Guilt You will never escape the inside voice or the very real outside voice from your friends, that says, “You’re who? You are Jesus as you? Yeah right and I’m Napoleon Bonaparte.” You know every day in court I have to remind my clients not to be concerned what liars think and say – only be concerned about what the judge thinks. And what does the Judge think about you – He thinks you’re just fine – washed clean in the blood of the Lamb and now a saint. So, ignore the “guilt” voice as best you can – it...
Baking Bread III So, eventually you come to end of your Christianity as a “self-improvement religion” and want to know and understand who you really are in the Kingdom. Notwithstanding the attacks of self-doubt we experience at times, we finally agree that it is “Christ that lives in me”. [Gal. 2.20] We begin to see ourselves as His expression, as we truly are. At that point you “own” the reality of your union with Him. That’s great and it is life as intended. We can now grasp the eternal reality that the...
Baking Bread II The reality for my friend is that she owned that bread maker the moment I thought to buy it for her. However, she didn’t possess the thing that she owned – not yet. She circled the Christmas tree, perhaps fearing or disbelieving the fact that that she had exactly what she wanted. Well, we do the same thing with our “union”. As we grow weary of our legalistic, self-improvement Christianity we yearn to know Life as His expression – simply living, knowing we are Him to our world – no more trying...
Baking Bread When I use the term “union” I mean the fact of His Spirit eternally joined and mixed with yours. The result is that you are now His perfect and complete, crystal clear expression in your world. Now, this is something you obtain at the moment of your salvation – it is not a process. If there is a process at all it is in the understanding or “getting” your union – possessing what you already own. So, the key is in understanding in both your heart and head, that you already have your union. Years...
The Now of Christianity V “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” I John 3.2 “… now we are the sons of God …” “… now we are the sons of God …” How shall we “become” the sons of God when we are “now” the sons of God? We won’t. There are not better or worse sons of God. There just “are” sons of God. So I leave this topic with this thought. We might consider the programs...
The Now of Christianity IV Let me repeat how I ended Part III: “We cannot change, alter or in any fashion improve upon total and complete reconciliation to Him. But, here’s my point, as a religion, we try hard.” We start our Christian life with the phrase, “come into my heart Lord Jesus” – and He does, but we may not believe that fact – not at first. Why do I say that? Why else would we spend, in some cases, years and years trying to perfect that truth? Did He come into your heart or not? Did...
The Now of Christianity III Christianity is to us as Judaism was to Jesus. The institution, created by God, was worthy of due respect as those who are ordained to serve it, but, we must take the hypocrisies and misinformation of the religion to task just as Jesus boldly did in His day. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” I Cor. 1.25 I had a good laugh the other day I thought how foolish – a man dies on the cross and everything becomes right with...
The Now of Christianity II And what exactly was Paul talking about when referring to “strong holds” that needed tearing down? Well, let’s look at the next verse - “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ… “ [2 Cor. 10.5] I am convinced that Paul was not talking about strong holds of sin or evil. Why? Because sin and evil were destroyed by the Savior’s shed blood on the cross. It is...
The Now of Christianity I almost entitled this the “future of Christianity” – but, when you have an eternal perspective, as we do, in reality, there is no future and there is no past – there is only now. So you ask don’t you believe in eternal life? Isn’t eternal life in the future? No, it is now! Right now! But aren’t things going to be different? I don’t know. Who cares? We have this moment and He lives as us in this moment – so how else would you define eternity? I’m not saying that one should not prepare...
Did God Make a Choice? II God defines love – as love is Him, His Person and not any particular thing that He does. He operates His universe in love. That is hard to sees sometimes because we often experience so much sorrow and grief in life. I will remind you that so did Jesus – as He is described as a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. [Isaiah 53.3] But we must replace appearance with the reality that He only loves and nothing else. We must look deeper than our emotions to the place where He has...
Did God Make a Choice? I think of “choice” as a temporal word defining something that happens in time and space. I don’t really think of it as an eternal word. Having said that, I am aware of many references in the Old Testament of God “choosing” Israel. Jesus also refers to “choosing” His disciples. Here, however, I am not talking about that type of choice. I am thinking about whether God chose, in some way, to be Who He is – to define His character and nature, and thereby limit Himself. Since He can do what...
Did God Make a Choice? I think of “choice” as a temporal word defining something that happens in time and space. I don’t really think of it as an eternal word. Having said that, I am aware of many references in the Old Testament of God “choosing” Israel. Jesus also refers to “choosing” His disciples. Here, however, I am not talking about that type of choice. I am thinking about whether God chose, in some way, to be Who He is – to define His character and nature, and thereby limit Himself. Since He can do what...
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