Tag: Design

About That Meme Of Potatoes and Eggs

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Principles

Let’s fix it….

Originally, the meme says:

“The same water that hardens the egg, softens the potato; it’s about what you’re made of, not the circumstances.”

Truly, you can run the route of bitterness and offense, but that is a bit shallow or unexamined, as both the hardened egg and the softened potato serve a purpose.

So, my take.

“The same water that hardens the eggs, and softens the potato, also extracts the coffee. It’s not about your circumstances or what you’re made of; it’s about your design and purpose.” #UseTheResourcesYouWereGivenWisely

Cafeteria Masculinity and Femininity, LGBT Confusion, AND Kingdom Eunuchs in Matthew 19:12

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Sexuality

What follows promises to be short and sweet. Whether you take offense is a personal choice, and something you might have to work out. I do not claim to answer every point any community asks, but there will be a couple of issues that I will point out, as they flow through this topic

First, it would appear sexuality, male and female, was created on the Third Day with the introduction of the plants and dry land, and that reproduction and the spread of creation requires male and female interacting one with another.

Now, the exceptions aside where gender switch happens in biology, which happen to be a gross minority, and understanding that many of those switches occur in order to create a male/female binary, most of creation by a wide margin requires both parts interacting one with another.

G-d created them male and female, and G-d intended that generation and multiplication happen across the board. This is His design, and well beyond any counterflowing viewpoints.

Second, while conversing with my wife about the transgender issue, and following a conversation with a brother who came out of the transgender arena and back to relatively healthy masculinity, something occurred to me that this brother helped bring to light.

Those who adapt different sexual identity from how they were designed mostly do so with a pick-and-choose system. There is rarely consistency of any sort. That is, trans people generally seem to execute a cafeteria masculinity or femininity.

And the L-rd has made us for more than merely to pick and choose. He did not intend for us to walk in confusion.

Third, I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine, and he postulated the following question, in light of Matthew 19:12, which reads:

“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

Matthew 19:12 ESV

What if we get used to either marriage or sexual deviance as the only two acceptable options, when there might be a third option that few are willing to entertain? Namely, the calling to a life of eunuchhood.

And what if we are forcing people to choose between this (marriage) and that (deviance) when their real expression should be celebacy?

It is an interesting concept to consider.

I do not think healthy and close same-sex friendships are a bad thing. As a Redemptive Gift of Mercy, I have a few of those that I would consider close friends, maybe some intimate.

What I have an issue with is….

…when we think that closeness and intimacy and physical touch means we were meant to embrace a solution that violates all kinds of principles that have been clearly laid-down and later uncontested in the canon of Scripture.

And when He gives principles, and law, and statutes, He does not do it to be a killjoy, but to protect us and to keep us from destruction and from paths that are dead-ends and will keep us from walking out the greater purpose for which we were created.

Gang, being taken into a place of frustration because we think marriage or deviance are the only two acceptable and G-d-ordained possibilities, and we force people into relationships rather than permit them to entertain a lifetime of singleness can rob us of some fine treasures the Father wants to express.

G-d did not make us to solve one problem by creating twelve others.

And perhaps we would do well by letting and celebrating G-d’s design in expressions that are other than the norm and that do not violate cause and effect.

I have seen much destruction when we present or we allow the culture and the SOTA (Spirit of the Age) to teach us and our children what helathy relational expression looks like.

And lest we forget, a man or a woman will reap what they sow. His design for relationships is for relationships where the possibility of multiplication and fruitfulness is a real possibility. Engaging in sexual relationship structures that guarantee both a lifetime of frustration and zero chance for multiplication was never his intent.

For those who wish to pick this apart by marshalling the argument of barrenness (“well, barren people are not able to have kids. Are you condemning them as well?”), then you missed the point and the nuance of what I am saying.

For the barren couple, the possibility of childbirth is very real, and repeatedly we have seen throughout Scripture the L-rd speaking about and dealing with barrenness.

So, no, I am not going to insert the barrenness red herring into this discussion.

What I am saying, is that when our expressions of sexuality violate the fairly-clear cause-and-effect relationships pertaining to human sexuality that the L-rd gave us, we find ourselves in a dangerous place.

And when we fail to recognize or we purposefully neglect other of His principles, such as the principles pertaining to eunuchs in Matthew 19, we will likely increase the chances of our frustration.

Perennial frustration and powerlessness and futility are not the portion of the child of G-d. Seasons where we have a bit of testing and refining and difficulty are. But G-d did not create us and destine us for permanent powerlessness.

So, as you consider masculinity and femininity, be sure to embrace ALL of that which pertains to you, and I implore you to deeply consider whether or not you are allowing woundedness, deception, offense, or buy-in of a cultural system to chart the course of your relational expression.

Those legal/moral passages in Scripture, regardless of the testament in which they are found have a purpose, and they form a fence and boundary markers and building blocks that protect us and with which we can build.

So, build well and defend well what He has given to your charge.

Be blessed, gang.

Concerning the Redemptive Gift of Prophet (Revision)

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Redemptive Gifts

In the previous post, I discussed the concept of Redemptive Gifts and lightly touched on how they are tied to the other groupings of seven in Scripture.  We covered one of those groupings, the Seven Days of Creation.  However, there are others, such as:

  1. The Seven Signs of Christ in the Gospel of John
  2. The Seven Parables of the Kingdom in the Gospel of Matthew.
  3. The Seven Last Words of Christ
  4. Seven of the Ten Compound Names of Jehovah
  5. The Seven Trees of Isaiah 41:19
  6. The Seven Items of the Believer’s Armor
  7. The Seven Things the L-rd Despises
  8. The Seven Items of Furniture in the Tabernacle
  9. The Seven Gifts of Joseph to Jacob
  10. The Seven Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation
  11. The Seven Names of Christ in Revelation 2 and 3
  12. The Seven Treasures of Christ in Revelation 2 and 3
  13. The Seven Spirits of G-d
  14. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
  15. The Seven Actions of Wisdom in Proverbs 4:6-10 (Wisdom will keep, guard, exalt, honor, give a garland, give a crown, give many years)
  16. The Seven gifts of a godly woman, the serial entrepreneur, which array her home, from Proverbs 31:13-26. (Understanding in textiles, food, real estate, vintage, fitness or self-stewardship, dexterity, and instruction)
  17. Seven Questions of Moses to the Burning Bush
  18. Seven I AM Statements in the Gospel of John

The groupings, most of which form a pattern tied to the Redemptive Gifts, have themes and patterns that repeat, and we refer to any pattern that repeats as a fractal.

So, as a refresher of the last post, let us leap into a brief description of the gifts.

DEFINING OUR FRAME

So, what exactly are the Redemptive Gifts? And what is their purpose?

They are the gifts mentioned in Romans 12:6-8, which reads:

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Some call these the Motivational Gifts.

They are called Redemptive, because G-d uses our hardwiring to redeem creation. They are called Motivational, because they describe our motivation.

There are seven different types of hardwiring that each have a different motivation.

And they are motivated to share the King of Kings in a different facet, and each of those facets is good.

From the business side of things, because businesses are often extensions of the people who receive the vision for the companies they found, I have mentioned various people and organizations that I think have this or that gift. This post series will not address the business side or the land side of things.

Before I get into the expression of how the gifts work in individuals, however, I need to address three items so our heads and hearts are in the right place.

THE THREE REALITIES OF UNIQUE HARDWIRING, FILIAL IDENTITY, AND WHOSE TEACHING THIS REALLY IS

1) Unique Hardwiring: We are discussing that special hardwiring that G-d put into each of us when we were conceived and then born, that purpose and role that we each have in effecting G-d’s ultimate plan of redemption. I don’t know how many of y’all realize it, but all of y’all were put on this earth to solve a particular problem USING YOUR UNIQUE HARDWIRING, and not someone else’s hardwiring. A Prophet is designed, for example, to drill down with a simplistic worldview. A Giver, on the other hand, is designed to see the shades of gray and complexity and not to be black-and-white. We are not supposed to be forcing the black-and-white person to see the shades of gray and vice-versa. We are supposed to see the unique designs, embrace them, celebrate them, and see them set up to succeed, not cast stones at them or tell them how they have to be part of a sausage factory and become like everyone else.

2) Filial Identity:

fil·i·al

ˈfilyəl/

adjective

  1. of or due from a son.

There is no mold for the kingdom work. G-d makes us, knits us, and crafts us. One mold per person, and then G-d breaks that mold. You have a unique design, it is good, it is unique, and while it is one of seven (because that is reflected in creation), there are an infinite number of ways that each unique son of the Kingdom expresses himself or herself in their unique design.

And yes, I did use the term “son” and “herself” in the same sentence. We are sons in the kingdom, and we are each the bride of Christ. Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for all of us.

Woman of G-d, you are the son of G-d.

Man of G-d, you are the bride of Christ.

And I am sorry, but I will not sugarcoat that reality.

3) Whose Teaching: There are people who assume that this teaching is solely the product of Arthur Burk. This is not his signature teaching. He moves from research project to research project, looking at new paradigms. Further, he does not rest on his laurels. It is a teaching of his, and it is not the center of his teaching, though it is a major part of his paradigm. And while many of us that have accepted the Redemptive Gift teaching are friends of his and track with SLG, it does not mean that we are his groupies or that we hang on his bell waiting for him. The teaching on the Fractal of Seven and the Redemptive Gifts belongs to all of us, and it is the responsiblity of those of us who walk in the light of those revelations to find our own place in the constellation that was articulated by both Arthur and Bill Gothard, who, if you recall what Arthur said on the original Redemptive Gift teaching, was provided the original source material that Arthur used for about 25 years.

This is the teaching that was gifted to the body of Yeshua ha-Mashiach. It’s not one man at the top and we all sit at his feet, nor is it one man at the bottom and we all stand on his shoulders. Rather, it is one of our number who shared this with us, and we walk along side him as just fellow believers. It is G-d’s revelation that G-d gave to some men and they in turn, dispensed it to us in order for us to become factories and produce new revelations and paradigms using the same principles.

Do not put either Bill or Arthur on a pedestal. And do not put any one of your friends on a pedestal either. I will explain with each of the gifts.

Now, having said that, let’s jump into first of the Redemptive Gifts.

THE PROPHET

I would like to start by covering the first of the seven gifts, the Gift of Prophet, which is different from the Office of Prophet in Ephesians 4 and the Manifestation Gift of Prophesying in 1 Corinthians 12-14

BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

  1. Binary, Didactic Worldview-everything is black and white, right and wrong, in and out, up and down.
  2. They decide what they like and do not like and they are quite comfortable telling you in a hurry what they think and why, even if they have not spent as much time as you would have spent thinking about that issue and question. And they don’t care if you think what they said took them 2.5 seconds to say.
  3. Prophets think in terms of absolutes.  So, when you are dealing with those kids that are absolute and black-and-white, DO NOT CURSE THAT PART OF THEIR DESIGN.  DON’T force them into a mold and DON’T CURSE them by saying “once you grow up, you will see there are shades of gray” and “you can’t be so black-and-white”.  THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR GRAYSCALE. Loose those young Prophets and let them go.
    1. Now, at some point, it will help them when they have a friend or three that is patient and willing to help them see some complexities in life, but they are very good at taking the complex and boiling it down to a practical solution.
  4. If you want a problem-solver, make sure to make friends with a Prophet, because they are the ultimate problem-solver, bar none.  They eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and live problem-solving.  In fact, by the time you have gotten your first cup of coffee to your face for a sip, they have solved twenty-five problems that no one asked them to solve.  It is just that the problem-solving engine was conceived running.  G-d conceived them in their mothers womb, and gave them a V12 with 28 speeds in the transmission, and that engine runs faster than a Formula One car.
  5. They may suffer from an insufferable amount of tunnel vision, as in the case of George Washington Carver (go to this video link and watch from 2:10 to 5:30).  They may not see any other dynamic or detail on the way to solving the problem that they are focused on and passionate about with a laser-focus.
  6. Because of their intense drive, they also have to go somewhere.  They have to have a point, an objective, a reason, a purpose, or a goal.  They cannot just be not moving along without know where they are going and why.  The need to have a destination is usually a non-negotiable for them.  They are always going somewhere.  They have to be proceeding.  They have a direction.  Frequently, they are in motion.
  7. And about these goals and purposes, Prophets are legendary for, and are usually reviled for, being turbocharged in terms of their intensity.
  8. They are designed to see the results of cause-and-effect relationships, and as a result they use those cause-and-effect relationships to solve problems.  Think of George Washington Carver and the Peanut as the solution for the soil depletion.  Think of Thomas Edison and the light bulb as the solution for creating light after the sun went down.  And as a final example, Henry Ford who was an inventor, shut down his factory so that he could work on this new thing of which he had conceived and called it “the assembly line”.  It revolutionized the automobile industry.  And that was Ford’s gift to the automotive industry.
  9. Prophets make decisions very quickly and can shift to the execution of those decisions with blazing-fast speed, not always realizing the full implication of those decisions and executions. George Washington Carver and the peanut and then creating the mess of not having an economy for all those peanuts.
  10. They are often seen as bold and brash, but that is because they readily see far and have vision for the distance, which means they often lack at seeing broadly.
  11. The Prophet also does not do fear.  Everything they do they do with confidence.  They are no-fear with respect to their relationships, with respect to solving problems, and with respect to their giving.  They are often are the most generous of the gifts, even more so than the Giver, because unlike the Giver who will give wisely and with an eye toward bettering infrastructure, the Prophet will bypass his brain in his impulse to give.  They will lead the charge on all sorts of things.
  12. Prophets will initiate the building of new things, the articulation of new ideas, and the expression of new things. Nicola Tesla, for example.
  13. Prophets are interested in the new way more than they are the old. They like a blank sheet of paper to do something new.  If they are put in charge of something existing, they will enlarge it, improve it, fix it, change it, or quit from it.  They don’t do maintenance. They fix.  If you try to give a Prophet something to maintain, the odds are high that, if he doesn’t do one of these above things, he or she will break it.
  14. Prophets direct and show direction.  They direct the church and show the path or many paths, depending on if direction is needed, or if options are needed.  Think of the skills necessary in driving versus chess. One path versus survival on many fronts.
  15. They move toward brokenness and chaos, in order to bring order out of that chaos.  Broken people, broken situations, broken spirituality.
  16. Prophets will move toward the darknesses that intimidate other gifts.
  17. They will care compassionately for the broken and for the roadkill.
  18. Their greatest battle is with bitterness, offense, and the maintenance of their joy.
  19. They have the greatest range of emotions and volcanic expression of those emotions.
  20. Because they are intense fixers, they will see what is wrong in a situation and they will judge what is wrong and make a running list of all the things that need fixing, and if you let them fix, they will fix those things.
  21. Prophets have an intense judgmental spirit typically.
  22. Prophets can be completely condescending without realizing it.  Because they are usually right in their assessment of a problem given a set of principles, they know they are right and this can irritate some of the less sure gifts.
  23. They take the initiative to judge.  They will judge situations, things, and also other people, and themselves.  Because of this tendency to pass judgment, they can come across as judgmental.  This can lead to straining and fracturing of relationships.
  24. They are also brutally honest to a fault and while they may also be harsh with others, they are even more harsh with themselves.  When they do wrong, or when they sin, they beat themselves up, and they will seek to root every single detail out.  Their mindset can turn into a graceless or merciless one where they say to themselves, “it must be because of this or that sin that I am getting punished this way”, and they will hunt for all the sins they recently committed plus the ones they thought about committing but never got around to doing.
  25. Coupled with the compulsion for honesty, is the personal ethic to which Prophets hold themselves, in all dealings.  In the parlance of today’s culture “a man got to have a code.”  They hold to a set of unwritten expectations and ethics/morals that they will not violate. This also ties back to their intense sense of right and wrong.
  26. When you are dealing with relationships, you have to divvy out the Prophet and the other six.  The other six gifts are relationally-driven, and the Prophet is ideologically driven.
  27. They extrapolate based on a given set of principles to predict future events.  And they see at a distant.  Because of this tendency, paired with the quickness of passing judgment, they will often be treated with contempt or wonder by others.  “Why are you freaking out over such a small change here?” He or she is not freaking out over this minor deviation here.  He or she is freaking out over the implications over there in that MAJOR catastrophe.
  28. As a result of being misunderstood, one of potential results of that is the bitterness above.
  29. They are very hard working as a result, and sometimes may slip into the sin of trying to help G-d out through their capacity to work very hard.
  30. While your right-brain dominant Prophet presents as very emotional and very expressive, your left-brained Prophet is more reserved.  Yes, I know a lot of people that would say, “a Prophet is very verbal-expressive”, but I know a particular Walking-Tall Prophet, who sets the bar in my eyes for all Prophets, and he is L. E. F. T. B. R. A. I. N. E. D..  He definitely skews the curve for the tribe as a whole.  Also, because he is left-brained, he is very reserved and has patience to listen to everything. Very, very tender.
  31. Laterality (the study of left- versus right-brained thinking) is a huge marker for how these gifts present.  In your left-brained Prophet, you are going to have analytical thinking and more computer-y, sense-oriented thinking.  In your right-brained Prophet, the presentation is going to present more emotionally, more intuitive, more gut-thinking, etc.  They will both be able to solve problems, and they will both have a truth indicator, but their method for arriving at that truth and solution will differ radically.
  32. Following the pattern that sets out the combined teachings of RGI, RGC, the RG YouTube videos, and MOHA, (all of which you should really view) coupled with my own observations, the Prophet and the Exhorter both flow in principles.  The difference is how they use them. While an Exhorter points out cause-and-effect relationships to move people in the Principle of Reality (A/K/A Principles of Sowing and Reaping) dealing with realistic usage of time to accomplish a task, the Prophet will use principles woven together to build and move into something new.  Think of Wilbur Wright, the Prophet, and his Teacher brother Orville, and you have the weaving together of a massive amount of principles to achieve something theretofore unachieved:fixed-wing flight.

So, how do I know when someone is a Prophet?  Easy.  He eats, breathes, drinks, sleeps problem-solving.

A couple of those characteristics to hit here.  First, hopelessness.  Hope is the gas for any prophetic gift.  When hope is not present, despair and destruction that set in.  Destruction of the Prophet’s spirit and soul.  If despair overtakes this person when there is no goal purpose or point, then the odds are high you are dealing with a Prophet.

Second, when a Prophet is high-functioning, he or she can be very good with relationships, if he is careful to guard against running and fleeing at the first, second, or third sign of trouble, and if he has people who understand those temptations and will be life-giving to him.

Turn On The Magic of Colored Lights….

You know, imma throw out my thoughts on the colors of the rainbow and the Redemptive Gifts, though they may stir up some controversy and though Arthur may disagree with me.

I am of the opinion, and current science will read this way as well, that there are six colors in the rainbow.

The Prophet then, because he runs with Principles, and flows in them, parallels the Principle of Design. Now Design is another way of saying Principles.

“The Principle of Design is foundational to all other principles. In fact, the very phrase, ‘the Principle of Design,’ is redundant. There can be no Design without Principles. There can be no end product without the underlying, abstract concepts that supports that product. So Design is the art of weaving Principles together in order to produce change” (Arthur Burk, The Seven Principles, Disc 2, Cut 1, 0:48-1:10).

“The challenge for the Prophet is to embrace all of the Principles” (Arthur Burk, The Redemptive Gifts of Individuals, Disc 2: Prophet, Cut 1, 0:25-0:29).

Therefore, the Prophet’s color of light is White.

The weaving together of all the colors of the rainbow produces white light, so the weaving together of all the Principles that produces change is the reality of the Principle of Design.

Second, the Prophet, because he is designed to flow in all the principles, is also designed to flow in the Principles that govern human relationships.  If a Prophet is high-functioning, he can really engage well in effective and strong human relationships.  He is not designed to fail in his relationships.

Third, my mother once heard from Father, when complaining about the color white the following statement:

You have no idea what white actually looks like.

And as I ruminated on this conversation between my mother and the Almighty, I saw white the way the L-rd envisions it in part.

Like unto an opal that is dazzling in its array of many different colors.

Heaven’s white might be likened to something that is like a mixture of pearlescent softness, and opalescent, rainbowed brilliance, with the spread of colors hidden just beneath the surface of the unified white, but always looking for an excuse to shimmer in polyvareigated radiance.

This is the beauty and majesty of white, and the beauty and majesty that MAKES the Prophet the spectacular picture of holiness that reflects the unstained robes of the King and parses out between the black on the one hand and the….

WHITE….

on the other…..

And in the inky blackness of utter darkness shines the brilliance of His white, very colorful light.

#LetThereBeLight

So, there are some things for y’all to think about.  Just my take, gang.  What say y’all?