Lessons from the Gatesitter

He sat every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful. How very many of us also sit every day in the presence of the Beauty of God while spending most all of our time focusing on our selvfes, our crippled condition, our needs and desiring pity from those around us who enter on into His glory. We see ourselves as cripples, unworthy and unable to go to God. We are content to resign ourselves to sitting outside the gate of beauty and just beg for dropping crumbs from the rich blessings others receive from Him. We live off a pitance of the blessings of others. We may be sometimes even jealous of their freedom and gladness but believe it cannot be ours to experience. We need a Peter and John to come to us and demand our undivided attention to pry our focus away from our impossibilities to God's boundless desires for us. The lame man was living and asking for money to provide an existence for himself. He was content, though not satisfied, to eek out a bleak existence on the leftovers from others. But God had much greater plans for his life. Peter and John did not offer him more of the same. He thought that money was his need. But they wanted to break his dependence on thinking money would solve his problems to realize God's real passion for his heart. God wanted his life to glorify His Son Jesus. God's heart wanted him to run, to dance, to celebrate wildly in the presence of God's goodness. God wanted him to trust in Jesus for satisfaction instead of depending on his begging. God wanted to make him a spectacle of amazement and wonder beyond his own wildest dreams. God desired to jolt the whole city into a new picture of reality, a reality of God's true desires that He wanted everyone to accept and experience in their own lives. This experience of God's reality was already being enjoyed by thousands of animated, excited believers. But God's heart yearns to draw everyone into His powerful embrace of love. Reality ws breaking out of the fictional world of rigid religion and anything was now possible if people would just believe in God's goodness and His salvation. He wanted to pour down blessings like heavy rain if only people would just choose to believe – if we will just choose to believe.

Gatesitter Scene 4

(click here for scene 3)

It would be interesting to observe the shifting sentiments and moods of the public passing in and out of the temple from the lame man's perspective. How many years had he begged outside the temple? Likely since long before Jesus started His ministry. Surely he had overheard its and pieces of conversations from passers-by about all sorts of things. If he was felt a lot of shame and was somewhat withdrawn he may have pondered his observations alone in his heart. If he was more open and socialized he may have even engaged different ones with questions, dialogging with those who were sympathetic enough to stop and converse with him occasionally. How could he have missed all the disturbing events that had so challenged the status quo of society in and around the temple. Jesus had personally emptied out the temple twice in less than four years which could not have gone unnoticed by one who begged just outside its gate. Many times Jesus passed in and out of the temple Himself and performed many acts of healing in its vicinity. If the lame man had been begging there all that time it would be very hard to miss the stories and rumors. Or maybe this lame man was new to the area. Maybe he was brought in recently by friends in hope of healing only to find out they were too late, that Jesus had been crucified and the era of miracles was apparently over. However, this idea does fit well with verse ten where people were apparently quite familiar with him. Verse two says he was set down every day at the gate of the temple implying this had been going on a considerable time. This man must have had hope stirred within him during the years of Jesus' ministry. He very possibly may have narrowly missed a number of opportunities for healing from Jesus directly. He had to have know something about Jesus and His character from all the circulating reports. He must have been somewhere not terribly far from the events of Passover weekend just past. He must have felt the cold chill of the triumph of legalism and religious traditions that were quickly enforced in and around the temple after that turning point. The hardliners and purists of Judaism likely would have taken strong measures to reinforce the rules and regulations that had been challenged and weakened by Jesus and many who had been influenced by His teachings and example. He must have noticed, if any had passed by him at the gate, the smug attitudes of the many Pharisees and priests on their pious and pompous trips in and out of the temple the past few weeks. There may have been a crackdown in the temple area and very possibly a spat of new regulations to prevent a disruption of the comfortable traditions imposed by the elite. God had to be served with strictness and exactness or the Jews were in danger of bringing down His wrath on them. The temple police may have been required to be re-trained with stricter controls instituted to prevent future outbursts of “celebration” and other such unauthorized activities from occurring in the temple. For a few weeks it appeared that the hardliners had gained the victory they so craved. “Undesirables” were barred from entering the temple area and all discussion of the subversive theology and activities of the renegade Jesus were quickly squelched. Religion was on track once again to be returned to the “old ways”, strict enforcement of the traditions of the elders and strong controls to keep everyone “in line” so they could one again focus on the true “goal” of the nation – achieving perfection and holy living, at least for the “favored” ones. While many of the leaders were openly pleased with the new strictness and reforms, much of the public was experiencing widespread despair and a more intense feeling of hopelessness. The lame man was very likely also deeply affected by this shift in public sentiment. After the crucifixion of Jesus the sense of hope and joy that had been seeping deeper into the hearts of thousands all across the country seemed to have been cruelly snatched away by an elite group of corrupt, self-righteous, arrogant men who only cared about power and wealth for themselves. Jesus was gone, despite swirling mixed rumors of a possible resurrection. His followers were very seldom seen and rumor had it they had stayed mostly holed up together in a large room where they had spent their last night together with Jesus before His death. Talk about clinging to the past! These people seemed to be desperately hanging onto must memories. No deliverance from the Romans had even been attempted by this professed Messiah. He just knuckled under both to the corrupt Jewish leadership and to the Romans when He meekly let them have their way with Him in the garden. For about two months everything was really looking grim and hopeless. The conversations of temple-goers was limited and moody. In fact, attendance of temple services had dropped off dramatically. People were bitter and angry and were even becoming much more cynical. This made begging much more difficult with sympathy and compassion becoming more and more rare among the public. Both emotionally and financially things had become very bleak for the lame man. He was barely surviving and hope was fast dying completely within his heart. But an explosion of rumors and animated comments occurred on the day of the Jewish Pentecost. And the days following that saw an upsurge in new people with a strange glow of joy on their faces frequenting the temple on a regular basis. They were gushing with praise for God and could not suppress their animation and joy. It seemed contagious and indeed their numbers were quickly mushrooming. They were eager to enter the temple and though he wasn't sure what they were doing in there, reports began to leak out of “temple incidents” and complaints of “disturbing the peace”. The Pharisees and other hardliners seemed to be even more ill-tempered than usual. Something new was definitely underway again challenging the status quo. But the lame man could hardly afford to allow his hopes to rise again. They had been disappointed and dashed so many times before and he felt he could not emotionally survive another crushing disappointment. Better to just keep his head down and accept his fate and let the world pass on with whatever it wanted to do without him.

(click here for scene 5)

(click here for lessons from the Gatesitter)

Gatesitter Scene 3

(click here for scene 2)

As far as blessing goes, the lame man had never experienced the impartation of blessing so important to every man received at a Bar-Mitzvah. His father was not really proud of him like other fathers – after all, he was deformed. So he was not seated on a chair and lifted up and honored before all to see by his father as a special and important son. His heart was as crippled as his legs, even from birth. For when his parents saw his crippled legs at birth their anguish and feelings of repulsion began the life-long damage to his soul. Peter and John had only very recently experienced their own full “release” into manhood, not through an earthly Bar-Mitzvah ceremony but through the baptism of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. This powerful experience that had transformed them along with 118 others had really been the very first Bar-Barakah, which means “son of the blessing”. They were now overflowing with blessing, the very identity and presence of Jesus, the Son of God, living full force inside of them. Everything else was of little importance to them now. Money was valueless except as a tool to bless their rapidly growing “family”. Their primary currency now was praise for God. Their primary mode of relationship was transparent unity and openness with every person in their new family. Their primary emotion was joy – intense gladness to share life together with every believer in Jesus. They had become high-volume receivers of God's blessing and were wide open to dispensing His blessings as they were received. They let Jesus be in charge of who to add to their family, for only Jesus could know what hearts were ready and safe to bring into His body. Peter and John were simply living in joy, celebrating the goodness of God, and staying constantly tuned to their born-again spirit to know who God wanted them to invite into the family next. When they laid eyes on the lame man they saw far more than a crippled man that could use healing so he could walk like everyone else. The Spirit notified them that this man was starved in his spirit and was ripe to invite. Peter and John were together in fellowship and joy. This man was alone most of the time except for the friends who carried him around. But these friends had never carried him to Jesus like the friends of the paralytic had done. This man was ripe for a new identity as well as a new body. This man would become Exhibit A in the case for Jesus' reputation.

(click here for scene 4)

Gatesitter Scene 2

(click here for Scene 1)

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, "Look at us." (Acts 3:1-4 NRSV) This man was doing what he usually did; looking for potential donors with enough sympathy to respond to his obvious needs and give him money. This is what he did day in and day out. He may have been returning after the heat of the day just in time for the “rush” when people would be entering the temple for the traditional time of afternoon prayers. Before he had even gotten settled into his usual place he spotted Peter and John with faces different from most people he was used to seeing. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to tag anyone with this much potential he hit them up for a hand-out. The response that he received was not exactly what he was expecting, but got his attention more than his typical interaction with passer-bys. Instead of dropping a few coins into his cup to quiet their conscience and hurrying along to avoid further contact, Peter and John stopped in their tracks and insisted on a full face, deliberate interaction. They refused to settle for a hurried, impersonal excuse to avoid one whom most people preferred to ignore. They “looked intently” at him and requested his undivided attention before offering him something much better than what he was looking for. In effect they were saying, “Look at us! Allow your mind to focus on the present with all of its pain and disappointment. But also focus outside yourself for hope and contrast. Give us the gift of your undivided attention and you will prepare yourself to receive the gift of the very presence and power of Jesus. “We have this gift within us. It is the most valuable possession on earth and we are eager to give it to you. This gift is the blessing of your identity that Jesus wants to give you. It is much more than healing your legs as valuable as that may be; it is making you full, rich in confidence and joy, satisfied in your soul. And His presence will cause you to realize the fulfillment of all the deepest longings God has planted inside of you.” And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God; (Acts 3:7-9 NAS95) Peter and John physically engaged with him with gusto and with joy. It says the seized him by his right hand. Maybe he had timidly, fearfully held out his hand to them hoping to receive some pittance of money. But in a sudden gesture of hope and with anticipation on their faces, together they seized his hand and pulled hard on him raising him not only onto his feet but out of darkness and despair into delirious joy and freedom. His body was immediately healed to match the healing of his soul and he was now empowered to become a witness along with them of God's amazing grace, goodness and power. What is recorded next is very interesting and significant. First of all he entered the temple with Peter and John, something he had never before been able or allowed to do even though he was a Jew. Because of his lameness he was barred from entering the temple courts and participating in the worship of his people's God. But now, with wild abandon and undignified expressions of wild joy he entered the temple “walking and leaping and praising God,” something you would likely not find anyone else doing in this solemn place. In fact, it was so out of place that it is interesting to note that the people could only observe him “walking and praising God”, not leaping. This was so far beyond acceptable behavior they could not even bring themselves to admit that it was really happening right in front of them. “...and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.” (Acts 3:10) People were trying to label him with his old identity. They were filled with wonder and amazement not only at his physical healing but that it was even possible for someone to receive such a radical new identity after so many years of his previous depressed, hopeless identity. No wonder he was clinging to Peter and John. He was under tremendous pressure to discount his new identity received from the blessing he had just experienced. He felt a great need to stay very close to those who understood their own new identities until he was stabilized enough in his own experience. He was an infant in need of nurture and protection from those who had just assisted in his new birth.

(click here for scene 3)

Faith and Words

We are always exercising faith. Faith is our contribution to the reality created in our lives. But faith is mixed with words to create results. The real issue is, what words do we choose to mix faith with. If we vocalize negative thoughts, hopeless feelings, and suggestions of the enemy about God, we inject our faith into those concepts and they become our reality. If we do this long enough we will find ourselves in permanent belief in the lies about God and will experience what we think to be God's wrath when in fact He only is pouring His love and passion on us. This is the condition of all those in hell. They will experience the outcome of their faith placed in the words of the head dispenser of death. On the other hand we must inject our faith into the words of God if we want to experience His life and power. It is not enough to immerse ourselves in religious culture and jargon and activities. We have to choose to repent of our faith in the Devil's word and choose to mingle faith with God's word both about ourselves and about Himself. We are always placing faith in someone and their word. The condition of our spiritual life is the sure-fire indicator of what we are placing faith in.

Inductive sand

Sometimes inductive Bible study is like digging a hole deep into sand. The deeper you dig the more sand of God's Word pours into the cavity. But then I notice that as connections and links are connected from all over the Word to this passage, that it is also mixed with the dry cement from my own soul. Then when the water of Life is stirred into the mix by the Holy Spirit it can harden into solid foundation that is reliable for me to build on.

Ministry Frustrations

In trying to minister and encourage my children and other people, I have felt for a long time that my own personal failure to grow and heal in key personal relationships are a major block in effectiveness for others. I have pondered why this is for years. On the surface it seems almost arbitrary, like God is blocking or withholding breakthroughs for others through my ministry to them as leverage to force me to face my own issues first. But then it seems I am always stymied for one reason or another from resolving these problems or even being able to identify them very well.

I feel very much crippled in a work that God seems to be asking us to enter. There now seems to be emerging in my mind a more plausible explanation of this handicap. Maybe my heart can't really believe God can heal and release others from roots that I have not personally been freed from. Maybe I would be jealous and angry if God healed someone else in front of me with a powerful experience of grace that I want for myself. Maybe it involves principles of maturity. After all, one cannot efficiently minister to or mentor another person who is moving into a greater maturity level than the level of the one trying to help them. That one simply doesn't have the knowledge from personal experience and the natural intuition that is learned from entering that realm himself.

We cannot offer grace that we have not received into our own heart. We can only talk about it and point to others who have experienced it. This becomes a major handicap in ministry to others when I am nearly at the same level of maturity or need as my children or others who desire help.

I feel more and more like the cripple at the gate yearning for complete freedom inside and out to not only have the physical ability but the emotional and spiritual abandon to celebrate life and God's goodness. When that freedom arrives in me, many will be amazed and run together to discover for themselves what great power can so transform my identity from a begging, depressed cripple to a leaping, enthusiastic cheerleader for God's goodness and greatness.

Lord Jesus, come!

Fruit and Seeds

Eve was attracted by fruit. We are fruit producers either by spirit or flesh. We can be an attraction for God by offering healthy spirit fruit for others to consume as well as using seeds to plant. Or we can attract attention to ourselves by offering from our flesh “good” fruit that looks like “life” fruit. If fruit is received from the Spirit of God it produces life from God, imparting life to others. If fruit is self-produced, whether good or evil, it ends in sucking away life.

If those receiving ministry from us are not receiving infusions of God's kind of life, then we are offering second-hand fruit that originated in us instead of being passed through us from the Spirit.

Fruit that is produced in us by the Spirit is valid for us and meant to attract others to God, the source. But when they taste our fruit we must be careful to give them seed directly from the Source and not from our own fruit. For fruit grown in our flesh, even if it was planted by the Spirit and is Spirit fruit, that fruit bears seeds of the flesh if used to plant in someone else's soul. The fruit can be received by others as tasty nourishment and enjoyment but we must not have them use our seed to grow their crop. We must hook them up with the original Supplier for truly life-imparting seeds.

Our fruit must be available to be consumed by others for nourishment, however. We are made broken bread and crushed grapes to produce sweet juice to attract others to enter into the fellowship of the believers.

When we offer solutions to people's problems, we offer them our “good” fruit. It may be fruit that was grown from valid Spirit seed, but it is now common, flesh seed. These solutions and advice sound right, logical and even spiritual, but they are still flesh righteousness. We can let people examine and taste our fruit and draw encouragement and temporary strength from it. But we must share with them how we came about to having this fruit, how Jesus is the seed in us that produces fruit. Then we must help them learn how to receive the Seed of God into their own ground and encourage its growth while protecting their hearts.

Let us plant the seeds from God with our mouths and share fertilizer with our hearts.

Virus Definition Source

(for context see previous post)

The flesh/law arrangement worked well until sin compromised its integrity. But the label and identity still remains. Our minds still think the Law of God originally written into our flesh is a reliable source of information about what is right. But what changed in the Garden of Eden was a substitution of Good vs. Evil instead of the correct view of Life vs. Death. It looked like a valid change because on the surface it looks almost identical. But the Good vs. Evil paradigm masks the real result of that thinking – they both end up in death. And when we use the Good/Evil virus definitions they do not catch all the hidden lies slipped through the flesh under pretense of valid LAW. That is why the LAW of God written in our flesh originally intended as a valid guidance system is no longer reliable. God had to add other resources that it is imperative for us to use if we are to have righteous output from our lives.

We need God's written Word as an objective source of virus definitions and we need our sync cable connected through our spirit to God's Spirit to correctly understand and appropriately apply the Word to the rest of the data and programs in our soul. If we plug our sync cable into the LAW socket in our flesh, Satan will feed us false sync signals that will distort the Word and misapply it while appearing to be completely reliable and true. This is left-brain religion and is very dominant in legalism.

(Romans 8:4) When we walk according to the spirit – our sync cable connected to the spirit/Spirit – we will observe that our output will satisfy the strict demands of the LAW/guidance system that we can still see written in our flesh. But it has to be observed, not attempted. Romans 8 is all about cause and effect. Where we plug in will determine whether we use the Good/Evil paradigm or the Life/Death paradigm. It will also decide the quality and reliability of the power we run on.

Our Spiritual Computer

Computers are created in our image so they reflect how we function and think as humans. Our soul is our CPU where everything is collected, checked for validity, processed and then sent out for expression physically and through our spirit transmitter which creates an atmosphere like a magnetic field around us. Our will chooses where to plug in our power/sync cable set, either into the flesh or the spirit. It also chooses where to plug in the spiritual data receiver equipment.

We have an anti-virus program that is designed to analyze and compare the incoming five-senses data with the Spirit-cable linked to the Bible using the sync cable as a live source of virus definitions. The information emerging from the anti-virus program is then released to the CPU and motherboard for processing. The mind (left brain), emotions (right brain), heart and will feed the outputs for display and transmission to be broadcast to others. We express not only “five senses” output for those around us but transmit invisible spirit waves that are transparently accurate.

If the sync cable is plugged into the spirit and the spirit has received the retrofit heavenly synchronization power pack (new birth) paid for at Calvary, then the virus program will have a safe and reliable source of virus definitions to check all data and programs received both from the Bible and all other sources including all sensory data from the flesh. It will filter out misleading data and .exe files fed through our flesh designed to deceive our minds or hijack our hearts from the Law of Sin source hiding within our flesh.

God's law was originally written into our flesh as an accurate guidance system data resource library. Satan proposed that beings could use this resource as a power supply as well which resulted in self-dependence and separation from God. Satan promised to supply our power himself. What actually happened is that when we disconnected from the live power supply of God we began draining our backup batteries and the batteries of all others we depend on, including Satan. Eventually this source of power will run out of power and everyone depending on this system will be unfitted to live plugged in to the live power supply that will be much stronger than what anyone experiences now. And that, my friends, will then be the actual experience and torture of hell.

Laws Inside Us

I have been pondering the three laws in Romans 7 and 8 – SPIRIT/MIND/SIN AND DEATH. I have been wondering how we were originally designed before the fall compared to now.

Was God's law originally the law of the mind? Maybe the fall into sin stripped the heart out of it and just left the letter of the law, the outline, an empty shell that we felt compelled to obey so we could feel satisfied and whole again.

Or maybe God's law used to be what is now called the law of the flesh. However that part was commandeered by Satan and still purports to work for our best interest while always sabotaging us.

The soul is the vehicle for processing and expression but has no internal power to do so. It is dependent on an outside source of power to fuel it. There are two available sources of power, the flesh and the spirit. Was this arrangement in place before the fall?

Before sin the “flesh” was nourished by the fruits in the Garden of Eden as well as the Tree of Life. Did the Tree of Life synchronize the spirit and the flesh? With God's Spirit?

I believe THE LAW (Rom 8:3,4a) was originally encoded into what is now called our flesh. It originally gave the soul perfect guidance as to how to be satisfied and at peace. It was God's perfect will encoded into our guidance system. But did it originally have power to supply to the mind and soul or was it just designed to be a perfect guidance system? Was the spirit always intended to be the sole source of power? Was the deception in Eden a lie that we could use the encoded, internal guidance system as an alternate source of power thereby bypassing the function of the spirit part of us?

Satan proposed to supply power in reverse to how we were designed. THE LAW, the desire to be satisfied, to thrive, to grow was misidentified as our source of energy instead of our library.

Now what is called the flesh is attempting to be a power supply, with Satan's power hidden underneath it, to fuel our soul. This, on the surface, appears to be self-dependent power but actually is depending on Satan for power. This is the deceptive way he gets us to worship him, for worship is simply an admiration and appreciation for “whatever turns our crank”.

(7:11,12) Sin – dependence on a false source of power – took up residence inside the LAW part of our mind that held our encoded guidance system. The LAW did not disappear from our minds. It still has its original function to guide us to peace and perfection, but it is now untrustworthy as a source of power. And the solutions produced by the LAW, or passed to our mind through the storefront of the LAW, are always misleading, though the code of the LAW is still technically correct.

(8:5,6) “Setting our minds” is a phrase that means looking to a source of power. The LAW encoded into us was never intended to be a source of power, the Spirit was to be our power source. When we look to the flesh and LAW for power to fulfill the LAW we try to operate the system backwards and have hostility toward God as well as how we were designed to function (8:7)

Our spirit is the real power cord that is properly configured to be plugged into the heavenly socket which is the Holy Spirit. His Spirit connects with our spirit to supply power and synchronize us with God's heart, will, emotions and mind.

(8:3) The LAW was weak through the flesh – the guidance system had good ideas for the end results of being God-like, but since the fall it has either lost its power to perform or it is attempting to be the power it was never intended to be.

Jesus condemned SIN in the flesh, not the flesh itself. Whatever He did He empowered some arrangement whereby the desires/demands of the LAW could now be realized in us, be fulfilled in us. It does not say that we would be empowered to obey of ourselves or that the LAW would have power to obey in us. Our soul – emotions, mind, will – is not the power center; it is the processing center. The LAW written in the flesh and now deceived and usurped by sin, is also not to be a power source.

The very idea of deriving power to obey the LAW from either of these two sources is the root deception foisted on us by sin via way of the addendums now added to the LAW written in our flesh.

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.