Great Metaphor

from a Grace Project sermon called, "Free to Love"

In dancing the follower's job is to be the lead's shadow.

On a lark, I checked out a ballroom dancing website. Why? To be honest I was looking for the terminology for the woman. The man is called the lead, how is the woman referred? Anyway, here was something I found very striking. Number 5 to be particular (there is PLENTY of room for latent legalism in the other aspects, which isn't the point here).

General Rules for Following
1. Whatever you do, don’t lead!
2. Be alert to your partner’s lead.
3. Support your own weight.
4. Take straight steps, either backward or forward as the case may be.
5. Try not to anticipate your partner’s lead.
6. Become familiar with the basic steps a partner is likely to lead.

Trying to anticipate smacks of presumption, something we are most apt to do. But in this dance called life in the True Life, Christ, guided by the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can really flow when not presuming but in restful relaxing submitting to masterful twirling and zagging of the Lord of the Dance....[who is not Michael Flatley].

Fellowship: Vicious Cycle VS. Virtuous Cycle

Terms:
Horizontal: relationships with one another
Vertical: relationship with God

Vicious Cycle

Coming to church, fellowship, or bible study in order to be fed. From this "feeding" you expect and trust [have faith in] that your relationship with God will be closer.

Source: horizontal
Means: horizontal
Goal: Vertical

Results: You may get pumped up by the horizontal, but get little from the vertical, which leaves you more dependent on the horizontal, and as you place more and more faith in fellowship you have less and less faith in God.

Virtuous Cycle

Coming to church, fellowship, or bible study in order to share Christ's life and love. Secure in Christ you have no expectations of fellowshipping for your own needs because you trust God to meet them fully, therefore you love them as Christ loves them. Interestingly enough as you go into horizontal relationships you are cognizant of your continuing vertical relationship. The horizontal relationship opens your eyes to how God is working in other's lives which enhances your vertical relationship as well as enhancing your horizontal relationships because you are actively listening and relating. Christ is becoming your all in all, in all.

Source: vertical
Means: vertical & horizontal
Goal: vertical & horizontal

Conversation of Seeming Opposites

There seems to be this conversation, this play of seeming opposites with God. In creation the great works of beauty, things of seeming order, are when analyzed actually great works of seeming chaos: clouds, nebulas, vistas, and ocean waves. And yet they are both.

Hurricane Analogy

Interacting with God is like engaging a hurricane...

It is around the eye that the wind blows strongest, but it is in the eye that there blows no wind at all.

The peace of resurrection comes only from the tumult of the cross.

Selfish Self-Despising

We spend so much time and energy despising self. But this is just self getting its way through deprecation, it is still a self-involved self-focused, selfish pursuit. Though worthy it is of such derision, we should rather look away from it to Him.

RQ: Christ the Object of Our Desire, by Chip Brogden

For the Lord knows His business, and does not need to be instructed by us. Instead, we must follow His instruction and allow Him to become our only Desire. Then our praying and asking amiss will cease.

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Jesus is the only legitimate desire a Christian can have (Psalms 73:25). If He is the center and focus then all other things will take their proper place (Matthew 6:33). If we are satisfied in God, we cannot be dissatisfied. If our need is fully met in Christ, we cannot experience lack.

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Let is also note that at no time was this worship spoiled with a request or a prayer of petition. Self is completely swallowed up in worship.

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Their humility is not found in despising Self, but in not looking at Self at all. The focus is outward, onto Christ, and thus there is not room left for considering Self.

RQ: IT WAS FOR FREEDOM! by Milt Rodriguez

He preached something to them that had not been preached to anyone before. He preached to them freedom in Christ! He told them that they were "in Christ" and that Christ was totally free from all religion, law and man-made traditions. Christ did not go through a ritual or method or system when He fellowshipped with His Father. Their flow of fellowship was based upon life and freedom. Paul preached Christ to these Gentiles, and the Truth (Christ) set them free!

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Paul told the Galatians that if they were circumcised Christ would be of no benefit to them. (Gal. 5:2) Isn't that an amazing statement? He was saying that if they looked to something else to complete their relationship to God besides Christ, then it would be just as if they did not have Christ at all. If you add something to Christ, then you nullify Christ. In other words, Christ plus something equals nothing! He will not share His place with anyone or anything else. He wants to be the All! Yet how many times do we try to add something to Christ? When will we learn that Christ enough? We are free because we have Christ, not when we add some religious system or method to achieve God's goal. God's goal is Christ!

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You see, He set us free so that He would be free to fully express Himself through us! It was for His freedom that we were set free.

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Yet how can He be free to express Himself through us if we are still in religious bondage? How can He fully express Himself if the body is told to sit in a pew, shut up, and listen? How can He fully express Himself if in His assembly there is only one or two saints who are functioning? How can He express Himself if only brothers share and not sisters? How can His freedom reign if we are constantly adding our system, methods, and programs to Christ?

RQ: The Fuillness of Christ by Milt Rodriguez

God has placed all that He is inside of Christ. Paul says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him. Christ is the fullness of God! This statement should startle you. The Father has made the Son His everything, His All. He has invested all of His life, power, love, authority, wisdom, knowledge, and glory into His Son. He has invested everything in Christ. All the riches of God are stored up in Christ. All of the Father's thought, plans, and purposes are deposited into Christ. You could say that Christ is the All of God. The fullness is of all that God is has been placed into Christ.

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If God Himself has made the assessment that Christ is His everything, then who are we to make any lesser assessment? If Christ is sufficient for the Father in all things, they who are we to think that He is not sufficient for us? All the fullness of God rests in Christ. This is God's assessment. This is God's estimate. Who are we to disagree?

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According to the scriptures, God's viewpoint comes from inside of Christ. That's because God's fullness is found in Christ. Therefore, in order to see things as God sees them, we need to understand everything in Christ, from Christ, through Christ, and to Christ. Without this, you cannot understand anything properly.

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Unless you see Christ, you only have the shell of an understanding. He is the content, the core of all understanding. The proper understanding, therefore, is to see Christ as all and in all. This can only come from having our minds renewed. This should be the only way that we approach the scriptures. We do not approach the scriptures in order to find out what God wants us to do or not do. We do not approach the scriptures as an instruction manual for living. We do not approach the scriptures in order to gain bible knowledge. We approach the scriptures to see Christ! He is the focus of all the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27).

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What does it mean to have Christ as our fullness? It means that He becomes your point of reference for all things. He becomes the focus of all things. He becomes your one and only relationship to all things. If Christ is not the focal point then nothing will work properly in your Christian life. It's just like the operating system in a computer. If the operating system (like Windows) isn't working right, then nothing else on your computer will work right. The operating system is the core and center for the whole computer. Everything runs by and through the operating system.

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When Christ is your fullness, then He has the first place in everything. He is the "place" out from which you do everything that you do. He is your environment in which you live, breathe, and move. This is what it means to be "in" Christ. When Christ is your fullness (your All) then you don't know how to handle yourself. You don't know how to handle sin. You don't know how to handle your outward circumstances. But you don't have to! Christ has already handled all these things and more. Your part is just to fellowship with Him.

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You will become whatever you focus on. Whatever you make your center, whatever you give all of your attention to, that is what you will become. If you want to become a lawyer, then you must devote all of your time and attention to the law. The law must become your focus, your center. Then you will become the law! You will become a law-yer.

When Christ becomes your focus, then He becomes your All. You see all things through His eyes. You live by His life instead of your own.

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When Christ is our fullness, then He becomes our "handling center." We handle all things by turning to Christ. We do not engage the problem. We engage Christ. We fellowship with Him because He is always our focus and center. He is the fullness of all things to us.

RQ: Putting on the New Man by Milt Rodriguez

This is the regenerated spirit of the believer which has become one with the indwelling Spirit of God (I Cor. 6:17). As we learn to fellowship and behold Christ in our spirits, that life spreads into our mind, thus becoming the spirit of our mind. We then begin to think the thoughts of God because His Spirit has now infiltrated our mind.

RQ: Revelation: God's Way of Knowing

I've always liked the word awareness more than the word growth. Because what really happens in each of us? Our awareness simply expands. We become more aware of Who already was. "Oh, I see more and more of Him." We're not seeing more and more about Him. We're seeing more and more of Him. He is the peace. He is the joy. He is the life. He is the love.

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Every revelation is according to God's good pleasure and His own timing. Timing is so important. You might get the itch before God wants to scratch. You think that you're ready to stop the itch, but God may say, "You're not itching enough yet. If I were to meet you right now, it would be like harvesting something before its time. You wouldn't grow to full maturity." In His own way, in His own time, God reveals.

RQ: Revelation of Spiritual Realities by Dan Stone

Unfortunately, there's no relationship between the amount of information we accumulate and the ability to live a spiritual life. But there is a direct correlation between the amount of information we gain and our level of frustration.

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In the things of the Spirit, no amount of know-about gives you the ability to do.

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We are meant to be frustrated when we are trying to produce something that we are incapable of producing.

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The Spirit teaches us by bringing us to the place where we begin asking spirit questions instead of flesh questions. Spirit questions are questions from desperation. They arise when you reach the end of all flesh questions. When we finally ask a spirit question, the Holy Spirit will give us an answer. It's interesting how quickly the answer comes once you ask the right question. Because the answer always is present tense. All we have to do is catch up with the answer. We catch up with Who already is. The answer is a Person who lives in us.

Living and Working

Don't live to work
Don't work to live
Live while you work, work while you live.

RQ: What is Incarnation? by Jason Zahariades

Jesus was the incarnation of God. As a real and genuine human being, Jesus fully embodied God. He embodied the will, love, character, and mind of God. Jesus didn't just do God's will. He IS God's will. Jesus didn't just act lovingly toward people. He IS God's love. Jesus completely embodied God even when he was asleep, or fixing a meal, or telling a joke. In other words, Jesus completely embodied God even when he wasn't doing anything.

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Embody. Demonstrate. Announce. In this progression, one naturally produces the other. Because Jesus embodied the fullness of God and his reign, he completely demonstrated it. And because he completely and easily embodied and demonstrated the fullness of God, he was able to announce it with complete authenticity.

Many Christians long to participate in God's kingdom. However, because they have not been trained to embody the reality of God's goodness and love, they must attempt to represent God's reign from an inward nature other than the fullness of God and a life completely yielded to and participating in God's reign. This makes them incapable of naturally and consistently responding to any given situation with God's fullness.

Let's Take a Hint: All About Christ

OT -- Gospels -- NT

OT: The promise of Christ

Gospels: The revealing and work of Christ

NT: Beginning to live in the reality of Christ

(this is by no means exhaustive, but it is certainly indicative of Scriptures)

OOT Question

From Christocentric article:

Theologians from both camps keep referring to the "benefits" derived from the Person and work of Jesus Christ, and how various theological categories are "applied" to Christians. The detachment of grace, salvation, righteousness, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the gospel, etc. from the dynamic life and ontic "Being" of the risen and living Lord Jesus, leaves but a dead and static theological system to be argued as an ideology and revered in idolatry.

Object Oriented Theology (OOT)

Does the detachment of that which is Christ from Christ Himself create a disengagement from a real walk with Him?

Why are We Here?

Interesting little vignette by Peter. His answer to this question is found in our view of Heaven. What's the point, the big THING about Heaven? Being with Him forever.

So we are going to be with Him forever -- eternally.

Yep.

And we have communion with Him now. We are in His kingdom, now.

Yep.

So why does eternity have to start then?

Ahhh I see your point. For us, eternity has already begun, and our eternal union and fellowship with God has already begun, we are spiritually already in Heaven.

Our soul and body have to "catch up." I suppose.

Therefore it would seem that the prime thing is not so much being the light of the world, great commission, etc... but fellowshipping with Him, being in communion with Him in all things and at all times here and now.

Yes, yes! And from this we have lightbearing, naturally, for coming from Him we cannot do anything but. And from this we have the great commission, for can we fellowshipping with the God who IS love "do" otherwise? And from this we have community, for can we have anything but from God Who is One yet a community of three?

What if: Rejection of His provision

• What if trusting in ourselves to provide for ourselves is the ACTIVE rejection of His provision?

• What if worry about our provision is rejecting the sight to SEE His provision?

• What if many of our sins is the worrying, the fear, and the rejection of His provision for us spiritual, mentally, emotionally, physically, or financially?

• What if faith doesn't change the reality of His provision, which is constant, but opens us up to SEEING it and ACCEPTING it?

• What if faith means going beyond trusting His attributes, promises, and manifestations to trusting in Him for Him, trusting Him Himself, simply trusting Him?

Under Law not Grace

If you are looking for a loophole...you are under law not grace.

"And who is my neighbor?" Is not a question looking for clarity, it's looking for a specific definition such that the fleshly mind can find a way around it. Because the nasty little truth about the Law is that no one (but Christ) can live by it. Therefore those claiming to do so are faking it, either by lying or by creating in their mind a loophole by which they see themselves satisfying the Law without actually doing so.

Perhaps this is a factor in why the Christian religion in its epistemological focus on proper propositions runs into a legalistic streak. Rather than seeing Christianity as a relationship and a spiritual union with a Person, the Christian religion sees it as a systematic set of statements that one and those who are true believers must mentally accede to and live by. It is thus systematic lawkeeping, which in itself is a system for law-breaking by way of loopholed delusions.

The Law is there to point you to the sufficiency of Christ; Who is the Person, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If you are looking for loopholes, you are not looking to Christ and have fallen from grace back down to the Law, which is for the lawless, not for sons who are the righteousness of God in Christ.

When Self's out of the equation

If you are taken out of the equation -- what would the perspective be? Would love manifest?

Things are very different if you are out of the equation, if the serving of yourself is out of the equation.

How and why would this NATURALLY occur? When one trusts in God. When one sees that He has your needs fully met and you look no further than Him for the meeting of that which you need. Therefore the mind need not spend much or any time upon itself, but is free to now express love for others. For when the self is out of the equation there is only others, and love is the selfless seeking of benefit for others.

With self there is a point for manipulation or indifference. In other words use or abuse. Because independent self is in the picture others are vetted on their usefulness to fulfill whatever whim or desire self has. If others do not have a viable current or foreseeable future use they are neglected or not even recognized, not even brought to mind.

But in Christ the Self has been crucified and Christ is now our life. Christ is God, and God is love. God being love has given us all things in Christ and we need not worry about our needs for the God Who is Love knows and provides for our needs. There is then no need to seek after that which fulfills what has been crucified -- for we trust (faith) Him Who created and provides all things. The Self is no longer part of the equation and all that is left is a loving walk and interaction with others -- God, believers, and the world.

More Musings: Illusionary Personalities

Institutions are illusionary personalities that are served, protected, and adhered to. In the case of religiosity this is more akin to an idol than simply a useful organization of common cause and beneficiaries of scale.

Is part of the problem of institutionalism the interaction with an illusory man?

How does this bring us into bondage?

How is this illusory man an agent of manipulation and appeasement?

Is the strong desire for this illusory man because it is something we can use and control and/or it is something that we can see, touch, and have certainty about?

Mere Musing: Institutionalism -- Protecting the Phantom Man

Hasn't fully formed, but here's the beginnibg of a musing...

We see this behavior quite often, those vested with the position and duties of continuing an institution grow to see and interact with said institution as if it were a real person.

This is proven by how institutions are legally wrought. Look at Corporations. Rather than a coupling of many individuals together working toward a common goal by way of serving clients and customers it is legally viewed as an individual with many of the legal accountrements of a human citizen (protections, rights, assets, etc..). Obviously there are some very rational and reasonable factors going into this fiction. But what damage does it wrought when that which is to be spiritual, spontaneous, and organic is made into a phantom man.

Throw into the mix the confusion of identity when the protectors start to seem themselves fused with this illusion -- but that's for another day.

Principles

Are principles statements of realities rather than tools for the means of manipulating reality?

Are principles for abiding rather than manipulating?

Are the principles of God's Kingdom true, "that which is", and not agents for the manipulation of a personal or group reality?

From the slime up OR from the Person down?

What does evolution and religion have in common? Both work from the slime up.

With evolution -- elemental particles and energy up to the personality of man

Religion -- man's view up to a relationship with God.

VS.

Christianity -- God's revelation of Himself reconciling us to Himself.

Looking at gossip and manipulation

1st Party -- the gossiper
2nd Party -- the subject of the gossip
3rd Party -- recipient of the gossip

Gossip is a form of manipulation, prevalent in almost all community/societal relationships.
Where 3 or more are simply gathered, there's often gossip.

Let's look at the 3 targets of gossip manipulation:

TARGET: 2nd party
The manipulation of a 3rd party by speaking of the 2nd party in such a way as to create an image of the 2nd party that is advantageous to you, the 1st party.

TARGET: 1st party
The manipulation of the 1st party by the 1st party itself; the first party manipulates their own feelings involving the 2nd party (unresolved issues, revenge, politicking, etc..) through the use of a 3rd party as a sounding board.

TARGET: 3rd party
The manipulation of the 3rd party by the 1st party through the use of the 2nd party. Examples of such are trying to make the 3rd party think you are: cool, interesting, likeable by comparison, etc...

Of course all three maybe targeted concurrently. Interestingly enough the centrality of all gossip is the serving of the self (the 1st party).

Searching the Scriptures for life

"You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life." (John 5:39,40).

What if we could also say this, for us...

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have [COMMUNITY]; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have [COMMUNITY].

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have [WISDOM]; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have [WISDOM].

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have [LOVE]; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have [LOVE].

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have [VITALITY]; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have [VITALITY].

Christ Expressing: Part I

What I see as I read the Scriptures, the Epistles to be exact, is Christ expressing Himself in the lives of first century believers. What if He is expressing Himself in a first century way?

What I do not see is Christ expressing Himself in a 16th century way, nor in a 21st century way. But, but, before we start to hyperventilate. What I also see is Christ expressing Himself in an eternal way as well -- in love, in power, in authenticity, in a dynamic life.

Christ is NOT first in your life!

Christ is NOT first in your life.

Christ IS your life.

There is a massive difference between these two, although they SEEM so close.

One Perspective on Love

Love -- the selfless interest and focus on another's long term, even eternal, well-being.

Well-BEING. Being is the operative term. Not one's well doing, or doing well.

One's doing well may come with well-being, it may not -- it is independent of such. Why? Why is well-being independent of doing well? Because the basis of calculating "doing well" is often flawed and arbitrary (very human).

Response: But such love is impossible. How do you know another's long term well-being? You'd have to be omniscient.

Reponse to response: Bingo. Who has that? Who IS love?

Definition of a Master, relating it to discipleship

"Here was the defintion of a Master that I sough. A Master teaches essence. When the essence is perceived, he teaches what is necessary to expand the perception. The Wu Li Master dances with his student.. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns...."

The essence in combat is different than that in painting, different than that in singing, different than that in writing. A Master though, teaches this essence. Or better stated, helps one see it. The one taught to see it is the disciple.

What is the essence of discipleship in Christianity? Is it behavior? No, that is a manifestation. Is it teachings? No. Is it an event? Oooo really close. Is it a person? Ding ding ding. It is the person of Christ. Who is love, Who is the resurrection, Who is God.

Discipleship can only come from the essence. Anything that takes the place of the essence is discipleship in something else, not Christianity. One could be a theologian's disciple just as much as a sculpture's. Perhaps we should go deeper. Even if you are being discipled, who is suppose to really be discipling you? Is it not Christ?

The Full Permeation of the Father's Reality...Into Ours

Wow post from Wayne Jacobsen's Blog a year ago

"It is so easy to mistake the distractions of this world for reality itself, when it is only an illusion. The real world is in Father's heart, where we've been invited to be at home in him in everything we do and in every circumstance that confronts us."

"Toward the end of the book he reminds us again that when we live in God's reality it permeates all that we do. It is just as spiritual to work on your car or decorate your house as it is to pray, gather with other believers or share his life with someone who is lost. When we live as his, his glory shines through our lives no matter what we might be doing at any given moment."

"I'm convinced we best demonstrate God's life when we are least aware of it. When we are trying too hard we are only acting and the world sees it instantly even if we don't. They are not looking for actors on a stage, but people who live God's reality in the simplicity of their lives. When we live deeply in him throughout each day he makes himself known in ways that will even surprise us. And it won't be fake or artificial because it comes from reality not pretense."

Trusting, from the small up

Imagine if Christ had have said to Matthew or any of the disciples, "Follow me." They get up, follow Him, and see Him immediately arrested, walked to the Cross, and die. It would have been an interesting anecdote in a tax collector's week, but not some monumental event. Why? Because there was no relationship. Heck even with a 3 year relationship and apparently continuous hints and then blatant explanations the disciples still didn't understand and trust Him.

My point? Normally we seem to go to Him for the big things, usually when we run out of options. And there is nothing wrong with that. For goodness sakes I'm convinced He does that intentionally. But God doesn't just work our trusting in Him from the big down, but from the small up as well. And when we find that He has ushered us into a deep relationship with Him such that even the small things are put in His hands we find ... ourselves in a deep relationship with Him. [Allow myself to...introduce myself].

So we have the wonderful joy of looking for Him in the big and the small. He has us covered, up and down, in and out. Therefore we just need to have faith, to believe, to have trust, to depend upon Him. The "Him" we depend on is able and He will do. All we are required to do is trust Him as He does.

Rant: Object Oriented Faith

I have no faith in the sovereignty of God, nor in the love of God, nor in the power of God. No these are things attributes of God. I have faith in God WHO IS sovereign, love, and all-powerful.

Having faith in an attribute is like having faith in the explosiveness of Michael Jordan's fast-twitch muscles in his two legs for a last second shot. We as fans do not have faith in the attribute, but in the person. If that's just silly for something pretty trivial like basketball, imagine what it's like for our walk and relationship with God.

Where does this OOF (Object-Oriented Faith) come from? I would say our lust of knowledge. Some would say it is a product of Western thinking, but I think it goes beyond and before that. How about the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

But let's just look at knowledge. Why is it so important? We're talking head knowledge here, gnosis, not the personal abiding epignosis. I would think because of the issue of control. See the really subtle thing about knowledge is that once it is inside your head, once something is understood, this ownership idea shows up. And it is this that wreaks a great deal of havoc. Because with this ownership, there is this idea that one can control and control means effectively manipulate or appease.

Also knowledge can be broken down into manageable pieces -- manageable, what does that mean, ahhhh there is control again. It is from understanding these pieces that we hope to understand God completely. It is like to understand a car you disassemble it. Problem is it doesn't work when disassembled -- you do not have a relationship with the car, but with scattered random pieces. The other issue is at what point do you stop to understand the car fully? Each piece is made up of smaller pieces, and then materials such as polymers and alloys. Why stop there? You wouldn't understand how the pieces work unless you understand their physical properties. But you won't understand physical properties unless you understand chemical properties. And you won't understand chemical properties unless you understand quantum properties. So you see, knowledge (gnosis) can be a seductive thing. And as you deconstruct further and further you are inclined to think you understand things more and more, but you do not see the forest for the trees.

The point is not to necessarily know the nitty gritty functionality of something, or for that matter someone. It is to know THEM (epignosis). I could know (gnosis) my parents better if I had a mapping of their entire bodies' capillary system (each blood vessel), but what would I know? Nothing that's critically important for a relationship, that's for sure.

We must have faith in Him, not attributes of Him, for attributes are categories, squares of the mind. Important though they may be, especially for communication, they are not that which we put our trust in.

Quote on Object Oriented Faith

We tend to think in terms of "things" and objects" instead of Christ. This is another stronghold of the mind. This "object-oriented" thinking relates to spiritual things. For example, we tend to think of love as something that God gives us rather than the fact that He is love. Love is a Person, not a thing or virtue that God gives us like an object is given as a gift. God has given us His Son and His Son is these things. Or to put it more accurately, He is the sum of all spiritual things. He doesn't just give us these things as if they were objects that are separate from Him. We tend to dissect and separate things because we have the individualistic mind that I spoke about earlier in this article. We are not Christ centered in our thinking, so when we read the scriptures we tend to see them in terms of things and not the Person.
by Milton Rodriguez

Toil Article Quoting

Regarding Christian service and sanctification Sparks further wrote, "Any service that is not fulfilled on the ground of the indwelling Christ as the Worker cannot effect the purpose of God, for only the Lord Jesus by His Spirit can do the work of God. Yes, you are called to be a servant in a service you can never fulfil!

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It is not a difficult thing to call man to action but it is nigh impossible to get him to stop. He is driven by an irresistible impulse to act. More correctly defined as a state of unrest. Therefore, the miracle of all miracles is that man should cease from his works to enter God’s rest. Becoming the recipient of Christ’s finished work and the beneficiary of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, is preconditioned upon the discontinuation of our works. True repentance consists of giving up on our lifeless efforts and believing fully in the finished work of Christ, i.e., finding our rest in Him. Here we see again that the work of God is to believe in him whom He has sent!

God is both the necessary and sufficient condition

What if Jesus Christ is both the necessary and sufficient condition of salvation?
...of sanctification?
...of faith?
...of community?
...of all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies?

Note our focus

Unless Yahweh builds the house, They labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, The watchman guards it in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To stay up late, Eating the bread of toil; For he gives sleep to his loved ones. (Psa 127:1-2 WEB)

Ahhh but the watchman guards! One might exclaim. Why do we key in on the one thing about us and then miss ALL the rest about Him and what He does and is doing? If you don't understand Him and His work you'll attempt to do His work for the sake of working and miss your true work and even more the true relationship with Him.

What is the whole of the point of these two verses (granted they are just plucked out of context of the Psalms, but the point is to illustrate our thinking)? It's about God working, not us. He is both the necessary and sufficient condition.

Toil Quoting

Man has but a meager part to perform. To which Jesus referred when He said, in answer to those desiring to work the works of God, "This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent" (John 6:29). Man’s part is so slight as to be aptly defined by the often used, theological oxymoron "passive activity." Mans part is to believe, to trust and rely on the finished work of Christ and the continuous work of God’s Spirit. God’s part is working. Ours part is to believe. If we do not do the work of God in believing in Christ, we will never be suited to work with Him—to be used of Him to inspire the same faith in others.

Simply put, the work of God is God working.

Toil Quoting: Anxiety

"Take no thought for your life…" Some would hasten to qualify, "but that simply means not to be anxious about our life, worrying about how we will make ends meet." That is very true. However, anxiety is a state of discontentment and unbelief.

Whatever monopolizes our thoughts is what we are anxious about. We may tell ourselves that we are not worried but just planning and pondering and mulling over the possibilities, but in truth we are seeking to express our godhood in laboring to order our own universe, and what irks us most are those things, which escape our grasp.


Those troubling things which refuse to move, to bend, to yield at our beck-and-call. Anxiety is the fruit of assuming responsibilities that are not our own. In this case anxiety is the result of assuming God’s responsibility as provider in every area of our lives.

It is in those areas that we least trust Him that we take the most thought. Truly, man has done everything he can to explain this scripture away, and that he must if he insists on being his own god. It requires faith to assume the posture of the helpless creatures that we truly are—to admit our vulnerability.

What if: Need vs. Want

What if God doesn't NEED us, but WANTS us?

What if our relationship with Him is completely different in whether we approach Him out of a NEED versus a WANT?

What if our good works are very different out of NEED versus out of WANT?

What if agape is more WANT than NEED?

Reply to a great question - without actually answering it

Neo asks, "I get what you're saying. How do u think we should be acting instead? This is really interesting."

Great question. I often find our focus on acting gets in the way. In this sense, behavior focus is a self-focus, even when we are doing it for some lofty goal. It turns into this analysis, judgement,
condemnation, praise, etc... completely about what we're doing. There are moments when we "look up" to see what God's doing, but more often than not (completely my experience) God's work is a distraction to MY work. Wouldn't it be great if these moments where we look up and see "our work" and they are those annoying distractions instead?



What if the question, "What should we be doing?" often gets in the way for what God is already doing? Because look at the question, the focus, the center, the fulcrum, the all is us and our activity. It's sort of like building a rocketship, and rather than focus on the astronauts safety in the completion of their mission, we instead focus on making sure it looks cool for those spectators who will watch it launch. That's a little obtuse, but I hope you see my point.

What if He has His plan and that's enough, we just walk by faith and He reveals it to us at important steps? Where did we get this idea that we were soooooo capable? Where do we see vessels getting all these laudets and praise? Does ANYONE even know what the picture frame around the Mona Lisa looks like -- heck, does it even have one? When you drank a great glass of wine, do you remember much about the glass? When you saw a great play, which is stronger in your mind, the play or the building it was in (a great play, not some drivel). Yes we are part of a tremendous story, but as vessels we are not the focus, and when we make ourselves the focus, we miss the story continuing on around us.

What if more often than not our plans (or understandings) compete with His plans, but since we can see and touch and know our plans, we tend to follow after those than His plans, which we are rarely told? Sometimes knowing so much is to know too much. Sometime just knowing Him is it. And because you know Him you know some things that naturally flow out of Who He is. Like He is MORE than capable of being THE Shephard, so He can lead. He also has this omnipotence thing going, with omniscence, oh yeah and He IS Love.

You might say, okay, great, but I still don't know what to do. Here, let me completely avoid that question in a different way.

What if we look at the natural world. We are outside in some forest, bend down and see this ant colony at work. "Wow, what a metaphor for our lives" one might exclaim. Every day you come back to this colony, just soaking in so much order within so much chaos. It's really been a beneficial help to your walk and life. A week later it's covered by 3 feet of water and you watch beavers busily gathering more material for their dam. What's my point? I have no idea.

I hope this DOESN'T help. Only Christ (the Person, not the concept, nor His teachings, nor His example) is our answer (of course just to be quirky I think HE speaks through me, usually when I'm not expecting Him, don't blindly assume any of this is of Him).

Our activity belies our attitude of the Father

The Father ought to care for the children, not the children for the Father. Today God is treated like an old and sickly parent whose children must care for Him.

Our actions and activity speaks to what we really believe, how we really see the Father. Unfortunately most of what we've been taught is more consistent with a Father who:

• suffers from dementia -- for we ask over and over and over and over
• is weak -- for we must bring in His kingdom
• is simple minded -- for we tell Him what He should be doing
• is petty -- for we stress over every little thing

2 yokes: Which is the Good News?

Exhibit A:
"come unto me and I will put you to work. I will teach you those things you must dutifully do. I will place upon your shoulders the weight of your own spiritual welfare. Although you might be weary, and get more weary still, if you hang on, persevere and otherwise struggle to the end, you will be saved."

Exhibit B:

"Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Romans 9:20, Why have You made me like this?

Do we the pots ask the Potter why we are made like we are made? Let's go beyond, do we ask why the Potter uses the methods that He uses?

Why did you let that happen?
Why don't you do this this way?
Why not use this shortcut?

It sounds ludicrous, because it is insanity. But we spend so much time immersed in this insanity, telling God how He should work. Telling Him that we love Him, that we trust Him, that He is all-knowing and that He is all-powerful...and this give Him this litany of stuff they He should do for us. It would seem more often than not, if we were honest with ourselves, the prevailing reason we even praise Him is because we think we can somehow manipulate Him or appease Him. We think we can stroke His ego and have Him mold us and our circumstances in such a way to our liking, understanding, and lust.

Discipleship: ek ...

ek theos or ek autos? Out of God or out of self?

What's the difference? What is the prevalence?

If even Christ could do nothing apart from the Father and He spent a great deal of time in His "three year ministry" discipling -- then we the branches cannot do it apart from Him.

What if: Discipleship and methodology

What if methodology kills authenticity?

What if a set plan, a law of letter, kills the spirit of authenticity?

What if a set pattern builds trust in a plan and not a person?

What if you cannot serve two masters, the static plan/understanding or the dynamic often enigmatic Lord?

What if an undue focus on the correct "form" of a packaged discipleship system is more like saying the right words in the right way to get something we want to happen...which is more like witchcraft than Christianity?

What if discipleship is like the wind, because it is energized and guided by the Spirit; who knows where it will go and where it has come from?

What if our methods just energize self-effort, but our trust/faith allows for God to work through us for another?

What if we are not and never are good enough to lay down our lives, but by faith in Christ, Who is the righteousness of God, He does so through us?

What if the packaging of discipleship means you have a package of nothing?

What if God cannot be boxed, and His workings in relationships cannot be boxed in either?

What if God cannot be boxed in by space, time, matter, energy, or even our understanding, desires, or imaginations?

What if packaging discipleship is an attempt to walk NOT by faith, but by human understanding and by self-produced and illusory certainty?

What if a set forth package quenches seeking, knocking, and asking?

What if a set forth discipleship methodology package is a substitute for the reality of a journey with Christ that one gets from seeking, knocking, and asking that an authentic relationship with Him will naturally bring?

Discipleship: Obvious missing component

Notice there is one things completely consistent in the disciples discipleship. Do we notice it, or do we not because it is so incredibly obvious? Do we gloss over it, pay attention to other things, secondary things, manifested things, outflowing things, rather than the one good thing? What is this obvious thing? Is it not love? No, but yes. It is this, HIM. Christ is the consistent thing in the discipleship. Which is why love is there, because Christ is God and God is love. Discipleship had love, not because they spent time together. Discipleship was good not because it was a proper method. Discipleship had love because love was discipling. Discipleship was good because the only one who is good, God, was discipling.

But what about later on, what about after Christ ascended? So then we must therefore disciple on our own? If we go forward from just this do we know what we are saying here? We are saying that we can do good apart from God. I know that is not our intent, but that is the reality. We are saying that now that we have been given a system, a pattern, a method to make disciples, we can in our own power utilize this system to do what He did. We'd be saying, "We thank you Lord that you didst come down, reconcile us, redeem us, and have left us with this divine model that you've given us in your Bible." What's missing? HIM, again.

50 days later we have Pentecost. Where He sends His Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The believer is not just an accentor to divine historic facts. The believer is now the temple, is now the habitation of God. It is by the Spirit that we are led into ALL TRUTH. And what is the truth? Christ. He is the Way, the TRUTH, and the life.

So what is discipleship without Christ? Just an Eastern cultural phenomenon. It's used in other religions, it's used in martial arts (come we know that only the most butt-kicking fighters have to come from a Master, or have a flashback that showed their abiding with a Master). Sure there are some external differences, but there are these differences between Confucianian and a martial arts master. The difference that makes it something entirely else, something real, something eternal, is the actuation by the eternal being, the I AM, by Christ Himself. Otherwise its just apprenticeship. It is a man-understood and man-efforted religious activity that has a shadow of reality, that has an appearance of godliness, but denies the power, which is Christ -- the Wisdom, the righteousness, the Power of God.

What if: Discipleship is...

What if discipleship is the pointing of another to Christ in all aspects, circumstances, ups and downs that God brings and allows?

What if discipleship is ALSO the outworking of Christ to/for another by our faith in Him?

What if discipleship is God working in, on, with, from, by, through us and in, on, with, from, by, through, and to another?