Props to Heidi Michelle, who asked for an epilogue to two posts ago. For those who would like to know to which post I am referring, go here.
When you have been traumatized from the misuse of the biblical text, and you need to detoxify through other streams the King provides, including looking for His Works (the Works of the King have equal weight as testimony to the Words of the King: John 5:36), when you are ready to renege get with the written text of Scripture, how should you go about that task?
Zeroth on the list, wait until you want to try out reading the text. Then if you need a friend on hand while you cross the threshold of reintegrating yourself with the text, pick someone you trust who loves you and let them sit with you in silence if need me while you pick it up and read. It may take some time.
First and foremost, do not ditch the context where you received healing, unless the King says to do so. It’s not like you are using the items you learned about in the season of healing as a stopgap measure until you can go back to the authoritative rule for faith and practice, as if you were settling form one aspect of the King’s reality instead of another.
Second, carry the affection of the King into the reading of the text, and take off a tiny chunk of biblical text and chew through it. Ask Him to be present with you while you read. He is the point, not the text.
I will say that again. He is the point of this whole thing, not the text. And yes, I am strong in teaching, and my teacher is exceptionally strong, who knows the value of the text, but He is the point of working with the text or any aspect of reality.
Third, read only what you can manage. You just got done rehabbing a broken wrist. You cannot put 85 pounds on it.
Your job is to rehab muscle groups, not shoulder an over heavy responsibility and do 3000 pushups out of the gate.
Fourth, be damn patient with yourself. Maybe a phrase or two.
Fifth, do not overload yourself with disciplines and listening to eight thousand hours of another man’s opinion on the topic.
Sixth, stop when He tells you to stop, and stop before you find yourself pushing yourself.
Seventh. Just rest with Him in the text. Most of y’all that I know are experts at keeping the day of Shabbat, but suck at keeping the mindset of Shabbat. There is a mentality perfected by the Desert Fathers of resting in the midst of work, and having a chilled and rested mindset and heart set while they worked.
And some of y’all are fine with the dynamic of observing G-D’S holy day, but bomb on having G-d’s wholly holy heartset, especially when the Shabbat was made for man and not man for the Shabbat.
And you need an actual day of rest AND. a mindset of rest through your week. And to make Him and His gooshy and squishy Mercy affectionate reality and embrace your Shabbat rest.
Anyway, those are just some quick and practical thoughts here.
And yes, I did meddle with some of my friends who ain’t doing the rest thing right.
And realize there might be a cost of which you were not aware. So, when you say you want something, and it is out of G-d’s timing to give it to you, the clowns might be willing to give it to you….with strings attached.
“You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you, and you will pay your vows.”
There have been a few times where I told the story of my divorce. And while I mentioned the adultery and the emotional abuse and the other dynamics, I will note that the divorce in the spirit did not coincide with the divorce in the legal sense.
Sure, my legal divorce was filed Pearl Harbor Day 2012 and finalized the day of the Boston Bombing, but the actively divorce took place a couple of years earlier, in March 2010.
At that point, my then-wife gave me an ultimatum. Move with her or she was leaving with the kids.
At which point I felt the breaking of the covenant.
The rug had been pulled.
I was 30 at the time. And I knew the marriage was over and that she had chosen her mother over me.
This is a situation that caused me to turn internally and the only person I had to turn to and lean on was the King.
When you have no one, as I did, you still have the King.
And when you are alone, He will build things into you, and a depth of intimacy that can survive even death.
‘Cuz, you know, “love is as strong a death.”
Now, in order for love to be made as strong as death, it must endure against the spirit of death. You are meant to be tested in your kettle against certain things in the spirit.
Kind of like Isaiah 54:17, if you want no weapon formed against you to prosper, then you have to be willing to sing in your barrenness and embrace the first 16 verses and the process of Isaiah 54.
Cause and effect.
If you sow against testing and refinement, you will be stronger against the fight.
Ask me how I am so effective against some things.
It’s because I have been in the fight for years.
If you want the walk someone else has, you also are asking for the grace to endure what that other person has endured.
Friend, your responsibility is to dig deep wells with the King and lean HARD on him.
I am proof in the Kingdom that this can be done, and it will knit your hearts more deeply and more intimately with his and it will pour into you a well and a storehouse of resources that others will find life-giving after you pass through the season of hell.
Lean, lean, lean….
Do not lean on your own understanding….
In all your ways KNOW Him (that same word for “know” in Proverbs 3:6, is the same word for Adam “knew” his wife Eve).
There is an intimacy that only comes when you have suffered deep emotional loss.
And that will bless your heart and spirit with a spring of life you never had.
If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
Proverbs 18:13 ESV
Our government’s job is not to make us safe by stripping us of our natural and G-d-given freedoms.
And calling the government cowardly because of our perception of their perceived inaction in response to death is a straw man.
Our responsibility is to lead the way and initiate the instruction of the principles of responsibility as those rights and responsibilities get passed down from unconfined and godly moms and dads to sons and daughters.
FDR and LBJ engaged in a lot of “do something” that was driven by panic over circumstances and a willingness to circumvent due liberty and process.
Goading people (churches, governments, politicians, etc.) into “doing something” usually results in terrible solutions and even worse execution.
We don’t merely seek to say “do something” in response to a panic. Rather, we look for RIGHT AND PROPER solutions to problems. We look for weighed-out and thoughtful responses to problems once we have gathered all the data and considered the full nature of the problem.
Especially given the wrong theory or hastily-formed-then-acted-upon presuppositions can lead to a terrible solution or solutions that tie our hands rather than freeing them.
The false accusations that politicians are “not doing anything” likely proceeds from a mindset that “any answer is better than no answer”.
At worst it can fell like we are being gaslit into making a quick decision that is worse than the problem.
Not like we have experienced this recently anywhere. Kung flu anyone?
Yeah, I went there. Fight me.
I am not sorry to say that ANY answer is NOT better than the perception of NO answer, especially if the product of any answer is an abridgment of design or principles.
And for those who think this problem is the NRA’s fault…
I would first direct them to wonder why effective laws fail to pass, such as Beth Van Duyne’s (from the Texas 24th district) bill to prevent the expungement of minor criminal convictions upon the 18th birthday of convicted felons. Felonies make one a prohibited possessor.
The truth is, it is primarily the left is not as interested in prosecution as it is in controlling the execution of duly-granted natural rights given to us by G-d due to our inherent design as His sons (see not just the text of Scripture, but also the Ninth Amendment to the Consititution).
In the process of hunting for solutions, proposing solutions that violate the G-d initiated natural order are not advisable.
So, to you who are calling the church, government, or believers cowardly, I would urge you to back away from the keyboard and consider the broader context and all of what is happening.
And for those curious about one such example, here is Dana Loesch’s recounting of the Parkland shooting.
And for those critical of Loesch, she still maintains contact with a whole bunch of parents who lost their kids in the Parkland shooting and whose stories are not being told because the MSM is covering up their stories with propaganda.
For example, here is a book from one of the dads whose daughter was killed in Parkland.
It gets into the policies that made Parkland possible.
Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created The Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students https://a.co/d/5XBEW8j
When we ask questions of others, and we have the opportunity to engage in something we desire, we have then been given two things. Resources, if you will.
Rights plus responsibilities.
We do not celebrate Christmas, and this may or may not create friction with others, because there are expectations, some twisted, that frequently attend the celebration of that day.
Expectations of stuff. Expectations of purchasing on borrowed money. Expectations of rolling with a yearly pressure that may be tied to celebrating the birth of the King, or not.
That said, we as a family usually go and watch a movie. This is something that has its roots in my first marriage but makes a lot of sense. And frequently, those movies are times where the L-rd sits with me in the movie theater and talks to me about what is playing.
And I frequently see principles in said film.
This year we were delayed in seeing the film, and we finally got to see our chosen movie yesterday.
And as a huge Marvel fan, we saw Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And in this film, Peter has dealt with the reality that his secret identity has now become revealed to all. And in frustration, he visits a friend, Steven Strange, in order to ask him to make reality such that people forget who he is. During Strange’s incantation, Peter begins asking him to make exceptions, and provisos, and the balance of the movie is then given to the mess that comes from Peter wanting reality his way.
He wants the rights without the responsibilities and he continually messes things up, which then ultimately leads to a near-destruction of reality. On the way, his Aunt May dies. And other villains from previous realities come to mess with the natural order of things.
And the only way he can fix the mess is by accepting reality the way it is. And enabling Strange to cast the incantation that causes everyone including, his loved ones, to forget who he is
Gang, we have been given a reality and a set of causes that mesh together with a set of effects.
And that reality, when we don’t opt out of the whole of it, can be beautiful, though difficult.
But it is far worse to want some of reality and ignore the rest. That twists reality into something that it wasn’t made to be.
When we do that selective appropriation of reality, we avoid the problems G-d intended us to wrestle with.
And we avoid the following two passages.
“Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds.”
“You meant it for harm, but G-d meant it for good.”
G-d, in bringing us to growth, leads us through trials and hands us problems to solve.
And He may or may not force the issue.
The issue is, when we ask Him for a chunk of reality that includes hla major blessings, are we willing to cultivate the skills necessary to scramble over and around and by that set of rocks in order to possess all He has for us in terms of blessing.
We may not fully appreciate the blessing until we have been given the curse to wrestle with.
Now, be careful when you read what I write. By “curse” I don’t mean G-d literally curses us. By “curse” I mean “problem to solve”.
Now, why did I use the word “curse”?
Two reasons. One, because the poetic nature of the way “curse” pairs with blessing.
Two, because too frequently, WE CURSE the difficult or inconvenient problem G-d gives us to solve, because He treats us as sons.
Slaves do not get problems to solve. Sons, rather, are they who get the problems to solve.
So, take heart, love. Because if you are getting problems when you pray, it is likely because G-d is trusting you as a son.
Be at peace, and if you need to solve a nettlesome problem, please feel free to reach out. I and others, as fellow sons, can help you to solve that problem.
G-d wants to bless you, but in order to do it, He has to calibrate you in order to equip you to solve problems.
Spirit, listen to the word of G-d for you for today:
“….do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle…”
Spirit, there are times when we wrestle with clowns and other forces of darkness.
But there are times when the L-rd has for us not to fight, but to rest and do nothing. This particular text deals with Moab, who grew to dread Israel and whose king, Balak, eventually asked Balaam to come and curse Israel. That said, the L-rd at the time He is recounting 2:9, told the Israelites not to contend with Moab.
Spirit, I beseech you to listen to the King for not only his battle plan, but also his agenda for rest and refraining from fighting.
I bless you to know that just because you see Someone who looks like an enemy does not mean that that person is an enemy. I bless you to have sharp discernment in this area. I’m blessed to know when your commander is instructing you to fight and when he is not instructing you to fight.
I bless you to see and restrain when you are instructed to restrain.
I bless you to know when to contend versus when to rest.
I bless you to know the difference between a warfare as a means of legitimacy and warfare that is strategic out of a place of humility.
I bless you to know when and with whom you should contend in a specific season.
I bless you to reject the enemy’s agenda for warfare. Especially given that clowns will keep you busy if you let them.
I bless you to relentlessly hunt for the L-rd’s agenda for warfare.
I bless you to know that G-d created literal snakes and called them good on the fifth or the sixth day. And I bless you to know that not every snake you see either in the spirit or in reality is wicked.
I bless you to know when to restrain your hand from war and when to engage in warfare.
I bless you to respond to the King’s signals and to avoid reacting to the enemy everytime they want to harass you.
I bless you to walk in self-control regardless of what may seem to be happening in your situation. And to attack as the L-rd gives you instructions or as you know you should war.
Spirit, I bless you to get comfortable with feeling out the rhythms involved in warfare.
Some you will absolutely respond to everytime.
And some you will wait for the King’s call to fight.
Be at sufficient wholeness and peace to know when you are supposed to act and when you are supposed to refrain.
The Bronze Laver and the Waters/Waters and the Expanse/Dome of the Shamayim were made for cleansing……
And we tell ourselves, “I am just a sinner and my righteousness is as filthy rags”.
I understand when a pre-believer says this.
But when a son of G-d says this, when a follower of the L-rd says this…I begin to take issue.
When a bride of Christ calls themselves a harlot, even after His cleansing, Living Water, Fuller’s Soap and Refining Fire have burned up all the actual filthy rags, it does not befit the Kingdom of G-d for you His son to pick up blood-soaked rags and dress yourself afresh in them.
As if you forgot that He C.L.E.A.N.S.E.D. you Seven ways to Saturday.
Beloved, this one time, I call your spirit to attention in the name of Yeshua.
Spirit, Listen to the Word of G-d for you for today:
Come now and let us reason TOGETHER
Though your sins are as scarlet
They SHALL be WHITE AS SNOW
Isaiah 1:18
Spirit, G-d is the One Who Reasons TOGETHER with you.
With you on His lap and He looking directly on you as you are awash in His presence.
I want this reality to soak into your very fiber, dear heart.
You are loved and yearned for and desires and enough.
And the Bronze Laver is part of the reality, as is the Second Day. And those items will never and can never be unmade as part of the fractal.
Spirit, you can let go of the castigation of yourself.
Jesus loves you, this I know….
Spirit, you were always enough.
The L-rd, the Reasoner Concerning Your Sin, who does not fly off the handle at your sin, and heals your heart so that your heart can testify that the Bridegroom is steadfastly faithful in all things….
THAT L-RD bless you with the depths of reality that is deeper than your kiddie-pool shallower than a puddle sin when compared to His Reality…
Hear the Word of the L-rd resonate in the courts of Your Seat of Dominion
For this reason I bow the knee….
Before the Father
That Messiah May dwell in your hearts (plural) through faith
Your three hearts….
The Brain
The Heart
The Reins, being the Kidneys and Adrenals
That you being rooted and grounded in the soul of his love
May have power to comprehend together with all of the saints, what is…
The length…
And the breadth…
And the height…
And the depth…
And to KNOW that which is deeper and higher and broader and wider and longer than all that may be known….
Now, unto him who IS ABLE TO KEEP you from stumbling….
And present you faultless….
Before the presence of His Glory…
With Exceeding Joy…..
To the Only Wise G-d Our Father….
Be Glory….
And Majesty….
Dominion…
And Power…
Both now and forverermore….
Spirit, I bless you with a depth in Him that UNANCHORS the knowledge of the exceeding sinfulness of your sin
And roots and anchors you in the deeper, yea, infinite depths of His lovingkindness and tender mercies….
I bless you to be reconciled with a depth of perspective that causes you to see His reason for why you are cleansed beyond belief and why you ARE whiter than snow…
I bless you to receive the depth of His heart-filled-emotion-filled-solid-as-a-rock-emotion-laden reasoning…
I bless you to see His capacity and willingness to handle your debts….all of them…
And I bless you to recover the lost wages those clowns stole with penalties and interest…
I bless you that you will be filled and fulfilled with HOLY righteousness THAT WEAVES TOGETHER PRINCIPLES the weaving together of which sanctifies you to your birthright, which is the promise of His vow to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness….
I bless you to be reconciled to a King that wants to lavish His full affection on you, though you think you are a sinner…..
I bless you with the Light of His countenance, that He May give you wholeness, spirit….
I bless you, spirit, to know that the Bronze Laver is irrevocable to the Second Level, and G-d WILL NEVER TAKE IT AWAY. It is impossible for G-d to remove His mechanism which Cleanses, because He cannot help but cleanse things.
He is around, and things in His presence begin to be cleansed because of who He is. He will clean you if you let him.
Believers, we sell ourselves short and then we misapply the amazing gifts we have been given because we think the authority G-d gave us is paltry.
We call ourselves “poor old sinner saved by grace” and then we take the shocking authority has been given us, and with our mouths, we empower the clowns to assault other believers because we as believers come into agreement with LIES. And he co-opts our Authority because we lie about ourselves and our true identity snd authority.
There is never a convenient time to bring this sort of topic up….
Especially because it may trigger fierce viewpoints from many quarters of our body and community.
So, I may as well bring it up now rather than later.
For the last several years, I have been put off with the spirit of premature death. And I think I have arrived at a solution that may provide some understanding as to why some believers die prematurely.
The L-rd and I were having a conversation about believers dying before their time.
And given the second member of the fractal of Seven in Scripture deals with the Principle of Authority, and I have dealt extensively with believers who have misused their authority to engage in destructive behaviors they were not meant to….
Some things began to click in the last few days.
I saw the body of a friend in the spirit laying face down and a number of arrows, knives, swords, spears, and other piercing and stabbing weapons littering this friend’s back. The body was bloodied and my friend was obviously dead.
This friend has a sterling record of integrity and one of the few lives I would want to emulate as a believer and pastor.
And for those of you that know I walk as a seer, some know I see weapons in the spirit.
And weapons that are darkened typically are demonic or belonging to an unbeliever. But weapons that are polished and bright and bejeweled typically belong to believers.
As hard as it may be for some people to believe, followers of Christ can spiritual attack other believers with their spiritual weapons (2 Cor. 10:4-6).
The L-rd gives us tremendous authority in the spiritual realm, and we have latitude with our free will to mishandle and harm others with the tools and weapons we have been given.
And in the back of this individual who had physically died, the weapons were those of many believers. Bejeweled knifes, shining arrows meant for the clowns, spears of amethyst, and darts of emerald among all other manner of weapons.
Verbal agreements, that came forth from mouths that should have spoken kingly agreements of the L-rd were marshaled by the enemy to destroy one of His own.
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations,
From Revelation 19:21
And the sense I got was that this has happened before with other believers who had died prematurely due to the agreement, slander, libel, social media mendacity, and publishing of false accusations and attacks due to the mishandling of spiritual authority.
And for those who know me, you know my testimony includes a situation where my ex-pastor’s wife engaged in similar behavior that nearly destroyed me, which you can read about here.
To be sure, because of the reality of free will, G-d will allow believers to use their authority, especially earned authority, for nefarious and abusive ends, for a season, during which time, He will give them space to repent. My ex-pastor’s wife sent all sorts of clowns after me and lobbed all sorts of weapons in the spirit at me. And then the time came when the L-rd said “enough.”, and He stripped her of her authority and her birthright and gave that birthright to another
Here is a similar case, I believe. G-d is showing that this person was killed prematurely by others on the body of Messiah, and G-d is likewise giving those who misused their authority a season for a season to repent.
By the way, once a weapon has been lobbed in a person and left behind, that person generally loses the weapon once it has been removed unless the L-rd restores it back to them.
These weapons that have been thrown at this individual and left in them have been removed and cleansed and stored away.
But, gang, this is a wake-up call from the L-rd to His Body.
Repent of harsh words and befouling and twisting and maligning and false accusations. The anger and wrath and slander and malice and abusive speech that Colossians 3:8 speaks about, I instruct those of you with those bitter roots and walking in those sins to rid yourselves of them so that the words you speak are full of the King’s fruit and are life-giving.
He has space for you.
Space to repent.
Space to disempower the spirit of premature death.
Space to come in the opposite spirit.
Space to gain spiritual understanding of the human spirit and the Principle of Authority.
And space to successfully practice the right applications of the Principle of Authority.
So that no further friends and siblings and leaders need die prematurely.
Please note that I have been discreet not to name names out of respect for others, and please honor that discretion by refraining from speculating as to identities.
Beloved, I invite your spirit forward to connect for a few minutes.
Spirit, listen tot he word of G-d for you for today.
The L-RD said to Cain…
From Genesis 4:6, 9 ESV
Spirit, this text clearly says that, when Cain sinned in unrighteous anger and in the execution of murder both times, it never says he went to G-d. Rather, the text seems, at least to me, to indicate G-d came to him.
Let me say that again a little louder for those in the back.
Spirit, after Cain messed up twice, G-d didn’t consign him immediately to hell or Sheol or banish Cain. G-d came to Cain to help coach him to fix the problem.
Cain chose to leave G-d’s presence, not the way we typically hear this preached.
Nor was Cain this “ooooohhhhh wicked rebellious sinner beyond redemption.”
And this whole overgrown “a holy G-d cannot look on sin” nonsense that we have constructed off on own or two proof texts.
Plainly, after Cain sinned and before any sort of repentance take place, G-d approached him when there was still blood on his hands and offered to help him out of it.
Spirit, after our mess-ups and before the repentance bears forth, there is a moment in which G-d comes to visit us with His kindness and which His offer to help us to a better place.
So, Spirit, I bless you to speak up when we each screw up and to say “HEY! THIS IS THE WAY BACK HOME!!!!!”
I bless your voice to be among the oldest in our ear and presenting the kindness of the King as the way back home, even if the way back home may be difficult.
I bless you to latch onto and to display the reconciling desire of the Father’s heart when we are missing it.
I bless you to remind the person in whom you dwell that the way back home is already ready already (pardon that odd syntax), and the door is already flung wide for you to come back home, and the Father waits to kill the fatted calf in celebration of your return.
I bless you to be full of the purposes of the L-rd as you come back home and as you respond to the voice of the L-rd who is ever near the screwed-up.
I bless you to light on the path and the place where we ought to go.
If we are exhorted, spirit, to come boldly before the throne of grace, what’s to stop the Father from boldly coming to us with kindness to make…
all things new….
Be reconciled, you who have messed up, to a Father that wants you home.
This post was prompted as a teaching from Scripture based on a question that I receved from one of my friends on Facebook. So, follower of Yeshua, what follows are some thoughts on the concept of a sausage factory versus the kind of factory that blesses the L-rd.
Someone once asked me to break down the concept of a sausage factory and what I meant by that, given I use the term a lot.
I was going to respond to that, but I think Donald Hardy does a superb job concisely describing it in the above comment, so I posted his thoughts above, and then I will expand on his commentary with a few thoughts of my own.
Basically, sausage factories = any place where the products made are belched out with grinding efficiency and made to look identical one to another.
If we are supposed to conform to the image of Christ, however, what is wrong with this, and can I back this up with Scripture?
The problem is that we were each designed by our Creator, the Everlasting Father, with a unique design that is set up to fit hand-in-glove somewhere in this world. And this world, while for a season has been made subjected to futility (Romans 8:20), was also designed to experience liberation. That liberation comes through sons who step into sonship.
Sonship Defined
And what do sons do? Well, for starters, they survey around them and see what tools they have on hand, and they use those tools to solve problems that face them. A son was designed to give and build. A son was made to create.
And as we step into the L-rd more fully and progress in our walk with Him, we move from bondage to obedience. And obedience is not the end game. Obedience is the midpoint in our journey from bondage and slavery. The end game is sonship and freedom to act. As we mature in the fruit of the Spirit, we grow more like Him, and He gives us some choices to act, and there are consequences that follow as effects from the causes that are our actions.
Don’t shoot me for not talking about daughters, ladies. We as men are the bride of Christ, and you as ladies are the Sons of G-d.
Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for everyone.
Think about it. A bride is made for receiving intimacy from her husband in varied forms. A bride receives.
And a son gives out. It’s a pattern of two. Giving and receiving. Male and female. Evening and morning. Intimacy and Donimion.
Note how the church is mentioned in the New Testament versus the Kingdom. The flavors of the passages are different. Those are not a single entity, but two seperate entities.
And on the complementing end of the spectrum, a son gives out. He or she builds the Kingdom using the tools and plans given him or her by the King. As noble subjects of our King, we start out by hearing what the L-rd wants, as Moses began when he came to the L-rd (the L-rd told him what to do in the beginning with the plagues and presenting himself to Pharaoh), and then the L-rd begins the process of transitioning us to devising solutions to problems. Note the progression and growth of Moses from Exodus 3 – Exodus 14:15.
In the issue with the serpents first trio of plagues, Moses spoke to Aaron, Aaron spoke to Pharoah, and Aaron performed the acts with his staff (Exodus 7:9; 7:13; 7:19-20; 8:6; 8:16-17) In the next trio of plagues, G-d removes a set of training wheels as it were and says “Moses goes in to speak to Pharaoh”. Much less Aaron involvement (8:20; 9:1; 9:10). For the final 3 plagues, Moses does them without Aaron’s involvement.
And then for the Red Sea incident, the L-rd utters a curious phrase. “Why are you crying to me?” Meaning: you are a son and have matured. You can exercise some crativity. That is something you say to a son who has a library of understanding and growth and tools that he can use to build.
Likewise, in our relationship with the L-rd, as we begin, we work at hearing G-d’s voice, and merely doing what He says.
But as we progress, the L-rd says about certain things “you have faced this circumstance before, and now like a Father who has equipped His son, I am going to step back a little bit, though I am still near you and watch you engage with the tools we have designed together.”
And, brother or sister, it is okay. He has not gone AWOL or left the shop where we are. He is allowing us to experiment with the tools we have been given by Him to figure some things out. He is sitting on his stool and smiling at us as we grow to be more like him. There is sweat on our faces and oil mingling with concrete, or sawdust on the floor of the shop, or the acrid scent of solder or torch-cut metal.
And as we become more familiar with the tools that are the principles of Scripture, we begin to move toward our design and destiny for which He has hardwired us.
And that destiny is unique for each of us.
This is why in Scripture, Paul talks about “One body with many members”. It is not about us each looking the same or being the same or acting the same. G-d knew when He made each of us, that we were made to do something unique. None of us has a truly identical purpose one to another.
Let’s ingest this following passage and hunt for the details.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
1 Corinthains 12:12-26 ESV
You are not a sausage, follower of Christ. You are a unique individual. You are a fruit factory. A tree in the garden of the L-rd.
And you were made to take the finite principles Father gives you, and weave them together into a nearly infinite series of solutions to solve problems that you face.
So many are parroting the same answer to the same problems, whether that problem is political, or church-related, or culturally-related. You have the capacity, and as a pastor, I give you the permission to walk freely in your design to be a fruit tree that produces solutions to problems no one else is solving, and to develop the skills necessary to prossess your unique birthright.
And by the way, as sons in the kingdom, you are also leaders. You are not followers. This is not about merely ceding your authority to someone else. Rather, it is about stepping into the authority He has given you and which you have spent years earning.
So, I end this with a Blessing of your spirit.
Beloved, I call your spirit to attention in Jesus’ name.
Spirit, listen to the word of G-d for you for today.
“The L-RD G-d took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”
Genesis 2:15 ESV
Spirit, your Father created Adam for a purpose, to work and tend the Garden of the L-rd East in Eden. This garden was an excellent ecosystem, but there were still animals to name and design and tools to unpack and learn to use. The man was made to work the garden. He was made to unpack horticulture, and animal husbandry, and a vast array of agricultural and ecological issues. He was given problems and two paths to potential solutions.
1) Take from the tree of knowledge.
2) Take his problems and talk to the L-rd or within himself and his G-d-given spirit to unpack tools to solve those problems.
Likewise, spirit, you also have been magnificently designed to solve a particular set of problems. You were hardwired for something or made for something.
So, I bless you to turn your face to Father, and receive from Him all the instructions and software necessary to unpack what is in you and what is in your heart and what is in your situation that needs solving. You have deep and complex problems that you face each day, and those require complex solutions that are created from the weaving together of principles (cause-and-effect relationships).
Orville and Wilbur Wright did not get the plane off the ground without methodical research into weather and air patterns, the flight of birds, the consideration of different materials, and the sowing together of those materials into a right design, turn, lift, descent, glide, thrust, as well as the right piece of land.
Spirit, the aviation industry is rife with the designs of the Wright Brothers that were meshed together. Wilbur was a Prophet by Redemptive Gift (Romans 12:6-8), and Orville was a Teacher.
Prophets naturally lend themselves to strong emotions, quick movements, ideological bents, and the new, bleeding-edge, technology, and a singular sense of humor that mostly leads to snark. They are always pushing forward based on their amazing capacity to solve problems and fix things, and they often are held in disdain because they see a problem usually before anyone else, even fi they get a little tunnel-visioned in their focused intensity.
Teachers, on the other hand, are the consummate safe havens, anchors, and tinkerers in the world. They experiment and go back and refine a hundred times over. And they are meticulous in their research and background information and history and devotion to the old. And they have a singular wit and a lively sense of humor.
So, spirit, I bless you not only to weave together principles when the L-rd places you in your “garden”, but also to hear the L-rd when He tells you to go do thus and so.
I bless you to follow what the L-rd has put into you, and to unpack the treasures, even if the rest of the world, and G-d forbid, even the church says “You are not supposed to go that way or do this, because a good Christian looks like this, not that”.
I bless your pursuit of your original design and purpose.
I bless you to speak up so that the person in which you dwell hears you and moves with you.
I bless your design to hear and relay the voice of G-d in the midst of a world et up with arrogance, woundedness, and pride.
I bless you to fight for your two feet of breathing room, and I bless you to know the King more deeply as you are unpacked.
I bless you to be at peace and wholeness even when no-one but the L-rd supports your journey, in the name of Yeshua.
