Fixing the Train

(Capturing my thoughts before I forget them so I can organize them more)

• Being led by living from the heart instead of leading with the head.

• Living with synchronized passion fed by the passion of God.

• Sequence of train – Spirit of God leading man's spirit by filling it with God's passion. Man's spirit leading the imagination to express its unique creativity and personality using both the natural gifts and abilities and the supernatural gifts received by the baptism (immersion) of the Holy Ghost. Then all of this passion and fire is protected and reinforced (virus checker) by the logic and information filling the left brain from reliable resources like the Bible.

Analogies:

• Trying to push a chain instead of pulling it is like living from the head first.

• Trying to take an aircraft into outer space by depending only on propellers while suppressing all use of rocket fuel and engines.

• The familiar train analogy frequently used on us growing up may be one of our strongholds preventing us from thriving. The engine is our intellect and will based on logic and formulas derived from the Bible and other “chosen” sources. Our emotions were the caboose that had to be put at the end of the train. By

  implication (and now even in the real world of trains) the caboose is often apparently missing altogether. I wonder how much this instruction from our early years has caused us to suppress our heart and even resist the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

I met someone this weekend that I had known many years ago that, as I listened to their story I realized how persistent their heart is in its desperate struggles to stay alive in spite of unspeakable atrocities committed against them by countless people in their life from the day they were born. The abuse was diabolically designed to destroy their heart and permeate their mind with lies about their loving Creator. Yet in spite of all this damage,

both physically and emotionally, I can still recognize the unique characteristics of the beautiful heart that I had seen many years ago when I knew them somewhere else. At that time I was intrigued by the unique, captivating nature of their smile and the sense of “aliveness” that emanated from them, not knowing then how much damage and violation had already been perpetrated against them at that point. After many more years of damage the results have become much more obvious and debilitating, yet the special heart that Jesus created within this person still struggles to stay alive and grasps for hope. Their spirit is yearning for connection to the Spirit that created it and for which it was designed to connect to so it could thrives and feel satisfied.

My own heart has had stirrings lately that are impossible to formulate into words. At times I have unfamiliar moments of – well, how can words explain them adequately? It takes a lot of words to explain what seems so simple in the arena of the spirit. In those moments I have a combined sense of anticipation, peace, synchronization, assurance, hope, and even potential for living freely in genuine, selfless love while I stay connected to the obvious Source of this peace. These moments feel so refreshing and alive and I want to stay there to grow and thrive. These feeling are new and somewhat unfamiliar but make me feel really alive. I suspect that if I stayed very long in this state of being my face might begin to glow unnaturally (for me anyway) and people would wonder what happened to me. I have a strong sense that this is what life is supposed to be like all the time, but it doesn't fit well with the rigid paradigms and rules of the religion that has been superimposed on me for most of my life.

As I thought about this while waking up this morning I realized that maybe I need to reverse the power arrangement in my life in order to become efficient (or even truly functional) and be in alignment with how I was originally designed to live and thrive. Trying to lead my life with logic-based truth and keep my heart suppressed (as implied by typical religious instruction) has only resulted in great frustration, pain and too much dysfunction. Yes, I can spew out correct answers apparently, but I (the real me – my heart) cannot really thrive and experience the abundant life that Jesus promised I could have. Now I am beginning to sense that it may largely be due to my attempt to operate my “train” backwards according to the misleading instructions ingrained into me since childhood.

As many others might likely remember, I was taught that we must not let our emotions lead us. Emotions are like the caboose of the train that must always be kept behind everything else. In reality, they were often by implication to be disconnected from the train and left somewhere else. The engine was to be our intellect firmly rooted in the Word of God and the training of our leaders. We were never to allow our emotions to influence us in any way as far as the movement of the train (our life).

I know I can easily make myself an easy target by talking about such “settled truths” as this, but I am now beginning to seriously question the validity of the assumptions in this analogy. While I will agree that there is a lot of truth in this, I also see a great deal of potential for error and even abuse contained in this analogy. While I am not advocating

we follow every whim of our emotions wherever they may direct us, my growing understanding of the importance of living from the heart conflicts sharply with the way this instruction has been used to suffocate so many hearts over the years.

Our emotions, while not the engine that should drive our train, are symptoms of the condition of our spirit. As I have said before, emotions are like indicators on the dashboard that reveal what is going on inside in the spirit area of our lives. Emotions are not good or bad, they simply are. They can be allowed to incite us to do other things that may be good or bad, but emotions are just emotions and cannot be blamed as the cause for our condition. Choices, either ours or other people's, are the real cause of the condition we find ourselves in, and emotions are the “graphics” that show up on the screen telling us what is going on with our spirit.

What I am starting to realize much more is that our spirit is the part that we have ignored far too long and is the missing element in learning how to really live in right relationship to life and to God. Due to the obsession of “religion” to suppress or ignore emotions, we have at the same time disconnected from awareness of our spirit and thereby cut off from ourselves

the very connector that our train needs to be led by the real power – the Spirit of God.

Because we are so disconnected from our spirit, which is almost the same thing as our heart, we really cannot relate properly to God and experience the real power that He wants us to experience that will be the real engine that can successfully move our life.

The only real power source in the whole universe from which all other power is derived is the passionate love flowing from the heart of the Creator-God of heaven. To be truly alive, all other created beings in the universe need to be properly connected to that unfailing Source of life and love. For us humans that link to the unlimited Source of power is our spirit that is shaped to uniquely connect with the Spirit of God like the couplings that connect the train cars to the engine. If our spirit is so damaged or ignored or distorted by lies that we refuse to be connected to the Spirit of God, we cannot be led by the Spirit of God and experience the power we need to move the train of our life. Salvation is the plan by which God is repairing the damage to our spirit so we can once again become connected to His unlimited power and experience the thrill of passion that flows from His heart to all of His created beings. We are brought into synchronization with the passion of God and come to life as we begin to experience the life-giving flow of love, joy and peace surging through our nervous system and charging our emotions with real satisfaction.

To use another analogy, I usually find myself trying to push a chain and chains simple don't work effectively by pushing them. In fact, by doing so they only end up in a jumbled mess instead of becoming straight and tall and strong. That might be an accurate picture of how I feel at times – a jumbled pile of correct ideas, links of truth that are not being activated from the right end. Even though one might carefully lay out the links of the chain in the “right” order and arrange them in such a way as to appear correct, as long as I am trying to push them instead of pulling on them correctly it will not function as it was designed to. What is lacking seems to be the element of synchronization.

As I thought how this might relate to what I am unearthing from my immersion in the book of Romans I realized that this may be just what Paul was contrasting in chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 is a description of people who know lots of good information (the Law) and are trying to lead with their knowledge – their left brain logic – to achieve a “righteous” life. What they missed is that real righteousness displayed in a person's life cannot be self-generated but can only happen as a result of a dynamic, vital umbilical-cord type connection with the only Source of real righteousness. They have been trying to “push the chain” of righteousness in their lives while focusing on having all the correct links. But no matter how accurate or truthful their links are, if they are not being pulled by the power of the living Spirit of God connected to their own spirit then all they can achieve is a jumble of confusing truth and a great deal of frustration.

Romans 8 is an exciting description of what it looks like to get the train in the right order, to allow God to pull our chain (instead of the enemy yanking on the other end of our chain all the time). When I come into right relationship to God, led by His Spirit pulling on my spirit, then my spirit will pull on my life from my heart in harmony with my mind. My life will begin to reveal the results described in this chapter naturally and my heart will come alive and thrive. While chapter 7 describes the results of living from the head while chapter 8 describes the results of living from the heart connected to God's heart.

What does this all mean? Why do I feel compelled to ask that question anyway? It feels like pushing on the chain again so that I can bring this writing to a tidy ending to satisfy the rules of writing and public expression. I enjoy the fact that I can dialog with myself (and even with God) through this means without feeling the pressure to bring every post to a resolved ending like a successful one-hour television show. This is simply a window into the process of growing and exploring and query that is going on inside me that I allow others to peer into once in awhile. So I don't have to be confined to the “rules” of writing because I am not looking for a grade to measure how much or little I am worth. This is simply where I'm at right now.

God, grow my heart more today and teach me – both my heart and my head – how to really experience the abundant life that Jesus talked about and promised me. I also want to intercede for the people I connected with this weekend that You are pulling toward Your heart. I give you permission to do anything You want in their lives to heal and restore and re-create Your likeness in them. I do this based on the assurance of the authority that Jesus invested in all His followers when He left earth 2000 years ago. So in the name and authority of the One who now has taken away all the authority of Satan in this earth, I present before Your throne of grace these loved ones who are so damaged and hurting and grasping for hope and life. They have been terribly abused by the enemy of our souls and You have felt every pain with them. Allow them to see the truth about Your untainted beauty and loveliness and help them believe You never were the cause of the abuse heaped on them even though it was done using Your name. Allow them to taste a little of the intense passion in Your heart to connect with and heal their heart and restore them to better than their original design. Rescue their hearts from the cruel hands of the enemy and amaze the world with the success of Your experiments of grace in their lives.

Father, make me an instrument of Your grace and healing also. Help me to know Your ways, to wait for Your promptings and to respond more readily to Your Spirit. Melt away my fears and resistance to You and replace the many lies still within me with Your love and compassion and truth. This is a whole new way of thinking and living for me that is very unfamiliar. Revive my heart and fire me with Your own passion for Your reputation's sake.

(next in series)

The "Un" Problem

I think I will be awhile in Romans 7 and 8 because the answers to most of my life struggles is buried in these passages and I have only begun to scratch the surface. I do not want to again surf through them and miss the life-changing power that lies underneath the surface that I so much need to experience. It is not theory that I want to unmask and assimilate, it is entering into a genuine, unshakable abandonment to a thriving, real life in Christ Jesus.

The reason I need to do a lot of unpacking in these two chapters is because I come from the background similar to the people Paul addresses in these chapters. I find it noteworthy that he addresses the first group (from chapter 1) in the 23 verses of chapter 6 but to deal with the complexity and confusion that legalism creates in our hearts he has to take all the time and space of chapters 7 all the way through 11 of Romans. However, that does not surprise me much since I am of similar stock as those he is laboring most to reach and from which he himself had emerged. I can feel in my own heart the ongoing resistance to embracing these truths about God that challenge the multitude of lies about God ingrained into me by formal religion. I want to be free of these lies, not just in my mind but even more so in my heart. I want to experience the abandonment of love to Jesus that I read about this morning in My Utmost for His Highest that was demonstrated by Mary when she poured out the perfume in wasteful extravagance on Jesus feet.

But right now when I look inside I have to honestly say my heart is painfully empty of very much love for anyone. When I try to conform myself to the example of Jesus that my heart really desires to be like, I too often find my experience to be all too much like the last half of Romans 7. I need a heart transplant daily and it has to come from an outside power, I cannot do it to myself.

As I was praying about this this morning I asked God to cleanse me from all unrighteousness as in 1 John 1:9. As I thought about that word I realized that the “un” in front of “righteousness” means anything other than the one genuine original. Only God is righteous and the only genuine righteousness is what Jesus lived when He was on earth. As I think about it there are unnumbered kinds of counterfeit righteousness that we attempt to tap into tailored to fit whatever flavor of religion or non-religion that we may subscribe to at the time.

There is the idea of inherent goodness that is very popular with many people and they feel that everyone should invest a sense of worth and value in the inherent goodness that can be found in humans to whatever extent that it can be seen. To counter this idea is to arouse the hackles and even anger of many who insist on this brand of “righteousness”.

Of course there are the many brands of religious righteousness from every corner of the earth that fight and argue with each other as to which is more valid or which has more value and efficiency to make a person good. Most of these ideas make “sense” to some degree or another, but common to all of them is the root idea that we all have something inherent within ourselves to some degree or another that can recommend us or assist us in claiming or producing value and worth, either before each other and/or before God. But it looks to me like any flavor or belief of righteousness other than what can be freely received from Jesus Christ, totally apart from anything we are or do, falls under the “un” heading.

This is likely one of the roots of my own slowness in growth. Subconsciously part of me wants to depend on something I can do or some value I have to leverage God to do His work in me. I say “subconsciously” because in my mind I assent to the truth that righteousness only comes from God, but in the fruit emerging from my life experience it appears that something else is still at work. When I look inside and see such an emptiness in the container that is supposed to be full of love I know there is something terribly missing. I am painfully aware, not only of this vacancy but of my inability to generate genuine, unselfish love no matter how hard I strive to do it. I simply don't have the necessary equipment to produce it. Oh, I can certainly experience feelings of affection and all sorts of other emotions that purport to be love, but when more closely examined they turn out to be self-serving in some way or another and are usually attempts to bring satisfaction and a sense of value to myself that I so desperately crave. Even when I experience what I believe to be genuine impulses of unselfish love implanted within me by God, it seems there is always present other mixed emotions waiting to exploit the moment to bring attention to myself and make me appear more valuable and worthy in the eyes of others. The description by Paul of his own experience in Romans 7 is very much what I experience and want to be delivered from.

I believe the answers to my dilemma really are buried in these chapters and I do not want to continue to miss them. The answers are issues of the heart, not just correct theological interpretations, so they have to be received in my spirit from the Spirit of God conveying them beyond my left brain analysis.

One thing I am noticing in this passage today is that verse 6 contains the two headings of the two options that I face in my condition as a recovering legalist. I will either serve in newness of the spirit or in oldness of the letter. This is parallel to what he told the other group in 6:13-16 about presenting yourself to one master or the other. But for the legalistic mind he uses a little different metaphor that is maybe more palatable. But because the religious person has possibly so much more baggage to unpack to understand what Paul is getting at, he spends considerable more time explaining the difference between living in the flesh verses the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8:2)

The rest of Romans 7 is a description of what if feels like to live in the flesh while trying to serve God and be righteous. Apparently this is using one of the “un” forms of righteousness that fails to produce the effects of genuine salvation but religiously appears to be the real thing. This deception is so subtle that only the Spirit of God can deliver me from it. I still echo the exclamation of Paul in 7:24,25 in my desire to be delivered from this body of death in the flesh and enter fully into the freedom and joy described in chapter 8.

This is not something I can do to myself or work myself into with help from God. It is an experience that is going to have to come through the power of the resurrected Christ that melts away my resistance and installs in my heart an overflowing river of love that will be unavoidable by those around me. I want this experience, I ask for this experience, I choose to submit to whatever it takes for God to create this result in my heart, mind and soul.

God, cause what You describe in Romans 7:6 to be evident within my heart today. Make me Your experiment of grace that will amaze even the angels who have seen nearly everything. Do Your thing in me today and have Your glory revealed in my family today. Because it is really all about Your reputation, not mine. So fulfill Your word in my life today for Your name's sake.

(next in series)

Ghost Walker on the Water

I see a strong parallel between Peter's experience walking on the water in the storm with Jesus and the larger story of Peter's life overall. I believe that Jesus gave this experience to Peter to prepare him for the intense pressures he would experience during the final days of Jesus' life. But while Peter failed to apply the lesson he could have learned from getting soaked in the sea, Jesus never gave up rescuing Peter and finally Peter learned to really “walk on the water” for the rest of his life. The story is found in Matthew 14.

Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.

By the end of this chapter things had apparently reversed in a way from what happened here right after the feeding of the 5,000. What we see just a little later is that because of the intensity of His words and the faith required to believe them the crowds were leaving on their own instead of being sent away and Jesus queried the disciples whether they wanted to leave also. The crowds were eager to “believe” in Him when the blessings were temporal and benefited them externally, but when it came to responding to heart conviction and being asked to trust in something that seemed strange to what they were accustomed to they choose to stay with the familiar. (Read the context to get a feel for what was going on here.)

But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.

This storm was an external analogy of the internal condition of their spirits. At the time of this event the disciples were very upset because Jesus would not allow the people to make Him king over Israel, and in their irritated state of mind Jesus sent them to the sea to receive some parallel turbulence to the stormy attitude they were cherishing on the inside. The key element in their heart that underlay all of their problems and that betrayed which supernatural spirit they were obeying was fear. This whole story, not only in its context but in its long-term application as a powerful analogy of how we relate to life, is a clear demonstration of the opposite effects of living under one spirit or another. We are either living in fear or in faith based on love. There are no other ways to live. Jesus was living in perfect love and submission to His Father's will for Him. In this event He was strongly resisting the temptation to accept an offered “shortcut to glory” offered to Him by the people and by Satan. The reason He became so forceful in His methods was because that was necessary in order for Him to defeat the intense temptation to His own soul.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid." Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." And He said, "Come!"

It is interesting to note that Jesus did not require a boat to cross the water but the disciples apparently did. That is because the spirit inside of them was so out of harmony with the spirit of heaven that Jesus cherished. Jesus pointed out the difference between their present condition and His desire for them very clearly in His invitation to step over into the courage of faith instead of dwelling in the shadowlands of death and fear. Peter was the only one to think outside the box far enough to let his imagination carry him away to Jesus. Jesus was eager to seize on any hint of faith and fan it into full flame as quickly as possible. In His response to Peter's question Peter could hear the echo of the first time Jesus had challenged him to step outside his comfort zone as a fisherman with his father and boldly leave the familiar for the thrilling terror of risking himself on God.

And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"

I see a strong parallel between this experience in Peter's life and the events surrounding Gethsemane and Jesus' trial. If Peter had learned this first lesson of faith that works by love more solidly he could have been spared the humiliation of his denial of Jesus and all its regrets. At Jesus' trial He again found himself in a life-threatening storm and needed to keep his eyes unblinkingly fixed on Jesus. When there is no storm we might be able to live in His presence without constantly staring at His face, but when the intensity is ratcheted up we have to learn that our only safety is an unswerving fixation on the face of God without caving in to any distractions no matter how threatening or dangerous they may seem to be. For all of those distractions are designed to do one thing primarily – cause us to be infected with the spirit of fear. And fear has torment which is never God's will for us. Fear will destroy our ability to walk on top of the water in a storm and will always result in dropping us into the depths of despair.

Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and says to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with the officers to see the outcome. (Matthew 26:58)

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, "Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61-62)

Peter had forgotten the lesson of the storm and so was compelled to repeat it. But again, the face of Jesus was there to convey to him the compassion and love that God ever has for all of His children whether they are trusting Him or not. Peter had again looked at the “wind” and thereby had become victim to the power of fear which dis-empowered him to live the bold life of faith that he had briefly enjoyed while walking in the storm on Galilee. But just like his rescue from his lapse of faith on the water, Jesus was there to save him when he was sinking in fear and shame after denying the closest Friend he had ever grown to love.

When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God's Son!" When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.

While Jesus does not need a boat to handle traversing across water like humans do, He has chosen to get into the boat with us instead of insisting on us always walking on water. I believe He would prefer that we walk with Him on the water and I believe that that is His ultimate goal for us and will finally be realized in every respect. But in the meantime, God chose to get into the limiting, restrictive boat of humanness with us so we could learn to relate to Him and respond to His love and grow in faith until we were ready to live in full faith and confidence in His power within us. As a result of this faith He has in us while condescending to live at our level, we can respond by worshiping Him and realizing His awesome superiority beyond all of our meager capacity. We realize that we are totally dependent on Him for everything including life itself and we can enter into the relationship with Him that we were created to enjoy in joyful worship and awe. For terror is simply the counterfeit of the awe which we rightfully need to experience in the presence of a pure and holy God. Perfect love casts out all fear, but does not remove our awe of His power and greatness.

And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent word into all that surrounding district and brought to Him all who were sick; and they implored Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were cured. (Matthew 14:22-36)

When Peter and the other believers finally recognized the truth about Jesus after the resurrection, they were filled with the Holy Ghost (just like the Ghost on the lake) and became little “Christ's” (Christians). They began to work and walk like He did in many respects and people began to respond to them as they had to Jesus. More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them. Multitudes also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people, and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed. (Acts 5:14-16 WEB)

Jesus - the Legalist Husband

“You also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ...” Rom. 7:4

I am still digging and praying myself into this phrase to try to uncover more of its true meaning and implications for me. I am looking at it in the context of still searching for the husband in this chapter who dies so that I can be intimately joined – married – to the resurrected Christ and live in that atmosphere of glory, joy and love.

What I think I might be seeing now is something very familiar to my own experience – legalism. Anyone I know who is suffering under the control of legalism in any of its forms are living a counterfeit Christianity and with a distorted picture of God. I could elaborate at great length on this but that might become too much of a distraction from the point I am looking at right now. I do want to note that legalism is always based on fear and according to 1 John 4:18 there is always torment in fear. Some of the most tormented people on earth are those suffering under the illusions and lies of legalism and I know that from personal experience.

A person living with a legalistic view of reality is very much in a sense “married” to their legalism, their fear-based feelings of obligation to keep any number of rules and laws and they can usually be recognized by their lack of real joy. They often try to look like they have joy but it is a left-brained, forced kind of joy that does not have the ring of freedom and abandon that real joy carries. They usually live a life very much like an obligation-based kind of marriage that is primarily founded on a sense of “duty” and grudgingly staying within the lines of rules. The heart is usually dying inside but the person is so disconnected from their own heart that they often do not even recognize it themselves until the pain sometimes bursts out in a surprising, shocking explosion when it cannot be supressed any longer.

The wonderful good news is that Jesus loves the ones stuck in this kind of thinking and living just as much as He loves any other kinds of sinners. And the way that He saved them is the same way He saved everyone else – by taking upon Himself the very feelings and internal consequences that the legalist experiences within his heart and soul. When Jesus went through the three days and nights of unspeakable torture that culminated on His death on the cross, that included the torture produced by legalism in the heart of every person who has ever lived or who ever will live. He did not feel something like it or similar to it, He experienced the very feelings, fears, pains and dreads that we carry around for our whole life due to our mistaken view of God. Those sins were taken upon Himself fully and put to death on the cross so that we do not have to suffer under them any longer but can have the incredible privilege of entering into a relationship with God of which the most perfect marriage and the most intensely satisfying sex can only hint at. What He did to set us free from legalism was to place Himself into the position of being the “bad husband” that the legalist is married to and then by His death satisfy the marriage requirements of the law that bound us to our fears and lies about God so that we could be free to be intimately joined to the resurrected, living, exciting, all-powerful Christ in a life free of fear and torment.

I have recently been talking with individuals who have been extremely damaged beyond my comprehension by the abuse of legalism for all of their lives. It has ruined their lives in almost every way imaginable and I cringe to even think about what I can see. I am so glad that there is a Savior that is far more powerful to love and redeem than the sin that is still tormenting the lives of these friends. (Rom. 5:20) Because of the lies that legalists have forced on them and still reinforce at times, these individuals usually cannot even think about God without some level of revulsion. They have been inoculated against the very One who can and who desires to free them from the lies about Himself that are destroying their life. I'm glad that its His job to reach their hearts through all the tangled web of resistance that has been woven by Satan around their souls, for I have no idea how to effectively counter the millions of lies and fears that swirl around in their lives. But I know a Savior who can disguise Himself enough to slip into their souls through secret passageways and began healing any amount of damage that Satan has caused if He is given permission.

Very often that permission must come in the form of intercessory prayer on the part of others for them. I want to be a part of that process and watch God melt away the fear and pain and make them glorious experiments of His grace and power to save. Yes, Jesus loves legalists too, (and their victims) just as much as the more colorful kind of sinners that get much more publicity. That's good, because that's the kind of stock from which I was formed.

God, in the name and authority of Jesus who took on all the damage and pain of the legalists and their victims, I give you permission to do anything possible not only in the life of the people I am thinking about right now but in mine as well. Tap every resource of the universe to intervene and repair and restore us to the original purpose and design that you intended for us. Glorify Your name in our lives and cause our hearts to burn with passion for You as we are ravished with Your unconditional love this weekend.

(next in series)

Musings on the Spirit

As I was petitioning God for the Holy Spirit this morning a thought occurred to me. In all the incidences in the Bible of people receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I can't think of any time when a person received it separately as a lone individual. That seems to indicate how critical, how fundamental God views “community” in my spiritual life. That is not to say that the Holy Spirit will not work on individuals or prompt them to do things. But the “gift of the Holy Spirit” seems to always be poured out on groups of people.

As I thought about this more I remembered the text that was twice given to me as a prophecy for my life. It was the prophecy spoken over Saul before he became the first King of Israel and was really God's invitation to him to enter into a long-term, dynamic, power-filled life of service (which, sadly he very soon turned away from). I wondered if this was an instance of a lone individual receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. So I looked up the quotation and reviewed it to see what it said. What I found was again a confirmation that God wants us to be used by the Holy Spirit to act in concert with His community of believers and not independently. “And the spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them, and will be changed into another man. And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you; for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:6-7 BBE)

Apparently God is not satisfied for our experience to be one where He is just with us individually, as important as that is. Yes, He is faithful to be with us always as He promised even when everyone else forsakes us, but He wants that faithfulness to reproduce within us the fruit of us being faithful to be with His other children as well. One of the main issues in our salvation is the bonding and synchronization that is so vital to being a part of the body of Christ. Paul understood this well and talked about it in the analogy of the parts of the body all working together smoothly and sympathetically. This is what produces the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17.

Now it is one thing for me to analyze and postulate on this idea and a whole different thing to actually engage my heart fully in this process. I am by nature a loner. I am one of those people who want to enjoy great intimacy with God but I have an extremely difficult time doing it with anyone else. I have been burned emotionally so many times when I have tried to do so that my mind recoils with self-protective defensiveness and fear anytime I think about this even though I deeply yearn for it.

The idea of submission to others (Eph. 5:21) is another aspect of this that elicits strong reactions within me resonating from the rebellion still latent within me from my youth. Any attempts by others to lecture me about this issue only tends to reinforce it. It is a heart issue and this healing can only be dealt with at the heart level by those who are willing to relate at that level. But it is an issue that I have to face and deal with much more fully, I am aware.

I suppose that maybe I am laying out a number of reasons why I am not yet ready to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit myself. Not only do I still have triggers that are not yet disarmed involving submission and authority, I cannot even see around me a group of believers to which I could attach to as a part of the body of Christ. I know this may sound bizarre to some people, but it is true. The only small groups of people that I know of in my vicinity that claim to be the chosen people of God are so out of touch with heart issues and stuck on externalism that we only talk past each other when we try to communicate. I realize that this might be a judgment on my part, but I don't know any other way of perceiving it right now. At this point my only source of spiritual social connection with others who are trying to be “real” is when I can make it to a men's group that meets 250 miles from my home.

I know I could go on with this, and maybe I'm quickly getting sidetracked here – or maybe not. Anyway, my original point that I wanted to ponder was the idea that if I want to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised and wants me to have, somehow I have to figure out what He wants me to do in my relationship with His body – wherever and whoever that is. I can see that this is a problem far to big for me to figure out so I will put it back into His hands to deal with. I know He is faithful and worthy of my trust and His heart is toward me and His plans for me are always good, even though at times they are very painful. I want to come into a relationship of obedience and present myself every day to Him to be His slave in total obedience to His desires. What's so good about this is that He treats His slaves like sons, in fact He makes them His sons and daughters and gives them the full inheritance of everything He possesses. I want to be in that kind of slavery.

God, I am trying to be real again today and it feels really risky again. I don't know if I should even say these things sometimes and I'm always afraid they will be twisted or used against me. I guess I still have a lot of fear in my heart in spite of all these years of slowly replacing it with Your love. You still have a lot of work to do in me and I'm glad its Your job to finish what You started in me. I present myself to You this morning as You talk about in Romans 6:16. Take me today as Your slave and fill me with Your Spirit of obedience. I need to feel Your love and see Your face more openly. I need more bonding with the rest of Your body here on earth. I don't know how to do that, or maybe I'm just too afraid – I don't know. But I put my life and my reputation into Your hands today and rest in Your protective love for me. Prepare me more fully to receive the gift of Your Holy Spirit in its fullness and fulfill Your word in my life. Make me an instrument of Your peace.