Legacy

I am starting to sense that I need to align myself differently with the legacy of my father than I have done thus far. Up to this point I have generally seen his combativeness, his meddling in other people's spiritual lives and his critical relationship toward the church as things for me to totally avoid. As a result of all these faults that to me were so obvious in his life I have found it difficult to perceive clearly many of his true strengths of character, things in his life that were worth emulating and admiring. I am not saying that I don't think there are any there, I am just saying that it is hard for me to see them clearly from my close proximity as one wounded by many of his mistakes.

I have spent many years very slowly and sometimes painfully working through a process of healing from much of the damage caused in my life by my dad's mistakes. I don't believe that it is wrong to say that, for an important part of my own healing has been to finally admit that many of the things that happened to me were in fact wrong, hurtful and not in line with God's ways. My perception of God was severely distorted by my dad's mistaken ideas about Him that were so prevalent when he was growing up. When I finally could see those faulty beliefs in the light of truth and identify them as part of the causes of the deep wounds in my heart, then my heart could begin to come back to life, to be willing to take the risk of coming back into the light very tentatively and consider functioning as a heart is supposed to function in relationship with others.

For this healing to continue and deepen, my willingness to identify the real causes of the lies embedded in me like slivers and burrs buried deep in my flesh has been a critical and necessary element. I realize that there is still much more internal healing that needs to happen as more memories are uncovered and more pain is exposed to the light of grace and the real truth about God. But now I am sensing that it may be time to move into a more advanced phase of my healing and to begin to see even more truth about my dad that will have a different kind of maturing effect in my life. It is time to begin to move beyond seeing clearly the faults of my dad and without ignoring those or hiding from them again, it is time to add a knowledge and awareness of the other aspects of his example that are worth appreciating, are worth emulating, the unique character traits that were important and that have been passed on to me as God-ordained gifts from my family heritage.

God designed the human mind to function under the “rules” or principles of family-type relationships. And even though sin has largely wreaked havoc in this area as Satan has sought to obliterate every trace of God's original purpose for family governance of His people, the hard-wiring is still in place within every human and the plan of salvation is God's way of reviving these ancient paths in the brain and to awaken them to be used for their original purpose once again. The more we understand the true purpose and design of family relationships, the more unity we are going to see among God's people and the more effectiveness and power of the gospel will be displayed in the lives of His children who will reflect His character of perfect love to an amazed watching world.

I am starting to feel conviction that it is time for me to become more aware of the noble traits of character that kept my father going for so many years even though his early years were filled with trouble, pain and weaknesses. I need to have the stories of his life reviewed and re-analyzed from a new perspective so that the parts of my father that reside inside of myself can know how to act properly and be utilized to accomplish what God intended for them. For those who are trying to follow God in obedience, each generation receives the opportunity to build on the past generation and to take the work of character development much farther than the last. If I am willing to be honest and fully aware of how my dad failed to follow God's ways, even though that was done in ignorance, but to also become fully aware of how my dad developed character that was in line with God's ways that may have made him a non-conformist with others around him, then I can be prepared to know both what to avoid in my own experience and just as importantly know what to leverage to my advantage and to God's glory.

I have been alerted in the past few weeks to little things about what I remember of my dad that I previously thought were things to avoid at all costs but are actually things that partially need to be strengthened. Though especially in his later years his strengths became more and more perverted due to the pervasive bitterness that was taking over his soul and spirit, the underlying strengths of character that served him very well in earlier years are still worth emulating. And since I have been invested through the principle of inherited family tendencies with many of the character assets of my parents, I need to learn how to sort through all these various legacies from them and make use of the ones that are worth keeping and learn to leverage them more astutely for my own growth. If I do this properly, I think that there may be immense inner power available that I am currently very unaware of lying latent inside of me like a trunk full of treasures gathering dust and undiscovered in an attic.

I don't feel competent to identify completely all that is good or bad from my dad's past, but I do know that God can be trusted to guide me through this sorting process to discard that which is harmful and to incorporate and strengthen that which is needed in my own experience and character. What I am coming to realize is that in trying to reject the faults of my father I can unintentionally also throw out some of the things of great value in my haste to unload the pain from my past. Now that I have been freed of much of the pain of my past and feel more secure in the arms of my real Father in heaven, I feel Him urging me to go back and reconsider some of my previous evaluations and to take back into my life the things that He shows me are really worth keeping and incorporate them into my own life.

It is sort of like sorting through the tools in a garage filled with all sorts of junk, collections from many years and strange things that I am not completely familiar with myself. I actually helped do this very thing with my adopted daughter a few years ago. After her dad died we began to sort through her large garage and shed that was packed to the rafters with all sorts of things: tools, lumber, car parts, parts for nearly anything imaginable as well as antiques, furniture and lots and lots of junk. She knew almost nothing about the usefulness or value of many of these things and was very afraid she would discard something of value. But at the same time she felt suffocated living in a house overflowing with things she knew she would never likely use herself.

It took us several years of sorting, negotiating, waiting for memories to subside and emotional releasing for us working together to reduce the huge inventory of stuff in that house. She came to depend on me to give her guidance as to the identity of many of the things she was totally unfamiliar with in order to decide what to do with it. I myself had to be very cautious and disinterested in my assistance even though I was doing most of the actual work of sorting, rearranging and deciding what was worth keeping or selling and what should just be hauled away. I had to be very careful under the circumstances not to ask for anything for myself even though there were some tools I could have used from this huge stash of inherited stuff. There were boxes and boxes of various tools and many things that I could have used in the work that I do. But because of my unique relationship with her and because of her extreme sensitivity about everything under her control, I learned to just keep my desires to myself and just give her my opinions about whether or not she should keep each item and what she might possibly do with it if she did not want it.

It is starting to feel a little bit this way in looking back on my own pile of character traits passed on from my ancestors to me. I am not wise enough to always know what is valuable and what should be tossed out or burned. Because of my lack of perspective or experience I have to depend on outside advice and guidance to learn what I need to get healing for and what I need to learn to keep and even utilize for my own life. For there are many very valuable tools from the past that if I learned how to use them properly could save me a great deal of expense and time trying to recreate them for myself through hard experiences. I likely will find that I don't have to necessarily go out and reinvent the wheel so to speak when I already have a number of them sitting around in my inner garage. I just need to learn how to use them properly and trust in God to teach me how to implement them better than how my parents used them.

One thing in particular in my dad's life that has caused me mixed emotions was his boldness in “standing up for truth” in the face of any and all opposition. On the surface this looks like a no-brainer for religiously-inclined people. The cliché sounds very noble, but behind the scenes I experienced pain of embarrassment and also saw how his boldness was often not exercised in love and true compassion. What I have observed over the years, not only with my own father but with many like him, is that this attitude of boldness is used as a religious excuse for judging and condemning others while claiming to be a defender of truth. Because of the abuse of this God-given gift of boldness, I have tended to lean very strongly in the other direction most of my life. Since a very young age I have tended to be somewhat timid and sensitive to not offending others unnecessarily. That has ended up producing in my life a very strange mixture of both of these elements that is not necessarily a good outcome. I have often been both aggressive and hurtful while at the same time being very fearful and withdrawn. It is something like having the worst of both my dad and my own character flaws mixed in together.

I now realize that the real problem that caused my dad's strengths to become misdirected and hurtful many times was his misunderstandings about the real meaning of most of the religious words and concepts taught in the Bible and the church. He certainly knew the standard ideas of religion and had a very strong grasp on doctrines and theological facts, but like most of us he had almost no true experiential knowledge of the spirit side of truth and had very few encounters with real love. Thus his experience was very lop-sided and he became more and more unbalanced as he got into his later years.

But his legacy has caused me to be almost paranoid about this tool of boldness. As a result I have tended to gravitate more toward avoidance of confrontation which I still believe is better than the damaging outbursts that caused my father so many problems. But God is wanting to teach me how to be bold in His way and for His glory instead of for my agenda and opinions like my dad did. Because God has spent years retraining me as to the real meaning of many of the religious words and concepts of His kingdom, I am far better positioned to utilize the element of boldness in ways that could honor God's reputation instead of damaging it like my dad too often did.

I am not saying that my dad ever intended to hurt God's reputation. That was the last thing he wanted to do. But because of his partial ignorance about the real character of God, and because he had so little real unconditional love shown to him, and because his heart was so deeply damaged and unhealed from his early experiences in life, he spent nearly all his life trying to do religion the best way he could figure out. But the outcome was that he used many of God's tools entrusted to him in ways that were not always the best for God's family or for his own.

But I have the wonderful advantage of being able to see all of this in much greater perspective than he ever could. I have the ability to see both what to avoid as well as what he had that laid a better foundation for me than what he started with. And it is this latter area that I am now realizing that I am lacking in knowledge of at this point. It is his strengths that I need to become more familiar with and it is my privilege to learn how to use the tools passed on to me in ways that will honor and strengthen the work of God in other people's hearts instead of using them abusively in ways that tear apart the work of God in hearts. And as I do this, the legacy and efforts of my own dad over his years of trial and error will be used by God to not just honor God but will greatly improve and enhance the reputation of my own father.

Spiritual Magnetic Theory

I woke up very early this morning and my mind began to wander across various things and would not allow me to go back to sleep. Last night I bought some magnets at the store to help hold down plastic sheets over our car windshields to keep the ice off of them. Evidently my brain decided that it would like to find another use for these magnets, or to be more honest I think God maybe wanted to share something important with me about parallel principles in His kingdom.

I began to think about the polarity of magnets and the effect that they have on the human body as well as their relationship to each other. Suddenly it occurred to me that the principles of magnetism is very revealing as a powerful illustration of many things I have read in the Bible about salvation and the healing of our souls.

So this morning I got up around 3 AM since I couldn't sleep anyway and worked on trying to draw a crude illustration to explain what was swirling through my mind. I think it would be very helpful to set up a demonstration with real magnets to explain some of these principles of reality in a presentation some time. But for now I will have to work with just graphics.

One of the main verses that kept coming to my mind was this one.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

Think of these two factors as attraction and repulsion. The principle of magnets is that like repels like and opposites attract. When you face opposite poles of a magnet toward each other they will have a strong power to pull each other closer. When you face like poles of magnets toward each other they will repel each other. Both of these actions become stronger and stronger the closer they get to each other. When two magnets are attracted and finally meet each other it is very difficult to pull them apart. Conversely, trying to push repelling magnet very close together becomes very difficult to do as they will try to slip around and push against each other not wanting to be in close proximity.

I tried to make this first chart more or less self-explanatory. When we are attracted by the desires of our fallen nature to the allurements of this world designed to target our particular preferences and weaknesses, the magnetic attractions becomes stronger and stronger the closer we allow ourselves to get to those things. I we indulge ourselves in little flirtations with sin we are choosing to face our souls in that direction and the invisible magnet pull will become surprisingly strong and sometimes very unexpected.

At the same time we will find that the things of God just don't seem to be all that interesting. Oh, we may be very engaged in religious activities and even have a lot of enjoyment having animated discussions with others about religious topics, but the Law of God and the high standards that Jesus talked about just seem too difficult to reach and so we feel some degree of repulsion against giving ourselves fully over to God's control of our lives and full access to our hearts.

The second chart I made is also a bit simplistic but tries to illustrate the relationship that a real Christian will have with both the world and with God. Remember, these are not things that we have to work at making happen; these are simply principles of reality, of how our minds and hearts are designed to function just as magnets are going to act the way they do no matter what we may try to believe.

There are a number of other effects that take place in these relationships that I was not able to incorporate into these simplistic illustrations. One is the fact that when two magnets become closely attached to each other and combine their force fields, they actually increase the power of their attractions and repulsions for each other. Thus, when one becomes closely aligned with the world and sin, the repulsion and resistance against God become even more powerful than before the unification with the world. Likewise, when one becomes joined to Christ in covenant by sacrifice (Psalms 50:5) the revulsion to sin from God's perspective becomes the feelings of the person who is drawing closer to His heart.

One of the most important things about this is very similar to a principle that I observed when I explored the mirror analogy about our lives. The factor that determines what we are going to reflect is in our choice of what direction we focus our attention. If we focus on problems and sin in other people's lives or dwell on our own faults and failings all the time, that is what we are going to reflect and is what becomes part of our character. When we choose to focus on the character and glory and goodness of God, especially in the midst of trials, temptations or assaults by the enemy, then our mirrors will reflect the responses of God instead of our own natural reactions.

So too in this illustration, the determining factor that decides what kind of forces will interact in our lives is what direction we choose to face our own magnet. If we choose to flirt around the edges of what is right or indulge our carnal desires even occasionally, we will find maybe too late that the subtle, invisible drawing of the world is pulling us away from God and more and more into sympathy with the the things of this earth.

But if we accept the offer of Jesus to take away our fears, guilt shame, pain and heal our wounds by turning our full attention toward Him and learning of the real truth about how He feels toward us and what He did for us at the cross, we will find ourselves more and more enamored and enticed by the beauties of God's character, the consistency of truth and the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling our true design for living. As we turn our faces toward God and give Him our sins and our hearts, His righteousness will be more like a magnet for us and will then begin to glow through us. We will also find ourselves sharing His revulsion against sin and the things that used to be so attractive to us.

The action of having our magnets turned from one direction to the other is found in the term repentance. Repentance is a gift from God just as is everything else that we need for life. The key element that we exercise in all of this is our free choice as to what to do with the provisions of salvation that God offers us during this time of probation we are given here on earth. If we accept God's offer of salvation, believe in His forgiveness, embrace the truths of His healing love and compassion for us and seek His face by turning our shame-filled, fearful faces toward Him, His power will work in and through us to accomplish all of the rest as we cooperate with His work in our lives.

But if we try to waffle between trusting God with our lives and still trying to cling to things of this world at the same time, our hearts will become very unstable and like a magnet waffling between two opposing attractions we will find ourselves becoming more and more erratic being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8).

There are many other potential inferences that I believe may be seen if this is considered even more thoroughly. But I wanted to at least get this captured and condensed initially so that I can think about it more and consider it from other perspectives and relative to other principles that I have been learning.

Heaven's Reward System - 1

Over the last couple days I have been getting rather fascinated with another epiphany of sorts that has struck me. Pieces of information from various sources over the past few years have suddenly come together in my understanding to give me a whole new perspective on the rewards that the righteous are going to receive in heaven. When this new understanding began to really sink in I again got very excited about the goodness and fairness of God in contrast to the assumptions about Him that I got from religion for most of my life.

I talked about these assumptions with a good friend of mine today on the phone and she verbalized my discomfort with the old thoughts that we both had about the idea of differential rewards being handed out in heaven. The way that it is typically presented by teachers and preachers smacks too much of the reward and motivation systems that we are so familiar with here on earth that depend to some extent or another on some level of selfishness. Also inherent in almost all reward systems is the presumption that some kind of performance has to be achieved to earn the reception of a reward chosen by some other entity. We are all very familiar with this way of thinking about rewards and I am afraid that our paradigms about rewards usually infect our thinking of heaven's system so much that it is very difficult to objectively consider that maybe it is quite different than what we assume it is.

But as I thought about some of the verses in the Bible and the words of Jesus about rewards and some other important aspects related to rewards, it began to dawn on me that far from being an arbitrary assignment of kudos for good behavior or great accomplishments for God, the rewards that we will enjoy in heaven are going to be totally of our own creating while here on earth. It is just that we are going to realize the full magnitude of the effects of the things we have chosen here on earth to invest our time and lives into. That is what is going to determine the wide variations between the rewards that some will receive in comparison to others.

I went to my Bible software and did some searches on key words in this study and found that the Bible was strongly supportive and informative about my new premonitions of this subject. Since I had never viewed it from this perspective before I had not noticed the impact and implications of many of these verses until I brought the light from some key previous insights to bear on the list of verses that emerged from my word searches.

I am still taking more time to carefully analyze the numerous verses dealing with this subject, but the revelation that it is already bringing to my heart is once again causing me to want to worship and appreciate even more a God who is much better than I have ever thought He was. It is fresh revelations of His glory like this that continue to draw me to want to find out even more about Him as quickly as I can.

I do not want to try to explain everything I am discovering right now. But I will start by saying that one of the key elements to what I am finding is the word joy. And I believe that this is giving me a much more correct perspective on heaven's type of rewards. I am coming to see clearly that very likely joy is the main ingredient of these things we describe as rewards in heaven. At first that may seem like almost a disappointment to some, but the more I investigate this and the more I have learned about the true meaning of the word joy, the more sense this all makes and the better I see it correlating with everything I see about these two concepts, particularly in the New Testament.

I will take time later to further explore this. But for now I am going to rejoice in the Lord greatly for He is worthy to be praised for His great wisdom, kindness and fairness beyond what any of us ever give Him credit for. Praise the Lord for the way He has set up reality so that both our punishments and our rewards are simply natural outgrowths of the choices we make in our lives.

Tear Down This Wall

I just finished reading about the New Jerusalem and also about the fall of the Berlin wall in Germany. I can remember watching the news during that time with awe and fascination as pictures of exuberant Germans tore into that giant wall that had split their homeland apart for so many years and right in front of the authorities, in a frenzy began to destroy it with any tools they could lay hands on. The intensity of their emotions from getting a taste of freedom for the first time in their lives was contagious.

I myself had lived my whole life hearing stories of the horrors of communism and the desperation of people trying to get out of that oppressive system. Many people lost their lives to the savagery surrounding that wall trying to escape to a life of freedom. All of my life that wall in Germany stood for everything that was wrong with much of the world behind the “iron curtain”.

But then the amazing days of change began to thaw the cold war that had kept so much of the world locked in fear. Americans, once forced to practice nuclear attack drills in school by diving under their desks, now found themselves witnessing a strange phenomena, the movement of people hungry for freedom and leaders standing up to dismantle one by one the national restrictions that had kept the world locked in mutual hatred and threat of extinction. As the freedom thaw progressed across Eastern Europe it finally reached Germany where some of the most ruthless violence had been used to suppress and control people for decades.

Then there was the historic moment when our president, Ronald Reagan, stood before that German symbol of tyranny and defiantly cried out against it in protest and challenge, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The effect was electric all over the world. I can remember again my wonder at the boldness of this popular president to take head-on this “empire of evil” as he called it. I also sensed that what was happening in the world was God-arranged, not just the coincidence of events and personalities.

As I think of all the events in various countries that riveted the world's attention during those short years of expanding freedom, the fall of the Berlin wall was possibly the most dramatic. As the events began to speed up and the political pressure intensified on the East German government to relax their suppressive control and allow their people to be reunited with their fellow Germans in the West, anticipation and excitement grew all over the world. We all wondered how this would play out, whether there would be a time of unprecedented bloodshed like the communists were known to be capable of, or would they finally admit that their ideas were inadequate and surrender to the movement of freedom that could no longer be restrained.

Even as I read the short devotional this morning reminding me of those scenes of almost unspeakable joy and delirious celebration that broke out when the German guards finally opened all the gates and allowed 100,000 Germans to surge through to West Berlin, I found my eyes filling with tears of emotion from something deep inside my own soul. Something in that scene of breakthrough for freedom resonates with the deepest longings of every human being and it is something implanted there by God Himself. Some mysterious, primeval longing for true freedom is embedded within our very psyche that cannot be ignored or forever repressed. We were designed for freedom and nothing can ever thwart that design without unavoidable, terrible consequences in the end.

This illustration was used by the author to remind us that this wonderful event from our recent past is only a tiny foretaste of the sense of release and joy and delirium that we are going to feel when we finally escape the claws of sin and enter into the gates of heaven for the first time. Right now it is difficult to even imagine that feeling because we are living under increasingly oppressive human governments that are in the process of enslaving us and stripping away our freedoms instead of leading us closer to what we were designed to enjoy.

But in God's kingdom of love there is only perfect freedom, joy and peace without any coercion. There is never any fear in God's order of things and no threat of punishment for non-compliance, for the old order of things will be passed away forever. This is very confusing for many of us because of the many mixed messages that we have about God and His ways. There are so many false teachings about how God conducts His business and how He treats His subjects that we often cannot perceive the purity and completeness of the freedom that exists in heaven.

But the closer one gets to perceiving the real truth about God's belief in total freedom, the more exciting life becomes and the more anticipation is aroused in the heart. A deep longing, far surpassing the longing of the suppressed subjects of the Eastern bloc countries under communism for freedom, is awakened in the soul and a sense of anticipation and hunger drives us to run faster and faster toward the liberators sent to deliver us from this terrible evil.

Reading a description of the New Jerusalem in which we are designed to live gives us a lot of clues as to the real nature of God's kingdom. It is a place where the gates are never closed, the light never fades into night and the walls are not designed to constrict but to decorate. If we really want to know the truth of how God feels about us we need to spend much more time studying the nature of the environment that He is preparing for us to live in for eternity.

When we live in acceptance of our condition and choose to believe that not much can change or maybe even needs to change, we will remain in the darkness and complacency that keeps us from preparing for the coming crisis that is beginning to explode on this earth. Without realizing it, almost all of us are living behind looming walls that surround our hearts from being touched by others. There are barbed wire fences around our hearts that lash out at anyone trying to peek in and see the pain contained inside. There are numerous guards in our minds on alert to attack anyone getting to close to breaching the wall, either from within or from the outside. We think that this is all designed for our protection, just as the East Germans claimed that the Berlin Wall was to protect East Germany from an attack by the West. But everyone knew that was a lie and the same is true for our own hearts as well.

We may claim to be Christian and to follow God's will in our lives, but unless we have a growing hunger for real freedom and an unquenchable passion to do whatever it takes to live in total freedom from the tyranny of sin causing us to cower inside our walls, we will remain in confusion, disappointment and enslavement. Only those who are hungry enough for freedom to release their hold on everything they own and allow God to coordinate their escape will enjoy the thrills of heaven and find a home in the new earth. For unlike communism, Satan will never open his gates to allow his slaves to escape his control. In this situation God is going to launch an all-out attack to liberate all those who have made a covenant with Him by sacrifice.

But it is necessary for our freedom for us to give God permission to tear down the very real walls that exist in each of our hearts. Until we acknowledge the restrictive nature of our walls of prejudice, pride and fear, we will be unwilling for God to dismantle them and set us free. God is very capable and eager to tear down our walls and bring us healing, freedom and real joy in the places of pain deep inside our souls. But He cannot rescue us from our own prisons until we are hungry enough for freedom to request deliverance from the only power strong enough to breach the enemy lines.

What I am sensing is the importance of becoming more hungry and thirsty for God, for real truth, and not just factual truth but far more importantly truth about what is real and what my heart was designed for so that it can thrive and mature and connect with other hearts. I am starting to pray every day specifically that God will make me and every individual in my church and family more hungry and thirsty for God and for real freedom. I am asking Him to make us dissatisfied with the status quo, disappointed with the things that used to bring us pleasure and to awaken a passion for God inside of our hearts that cannot be suppressed without finding Him and connecting with His presence.

I am praying that this hunger will intensify and that our awareness of our dire condition will become much more clear to our minds consciously. I am praying that God will do whatever it takes to wake us up and cause us to see our enormous danger in playing religion without having an intimate connection with His heart. I am praying that God will un-deceive our hearts and minds and cause us to realize that we must find freedom ourselves before we can ever lead anyone else to freedom. I am giving God permission in the supernatural war for souls to launch a rescue mission into my home and my church and snatch us out of the chains of lethargy and complacency that is strangling us. I am praying for a deep craving to seize us for a life of clean spiritual air, of pure water, real food and a longing for the true freedom that is the critical environment that love needs in order to grow and thrive.

God, tear down the walls that have kept us in oppression, darkness and ignorance of Your love all of our lives. Tear down the walls in our own hearts that we are so accustomed to that we often don't even realize they exist. Give us glimpses of the wonderful freedom and joys that are just on the other side of our walls and implant in our hearts an intense, insatiable hunger to live in total freedom. Give us the passion of our forefathers who were so hungry for liberation that they cried, “Give us freedom or give us death!”

Father, we are being killed by complacency and don't even realize it. We are being slowly boiled to death like frogs in a pan without sensing our danger. Please wake us up and cause us to unavoidably hear your warnings to get ready for the rescue teams that are sent to pluck us out right now to safety. Show us the real way to get ready for Your coming and give us a taste of Your goodness even now. Open our hearts, enlighten our minds and intensify our passions to be radical in our break with the enemy. Do this for Your name's sake and for the kingdom of heaven.

Learning to Tune In

I have had discussions with different people over the years that complain that God doesn't seem willing to talk to them like He does for other people. Of course, trying to argue them out of what they believe is generally not very productive or helpful for them, but it does raise an issue that bothers many people. I have a friend right now that has several times talked with me about the feeling that He does not know how to go about having a relationship with God, much less having a feeling of intimacy with Him. He has been asking me how to go about hearing God and I am taking His requests very seriously.

This morning while listening to a sermon as a visitor in another church, some thoughts came to me about this that I had to write down quickly on whatever paper I could find nearby. In this case it was the back of a visitor registration form in the pew and so I spent some time distracted from the sermon trying to capture the thoughts swirling around inside before they escaped.

An illustration that came to me was that the Holy Spirit can be compared to a radio signal in the air all around us. This is a constant signal that is being broadcast without interruption but is far more unique than any earthly radio signal could accomplish. God's “radio” broadcast is uniquely customized so that each person who tunes into it will receive messages designed just for them at just the time that they need it. These messages consist of directions, warnings, counsel, wisdom, comfort and encouragement – whatever is best for that person at any given moment or for any situation.

Even though the signal is custom tailored for each individual, the signal is broadcast on a particular wavelength or frequency that is dedicated for the use of heavenly intelligences. There are also many other broadcasts filling the airwaves that are not from God but are also somewhat customized for people with different interests. These are all spirits designed primarily to entertain and deceive the whole earth and keep them distracted from paying attention to the urgent messages from heaven for God's children on this world.

When people claim that they cannot hear any message from God and assume that it is because God refuses to talk with them, they are buying into one of the lies about God that are very popular on the alternate wavelengths. But the real problem is not that God is not broadcasting His thoughts and communications to people, but the issue lies ay the other end of the process, the receivers. God is faithful to give people messages of mercy and warning and help. But if we do not learn how to deal with the things that prevent us from hearing them the fault lies completely with us, not with God.

Some people are actually ignorant that they have within them the equipment that is needed to listen to the broadcasts from heaven. They may be so intellectual that they are almost totally out of touch with their own heart and so do not know how to listen through their own spirit to the spirit of other people or the Spirit of God. In this case they need to learn from others and from God how to access their equipment and be trained in how to properly operate it so that they can tune into and keep up to date with all the information flowing into this earth from heaven's intelligence center.

Other people are very adept at using their receiving equipment but are keen on keeping their dial tuned to alternate frequencies that suit their tastes better. They don't like the discomfort of convictions that the Holy Spirit brings into their heart and so they learn how to keep switching off the incoming signals from God and filling their minds, hearts and time with all sorts of entertainment designed to neutralize and drown out the many messages of warning and appeal to repent and turn to God for life and hope and peace.

Some people hear God's voice quite clearly and persistently, though they may not correctly identify it as coming from God necessarily. But they harden their hearts in resistance to the messages of truth and appeal and keep resisting until their receivers become so damaged and their hearts so badly calloused that they can no longer hear the messages being sent to save them from sin and imminent destruction.

I believe that God uses all sorts of means to reach every person with messages of warning and appeal. He may have to butt in on the alternative frequencies at times and issue warning bulletins that cannot be ignored. But if people continue to refuse to tune into heaven's frequencies and stay tuned in long enough to have their lives changed and their hearts transformed by His love, then they make themselves liable and responsible for all the disasters that are inevitable for those ignoring the warnings from heaven.

Each one of us is given the choice of how we are going to relate to the messages coming to us from the realms of light and love. Those who accept the invitation to join God's side and become loyal to Him will choose to stay tuned into His frequencies and fill their minds with His truths and His promptings for their lives. This is described best in Romans 8. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (Romans 8:14 NRSV)

God also wants us to do something else to protect us from being misled by the many false frequencies that claim to be the Spirit of God to lead us in our lives. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1 NRSV) How does one go about testing a spirit anyway?

I think that once again an analogy may be very helpful. Whenever a person owns a computer, especially if it is going to be exposed to the internet, it is generally considered the better part of wisdom to have a virus protection program running on that computer to keep it shielded from being infiltrated and exploited by worms and viruses designed to harm the computer. But a very important part of having virus protection is to keep that software updated on a very regular basis or one may still be vulnerable to new viruses designed to outsmart the software.

Just as virus protection software needs to have its database of virus descriptions up to date, so too must our internal virus scanners need to be updated each day by spending very intentional and quality time listening to voice of God in the Bible, the virus protection bank. When we allow God's Spirit to upload into our minds the needed protection for that day from the reliable Word of God, we can be protected from the latest schemes of the enemy to infiltrate us with deceptions designed to sneak into our hearts and minds unnoticed and cause much damage to the work God is doing in our life.

We must learn how to effectively test the validity and authenticity of every spirit message with the Word of God stored in our memory bank. But when we have checked that message against the Word and find it compatible, we are held accountable for whether we embrace it into our life and heart or whether we reject it because we don't like how it makes us feel.

God's Spirit is given to rescue us from the deceptions that are all around us like a miasma of pollution. It is given to alert us to dangerous temptations that try to allure us into thoughts or activities that would betray us back into the slavery of Satan and selfishness. The Spirit is constantly working for our good, to rescue us from danger, death and unneeded pain and to guide us into a closer intimacy with God. Its messages are always available for everyone, but not everyone is making those broadcasts available to their own heart by tuning into them effectively. That is up to each one of us to choose how we will relate to the provisions of God for our complete salvation.