Month: April 2020

I make a huge distinction between the descriptive and the prescriptive truth; that is, what is recorded to have happened vs. what should have happened. Further, I have no problem pointing out other possible outcomes than the ones that did happen in Scripture based on what is presented in Scripture. This is one of those psots. So, fair warning, I have issues with how certain players in accounts of Scripture behaved.

This post is not meant or designed to make you feel regret at all, dear reader. As a matter of fact, my pastor’s heart is to take care of those who do have those regrets and to help them move through and process so they can enter into the next season and redeem what can be redeemed of the past so that the L-rd can cause something beautiful to emerge even out of the most heinous of wreckages.

Please bear in mind that, as you read, this may cause some pangs of regret, which is an immediate signal for you to throw yourself into the L-rd’s fatherly embrace so that He can work with you to transition from that which is horrid to that which is a marker of His grace and glory.

With those in mind, let’s jump in.

What Might Have Happened

I am currently steeped in a project on the names of G-d, and while I was ruminating and flipping through the Torah, the idea smacked me in the face.

“Could Joseph have been designed for the land of Bethel?”

Let me clarify.

In Genesis 35, we are met with an account where the L-rd told Jacob to go and “dwell” in Bethel. Not sojourn. Not conduct a single worship service. Not a temporary tent-pitching and then leave to a greater thing. Dwell.

That word there for “dwell” means “put down roots”. Now, we understand that Jacob did not, because Bethel was mountainous and not full of pasture for his flocks, and we also understand that Jacob could have helped his financial position by changing his streams of income, from ranching to some other trade, but he chose not to.

Bethel was meant to be a permanent, major season in his life, and he up and left after a very short season.

We also understand that, as soon as he left Bethel, where G-d told him to put down roots, his life spiraled downward, beginning with the premature death of his beloved Rachel.

But, what had originally triggered Jacob’s restlessness to move into his next season, and leave Padan Aram was the birth of Joseph. And it is possible that this restlessness came from the L-rd, who gave this Redemptive Gift of Giver understanding of seasons and timing. Further, the L-rd understood that the dreaming Ruler/Judge/Deliverer that Rachel had birthed needed to be grown on land that would be receptive to and foster the visionary in him.

But what Jacob ended up doing in the house of Laban was taking up ranching for an extra six years, which built his wealth, but at what cost?

His vision.

Further, we also see that, when delay has been tied up with the House of Nahor, the House of Abraham felt discomfort, something which was hardwired into the as a family from before Genesis 12. Beth-Abraham was designed to keep their interactions short and sweet with Beth-Nahor, while the Beth-Nahor had a desire to prolong those contacts. For example, follow along with me in the following process:

Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “The matter comes from the L-RD; so we cannot speak to you bad or good. “Behold, Rebekah is before you, take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the L-RD has spoken.” And it came about when Abraham’s servant heard their words, that he bowed himself to the ground before the L-RD. And the servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother. Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. When they arose in the morning, he said, “Send me away to my master.”

Gen. 24:50–54 NASB

Abraham’s servant went ot the house of Nahor, to the family of Bethuel, found Rebekah, and obtained permission to leave with her, all of which is really good news, right?

But her brother and her mother said, “Let the girl stay with us a few days, say ten; afterward she may go.”

Gen. 24:55 NASB

And….well, let me put it this way. Sometimes we have those relatives or friends that want to hang onto something long after G-d’s season of grace for those friendships, dealings, or partnerships has expired, and some of us are more adept at moving on from those dealings than others.

In every one of these accounts where Abraham’s family, after leaving Aram-Naharaim and his father’s house, has to return, there is this leeching or smothering feeling in the interactions. This above account, after they said that Rebekah could go, shows a dysfunctional or cultural predilection for renegotiating what was promised earlier.

And Abraham’s servant is not having any of it. Ew, ten days? Fish and visitors smell in three.

And he said to them, “Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.”

Gen. 24:56 NASB

Laban earlier, seeing the camels from Canaan, said, “come in, O blessed of the L-rd” which is Labanese for “Imma get some of this loot”.

The Account With Jacob and Laban

Then G-d remembered Rachel, and G-d gave heed to her and opened her womb. So she conceived and bore a son and said, “G-d has taken away my reproach.” And she named him Joseph, saying, “May the L-RD give me another son.”

Now it came about when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my own country. “Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me depart; for you yourself know my service which I have rendered you.”

Gen. 30:22–26 NASB

Jacob knew. He was supposed to leave. His spirit or his gut told him.

But Laban said to him, “If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have divined that the L-RD has blessed me on your account.”

Gen. 30:27 NASB

And Laban said, please stay. Which turned into another six year stay. Forget 10 days. Six more years with leechy, codependent relatives who learned by their clowns that they have been blessed because of you.

And what was the content of those six years. Sure, the L-rd multiplied Jacob’s wealth and families, but under a nasty, unnecessary, continually predatory work situation, where his wives lost any inheritance they had, and so the only thing that could cone from this bad timing on Jacob’s part, would be a complete burning of bridges. G-d said enough of the dysfunction, we are so done here. No Laban, not everything we see is yours.

Laban: “Everything you see here is mine”.

G-d:

Jospeh was a Ruler. Rulers are designed as catalysts for the explosion of sustainable systems.

And my theory was that Joseph was supposed to be raised on the land of Bethel, as a dreamer, and be coached on that land and in that environment that fostered his father having that massive dream that came from the L-rd.

But because Jacob had so much dysfunction, and Laban also had that problem, they kind of joined up in this slimy, Giver/Giver or Giver/Exhorter codependent relationship. Laban was most likely a Giver or Exhorter by Redemptive Gift. For those who are confused about thiw terminology, go here.

And Jacob knew it. He knew it was wrong, something constantly felt off, and that gut feeling was confirmed when he awoke the morning after he and Laban made the deal for employment and the flocks that were once teeming with speckeld, striped, and spotted livestock were now devoid of those things.

And so he set to work at his Giver conniving. And this peeling reeds and mating flocks and assessing weaknesses nonsense, which was not G-d’s aerial view for this son of His, commenced. Jacob was supposed to fly (see his dream about the stairway into the heavens), and he was choosing to fight a ground war against someone who was his relational match in everyway.

Jospeh’s birth triggered what could have been a really neat season where he was fathered by the L-rd in his gifts, but instead the rest of the account is characterized by a series of unfortunate events that were, at least in part, a series of hiccupping, dieseling responses of bad, lagging timing while waiting for something better or a way to renegotiate. If there is anything Givers have to deliver themselves from and resist when they are raised in dysfunction, it is the trap of reproducing their dysfunctional family relationships in new interactions.

Hello? Are we getting the lesson here? Everything was pumped and primed for Jacob to have an explosive amount of dominion in the region, and yet, he settled for 5th best or worse. Baby boy is a dreamer, son of his love.

And the MOMENT he got his butt in gear and moved toward his birthright in Bethel, THE TERROR FROM THE L-RD FELL UPON THE ENEMIES IN THE SURROUNDING REGION (Genesis 35:5).

“God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.

And as they journeyed, a TERROR FROM G-D fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.”

Gen. 35:1–7 ESV

And what followed this account was the dreams of Joseph. What if Jacob and Joseph, who were both made to dream, were assigned to a land designed for encouter with the L-rd through dreams? What if Jacob had dealt with his dysfunction through being fathered by the L-rd and turned a corner where he decided he waas going to start walking by faith? Further, what if the family hit one or more roadblocks where they were not hearing from the L-rd through the usual routes? They could have said, “Jacob and Joseph, take a nap”. And BOOM, a dream and the counsel of the L-rd follow, because they are dwelling in the place where a gate of heaven was.

And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Gen. 28:17 ESV

I mean, come on, gang. We read these figures of speech and pass right by them thinking them not understandable, and the King is ready to help us understand that gates of heaven are literal things with meaning and usefulness beyond metaphors.

How long have we been satisfied with natural explanations for spiritual problems? And how long have we tolerated harrassing or mistreating those who offer solutions or responses that do not fit our naturally-apprehended faculties?

How long has our internal dialogue been:

I have to suffer and strive and claw my way to an answer and no one is going to help me and I am going to push a flat-tired wheelbarrow full of rocks up the hill.

when all the while, G-d has been trying to get us to dream and receive a fully-formed, robust, complex solution to our equally complex problem?

What problems are you solving without the option of your dreams, follower of Yeshua? How long have your gone without the full-orbed compliments of resources that the Divine Council have available for you?

Cease striving….

What opportunities have you missed because you were not on the rightpiece of land? What does the L-rd have for you that you are refusing to take because you do not have access to the land you were supposed to be on?

Just some thoughts….

I frequently repost tidbits from Arthur for 3 or 4 reasons. And as soon as I get to the 3nd of this list, you and I will know precisely how many reasons I have today.

• He is a friend, and someone whose input I value as a direct result of that office he has in my life.
• Practical: he regularly cleans up his Facebook page because, as a Prophet he likes to keep things light and lean. I am differentiated in that I am an archivist. Always have been. It drives my wife up a tree the level of collecting of materials I do.
• Someone from one or more circles in which I run is bound to say, “l need resource X”, and I usually know where that resource is.
• A Sapphire Leadership tribesmate is likely to need said resource.
• I cannot count the times ai needed something languages a specific way to springboard into a different direction.

Okay, so five reasons.

What Arthur said in this particular venture was about dealing with walking with the L-rd in two different circumstances.

He writes:

****************************************

WEEK 5.7 WHAT YOU KNOW NOON

On our donate page is a category called “Stealth Projects.” Those are the ones you won’t hear about until eternity.

Some are clean, simple and gratifying.

The instructions are to get on a plane, fly to another country, stay in a hotel in a specific district, take a taxi on Tuesday to a specific park, sit on the east side, and say what God gives me to say.

I do.

He fills my mouth with words about some government office on the 35th floor of a building I can just see over the tree line, as I am sitting on the east side of the park.

It will not go well for that government official.

I go home.

Watch the news.

And smile when THAT article is on the first page.

It is very emotionally gratifying to walk out with extreme precision, a precise set of instructions. I leave one of those events that you have paid for, with deep pleasure.

There are others which generally are emotionally challenging because of the lack of clarity.

I am in the office. God says, “I need you to go drive.”

“Yes, sir. Where?”

Too late. God already hung up the phone.

“God, did you know that Spartanburg is called ‘Hub City’ because of all the access points?”

Of course He knew.

So . . . clearly, I already have some data. I sit and scroll. For the last two months, there has been a vague sense that “someday” I ought to drive south on Highway 221. No reason, just to see where it goes.

That is the only flicker of any direction being special, so I jump in the car, gas up, and go.

And go.

And go.

I watch every restaurant, gas station and historical monument, listening for a nudge to get off.

None.

I finally get off because I’ve “gotta go.”

A non-event.

When I get back in the car, there is a sense it is time to turn around and go back.

I do.

Wondering what I accomplished.

Possible guess: I have a blessing of presence over weather. I wonder whether I was breaking up a tornado that was trying to hatch.

Don’t know.

I arrive back at the office.

Never any clarity.

Those are not nearly so gratifying as the detailed strategy with precise locations and timing.

But both are from God.

And both require synchronization with the King.

How willing and flexible are you to make the major sacrifice to travel internationally for an assignment?

How willing are you to serve with lack of clarity and lack of confirmation of your success?

Coming in the opposite spirit to the coin-operated religious stronghold that teaches people how to get God to serve them, requires a pretty radical level of synchronizing with God.

Sometimes it means spending thousands of dollars and days of jet lag in order to speak for ten minutes some judgments from God.

Other times it means burning a few gallons of gas while you try to figure out what the game is.

Either way, serving the King means synchronizing to the King the way He wants it done.

How is your score card from the last 90 days? Have you clearly heard and executed anything?

And Moses said, “ I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

When the L-RD saw that he turned aside to see, the L-rd killed him for looking on the glory of G-d.

And thus the children of Israel were not delivered from the land of Egypt.

A missing manuscript of Exodus 3:3-4

Okay, gang, that is not how the text reads, and we know it. Here is how it reads.

And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

When the L-rd saw that he turned aside to see, G-d called out to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “here I am.”

Exodus 3:3-4 ESV

So Moses comes to the bush, and the L-rd responds. Moses does not die from seeing or hearing the L-RD speak, and yet we have constructed a theology from a couple of verses in Scripture that have been ripped from their context.

And we call ourselves sinners.

And we have become so obsessed with answering questions Scripture does not address that we fail to listen to what G-d is trying to say. Our job is not to use the clear visitation of G-d as an occasion to explain to G-d why it is not consistent for Him to do what He is doing.

And when it does, there are times when the question applies and there are times when the question does not apply.

True, later on,

Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at G-d.

Exodus 3:6

But that does not say “Moses knew he was going to die from connecting with G-d intimately”.

Later on, when Moses asks the L-rd to show His glory to him, and G-d responds “man may not look on me and live”, the purpose was Moses had not completed his assignment.

And we make all these arguments IN THE MIDDLE OF the conversation with the King of Glory, the L-rd Strong and Mighty, the L-rd Mighty In Battle. And we fail to hang onto the things the L-rd is giving us.

What if we quit trying, for a season, to posit whether or not we can look at the manifested presence of G-d, and start being concerned with “what is G-d saying in this season of my life?” and we make THAT our obsession.

Transitioning to eternity with the L-rd because He manifested in such glory that we died from it and sloughed off this mortal coil is not a bad way to die.

The bottom line, and I love correct theology and doctrine as much as the next person who pastors and teaches, is, instead of being obsessed with whether or not G-d is correct in His behavior and actions, is what is G-d really saying to us.

If I am so obsessed with whether or not G-d can, that I fail to ask whether or not I heard and saw what He wanted me to hear and see, then something is vitially missing.

If I so castigate everyone who does not agree with my interpretation of Scripture that I miss the lesson G-d was trying to teach me through them, whether they were a Jew, or a Catholic, or a Pentecostal, or a Charismatic, I have missed the point.

If I do not tease out the truth in a passage in all of its nuance, but I am so concerned with blunt and plain truth on the surface, but I won’t meditate deeply on the truth I have been giving, and give my spirit a chance to speak, because I have spent a lifetime shutting down the voice of my spirit for the voice of my heart or reason or soul, then I might want to spend some time recallibrating.

There is a humility and a response to His grace and calling and glory that can only be received by slowing the roll on our soulish questioning, and respecting the space our spirit needs to speak to us.

I would counsely each of you to run after the fullness of what He has for you, and maybe to spend less time asking whether or not this or that is possible.

The Teachers among us will be of little use apart from an encounter with G-d that messes them up for a season that they quit asking the soulish questions.

Back up top, Moses did want to know, but he kept giving excues to G-d. No that isn’t a typo. It is not “excuses”. An excue is a signal that you give to someone to remove you from a situation. No, it’s not in a dictionary. I just made the word up, and it is based on the word “cue”. As in that is my cue. We have miscue, and now we have excue.

There are going to be times when G-d frequently ignores our theology in order to get a point across. And there are going be times when G-d ignores our obsession with experience because He is trying to help us construct a theology.

This post is not designed to get someone to throw out theology in favor of experience, or experience in favor of theology. Rather, this post is designed to get you to take the two, apply a little softer touch to your construction of views, and your response to your experience, and to develop chops in both the directions of nuanced theology and full encounters that cannot be explained away.

And to be able to share.

Sometimes we need some theological chops to balance our our touchy-feely nonsense. And sometimes we need an encounter that blows apart the bad structure of an inadequate theology that served us in one season, but will not last into the next.

Just some mishmashed thoughts for you to ponder gang.

Oh yeah, and let us allow G-d the lattitude to manifest to us without us being so concerned about whether or not we are doing right, acting right, or believing right.

Sometimes, Daddy just wants to rock His baby.

And sometimes, or better yet, all the time, G-d wants our mind and our hearts to work in tandem, together as a team, submitted to one another. A pairing of two.

What follows is a hard word, and I am going to dovetail it into what can happen if we do our jobs better.

Americans: all authorities are appointed by G-d.

Also Americans: <voting for crap. Choosing not the best and brightest>

Also Americans: <cursing the government>

End result: Americans thinking the crap we have in office was appointed by G-d as the prophecies that routinely do not pass muster get increasingly looney, and as the quality of the men and women running for office degenerate as well.

End result 2: Undrained swamp, because it was never his job to drain it. It has always been our job. He does not have the earned authority. Rather, we do.

Gang, we keep parroting what our coverings have told us is the truth. Even though we really have been sold a bill of goods.

And we continue parrot all the usual lines that Charisma and Elijah List tell us to, cycle after cycle, year after year, with zero fulfillment.

“Pray for our leaders.”

“Most important election ever.”

“All authorities are pointed by G-d.”

Prophecies about Sam Brownback.

Prophecies about Mitt Romney.

Prophecies about Bill Clinton having a mantle of humility.

“Red wave.”

And this or that leader is G-d’s choice.

But the problem is, as a constitutional republic, we ultimately give G-d the material to work with.

And He respects our choices.

If you constantly hand G-d a bag of shit to work with, sooner or later you will end up with someone who stinks of that sitting in a position of leadership and like the Germans with Hitler, you will not be able to excuse yourself with Romans 13:2 by saying G-d appointed him.

Like the Germans enabled Hitler’s rise, we enabled all sorts of men and womens’ rise that never should have been placed in a position to represent is

Out of our silence and refusal to speak, many people who are present in office, because we led this nation to vote for him. And the authority, which was ours, we gave to another and then we played host to a victim spirit.

Now we have to deal with the aftermath. We are responsible for the place where the dialogue has gotten, so that the media and the man in office’s hearts cannot be heard, and we would rather gaslight and torch and rape and verbally screw each other than allow our words to be seasoned with salt.

We the People are responsible for leading and carrying and elevating the dialogue so the Sound that carries back and forth does not get twisted in this nation.

This crud has happened for far too long, gang.

And we have devolved into the slimepit. Instead of building, we are busy slinging shit at one another. And cussing the people in offices of service.

A Solution

Repent for allowing other than our best and brightest to run for office.

Ask the L-rd if we are screwing up this cycle because we are listening to the same prophets give us the same junk words and getting the same results.

And the dialogue is getting increasingly more swampy as people refuse to listen and they gaslight and twist and then deny so doing.

Ask the L-rd to shine His light, not on a party or a person, but wherever the heck He wants to shine it.

And the Democrats and the News Media are not the enemy.

“If your enemy has a driver’s license and a Social Security Number, you have the wrong enemy.”

Ed Silvoso

Trump and the newsmedia, which includes ALL MAJOR NEWS OUTLETS, including the FOX network with its oppressive spirit of lewdness, is a reflection of our crudeness and our crassness and some of the best and some of the worst of us: our refusal and inability to refine and communicate in a dignity-bringing way and with understanding. And our willingness to use our soft and subtle speech at innuendo and perverse speech, and the tolerable crap we slide into our talk or our appearance.

Using soft speech where it will do the most damage to us and he kingdom, and using bald-faced speech where it will do the same damage to us and the kingdom is harming us badly.

The Ashley Madison scandal was a glimpse into the reality of our culture. Intentional pursuit of adultery with kinky sex is not just a fringe thing but was secretly pursued by a cross section of the culture.  

That is who we are. It was not just an aberration by a few. It was massive. I believe the culture is quite a bit more depraved than the Main Street perspective of it. In addition to those who are so desperate for a strong hand at the helm of the nation that they will endure his negative characteristics, there is that secondary population that sees no negative characteristics since they share his crass values. 

Will Donald Trump be elected? I have no idea. But if he is, then we absolutely deserve him. Many people felt betrayed by Barack Obama.   The president we got was not the same as the candidate that was voted in.

With Donald Trump, there is no subterfuge. What you see is what we will get if he is voted in.

Arthur Burk, January 2016

And the deeper tragedy is the L-rd did not call us to be bawdy as heyenas and prostitutes and stupid as dodos.

So, we must refine and we must refine now. The President has not drained the swamp. He has merely changed its nature.

Rather, it was ours.

Don’t abdicate. Reload and hunt the true enemy. With your earned authority, speak.

As with all my stuff, I am of course going to make a disclaimer. Just because I do not approve of or agree with the prophecies concerning Trump does not mean I do not think there is good he has done. What it does mean is I do think the damage caused by our sloth and refusal to pick up our authority is killing us as a people and nation. And our Ceding of our responsibility to drain the swamp ourselves is destroying us. Our lack of knowledge and our lack of vision.

And our insistence that we suck on and depend on the teat of every prophecy that rolls into our ears. This incredibly boring and low-hanging fruit of easy election day prophecies that cost us little is killing us.

#thatisall

First of all, I am not a Trump supporter. At all. I do not care for big-government spenders one iota. He is much the same as his five predecessors. I probably will not vote for him. And that is perfectly okay.

And those who take my comment to imply I am voting for Biden need to go jump in a creek.

Or read the following graphic and learn how not to gaslight others.

• 

Second of all, I am a writer, and an expert at reading context clues. I have been doing so for about 36 years. Ask my mother.

That is not bragging. That is acknowledging my wheelhouse and an area of expertise.

Third, I am not a conservative at all. Too many bombs and unconstitutional murdering that happens. Not to mention illegal surveillance, search, and seizure under conservative presidents.

The moral high ground, therefore, belongs to no one. And no, our seniors will not save us from destruction. The war for innocent life is fought for in the hearts of men and women, not in SCOTUS appointments.

With this said, I would like to point out Trump did not tell people to inject themselves with Lysol.

If you read the text of his speech, said in his voice, given COVID-19 appears to be an upper respiratory illness, this line sounds to me like he is suggesting, not disinfectant, but something that would do the same thing as a disinfectant.

He used the term “LIKE”. 

For those who did not pass 6th grade, that is a similie. A word used to speak of one concept in the terms of another using the words “like” or “as” We use them all the time as writers.

When I say my wife’s eyes are like the sun, her eyes were not going to destroy whatever they touch. I mean they possess a brightness that is akin to something brilliant, and the most brilliant something I can think of is the sun. When I say her skin is like a garden, it is not going to need to be weeded.

When the President asks a question, putting forth a hypothetical situation to a reporter, and says “And is there a way we can do something LIKE that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”

He is looking at a principle or a concept. Not the actual insertion of Lysol into the bloodstream, you fool of a Took.

And he is using the best language he has on hand to conceptualize a solution.

As with the light or anything else.

Now, the twisting is due to this thing we call the fifth head of Leviathan.

And we volley this crap back and forth between administration’s based on which party is in power.

And conservatives and liberals get largely blind to the crimes of their own party’s President once he is in office. And they kvetch about the other party’s leadership ad infinitum.

And before you quote Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2 to me, recognize that isn’t talking about presidents, but those who are in authority. In the case of this, our constitutional republic, that is we the people.

So, please be mindful of what he is actually saying, and please give these people some benefit of the doubt as you pray for them.

And let’s quit with the gaslighting.

/rant

http://dlvr.it/RVN0VT

This is precisely why secession is reasonable as a course of action.

Pastor John writes:

Wow! Drones are being used in America to make sure citizens don’t break social distancing rules. The chief of police says that the invasion of privacy is worth it if it saves one life.

If that doesn’t scare the fiber out of you than I don’t think you understand freedom… In my opinion.

The point of this post was to point out how far government will go, how much power they will take, when the citizenry is scared for their lives. It’s one thing to complain about high gas prices, another to fear a virus you can’t see.

Yet here we are, listening to the gov’t tell us that we can’t go outside, can’t go to work, can’t buy clothes, can’t go to church and now accept a robot flying around, spying on our movements…all in the name of safety. That’s not how I want to be represented.

That’s not why the founding fathers gave us the gov’t they gave us. Do you not realize that what we are facing from our gov’t now is the very reason they revolted against England?

Taxation without representation has became limited freedoms without having a voice. Whether you like the protestors or not, at least they’re standing up for what they believe, letting their voice be heard, without fear.

Come on, mom’s being arrested for letting their kids play in the park? Police showing up to break up lunch in a backyard? Pastors being arrested for having church? You can go on the lake with a kayak or canoe but not a motorboat? You think these things are okay and legal and constitutional? Do you really think that this is what the founding fathers intended?

And I would ask this question; what will be enough for you? When tanks roll down the streets? When soldiers are on the street corners enforcing the law? When you are required to allow them into your house to make sure you’re complying?

Oh wait, that already happened here…230 years ago. Because if you think they’re going to be giving back this power without a fight, you’re out of your minds. Gov. Cuomo just said yesterday that if you want a job, go get one as an “essential worker” because he isn’t going to let the people of New York go back to work until HE thinks its safe for them. Thats’ insanity…in my opinion. In the words of the movie The Patriot, “Why would I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away?”

This is precisely why I cannot stand federalism. This is what it has become. Not to mention the level of tyranny in the name of safety.

And safety has become a god that we worship and burnt incense to.

The slippery slope will continue until we say enough to the injustice, gang.

“Not being shaken”, doesn’t mean you won’t stumble and fall. Rather, I think it means, “my heart will remain steadfast” even when I am damaged. My commitment to Him, though weak, is still…present.

Trust of the L-rd means rejecting the betrayal of other believers as the definition of Father’s character.

If you want to be an Exhorter of high function, you simply must go through the proving of your character.

There is a steel Father is wanting to pour into you. But that steel has been fired first.

It is worth it, and it will put a sobriety into you that the enemy cannot overturn nor shake away from you.

Fight to get His nature.

Arthur writes:

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WEEK 4.6 BIRTHING A NEW THING 9:00 A.M.

On Resurrection Sunday, THE Church was birthed.

No one was there for the event, except those assigned to keep it from happening. Such irony.

The 11 were trying to deal with their PTSD, before it was officially a thing.

His mother was processing her grief by solidifying His death.

The Jewish leaders were relieved that they had stamped out the gadfly who had been bothering them for three years.

And the Romans were standing down, after having survived yet another highly volatile “feast” of the consistently turbulent Jews.

An inauspicious beginning for the most high-impact spiritual organism God ever purposed.

But . . . it worked. And the world has never been the same.

Right now, in America, we have people dying, businesses dying, civil rights being trampled ruthlessly, international relationships built over decades being trashed, 22 million people filing for unemployment (almost three times the total population of Austria), trust in government, health care and the press being shattered.

And in the midst of that, God is calling many people to birth something new, AND is providing the grace for it.

For some, it is highly visible, such as a new business or a ministry. For others, it is a smaller venture, such as a new book, or a room addition.

If it is a birthing season for you, then you have been prepared for it by God. Your spirit, soul and body are made for this event in this season. Everything is in place, except public opinion. It seems like the worst imaginable time in many people’s eyes for you to take a huge risk and to do something so new, so far outside your history.

If God is in it, I urge you to tune out public opinion and run with the new thing. You will know if you have been pregnant with the purposes of God for some time, before this crisis. If it is a birthing time for you, bless the birth, and lean in.

And if not, then pour out your prayers for the people in the Tribe who ARE called to birth, and who are being resisted by the “practical” ones around them.

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This, gang.

Don’t drop the ball. It’s go time to run it and gun it.

Having skin in the game means allowing G-d the prerogative to dissolve the skin and everything that goes along with it.

#sowingandreaping

It is the glory of G-d to conceal a matter,

but the honor of kings is to search it out

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV, KJV, with slight modifications

It is the glory of G-d to conceal tings

But the glory of kings is to search things out.

Proverbs 25:2 ESV, NRSV, NIV with some slight paraphrasing

Now, glory and honor appear to be related in a few different ways, not just by the above texts.

In digressions, I am compelled to say, as a writer, one of the sheer pleasures I enjoy in composing an original work is the capacity to decide whether I want to tease a matter out through subtlety and understatment, or to sit like G-d at his computer in the Far Side comic and hit the SMITE button.

I am not consistently bald-faced or understated, but rather I do some movement and dancing between softness and satire-sarcasm. Humor and severity, gentleness and brazenness, perfectly-researched material, and impatient fully emotional diatribes. I tend to roll with those sorts of things.

What follows is an attempt to remain subtle while having a blaze (hikers’ terminology for a swatch of brightly-colored material planted in a conspicuous place so as to mark a trail) present on a matter. I am very VERY forthcoming about my frequent anticonservative bias, as well as my thorough disagreements with what happens in the lowest eschelons of government (the federal level).

And I have no doubts that what I may say might be destabilizing to some, on the whole, but it is indeed different in content from previous pieces, because I am looking at some other aspects of not just the coronavirus debacle, but maybe some way in which G-d is taking us on a guided tour of what is perhaps one of His greater purposes in this narrative of the current season.

So, while I wrestle to work out the particulars of what I wish to say, understand that I do not side with a left of a right, and I am liable to get called by lefts and rights all sorts of heinous names.

But this will likely be an important period piece.

My Precedent For Writing In This Way Sometimes…

When I was a Freshman in college, I was handed the book, “Οut Of The Silent Planet” by Jack Lewis. It was confusing and disorienting at first, mainly because at that time I was not walking as a Mercy, but as a disembodied Exhorter with a shared spirit mixed in at the time. I did not know how to be me because I was so busy being what everyone else wanted me to be, including what would have been a best friend at the time.

So, the first 92% of that book made zero sense, and I am not used to Jack’s style of framing narratives. Mind you, I was still a political science major at the time, and so I was not yet the writing giant I am today *ahem*. Thinking and feeling giant, always. Writing giant, not yet. And my head was elsewhere due to the Lewinsky Scandal. In those days, news consumption was a usual thing.

And then the last 10 or 15 pages came. And so all of these seeming loose threads of Lewis came crashing together like a flawlessly-timed series of hammer blows, and the planet that was silent at once began to speak, David, my friend, taking this all for granted.

And the Lion began to sing something into existence, in me. Understanding bent mindsets in the King’s fashion and whatnot.

Lewis, when he writes well (and not all of Lewis’ writings are excellent: The Last Battle comes to mind), stripe by stripe, and slat by slat, paints the reader into a corner through his work, and then forces you to admit the truth of what he is saying. I find his essay “The Weight Of Glory”, demonstrates this style the most readily. Because he knows something. Only the way a Amethyst can.

The Current Situation

I have written and dealt with the nonsense of the current plague in all of its facets. Nonsense, because of the manipulation, the fear, and the overall garbage that passes for research. When the very credible possiblity exists that the death tolls directly related to the plague are being monkeyed with, and when people are being told to call this death one way when another factor or underlying cause was more clearly the cause of death, then I begin this process of dumping out of suspicion.

And no, I do not trust a whole lot of the alphabet soup of government organizations for counsel on how to respond. Too much manipulation present there.

What I will say is….deeper than all of this…as I am no longer insterested in dealing with even cogent arguments about the current plague because of the level of gaslighting that is present and ongoing, I will ask, “what else may really going on…”

Which brings us to this morning.

Of Bible Studies With Gentle Prophets

I have a precious friend who lives in the southern half of Penn’s Woods (Love calling the sylvan region by that moniker). Every Saturday morning for the last 16ish months, we have gathered via Skype and with Accordance and hearts bent toward seeking Father, we have been engaged in discussion about the Scriptures as it pertains to the five levels of holiness.

Today, however, due to my obsession with the Shiloh prophecy towards the Tribe of Judah, my friend, Adam, and I went down a rabbit trail, possibly led by the elbow of the Holy Spirit.

And somehow we got onto Adam’s study of metamorphosis, and the four references of that word in the New Testament and Lance Wallnau’s discussion of butterflies and caterpillars and imaginal cells. And how the design imprints in the cells themselves move and realign and transform everything into what we know of as the butterfly.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 is one of those metamorphosis passages, the passage that tells that we with unveiled faces are beholding the L-rd and being transformed into His image from one glory to another glory.

Romans 12:1-2 has the other Pauline reference to this word. Be transformed….Paul commands us to be transformed. But what is the illustration for what that transformation looks like?

Then we stumbled onto the other two references to that word not found in the letters of Paul.

The Transfiguration account in Matthew and Mark.

Here is Matthew’s reference, 17:2, in Greek with my very rough translation below it.

καὶ μετεμορφώθη ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἔλαμψεν τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος, τὰ δὲ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο λευκὰ ὡς τὸ φῶς.

And he was transformed before them, and his face shone just as the sun, and his garments became white like light.

Matthew 17:2 Nestle-Aland 27 Novum Testamentum Gracae/ Translation mine

That was a very wooden translation, but I think you get the point there.

We are being asked and being exhorted to be transformed, and that can only happen when we allow the Father transfigure us, to change our faces, and the spiritual garments, and maybe the physical garments we wear, if it be His prerogative.

And instead of wearing the garments of our wounding, trauma, offence, bitterness, or betrayal, we choose to take on the garments of His humilty and grace and justice and his light and holiness.

I do not know about you, but if the L-rd transfigured me, then I would be fulfilling the exhortation of Paul, and a bevy of the old STRUCTURES (all you Megan Caldecourt fans) that served in the old season, would be dissolved accordingly, so that the new superstructure could be formed in me and on the outside of me, in accordance with the L-rd’s design for the new season. I would have been made conformable to his death (Philippians 3:10) and conformed to his image in fullness (Romans 8:29).

No more worm bastard Calvinist bullshit theology. Now a blue morpho. Transformed. Glory. To. Glory.

Perhaps in this season, he wants to dissolve our holding onto some of what we think are freedoms, so that He can stick us into a dark place of a chrysalis, and be transformed, so that our authority that we have earned through that productive pain, can result in the execution of something that will undermine both the crap the institutional fivefold ministry has built, the institutional government, and the institutional church have built.

Perhaps we were made to be in the secret place and we have been warring because we perceive our freedoms are being subtracted, when there has been something deeper G-d has been wanting to work into us.

I will say this, those of us that have been out of the institutional church for the last 20 years, well, the institutional church has been broken so that the rest of the church can join us on the outside, and come out from under the control of the garbage apostolic and prophetic with their claims to oversight and authority that are just striaght unbibilcal heresy.

Our job is to roll and dissolve so we can be transfigured.

And then as we search a matter out, we search more deeply, to our honor as the kings in authority, and to move from glory to glory. In order to do that, however, we have to be willing to let go what was in the former season, and that might include bad POV’s and bad associations, and it might mean we make sacrifices that we would not have thought of making in previous seasons.

The question is, do you want his fuller’s soap to touch you and your garments, and risk dissolution of the old so He can given you the new body and garments that He has been wanting to, or not?

And, more importantly, what does He want to give you. I am only handing out a few concepts. My take for these sorts of things is the same as Russian Epic of Cinderella: If shoe fits, wear it. If no fit, do not wear.

A Blessing

DISCLAIMER: This blessing is more a model than anything. It is not a “repeat after me” blessing or prayer or a covenant within a contract. You can read once or twice or eight times, amend as you need to, keep and toss out as you need to, and go back after you have pondered. Read a piece, ruminate on that piece, come back, write it out and edit as you want. It’s just given more as a jumping off point. My desire is not that you follow me. My desire is that you follow Him. No pressure. No manipulation. If you want to read this blessing to others, go right on ahead. If not, no hard feelings. With that, feel free to read on.

Beloved, I call your spirit to attention and invite him or her to the front.

Spirit, listen with anticipation to the word of G-d for you for today.

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

Malachi 3:2

I will speak to that first phrase. Spirit, I think, given we are not in the Day of Judgment and WRATH of the L-rd, that you can now stand in His presence. You are no worm, spirit.

Spirit, you were made to stand before Him right now, and to ask for a personal visitation of my King, who is a King of intense love. Truly, he will purge from you everything that He wants, but He will not go beyond what you can handle in this season. There is a progressive transformation that awaits, a transformation for the season. Each season awaits its own form and intensity of transformation.

Spirit, you were made for standing in the L-rd’s presence, because He sent you here to work at a set of tasks and assignments for which you were exquisitely crafted and made. You were not made to fail, and I do not think you will fail. In fact, I am convicted that you will succeed marvelously. And it takes glory to do the work of the King of Glory, the L-rd Strong, the L-rd Mighty, the L-rd Whose Might Shews Forth In Battle.

Spirit, I bless you and your core to stand in the midst of that purgation, as the dross is removed, and as the soap is applied so that your garments may reflect the yieldedness of King Yeshua, your Husband. He has already endured the punishment necessary for you to stand in the Presence of the Great King (Hebrews 10, Isaiah 53:1-5 etc.).

Spirit, there is more and deeper glory. I would encourage you not to get cautght up in everything that is ancillary to the King’s agenda, so that you can fulfill the mandate on you. I bless you with life, and I bless you with love.

I bless your heart with the safety of the King’s presence, who knows what needs to be removed, and will not separate any parts that are designed to protect you. He will not seperate your enforcers and your littles and your system, but He will take them all together and minister life as He brings cleansing to them and love to them. He will gently wait. He might even administer the cleansing in the context of a bath that feels safe. For some, as with a bubble bath, for others as with epsom salts. Yet for others a massaging hot shower. This is not a one-size-fits-all sausage factory, lovely spirit.

I do not know what that looks like for you, spirit, but I bless you to see the Lion of Judah when you need connection with that fierceness of Him, and I bless you to see the Lamb Who Was Slain From the Foundation of the Cosmos, when you need to see that. The gentle and the protective warrior by turns.

Spirit, be free to seek the L-rd at your own pace as quickly or as slowly as you need to.

I bless you with that twofold fullness in the name of Yeshua ha-Mashiach.