Modes of Law

Crime and (arbitrary) punishment modality – prescriptive law

vs.

Truth or (natural) consequences – descriptive law (or natural law)

Forgiveness has very different meanings and implications depending on which modality you are using. In fact, many words take on a different meaning depending on which model is being used.

Repentance has very different meanings.

Confession has very different meanings.

Discipline has very different meanings.

Salvation has very different meanings.

Heaven has very different meanings.

Gospel has very different meanings.

Power has very different meanings.

Truth has very different meanings.

Hell has very different meanings.

Sin has very different meanings.

Crime and Punishment This rule-based system is oriented around a hierarchy model of authority and control like a kingdom or artificial government. The goal is forced conformity to prescriptive laws with arbitrary punishments determined for each infraction. The primary motivation is fear of punishment or selfish desire for rewards.	Truth or Consequences This relationship-based system is bound together in family ties of community where everyone is of equal value but differing stages of maturity. The tools for growth are education of natural cause and effect relationships inherent in the universal created model and learning how to become more and more satisfied and connected with others. The primary motivation is increasing joy and enjoyment of living abundantly from our hearts in union with others.
Righteousness – means keeping the law to the letter with a focus on detailed regulations, fear of infractions and fear of enforcers. Motivation is to avoid fines and arbitrary punishments meted out with force by those in authority.	Righteousness – means living naturally from the heart according to the way the heart was originally designed to live, openly, passionately, expressively and with joy. Being in synchronization with all of creation filled with love, praise and gratitude.
Sin – means committing an infraction against the rules by disobeying orders – anything short of absolute perfect conformity to every law and requirement.	Sin – resistance to the natural design of creation; attempting to live without drawing life from the only Source of life but looking to anything else to depend on for life. Choosing to follow my own cravings in place of God's revealed desires for me.
Truth – cognitive facts that are provable from documents produced by recognized and approved authorities. No credence is given to emotions, feelings and little to social surroundings. Truth is emphatically objective.	Truth – all that is realized and useful through the various forms of communication received from God our Designer. Truth is always in agreement with itself but may at times not seem to be. There are degrees of importance given to the various methods of understanding truth so that everything can be synchronized beautifully by the Spirit of God.
Discipline – various shades of threats or punishment employed to produce fear of pain combined with various forms of rewards employed to induce people to conform to established rules of conformity.	Discipline – the relationship of being a disciple whereby a less mature person is mentored by association with more mature persons thereby learning how to respond in all sorts of situations in a life-giving way by observation of the actions and spirit demonstrated.
Power – the ability to wield force over others by whatever means are available to coerce them into agreement or conformity.	Power – the natural strength that occurs when many minds and hearts are in agreement and harmony with each other through bonds of love producing a life-giving environment in which to thrive.
Confession – forced admittance of guilt for lawbreaking with expectations of accompanying emotions of self-despisement, groveling for mercy etc.	Confession – agreeing with the assessment of our real condition (not identity) by the revelation to our minds and hearts through the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit Who shows us the truth about reality, both inside ourselves and outside.
Repentance – generally a self-forced decision to quit fighting the system and try harder to conform to the rules and guidelines imposed on us.	Repentance – the gift of a new perspective and new desires received and embraced in the heart as a result of our amazement at the kindness, patience and tolerance of God.
Forgiveness – foregoing and releasing us from the arbitrary punishments designated for us to suffer from breaking the law.	Forgiveness – taking upon one's self the responsibility for all of the inward pain and suffering caused by the offenses against them by another person without holding any desire for revenge or retaliation of any kind. This releases to the offending party the opportunity to be free themselves of the pain and feelings of guilt if and when they accept the forgiveness.
Salvation – the formula that God somehow put together whereby “the elect” or “saved” are allowed to go to heaven and live forever there. If one can figure out how to get into the formula correctly they can be saved.	Salvation – the interactive experience with God whereby the Spirit of God works from inside the heart outward in a person's life to restore them to their original design and potential, bonding them to others with love to create what is called the family of God or body of Christ.
Heaven – a physical place somewhere up in the sky where nothing will hurt us, we can do anything we want and will always be happy and free from troubles and annoyances, and temptations. A place where we will live wealthy in very extravagant mansions and do lots of fun things.	Heaven – primarily a condition of the spirit of a person that has a vital, ongoing, growing connection with the heart of God that creates peace and joy in the soul. Secondarily a place in the universe where God lives and longs for us to be with Him there to enjoy abundant life with Him and with all His other created beings.
Hell – a physical place where people who reject the Atonement of Jesus are forced to remain and be tortured by an angry God in flames of fire for not believing in Jesus or obeying and loving God.	Hell – the most excruciating emotional experience possible that will spill over into every other dimension of our being caused by the full exposure of unhealed hearts to the overwhelming love, kindness, beauty and passion of God for us without the ability to respond with love in return.
Gospel – has very different meanings for different people. Sometimes subtly thought of as a list of doctrines that must be accepted intellectually in order to be saved. Usually the story of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins but without much real comprehension of how that really relates to us personally. The formula whereby Jesus died to get us off the hook with God so we could get to heaven.	Gospel – the wonderful truth of all the above and that it really isn't all of the other column. The truth that God is crazy in love with all of us and wants more than anything to spend eternity as our closest friend, companion and lover in perfect joy and satisfaction together. That God is not angry with us but is passionate to restore us into closeness and intimacy with Him.

You can begin to see, based on the discrepancies between the two columns, that a discussion between two people who are on different sides of these paradigms face pretty much insurmountable obstacles to understanding each other due to the dramatic differences in the meanings behind the common words they are using. Even when they try to explain what they mean and go to great lengths to prove their definitions, because of the underlying assumptions that run throughout all the religious terms on each side they will still cling to their own definitions and become confused and frustrated as to why the other person can't see what to them is so very obvious.

A great amount of confusion is also experienced when a person is in transition from one paradigm to the other and is mixing terms from both sides in their thinking and reasoning. Nothing seems to really make sense, and rightly so because the two paradigms are incompatible. The great news is that even in our confusion and learning and growing God is always patient, kind and tolerant which is the very things that attract us to Him and lead us into the truth.

(next in series)

Law of Reflection

Everyone of you who passes judgment, ...in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. (Rom. 2:1)

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure--pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." (Luke 6:37-38)

Because we all are like mirrors, this universal principle cannot be circumvented. I will receive in kind generally what I give in my spirit. The same truth applies not only negatively but positively as well. There is also the added element of the principle of multiplication, so that what I plant with my spirit will be increased by the time it returns to me. This principle of increase is because of the principle of growth. All animate beings grow, they do not remain static and inanimate. In fact, the very word is linked to the word animated which implies outflowing life.

The fact that we grow is made possible because our inner beings, both physical and otherwise, are multiplying in many various ways. Because of the introduction of sin we are also dying at the same time and our health is determined by which one is happening more than the other. But in God's way of life death is not a legitimate presence and will be banished eventually. But even now we are to enter into eternal life to as much extent as possible.

Because we are multiplying-type beings and that defines our very existence, the quality of our lives are largely determined by our continual choices as to what we will give out which in turn determines largely what will be reflected back to ourselves with interest. Even what we dwell on when we look within ourselves will begin to multiply so we have to be selective what we think about both in ourselves and in others. This is not the same as “righteousness by denial” where we try to pretend we have no faults or sins. It is eliminating the destructive presence of those sins by acknowledging them when convicted by God's Spirit and releasing the death-producing consequences of those sins to Jesus who already experienced every one of them on our behalf.

“Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. 'With His stripes we are healed.'” {DA 25}

When I dwell on my faults or the faults of others, I become transformed into those faults even though I think I am opposing them. That is why legalism is so powerless to bring true life to our souls, because it focuses on trying to eliminate sin instead of focusing on thriving and receiving abundant life. That is why judging and condemning produce the very things within us that we condemn in others, because by beholding we become changed. Even if it is my self that I am judging and condemning the effect will be the same. “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”

I want to change the way I think radically. I want to look for the things in others that I want to see produced in my own life and affirm those things in their life, even if they are people who are against me and seem to hate me. That will require a huge infusion of grace, but God seems to have an unlimited supply of that for anyone interested in using it. “The law came in addition, to make wrongdoing worse; but where there was much sin, there was much more grace.” (Romans 5:20 BBE)

The law can only focus on violations – negative things that cause pain and death. When we approach life through the lenses of rule-based relationships we only accentuate the results of wrongdoing and make it even worse. That is why, if we want to experience the life that comes only through the atmosphere created by grace, we must choose to look both at ourselves and others always through the eyes of heaven which is the lenses of grace. As we look with grace we receive grace. "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure--pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

(next in series)

Who Am I?

I have been challenged to copy down the real attributes of my heart and my true identity, the person I really am inside so that I can remember them and state them with assurance and confidence. I cannot ever remember doing this before so it seems a bit bewildering to me. But I also realize that with all the confusion going on right now that this advice is very appropriate and timely. I won't mind some input from those who really know me who would like to assist me in this. I am learning the importance of unmasking the heart that Jesus has given me and that is my true identity.

As I talked with my wife about this the question came up if this is not boasting or bragging about myself. As we discussed this we talked about our need to remember that for every counterfeit there is a solid, true original that it seeks to imitate but with a subtle, deceitful twist. Too often we spend so much energy and focus on avoiding counterfeits that we fail to embrace the true because it looks so much like the false. This morning as I continued to think and pray about this God brought to my mind some things from His Word to confirm that I should be doing this.

Thus says the LORD: “Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight,” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24 NRSV)

Jesus said explicitly, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33 NRSV)

Then I was reminded of what happened to Peter when he forgot who he really was and expressed “confessions” of his old identity with his old language of swearing. He denied that he knew Jesus, which was a false statement about who he really was – a close friend of Jesus – and he mistakenly affirmed his old identity as a swaggering, course, caustic fishermen who cared for nobody. Some might say that he was showing his true colors in that moment, that all the mistakes he had made while with Jesus revealed his true identity and that nothing had really changed on the inside. But that is the false identity of the kingdom of darkness that tries to convince us of the lie. Jesus knew better than that – He was the embodiment of truth, and He knew Peter's “confession” was not reflective of his true heart and his love for Jesus. That is why Jesus made it a point to look at Peter after the third denial and lock eyes with him. It was not to impose feelings of guilt and condemnation on Peter like we sometimes assume, but to remind Peter that no matter how often Peter might forget who he was and slip into old patterns of thinking, Jesus knew Peter's true heart that was passionate for God and wanted to be like Him and could not really deny his love for Him. Jesus would not allow any amount of distracting pain and torture being done to Himself to prevent Him from assuring Peter of His faith in Peter's heart. Jesus made sure that Peter saw for a moment in His eyes the love and confidence, the tenderness and forgiveness that Jesus had for him. And that was enough to re-awaken Peter's heart to remember his true identity as one of Jesus' best friends and to weep with great remorse and repentance for denying his true identity as a friend of Jesus.

Many times I too need to be reminded of who I really am when I forget. I need to remember that I am not defined by my misdeeds or mistakes when I momentarily forget my true identity, but I am in truth defined by the characteristics of the heart that Jesus has planted within me and is nurturing, protecting and growing to more perfectly reflect the beauty of His own heart. God says in Jeremiah 9:24 that I should boast – brag even – that I understand and know Him, that He is a God who acts with steadfast lovingkindness – working mercy, justice – giving true decisions, and righteousness – doing what is right in the earth, for in these things He delights – and I delight too.

At this point one friend has committed themselves to emailing me every day to remind me of who I really am. I did not ask them to do that but I know that God's Spirit prompted them to do so. They have already sent their first message reminding me of what they see and encouraging me to affirm what God has designed me to be and is already there. That is deeply appreciated and warmly accepted – yes, one of the characteristics of my true heart. Another characteristic that I want to develop more is a willingness to do the same for others, not only on a regular basis but especially when they are in danger of forgetting their true blueprint.

I want to continue to add and develop and refine my Declaration of Identity to remind myself of what God looks like living inside of me. By affirming what God has designed me to be and has planted in my soul I am replanting healthy seeds of truth that will spring up and produce even more fruit. Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:7-8 NIV)

Who am I?

A man, a father who never wants anything or anyone to hurt or threaten any of his children.

A husband who wants his wife to feel loved, safe and fulfilled.

A man who wants to express love and affection openly without inhibition or fear.

A person who desires to be filled with pure and holy passion, devotion and love for God and for his family and friends.

A man who keeps his natural desires and lower passions under control so that they will be expressed appropriately and effectively.

A man of honesty and integrity who values truth even when it hurts.

A man who wants to listen and learn from wise people who can help him grow and mature.

A man who desires deep, lasting bonds of love with other people that are revealed in acts of thoughtfulness, kindness and sympathy and that will stay firm in any crisis.

A man whose heart is morally upright and pure and is learning how to relate in healthy ways that will demonstrate his affections while respecting the proper rights and feelings of those he loves.

An industrious person who enjoys working, creating new ideas, building and improving physical structures and learning new skills.

A sensitive, caring man who lives from his heart and makes himself vulnerable and transparent to people with whom he desires to have bonds of trust and friendship.

A musician who expresses his soul and innermost feelings through various forms of music that cannot be expressed through words.

A writer who listens to the voice of God in his soul and mind and shares these thoughts with others.

A friend who is learning to better listen to the hearts of hurting people who need support and encouragement.

A man who is discovering the meaning of real joy and desires to be willing to be there for people when they need someone just to go through an experience or emotion alongside them.

A caring person who believes in the power of family love bonds where each person will trust each other and differences or conflicts will be addressed in a spirit of reconciliation with the goal of restoration of close ties of love and affection.

A man who firmly believes in the Atonement already in place created by God through Jesus Christ so that all of our sins are forgiven and wiped away, all of our guilt can be released completely and immediately, and all of our relationships can be healed with His love.

A Christian who has committed himself to the pursuit of knowing God's heart intimately, His feelings, His view of reality and living in His love for me.

A father who draws out of each of his children with tenderness and persistence the special gifts and characteristics that God placed in them at conception.

A man who seeks to discover the real reasons that lie behind the surface and uncover the hidden beauty in each person with whom he connects.

A person who is learning to be more congruent in his expressions, learning to be less afraid of what others think about him and more attuned to what God sees in him.

A man devoted to discovering the passion of God woven throughout all of the Word of God and waiting to be unleashed in the lives of those who join him in pursuit of mining the Word.

A man becoming one in whose spirit is no guile and no deceit found is in his mouth.

A man who is being led by the Spirit of God on his journey to eventual full realization of his present true identity as one of the sons of God. (Rom. 8:14)

A man who firmly believes in God's amazing ability and plans to work all things together for good to those who love God. (Rom. 8:28)

A man of grace who is eager to cover a multitude of sins by not engaging in gossip or spreading damaging rumors about other struggling souls.

A man who daily seeks the wisdom of God to know how to respond appropriately with a spirit of kindness reflective of God's Spirit.

A humble man who at the same time is not afraid to “brag”, or acknowledge his intimate relationship with God.

A man who seeks to learn from others, both from their strengths and from their failures.

A person who is willing to learn from his own failures while not becoming overwhelmed with discouragement and forgetting who he is.

A man of faith, not only in God's good intentions and ability but faith in those around him to respond to the grace and kindness of God's compassion and infinite love.

A patient person who seeks God's perspective when things don't seem to be going well.

A devoted husband who pursues the heart and affections of his lovely wife, cherishing her above all other women in his life and being ravished in her love.

A caring man who is not afraid to reveal sensitive emotions in public.

A saint, who is a sinner who trusts totally in the character and identity of Jesus Christ as the basis of his relationship with God and with others.

A believer who gives all of his pain, fears, guilt and problems to Jesus believing that one Person is enough to experience the pain and loss created by my sins and I do not need to re-experience that again.

A man who deeply desires bonds of true love and affection with other people who are seeking to be real and open themselves.

A person who is not ashamed of the identity that God has created him to be.

A man with a soft heart for children and elderly people and desires to serve and protect their hearts and bodies from harm.

A man who desires to be bold for God's reputation and be willing to speak in His defense even when it is unpopular.

A man who thinks outside the box, unwilling to accept “canned” answers or be content with platitudes and empty words.

A Christian who wants to passionately know the real truth about God and sweep away all the confusing lies amassed in religion to reveal the beauty and glory and magnetic attraction of the true God of love.

A man sensitive to pain and sympathetic to others who are suffering.

A man who wants to be used by God to be an authentic witness of the ability of God to transform him as an experiment of grace.

A person who values beauty everywhere it can be found in God's creation.

A man who trusts God when he can't see through the dark and can't feel His presence just then.

A person who longs for real community and closeness with others who are being led by the same Spirit of the Father, whether or not they profess to know God.

A perceptive friend who desires to stimulate the uniqueness and specialness in those with whom he has influence.

A man who is not ashamed of his body, but seeks to care for it, protect it and keep it healthy and strong so that it can be used as a house for God to live in.

A man who is not ashamed of his infirmities and limitations.

A person with weaknesses and liabilities that needs honest-hearted, caring friends to remind him, encourage him, give him perspective and support him in his everyday life.

A man with humility received from God and a willingness to be a friend, a confidant and a companion for everyone that God places on his heart.

A man who knows that the only true goodness in his life is only reflective of the merits of Jesus whom he is becoming like through God's transformational power.

A man of prayer who carries on instant messaging with God on a regular basis to stay in tune with what God is doing and thinking.

A disciple of Jesus who is being tutored and groomed as one of the sons of the Almighty.

A gentle man who believes that force is never a means for good and that the true power of love is superior at all times to its counterfeit of force though it often takes longer to see results.

As I update this I will place it on a separate page in my site easily accessible to keep it fresh.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” (Hebrews 10:23-24 NAS95)

As is often the case, and as I suspected even before I opened the book, the message in My Utmost was carefully designed to fit perfectly what God was already talking to me about through various sources. That is why I waited to post the above until after I read today's reading. Sure enough, it was a powerful confirmation from God that I was thinking along the same lines as He wants me to. Here is what it says.

By what right do we become “a royal priesthood?” By the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, morbid type of Christianity, not the robust, simple life of the child of God. Until we get into a right relationship to God, it is a case of hanging on by the skin of our teeth, and we say – What a wonderful victory I have got! There is nothing indicative of the miracle of Redemption in that, Launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete, and then bother no more about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ said – pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints, pray for all men. Pray on the realization that you are only perfect in Christ Jesus, not on this plea – “O Lord, I have done my best, please hear me.”

How long is it going to take God to free us from the morbid habit of thinking about ourselves? We must get sick unto death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God can tell us about ourselves. There is only one place where we are right, and that is in Christ Jesus. When we are there, then we have to pour out for all we are worth in this ministry of the interior. (MUHH 6/21)

Tagged! You're It

I have been tagged as “it” in the world of blog. This seems to be a very interesting game being enjoyed by various bloggers who are expected, when tagged, to publish 8 random facts about themselves on their blog page and then tag 8 more people who in turn become “it”.

Of course one would never even know they have been tagged if they do not keep up with the other person's blog who tags them. And while I sort of keep up with maybe up to 8 other blogs I certainly am not know to that many of them as one who could tag them. I don't know of eight other bloggers who keep up with my blog to know that they were tagged. But then, I suppose that's not my problem anyway. If I list 8 bloggers as tagged even though they never read my blog I have fulfilled the “obligation of the law”, right? Interesting how I can nearly ruin even a game by analyzing it nearly to death.

Well, since I have been tagged by Colin on his site Darkening Glasses, I will not miss this opportunity to highly recommend everyone to put his site on their favorite bookmark list and visit it regularly. I never fail to be inspired by his words of wisdom and insight. He has been one of the surprising blessings in my life I never expected to find when I started out this experiment in blogging months ago. Right now he is running a series of thoughtful comments about the S.O.T.M. – the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus. Don't miss any of it and take time to go back and read some of his previous posts. You will be glad you did.

So, is that a long enough preamble to get you to forget what I am supposed to be doing here?

1. I wear shaded prescription glasses that makes many people suspicious of me because they can't see what my eyes are doing. Contrary to their suspicions, however, the reason I wear them is because my eyes are very sensitive to light and right now I can't afford to buy another pair of clear ones to wear indoors to appease my friends.

2. I wear steel-toed shoes for all the shoes I wear, both work and dress shoes. When I was a teenager and younger I tried to wear other shoes but always ran into the problem of losing them quickly due to holes emerging out the top of the toes long before the rest of the shoe was ready to quit. This is not due to failure to keep my nails trimmed but to the strange shape and design of my big toes that bores holes out the top even when they are trimmed regularly. I used to joke that if they managed to bore a hole through my steel-toed shoes I would put my toes in a museum. M-mmm, maybe after I'm dead and pickled that is.

3. I love participating in quartet music though I have seldom done so. I was part of a quartet around 10 or 15 years ago for a period of about 2 years which I enjoyed very much. I even requested and received handwritten copies of music arrangements from Haven of Rest Quartet which we used for many of their songs. But some of my favorites were from a book one of the members gave me of gospel music written barber-shop style which we thoroughly enjoyed singing together.

4. Along those lines, have you ever heard of the “5^th voice”? I learned about it years ago when I first visited a barber-shop practice session in Chattanooga, TN. During a break in practicing small clusters of men would stand around just striking a chord and intently listening for something. Finally another man explained to me that they were listening for the 5^th, a phenomena where 4 voices blended just right and with the right acoustics will literally create a 5^th voice from the harmonics of the original voices blending together. I never heard them that day but many years later in our own quartet we occasionally heard it. I will never forget one day when we were practicing in the lobby of our church and all the way through a particular song I heard the 5^th voice so loud and distinct that I kept looking around at each of the other 3 guys in amazement trying to figure out if one of them was the one singing that extra high, distinctly clear note. It was so beautiful it sent chills down my spine.

5. OK, like Colin I am getting bogged down trying to come up with more things. Maybe I need to give someone else a call to get me jump-started. I am the 6^th and last child in my family, one of which died 2 days after birth not long before I was born. Since I am not a spring chicken anymore that make the rest of them – well – whatever you want to call it.

6. Back to the music genre again, I spent 2 years about 5-6 years ago singing with a worship team in 2 different churches in Michigan where I lived at the time. One was a large university church and the other was the other fairly large church in town where I attempted to be a worship leader for about a year. I tried to introduce some new ideas in thoughtful programming changes and worship concepts but finally realized that the church simply was not ready for any changes. However, I learned a great deal about worship personally during that time and expanded my thinking a great deal which I will appreciate for years to come. I miss those special times and often wish I could participate again in something similar.

7. About 20 years ago I learned to play the Saxophone with a friend tutoring me who was an excellent player and absolutely loved to play with anyone no matter how bad they sounded. He certainly needed that attitude for a few months to keep coming back as I never learned to read music and sounded more like a bleating goat for awhile than an instrument of music. The first day he came to my house to teach me and play with me he burst out laughing when he saw me playing happily along with the mouthpiece on my instrument upside down.

8. Wow! I actually got to number 8. Well, since music seems to be the easiest thing to talk about (even though I have almost nothing at all to do with it now) I am a keyboard player who loves to play “by ear” and can hardly read music at all except when singing. All of my teacher's since I was 5 years old gave up trying to force me to read notes as I would simply memorize the music and then pretend I was looking at it while playing it for them. However, I wish I had had a teacher who would have picked up on my love for music and my ability to play by ear and tried to develop it much more instead of just staying with the normal teaching methods which did not fit me at all. Oh well, I still enjoy sitting down occasionally at a fine piano and expressing my soul and feelings and even more so if someone who really appreciates it is receiving it from my heart. I love to accompany singers who sing deeply from their heart because then we can feed off each other and really connect in a way that I seldom have the chance to do with others.

Well, there I did it. If you managed to wade through all that and are still reading you might find yourself on the hit list of friends privileged to be “it” and spill your guts share your specialness on your own web page for all the world to see. (I have learned a little bit reading other people's blogs.)

I hereby bequeath the honor of being tagged to the following eloquent writers and bloggers:

• Mountain Laurel at Dusty Angels – check out her book for some very personal and interesting reading.

• Maiden, Bringer of Peace

• Notes from Inside My Head not that I think she may ever see this, but she has a great blog.

• rachman-unprecedented

• meow – Surprise

• formerly a student.... Another blog I like to keep up with but may not notice they are now “it”.

• Seana Waters Welcome I may have to jog her to look at this, but she already has some very interesting info about herself on her web page.

• SUICIDE BICYCLE RIDE OK, so I reaching and I'm sure this guy will never see this tag. But he has an interesting page and I have run out of ideas.

For those who want to continue the game and are tagged here, you are supposed to post 8 fascinating, compelling, startling secrets things about yourself on your own blog and then tag 8 more people to pass it on. Got that? You're it!

By the way, if you are reading this and have an interesting blog that I don't know about, leave me a comment and let me check it out. Or if you are one of my friends that never blogs but just stares at mine once in awhile (I know some of you do), think about starting up your own blog and posting now and then. It's extremely easy to do and actually does connect you with others in surprising ways. If you want any help setting one up I and many others will be eager to assist you. Someone else set mine up completely to coax me into getting started. Let me hear from you.

Salvation a Bit Deeper

I sense my mind and heart bumping up against maybe the biggest fundamental lies in my soul that undergird all of my frustrating confusions about God and religion and living life. But when I start to put them in writing they begin to sink back into the fog. They are like high, thick walls of stone that still surround my heart and prevent it from coming fully into expression. They also protect the imps of fear and shame and guilt from being fully vulnerable to exposure to the greater powers of truth and love and peace. These false gods have been pounding me for days trying to suppress the truths that God has been placing in my heart with complex lies about my identity.

These fundamental lies are the deepest lies of my life that were formed and instilled from birth and throughout all of my life through faulty assumptions and mixed ideas about God, about salvation, grace and forgiveness. They are the same lies that are the foundation of Satan's government and plague every sinner on earth, but just the same I have to deal with them primarily in my own heart. That is the only place that I have authority to really make a difference by allowing God access to expose and replace these lies with glorious truth at the heart level of my being as well as the intellect.

Yesterday while I was working I listened to some sermons by Herb Montgomery from Light Bearers Ministry that brought fresh light into my mind and heart. I have heard the words before but the right brain cannot understand words so it was really the spirit of Herb along with God's Spirit that was really opening up the truth about salvation to me in ways that went beyond what I have experienced before. I have concluded that Herb, at least so far for me, is the most effective minister of the true gospel that I have ever heard in my life. (If you are interested in hearing him you can download his material and talks from their website for free – that's where I got these.)

Still, it seems that these revelations only sink into my heart in micro-increments which still frustrates me, but I will cherish them and long for more. To repeat them here will of course not have the same impact, but I do so mainly to capture what is happening for my left brain's sake so I won't lose so much of what I have received. But thinking back over what I am learning and reviewing how God is leading me does deepen the roots of these seeds so I think this may be useful.

This morning as I got out of the shower I had one of those epiphanies that others would wonder at, thinking I must be incredibly dense. They are right. That's why I feel like I am bumping up against a giant wall that is trying to prevent me from breaking into the light of God's real glory. That wall is my denseness due to all my life experiences designed to reinforce Satan's lies about God and Redemption and the Atonement. Those have been just abstract religious teachings for me most of my life but now they are starting to sink into the emotional and heart area of my soul a little more.

What came to me this morning were deeper connections in my thinking about the real meaning of forgiveness. My idea of forgiveness most of my life, which I suspect is not much different than many people's, was something along the order of trying to forget, ignore, suppress or accept excuses for wrongs done to me or vice versa. A few years ago while watching John Regier's videos for the first time I learned that forgiveness is radically different than that, that it really involves taking full responsibility personally for all the pain and anguish that another has caused me and not holding it against them. It means completely releasing all desires for retaliation or revenge of any kind. That does not mean that I feel responsibility for causing them to hurt me, but I take full ownership of the pain and suffering that their offense has caused me because it is completely impossible for them to ever pay for it themselves. If I do not forgive the only alternative is bitterness which will eventually eat my soul alive.

I now know these things in my head and somewhat in my heart, I have even seen and experienced their powerful transformational potential in the life of my own Dad a couple years before he died. I also somewhat understood that somehow this was what Jesus did for us on the cross, but that still seems so theoretical and mostly impersonal in relation to my own heart. But this morning, even though I cannot say I received an overwhelming deeper, life-changing conversion on this point, it clicked in my mind another notch deeper that this description is exactly what Jesus did for me when He died for my sins.

Now I know that every theologically-minded person will likely roll their eyes at my ignorance when they hear this, but more pieces of the puzzle shifted a little bit this morning at the heart level and came closer together to make my picture of God more clear. I suppose it is the residual effect of the spirit I felt yesterday. In addition, the reading in My Utmost this morning (planned well ahead by God's design as is so often the case in my life) simply reinforced it and deepened its impact.

“The plaintive, self-centered, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. 'Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer; I will walk rightly if You will help me.' I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession. There is much prayer that arises from real disbelief in the Atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us, He has saved us, the thing is done, and it is an insult to ask Him to do it.

If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into God's word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the interior. 'The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.' The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realized in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now.” (MUHH 6/20)

This message was directly linked to the message that I received yesterday through Herb. And it is a direct assault on the wall in my mind around my heart that has prevented me from going much deeper into a relationship with God. It is really unbelief in the reality of God's love and the Atonement, not from stubbornness so much as ignorance and fear at the heart level. I was not taught much about true grace when I was young, I was raised on rules and on a subtle but unarticulated belief that we must do certain things or work up enough faith to get ourselves into a right position so God will forgive us. So despite all the correct theology that I have been learning since then about God's unconditional love and sending His Son to die on the cross for my sins, these facts primarily have gotten stuck at the mind level as good explanations but seldom soak through to the heart where the springs of my life originate. That is not to say they never have affected me. There have been many times when the Spirit of God has impressed my heart and softened it and introduced light. I am sure there is very much more of that ahead as well; I certainly hope so or I will be hopelessly stuck.

Yesterday as this truth about what Jesus really did for me was fresh in my mind in an unusual way I had to jot down a few notes of what was swirling through my mind before I forgot them. Here is what I wrote down.

I think I may have discovered a big clue to the question I have had for many years. Towhom did Jesus pay the price for our sins? Was it God or Satan, or somebody else?

I am starting to realize that a problem is the assumptions behind the question. As soon as we say the words “pay” or “price” or “ransom” we immediately frame it in the context of contract mentality where there are two parties involved and exchanges are made between the parties for due consideration and equal value. Coming with this Western mindset thinking we run head-on into confusion when trying to understand Redemption, especially when it is in the spiritual arena.

I now think it is safe to believe that the substance, or the currency utilized in the paying of the price for our sins was pain. This is not just pain in one area of human consciousness, but pain in probably every arena of existence that pain can be experienced. But to experience pain is not necessarily to implicate that a transaction has or has not taken place. It is receiving something, but is it giving something back of equal value as is assumed in a contractual relationship?

Forgiveness really means accepting the pain and the responsibility or ownership of the pain incurred from an offense or violation without holding it against the person who caused us that pain. Is that a transaction/contract? A contract is usually an agreement entered into by two or more parties. But if we reject someone's forgiveness then the contract model does not fit well because from God's side we are still unconditionally forgiven. If we were not we could not be drawn by grace and the kindness of God to repentance.

If anyone has received payment of the price for redemption, it appears that it would be the redeemed ones themselves. They are given the offer of receiving the righteousness and life of Christ in exchange for Him taking on the suffering and natural consequences of their sins. But that is not an exchange of equal value so it does not fit the contract model either. This is where covenant thinking makes much more sense but is very unfamiliar to most of us. But even that falls short of explaining redemption because forgiveness is provided for everyone whether or not they believe it or accept it.

This is the very spot where many people in typical religion, including me, get side-tracked. Since most of us believe it is God who makes the determination of our being saved or lost and how much we are to be punished, we cannot accept the seemingly absurd idea that everyone has been forgiven for all their sins both past, present and future. We insist that forgiveness only exists when we accept it and believe in Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. Otherwise, we reason, everyone would be saved and we would end up with a bunch of unconverted sinners in heaven, a huge disaster, and things would be no different than they are now if not much worse.

But this reasoning puts the emphasis on our believing as the key ingredient for our salvation in such a way that our faith supposedly impresses God enough to decide to take us to heaven. It is rooted back in the idea that there is something I have to do to get God to love me or save me. This belief is so deeply rooted in my psyche that I flinch to even write these words expecting the usual explosion of rebuttals from offended relatives and teachers. This is the concept and teaching that has confused me all of my life and still challenges me yet today. It is caused by a confusion about the real meaning of many of the religious terms involved as well as my inability to comprehend and accept the truth about God's unconditional love for me. (My Dad told me many years ago very explicitly that this notion of unconditional love was a heresy in the church.)

Paul says that our “Promissory Note of Debt” has been taken out of the way and nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). This debt is the loan papers on life itself loaned to us by the only Source of life to keep us alive when sin entered our race creating a liability of death. If anything we have only increased our interest on the debt the more we sin and reject the Author of life. So is it really God that the payment is owed to and we are the borrowers hopelessly in debt?

This now begins makes perfect sense to me when seen in the parable of the debtor (Matt. 18:23-35) who owed an astronomical sum of money to the king and thought he could pay it back instead of accepting the forgiveness put in place by the king. In that parable the forgiveness given to the first debtor was never revoked, but the punishment he received was self-induced by the debtor himself and would last as long as he refused to forgive the one who owed him. By not forgiving he refused to experience forgiveness and stored up wrath for himself while keeping himself in prison.

This story has been largely misunderstood and misinterpreted because of our assumptions about the nature of forgiveness and about how God relates to us. When we believe forgiveness is some trick or legal maneuver whereby offenses are excused, ignored or simply suppressed in the mind, then we not only believe that the King in the parable reinstated the debt when his forgiveness was ignored, but we also believe that God holds our sins against us until we ask for forgiveness. Hackles are really raised when the idea is put forward that even our future sins are already forgiven. That sounds like outrageous heresy and an outcry is heard that we have cheapened grace and are despising the blood of Jesus. I know because I listened to many of those outcries over the years myself.

But in fact, the very opposite is true. If we really believe the truth about what constitutes true forgiveness – a taking on of responsibility for and experiencing all of the pain that our sins create – then when we try to say that forgiveness only happens when we ask for it and accept it, we are really trying to say that Jesus has not really already suffered the pain that our sins produced. That is the greater insult to the gift of God in the blood of Jesus, that is the real blasphemy. The cross makes the bold statement that no one can ever sin enough or create more guilt and pain than Jesus has already taken upon Himself and experienced in our behalf so that we would not have to experience it. It makes no difference whether the sins are past or future for us, Jesus has already experienced the pain. It makes no difference whether we accept His offer of life or reject it, Jesus has already experienced our pain and paid the price. This is a truth I have never really known before or embraced fully.

In view of this I can see that God's gift in Jesus really is wastefully extravagant, lavish and much more. I am learning this with my head, but I want my heart to come into this realization as well and even surpass what my intellect believes.

God, forgive me for asking You repeatedly to do what You have already done for me. Forgive me for trying to get myself right with You when Jesus has already done that. Remind me to pray, not only for my friends but for those who despitefully use me and speak ill of me. Fill me with Your Spirit of love and intercession and teach me the ministry of reconciliation by Your Spirit. Make me a Minister of the Interior in Your government with Your disposition reflecting out of me. Do this for Your name's sake as You promised me in Eze. 36.

And please God, increase my capacity and willingness to embrace the truth about Your love and Your Atonement for me. Cause me to walk in Your ways by reveling in Your goodness instead of dwelling on my fears and mistakes. Ravish me with Your extravagant love and grace. Make me Your grand experiment. Melt away the walls of ignorance, doubt and lies that keep my heart from plunging with abandon into Your ocean of love. Move into my heart, no, flood into my heart and live there for eternity. I give you full permission to do anything You want with me and in me today. I praise You and thank You and worship You as my Redeemer, my God and my Lover.