Rivers and Maturity

The river in Eden flowed out into four main rivers that flowed out to the whole earth into smaller and smaller streams until the whole earth was fed with life. (Gen. 2:10-14) Jesus spoke of a spring of living water being unleashed inside us. The Tree of Life was at the head of this river.

This is the model of maturity levels. God uses maturity levels in people as His distribution system for life-giving nourishment of His body, quite like our blood distribution system in our own bodies. The volume of life-water flowing through us to others is directly related to our level of maturity. The life springs from our hearts and the capacity of our hearts to impart life is our maturity and joy capacity.

Life pours from God through four main outlets – four faces – then through elders, then parents, down through adults and into children and infants.

Gatesitter Scene 1

I've been fascinated by the story of Peter, John and the lame man at the gate found in Acts 3. the man had been carried along all his life. He was lame from his mother's womb. He had received lameness from his parents; it wasn't his fault. But it was the only identity he was aware of and he had become just as lame socially, emotionally and spiritually as he was physically. He had sat all his life while wishing he could be free. He had become depressed and disconnected from those around him to avoid increasing his emotional pain. He felt deep shame and lived it out by begging, groveling for mercy from others who often ignored and gave him more shame.

He avoided eye contact with everyone because he felt worthless and helpless. Nearly everyone continually sent him identity messages that were deeply ingrained in his psyche – that he was just a pitiful beggar who sat all the time sponging his living off of others. No one was glad to be with him. No one wanted to touch or hold him close. No one cared about his heart and his feelings. This was who he was. This was all he knew.

And although in his fantasies he wished he could be free, everything believed by people around him said that change was impossible. His problems were too big to surmount. The best he should expect is to entice sympathetic friends to help him cope with his disability and just accept life as it had been dealt him. He was resigned to his fate. He would just spend his time outside the gate of God's house taking advantage of the heavier traffic at this location to beg.

His heart and soul longed to see inside the temple and be able to worship and praise God freely in His house like others. He wistfully desired to throw himself with complete abandon into worship and adoration of a merciful and loving Father. But was there even such a God like that? The God he had been taught about all his life was not very merciful and compassionate. This God of the Pharisees blessed the “good religious” people and cursed sinners and their children with sickness, physical defects and poverty. The God of the Jews according to the religious teachers was arbitrary and insisted on strict obedience to thousands of detailed regulations to earn His favor.

This man was shut out from God by stern rules enforced by stern people. And now he had nearly given up all hope. God must view him as too unworthy to heal. After all, for 3 ½ years Jesus had healed people all around the area and stories abounded of other lame men set free and made whole. But he had never been selected. He had always been passed by or was in the wrong place and missed every opportunity to see Jesus himself.

And now Jesus had been crucified and was no longer around. The future looked darker than ever. He was now resigned to just existing and accepting his lot in life. This must be his destiny. This must be God's will.

Sometimes as he sat outside the temple or was being carried by his few friends he would watch little children playing, running and laughing in the streets and alleys. This always created a deep aching in his heart. He felt a little envious of the freedom that little children seemed to enjoy in their spirit as well as their bodies. They seemed so uninhibited when adults were not frowning over them, and could express their joy not only with shouts and laughter but were not ashamed to celebrate just being alive with spontaneous dancing, leaping and running with glee. How he longed not only to be able to physically be free but to emotionally celebrate life like an excited innocent little child bursting with life and happiness and joy.

(click here for scene 2)

The Other Tree

God was just putting the finishing touches on the Garden of Eden in eager anticipation to turn it all over to His newest children. He had thought of everything for their satisfaction and joy. Everything in the earth was specially designed to stimulate their joy and satisfy every sense capacity of a human body and mind and spirit.

Then He anchored a permanent means of communication to Himself, a link to the Source of all life, right in the middle of this extravagantly stunning paradise. He secured it on both sides of the central flow of water and rooted it deep into the new soil. It was the most magnificent tree ever seen anywhere and it towered high above all the other trees of the garden. It could be seen easily from a great distance so it would never be difficult to find from any direction.

Although it was so tall, it also had broad, low branches that spread out farther than any other tree to the point that they seemed to deny gravity itself. And unlike all the other fruit trees of earth, this tree could bear multiple kinds of fruit. And the fruit had inherent properties that far exceeded the life-giving qualities of all other fruit or food of any kind. This tree and its fruit was somehow a direct link to God Himself. This tree had been imported from heaven, not locally produced.

As God stood with His angels admiring the finished Garden and His magnificent gift of the Tree of Life, He was about to leave in preparation for His crowning act of creation when He was interrupted by an all too familiar complaining voice. He recognized not only the voice but also the now too familiar pain in His own Spirit. Yes it was Lucifer again. He could never leave good enough alone. He was always insisting that God's perfect ways were not really complete and were somehow deficient. True to his now fallen nature he again began to question and criticize God's beautiful handiwork. But in particular he bitterly complained about his own restrictions laid down by God for his new realm of reference since he had been evicted from heaven.

Lucifer was about to launch into another whining tirade about God's unfairness when God stopped him and asked him to simply state what his basic request was. Lucifer responded that it was unfair of God to not allow him free access to the minds and domain of the soon-to-be-created humans. They would be unfairly sheltered from Lucifer's new “enlightened” concepts of living because there was no communication channels available to him. He had been strictly forbidden to visit with them or even to show himself to them in any way so as to protect their innocence and beauty. Lucifer railed that this was blatantly unfair and thousands of angels around him picked up the chant - “un-fair, un-fair, un-fair...”

God realized that once again questions were being agitated even in the minds of many of His loyal angels. Lucifer had for a long time now used his superior intellectual prowess to confuse and mystify many of God's created beings and draw their affections away from their Creator. So to prevent even further loss from His government and His heart He now asked what Lucifer might propose that would be mutually “fair” to both sides.

Lucifer – now Satan (the accusing one) – had thought long and hard on this one already. He knew how God thought and related to His created beings better than anyone and he already knew God would not grant him full access to this new planet. But he also was desperate to capture real authority and dominion somewhere in the cosmos so he could again have a place to call home as well as have a base to operate from. His long-term objective now was to capture one world at a time and spread his power through the universe in a grass roots rebellion. It had worked relatively well in the angel realm and he had seduced to himself the allegiance of one-third of the hosts of heaven. Now if he could establish a beachhead among the lower orders of created beings he could expand his authority into greater dimensions and regions of the universe.

So it was very important that he present a careful proposal that would force God's reluctant agreement by exploiting His mercy. Satan had insisted all through the conflict that God's mercy was really a sign of weakness, a flaw in His character. Satan had long since discarded mercy from his own nature and insisted that external performance based on internal reliance was a superior form of government. Self-government, independence, complete confidence in one's self and taking great pride in self-promotion was the real solution for satisfying one's own needs, he claimed.

Now Satan once again was ready with a plan. These new beings, he asserted, need to have a fair chance to choose how they want to live for themselves. Satan knew how much God valued free will in all His beings so there had to be an alternative from God that they could choose. And since God had chosen a tree as the link to Himself in this new world, Satan proposed that he too should be able to have a tree as an opportunity for the new beings to communicate and connect with his new kingdom.

God agreed that this plan was allowable. Satan then quickly insisted that he have an access tree planted on every inhabited planet in the universe in the name of fairness and freedom. God allowed for this request as well though the immense sorrow and pain in His heart was deepening continually. This terrible cancer of rebellion and multiplying false accusations against Him were continuing to spread and were destroying the openness and uninhibited love that God had created all these beings to mutually enjoy with Him and each other.

So God agreed to allow a second tree in the Garden to permit Satan access at that location only to the minds and hearts of this world's humans. God said that His own tree would be called the Tree of Life and Satan's tree would be the opposite – the Tree of Death.

But immediately Satan objected. This would not work for him. Deception was now his number one instrument of choice and a “Tree of Death” would be too hard for him to make attractive and seductive. He put forward several other very misleading names for his tree but God refused them all on the basis of honesty. God said that the name of the tree had to be truthful about its true nature so that humans would not be at a disadvantage. Finally Satan put forward a name that fit his philosophy while subtly masking the truth about the end results that God agreed they could use. Satan had insisted in his demands for a new government that his ways would lead to a better life and did not want anyone to think about the real consequences of cutting themselves off from the only Source of Life. He articulated that creatures could be self-sustaining and self-governing under his leadership.

So this new tree would have a very creative and intriguing name, one that would incite curiosity and maybe create some confusion, he hoped. It would be representative of Satan's new way of thinking and living; that every being could use his own ability to reason and think and create his own reality (a Tree of Knowledge), and that created beings could decide what was best for themselves and what would satisfy them (knowledge of Good) without reference to God, to His principles and ways, and without any help from Him (knowledge of Evil).

Then Satan presented the design of his tree to God and picked its location. This was certainly a moment of embarrassment for him to have to ask God to supply the creative power to bring Satan's tree into existence, but if anyone questioned his lack of ability to create he would simply assert that he would someday be able to do the same for himself when he would capture the throne of the Son of God.

This second tree would look in many respects much like the Tree of Life. It too would have two trunks that he would present as the two aspects of truly balanced knowledge. If given the chance to dialog and reason with these new beings he would insinuate that “simplistic” reliance on God for life was not really as fulfilling as they supposed. That to be truly satisfied, they needed to assert their own ability to explore life outside God's restrictions and discover real balance and excitement in life by fully exploring both what is good in their own thinking and figure out by experimentation what is bad for them so they can decide for themselves if God's ways are really best for them or not.

This Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would also produce multiple kinds of very attractive fruit as well as sweetly perfumed flowers, and it would rise majestically to the sky. It pretty much was a close lookalike of the Tree of Life but in some ways was also clearly distinguished so that there would be no confusion as to which was which.

Next installment – the amazing mud-pie man meets the knock-out beauty queen and they get married.

passion vs. Passion

We all have sinful passions striving for the mastery in our lives. We have mistakenly been led to believe that the solution is to become devoid of all passion. We are attempting “salvation by subtraction”. We think perfection is the absence of sin so we must focus on getting rid of sin. This is one of the devil's most effective schemes. It is like trying to brighten a room by removing more and more darkness. (Huh?)

While it is true that we must relax our grasp on sinful pleasure fixes that mask our emptiness and pain, just letting go will not deliver us from sin. We need power. The passion of sin and selfishness has to be overcome – overwhelmed by the passion of God Himself. Darkness and fear can only be dissipated by light and love. We cannot produce it, but our will can open the doors and windows to allow it in.

When we begin to truly believe that God is passionate for us beyond all comprehension, it will be much easier to counteract and neutralize the passion of sin within us. The reason most churches are so impotent is because they are either completely devoid of passion or they have embraced excitement for their opinions or titillating emotions labeling it the Spirit of God.

We know nearly nothing of the real passion of God. We are clueless as to the intensity of His craving for us to be with Him and share His ravishing love. We focus on condemning sin and each other. We focus on knowledge and eat freely from the Tree of Knowledge believing it will produce salvation. We sometimes whip up human emotion and excitement in attempts to fill our emptiness of passion. But none of these produce real satisfaction so like all good addicts we either return for another fix of the same or look for even stronger medication for our souls.

But the passion of sin can only be overpowered and dissipated by a true revelation of the real passion of the Godhead. Dishonesty and deception can only be dispelled by vulnerable honesty and facing the truth about ourselves, both past and present, in the presence and context of the passion of God for us.

Purgatory and Transformers

Purgatory ironically may have a little more truth in it than most Protestants would ever admit. Of course, as a counterfeit based on a Satanic view of God this doctrine is very misleading of itself. But in at least one respect it highlights a truth that has been completely missed by most Christians.

In fact, the very observation that gave rise to this false doctrine still is a valid one. When people die here on earth that are safe to save in God's eyes, they do so in widely varying stages of knowledge and trust in God. I think nearly all would agree that most, if not all, who will be saved do not have a very clear understanding of the true nature of the Great War and barely have an appreciation for simple Salvation and the nature of God.

Given the fact, though little promoted, that God operates totally absent of force against free will, He will not suddenly suspend that principle of His nature for His convenience when we arrive in heaven after the Second Coming of Christ. He will no suddenly impart to us perfect characters and instantly empty our minds of all false ideas, pain and unresolved troubling memories. His overwhelming value for , and insistence on freedom for our will to induce us to love Him precludes this possibility.

It is very much like the operation of an electrical transformer. Two coils of wires are in close proximity to each other but must not touch each other for the transformer to properly operate. One coil of wires has high voltage passing through it while the other is completely devoid of power except as induced by the field effect induced by the first coil. This explains why sinful humans cannot see God's face without suffering death; it would be like touching the wires inside a transformer together.

In fact, this illustration fits quite well to this very issue. The more distant the two coils, the weaker the healing energy is transferred. Since there is an obvious need for much healing and resolution in the hearts of the saved and chosen when they get to heaven, there is great need to move their coils into closer proximity to the presence of God the Father to transfer much more grace and healing love into their hearts to effect a full restoration of His image in them in preparation for the final climatic Revealing.

This is what the millenium is all about. God is assembling all the “coils” who have accepted His offer and provision for them, to be with Him and the angels for a thousand-year healing service of worship, praise and reconciliation in very close proximity to the center of all power. Hence the need for the healing leaves of the Tree of Life and all the other arrangements for bonding, growing, maturing etc.

When all the “coils” are finally interconnected and fully united in one mind and spirit, Christ's body will be then ready for the final act that will stun the whole universe with awe and wonder. His body after one thousand years of growing into oneness, synchronizing with the heart of the Father, tuning up their instruments under the orchestration of Jesus Himself, will be ready at last to make a direct connection to the power source with no more need of an intervening transformer.

The introduction of sin created a fatal weakness in all created beings infected by it that necessitated the whole arrangement of a step-down transformer if they were to continue to exist. The whole history of sin and Salvation is God's immensely complex wisdom to restore as last the whole universe to operating at full power again without discarding any offending elements if they are willing to accept His authority and rewiring arrangements for them.

Jesus was publicly crushed into a coil by becoming a human so that the power flowing through Him could be created in us if we will live close enough to Him. The closer we come to Him the more life-giving power is induced in our coils to flow through our circuits.

Transformers work on Alternating Current – AC – rhythms of power. DC – Direct Current – does not induce power. Transformers synchronize the rhythms between both circuits. The Father might be planning a last to switch us over to DC which is much more powerful than AC. The wicked insist on keeping faulty AC wiring and cannot handle the exposure to the overwhelming DC at last.