray that you allow the Spirit to show you the truth.  I pray that you decide to embrace what the Spirit shows you, and that you trust that what you see is the key to your spiritual freedom.  I pray that you let the Spirit hold up a mirror to the areas of your life where you are letting your flesh rule and where you have not let yourself grow in the Spirit.  I pray that if you have not allowed yourself to be re-born that you let the Spirit begin that work within you today.  I pray that you feel God holding your hand and that you can feel His warm embrace.  I pray that you trust Him with everything that you are and that you allow Him to save you from all that you are not.  I pray that if you have been lost in the wilderness that you let Him guide you back to the narrow road, where His yoke is light and His promise is true.