Someone missed the transition from communicating about church to communicating about G-d
The above image was seen on my personal wall and so I am re-posting it here with my thoughts:
As a pastor, I would like to address a notoriously faulty paradigm here.
How does “don’t make church a high priority” translate into “no concept of G-d”?
If we communicate truth, and we move from one concept to a different concept, without language for a smooth transition that connects the two realities, then the flow will be choppy.
We live in a church age where where church members and preachers have equivocated “G-d” and “church”, and subsequently used the two interchangeably.
Or G-d and Christianity, and then utter retardations such as “Christianity is the only valid religion” or “Christianity is the only way to G-d”.
And as we all know, Jesus said:
“The Church is the Way, the Truth, and the Life”.
And we have made the church responsible for spiritual growth. And we have abdicated our responsibility, to, flowing from our personal relationships with the Trinity, raise our kids up in the nurture and the admonition of the Church.
Are you getting it yet? Too many of my cynical Generation X are done with the “Church is G-d” Bolshevik.
The issue is not church, but growing up without parents who impart through the spirit to them, not the reality of church, but the reality of G-d.
If I impart knowledge of an institution and then farm my kids out to someone else in order for them to be instructed in Scripture without doing that heavy lifting myself first, then I don’t know how much good the church will do or be.
I will also say this.
Most of my wounds spiritually came from believers in institutional churches who refused to make discernment a priority or listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit also a priority, while judging me by my exterior, repeatedly and brazenly, which in turn led to slander and false accusations.
I’ve been a believer for 37 years, and have been raising my kids without an institutional church’s backing for the last several years, and it’s not because I have a theology degree, but because I listen to and hear Him.
It is amazing to me that, in the first 3 steps of this sequence, G-d HIMSELF, the Word of G-d, Jesus is not mentioned. Just a damn institution which may or may not get my kids closer to the L-rd if it does not know how to equip and release according to design.
So, if the sequence is to truly be logical, I would replace “church” in each step with “G-d”.
Over and over, I have seen all kinds of memes and posts that refer to institutions and seem to imply the institution is the same thing as the Man, and that simply is not the case.
A church is only as healthy as the strength of the personal relationships its members have with the Holy Trinity apart from the power and authority structures they attempt to place on one another.
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.
Some weapons that are forged with the enemy’s intent to harm us actually do harm us.
“But wait, David. You are teaching heresy. The Word of G-d says, ‘no weapon formed against you shall prosper’. What are you talking about? I am so confused.”
Confusion comes when we refuse to read all of what is tied to a particular passage.
There can be a number of reasons why weapon prosper, but I want to focus on one dynamic of Isaiah 54:17 in particular: its immediate context.
So, the text for verse 17 reads:
no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.
Isaiah 54:17 ESV
Many sectors of the Charismatic Movement get so stuck on declaration and decrees, that they do not account for the context that builds into us that sinewy, tough, muscle in the spirit that comes through the process that enables Isaiah 54:17 to become a reality.
They miss that Isaiah 54:17 is contingent on walking well through the sequence of Isaiah 54.
The context for that passage is the set of keys to verse 17.
It reads:
“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the L-RD.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
“For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.
“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
“For your Maker is your husband, the L-RD of Hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the G-d of the whole earth he is called.
“For the L-RD has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off”, says your G-d.
“For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
“In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the L-RD, your Redeemer.
This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you.
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the L-RD, who has compassion on you.
“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.
“I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones.
“All your children shall be taught by the L-RD, and great shall be the peace of your children.
“In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
“If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you.
“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;”
Isaiah 54:1–16 ESV
I am of the viewpoint that Isaiah 54:17 is meant to be loaded, and, behind verse 17, is supposed to be the following disciplines:
1) Sing in your barrenness while you are giving birth.
2) Enlarge your place unto the boundaries for which the L-RD has designed you.
3) Resist fear. This leads to the removal of shame, but shame is rooted in something deeper: the absence of dignity.
4) Receive dignity first BEFORE YOU RECEIVE HONOR. Honor is for what you do. Dignity is for who you are. This might mean you need your receiver fixed, if it is broken.
5) Receive the honor of what you do.
6) Stand in your office of wife, both men and women. Just like there are no daughters in the kingdom, there are not bridegrooms of Christ. Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for everyone.
7) Recognize the seeming or believed or possibly real desertion and the real gathering of the L-RD. Meaning, recognize and walk through the seasons He gives you.
8) Recognize and be able to discern when we are being afflicted and when we are being borne up and be able to celebrate the King’s majesty in the midst of this.
9) Become life-giving in a deep and principle-woven manner. We have too much shallow life-giving abounding in too many of our churches. Too many preachers with their inch-thick understanding and wisdom, and not enough miles-deep and stone-heavy principles-woven-together Teachers who will enable us to deeply mine more from the Acripture than merely to “stay in love with Jesus: it’s that simple.” It’s not that simple.
Simple solutions do not touch complex problems that have not been understood, nor in woven to discover the principles and the opposite spirit.
10) Allow Him to set your foundations and forge you. No flames of forge and no Paraclete’s hammer, zero success against the weapons forged against you. If you are not tempered, you will break and shatter against those weapons (now you know part of where our blog name comes from).
Thanks to Isaiah the Teacher for helping contribute to this.
After this sequence, much of which will be extremely painful, then the weapons will not prosper against you. You who have been tested.
Be at peace, gang, and ask yourself, “do I want that +80 authority that can only be earned?”
Slaves obey…..and they have zero creative will or desire or tools….and they have access only to what their master gives them…..
Sons create…..
I have a few questions for you. And I have hammered and pounded and beaten this drum forever.
Why the impotent focus on what Bezos and Gates do with their money?
Shouldn’t the focus be on unpacking your own stuff?
Is our job to handle other people’s stuff and see to it other people pay “their fair share”, when fairness is not in the Bible anywhere?
Is our job not to unpack the massive amount of treasures G-d has given us?
Or is it to wonder why someone else had any fulfilling OUR vision and OUR plan for their lives?
Your problem is not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Your problem (or problems) are issues that you personally deal with….
Your problem is between your ears…
Your refusal to see what G-d has given you….
Whether or not we realize it, these issues we have been dealing with for YEARS….they already have a slew of answers to them.
I will again mention two things.
We froth at Amazon, Disney, or other company C, and we miss the issues in government, or we froth at government and miss the evil companies.
But it seems we never put the two together.
And deal with the cohesive whole.
Our excuse? We like either the red or the blue solution. One of two Republicrat solutions.
And we ignore the reality that “what you pay taxes on, you own.”
Meaning, we have paid massive amounts of money into services and companies that have done evil things, and I rarely hear believers attempting to leverage the financial investments in these companies to ask the King to steer these companies in a direction that better aligns with His will.
Further question.
Can we leverage our investment to intercede for that alignment of those companies without coaching G-d as to what his purpose and direction for these companies is?
And we rarely ask Father to shine His light whereever He damn well wants to shine it.
And we rarely down a corporate womb of agreement long enough to ask Father to steer companies or governments because we’d rather talk about the injustice as if a yutz of a businessman can or has gassed Jews.
Or we Yell about the penis-shaped ship long enough to say, “he could end world hunger with those billions.
Forgetting world hunger IS….
Because of mindsets…..
The problem of world hunger and creating the foolish solution of confiscating wealth to end it won’t end it.
You will end world hunger when you end personal hunger.
And you end personal hunger when you stop saying “the answers to my problems belong to someone else”.
And when you stop trying to force people to care for the poor or hungry.
That damn spirit of jealousy that has caused fascists to loot and pillage and burn whole cities is a real problem.
And jailing or interning or concentrating or exterminating a race because you think another race is superior.
Calling for reparations when you fail to heal your own wounds is precisely what gets us to ripping all kinds of things apart.
Failing to understand your Southern brethren because you think you can talk down to him or her and they are backwards…
And using the fire of the world to confront what is ultimately a spiritual problem is how you ensure fractured relationships will continue.
The problem is not billionaires or millionaires.
The problem is misfocussed attention on the gifts and resources of others and a failure to unpack, steward, or use your own.
I just recently pulled out a major cork to some large-scale problem I have been dealing with for 3.5 decades.
And you know what?
I am going to keep on pursuing solutions to problems that have not yet been answered.
Gang, this peanuts of the Billionaires is going to get us nowhere.
The problem is the spirit that wants to keep us blind to our own resources (spirit of Jealousy)
The problem is the spirit that says we have no resources (the spirit of slavery)
The problem is the spirit that says other people are responsible for fixing our own problems (the welfare spirit)
You are not a slave, unless you stop creating and start pointing the finger and expecting that your solution is what Jeff or Bill have.
And world Hunter proceeds from a mindset that I cannot do anything to change my station.
And when Scripture shouts:
HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING THAT IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE
And yet we continue to act as if some people were given the goods and others simply were not….
We can quit making excuses that the solution is someone else’s responsibility….
That is a damn carnal Teacher with selective responsibility or a half-blind, non-principle-weaving and severely-wounded Prophet speaking.
And I simply will not make excuses for the juxtaposition of anyone’s radically-gifted-for-life life and “my problems are solved with their crap”.
This is not how any of this works.
And you won’t work if you think your problems are supposed to be owned by someone else.
Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, a godless fool who gets plenty to eat, a contemptible woman who gets married, and a servant who displaces her mistress.
Proverbs 30:21-23 NIV
When someone with a spirit of slavery is installed into office rather than a problem-solving son, the earth, the land writhes. It does not settle down at ease.
Sidebar: And for the record, those who think I am a rabid Narnian and a supporter of the Dwarf Trumpkin, I have been an equal-opportunity offender.
Our responsibility is to hunt for an unpack what was placed into us inherently. It’s not to look for someone else to fix our junk.
When we beg for someone else to manage and fix our problems for us, we are robbed of the dignity of developing rich tools to fix the problems with which we are faced.
When people are cut off from anything that enables them to see their own dignity, the dignity that will empower them to fix a problem or set of problems, and to see the gifts and tools that are already in their own hand….
When they believe they do not have unless they or a benevolent rogue take what is someone else’s…..
They enable something far worse than real lack….
They enable the mindset of the spirit of poverty and the spirit of slavery, which leads to envy and jealousy, and as a result, they will never get ahead.
Be careful when a politician sets forth a problem, for you have no idea what their solution is to that problem, and it could involve the drafting of another’s time, resources, or gifts.
The passage usually labelled “A Test For Adultery” in Numbers 5:11-31 struck me as curious today.
It’s the first mention of the Spirit of Jealousy.
And I want to cover a thought or an aspect here that may help us parse out what empowers that Spirit to have such a strong capacity to harm individuals.
What strikes me is not merely that jealousy is a feeling internal to somebody with no action or execution…
Rather, Jealousy strikes me as the intention to seek restitution for some slight of provision, that is, some belief that we were shorted or shortchanged in the area of those things that were given to us.
Dovetailing off of the Principle of Compensation, we carry a conviction that we were inadequately compensated, and we perceive an inequity where none currently exists, and as a result, we unintentionally or intentionally desire to open a legal case before the throne of the Father, using our G-d-given authority, with a desire to extract inequity from the party we believe has it better than us, without realizing that we might, before all is over, end up extracting life from that person.
Two aspects here
Life: This virtue parallels G-d the Father (see Life, Dominion, and Honor, where the Farher has GIVEN us the compliment of GIFTS that enable us to engage in everything necessary for LIFE and godliness.
Legal Court Cases involving jealousy frequently result in assaults on life, which is why myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) are so prevalent the where the Spirit of Jealousy is empowered through out authority.
Before you attempt to execute on your desire against someone, your desire should first and always give way to a willingness to discuss your issue with G-d the Father to see if your motives and thoughts are actually just and this is part of G-D’s sequence for you right now, or merely the result of offense or a slight and you personally need to seek for your own readjustment with the KingzY
You might need to deal with the L-rd one-on-one as he helps you sort through your feelings and emotions toward an individual.
I say all this because we were given a lot of authority by the L-rd and the capacity to abuse that authority if we are not careful.
In light of this, when dealing with the Kingdom’s legal system, and the level of authority you have been granted, oftentimes when your emotions are inflamed, it’s better to wait until you are capable of reasoning and have a conversation with the L-rd and ask Him to judge your emotions with you and for Him to weigh those.
There might be a misunderstanding, a head of Leviathan, a curse, a mantle, an off perception, an issue of forgiveness, something else that is to blame before you leap to demand an extraction.
So, as you are dealing with the situation where G-d is blessing or unpacking someone else, be careful, should jealousy strike, to refrain from lashing out, and from seeking for your good at someone else’s expense.
Deeply consider the nature of your cause, and ask the King for help and clarity in case there are pieces of the puzzle or perspective that you are missing.
The authority the Word of G-d gives us is truly a two-edged sword and we must be careful and clear-mindedly judicious about where we point that sword and scepter.
Be at peace as you are working through issues of potential jealousy.
And I bless you to cultivate the awareness that you might have treasures that are unpacked and you are in need of unpacking those much more than you are of envying what someone else has.
There is a real set of purposes for the Spirit of Jealousy.
But it is not for judging whether what G-d has given someone else is right or correct.
“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.
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.
When you remove something that has metastisized at an alarming rate, what instrument do you use? Answer: a scalpel. Or a sword. That depends on the context.
Likewise, when you are in Denial about a result and the truth, and the stronghold is allowed to gather strength, that stronghold rooted in denying or hiding from reality creates an oppression. This oppression, left unchecked, will result in the Fourth Head of Leviathan, which we will discuss in the post on that head.
In order to survive and then thrive, you MUST tear down that stronghold, or fall under its weight. In order to tear down that stronghold effectively, you must deal with the root of Denial.
Denial. We heard it when Bob Jones said Bill Clinton had a mantle of humility. We heard about it when people suggested on one side that the morality of the President has little to do with whether or not he or she can govern. “We are not electing a pastor but a President.” We got to the point with Clinton when he said “he didn’t mean it as adultery”. We suspend judgment when it is our people, but heap it when it is the other party or group.
And meanwhile, Joe Biden is grasping for legitimacy because we allowed the President’s office to get that raucously defiled. This creation of the Office of the President-Elect, complete with Presidential Blue backdrop is a Denial-laced grab for legitimacy, because he has not been sworn in.
And many of us appear not to give a damn nor bother to pray for the toll this passed-around nonsense is taking on the marriages and families of those in positions of influence and public service.
So, Donald Trump can be the wrecking ball all you want until the cows come home.
Bill Clinton can be humble all Bob Jones claims.
Bush 43 can be the one who wants to “restore dignity to the Oval Office” while he commits us to an open-ended battle campaign with zero end in sight.
Clinton can give us surpluses until we are blue in the face…
Both Republicans and Democrats can spend us into oblivion with impugnity…
And we can pass around lists that say Republican are for limited government…
Even though Trump and Bush 43 asked for stimulus packages totaling in the billions of dollars….
However, it will not mean a thing as long as we are single-sided in our attacks and corrections and rebukes.
We still have not come out of our Denial yet, church. Neither have our government officials. And I am not convinced they want to.
The problem, indeed, is that SHIELD is a nothing more than a front for HYDRA. Those of you who have never seen the MCU movie “Captain America: Winter Solider” may not know what I mean by this. So, here are the pertinent movie clips.
And we are conserving and liberating nothing, except for the cancer that is present. Our responsibility is not to let one party or group play us off one another. In ANY arena, political or otherwise.
Spiritually speaking, this Denial and “my-partial-perspective-is-the-whole-picture” mindset is what allows things to grow without our knowledge or consent: In government, in the private sector, in the church and in the academy (looking at you, Liberty University sex scandal).
The Mesmerizing Spirit and this partial-as-whole perspective create a defilement of our times, our seasons, and our capacity to accurately discern the rhythm of times, seasons, and our moving forward in a horizontal manner with the constellation of our relationships in the surround.
When you are vested in the success of a political party come hell or high water, regardless of the actual truth, you have crossed the line into Denial.
When you are vested in the protection of a church’s reputation regardless of who was harmed by the abuse (Mars Hill, Hillsong, the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of Beth Moore who called them out on their sex abuse culture), then your attitude is part of the problem.
When Denial strikes, prophets go hazy with their sight, planes fall from the sky because of imprecise engineering, and whole movements in the church go batty because they lose their focus. I am looking at the German Lutheran church for starters, where Martin Luther, the Exhorter, wanted a number of reforms, but moved to embrace anti-semitism and wasted the latter portion of his life combatting and slandering the Jewish people.
This problem of Denial and non-reality can affect anybody regardless of their gift, but it is particuarly and disproportionately damaging to the Exhorter.
Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, FDR, Ben Franklin, Walt Disney, the Assemblies of G-d, the Apostle Paul, Moses, Solomon, the state of California, Hollywood. All have had seasons where they were massively wide of the mark while being effective in other areas, and for some of them, that distraction and non-reality cost them their birthright.
And yes, when you are a President that says “I alone can do this,” then there might be an issue embodied in that mindset.
Or you are a king who, for the sake of political peace, you marry many foreign women…..
Or you are a daughter of a pagan king and are sold as a commodity to cement your father’s political relations (Jezebel), and you swear you are never going to let another person control your destiny or aspirations….
Or if you are a skilled animator who pressures everyone around you to the point where you think that because you are Walt Disney, no one of your staff will unionize….
This diorama of reality is not about one specific set of pot shots against one person. It is about helping to illustrate the worst of what happens when we embrace non-reality.
Defining Reality
Reality is the latest manifestation of the Fourth Principle. before that, it was referred to as the Principle of Sowing and Reaping, and, before that, the Principle of Pain and Suffering.
By reality, I mean embracing WHAT IS as the L-rd sees it. He sees more fully than we do. So, right off the bat, we are talking about recognizing that we see only part of the picture, or, as one Exhorter put it:
…we know in part, and we prophesy in part
Paul to the believers in Corinth.
Gang, reality means embracing the L-rd’s agenda and applying our part for what it is, into the whole, and refusing to see our portion as the whole situation. Broadly speaking, we regularly see less than the L-rd, for some reason….
So, our responsibility is to ever look to the L-rd for direction and input as we progress into our journey.
We seek His agenda and what of His agenda He has placed within us.
Some Implications of Reality
Our responsibility in hunting for His agenda (Reality) is to refuse the popular phrases or excuses of the Charismatic Movement such as:
” I do not have the time to. research this/seek for that/therefore give me the finished product, because I came expecting….”
“I do not have time to process these raw materials. G-d will send me somoeone who will provide the finished product.”
“I do not have time to do this work or that assignment or that thing over there or this thing over here.”
It is one thing for us to ask for help when we really need it, but to engage in every situation by waltzing in with a bang and a flourish and expecting others to give to you finished products from their resources with zero understanding of the cost to them, or the sequence of Giving and Receiving is something entirely different.
There is an entitlement mindset pervasive in the body of Christ that loves to claim divine intervention for Every. Single. Situation where our poor planning or lack of resources is a factor.
Uttering Praise the L-rd and G-d Came Through when He actually came through is not a problem.
However, when we poorly plan and poorly execute and someone comes in and bails us out and we refuse to thank them for fixing our problem in our blindness, and we refuse to make course corrections or adjustments so we do not have the same problem in the future, then we have a larger root problem, and are not far from walking in non-reality.
We simply have to walk this cause-and-effect thing we call Reality more cleanly. If we are chronically late, for example, then we need to figure out why we are late and fix the problem.
We must intentionally sow good seed in order to reap a good crop.
Now, I am not beating up people who have a wound or some trauma or some junk where G-d is working in a long-term process with them to bring them to a better place. Each of us has some issues and stuff and none of us has arrived at the place of sheer perfection. If you are actively attempting to work at bettering your situation, that is one thing.
But it is entirely a different thing when sloth is part of the equation, and you are allowing life happen to you. The spirit of passivity does not belong to the highly effective son or daugher in the Kingdom; they happen to situations.
You must, in walking in Reality, know the difference between pawning your situations off on others, asking for help if you are stuck, and working at the areas you know something about and have means to fix.
It is critically important for each of us to have a goal in mind and, pending our relentless consultation with the L-rd about those plans, move toward the goal that should result in us possessing our birthright.
And in engaging Reality, we must all learn how to….
Embrace the Right Level and Kind of Pain
Indiscriminate pain avoidance is not the domain of those who wish for Reality. Rather, our responsibility is embracing the right kind and level of pain.
Your Pain….Productive Or Not…You Decide…
You have a score of choices with respect to what you do with your pain. And there are two types of pain….productive or unproductive.
Grossly put, unproductive pain is pain that comes into your life situation from which you fail to derive any lesson of any sort. You do not connect with the L-rd in this pain, and as a result, the adversity brings little to know growth.
Productive pain, on the other hand, is pain from which the L-rd is able to instruct you.
Most pain starts out as unproductive. It is the lesson that makes the difference in whether or not the pain moves from the Unproductive category to the Productive category.
For example, years ago, my father abandoned me and my parents divorced. For a long time I could only feel the sting and the heartache of my father’s absence, and this was compounded by the fact that he died a few years back.
What helped transform this pain from unproductive to productive was me helping others who had lost fathers to abandonment or alcohol or death, and blessing them. Taking care of my sons and my daughter.
Sometimes, walking in the blessings that come from walking in reality means embracing others who need when you are in a place of lack and stepping into places to bless and encourage in areas where you have received little to no human encouragement.
We have a perfect Father, and we lack no father, even if our eathly fathers abandoned us. Given we have a perfect and loving Father, what do we lack in terms of tools, affection, and depth of capacity to love and father others?
Nothing.
Reality dictates that we lack nothing with which to father. Not wisdom or resources. Not heart or spirit. Not emotions. Not understanding, knowledge, or wisdom. And certainly not a sense of justice or the capacity for a heart oozing with compassion. Because our G-d could related to our frailties, we also can relate to the weakness of others, and the lack in others.
Because He received from Our Father, we also can receive and then give to others who lack.
Provided we are wiling to move beyond slavery and into the embrace of our Father and give that embrace to others.
We love, because he first loved us. We have freely received SO MUCH, and so we are able to give even in areas where we have lacked.
This is reality that comes from the Father of Lights who has given us his son. How much will He not also give us all things.
Translation: G-d gave us everything He had in the embodiment of His Son. What’s a little bit of stuff? Especially when we are sent to be life-giving to others.
AN INTRODUCTION AND SOME CUSTOMARY PROVOKING STATEMENTS
Because New York passed an abortion law or some such thing, people all of a sudden have started to talk about and exegete the news.
It has been raised as an argument against those who might be pro-life that G-d cannot be pro-life, since, in the Bible, and specifically, in the Torah, he killed babies.
I rarely discuss current events at the same time they are happening. But today I will make an exception. Check that. Two exceptions.
#elliotabrams
It is uncomfortable to talk about how unrighteous our government’s actions are in the area of abortion and talking about how righteous a pro-life stance is, while turning the blind eye to the warhawking anti-life nature of conducting police state actions overseas, that are the purview of Republicans and Democrats alike.
Back to what I was talking about, seriously. Sometimes we want to excuse our government’s stupidity by an appeal to one issue, when there are a breadth of issues at play. And such exegesis gets sloppy.
Some days, our exegesis, which can turn to support one group or party over another, is only painted with broad strokes that Scripture does not use.
And when it comes to Scripture, sometimes our exegesis boils down to making sure that the G-d in the right hand side of the Bible apologizes for the actions of the G-d in the left hand side of the Bible.
But here is how I would processionally explain the actions of the G-d on the left hand side of the book, in seven elements.
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8
PREFACING THE SEVEN ELEMENTS: IS HE REALLY AS MEAN AS SOME SAY?
Consider also the fact that the “kinder, gentler” guy on the right hand side of the book, at the end of the right hand side, plagued the whole earth and wiped out a million here and there, in case we think the guy on the right hand side has more reformed ways.
Translation: parsing the Old Testament G-d and the New Testament G-d out from each other as distinct causes the whole book to fall apart greatly. Truly, they are one and the same. Revelation teaches us that. And His Judgment is His mercy.
BACKGROUND TEXTS FOR RECONCILING THE TWO PARTS
G-d, on the other hand, as Scripture RELENTLESSLY teaches throughout both the Tanakh and the New Testament, gives space for people to repent and reform before He executes against them.
Cue cluster of texts that show G-d’s mercy and granting people space and breathing room to repent before He judges.
Jonah 3-4, where G-d relents/repents after the capital of the flaying Assyrians repents.
Revelation 2:21, where G-d gave Jezebel space to repent
Genesis 15:16, where G-d gave the Amorites space to repent, that He didn’t have to, and would have caused something to work out between Israel and the Amorites had they repented.
Genesis 18:17-19, where G-d debated what he would share with Abraham, knowing Abraham’s righteousness, knowing Abraham’s heart to cry out for mercy, and knowing that Abraham was able to affect G-d’s heart because Abraham was the friend of G-d in only the way Givers can be.
Deuteronomy 2:9 and Judges 11:17, where G-d gave Moab their land, and commanded Israel not to harrass them, even before Moab fought against Israel (Joshua 24:9). This could have led to Moab’s national repentance and a reconciliation and commerce between Moab and Israel. And even when the national reconciliation did not take place, G-d STILL played out the drama that should have been between Moab and Israel in the story of Ruth and Boaz.
Genesis 46:4, where G-d SENT Israel down to Egypt, and G-d DWELT WITH Israel IN Egypt, and during which season, Israel had centuries to get to know her G-d, and the Amorites had space to repent and prepare the land for the ISRAELITES, which could have happened instead of their destruction.
Genesis 47:6, where Pharaoh gave favor to Israel in the land of Egypt and with the pagan ruler of Egypt.
Isaiah 19:24-25, where the L-rd will ultimately bring about redemption of the Egyptian nation, and the Egyptian nation will occupy the first place. SECONDLY, <GASP>, pagan, flaying, barbaric Assyria. And third, Israel.
Exodus 4:22-23, where G-d first reveals to a pagan nation His name of “Father”. He then commands, before the first drop of water turns to blood and before the first frog touches the land and dies, Egypt to LET HIS SON GO. And then the judgments start and increase.
And yes, one can argue G-d kept Pharaoh from repenting, because of Exodus 4:21 and 7:3, but to merely argue that is to see only part of the whole narrative. Psalm 115:16, “the highest heavens belong to the L-rd, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.” G-d has given people free will to choose what they will or will not do. He does not always get what He wants.
From the point above, through the entire sequence of issues, the L-rd showed the Egyptians what they had done in infant genocide towards the men of Israel (Exodus 1:22, note the waters turning to blood in 7:17-21 revealed the death that was in the water and the blood that was on the Egyptian hands). The Tenth Plague was the progressive outflow of the response of the Egyptian injustice of Israelite genocide. Again, there are causes and effects. And when you sow the cause, you will reap the effects.
Let me point out also the counsel of G-d in Exodus 9:19; He told the Egyptian people to gather their flocks and herds to keep them from the hail. Some listened, and some did not. There were Egyptians who had livestock that kept them in from the hail and their livestock was spared. This opened the door for some of them to turn. G-d uses every circumstance to bring people to Him, including His judgments.
Recall also Exodus 12:49, which could plausibly imply that, during the plagues, there were some Egyptians in the nation that chose to follow the G-d of Israel, and chose to align themselves with Israel, and celebrated the Passover. Even if there were none that did actually align with Israel, He still made provision for that.
The book of Joshua is completely devoted to the destruction of whole nations while the Israelites possessed the Promised Land.
Element 1: G-d’s decisions, even those decisions that result in human death, are ALWAYS executed in the context of His mercy and His justice, which are the twin facets of His love. What will drive His children to seek Him?
Element 2: G-d’s purposes are aimed at a long-game strategy. He weighs all decisions with an eye toward redemption and how they will impact eternity and His house.
Element 3: G-d aims to eradicate sin, rebellion, iniquity, and abomination from the earth.
Element 4: G-d’s yearning desire is to walk among us, be our G-d, and for us to be His people. Whatever keeps that community from happening He may remove from us.
Element 5: G-d looks for the fruit on the tree. He looks for fresh water or salt, hot water or cold, humility or assertion, upness or downness, filiality or bridality. He looks for consistency that He can utilize. He looks for and brings organized sequence.
Element 6: Sin twists and perverts the good, and that twisting is revealed in the fruit of the tree that is planted. G-d despises things that twist and mar. Element 7: Everything G-d is, does, or permits to happen is ALWAYS with an eye toward straightening out the twistedness.
Look, it is not like G-d on a bipolar whim massacred millions of innocent babies in an unprovoked rage.
He gave all of these nations, including Mizraim, CENTURIES to repent. And when a culture of death and murder is embraced, somewhere down the line, death is going to be result, and the empire that embraces death is going to self-devour.
He exposed the Egyptian culture for the death-bringing culture it had become. Blood was already in the waters before the first plague. He just forced the nation to see the blood that was in the water. He untwisted the reality of the waters. And in so doing, He allowed all of those baby boys’ blood to testify (Hebrews 12:24).
The Golden Calf is an example of a culture self-devouring. The Levites massacred 3,000 of their own families and so were ordained through G-d’s warring against the defiled spirit of idolatry.
National sin has national consequences. Longstanding sin has consequences. G-d even showed longsuffering toward the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities on the plain, and Lot interceded for Zoar, and as a result, G-d spared that city.
And one of the names of G-d (Exodus 34:5-6) is The L-rd Who Is Longsuffering.
G-d is not Hitler, G-d is not Pol Pot, G-d is not Stalin, and G-d is not Mao. And it is not really the church’s job to justify the behavior of G-d to others. G-d can work in, around, and through our objections and the obstacles. But we have to recognize that the principles of Scripture do work. Sexual sin has sexual consequences, murderous sin has murderous consequences. Abortive sin has abortive consequences. Actions do have reactions. Sum of the Forces, Newtonian approximations, and all that jazz.
And Jezebel’s genocide resulted in her blood being shed.
And Naboth’s Vineyard landed on Ahab’s head.
The Principles work, without prejudice, and without caring what you think about how nice G-d or anyone else is.
And ultimately, G-d can work every situation to His glory.
But for us, now is the time to wake up, acknowledge reality in the stead of hiding from it, and bless New York, as we should have, instead of cursing it.
G-d was there first, and this decision on New York’s part is not helped by cursing New York. Rather, gang, let’s not carry on with eighty-five reams of conversation, and instead work with what we know about the Giver and Exhorter design of the state and Manhattan, respectively.
Bless the Giver and the Exhorter dynamic of that state. Just some thoughts here, gang.
