“HE is able to divide between Joints and Marrow, soul and spirit…”
“HE is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart”
Hebrews 4:12, more accurately translated.
Real talk, gang.
Hebrews 4 is about Jesus. The whole thing is about Jesus.
And given it is about Jesus, let this reality sink in, Verse 12 is not talking about the Bible, unless the writer of Hebrews switches the implication of the objective case in Verse 12.
Proof of this? Verse 13
“And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Not “no creature will be hidden from IT’S sight.”
HIS sight. He divides.
Those who incessantly say the Bible is the Word of G-d while refusing to say Jesus is the Word of G-d and refusing to give Jesus HIS due in that office as the Word need to seriously consider the strength and work of the PERSON who was the Word of G-d BEFORE giving credence to the Bible as the Word of G-d. For the Bible is only the Word because Jesus is the Word. And the Bible’s Wordness derives from Jesus’ Wordness.
He is not the testimony if it.
Rather, it is the testimony of Him.
It’s fine to know the text of the Bible.
But what makes one a follower of Jesus is the one who Knows Jesus, the Word of G-d Himself.
Know the difference. And learn to relate to the Man as well as you know the book.
The following may get ignored because I didn’t use the phrase “thus saith the L-rd to Salt Lake City”. But prophets don’t need to announce they are prophets in order to speak the truth the King gives them. And “thus saith the L-rd” has often preceded manipulative words. So, you each can have the freedom given to men and women to decide what you are going to eat as manna from the King and what you are going to spit out as bones.
I have never lived here in Salt Lake, or Provo, or Orem, or anywhere else in Utah, and I have never had a need to live here, but I think a few things, and I am going to share those things that were thought, about this precious patch of bee-busy land.
Salt Lake City Thoughts
Part of the stronghold built around this city revolves around finding legitimacy around the capacity to bring resources and provide for others and be independent for so doing.
They are great at doing and working with INDUSTRY (the state motto), but the independence that means they, or we, do not need to rely on the counsel and friendship of the L-rd and place our anchor in Him often leads to a form of legalism.
It is good to know your design. But it is horrible to make your design your anchoring place.
So, what may help in dismantling that stronghold is, for those that love and work in Salt Lake City, to come in the the opposite spirit by leaning into a radical partnership with the L-rd in everything that y’all do. Blending your design with and submitting it and it’s flow to His input in all things.
If you do not live and/or work here, or pay taxes here, you have substantially less authority to deal with the junk in the land.
Resist Non-Reality
We have a non-reality in some of the bedroom communities in Charlotte that people who do not pay a cent of taxes to Charlotte can exercise significant authority over Charlotte spiritually.
What you pay taxes on, you own. What you do not pay taxes on, you do not own.
If you want to exercise significant authority in the realm of a business or a city, you might first have to pay some taxes. You might need to live in a place in order to impact it significantly.
Different strongholds exist in different cities, and for those with a victim spirit (none of that here in SLC) they have to learn some independence and building with what the L-rd has already put in their hands, and the L-rd May be wanting to teach them radical Industry.
I know, some may stone me for saying that because “aren’t we all supposed to only depend on G-d and ‘lean not on our own understanding’, David?”
Not when the stronghold is a Victim Spirit and the L-rd is trying to break you of magic wand, welfare Christianity. If your sin of choice is a stronghold of Industry that says “no” to the counsel of the L-rd, you need to learn partnership.
On the other hand, if your sin of choice is the victim spirit and codependence on the L-rd (which is no partnership), the L-rd may be trying to get you to stand up and walk and use the tools He has put in your hands to build with.
May I Cut In, Cuz’ It’s Time To Dance
I know that, in my expression of these two dynamics, the “stay in love with Jesus/Brides Only” crowd will likely be offended with the paradigm of inddustry and work and being sent out by the L-rd and standing up and walking out dynamics.
This is why this is a dance between the two dynamics. Son mode and bride mode.
Sons build and use tools. Brides do intimacy and stay close and receive.
But we dance between receiving and giving.
We dance between bed chamber and kitchen/living/meeting room.
The Mary And Martha Dance
We dance between Mary and Martha.
Martha was a Giver. She owned the house where people met in Bethany. Mary was likely a Mercy.
You need both. And had Martha invited Jesus in to help her with the work (Jesus was a friend and family), Jesus would have come into her world and worked with her. Thanks to C.T. Meyers for that picture.
Jesus did not respond to Martha’s serving. Jesus responded to Martha’s perverted view of Mary’s design.
And we will have to do the dance and find the treasures between the closeness and the industry that is connected as a partnership.
So to the Industry crowd, learn how to partner with the King in your work, and how to invite Him in to that work. He will come to you in tour work where you are.
And to the Intimacy crowd, learn how to be about the BUSINESS of your Husband. You are intimate and in the intimacy, you receive tools so you can take the Kingdom and the Garden to the non-Garden parts of the world. Stand up and start swinging.
It’s not just about being intimate or trying to figure it out (understanding and wisdom and knowledge are not a hierarchy; they are tools).
It’s about doing the dance….
Transformation of Materials Used For Idolatry
And Salt Lake City has Treasures.
To hell with the mindset of “stay away from Salt Lake City because it’s loaded with demons.”
Oftentimes, the only reason a city eats your lunch is because 1) you were not called there, or 2) you are compromised in the area of the stronghold that holds that city or land captive.
Stay in the society where you are and cultivate the opposite spirit and the cardinal virtue tied to the land where you are and the stronghold’s optic, followed by its grip, will shrink.
Deal with the camoflauge and the issues if inaccurate perception.
They are clowns, and the circus deserves to leave town.
Which means SLC deserves a contingent of salty, rugged Christ-followers who will grow in some Giver Virtue.
We don’t cede land to the clowns as unredeemable.
California. Colorado. Massachusetts. New York. Fill in the blank. You don’t cede what you think is one damned inch of land.
Freaking. G-d. Was. There. First.
And just because treasures have been taken and carved into idols does not mean that there are not proper ways of using and working with those treasures.
You want to break the stronghold here? Avoid the slope of turning industry and the can-do attitude into Mammon.
Work, but work with Him. Be intimate, you intimacy people, but when the season of intimacy is done, move out and build and work. Sweat as Adam did. And drink your cold drinks, little ones.
The unique stronghold here is reliance on AND ANCHORING TO the Giver Free Money of Resources that flow to you effortlessly, and Independence.
As you are working to reconcile to your land and reconcile the land to the King, part of that reconciliation might involve having a conversation with the land and asking it what is going on in it. Consider the history. Consider the founding. Consider that the King sent you to a place.
A Blessing For The Industrious Ones
Beloved, I invite your spirit forward.
Spirit, listen to the Word of G-d for you for today.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The L-RD G-d took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to WORK it and keep it.
Genesis 2:10–15 ESV
Spirit, you were made to work. Work is not a sin. Figuring out and pondering, and thinking are not sins. Your mind is not less than your heart, nor are the two of those less or greater than your reins (the RJD/Servant combo of your Adrenals and Kidneys).
They are just different.
Spirit, your place of dwelling is in the Seat of Dominion, in the brain in the Frontal Lobe. And yes, the heart and the reins also are thinking and feeling organs along with the brain
Spirit, the emotions and the toughs are designed to work together. As much as the first six gifts need the emotions, so also the Mercy needs the thoughts.
And all serve different functions.
Spirit, I went on that rabbit trail because this blessing revolves around one thing.
Tools, spirit.
Can I substitute a drill for a hammer in the matter of nails?
Can I sub a screwdriver instead of a wood chisel in the case of woodworking?
Screws and nails instead of glue in the case of broken ceramic?
In all of these cases, the answer is the same. No I cannot, if I am looking for excellence.
Spirit, you are made not only for tools, but also for intimacy. And you are made for kingly interactions in all areas of your life. No matter your Redemptive Gift, you are needed and all of your tools are needed.
And you were made, not to lean on your tools, but on the King.
For those of you with an independent streak, not all of those streaks are demonic or “soulish”. Some of those streaks are out there by the King and they demonstrate and display His goodness to the Giver tribe.
That said, that design of yours is meant for partnership with the L-rd.
So I bless you when you hear the L-rd say, build.
I bless your perspective to be fuller and to go for what is missing.
I bless you to see with the King’s eyes as He releases you to build using your tools.
But I also bless you with the capacity to slow down and hear what the king is saying to you.
I bless you to find all the King has for you in each Sonship and Kingdom assignment.
I bless you to hear the birds and see the light and to feel the wood and to wisely allocate the raw materials as you transform them into something different.
I bless you with the skill to apply gas and brake in sequence.
I bless you to partner with the land where you are and to see your gifts Marshall these tools, gifts, and raw materials and resources to come in the opposite spirit of the stronghold in place where you live.
I bless you to smile at the land where you live, no matter how much junk there is.
Spirit, no matter how much junk there is, the devil cannot tarnish the reality that “G-d was there first”. Not one damn clown beat G-d to any single patch of land on earth.
Even in Deseret, G-d was there before Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the clowns of that perversion.
G-d put Industry in the land.
And G-d created us for incessant relationship and partnership. Partnership with Him. Partnership with others. And Partnership with the Land.
Spirit, I bless you to smile and show the land a bit of your sunshine as the King imbues YOU WITH HOPE!
I bless you to interact with the land and to speak to the land, not AT the land.
I bless you to listen to the land. And I bless you to take the tools give to you and to flow from stand-up-and-go on the one hand, to partnership and dependence to on and receiving from your bridegroom on the other.
I bless you to WORK the land and WORK WITH the land.
I bless the dance, as my sister from the Old Northwest was blessed in her capacity to receive her daily food from Her Bridegroom while she waited for her passion to take off.
I bless the tools to be connected to the capacity to flow between partnership when you check back in with the King periodically to receive from and being sent out from Him on assignment that means you might trailblazing alone in the wilderness, when the work is hard and the sun is hot.
I bless the land to facilitate you with its gifts without you falling into any traps created by anchoring to those gifts instead of the King.
Gang, when you hear about the end times and the end days, what do you typically hear from when speaking with the standard prettiness rapturist as it pertains to nations, governments, and land?
“This nation, all nations, and this earth are going to one day burn up and be consumed by fires, so there is really no point in doing anything except trying to win as many people as possible to Jesus.”
And yet, one of the premiere scriptures that is used for revival is 2 Chronicles 7:14.
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their people.
“Wait a minute!”, you say. “That’s not the verse!”
It ends with the phrase “heal their land”
And we missed the punch line, so much that Rebecca St. James has codified everything BUT THAT PUNCHLINE into a really catchy cut.
Jesus I am broken now Before you I fall I lay me down All I want is you, my all
I cry out from the ashes Burned with sin and shame I ask you Lord to make me whole again
For you say if I will come and will Pray for you There’s forgiveness when I Turn from me and pray For you say if I will come and will Pray to you You hear me and heal me when I pray
Your ways are not my own But I long for them to be So this what I pray One with you you’ll make me
Melt me away ’til only you remain
For you say if I will come and will Pray for you There’s forgiveness when I Turn to you and pray For you say if I will come and will Pray to you You hear me and heal me when I pray
Did you see it?
Read the verse again.
If they will Humble themselves And pray And seek me face And turn from their wicked ways Then I will hear from heaven Forgive their sin And heal their land.
Now the sin being forgiven is one thing. Even being healed is another. Us redeemed? No problem.
But land that will one day burn up?
That land being healed?
That’s a bit outside of our zone, comfort, and theology.
How many sermons have you ever heard preached about revival in this age before the age to come that involve the land responding to revival?
Not many stories of how the land reacts are our there.
Of those those that do get told, the land often doesn’t fare well from our consumer-oriented, human souls-first-or-only revivals that focus on building buildings by taking on further debt.
The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
Leviticus 25:23 ESV
The earth is the L-rd’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein
Psalm 24:1 ESV
Arguments of Futility
I am not in alignment with most of the realm of theology that says “what is the point of stewardship when the L-rd is going to destroy this world anyway? This world is going to burn up and not be redeemed and restored so what is the point.”
That sort of mindset seems to bring with it the baggage of the carelessness and apathy toward the current creation, and it smacks of a prevailing attitude of futility.
I simply cannot get on board with that.
What the L-rd Means.
It occurs to me that the L-rd has a purpose for us here and now and us on the land here and now. I realize the above passages, the first written about the Promised Land, and the second written by a king from the Promised Land, seem to not be written to us, but there is a deeper principle that is worth unpacking, regardless of how we think Revelation should be interpreted, with its account of the destruction of the earth and the appearance of the new heavens and the new earth.
We are placed on this earth, not to allow stuff to happen with zero input from us, but to be redemptive agents of the King as He unpacks the processes in us, and through us, and to us. Through those processes, He redeems and brings us to fullness, and all of creation to fullness and fulfillment.
We are not passive agents, but active agents. We have, in many places been taught to be passive, but that is not the King’s way.
We might have been taught that we are supposed to completely divest ourselves of a hustle-and-grind mindset, and while this is a new season in history both for the kingdom of G-d and for the church, there is a level of intentional behavior we are supposed to take on and keep. True, the King doesn’t primarily work through systems of authority and protocol, or hustle-and-grind, but rather intimacy. However, in this reality, we cannot take that gooshy intimacy to mean we can get rid of being active and industrious and working to impact the world around us. G-d wants us sustained, sustaining, and concieving things that are sustainable.
Sustained
G-d is the one responsible for providing resources to us, and He has given EACH of us something that will enable us to step into a place of provision. That “something” might be a skill, a network of relationships, or the understanding of how to do a task, but in each of us is a means of providing for us.
Sustaining
As we increase from using those tools G-d has give us, we sustain others around us, which includes us taking care of the land that is His, and is a resource to us, given to us to manage for Him. If that means you spend time with the land blessing it or using a shovel and gardening tools to cultivate it in the spring; or a lawn mower to make money in the summer; or a snowblower in the winter; or a rake in the fall; or wine, salt, and oil combined with the spoken word in the season of desperation to free the land; or seeding the soil, or planting plants, flowers for the pollinators, or vegetables and fruits for your family, or working with the portals on your land, all sorts of things can be done to help sustain others around you.
Sustainable
On the seventh day, when G-d rested, we hear about how He sanctified time and made it holy, which is the first time that word “holy” is mentioned, but we also may miss what else is happening because it is not spelled out in the canon for us, so we have to feel and sense and know what else that is unreported, yet is happening, in the gap between Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 2:4.
Can you hear the hum of the bees and the stretch of the grass, and the fluttering and seed cracking of the birds, and the song of the whales and the Leviathans in the oceans, and the rattles of pit vipers, and the stroke of whale flukes, and the groaning yaws of mid-ocean ridges, and the flowing of springs as the boils crackle with ice-cold water as the surfaces of the waters are disturbed and stirred?
Can you hear the starsongs as the hosts proclaim the justice of the crucifixion as those sounds of light, darkness, groaning, laments, laughing, forgiveness, and the sound of the hammerstrikes and the execution of pericardial effusion echo through the hum of creation as the Son’s first reality pierces the Holy Peace of Eden?
The portals each echo with some dynamic of that deathsong and subsequent lifesong, because they are the foundations of the earth, and the Son’s work impacts the holding points between the foundations and each of those portals.
The Light Portals weep over the loss of light and shine all the more brightly in celebration over the Lamb’s Victory that is coming and as warfare against the outer darkness.
The Weather Portals and the Water Portals feel the invisible flow of realities we call air masses moving, producing winds and humidity movement, as they produce the various manifestations we see along fronts, and they know the deluge that approaches, and they feel the tension, though rain has not yet happened.
The Fragrance Portals sense the deep things of the Riddles of G-d as the Lion sings creation into existence with her fragrant wisteria, stargazer lillies, apple blossoms, citrus blossoms, roses, and over flora, and they wait for the Son to flick the combiation, as the ingredients of the bread dough are kneaded together and milled and fermented in order to unlock the full rising of the Kingdom.
The Time Portals know what is present, past, and future, and days of future already past, and so they spiral to show a broader picture.
The Sound Portals Fill their vicinity with the voices of the hosts of heaven who illustrate truths from reality about the Son’s rightful place given his past suffering that root the newly-reborn world.
The Earth Gates open wide to permit the movement of celestial messengers trafficking in Freedom and Righteousness as they systematically execute the will of the One Who Sent them.
And the Mist Portals, well, those provided pockets of rest for those who need a Sabbath rest.
And as we are present now, we must see that in creation, there was created a hum of sustainability that is disproportionate to the hard work that was sown into the creation.
And we work to repeat that sustainability elsewhere.
Not as a devil-may-care, “I-don’t-give-a-damn” what happens to creation, but as a Son of the G-d of the Land Now, we use this reality now as a lab to unpack our fullness, rejecting the idea of futility, and the encroaching heresy “It’s already all been decided, so what change can I have” nonsense.
And we step out as agents of the G-d of the Land Now, and we engage with the Land NOW, and we do not stop until WE. ARE. FULLY. UNPACKED. The point is, as we work to unpack land, we are ourselves digging into us and unpacking and healing and restoring our treasures. The work with land does redeem and restore the creation now, but it also is a tool by which Father shows us and helps us in ourseves.
And those of us with a creation calling, reject this nonsense of “there is no point”.
Because that “there-is-no-point” mindset belongs on the lake of fire together with all of those rebellious Leviathans that rejected the seven pillars of wisdom and so found themselves hurled from the King’s presence.
If you will stand, gang, with the seven pillars of Wisdom in your right hand, and work with creation, you will see more keenly the G-d of the Land Now.
The following blessing can be useful for anyone, but I am particuarly focusing it to those who are designed to work with land.
A Blessing
So, I bless you, spirit, to find the G-d of the Land Now. I bless you to hear Him as He shows you the soil not just of His intentions for creation now, but also for you now. I bless you to find all that He has made for you in creation and the land He has for you now.
Proverbs 31:16 says that we consider a field and buy it.
That means each of you are meant to interact with land on some level. That may not mean that land is your primary purpose, but you are still made for land on some level.
I bless you to unpack the kingdom in you and in the land to the degree you were made to unpack it.
I bless you, spirit, to know which portions of you are made for the land in which you find yourself.
I bless you to turn your face to Father and know what tools He means for you to sow into and reap from the land.
I bless you to know the Redemptive Gift of the land where you are.
I bless you to resist and fight and war against the spirit of futility.
I bless you to renounce the judgments that are leveled against you because your love for land is “getting in the way of the important work of dealing with winning lost souls of humanity to the L-rd”. Spirit, you are not crazy. You are doing what you were made to do.
I bless you to see land where you are and where you go redeemed.
I bless you to read about the results of your land work in the papers on Monday Morning.
I bless you to feel and experience the pleasure of the Holy Spirit as you work at restoring the land to the L-rd’s original design.
And I bless you, together with the Righteous Leviathans that are turbocharged by the execution of the Seven Pillars, to carry those Seven Pillars in your right hand and to walk in the strength of those Pillars, the Principles of G-d.
In the last post, we discussed some simple dynamics and some simple steps for cleansing land. And I mentioned a lot of dynamics that involve us talking to the L-rd and getting His perspective for dealinng with the land.
In this post, there are some more specialized dynamics that are involved.
Other Dynamics
1) Ask the L-rd if He wants you to engage with the land in a personal fashion. As a commercial electrician, I have had the opportunity to work with bits of land that are golf to house businesses, and the land responded to my hand physically touching the soil on which the business is being built.
As you interact with the land, the L-rd, as a means of nullifying a curse or something that is not from Him, may ask you to celebrate communion on the land and with the land. And as with anyone, partake of the elements yourself, and share some of those elements with the land, breaking the bread on the land and pouring the one out on the land.
2) there may be times when the L-rd asks you to build a cairn of stones and use a sequence of wine, salt, and oil. Wine for cleansing and moving from negative numbers to zero, salt for healing at zero, and oil for increasing anointing and growth into positive numbers. Be open to the idea G-d May ask you to do something weird to you, but the land will really appreciate the act and the intentionality.
3) There are three major pollutants of land that lead to all sorts of junk piling up: idolatry, adultery, and bloodshed. As we handle those issues, it is a good idea to move into asking the L-rd about whether or not those three catastrophes occurred on your land in question, and, if so, to what extent they happened. if someone was murdered, or a home was wrecked, the L-rd and the land remember those things, and we need to be careful to handle those things fa with a tender and sober mind. And to repent and ask the L-rd to cover over the sins and cleanse them with the blood of Jesus.
Gang, I realize this is a shorter post, but these are some other dynamics that we need to cover as we work through connecting with land and returning creation to the intended purpose.
As you work through this, I bless you to hear what the L-rd is showing you and to move into a place where He can use you more greatly in land.
“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.
“Unclean” in the Torah…a curious phrase. I am reading abot leprosy in Leviticus 13, and I think about the ways in which this word is use in the text.
We come to this word and we immediately think, “not clean”, or “dirty”, and as a result of that, we might go to “I am not good enough to appear in the presence of the L-rd”, and then leap to “I must not be good enough for the King’s presence.”
However, I do not think this train of thought fully encapsulates what the L-rd is trying to convey here. I do not think that our swiftness to leap to G-d’s rejection of us because of imperfections is really the right way to go about this.
Whenever I read a passage in Scripture as a pastor and a teacher, I start with the premises that G-d is good, G-d is love, RIghteousness and Justice are the foundations of His place of rule, and G-d desires a personal relationship and interaction with each of us.
That informs my reading, especially of things like unclean, which might tempt us to adjudicate G-d as unjust or unfair or somehow not right or mean-spirited. And thus we are left ot a place of futility. I do not think that is a helpful way of looking at Torah, and while Andy Stanley talked about unhitching our faith from the Tanakh/Old Testament….
I think a more appropriate place to go would be to unhitch our faith from sloppy, abridged, or merciless INTERPRETATIONS of the Tanakh/Old Testament that lead us to quickly pass judgment of the L-rd.
I do not believe “unclean” was used here to simply convey “dirty”, or “can’t come into G-d’s presence”, or “not good enough”, leading us to say G-d is mean or what-not.
And lest someone accuse me of attempting to negate the idea that “your sins have seperated you from G-d”, that is not what I am saying here. G-d is holy, but our idea of holiness often looks something like “free from sin”, rather than “weaving together principles to produce change”.
I think that “unclean” frequently refers to the idea of something that violates the singleness of our basic essence. And oftentimes, sickness, disease, and tragedy do not come into our life because we or our parents sinned. Often times, that comes into our life so that G-d may be glorified (Job 1-42; John 9:1-6).
Truly, it sounds like G-d wants to draw near to those who are broken or compomised (Luke 15:20), or unclean. So, our better solution is not the mindset that we need to stay away from G-d, but rather allow Him to run to us and we run to Him. Leviticus 13 is not about how we stay away from G-d, but how we protect ourselves and others when we are dealing with the junk that could threaten the stability of the larger group. And in the midst of the leper colony, we connect with the Father, who runs toward us.
Even while we are managing a sickness that can threaten our community, the holiness of heaven, with its weaving together of principles to produce change, desires to meet us where we are, outside the camp or inside the camp.
So, as you are looking at these passages, do not merely see them as “G-d doesn’t like me”. Rather, see them as “G-d has a purpose to connect with me in this season”.
So, when you read “unclean”, stop with the nonsense of thinking, “G-d refuses to receive me or look at me because I am a worm bastard sinner”. Think “G-d wants to clean me up and distill and purify my essence so that it is a single and cohesive whole.”
G-d is zealous that our essence be 100% your essence with nothing added…
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.
I realize I am in the process of a number of other things, but, Teachers, again, your unusual and unexpected capacity to:
1) Preserve life when it isn’t looked for, when you are rightly aligned and strong with the Principle of Responsibility,
2) Defend and preserve rightly-aligned sexuality,
3) Occupy your very pertinent position in the sequence of seven Redemptive Gifts, between two other notes life-givers, the Servant on the one hand, which protects new life and the thing G-d has conceived from premature (hear this pronounced the British way with the short “e” sound) extinguishing, and the Giver on the other hand, which births new blood life.
The following is a long sentence, so in the spirit of the length of the Declaration of Independence’s single-sentenced preamble, stay with me as I weave together the following thought.
There are going to be times when the other gifts are preoccupied in such ways…
that their focus will not be on the protectionary measures you easily derive from remembering the past…
and even though you might appear as though you are stuck to the other gifts, while being married to the apparently (“apparently” is the adverbial form of “appear, so by their estimation the appearance, which may not be the same as reality) valueless past, and while you may seem slow to others who don’t see the five-dimensional frame of the big picture, there is a stranger and much-less pronounced form of special discernment that the Teacher provides to make truly safe the rest of the community.
This form of discernment has brandished itself in film in the last 10 years, and it is on full display as M, who is RG Teacher here, tells the Ministry of Intelligence in the film “Skyfall” a good deal that is necessary.
Gang, are you capable of seeing the beauty of this aspect of the Teacher presented here.
Teachers, do not ever beat yourself up, and do not dare let some impulsive gift beat you up for owning and enjoying your connections to the past that give you a form of discernment that none of the other gifts can have.
And again yes, I know, seven portions, one dominant portion.
But this sort of dynamic is precisely why I argue we each have only one Redemptive Gift. And one-seventh of our tribe has the critical role of being Teacher.
So, I would encourage those of y’all who think you are three gifts because a test told you so, to stop letting the tests tell you what you are, and do find out what your gift is. As a card-carrying Mercy who has six other active portions, some of which are quite active.
And if we spread our foci too thin, we become anything and everything and therefore nothing.
For the record, I am about to ruin some bad theology.
Along with the fivefold ministry, or more accurately, the way the fivefold ministry is usually portrayed very badly, I tend to be skeptical of political prophecies and an overquick reading of the Scripture, unless there is a bit of fresh manna being discussed, as with a single point of a new truth.
So, with that out of the way, let’s consider the following.
Paul enters a discussion of the flesh vs. the spirit in Galatians 5, starting with verse 16.
There is an interesting aspect that I want to cover.
Giver we have a spirit and a body made of flesh, what if what Paul is discussing in the fruit of the spirit is not the fruit of the Holy Spirit but the fruit that comes by the work of the reasonably healthy human spirit in partnership with the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
So, Paul talks about walking by the spirit in vv. 16 and 17 and he doesn’t capitalize “spirit”. Ignore the ESV capitalization for the moment.
And Arthur talked about the desirable outcome of us becoming factories and he illustrated factories in Joy Unstoppable, Disc 5, Third Head: Life, Cut 3 “Becoming a Factory” by using the example of a fruit tree.
What if the fruits are factories of creativity from orchard supplies of those qualities listed in Galatians 5:22-23, and the more we cultivate those, the more of a factory we will become?
Only in a functional human spirit can those fruit continue to grow in a sustainable way.
But they are meant to be storehouses of resources so we can bring forth the new things connected to the work of partnership between our human spirits and Holy Spirit, for the our working of Competence (Belongingness, Worth, and Competence are the qualities the Trinity ministers to our souls).
