Month: April 2021

Scriptural Context

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

John 3:6 ESV

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,”

Acts 17:16-26

The Impetus

One of my friends from Georgia asked me what it looks like to clean up a house and land, and what that looks like. Below is my counsel to him, and there was so much, I figured it would make for good counsel for those here who are regular readers. Now, mind you, this will take a few minutes in order for you to discern what is happening and listening as the L-rd speaks to you, so I would also take time to hone the gifts of discernment that the L-rd has given each of you.

The Potential Pushback

I understand the potential pushback on this concept from sone who would say “G-d has not given everyone all the gifts, and so discernment is not my gift.” I undertand this, seriously. However, I would respond by saying “discernment of spirits” is a root phrase that covers a forest of trees’ worth of many different types of discernment, just as the gift of tongues is labeled in 1 Corinthians 12 is called “different types of tongues”. I believe there are MANY MANIFOLD AND VASTLY DIFFERENTIATED AND BEAUTIFULLY COLORED types of discernment. And so in that broad category of “discernment” there are many different types of discernment, and G-d has picked out a few of those types and given them to each believer, just as He determines. Besides, so one could convince me that G-d wants us spiritually blinded and incapable of picking up what is happening in the spiritual realm. Nor could anyone persuade me that G-d is stingy with giving gifts. Also, when we are talking about discerning of spirits, we are each made to distinguish between various types of spirits, or spiritual entities. We are made to hear between angelic spirits, demonic spirits, unclean spirits, our human spirit versus our human soul, other human spirits, and the Spirit of the True and Living G-d.

If I were to advise you, Andy, I might say something like the following.

1) Take a minute to thank the Father for what He has given you.

2) Spend a few minutes listening with your spirit (discernment) as to what is going on with your house and your land. Spend some time writing down the things that you pick up on.

3) Ask the Father to open up the books and legal records that are in the spirit realm pertaining to your particuluar parcel of land. For example, one of the things that my wife and I discerned was that our land was formerly a Native American burial ground and there were those sorts of curses negatively affecting thte land.

3a) Every house and business has a blueprint in the natural, usually kept in the offices of the city or county government. In the same way, heaven has a blueprint of sorts for the way things were designed. So, what you might ask the L-rd, is for Him to work with the originial design He intended for your land based on the blueprints He has in heaven.

3b) Acts 17:26 says that G-d placed people groups on the land where they were supposed to dwell. From this, I infer that within each parcel of land, G-d has placed gifts, treasures, and resources (both natural and spiritual) that are unique to each piece of land that will facilitate more fulfilling living for those people that dwell in each piece of land. And earlier, for context, Acts 17:16 says that Paul’s human spirit WAS PROVOKED within him because the city was “full of idols”. I do not believe the nature of the provocation in Paul’s spirit was just referring to the presence of the physical statuse of the gods, but further and more deeply referring to some inherent spiritual reality that is cluttering up the spiritual realm as well. Just as flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:6), so also that which is spirit and spiritual is going to be impacted not merely by what is seen in the natural and fleshly realm, but moreso by that which is unseen and spiritual.

4) Ask the L-rd to put into alignment everything that is not in alignment, both in those spiritual-legal documents, and on your given piece of land, and sometimes He might want you to specifically address the things you have written down on your notes from your time of listening.

5) Ask the L-rd to send the angels He has assigned for cleanup/sanitation of your land, and ask Him to instruct those angels to break down every spiritual structure that is on your land that is not supposed to be there, and to clean up every defiled structure that He designed to be on your land and in your home. There might be times when the L-rd prompts you to specifically deal with something that is really messing with your spirit.

6) Then, ask the L-rd what structures he wants cleaned up and which structures he wants established on your property and in your house in the spiritual realm, and ask Him to build those. After praying this, stop and listen. Discern what you sense happening in the spiritual realm.

7) Listen and make a list of those things G-d wants to place on your land, and come into agreement with His intent and His actions. And make sure You are thanking Him and praising Him through this process. We often do not realize how charged land can be and G-d values not just us, but also where we dwell and with whom we dwell.

The Jacob Epilogue: What Happens When We Agree With G-d About Our Dwelling Place

On that last point, G-d valuing where we dwell, I would like to observe the following from Scripture.

G-d told Jacob in Genesis to “arise and go to DWELL in Bethel”. In other words, do not just sojourn, but put down roots in that hill country of Bethel. Once Jacob came into agreement with that instruction, Scripture is clear with a phrase that is not often used about what happened. It does not say the Fear of the L-rd came on those nations around Jacob, but rather the Terror of the L-rd came on those nations that surrounded Jacob, and they did not pursue Him. So, when you move to the place G-d has for you, and you make up your mind that youa re going to put down roots where G-d has for you, then He is going to go to work using resources you did not know He had access to in order to help you out.

The L-RD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days. And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the L-RD and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”

Leviticus 12 ESV

I think some people are convinced that the above chapter proves G-d is a masochist. I further think some are convinced the above chapter has zero compassion.

That word “defiled” often gets a weird rap in our modern translations.

So, three things.

1) What is defilement?

2) Why two different time periods?

3) What is redemptive about this passage? Is there any love, tenderness, mercy, kindness that Father presents that we may be missing?

I do not do interpretation without the Holy Spirit. I refuse to bring merely my natural or soulish brain and heart to the text of Scripture and read what is there on the page apart from expecting that Father has a redemptive reason for having had something recorded.

So, here are some thoughts and feelings, as best as I know how to communicate them by the reality of heaven, the benchmark of where is redemption and making all things new.

What Are Defilement and Holiness

Defilement is not just the presence of sin…

Many of us have a really thin idea of what constitutes defilement and holiness. We think of defilment as “marred by sin” and holiness as “absence of sin”.

And we mess it up royally in both cases.

Holiness is not the absence of sin.

Holiness’ inverse is unholiness, which is not the presence of sin, but the violation of reality and the cause-and-effect principles G-d has set into play at work in all that makes up reality.

I would contend that Holiness in the inverse is therefore not abstaining from sin, but building through the weaving together of principles rather than pariticipating or condoning their violation.

Holiness is the gestation process by which a zygote becomes a fetus becomes a baby.

Holiness is spending years working on observing the flight of birds, translating those observations into experiments with kites and gliders, while perfecting the techonology behind the bicycle and taking all of those and more principles and weaving them together into the airplane, while exercising greater concern for your fellow man than your machine, should it get damaged (thank you Wilbur and Orville for setting the tone by showing you cared about those with whom you worked over whether or not you could show how a man could fly and stay aloft). For more details on my parenthetical phrase hat-tipping the Wrights in a post about menstruation, see this post

I wonder if the reality of being unclean or defiled, as we have elsewhere tied it, is larger and has greater consequences than we think.

We look at defiled and we think “dirty”.

That is such shallow thinking.

When you look at holy, you often think “pure”, and not a whole lot else.

Sigh….

More to it than that.

Defilement is carried as a picture through Leviticus 10-20, and there has been an effective picture that Arthur has carried out through his material that I wish to bring out here for the purposes of exploiting this dynamic. To explain better what I mean.

The Alien Human Spirit…

Now, the dynamic here is that we have a single essence, as created by the L-rd, and He is zealous (not passionate) about seeing to it that our essence remains 100% our essence, and that there are no taggers-along or hitchhikers.

Same here.

Defilement is described as dirty, but there is way more to it than that.

It’s a sowing together of two essences that do not mix. Two materials. Two languages. Two crops. Two spirits.

And this picture is spread throughout Leviticus 10-20. With childbirth, crops, textiles, sexual relations, food. Forcing together two or more things that do not belong.

And in Leviticus 12, we are seeing the setting apart of a transition period where two things that left bed in close proximity to one another will become two unique essences.

So holiness is a weaving together of principles.

Unholiness is a violation of principles.

And defilement is more of a joining together of two or more disparate essences. Essences that do not belong together.

And yes, only a baby heard its mother’s heartbeat from inside the mother.

But we get this weird thing where some who do not see their unique essences as legitimate attempt to codependently share an essence and violate boundaries. And as a result, defilement ensues.

This is holy. Everything works, and you took care of your peeps over your project. And you fly into your destiny.

Sure, Daniels’ photograph is good and historic. but it doesn’t show the mosquitoes, nor does it show the heartache of what happened moments later, nor the unpredictable weather patterns present in the Prophet County of Dare, North Carolina.

Indeed, you push through and you give birth.

Why a Longer Time For Baby Girls and What is Redemptive About Leviticus 12? Get Out of the Churchy and Crunchy Interpretations

And when it is a girl, and you wait twice as long as for a girl (14 days past and then another 66 days), there is something the L-rd needs to impart to that little bundle of estrogen that will soon someday house a little child that cannot happen in 33 days.

Have you ever thought the reason for the longer waits for the girls might be because the L-rd knows helping a little girl to the cruel and hard reality of existence requires something that provides a shelter and safety.

Boys are ready to run after a few months and to hell with safety (see the above picture for proof of this). Testosterone says “to hell with your standard.”

Girls, though, might tend to need a larger space for grace and sensitivity as their more-connected corpus callosum needs to connect with those immediately near them.

Maybe the L-rd is giving the girls grace to work through stuff. And an opportunity for some free money.

Maybe He is giving space for the two ladies to learn how to seperate and distill the essence of a mother of the living from another mother of the living.

You are, in fact, creating and weaving together someone who will carry and bear children. It is better to protect a delicate vessel here with a longer period with their mother.

Perhaps the L-rd knew this.

Instead of us looking at it through the lens of “girls are more dirty or evil or wicked” (BARF! with that interpretation), maybe it should be “G-d needs a double portion because there are somethings that cannot be imparted in 33 days time)?

Did you ever think maybe, just maybe, G-d has some things, given He is a crock-pot-G-d, that need that extra time?

Maybe Daddy is taking longer because he is establishing this group of warriors who will be sufficient battle partners for His sons.

Just some thoughts here, gang.

So, we know about the Spirit of Jealousy, which is a perversion of the work of the Father; the Victim Spirit, which is a perversion of the work of the Son; and the Mesmerizing Spirit which is a perversion of the work of the Holy Spirit.

But I received a note from a friend about being afraid of something that was potentially on the horizon, and that got me to thinking the Spirit of Fear is one of the big ones that we rarely mention in the Charismatic movement as much as we hear others, like the Jezebel Spirit, and it is often the one that lurks in the shadows.

We are used to hearing about the Jezebel Spirit attacking the prophets, and oh how wicked it is, and so on.

But I am convinced the Spirit of Fear is one of the underrated ones. It is a sleeper spirit (like a sleeper fantasy player, not that you want it to do well, though).

And I think the Spirit of Fear might be the spirit that, in the Fractal of Four (made up of the Trinity and the Kingdom) that perverts the work of the Kingdom.

Fear is something against which we react. It is not real. It is a counterfeit of wisdom, and it keeps us from building (power), reaching out (love), and staying sane and under the King’s authority (a sound mind, self-discipline).

It will neuter and spay and castrate you from doing what you were made to do, and it will cause you to jump to acting in ways that the King would not have you act.

Fear is one aspect of this coin. The other aspect is the Spirit of Indifference, which is the Horn of the Dragon that affects the Mercy (I have some thoughts on the Ten Horns). On the one side is not to act or make a distinction. On the other side is to act out of panic without deliberation or discernment or to act as if you think you are following Holy Spirit and miss what He is truly doing which is operating at a less hurried pace than Holy Spirit.

This janus-faced clown does not care if you are overdoing it or not doing it at all, he is content with your missing the mark in the present because you are so focused on the the future or so locked by your past that you mis the good things Father has for you now.

The way you become dangerous to this clown is by relentless connection the King as a Noble Subject and by becoming a builder in the kingdom. In my previous post on the Principle of Stewardship, I highlighted the dynamic of what happens when we steward the tools, materials, and gifts the King has given us to manage. Our attitude with these tools is important.

for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Tim. 1:7

A spirit of Power….with all of the capacity and giftedness that the L-rd has given us.

A spirit of Love….that shows the godly dominion and relational governance Jesus Christ has installed into us.

And a spirit of a sound mind or self-control or self-discipline whereby Holy Spirit breeds in us the skill to govern ourselves so that our actions in poise and skill build the kingdom effectively and we follow Rule #1 in my family, which was printed on the Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.

DON’T PANIC!

When you panic, or you freak out, or you become afraid, then you act foolishly.

Just ask me how I know.

My ex-wife threatened to abuse alcoholism if I did not marry her, then further threatened to take my sons away if I did not move with her to New England. My word, I understand what it is like to panic. I married the first time because of fear and I moved because of fear.

Then, when she told me in order to reconcile with her, I had to agree to a list of 22 items. I agreed to 21 of the 22 items on the list, but the last one, which was to accept a pharmeceutical solution to a particular problem, I refused, at which point….I felt something break in the spirit realm.

And she retaliated and that began an 6-year-long trek alone in the wilderness where I was accused by a slew of pastors and “leaders” not not being a capable, safe, or competent person to teach or pastor.

Gang, you must, in those instances, allow the Holy Spirit to bring you the power, love, and sound mind and self-discipline to your spirit, and to be fully clothed in those qualities, because a whole lot seeks to shake you to your core.

That spirit of fear seeks to create indifference and panic in you. Do not let it.

Be blessed at peace.

And I bless you with power….and love…and a sound mind.