Confusion About Authorities

As I see one of my friends compulsively returning again and again to argue with their brother in the face of determined close-mindedness I am reminded of a young boy flailing out in anger at his protagonist bully long after he has been beaten and defeated only to be hit yet once again. The bully is almost baffled by the unwillingness of the victim to give up as he continues to deliver blow after insulting blow.

Then I remember that the little boy was, and is still sometimes internally, myself. This has really happened to me and my mind is still deeply entrenched in this angry pride, determined to in the end overcome my opponents by any means possible. I have been desperately searching for several days for the roots of why my heart feels the way it does after my recent unsuccessful confrontation with certain authorities. As I try to honestly analyze my anger and confused emotions I begin to see intense feelings of bitterness and resentment that, left unchecked to extend to their matured fulfillment, could end in violence or worse. It is startling but in a strange way almost familiar.

The bogus so-called judicial system today that assumes guilt until innocence is proved has a trump card on everyone. Everyone is guilty of sinful motives and no one can prove they are perfect and free from any evil desires. So like an evil bully, the authorities harass, intimidate and antagonize “sinners” until they can fish out of them enough sinful response to then use as evidence to accuse and convict them. Sounds like a well-crafted plan conceived in hell and perfected for centuries.

Meanwhile the victims also are plagued with contamination of the spirit of pride and revenge. Satan is the model and mentor for both the protagonist and the victim. In the very last battle he portrays himself as the unjustly beaten victim of a God that he has convinced people treats us just like what in reality Satan has been doing. And as a victim he alternately tries to solicit sympathy and lashes out in torrents of rage and defeated angry outbursts, never admitting defeat.

I am tired of being mentored by Satan and being locked in his schoolhouse. But I am also confused. Satan is refusing to give in to perfect love, and that is reasonable to me to understand that he is illogical. But how does that relate to me being asked to cave in to unjust bullies to be righteous? I'm sure I'm not seeing the picture correctly and I'm sure Satan is behind my twisted confusion.

I have been struggling to understand why my heart feels so pained the last few days and why I have lost the peace of God so much. Satan has successfully stolen my joy and I'm upset about it. But I also know God is using this to uncover deeper levels of sin in me that need to be recognized and released. But until this morning I could not make out anything about the roots. Somehow, I don't believe that giving up everything I've done to arrive at the position of political “freedom” that I am in and once again surrendering to be a government slave abused by the dragon would result in harmony and peace again. Appeasement does not bring peace, only suffocating tyranny. However, direct resistance also seems to be at odds with the teachings of Jesus – do not resist evil. There must be another option that is not yet clear to me. It most certainly and primarily involves attitudes in the heart rather than outward conformity to unjust laws. I'm sure it involves letting go of pride and bitterness, but they have to be recognized and embraced with their roots or, like weeds in the garden, if the roots are not also discovered they will only return again and again.

God – you have a lot of work left to do.

God reminded me that if I am having a big problem feeling compassion or any kind of of love toward the authorities who abuse me and others involved with them – and I most certainly do have great difficulty – then to that extent I am not experiencing His life in me, for He is compassion and love. This is very disturbing.

Kill Sin or God

See My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers for this date. “Either God or sin must die in my life.” This lies very near the center of the Great Controversy. If I am not crucified with Christ then I will crucify Him afresh in myself. The Great Controversy is a fatal struggle to the finish and total annihilation of one side or the other. No prisoners are taken by God and no freedom is permitted by Satan. It is kill or be killed according to Satan's rules of engagement. We have been taught that it is better to kill than to be killed. But Jesus says we must lose our life to save it. If we do not surrender to be killed with Christ then sin in us will rise up within us and kill Christ who lives in us. There is no compromise – only a time of probation wherein we choose which will die.

More Faith

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you. "Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down to eat'? "But will he not say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink'? "He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? "So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'" (Luke 17:5-10 NAS95)

OBEY means to listen and submit to authority.

FAITH may be the vital combination of surrender to love and obedience.

When we are fully surrendered to God, full of His love and living in total surrender to His authority, then we may find that all creation will begin to submit to the authority of God in us.

Ordination

We have so adopted the Babylonian model into religion that we have turned ordination on its head. God originally designed ordination – laying on of hands – to be an event of recognition of God's empowering and an embracing by God's family of a person and their choice by God. The family of God was committing to support and defend this person as an elder maturity function for their community or in support of some other work God had singled them out to do.

Now, although we create the external words and pretension that we are supposedly doing this, in actuality we use ordination as an exclusion tool to block people from fulfilling their calling of God. Unless a person pays their “dues” through prescribed educational achievements and meet certain arbitrary criteria of tradition they are not deemed worth of authority from man-made institutions based on the kingship/legal/economic model of government.

Jesus, when speaking of binding and loosing, said that His family would bind or loose what was already bound or loosed in heaven, not the other way around, contrary to some mistranslations of that passage. In the family model the family follows the lead of the head and the head looks out for the needs and best interests of all the family.

(reference Ye Shall Receive Power for June 11)

Disciples' Left-brain Block

The disciples minds were deeply entrenched from childhood in the left-brain teachings and doctrines from the scribes and pharisees. Living with Jesus was an intense right-brain experience that progressively raised conflicts and questions about their left-brain explanations of reality. The big problem from the time they first met Jesus all the way through the crucifixion was that they were still using their left-brain doctrines embedded in the minds as their source of authority instead of ravishing themselves in an abandoned relationship with the passionate God right in from of them.