What Must I Do to be Salvaged?

“'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' They said, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.' And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house.” Acts 16:30-32. I found myself asking God this very question this morning. Then I was reminded to think of what the words mean and how that might sound using their more accurate meaning. Since “saved” and “salvation” are the same, and the root meaning is “restoration, returning to an original design and function”, then I see that “doing” something and getting restored to my original design and function are the main elements of this question. Generally speaking, when we ask what we should “do”, the question is coming from the context of our left-brain, external-oriented religious thinking, even if we are not known as being necessarily religious to other people. Religious people do not have a corner on living fake lives. It is our natural response to an exposure of the emptiness of our heart that has been nagging us all our life but we could not satisfy it or even understand it correctly until we see someone else living from their heart in joyful fulfillment. Then our own heart screams out in agony of desperation and we become more aware of how empty we really are and how deep our heart hunger really is. Consider the people who approached Jesus with basically the same question. “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” Matt. 19:16. “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Mark 10:17, Luke 10:25 and 18:18. As I was waking up this morning I couldn't miss the intense hunger of my heart awakened last night when I watched “Tuesdays with Morrie” at a friend's house with friends and family. It has stirred up awareness of how selfish I am, of how much the faults in others that irritate me are only reflections of how I must irritate them. The self-deception of my own hypocrisy is so effective that I find it impossible to see much of the truth about myself and of course cannot receive it from others attempting to tell me about it. But the heart is communicated to by example and demonstration, not with words and logic. Thus my heart was able to at least slightly communicate back to my brain how empty it is as I watched the actions, spirit and transparent unselfishness of Morrie in the way he related to the self-absorbed young man swallowed up by the typical distractions and busyness of hectic living, too distracted to be able to receive or give love with anyone. I saw myself portrayed painfully accurately in the example of the young man far more than in the character of Morrie. And my heart cries out, “What must I do to be saved?” I realize even more now how helpless I am to change myself. My only hope is outside, supernatural intervention by a Power that can transform me from a selfish, pride-filled, self-deceived nice guy (many would even dispute the nice guy part) to a genuine, caring, loving and expressive man with a servant heart spontaneously reaching out to touch the hearts of everyone around me. In the answer of Paul and Silas to the jailer who found himself asking this same question after having his own callous heart awakened by their startling behavior under persecution and abuse; their answer alerts me to the underlying basis for hope. It is not an intellectual answer, though it has often been degraded to that in religious teaching. It is a heart answer – belief in Jesus, the Creator and original Designer who created our hearts and is the only One who knows how to really satisfy them and restore them to their original design and function. Believing in Jesus involves trusting His motives and integrity and passion as well as His ability to change me. This kind of trust does not insist on knowing ahead of time how He will do it or having every question about His past dealings with me answered before I let Him have His way with me. Believing means that I let go of my resistance to Him and allow Him access to my emotions, my pain, my fears and my shame. Believing in God is not the same as believing facts and doctrines about God. That is a left-brain function and often blocks us from allowing our hearts access to true faith. Real faith/belief is a heart response as well as a choice to allow our heart to come out in the open and take the ultimate risk of self-abandonment. In so doing we are promised that we will find true life, true heart-satisfaction, real fulfillment and joy. But now my left brain analytical thinking is hijacking what my heart was trying to express and my heart is complaining that it is being ignored again. That is what a lot of people around me have been feeling as well. My mind wants to find a nice, tidy answer to wind up this post so it will conform to literary expectations and social norms. But my heart wants to scream, “What must I do to be saved, to be alive, to thrive and connect and bond with other hearts around me like I was designed for?”

A Tragic Exchange - round 1

Rom. 1:21-25 The tragic exchange. This is in the context of the revealing of God's wrath. (v.18) Professing to be wise, they became fools. This is a classic description of a person who has shifted their focus from a heart-based relationship with God demonstrated in honoring Him and giving thanks (v.21) to living in left-brain speculations resulting in the heart going dark. This implies that previously the heart was not dark but was designed to be full of light, of fire, of passion in a vital connection with the ultimate Lover. Professing to be wise... This is more description of the cause that results in the tragic results further described in this chapter. This is likely one of the most subtle and effective deceptions that Satan uses on us. Because this profession of being wise entrenches us in self-justification and defensiveness blocking all attempts to reveal the truth about our cold, darkened hearts. Exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for and image in the form of.... Notice what is exchanged for what. Glory is let go of to receive an image. An image of what? What is an image? What is glory? Be careful not to assume the answers too quickly and rush on. Allow the text to contribute to the real meaning of the words it uses and still maintain an open mind even then. It seems to me that the image is the counterpart or counterfeit of the glory, since the enemy is into counterfeiting everything that is true. We lose most of the significance and application to our own lives of this powerful passage when we brush off the reference to image as being carved idols worshiped by weak-minded people. I don't believe that a physical image is the primary issue revealed here. That is not our great danger. What is the real problem is looking to anything or anyone as a source of life instead of an intimate, dynamic, growing vital connection with the only true God. Exchanging real glory for an image is exactly like looking to pornography for pleasure in place of enjoying the ultimate sexual experiences in the context of a healthy, exciting and deeply bonded marriage relationship. The first is a self-destructive and very poor imitation, an “image” of the glory of the second. The text goes on to reinforce this truth even more. God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts... This is not an arbitrary act of a God that is offended by sinners and determined to punish them in retaliation as is so commonly thought. This is the reality of a spurned lover finally relinquishing and releasing a determined person stubbornly rejecting all attempts at reconciliation. It is acknowledging and sadly respecting the decision of the other to permanently break off an intimate, healthy relationship for a twisted, lifestyle of indulgence and and self-destruction. It is a parallel to exchanging the truth of God for a lie (v.25). This is just a preliminary note to be explored much deeper when I have more time. (next in series)

Thoughts About Blessing

Miscellaneous thoughts about blessing and identity. Psalm 145 seems to hold a definition of what blessing is. Blessing unlocks resources and authority in the supernatural realm. Prophecy in blessing is God's view, God's picture of life and character that reflects His image. Is God like our false identity, the one we usually think we really are, or like something very different beyond what we allow ourself to imagine? Blessing is re-speaking God's creative words of identity, speaking true identity into existence. A blessing is like impregnating the womb of the heart with the sperm of God's power and identity that combines with the latent seed of our unique individuality to create and bring to life our true identity. The health of this new life, our true identity in Christ, is affected by the nourishment we bring to it. It may not be even obvious for a time like a growing embryo in the womb of a woman, but if we allow it to grow and protect and nourish it, it will come to birth and come out in the open sooner or later as a revealing to the watching world of who we really are designed to be. It is the revelation of our true destiny. As earthly parents we repeatedly fail to properly relate to our children, to feed their hearts with affection and to see them through the eyes of God. But even though we are often faithless He is always faithful regardless of what appearances and feelings insist. Even when we have imparted cursing and been a source of death instead of life, He will continue to pour out yet more grace. While we have tragically misrepresented Him and defamed His reputation, He continues to love and forgive and passionately pursue not only our children but us as well. Allow Him to love you effectively. Worldly economics promises a counterfeit salvation; we think we need money to restore us to our real potential, to empower us to realize our true identity. It uses fear of failure and shame as a counterfeit of faith.

Mind vs. Heart Religion

The mind is the gateway to the heart, the outer court surrounding the inner sanctuary. What is allowed to fill the mind determines the atmosphere that the heart breathes, the diet that the heart is fed which in turn affects the health or weakness of the heart. A religion isolated to the mind does not have the truth and power of heart-based religion because it is not based on true reality. But heart-based religion submerged in a mind kept full of shallow thinking and junk food is a religion of emotionalism and self-pleasing that also is not based on the truth of heaven. Just like you don't feed your physical heart directly, but provide nutrients through the digestive tract and into the blood that determines the health of your heart; just so the mind and imagination and senses are the input points from which the heart draws its strength or is debilitated. Taking drugs to feel good may seem to be satisfying for a few moments but may take years off the usefulness of the heart. Indulging in sin-laced entertainment and pleasure-producing mental and physical activities that are not in harmony with heaven may make us feel good repeatedly in the short-term but continuously weakens the affections and attachments of our heart to God which is the one important criteria that determines our entrance into heaven according to the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Where to find Jesus' Face

As I lay in bed this morning slowly waking up with various worries and relationships beginning to run through my mind, I started turning them over to God and asking Him questions as I often do early in the day. Memories from last night's mens group, my transmission that I very well might have damaged trying to drag 2 tons of manure in a trailer into my garden with my van, the challenge of preparing my heart and mind for the upcoming Blessing event, how to get my heart to open more toward my wife and kids.... The transmission problem (not the one currently being installed in my daughter's car) really began to weigh me down with familiar feelings of panic. After being suckered into self-deprecation and false feelings of guilt for awhile, I finally remembered that God was not taken by surprise by this development nor is He upset with me as my feelings (or false gods) may suggest. But to have any peace I will need to come into His presence with my problem and stay there long enough to let it go and trust Him with it. I reminded Him immediately that He has indicated that nothing that in any way disturbs my peace is too small for Him to notice, and this definitely affects my peace. I began praying for heaven's perspective on this issue and for help to pry my mental fingers off this problem so He could take ownership of it. I also began praying for the eyes of heaven to see differently each person that was coming through my consciousness. I began rehearsing my usual petitions - to show me His face and to cause me to die to self and be crucified with Christ. I try to understand a little better what that means for me each time I pray it so it does not slip into another habit of mindless repetitions. When I sincerely asked God to come and live in my heart today, I suddenly was surprised by a revelation into my heart that fully woke me up and got me excited. We have been instructed to seek God's face - that is His desire for us. I have also been learning the importance of living from the heart and have been making baby steps into that experience over the past few years. But the two ideas suddenly met each other in a way I had not seen before. If I ask Jesus to live in my heart and He takes me up on the offer, then maybe I need to learn to see my heart more clearly if I want to see His face better. For if indeed He is living there, then it only makes sense that I might very well be able to see His face there, or at least a portion of His face that is uniquely shaped to reveal and energize my true identity. As I pondered this insight I also realized that the more I learn to honestly live from my heart and recognize His face there, the more capacity I will develop to perceive and see into other people's hearts. And if the face of God is only seen through the pinhole of our hearts uniquely synchronized to satisfy our deepest longings and desires, then the more I look at other people's hearts along with my own the broader and bigger will become the outline of His face. It sort of resonates with the old Indian story of the blind men and the elephant who all could only perceive and report "truth" from their very limited yet somewhat accurate perspective. None of them were completely wrong, but to know the real truth about the elephant they had to be willing to think beyond their narrow field of input. This truth reinforced my need to continue to learn to live in and from my heart even more. And as I increase my hear-awareness and capacity, the result will be an ever-increasing ability to observe, connect and care for others hearts as my picture of God continues to expand. The gifts to the church in 1 Corinthians are really like pixels on a giant screen that when seen together dynamically reveal the movie picture of God in action and a little bit of His immense passion. Then God reminded me what happened yesterday with my van when it wouldn't start (again) in the parking lot at the Post Office. I had crawled underneath to tap on the starter which had always worked before but not this time. I then solicited a passerby to try to start it while I lay underneath beating on it but to no avail. As I noticed my frustration began to rise I began praying and wondering what God might have in this experience that I would later look back on and appreciate. So I decided not to get worked up about it so I wouldn't have all that unnecessary fretting to feel ashamed of later. I called a friend and he suggested trying to jump straight from the battery to the starter. I had already checked the batter connections and had even tried to jump the relay but with no results. So I crawled back under the van with a paper towel to clean off the starter connections and see what my options were. As I wiped off the starter wires I noticed with some concern that there was an unusual amount of fluid clinging to the bottom of the oil pan and transmission. I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but I carefully looked it over for a minute storing it in my memory for further analysis. Then I also noticed that a small wire had come loose while I was wiping off the starter. When I tried to re-attach it, it was still very loose. At that point I realized that I might have discovered the root problem of the starter occasionally failing, though I was not yet sure. i retrieved some pliers from inside the van and slid back under to tighten up the spade connecter so it would grip better and the reconnected it. Sure enough, when I tried to start the engine this time I was successful. I then had to resist the urge to get upset over the fact that I had paid to have a new starter installed about a year ago for this very same symptom and had still experienced the same problem shortly afterward. So why did the Lord remind me of this incident this morning? I began to accept that, though indeed I may have damaged my transmission trying to haul fertilizer into my harden, God was not holding that over my head like I am used to doing to feeling. Instead, He had used the ploy of getting my under my van to fix my starter to alert me that I needed to be aware of a potential leak before even more damage might occur like what happened with my daughter's car that we now have to majorly repair. For God, transmission problems - which really triggers fears about lack of money in my natural heart - are not a problem at all like I am used to feeling. I need to see this through the eyes of heaven instead of the eyes of fear. I must trust Him with all of my problems, all of my finances, all of my relationships. When I step over into living in true reality I will be empowered to experience "trials" and difficulties as really being exciting opportunities for god to further reveal Himself to me. "Brethren, count it all joy when....." Jesus, show me Your face, both inside my heart and in the hearts of those around me - and very soon face to face without any distorting barriers between us.