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“It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice.”
- Leo Tolstoy
“Drinking beer and trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s tough. That’s real rebellion.” – Alice Cooper

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Our problem is this: we usually discover him within some denominational or Christian ghetto. We meet him in a province and, having caught some little view, we paint him in smaller strokes. The Lion of Judah is reduced to something kittenish because our understanding cannot, at first, write larger definitions.
                                                                                                - Calvin Miller

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http://www.fromupnorth.com/

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“Life makes it so hard sometimes, To know what’s real.”  David Crowder

The call to remember our first love really is a wonder.

We live with the supernatural as a normal part of life, the whole game has changed. We no longer look for a reason that things happen, we expect them to happen. Because of who He is.

Sozo has happened.

Its over. finished (it’s in the book)

Changed, delivered, made whole, is reality.

The miraculous age we live in did not stop at any point in history.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

“We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
1 JOHN 3:2

Psa. 103:3
He forgives your sins every one.
He heals your diseases every one.
4 He redeems you from hell saves your life!
He crowns you with love and mercy a paradise crown.
5 He wraps you in goodness beauty eternal.
He renews your youth you’re always young in his presence.

6 GOD makes everything come out right;
he puts victims back on their feet.
8 GOD is sheer mercy and grace;
not easily angered, he’s rich in love.

My wife thinks I am too much of an optimist, perhaps I am, but as many times as I look at scripture and situations in my life I can’t help but see the good in all Gods dealings thus far.

Perhaps I am crazy. But there are not two realities, God is not both loving and vengeful. He is not so small that he needs to resort to the limits imposed by natural justice. His dealings with humankind throughout history have always contained an element of the miraculous. Did he change? 1954? or was it 1957?

I’m not sure what we would do if we ever lost control of our religion. I find all the differing views fascinating and frustrating because they always seem to focus on the negative outcome. Be it God’s wrath, hell, judgement.

I know hindsight is 20/20, grasping things is easier after you have done them, its all obvious after you know it.   Life in God really is frikken awesome. We must stop waiting for reality to change into something other then what it is. Sheer wonder! For that is His name.

Judg. 13:18 The angel of GOD said, Whats this? You ask for my name? You wouldn’t understand it’s sheer wonder.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free . . . Galatians 5:1

“The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?” Oswald

It is devotion to the one who makes all this real.

Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him. Deuteronomy 30:19,20

God is Love, Light, and Life. These are the most profound words in the Scriptures. The writings of John are the writings of a man who is spiritually mature. He has found a way to express the inexpressible, a method of summing up all that God is. You will never get to the bottom of these depths. You will never see all the way to the end of it. Chip Brogden

In the end on the last day, at His command the final nail of goodness will be driven into the coffin of death.

Acts 2:20
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

1Th. 4:16
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Rev. 21 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

I can say the same thing over and over a hundred different ways, but the reality is we must turn and see Him as he is, and rest in it.

Is. 30:15
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

He is love and we are His family…

1John 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1John 4:16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

Eph. 3:14
For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him (Job 13:15).

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God. Oswald

“There is no other God who can deliver like this.” DANIEL 3:29

Christian revolution is complete surrender. We are called to revolt from the tyranny of what passes as His, Which has conditions and rule. To a life of unconditional, un relenting love.

“Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing to say, Well, what about this? Beware of your own ideas and speculations. The moment you allow yourself to think, What about this? you show that you have not surrendered and that you do not really trust God. But once you do surrender, you will no longer think about what God is going to do. Abandonment means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you totally abandon yourself to God, He immediately says to you, I will give your life to you as a prize . . . . The reason people are tired of life is that God has not given them anything they have not been given their life as a prize. The way to get out of that condition is to abandon yourself to God. And once you do get to the point of total surrender to Him, you will be the most surprised and delighted person on earth. God will have you absolutely, without any limitations, and He will have given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience in your life or your refusal to be simple enough.” Oswald

That my friend is Christian Anarchy.

Posted in thinking

It is all coming together quite nicely, thank you.

Got a postcard this week from Northridge Church (a large church in my area that puts on a pretty spectacular Easter show). It said something like Easter+Northridge=winner. Celebration is good. Winning is good, I like being a winner but so does my daughter in law at board games.

How do I win?
win what?
Once I win, then what? World Series? National Championship? World Domination?

Then I received this urgent message from a friend…”Here is an article about Rob Bell. Many believers/leaders within the Body are saying Rob Bell in his teaching is leaving traditional Christianity.

Sadly, I feel it has been obvious for years.

Time to wake up and wake up to those who are promoting Bell’s books, videos and heretical teaching.”

When I read the article she sent, it completely failed to make a case for an opposing point of view. I really wish someone would make a case for anti grace, that could possibly shed light on our obsession with punishment and hell. Other then saying this is right because I said so and other christians have said so, so that settles it. It must be true.

Again, sadly we are excelling at missing the point.

It’s time to get real. This is not about winning, not about pointing out error where there that is not the point. Sin is not to be managed, nor avoided as a practice. Sin’s punishment has been dealt with. Hell is not the reason we get saved.

I am not a big fan of Rob Bell, perhaps for different reasons then my alarmist friend. I think Rob has a great ministry. Just don’t think he is quite radical enough. I would love to have a Rob Bell, Shane Claiborn, Jackie Pullinger, and Henri J. M. Nouwen clone, with a touch of Amiee Simple McPherson thrown in for flavor. Then write the book.

What I have realized more recently is, we need to really totally radically, surrender to His will.

Being led by an anarchist is quite an oxymoron. read on.

“Have you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage.” Oswald

Yet. Jesus says:

Matt. 11:29
“Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.”

Un forced rhythms of grace…

“During his life, Jesus was a rebel rather than a king . Jesus was from the point of view of the High Priest a heretic and an impostor. From the point of view of the merchants he was a rioter and a Communist. From the Roman Imperialist point of view he was a traitor. From the common sense point of view he was a dangerous mad man. From the snobbish point of view, always a very influential one, he was a penniless vagrant.From the police point of view he was an obstructer of thoroughfares, a beggar, an associate of prostitutes, an apologist of sinners, and a disparager of judges; and his daily companions were tramps whom he had seduced into vagabondage from their regular trades. From the point of view of the pious he was a Sabbath breaker, a denier of the importance of circumcision and the advocate of a strange rite of baptism, a gluttonous man and a wine bibber. He was seen to the medical profession as an unqualified practitioner who healed people by quackery and charged nothing for the treatment.He was against the priests, against the judiciary, against the military, against the city (he declared that it was impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven), against all the interests, classes, principalities and powers, inviting everybody to abandon all these and follow him.By every argument, legal, political, religious, customary and polite, he was the most complete enemy of the society of his time ever brought to the bars. He was guilty on every count of the indictment, and on many more that his accusers is not have the wit to frame. If he was innocent then the whole world was guilty. To acquit him was to throw over all things civil and all its institutions. History has brought out the case against him; for no State has ever constituted itself on his principles or made it possible to live according to his commandments.” from Christian Blog by Mark Wishum

Perhaps a rereading of what Jesus says in the book is in order. Specifically the beatitudes. I have been reading the bible in the Message this year. It has brought to light the intense difference between what I have believed and what is real.

God is so much bigger, grander, then we have been told. More loving, full of light, grace and truth.

Don’t follow what other’s tell you is order, follow only Him. Learn His voice. It is the only logical choice. It really is the unforced rhythms of grace. The light burden the easy yoke.

Heb. 12:1
  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Eph. 5:1
  Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Get radical.

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“You can’t restrain a wild goose and bend it to your will. They’re raucous and loud. Unlike the sweet and calming cooing of a dove, a goose’s honk is strong, challenging, strident and unnerving – and just a bit scary.

In much the same way the Spirit of God can be, demanding and unsettling. Think about the story of Pentecost, and the impression the disciples made on the crowd. People thought they were drunk and disorderly!”

from This is Church

My jury is still out on the Wild Goose being a Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit. For my purposes here it doesn’t really matter what the history is. I agree with the imagery.

We are designed to be led by God, Christ in us the hope of glory. We are called to be HIS. Wholly completely and without other. This is Holiness.

His alone.

Pierce my ear, put a hook in my jaw and lead me. His.

His goodness and His grace, Resting in Him we let Him guide and carry us along. His.

His Holy Spirit dwells within. His.

One in him, His.

2Tim. 1:14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

I have had a bit of interaction with the Holy Spirit. Grace is favor that empowers. His Joy, love, mercy and peace that can only be indwelling because of what the Son did. died and rose. The power that created the universe can not be restrained. And that is what we are supposed to be led by.

So why do we insist on walking in a strait line? Do we suppose that somehow He is bound by order?

2Pet. 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

It is wild burgeoning with power, light, love, and peace. Violently transforming me into His. His fire of love burns all away that does not look like Him.

I have come to believe that Christianity is actually an anarchist movement. If He is truly King we need no rule other then His.

Yet we try and try to bind Him up into our comfort and perception of order. When, if we would just follow Him, as we have been told to and dwell in His presence, being carried along by His direction. We would find His light actually does shine in the darkness. We have put the cart before the horse.

John 8:12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Following Him gives us the light of life. Take your eyes off your feet and follow him.

Christian anarchy is setting aside all others and following only Jesus.

But watch out because as soon as you let your attention down He changes direction.

This is the wild goose.

When we follow that is grace.

Posted in Grace

“Two-in-one is a bullshit term because one is not big enough to hold two. That is the reason two was created.” Mitch Hedberg

Earlier this week I found myself in the throws of anxiety. Partly due to circumstances at work. But more so because of how I was responding to being anxious, it sort of fed on itself. the more I thought about it the more I got anxious about being anxious.

I sent an email out to some friends asking them to pray for me. I got this response from one,

“K”. That alone was enough for me. I know this man well enough to know that “K” meant he was on it. Like a bulldog never letting go, On it. All from the letter ‘K”.

The following morning as I was reading “The Divine Hours” during my morning prayers I came upon this;

Ps. 118: 13: “I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the Lord came to my help”

My initial thoughts when reading a Psalm like this is, “ Why is life always about testing? Will I ever be done with it?
At times I feel like a spiritual special forces soldier in training. Alway going through some trial as a way of making me a better Christian soldier.
Then I began to realize, what a bunch of crap I have believed over the years. God is not some impersonal being that lives in some invisible intangible place always sending crisis my way to make me stronger for some yet to be determined task in the future.

Or worse I dwell on guilt, such as; God is sending discipline because I have done something wrong. (Where did I get this?)

If grace is true why do I feel guilty when I do something normally considered sinful?

I am tempted to chuck this whole christian thing. Pagans seem to have life so much easier, do what you want when you want with no guilt. Not looking over your shoulder for the next crisis from God to give me strength.

“It’s a perversion to think that God creates evil so Jesus can show His power. There’s enough evil in the world without God working both sides. While God is able to use the devil as a pawn on a chess board, He is not in partnership with him.” Bill Johnson

SIDE BAR-

One of our pastors gave a sermon recently that my wife and I thought one of our son’s would enjoy. So we sent him the link. Here is part of his response.

“JUST NOW got a chance to sit down and watch this. He lost me on a couple parts but overall I really enjoyed it. Sometimes, and as I was listening to this sermon I realized I have these thoughts 95% of the time I’m in church, I feel like the message goes from being something so tangible, real and easy to understand to something that is not. For example, when he says bring your anger before God. What does that REALLY mean? I am not criticizing at all, just sharing thoughts. I think I have always had a hard time understanding sermons because I take everything so literally and if it isn’t described in a way I can clearly understand then I, at a fault, discredit it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this, so thanks for sending it along. If I want to receive the sermons without having to seek them out, can I sign up for that some where?”

My son said something I, as a Christian, have also struggled with. “when he says bring your anger before God. What does that REALLY mean?”

My son is a black or white kind of guy. It is either real or it is not.

So his question is, “How do I take this feeling, anger, and give it to something or someone I cant see, smell or touch?” It is maddening how we have made God so surreal and untouchable.

Back to Psalm 118:13 “I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the Lord came to my help”

As I dwelled on this verse I shifted from ALMOST FELL to The Lord came to my help.

Later another friend wrote.

“Praying this morning, felt ps. 118: 13 for you: “I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the Lord came to my help”

Sense of the Lord with you in your work as a servant would be–white apron and all. You the boss, the Lord, the servant-help.  (I know, a little odd.)

But the perfect employee was he.  Knew his boss well, his strengths and limitations-weaknesses.  So loyal to the boss that he was glad to fill the gaps, like a terrific employee would.

But almost invisibly so the employee wouldn’t get the credit but the boss would.”

SAME verse from the same source.

Then another verse from another friend, “you be sure to claim Phil 4:6-7 for yourself )”

trust me, I don’t completely get how this being a Christian thing works and I am one. But re-looking at my beliefs has led me to come to some different conclusions about things.
Col. 1:17

God is good absolutely.
God’s love wins, period.
One is one

There is NO other then one.
In Him are all things.

Rom. 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

I am secure in this.

I am currently reading “Love Wins” by Rob Bell. I have been looking for something in it to criticize, haven’t found it yet.

“He (Jesus) spoke of oneness with God, the God who is so intimately connected with life in this world that every hair on your head is known. Jesus lived and spoke as if the whole world was a thin place for him, with endless dimensions of the divine infinitesimally close, with every moment and every location simply another experience of divine reality that is all around us, through us, under and above us all the time.” Bell

one

It is when I forget oneness I am anxious.

“Sometimes what we are witnessing is simply a massive exercise in missing the point.” Bell

Col. 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Posted in thinking

I suppose finding a heretic and exposing him is important to someone.

I wish I had Rob Bell’s courage. Yet, I think he does not go far enough. Perhaps in the next book. Rob never seems to leave a room without more questions, I suppose it is an Emergent Church thing.

I do find it funny that the very folks that quote the false prophet verses from the bible, are in danger of the very same thing.

Behavior has replaced belief, we look through a lens of fear rather then a lens of love. We really don’t grasp the magnitude of God’s grace. We seem to be more willing to believe evil exists then grace.

“We are even more faint hearted before grace than before evil.”
Eugene Peterson

Where did we loose our way?

I think it is partly in our concept of time and entirely in our view of the grace of the Living God.

Rev 17:8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come.

Never really arriving, always focusing us on the past or future, to take our minds off of what now is.

Rev. 1:8
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I have been somewhat connected to all the goings on in the prophetic-elijah list-outpouring-revival camp of folks over the past twenty years or so. There is a thread there that keeps me reading, listening, watching. But I canceled my elijah list subscription, long ago. Seems the next big thing is always just around the corner. Just one more new thing to wait for, Lord. One more crisis to pray against, one more enemy to overcome. Revival is almost here. Revival was at this or that outpouring in the past.
It is not the outpouring that I am speaking about but the focus on reliving or preserving that that once was and will be.

I believe in the awesome power of prayer. Yet, how many prayers are spit into empty air over a false fear? Rather then believing every word that is sent out. Take some time and learn to listen to God for yourself. You will find that you have a different view when you come into contact with perfect love and are able to discern His voice.

“… the divine knowing – what the Father knows, and what the Word says in response to that knowing, and what the Spirit broods upon under the speaking of the Word – all that eternal intellectual activity isn’t just daydreaming. It’s the cause of everything that is. God doesn’t find out about creation; he knows it into being. His knowing has hair on it. It is an effective act. What he knows, is. What he thinks, by the very fact of his thinking, jumps from no-thing into thing. He never thought of anything that wasn’t.” Robert Farrar Capon

“Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself.” Oswald

One of our pastors at church today encouraged us to read the bible through a hermeneutic of love. How right that is to look at scripture through the lens that it was breathed.

It is ever so subtle, ever so slight, this shift from resting in God to seeking the next new thing. For my friends, the revivalists, it is always over the next hill in another age at some future or past time. The hope is in a situation or occurrence. While we have one foot in the flames of hell. The table is one of the safest places on the battlefield.

Ps 23;5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

“We enter heaven not by escaping what we don’t like, but by the sanctification of the place in which God has placed us.” Peterson

We are way too serious about being happy, to actually be happy. It is not difficult if you stop trying and start being where you are.

Rob Bell has hit a nerve in people, I have often been tempted to hit. The need that  people seem to have to see someone punished for every wrong. Even if it means lashing out at the forgiver.           Burn in hell you heathen scum.
The need to have a negative for every positive, the need for dichotomy when in reality there is only one thing.  This is what drives our fear of grace and promotion of hell?

I believe hell exists. It’s in the book. But I also believe the cross did it’s job. Does this mean the Buddhist who does not believe is Jesus is doomed? I  believe that the whole died on the cross reality is way more significant and that question is foolish as a result. How could you or I dare to guess. What magic could we possibly perform to determine the outcome of a persons soul. What Jesus did on the cross is way to wonderful for me to judge someone by what you or I think.

2Cor. 1:20
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

“I imagine that “yes” is the only living thing.” -ee cummings

“I am and I am not a universalist. I am one if you are talking about what God in Christ has done to save the world. The Lamb of God has not taken away the sins of some — of only the good, or the cooperative, or the select few who can manage to get their act together and die as perfect peaches. He has taken away the sins of the world — of every last being in it — and he has dropped them down the black hole of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he has shut up forever on the subject of guilt: “There is therefore now no condemnation. . . .” All human beings, at all times and places, are home free whether they know it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not.
Robert Farrar Capon

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Jesus

“Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is the proclamation of the end of religion, not of a new religion, or even of the best of all religions. …If the cross is the sign of anything, it’s the sign that God has gone out of the religion business and solved all of the world’s problems without requiring a single human being to do a single religious thing. What the cross is actually a sign of is the fact that religion can’t do a thing about the world’s problems – that it never did work and it never will…” Capon

Fear this then.

It is much bigger then you think.

Or can ask for, or can imagine.

Luke 12:5
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

Titus 1:15
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.

Posted in Grace

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”
JOHN 1:1,2

“Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.”

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us (John 17:21).”

Posted in quotes