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| (Soul and Spirit) |
| 04.30.04 (3:13 pm) [edit] |
Spiritual success cannot be found in the soul.
Are you being taught by someone who has been trained that success in ministry could be found in how they thought, how they could emotionally connect, will-power, and how they present themselves? Most seminaries covertly combine soul and Spirit. People have their place among carnal if they are merely trained to minister with their soul to the souls of others in a vain attempt to produce spiritual success.
Spiritual success is not found in your thoughts, or how you present yourself, or will-power. Spiritual success is found in the Spirit of the the Lord Jesus. Not by power or by might, but by the Spirit.
Spiritual instruction will separate soul and Spirit, and point to a little treasure box, not in your inner self, but deeper, in your innermost being, where all of the fullness of the Godhead in Christ resides in all those born of the Spirit.
I often point out that Christ's life is holy. And if you have Christ as your life, then are you any less holy?
Christ's life is near to the Father. And if you have Christ as your life then how near to the Father are you?
Christ's life is righteous. If Christ is your life the how righteous are you?
Are you finding your identity by the Spirit, or the soul? Unbelief will tell you that you are less holy then Christ, less perfect, etc. Thus carnal teaching will always point to condemnation, because to condemn someone they first have to convince you that you are not in Christ. (see Romans 8 - there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus)
You will never be spiritually limited by your soul, in what you know, how you feel, how you relate to family, your occupation, nor whatever drives your identity outside of your Spirit. Everything outside of your Spirit will fail you, and drive you to something beyond the carnal emphasis on the things of the soul. These things will betray you, and it is a blessing when they do. God wants you to look for the longings of your heart in Him, where He can impact you in your innermost being - your Spirit.
Open the treasure chest, and out of it will flow rivers of living water.
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| (fantasy) |
| 04.29.04 (9:33 pm) [edit] |
No matter what distinguishes Christ and his church, it is insignificant compared to the oneness.
I'll keep this article short, but Christianity quickly becomes a fantasy if you separate yourself from Christ and attempt to be like Him.
If I stood Tiger Woods in front of you and asked for descriptions, then we would have alot of fantastic words to describe a phenomenal athlete. If I wrote the descriptions down on a board and then omitted Tiger as the person that we were talking about. Well first of all it would not make sense, but secondly ... and more importantly, the description would simply be a fantasy. Now, what is the Sermon on the Mount, if you eliminate Christ? What are any of the attempts to separate yourself from Christ and behave like Him except silly fantasies?
Do we imitate holiness to become holy, or do we invite Christ to come and be our holiness in us?
If we are one with Christ, as He is one with the Father, then we are combined with Him in perfect unity and combined to each other as well. This is why love for your uniqueness is easy in light of our oneness, because I love my uniqueness, and this is why we should not harm each other in the body of Christ, because we only harm ourselves due to our oneness in Spirit.
WWJD cannot help you life a godly life any more then a "What-Would-Tiger-Do" bracelet will help you win a major PGA event. So, I say that Christ in me is the REALITY that is my only hope of glory, not trying to live up to the lonely fantasy of "What Jesus Would Do."
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| (shame) |
| 04.29.04 (7:35 am) [edit] |
If you have been raised in a country that won't let you deny your guilt, then you are blessed. If your upbringing involved admitting what you did wrong, then you were also blessed. Everywhere you were exposed to your own guilt was a blessing, and everywhere you were allowed to conceal your guilt was a curse. Spiritual instruction will always emphasize the reality of our guilt and shortcomings.
Carnal teaching on the other hand emphasizes the counterfeit to guilt which is shame. Shame says, "You should have done this, but you did that." The person in shame will say things like, "I can't believe that I did that." Well, believe it because you did, and it is no surprise to God, or anyone with understanding. You are not strong, and you should not think that you should be more then exactly what you are.
Shame will cause you to want to escape guilt and blame something else as the cause, as Adam blamed Eve. Shame will also cause to to accept guilt that doesn't really belong to you, as Eve did to Adam. Shame is the oppression of not knowing God's love and forgiveness, and will torment you in darkness with the fantasy hope to become a "Great-Christian-Someday" ... worthy "someday." But that "someday" will never come, and so you wait in anguish to be worthy of God's love instead of just realize that you will never be worthy of it, and just own all of your shortcomings as your true condition.
In order to accept guilt all you have to do is face reality.
In order to live under shame, then all you have to do is construct a fantasy of how you should be to merit significance, and worth.
That fantasy will oppress you, and make you try to impress God, or impress others so they will accept you, and if you are successful, then you have to keep up the appearance and anxiously conceal the reality of your guilt. Like Adam and Eve, you'll put up fig leaves to hide from each other and use trees to hide from God ... that is - until you are that "Great-Christian-Someday."
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| (fatalism) |
| 04.27.04 (5:23 pm) [edit] |
Carnal teaching ultimately sends you in a downward spiral, because you have demand with no dynamic supply, and impossible burden with no rest. The only thing can the keep you going under that kind of teaching is the fear of losing/disqualification, but secretly you just want to end it all. Suicidal rapturist have booked their teaching assignments to tickle the ears of the carnal with the wishful expectation of a premature rescue from their tribulation.
Fatalism is the warmest glow that someone can experience when they just want to die. You aren't loading a revolver yet, but you are emphasizing the return of Jesus, the going through misery now so that you can get snowcones in the sky in the by-n-by. You might even wish you "haven't even been born" under that kind of emphasis.
Buddhist have the stupa, which is a giant and beautifully built dome. The stupa is not maintained, so that it will decay. They teach that existence is pain, and like the dome-bubble suffers pain and ruin through whatever comes against it. Ultimately, the goal is to become nothing, which is nirvana. Fatalism is just the Christian equivalent of the stupa-understanding, of misery concluding in the rescue of death.
Spiritual teaching never leads you to Christian fatalism. There is no empty dome of existence, rather we spiritually see existence like an egg. Whatever death comes against us, can break us and spill forth life from within.
In me is an overcoming life, that conquers anything that comes against it. It is like a diamond that is hidden in a cake. A knife will quickly cut through the cake, but if it ever makes contact with the gem then the knife will not cut the diamond, but rather be cut/destroyed by the greater substance. Everything gives way to the Eternal Life that is in us.
So, if I have a problem outside of me, and a Solution that is inside of me ... WHAT IS IN THE WAY?
:-)
We have problems/tribulation in spiritual teaching, but we don't let them point us towards Buddhistic fatalism. If it feels like your mate is tearing chunks of flesh off of you, that is exactly what is happening, and the sooner that you are out of the way, the sooner that you will have victory. We emphasize that in every Christian is the Way, and the Way holds all the answers for real (un-imagined) calamity. The ripe Christian yields to pressure instead of resisting it or pushing back, because the ripe Christian knows that they have a life in them that can easily handle everything.
You don't have to be a "tough-cookie," (hard on the outside; empty on the inside) and try to hold it together while praying for a quick end to the misery. Let the pressure push you to find the sufficiency of the Way.
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| Fun with the Iraq war. |
| 04.27.04 (10:16 am) [edit] |
http://www.ryano.net/iraq/
Alright, I lack the maturity to handle this site, so just tell me what you wrote on the sign. I would love to hear. (hint: read the "favorites" for inspiration.)
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| He must have thought this would land him a dream date. |
| 04.23.04 (6:35 am) [edit] |
http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/TRONcostume/
Yes, the emergence of the TRON costume. A true babe magnet.
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| Is anything more strange then this dude in a ckicken costume? |
| 04.23.04 (6:33 am) [edit] |
http://www.subservientchicken.com/
Command him. He will obey.
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| Happy Easter |
| 04.11.04 (6:36 pm) [edit] |
I had a great Easter and I hope that you did, too!
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| the teachable/unteachable dichotomy |
| 04.05.04 (1:49 am) [edit] |
In some ways it is fitting for me to become unteachable and in some ways it is fitting for me to become more teachable. Some deep groanings of Truth are within me and as I learn to put them to words, I find that the concrete is setting up solid around them, and I soon won't be able to move away from them.
You will never convince me that God depends on me instead of me depending on Him. That is pretty settled in my mind.
You'll never convince me that I can sway God's love either toward or away from me. That is something in which certainty is growing every day.
You will never convince me that I need more then Christ. He is the highest revelation, and if I have Him, then I will never need anything more, and I will never ever have to get by with less then His sufficiency. There is no way, loving or cruel to move me from that.
I will never be convinced that one can stand in Christ alone, and at the same time be under condemnation. I have seen that is impossible.
But, at the same time I am aware that there are some ghastly wrong things that are part of what I think is right, and that there is no way that I'll ever be able to present the fullness of Truth to anyone else, much less sort it all out for myself. I can only speak about what I know and be open to knowing more. That is the teachable/unteachable dichotomy. It involves a lot of saying what "I know," and a lot of admitting what "I do not know," but less and less blindly asserting things that I don't understand. May we grow in the sensitivity of the difference, and speak primarily about what is burdened in our heart, while not assuming that what is on our heart would be spiritual for everyone else to have on their heart.
I love the topic of obedience (for example,) and find it crucial to the Christian life, but I can't lay aside what is placed on my heart and speak to that subject all the time. I only have so much time, and though I would like enough time to speak to obedience in proportion to its importance, I have to share what is in my heart. I don't think it more spiritual for anyone to speak about what is on my heart. Everyone has different emphasis's in accordance to what they have been graced to understand. Likewise, others should not assume that obedience isn't important to me, just because I don't often speak about it. Just because it is the most important to me, doesn't mean (when I don't speak about it) that I think that it isn't important. I just have limited things to share about.
We have a mocking bird in Texas. It is our state bird, and they are all over the place. When you listen to them, they sing about 12 or so songs, and just go over that rotation. Another mocking bird will have 12 or so songs, but maybe only one or so of them are the same as the first bird, so together they have about 20 songs in their rotation. And so, adding more mocking birds to the list, would add more songs, but at some point you could add 100 more birds and not get a single new song, because they are already sung by one of the others. To me this is like the body of Christ. We sing the song that is placed on our heart and it may overlap what has already been said, but we are not in competition, we are together joining in a chorus of music that reveals the music placed in our heart ... and can only be fully experienced in the corporate expression from each of us. None of us have the whole song, but we each have a part of it, and we should not condemn others if their song is a bit different.
Now of course that analogy breaks down, because two opposite teachings are at odds with each other, but that is because one of the birds, isn't a bird or maybe they are a bird, but they are singing someone - else's song instead of the one that God placed there.
Anyway, I hope you are encouraged by my viewpoint on that, and encouraged to shine inasmuch as you are given the grace to shine. Just be sincere, and genuine, and never teach someone else's gospel. Teach the gospel that is burned in your heart, and comes alive when you read it in scriptures or hear it from others.
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| ... because I already am. |
| 04.03.04 (4:47 pm) [edit] |
One of the things that I like about the story of Penecost is that the Holy Spirit descended on all sorts of people. In fact, there is no demographic that is suggested as the type of person that the Holy Spirit descended on. They weren't in a religious posture. It wasn't for those that were "trianed." Education meant nothing. Gender meant nothing. Even the language that they spoke meant nothing. It is simple.
Only those that show up - and are empty ... can be filled.
So by the filling, I can minister, and so can others minister to me. I don't put them through any more requirement (educational, training, gender, etc.) then the Holy Spirit put me through, nor then did the Holy Spirit put others through on Penecost.
I wish you to know that simplicity also. The simplicity that erases levels of elitism, and destroys self-validation. It is the simplicity that makes every saint of equal enheritance by the grace of the Almighty Lord Jesus Christ ... whom I do not exalt to become a Christian. I exalt Him because I already am.
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