Maturity Short-circuit

Gratitude and thankfulness is part of a process of receiving. Learning to receive is the first task of infant maturity. To learn to receive without resistance includes gratitude.

When gratitude is forced it short-circuits the development of the ability to receive freely. I am beginning to see that my life-long difficulty in expressing thanks is a symptom, not necessarily the problem itself as I was always scolded. I have a deep, inner resistance to receiving freely. Yes this may be linked to pride and independence, but is has much more to do with stunted maturity development. This very likely is tied to improper and rushed maturity training when I was very young that was premature for me at the time. When a skill of maturity is imposed on a growing mind before it is ripe for that skill, the outward compliance may or may not be achieved, but the inner wiring is scrambled and the person is setup for life-long problems until God brings healing by reconstructing the original mess-up.

The secret intimacy of the Lord is for those who fear Him,

And He will make them know His covenant.

My eyes are continually toward the Lord,

For He will pluck my feet out of the net. Ps. 25:14,15

Counterfeit Scales

One of the most subtle and cunning transpositions Satan has achieved is to cause us to believe in the wrong set of scales. The Tree of Knowledge is a false scales that we establish as a norm for most if not all of our decision-making. But we actually believe that these scales are reliable in weighing moral and salvific decisions.

We make choices daily as to the value or moral weight of the activities, discussions, reading, veiwing, relationships etc. that are the building materials of our life. These choices are also made about the quality of materials that become not only the foundation of our future thinking but are being laid down as fresh foundations for the children within our influence.

The problem with the scales, as with everything that Satan has set up for us, is that they so closely resemble the true in our thinking that we are willing to depend on them for our very life and soul. This scale is called Good and Evil, true and false. We believe that if we choose good and true over evil and false we create weight in our “account” to impress God. We even are led to believe from the operation of this counterfeit scale that there is a graduated scale of merit where at some point our goodness and suffering can outweigh our evil and pleasure indulgences to then spring open the doors of paradise for us. This scale theology is part of the foundation of every false religion and runs deep in every religious system.

But when our eyes begin to open to reality and we begin to see the true measure of value; when we understand the extreme requirements for acceptance and even survival in the close presence of God and His overwhelming holiness, we discover an altogether different scale in heavens economy. This is not a graduated scale that we can add to until we finally tip the indicator in our favor. Instead, to our dismay, we discover that our whole arrangement including our false scale itself shows up all on the same side of the heavenly scale to our discredit. Not only all our sin and indulgence and hatred and bitterness, our pride and selfishness, self-serving pleasure and self-satisfied religiosity, but also our noble words and deeds, our attempts at godliness, our striving for perfection and our religious performances – all are seen in the true light of glory to be resting solidly on the liability side of heavens scale with not one item contributing any weight to counterbalance our enormous debt. All of our righteousness is considered as valuable to God as the way we feel about filthy, disgusting used menstrual rags. (Isa. 64:6 literally)

“The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary; but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor who is at God's right hand presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God. All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ. He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption. He gathers into this censer the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and with these He puts His own spotless righteousness. Then, perfumed with the merits of Christ's propitiation, the incense comes up before God wholly and entirely acceptable. Then gracious answers are returned.

“O, that all may see that everything in obedience, in penitence, in praise and thanksgiving must be placed upon the glowing fire of the righteousness of Christ. The fragrance of this righteousness ascends like a cloud around the mercy seat.” {6BC 1078}

Immature Saul II

Acts 9:1-31

When Saul was first converted he still carried many of his habits, techniques and assumptions from his past thinking and training. He believed that over-powering arguments were the means to bring truth to other minds. He had always had a religion based on logic, study, facts and irrefutable proofs. Now he simply applied his new insights about Jesus and prophecies to continue his campaign to win everyone over to his viewpoint. Yes, his heart had been awakened by a fresh revelation of God in his vision from Jesus and his initial interactions with disciples in Damascus, but the habits of reasoning and his dependence on force of logic, if not physical force, would take time to undo. This is demonstrated both in Damascus and in Jerusalem much to the intense embarrassment of his former supporters to the point of death threats.

Evidently, from the text, while Saul was busy heating up the frustration and anger of his former close friends and comrades in religion, the leaders of the Christian church were spending time planting a new company in Caesarea and may not have been fully aware of what discontent and opposition Saul was stirring up in Jerusalem with his argumentative style. Saul was in danger of stirring up so much animosity against himself and the church that he was actually creating new zealots to replace the position of persecutor he had just vacated. He did not realize that it was unnecessary to use the tactics of forceful arguing and intimidation to spread truth. He had switched his allegiance but he had much to learn about gentleness and humility to reflect the true Spirit of Jesus in his labors.

The apostles realized the damage that Saul was beginning to induce on the church when they started receiving disturbing reports in Caesarea from Jerusalem and they may have decided to intervene before Saul inadvertently returned the situation to the reign of terror that he himself had so recently presided over. It was simply a problem of maturity, not ill motives. Saul was indeed converted, but his methods and spirit of presentation was sometimes abrasive and unnecessarily blunt.

So acting as mature elders would act, the apostles moved to intervene and brought Saul to Caesarea to where they could counsel with him about his methods and quietly discuss the problem so they could come up with a plan to help him move forward in true maturity and learn more of the true ways of Jesus. After careful consideration and prayer and closer bonding through affirmation it was mutually agreed that it would be best for Saul's growth at this point to allow him to return to his roots, his hometown and allow the Holy Spirit to have time to take him through an experience that would retrain him through the earliest stages of maturity so he would have a solid foundation for his future ministry.

God in a Box

5-13-06

Why was there wind and sound and fire at Pentecost?

Wind to shatter the “box” that religion had kept God inside of for so long.

Wind to fill the sails of the “gospel ship”.

Sound to alert the listening, hungry souls that something new and refreshing was now available.

Fire to melt the frozen chosen – to free them to display the real truth about God.

Fire to burn away the baggage that had been unloaded from their hearts for the past ten days.

Fire of God's passion to burn white-hot with love in eyes newly opened by grace.

Some who criticize others for keeping God in a box simply want to impose their own box in place of other boxes.

Denominations are very obvious and well-defined boxes that most Christians force God into.

Most denominations have multiple subcultures that create even tighter, more restrictive boxes to define God.

What has happened is that we have come to view the box itself as God since it is the definition of God in our minds.

The only container that God has declared suitable for Him to dwell in is a human heart open to receive Him. It cannot contain Him but it can display Him.

Joy is at the heart of God's plan for His beings. God is the happiest being in the universe. - Ortberg

Comet Terror

God closed the door of the ark seven days before the rain began to fall in the days of Noah. There is a good theory that I happen to believe is very possibly true that the major natural cause of the flood was a comet that struck both the earth and the moon and possibly even the sun. If this theory is true then the comet would have been seen approaching the earth closer and closer causing increasing fear and finally panic. It may be that the reason God sealed the door of the ark one week ahead of the beginning of the flood was to prevent anyone from trying to save themselves inside the ark based purely on motives of fear. If the only reason they entered the ark was terror of the approaching comet instead of faith in God's warning and His word, then they would only be a liability and a curse that would perpetuate the condition of overwhelming sin that brought on the flood.

As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be....

Immature Saul

When Saul was converted in Damascus, Ananias argued with Jesus about trusting Saul. When he returned to Jerusalem the same fear was exposed in the apostles and they refused to fellowship with him until one radical believer stepped forward to bridge/stand in the gap.

We piously look at their fear and think we don't have that problem, but our actions and conversations betray us. Our prejudice toward people not of our denomination is a glaring example. And even within our own community our love and acceptance of those around us is based largely on their uniformity with ourselves. We are very reluctant to affirm anyone that has style significantly different than ours. If they don't have a similar level of implicit, blind, unreasoning dependence of SP as we do they are viewed at best with suspicion.

Affirmation of inherent value of others irrespective of their behavior is a concept that usually strikes us as heresy of a dangerous order. Conformity is valued as the most noble character trait and uniformity to our sub-culture in unquestioning obedience to a religious leader's teachings is considered godliness. We insist our children memorize the quotation, “It is the work of true education to develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men's thought” (Ed. 17), but then subtly insist they give priority to reflecting our thoughts before they are taught (if ever) to think for themselves.

Saul did not fit in well to the apostles early church style. He was a very immature, highly enthusiastic believer, passionate about his new relationship to Jesus but rather abrasive in his presentation of his current understanding of the gospel. He had not spent the years with Jesus having his rough edges exposed and mellowed as they had done. He had experienced a radical conversion of grace, but had not yet become very graceful himself. He had always been immersed in the strong tradition that winning arguments is the sure sign of being right, and this notion still permeated his thinking as a new Christian. So with his keen, sharp mental prowess and his newly discovered insights and understandings of Scripture coupled with his unbridled passionate first love for his Saviour, he boldly launched into a campaign to convert all the Jews to Christianity not wholly unlike his previous campaign to do just the opposite.

In an interesting sense, Paul was acting like Moses when he killed the Egyptian and then had to flee for his life. Moses had caught a vision of his calling and moved to aunch into it decidedly and with gusto. But he had not learned important lessons about what God is like and how He relates to humans just as most of us have not. So too, Saul had to be sent away to incubate in the wilderness just like Moses to learn lessons of humility, grace, gentleness and true God-likeness before he could emerge as the highly efficient channel communicating God's grace as the apostle Paul that he later became.

So here is this enthusiastic ex-murderer running around town claiming to be a born-again Christian. And all the church establishment leaders suddenly are eclipsed in their level of commitment and consequently have their fears exposed again. Fear seems to always be the foundational problem for all our issues and dysfunctions. We have still not grown in maturity and trust in God to extinguish some deeper level of fear unknown to us previously.

So God creates for us a new dis-comfort zone to expose yet another unstable foundation of fear in our hearts as an opportunity to repent, confess and repair these foundations and fill up the breach with deeper revelations of truth about God Himself. (Isa. 58:12) It is primarily heart work that has to be accomplished, not doctrinal belief systems rearranged. Conforming our arrangement of facts to reflect the particular view of some religious group we ascribe to most often is a pious substitute for allowing true conviction of the real Holy Spirit to take root and break up the hard ground of our hardened, pain-filled hearts. We want to avoid real heart work at all costs because we know it will involve stirring up old buried pains and will challenge our pet beliefs and assumptions. In fact, our very identity will be threatened and subconsciously we are afraid that that will just kill us. So we hide our wounds under the camouflage of systematic theological arguments and well-memorized chains of texts and quotations so we can amass enough ammunition to win any arguments that someone may launch against us.

And this we label as “righteousness” or “holiness” or whatever the preferred terminology is in vogue in our favorite group. We cover over our wounds and ignore the wounded hearts of those around us as we champion our systematical arrangement of bullet-proof beliefs and whip up confidence among our comrades that we are marching in LOCKSTEP to Zion and to victory over sin.

But Barnabas had a different spirit, a free-thinker outside the box. Maybe he had personally been praying for Saul, the arch-enemy of Christians, for a long time as Jesus had taught him to do. He believed it was now time to lay hold on God's answers to their prayers and step out of the comfort zone, step out in faith in God's ability to do the impossibly amazing feat of capturing Saul with His love and grace. It was time to trust God and embrace his former enemy before all his questions were satisfied. He was in tune with the Spirit of God more than all the others and was willing to lay down his fears and in eager anticipation and humble vulnerability be came to Saul to listen to his heart. In doing so he got the scoop on the inside story and was able to be a campaigner of grace and an instrument of reconciliation used personally by God. Paul later taught this very truth – that we are all called to this ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18)

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Transform me into a Barnabas, a son of encouragement, a reconciler, stepping outside the box and rejecting fear.

(part 2)

Barnabas Attitude

When Saul was converted in Damascus, Ananias argued with Jesus about trusting Saul. When he returned to Jerusalem the same fear was exposed in the apostles and they refused to fellowship with him until one radical believer stepped forward to bridge/stand in the gap.

We piously look at their fear and think we don't have that problem, but our actions and conversations betray us. Our prejudice toward people not of our denomination is a glaring example. And even within our own community our love and acceptance of those around us is based largely on their uniformity with ourselves. We are very reluctant to affirm anyone that has style significantly different than ours. If they don't have a similar level of implicit, blind, unreasoning dependence of SP as we do they are viewed at best with suspicion.

Affirmation of inherent value of others irrespective of their behavior is a concept that usually strikes us as heresy of a dangerous order. Conformity is valued as the most noble character trait and uniformity to our sub-culture in unquestioning obedience to a religious leader's teachings is considered godliness. We insist our children memorize the quotation, “It is the work of true education to develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men's thought” (Ed. 17), but then subtly insist they give priority to reflecting our thoughts before they are taught (if ever) to think for themselves.

Saul did not fit in well to the apostles early church style. He was a very immature, highly enthusiastic believer, passionate about his new relationship to Jesus but rather abrasive in his presentation of his current understanding of the gospel. He had not spent the years with Jesus having his rough edges exposed and mellowed as they had done. He had experienced a radical conversion of grace, but had not yet become very graceful himself. He had always been immersed in the strong tradition that winning arguments is the sure sign of being right, and this notion still permeated his thinking as a new Christian. So with his keen, sharp mental prowess and his newly discovered insights and understandings of Scripture coupled with his unbridled passionate first love for his Saviour, he boldly launched into a campaign to convert all the Jews to Christianity not wholly unlike his previous campaign to do just the opposite.

In an interesting sense, Paul was acting like Moses when he killed the Egyptian and then had to flee for his life. Moses had caught a vision of his calling and moved to aunch into it decidedly and with gusto. But he had not learned important lessons about what God is like and how He relates to humans just as most of us have not. So too, Saul had to be sent away to incubate in the wilderness just like Moses to learn lessons of humility, grace, gentleness and true God-likeness before he could emerge as the highly efficient channel communicating God's grace as the apostle Paul that he later became.

So here is this enthusiastic ex-murderer running around town claiming to be a born-again Christian. And all the church establishment leaders suddenly are eclipsed in their level of commitment and consequently have their fears exposed again. Fear seems to always be the foundational problem for all our issues and dysfunctions. We have still not grown in maturity and trust in God to extinguish some deeper level of fear unknown to us previously.

So God creates for us a new dis-comfort zone to expose yet another unstable foundation of fear in our hearts as an opportunity to repent, confess and repair these foundations and fill up the breach with deeper revelations of truth about God Himself. (Isa. 58:12) It is primarily heart work that has to be accomplished, not doctrinal belief systems rearranged. Conforming our arrangement of facts to reflect the particular view of some religious group we ascribe to most often is a pious substitute for allowing true conviction of the real Holy Spirit to take root and break up the hard ground of our hardened, pain-filled hearts. We want to avoid real heart work at all costs because we know it will involve stirring up old buried pains and will challenge our pet beliefs and assumptions. In fact, our very identity will be threatened and subconsciously we are afraid that that will just kill us. So we hide our wounds under the camouflage of systematic theological arguments and well-memorized chains of texts and quotations so we can amass enough ammunition to win any arguments that someone may launch against us.

And this we label as “righteousness” or “holiness” or whatever the preferred terminology is in vogue in our favorite group. We cover over our wounds and ignore the wounded hearts of those around us as we champion our systematical arrangement of bullet-proof beliefs and whip up confidence among our comrades that we are marching in LOCKSTEP to Zion and to victory over sin.

But Barnabas had a different spirit, a free-thinker outside the box. Maybe he had personally been praying for Saul, the arch-enemy of Christians, for a long time as Jesus had taught him to do. He believed it was now time to lay hold on God's answers to their prayers and step out of the comfort zone, step out in faith in God's ability to do the impossibly amazing feat of capturing Saul with His love and grace. It was time to trust God and embrace his former enemy before all his questions were satisfied. He was in tune with the Spirit of God more than all the others and was willing to lay down his fears and in eager anticipation and humble vulnerability be came to Saul to listen to his heart. In doing so he got the scoop on the inside story and was able to be a campaigner of grace and an instrument of reconciliation used personally by God. Paul later taught this very truth – that we are all called to this ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18)

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Transform me into a Barnabas, a son of encouragement, a reconciler, stepping outside the box and rejecting fear.

Probation and Emotion Ring

Hard-wiring the emotion ring in the brain. Any emotions without return paths to joy are not wired into the ring. This biological event happens very early in childhood. This is a perfect explanation of the close of probation. The time has come for the wiring to grow into place, to laminate for all humanity. Everyone who has not learned the paths to joy, who have put off practicing what they even understood intellectually, will be stuck where they have emotionally chosen to live. Intellectual understanding of all the truth and even knowledge of this fact itself will not equate to having an actual, experiential, rehearsed right-brain path in the “ways of God”, an intimate experience of what it means to be “holy”, a dedicated channel of the righteousness of God.

Those who have not been exercised and become compliant mediums of His passion will find themselves hardwired out of the inner circle of intimacy with God's heart. They are identified as filthy and unholy. They are satisfied with being common vs. being dedicated. They have resisted allowing God to finish removing all the garbage from their minds. They clung to their pain or their lies because they believed it was their identity. They would not completely die to their sinful identity and choose to fully embrace their identity in Christ by faith in His good will toward men. Because they insisted on believeing something, anything different about themselves than what God had declared them to be in Christ, God now has to respect their decision about their identity and allow them to be identified with their filth, no matter how small or large.

And if they have been unwilling to be 100% dedicated (the real meaning of the word “holy”) to satisfying the heart of God and bringing honor to His reputation, then they are declared “unholy”. This simply acknowledges they are for common use, mixing worldly thinking and feeling with heavenly thinking and feeling. They are unsafe for high intensity transmission, unfit for clean, uncluttered signals. They are what they insisted on pursuing.

Left-brain/Right-brain

When we experience a dissonance between the heart and the mind, between our right and left brain, it is described by the word “guilt”. God's original design was that the left brain should be a map, a guide, an index closely linked to the various areas of the right brain. The right brain is the seat of the heart (right brain literally controls the left side of the body where the physical heart is), emotions, desires, passion, mystery, intrigue – the fire of the soul. Sin seriously ruptured the close link, the symbiotic relationship between the two. It has been noted by Jim Wilder, an expert on the brain, that when the left and right parts of the brain are not in agreement about something, the disturbing feeling resulting from this dissonance is called guilt. As soon as the two are in agreement the result is peace.

There are two ways to get rid of the feeling of guilt. The feeling is the tension of discrepancy between left brain knowledge and beliefs and the right brain experience. Typically guilt occurs when we indulge in right brain pleasure that violates left brain rules and beliefs. The two sides launch into heated arguing and guilt is experienced. Repentance simply allows the right brain experience to align with left brain beliefs and the two are in unity and peace.

However, there are other scenarios. The left brain may have been taught false guidelines and rules. When the right brain lives life doing something that is by God's view not morally wrong but is viewed by the left brain as wrong according to tradition, culture etc., we experience what may be labeled as false guilt. In this case the real fault lies in the beliefs and rules, not in the experience, but the feeling of guilt and shame is still the same. The two sides are still arguing and there is no peace.

There are actually two resolution for guilt, not considering repression as a resolution. The first and best is to first check to see which side of the brain is truly at fault according to the Designer's guide instead of what has been programmed into the left brain. This is seldom done truly objectively. Most of the time this process is supposedly invoked it is really a cover for reinforcing culture and traditional norms rather that purely tapping into God's unaffected design for us. If God's truth is really allowed to be exposed many more instances of left-brain faulty standards would be revealed and much more heart-motivated actions would be vindicated.

The other resolution is more devious and subtle and in the very long term will prove to be only temporary. This is, when we experience guilt we choose to reassemble and manipulate our left brain belief systems until they agree with our experience. This is usually called explaining or excusing. Humanism is the result of this attempt and all modern psychology generally emerges from this.

The left brain is where facts, formulas, explanations and factual libraries that are retrievable on demand reside. It is where concepts, theoretical beliefs and doctrines are stored. The right brain is where relationships, sensory memories, emotions tied to events in the experiential memory banks are stored. It is where we thrill or hurt deeply. It is where the sparkle for our eyes is generated as well as the lust that leaks into our looks. Ultimately it is where God designed us to live from – our heart. This helps us to understand Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon better.

We were created in the image of a God who wanted creatures who could more accurately reflect the passion of His own heart more completely than any other beings in His creation. He designed humans to live with passion, joy, abandon, delirious excitement and with sparkle, zest and enthusiasm that far superseded anything yet seen in the universe. All this He embedded into the capabilities of the right brain primarily, entrusted to be a source, a channel, an extension of the same powerful emotions that could not be contained in His own heart. He designed humans to procreate with this same passion so that the human race, this outlet of expression of the passion of God, would be able to expand and grow and multiply as an ever-increasing capacity to express the infinite love bursting from His own uncontainable emotional reservoir.

Our left brains were designed to be a template, an index, a means of both understanding the right brain as well as a filter and a channel of input and regulation for the right brain. The left brain would be the primary seat for the safeguards, the filters, the formulas and equations, the logical, factual libraries for calculating reason and “level-headed” thinking. It was designed to be able to function somewhat independently if need be in a crisis if the right brain was temporarily off on an extreme emotional trip. But this ability would require training and mentoring by other balanced minds and many experiences of practice.

Since the right brain controls the blood supply to the left brain and will by default shut it down during trauma, it has to be trained, preferable at a very early age, to allow the left brain to remain online in a crisis and to trust its (hopefully) better judgment.

The great division in thought as to the ideal way to live falls along this very issue. Are we to live primarily from our right brain or our left? This has enormous implications in religion but is really seen in all philosophies of thought. Typically most answers are to a great extent strongly influenced primarily as a reaction to a demonstration of the opposite conclusion.

Those who observe “intellectuals” that shy away from emotion and shun passion are disgusted with the resulting atrophy of emotional capacity, enjoyment and expression, so they react by putting great focus on emotionalism and spend inordinate amounts of time and energy exploring and dwelling on their feelings, fears, pains and depression. Or they may amass all the exciting, positive, exhilarating ideas and techniques they can find and whip up themselves into artificial emotional highs and then call it God's presence. Many churches have followed this formula and can easily draw in large crowds hungry for emotional satisfaction.

Many others look on this scene with pious disdain and declare all the emotionalism to be shallow at best and out of touch with foundational truth. Consequently they build massive left-brain complicated explanations and expositions that require greater and greater mind capacity to even understand. They develop prestigious institutions of “higher learning” that invest greater and greater resources into refining, adding to, and fine-tuning the growing monster of intellectual knowledge. This system becomes highly stratified not only according to levels of individual amassment of condoned information but also by acquiescence to the strict rules of conformity to what is deemed important and what is snubbed as below the dignity of established acceptability.

A great deal of pride is woven all through this system and is generally legitimized by many rationalizations and pompous ceremonies. Human value is primarily determined by where one is placed in the strata with the upper echelons composed primarily of those who best hide their emotions and amass the most left-brain prowess. Those who cannot hide their right brain functions so well drop down the ladder and those who live with wild abandon and appear to just celebrate with not thought for what comes next are considered off the bottom of the ladder.

Obviously there are serious dangers at both extremes as well as everywhere in between. However, many of the dangers remain elusive to exposure because they lie in underlying assumptions that are never challenged. They have been embedded deep in the foundations of human thinking for so many generations they are assumed to be valid and necessary since we have built so much above them that is dependent on keeping these assumptions in place. It is very much like our world economic system today. If an alternative fuel to oil was really allowed to be developed easily or alternatives to drugs were allowed to operate freely the whole economic system could quickly collapse and political power would be in disarray. Primarily for the reason of control and the excuse of stability these underlying systems are highly protected from any serious challengers at any cost.

Back to the original line of thought near the beginning. I believe it is quite possible that God designed humans as a more complete expression of His emotional passionate characteristics than any being He had created up to this point. Because sin caused a major rupture in the symbiotic relationship between left and right, the same problem was created between us and God. Two primary results occurred, as previously noted, resulting in degenerating patterns and systems of living. One side invests heavily in sensory pleasure with less or more disregard for left-brain cautions, principles and safeguards. The other side overemphasizes rules, knowledge, and pride and slowly snuffs out the essence of being alive which is found only in freedom of the heart to feel and express and connect intimately and openly with other hearts.

Maybe in the new earth God is going to utilize humanity to imprint and map onto “His left-brain” creatures a more accurate index and understanding of “His right-brain” passion that can only be expressed through our unique capability.

I woke up this morning with an unusual feeling – a noticeable hunger for reality. I had been having one weird dream after another and waking up sometimes relieved that they were over and could be escaped by waking up and realizing they were just an odd collection of people and events put together, but they were really just fiction. Then it hit me – that's really what my perception of life is. The way I view others and circumstances and try to put it all together – they may all be factual and really exist, but how I try to make sense of it all always produces just fiction. That's all I'm capable of producing. The father of sinful flesh is also the father of lies. Left to myself it is completely impossible for me to come up with a right view of reality no matter how plausible it may sound. Then I thought of the The Analogy of the Satellite Receiver.

The Analogy of the Satellite Receiver

I was programming my satellite receiver yesterday. As I input multiple large numbers and set different variables and then pressed start, the unit would take my collection of inputs and see if they perfectly matched up to receive any signals. If the inputs were correct I would usually come up with several new stations that would now be available to see and hear whenever I choose to tune them into my TV. One time I received quite a list of very unexpected stations, many of which are mostly unusable foreign stations and one or two that I decidedly didn't need for their debasing content. I began to realize that the likelihood of me stumbling across the right combinations of numbers and variables to enable the receiver to capture signals and translate them into usable TV programs without getting them from a reliable source is slightly above the mathematical odds of evolution being viable. The possible combinations of large numbers and settings easily ranges into the trillions plus, not counting the time to slowly enter them all and let the unit attempt each one. If I can't get someone to tell me the right formulas or read them from reliable sources it's just not going to happen no matter how reliably my receiver is functioning. On top of that, it was explained to me by a person in the industry that some stations have scrambled video signals that is apparently beyond the capabilities of my receiver to decode no matter how accurate my inputs are. I would need a subscription decoder box from a pay TV company to be able to use those signals for my entertainment. I wonder if I spend most of my life trying to line up numbers and variables in my mental receiver to discover the right formula to capture signals from Reality that I crave to experience. Obviously there are many bogus sources of code that promise to deliver reception but only give me a blank screen.. Many people have sought deeper sources of code that have divulged combinations that when plugged in really do deliver images and sounds, but only to discover that the signals they are now locked into are less than life-giving or even worse. There's another fact about my receiver I noticed. You cannot delete stations once you lock them in. They just keep adding to what you already set up. There is only one solution to escaping the results of your previous programming. That is to press the Master Reset button that erases all information and eliminates all reception good or bad. You then are allowed to start reprogramming from scratch and if you have the right inputs and codes from the desired sources you will be able to receive the desired signals and enjoy clear receptions and communications. My head receiver has been preprogrammed to receive a number of channels that seem good at times but end up destroying my soul. I try to avoid tuning into those channels but they still show up and tantalize me with their enticing images unexpectedly. Meantime I continue researching various resources that offer bits of correct code. Another source gives me another usable variable and once in awhile I even catch a fleeting glimpse of a glorious channel containing scenes and scents of beauty and awesome sounds and experiences almost too exhilarating for my soul to handle. I have been assured that there really is a superchannel that constantly beams Reality TV that is so good and satisfying and life-giving that most people refuse to believe it is even true. I cannot discover the right arrangement of all the correct numbers and formulas by randomly punching them in. Multiple lifetimes would not be enough time to come across them. There must be only one way to be able to tap into Reality as the rest of the universe enjoys it continuously. Someone from that realm must personally come and give me the various inputs that will be designed specifically for my model of receiver to enable me to be flooded with true images and experiences of what constitutes true Reality as God intended it for me. Yes, the condition of my receiver can have an effect on the reception. That's why healthy practices in body and in imagination management as well as factual accuracy for mental diet is quite important. They enhance or distort the communications received. But those factors are not the same thing as having the right numbers and codes. Just because I have a pristine receiver and a top-of-the-line wall-size TV screen all hooked up correctly does not mean I will receive the right signal to bring me into life-giving programming. I have to have the secret formulas correctly entered and stored. And for that I must access and petition the correct One and only Source to share the complex keys that will unlock my heart and soul and bring me into Life. I may have to experience Master Reset experiences to disconnect me from stations that are distracting or poisoning my soul and spirit. This is always traumatic but necessary to clarify my perception and deliver a more refined picture of God and Reality to not only my own mind but to those who are watching me. Each time this happens I then need to be reprogrammed with the correct inputs, laying aside the false codes this time so that I restrict my reception narrower and narrower to the channels that receive and produce life and light. As I think about this I realize several things about these inputs. One is that some of these inputs are entered, replacing incorrect faulty inputs, only at very significant points in my life. Others have to be entered daily and even others have to be received on an almost continual basis to receive maximum reception. The foundational inputs are core beliefs about what God is like and how He designed us to function in life. This is almost always in dire need of massive correction given our standard preprogramming from our parents, our culture and our faulty religions. These need to be learned and updated through various channels but from the one and only reliable Source Himself. These are input at various times in our lives, sometimes at very dramatic and memorable moments that we never forget. But often we have to be reminded over and over hundreds of times from numerous sources to keep counteracting the lies that so permeate our psyche. This dramatically affects how we see the big picture of life, the context of what is Real and what is true and reliable and even determines the sources we utilize to receive further codes for input. The weekly input code is one designed by God largely to unify His family and develop and nurture His body. Much can be said about this and much more misleading information is freely circulating to keep people off base about getting the correct numbers. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.... Then there is an important daily input for our receivers to work correctly that must be entered for those who are serious in their quest for Reality. This quiet time of synchronization early in the daily cycle of living is very crucial to staying/getting in touch with God's feelings, emotions, desires, passion and His personalized directions for each individual. Most people downplay the importance of this input or cut is short before it is completely entered. They content themselves with simply letting life happen to them and relying only on their weekly or just occasional inputs to equip them for the daily experience. They often wonder why their reactions to events are so poor, why they seem to make so little “progress”. They come to view life as unpredictable and uncertain and often see God the same way and as rather arbitrary and somewhat untrustworthy. They want to be a Christian but they don't want to surrender too much of their own control or time to receive and input updated codes on a daily basis. Those who have more totally devoted themselves to a deeply serious pursuit of truth and Reality find an even tighter arrangement of updates for fine-tuning their reception. These are ones who discover they can keep a dedicated communications channel open to the supernatural that in addition to all the previous correct codes, and building on them, they can receive continuous updates and instant messaging to create in their lives an efficiency of power and a through-put of supernatural energy that is seldom seen in this world. These are people that have surrendered themselves enough to be made efficient channels of communication to this world of strong messages from the glorious world just beyond. This is the condition that all of God's people will have that live through the last events of earth's history as we know it today. This is the kind of person many claim to want to become but are unwilling to surrender their own pleasures, their favorite code-source providers, their own schemes for success that confuse the accuracy needed to receive the right channel. They may also be unwilling to let go of prejudice, pride, selfishness or bitterness that blocks their receivers from projecting life. They might be unwilling to humble themselves and go through the pain of self-exposure and fear to cross the bridge of vulnerability to healing and new life on the other side of their boundaries. Many are called but few are chosen. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.” Deut. 30:19

Allegory of Motor Oil

Oil in engine – work produces heat – resistance produces heat – oil reduces resistance. Oil of gladness increases work output but reduces friction – the lost are trying to work without oil – resistance to love increases heat – fuel is passion – if resistance is overcome by adding more fuel and fire to force the pistons to move without lubrication the block heats up and the engine dies from heat produced by resistance.

The saved have enough oil so they don't resist other parts, changes in direction and differences of speed in close tolerances. They are tolerant and forgiving. When the passion is increased they function together smoothly because the oil surrounds all the parts and permeates the very pores of the metal. Instead of seizing up they produce increasing amounts of power delivered down the drive-train to bless others.

In judgment day there will be two engines fully assembled – they will look similar in many ways but one is trying to use gas instead of oil in the oil pan. Satan has convinced them that force and selfish passion are enough to lubricate the engine. But when the super-charger is turned on and set atop both engines (the revelation of God's face) one engine will wind up and then explode in fiery disaster while the other will smoothly accelerate and break all records and all barriers.

Gentlemen – start your engines!

Another thought – everyone will die the second death sooner or later. The human race as we know it – sinful flesh – is destined for extinction.