Without an Intercessor - 4

The only reason we will ever be without an intercessor is because there is no longer any need for intercession. That point in time will occur when every person has made a final decision about the relationship offered them by God and when that relationship has been sealed or rejected. If they choose to reject God's offer to transform their heart in covenant bonds with Him, they are sealed in the service of Satan. Then there is no longer any need or use for an intercessor, for there is no one to intercede with any longer, no one left to enter into a relationship different than the one they have chosen.

Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the LORD saw, And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, And was astonished that there was no one to intercede; Then His own arm brought salvation to Him, And His righteousness upheld Him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle. (Isaiah 59:15-17)

As long as there are individuals who have not finalized their choice of which master to render their loyalty and service to, Jesus will continue to intercede with them, seeking to draw them in by any means possible to the side of truth and loyalty to the God of heaven. But there does come a time when people have so hardened their hearts that it is no longer possible whatsoever for them to change their minds. At this point they have destroyed their capacity and ability to choose differently by repeated rejections of the voice of the Holy Spirit. At this time God respects that choice by letting them have the consequences of their own persistent demands. He gives them over – which is the Bible's definition of the wrath of God. (Romans 2:24, 26, 28)

As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me. (Jeremiah 7:16-18)

When an intercessor pleads for God to show mercy to those who have completely rejected His mercy, that is an attempt to get God to reverse His decision to respect their final choice in regards to His offers of mercy and grace. There is no point in God continuing to offer mercy and forgiveness to those who have destroyed all their ability to accept it. The only thing left is to release them to their choices.

Some are confused when they read that everyone will bow in willing worship before God. They assume that because everyone will worship that must mean they will be saved as well. But the two are not the same thing.

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

At the same time, many take this to believe that because every knee will bow that God will resort to the use of force in the end to get unrepentant sinners to worship Him. But that is equally false because it pictures God as one willing to stoop to the methods of His arch-enemy to accomplish securing worship for Himself. This idea is reflective of the spirit of Satan, not that of our wise, loving heavenly Father. This is something that many of us think is only logical because we cannot perceive of any other way that this could be accomplished. But our own ignorance should not be the basis for our beliefs about God's character.

God values freedom more than anything else. This is because true love can only thrive in an atmosphere free of all coercion. So it simply would be illogical and counter-productive for God to resort to removing people's freedom in order to secure worship for Himself. That is a demonstration of selfishness, not the Spirit of selfless love and compassion that marks the acts of God. It is crucial that we clear away the clouds of deception and lies that still fog our vision so that we can see the real truth about the way God relates to sinners. When that begins to take place it will become much easier for us to perceive the real truth and the motivation that will finally cause everyone, both saved and lost alike, to bow before God in willing worship and acquiescence without any coercion whatsoever.

But while all will be in full agreement that God is absolutely fair in every respect and that He is just in the way He has chosen to resolve the problems that sin brought into the universe, it does not follow that all will then be ready to surrender to His authority or be able to thrive in His presence. In fact, ironically it is their very act of willing worship and recognition of His total lack of coercion that plunges the lost into the emotional agonies described as the fires of hell. For to stand in the presence of anyone who loves you so purely and passionately and has endured your rejection of their advances without the slightest trace of evil or resentment or hostility is to self-induce an emotional torment that is on a scale equal with or more intense than the worst possible torture anyone could inflict on you from the outside. This is the true condition that creates the torments of hell.

He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. (Revelation 3:5)

Jesus is currently our intercessor and friend. But that is not for the purpose of changing God's heart about us but to change our hearts about God. When we overcome the lies about God in our hearts and minds through the intercession of Jesus on His behalf, then Jesus, God and ourselves will be in perfect agreement. And the true meaning of the word confess simply means to agree.

And that is the final goal of everything the Godhead and all of heaven has been trying to achieve all throughout this long trial and controversy with Satan's rebellion. God wants to restore fully the atmosphere of full agreement without resorting to any of Satan's false techniques of force, deception or fear. God will finally win this war and He is going to be vindicated using only the truth and the methods consistent with both truth and unfailing love. It is love that is going to overcome in the end, not fear, not force, not deception.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails...

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 12-13)

Without an Intercessor - 3

I just woke up from a very strange, and at the last a very emotionally intense dream. Upon awakening I pondered the significance of this dream and began to realize that very possibly God was drawing my attention to keeping focused on His perspective about a very dicey situation in which I have been sharing counsel and prayer with a friend of mine.

The dream involved this friend, but the situation and the other people involved were altered enough from the real-life version that it did not look very familiar to me. The offended parties in my dream were different than in real life so it caught me by surprise. I think it was intended that way.

Without divulging details that should probably remain private at this point in time about the real situation, I now see that the dream was not so much a parallel to the real-life situation as it was a reminder to allow God full access to the situation even though to all human appearances it seems totally impossible to bring about reconciliation at this point. For at the end of my very strange dream, I suddenly watched God reach into the heart of a very hardened person and draw out of them a confession of His ability to turn their heart back toward their wife that they had rejected for so long.

In my dream I was standing in the next room listening to this amazing confession and see resolution to a problem that I had been trying to work out in a much less satisfactory way that was full of compromise and potential future problems. It suddenly struck me that God's ways of resolving problems was so far superior to anything I can ever come up with that I needed to trust Him implicitly instead of trying to arrange things myself on His behalf. As the amazement overwhelmed me in my dream I began to feel an intense emotion welling up inside of me. As my wife slowly walked into the room where I was standing I just wanted to cry though I found it very difficult to do so for some reason.

But the emotion was so intense in my dream that, as is usually the case in a dream of intense emotions, I woke up and then began to try to figure out what in the world it must mean. The circumstances were so bizarre in my dream that it would make no sense at all in real life which made it very difficult to figure out at first. But then I began to sense as I prayed about it that it was not the details in the dream that were the answer but the understanding that God's solutions would be far better to trust than anything I might come up with for the nearly impossible circumstances that my friend finds himself in at this very moment. If I am to be a true intercessor, an effective friend of the Bridegroom, then I must trust His heart to bring about His desires and to listen very carefully to His Spirit as to how to cooperate with His plans instead of trying coming up with any of my own.

It is very true that God is seeking people to act in the role of friends of the Bridegroom. As I have understood the true purpose of that position over the past few years it has become very clear that this is a very exciting position to fill. Now I am beginning to see how this role is very closely blended with the idea of intercession and the true purpose and function and motives of an intercessor.

In the past two posts I have been examining some background and peripheral issues surrounding intercession as well as touching on the subject of an Investigative Judgment that many believe is happening right now. I have usually thought of this from the perspective of fear which is almost always how it has been couched by those promoting it. But the more I am shedding my context of fear in coming to know the truth about God, the more things like this begin to take on a whole different perspective and understanding. When fear is taken out of the picture then it becomes so much easier to begin to see things differently under the light of real truth. Many things can be brought to view and exciting insights begin to explode everywhere when reality is perceived in the light of a God of pure, unconditional love.

Because I have been spending a lot of time the past few weeks filling my mind with real truth about God by taking every opportunity I have to listen to speakers who have a clear perspective of the gospel much better than mine, I have been feeling a transformation taking place more quickly at my own heart level. I am sometimes amazed at how backward my own heart still is in its opinions about God compared to all the wonderful information my intellect has been exposed to over the past few years. But I also notice that the more I saturate the atmosphere of my soul with the real truth about God the easier it is for the lies about God to begin to float to the surface and be exposed for what they really are. This process is crucial for me if I am to become an effective channel of grace to attract others to want to know God more intimately.

What I am beginning to realize is that I am in training to become an intercessor for God just as Jesus is. A number of years ago it started to become evident to me that the ministry of intercession on the part of Jesus was radically different than what it had been represented to me most of my life. I had always assumed that Jesus was trying to change God's mind about me so that I could go to heaven. But now I am seeing that that kind of thinking is riddled full of all sorts of false assumptions about God, about Jesus and even about myself and my relationship with Him.

As I pointed out last time, since Jesus and the Father are very clearly on the same page in their feelings about me, there is no need for Jesus to try to change anything about God in order to save me. That would be totally superfluous. It is never God's mind that needs changing in any way as I had always thought, it is my mind and heart and opinions about God that need radical updating if I am ever to be reconciled and be able to enjoy His company for eternity. It is the myriads of lies in my own thinking about how God feels towards me that must be exposed as false and let go of if I am ever to be prepared to encounter the immense power and intensity of God's pure, passionate love and to be able to thrive in that fiery presence.

So it becomes crystal clear in this context that any interceding that may be going on between God the Father and us has to be focused entirely on altering our opinions about God, never on changing God's opinions about us in spite of all the religious talk to the contrary. God is not angry at sinners and in need of calming down, sinners are angry and hateful toward God because of their misconceptions about Him that Satan has implanted and reinforces in all the human race. It is us that needs to have our hearts cleansed from the many lies and misconceptions about God before we will be able to receive and embrace His grace and live safely in His presence.

Many parts of this puzzle have been coming together for me for many years now. My new and radically updated understanding of hell and the fire of God was a massive shift for me in freeing me to be able to love God from the heart for the first time in my life. But there are still many more lies about God that keep surfacing all the time and that need exposure and replacement with real truth. My induced fears about the judgment and my confusion about the purpose of Jesus' intercession have also been sources of confusion over the years keeping me from being more fully reconciled with God.

Some of the clearest texts concerning the intercessory role of Jesus are found in Isaiah. This is highly symbolic language and is very easily misunderstood if one does not have a corrected picture of God and His passion. But when it is viewed from a proper perspective it contains very amazing insights about the true role of an intercessor.

Yes, truth is lacking; and he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede; then His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him. (Isaiah 59:15-16)

I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their juice spattered on my garments, and stained all my robes. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year for my redeeming work had come. I looked, but there was no helper; I stared, but there was no one to sustain me; so my own arm brought me victory, and my wrath sustained me. (Isaiah 63:3-5 NRSV)

What I see clearly in these verses is that God was appalled that there was no one to be found anywhere that would be able to effectively stand up and defend His reputation. So He sent His son to reveal to the whole universe the real truth about God by living and dying as a human. The whole purpose of Jesus coming to live life as a human and to suffer the wrath of humans and demons alike while they tortured and killed Him and covered him with blood was to expose the real truth about the passion of God's love that we so often mistake for anger. But I have learned that when the Bible refers to the wrath of God it is almost always referring to the concept of passion itself which does not necessarily equate with the kind of wrath or hateful anger that we always suppose it does. It is far too easy to project our perspective of wrath onto God instead of seeking to grasp the real truth about God's passionate love for us.

These verses make it very clear that Jesus came to take things into His own hands as far as changing minds and hearts about the real truth about God. Since no one else could stand up for Him and no one was even willing to stand with Him during this process, He had to do it all alone. This became very evident during the events that transpired during the last hours of His life before He was killed on the cross. Not even His closest disciples took the time or effort to pray alongside Him for even one hour while He was in His greatest distress. He had to take on the job all alone.

But far from coming to suffer the punishments from an angry God up in heaven, Jesus came to reveal the passionate love that fills the heart of our Father in heaven by contrasting it with the effects that sin has wrought in our own psyche. When real love appeared on earth in the form of a man it was immediately met with resistance, fear and animosity on every hand. It finally came to the grand climax of a fatal collision between the lies about God contained in the hearts of all humanity and the truth about God as revealed in the life and willing death of the Son of God. Jesus has always been in the role of seeking to change our minds and hearts and opinions about how God feels towards us and His true character. This is the core of what Jesus continually referred to when He repeatedly asked people to believe all throughout His life on earth.

Over the past month or so I have been privileged to be used by God to “intercede” on His behalf to someone who had all their life been under the delusions of the enemy about Him and has been very openly hostile toward God and anything to do with Him. Because of a great emotional crisis in his life he has decided to take a new look at what might be true about God as I have shared with him what I have been learning about God myself. As I have shared the real truth about God and prayed with this person, I have been thrilled to see him open up and entertain new ideas and feelings toward God that few would have imagined even possible before.

As I have been used by the Spirit to influence this man's opinions about God and have watched God work in his life and heart, I am reminded frequently that it is not my responsibility to fix his problems but is completely God's responsibility. My role is to keep sharing with him the real truth about God in ways that are relevant to his situation and to encourage him to rethink the antagonism that he has held due to his misconceptions about God from his past.

Last night I received a phone call from him relating to me a terribly devastating turn of events in his situation which could potentially threaten to undo all the progress that he has made in his thinking. At least that was the temptation that I was faced with as I heard what was happening. But I was reminded again that this is not my problem and that I have no business taking on his burden for myself or trying to fix his situation with my ideas. I have simply been sharing with him whatever the Spirit has prompted me to do and I can relax and rest in the knowledge that God is still the same and nothing has changed at all in reality. I am learning more about what it really means to be an intercessor for God.

Intercession is for the purpose of reconciliation, whether it is in a marriage, between friends or with God Himself. This is accomplished by seeking to expose the lies and false assumptions about one party held by another and replacing those lies with truth, especially when it comes to God. To do this effectively the interceder must maintain a correct understanding of the character and feelings of the one on who's behalf they are interceding. If they allow themselves to become entangled in the triangle improperly, if they allow their own viewpoints or emotions to distract them from focusing full attention on keeping a proper perspective and communication with the one whom they are representing, their effectiveness can quickly be diminished.

This means that I must have a great deal of trust in the one in who's behalf I am interceding. I have to have total and implicit faith that God is going to be consistently and intensely interested in the reconciliation and that He is always going to prove faithful to being the way that I am representing Him to be to the other person with whom I am interceding. In fact, I myself have to be very in tune with the feelings and desires of the One I am trying to represent so that I become an accurate reflection of His heart to attract others to change their minds about my Friend.

But again, I remind myself that I must let go of all self interest if I am to be a successful intercessor. If there is anything else expected from this process for me besides joy in seeing the other two parties reconciled and united in hearts with each other, then there is a seed of betrayal present that will sooner or later spring up and cause great complications. The heart of the intercessor must be fiercely loyal to the one on who's behalf we are interceding if we are to be a true “friend of the bridegroom”.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 NRSV)

Father, I choose to be reconciled to you because of the intercession of Jesus to change my mind and heart about what you are really like. I cannot change my own heart but I trust you to do that within me as the real truth about you soaks in deeper and deeper. I also praise you and thank you for using me to be a co-intercessor with Jesus in seeking to change other people's false opinions and feelings about you. I ask that you fill me with your Spirit so that I can experience the joy of watching others be reconciled with you and with each other. This is the joy that John the Baptist shared as he watched others become more attracted to Jesus than to himself. Fill me with the spirit of a true and loyal friend of the Bridegroom like John was. Teach me and mentor me in this ministry of reconciliation for your name's sake.

Without an Intercessor - 2

Is Jesus interceding on our behalf to the Father doing everything possible to convince Him to love us enough to save us? ...to forgive us? ...to avert punishments for us?

Is there an Investigative Judgment going on right now in which every detail of our lives come up before some sort of heavenly Grand Jury or maybe before the Father in order to figure out if we are good enough to be allowed into heaven? Wouldn't this tend to imply that God is somehow not all-knowing? Does He really have to conduct an investigation to figure out what I am really like? Or is this for the purpose of convincing someone else?

If these things are really true or even partially true, then what role does Jesus have in this process? Is He trying to manipulate the facts to make me look better than I really am to get my name on the right list? Does Jesus love me more than the Father does?

These kinds of honest and disturbing questions have caused thousands of people to reject all notion of the existence of an Investigative Judgment taking place at all. But does our confusion and misunderstandings about the nature of such a potential activity give us enough reason to reject it outright? Or is it our skewed pictures of God and our mistaken applications of revealed facts from the wrong spirit the real problem that needs to be corrected instead of throwing out the whole concept of such a judgment process?

We need to keep in mind that just because we don't like the sounds of certain ideas, that does not qualify us to pass judgment ourselves or allow us to determine what should be true or false. It is far too easy to begin to form a picture of God into our own image instead of seeking to know more clearly the real truths about reality as God designed it to start with. As soon as we begin moving down the road of formulating religion based on our preferences or preconceptions, we have inverted our proper relationship with God and are trying to create religion on our own. But it is important to understand that this can happen just as easily with conservatives as it can with liberals.

I believe that it is important to grapple with truth and not be afraid to continually reexamine our assumptions. In fact, I think it is much more than just important – it is vital to having an honest relationship with the God of all truth. It is only from a position of humility and willingness to admit that our most cherished doctrines may be in need of re-visitation at times that we will be capable of embracing extended truths as God brings them within our reach. I know of many who feel very threatened by new ideas or challenges to their assumptions and take such a defensive stance that not even God can break through their stubbornness. But instead of becoming “rooted and grounded” in real truth as they suppose they are doing, they are simply becoming stuck in truth as it has been perceived at a certain point in time while refusing to move along with the ever transforming revelations of truth as God designed we should.

When we become entrenched in a certain philosophy of what we insist is truth and refuse to see it in any new ways, we then turn facts and assumptions into traditions and become cemented in our opinions instead of being willing to grow up into the full measure of Christ. Christianity is made up of many just such demonstrations of this mentality. It is so easy to become inflexible in our opinions about truth and turn them into traditions instead of taking steps beyond our comfort zones to a deeper understanding of the truth about reality. But this is primarily due to the fear that fills our minds.

We are far too dependent on fear to protect us from being deceived. There certainly is a great danger from deception for we live in a world filled with the atmosphere of deadly deceptions produced by the myriad lies of Satan. But depending on fear to keep us from deceptions is a deception itself. God never instructed us to depend on fear to help us come to a greater knowledge of truth. This is a very dangerous assumption on our part but is very pervasive in our thinking. But the Bible very clearly declares that love and fear are exclusive opposites. And since God is love, then to live dependent on fear to keep us in truth or even guide us to truth becomes an oxymoron.

The reason I bring this up is because this teaching of an Investigative Judgment as well as common teachings about the intercession of Jesus for us has been intensely shrouded with an atmosphere of fear for most people. And because this fear itself is seldom identified as the real root of our problems in understanding these things, it has been allowed to remain in place which in turn has distorted very seriously our ability to comprehend the real purpose and nature of Christ's intercession. Until this fear itself is addressed and exposed for the fraud that it really is, we will not be able to have our eyes opened sufficiently to perceive the real purpose and role of Jesus' intercession for us.

As I pointed out last time, some very fundamental beliefs must be set into place as a foundation if we are to approach these subjects in a clearer way and see their true beauty and importance for us. One of those foundational truths is that Jesus and the Father are one in spirit, opinion and perspective towards us. Therefore, anything that in any way attempts to undermine that clear fact must immediately become suspect and be challenged vigorously.

As a result, if this fact is viewed as foundational, then any notion or activity assumed to be taking place where Jesus needs to change God's mind about anything becomes a mute point. Jesus cannot be in the business of changing God's mind if the mind of God is already perfectly in harmony with each member of the Godhead which includes Jesus. But as soon as this truth is embraced it creates serious problems about many other assumptions that have gone unchallenged in our typical notions about an Investigative Judgment as well as the role of Jesus in dying for us on the cross. For it is not only those who are trying to defend the idea of an Investigative Judgment that need to rethink their assumptions but nearly all Christians have to reexamine their popular ideas of Jesus dying in our place to protect us from an angry God eager to punish those who have sinned.

These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. (John 16:25-27)

Without an Intercessor - 1

So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:31-33)

For a number of years now I have been revising my thinking about the role of Jesus as our intercessor. There is a statement that has been the source of deep terror for many people that states that there is coming a time when we must live without an intercessor before the Father. And this is to take place before the Second Coming of Jesus.

This statement has been one of the most solid foundation blocks of those who insist on the doctrine and philosophy of perfectionism. I grew up in this ideology and this perception of religion was a deep source of fear and apprehension for me for many years. It fueled my terror of the last day events which were often dwelt upon by others for that very purpose. It was assumed by many that dwelling on this kind of fearful foreboding of the future would inspire enough terror in the heart to cause people to let go of all the sins in their lives and thus achieve absolute perfection somehow so that they would not be lost when Jesus comes.

This belief system is all too alive and well right now in various forms and its proponents are becoming even more vocal and strident in their broadcasting of this false gospel. The reason that I call this a false gospel is because the very word “gospel” literally means good news. But in all the years that I lived under this illusion of believing that it was my job to perfect myself in order to please God and get into heaven, I could never figure out what part of this ideology was supposed to be good news. Everywhere I turned and everything I heard sounded like warnings and fear and terror, not good news that would make me feel excited or even loving toward God as I was supposed to feel.

Over the past few years it has become very plain to me that nearly every aspect of these kinds of teachings are fraught with subtle but dangerous assumptions and paradigms that lend them ineffective for changing the heart in the way that needs to happen to prepare us to live in the presence of God. I could spend a great deal of time covering each item of this that is mistaken, but the most blatant and damaging part of it all is that it is based fundamentally on fear itself as the primary motivation for serving God. To suggest that somehow love was supposed to emerge from this miasma of confused thinking about God only added to my frustration, but that was also supposed to be somewhere there in the mix as well. That too confused me deeply as I was keenly aware of my inability to really love God while at the same time being increasingly terrified of the consequences of not doing so perfectly – and from the heart no less.

But I still believe that the basic facts buried underneath all these false teachings based on fear are still valid. Just because legalists and extremists and even liberals have hijacked and misappropriated nearly every religious word and phrase does not mean that they are no longer applicable for our lives. It simply means that we need the presence of the Holy Spirit and humility and patience to begin to untangle all the lies and fears that have blinded us for so long and we need to begin to discern the amazing beauty of real truth buried deep under the rubbish of false perceptions of God that fill our imaginations.

I have spent enough years now having my lies unlocked, exposed and slowly replaced with valid truth that I feel I am entering a new phase of life, a very exciting and energizing phase where I can begin to experience the strength of the joy of the Lord. As the truth about God becomes more and more clear to my heart I come into more awe and can feel genuine responses of spontaneous love emerging from my heart and emotions, something that was unimaginable only a few years ago.

There are still many pockets of residual misconceptions that keep emerging in my thinking that I need to address each time they show up. But I do not do this in a spirit of hostility as I have sensed in many people who have left my church and become deeply embittered against everything they formerly believed. I find that spirit to be just as dangerous and lethal to my relationship with God as the legalism from which I am slowly emerging. I have to guard myself from much exposure to either kind of thinking and keep my imagination focused on the real truth about God that He has been revealing to me over the past few years and continues to do daily. But as this increasing light exposes yet more of my pain and confusion embedded from false teachings and assumptions about Him, I am eager to have Him show me the real truth about the original basic facts that remain unaffected by the false assumptions and teachings that so long darkened my understanding about their implications.

I still strongly believe that there are urgent warnings that need to be heeded in preparing us to meet our God. The fanatics on the one hand try to frighten us with dark views of a God waiting and eager to punish all who fail to measure up to certain performance standards. The extremists on the other side of the fence usually push people to think that God is so loving and fickle and full of so-called grace that all we have to do is immerse ourselves in a feel-good religion and say some “magic” words in a sinners prayer and “accept Jesus into our heart” (whatever that happens to mean) and we have nothing more to be concerned about.

But what I am starting to see more clearly in this issue of living with or without an intercessor is not so much fear or cheap grace either one; what I am now seeing is the reality of the fundamental purpose and function of the intercession of Jesus in the first place. And as I perceive the true nature of intercession itself I find it is one of those areas that is very liberating for my heart.

My new and growing awareness about the immense danger of God's passionate love for us precludes me from believing in such dangerous philosophies as proposed by many protestants even as the legalism of my past was equally dangerous. It will be fatal to believe that we can be safe in the day of judgment (full revelation of God's power and passion) while failing to have our hearts in perfect synchronization with the pure and unselfish love of the Father. But this is precisely where both sides of the debate fail miserably. They both fail to comprehend in the slightest both the real truth about love and the real feelings that God has for us. They do not perceive the enormous potential of both life and death in the presence of unspeakable glory and power because of the lies that skew their perceptions of the real attitude and passion of God, and particularly on the part of the Father.

Because of the many misunderstandings and false teachings about God from both sides of the isle, it is nearly impossible to approach the subject of intercession and carry on an intelligent, useful conversation about the subject without first addressing the many false beliefs about God that drive the agendas of those involved. But once the fog begins to clear away to some degree about God's real attitude and disposition towards His children, then real progress can start to be made in understanding the true purpose of Jesus' work of intercession before the Father in relation to us.

I believe that the most important fact to establish before anything else about this issue can even begin to make real sense is Jesus explicit statement, "I and the Father are one." (John 10:30) Jesus made this even more clear when He was sharing the same truth with the disciples just before He died for us.

If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.... He who has seen Me has seen the Father... "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.... (John 14:7, 9-11)

This is one belief that seems to me to be irreconcilable with the assumptions underlying the fear-based teachings about Jesus as our intercessor before God. I was never able to make sense of these two ideas until my picture of the Father was radically transformed and replaced by the real truth about Him only in the past few years. Then it began to dawn on me that my confusion was rooted in my long-held concepts of God the Father as one who really didn't like me and wasn't real keen on my getting into heaven. At the same time, Jesus was supposedly working very hard to convince Him that I could be trusted to behave if He would let me in – that is, if I was able to perfect my character enough with a lot of help from God. That involved stopping all sinning and getting all past sins forgiven as well. I know it was never stated in those terms, but that was the general gist of the beliefs. This perception in one form or another with slight variations lies at the heart of most conservative Christianity today and even permeates most all other religions as well to some degree.

But this scenario becomes impossible when it is established that Jesus actually meant what He said in the above verses. If the attitude and beliefs and thinking of Jesus are exactly the same as the Father's, it simply becomes ludicrous to try to think that Jesus has to somehow change God's mind about us. That point must become very clear and must be accepted as solid truth or the discussion cannot proceed any further with any reasonable expectation of making sense. This is the foundation upon which everything else about this subject must rest if it is to bring us out of darkness.

Very closely parallel to this is the intense fear and agitation surrounding the teaching about an Investigative Judgment that is believed by many to be taking place right now in the courts of heaven. This hotly debated concept is believed to be a prerequisite before Jesus can be allowed to return to this earth and reclaim the saved who are waiting for Him. This judgment is assumed to be for the purpose of determining who is good enough to be saved and who is going to be lost. Again, the underlying assumptions and beliefs that distort every aspect of these doctrines cause confusion and fear in millions of hearts unnecessarily. But at the same time there are core truths that are usually discarded and ignored by those who vehemently oppose such teachings. Both sides are clouded in false assumptions about God that endanger their souls from being properly aligned with the Spirit of God in preparation to encounter the dangerous revelation of God's passionate love.

As I began thinking about this and praying for clearer insight, a number of texts came to my mind. I want to ponder them carefully to discover the real meanings and significance of their relevance to this subject that has tortured me for so long, but is now becoming a source of real hope for me. But since this is getting too long already I am going to leave that for another installment while I listen to what God may have to say to my heart about these things.

Rage and Healing

I woke up before 3 A.M. this morning and couldn't go back to sleep for awhile because my brain wanted to think about the events happening currently in the life of someone I care about deeply. The amount of abuse and injustice that he has been suffering for nearly a year now has taken him close to the point of death until he felt he could take it no longer. As a result he felt compelled to cave in to the demands of the corrupt judges who were instigating and promoting his physical and psychological torture just so he could continue to have some semblance of life left.

As I have watched this situation intensify over the past few months I have repeatedly struggled with feelings of anger, resentment, rage and deep desires for revenge against the evil men and even women involved in this case. But at the same time I also felt strong warnings from the Holy Spirit in my mind reminding me of the consequences of indulging in those kinds of feelings and imaginations. There have been many times that I have simply had to force myself to stop thinking about it to avoid become overcome with rage and hatred that I knew would become a source of regret and weakness for me very quickly.

Over the past two weeks the persecution has intensified for my friend. Even though he had not even so much as had a trial and had been refused opportunity to even be heard properly in a court of so-called law, he was thrown into a cell designed for the most hardened and dangerous criminals without any spare clothes. He had been stripped of even the bare necessities that he have been able to acquire through his long stay in prison and was only able to grab his Bible before they put him into solitary confinement under the highest level of security. And this is a gentle man who was not long ago voted as the teacher of the year and nominated for the national title as well. Nothing has changed about him except that he found himself the object of focus by a system so full of corruption that it feels threatened by any revelations of truth.

While held in this new oppression for the past two weeks he was harshly interrogated at length even though he was not even accused of any crimes remotely related to such treatment. He was fed through a slot in the door as if he were a dangerous wild beast and was even being deprived of many things he needed to survive physically without the outright taking of his life by execution. And all of this is taking place in this land that we call free and just.

Because of all these prolonged and deliberate intense attacks on his life by people claiming to supposedly uphold and protect the freedoms of all Americans, he finally gave in yesterday to let them have whatever they wanted in a plea bargain arrangement. He realized that there was no hope of them ever facing the truth that he has been insisting on over the past year and that all they wanted to do was to protect their cover of deception keeping the truth about their own corruption from becoming public even if it might cost the life of an innocent man.

There is much more to this story that I don't even know about myself yet – the horrors of prison life, the screaming guards who insulted him daily at times about things totally out of his control, the nutritional starvation imposed on him, the psychological abuse focused on him to force compliance with their desires. I am afraid that if I knew too much about this case that it might be too overwhelming for me emotionally at this point. I am actually very thankful that God protects all of us from knowing most of the horrors that go on all the time around the world because none of us have the capacity to survive such awareness.

But that is not to say we are to ignore abuse of authority or open cruelty whenever we become aware of it. What I have been struggling with is to know just how God wants me to relate to such revelations. And one thing that I am becoming increasingly aware of is that this is forcing me to face some of my own deep triggers that are set off each time I hear more of the details about the horrors of injustice going on. Whenever I feel that deep anger welling up inside of me I realize that my real fight is to face my own rage from that deep reservoir inside of me that has not yet been properly drained and refilled with grace and truth.

I have become more aware of this hidden cesspool of rage over the past few years. One time I saw a picture in my imagination of my heart of where this was located inside of me. I saw a scene that looked like a peaceful lake with nice grassy lawns along its shore and tall trees here and there. The water looked clean and it all looked like a good place to swim and boat and have fun and picnic with no sign of danger anywhere obvious.

But leaking up from deep beneath the floor of that lake were occasional bubbles of methane gas that would sometimes break the surface of the water and give off a foul stench into the air. I began to realize that deep under the bottom of that lake there was a giant container like a heavily reinforced concrete bunker very full of resentment, anger, rage and unresolved issues from all of my past history. Much of it was siphoned into that bunker when I was young and being filled with hostility by the abuses and dysfunction of those around me. As I grew older I learned how to manage it more effectively and thus the reinforcement around the container to keep it from coming out into the open and destroying all my relationships.

But the problem has been all along that I did not learn the importance of getting healing for all of this garbage being compressed deep inside of me. The religion that I grew up with taught me to simply repress all the feelings that didn't line up properly with the appearance-oriented religion so popular among Christians. So, like most of those around me, I learned to stuff my anger, my hurts, my pain and all the other garbage created by life and people's treatment of me into this deep hole in the ground and then trying to make stronger and stronger lids to keep it all contained. I was learning to use ever stronger garbage compactors to hide my waste and pain instead of getting rid of it properly and sending it away to the real landfill.

But just like the problem in landfills that we can see all around this country, the results of concentrating garbage into an enclosed area underground always produces dangerous and flammable gases that can become a real hazard to health and public safety. The same is true in my emotional life. What I have been learning over recent years is that anything that I have not faced and dealt with honestly and openly in my emotions has never really gone away even though I may think it has because it is no longer in sight. All these things simply accumulate deep inside to become a source of confusion, of explosive triggers that can be set off causing eruptions that come as a total surprise to everyone including myself.

The problem is even worse however. That is because, unlike physical explosives, these hidden reservoirs of ignition are not really disarmed by repeated detonations. They remain just as potent as ever to be detonated again and again and may even become more potent with time until the root causes are exposed and the embedded false beliefs are replaced with grace and truth only found in the face of Jesus and the real truth about God.

Though I have learned these things in principle over the past few years, I am now finding myself more and more in positions of opportunity to put them into practice. And in fact I have been practicing on many triggers that have been eliminated over the years and have enjoyed a great deal more authentic peace than I ever had during the first half of my life. But now I am becoming more aware that the real big stuff, the really volatile stash may still be full of even more deadly caches of ammunition just waiting to go off if it is not dismantled very carefully by a trained and sincere expert.

I am becoming aware that the only real expert that I currently know of is the promptings of Jesus sent through His Spirit to speak to me and mentor me as to how to deal with these issues as they become exposed. At times I wish that I could also work to disarm these munition dumps with other experts who have been trained by Jesus to do this kind of work, but so far that has not been available to me. So I accept the fact that God is faithful enough to work with me directly and in the process may even be training me to be His assistant in possibly helping others to disarm their emotional ammunition dumps in the future.

As I faced these intense feelings stirring up from deep in my cesspool of old ammunition yesterday, and especially as I was thinking about it very early this morning once again as I lay in bed not being able to sleep, I was impressed that another important lesson of disarmament that I have learned was also needed to be effective in the current danger that I find myself in now. I became aware that not only do I have to face my anger squarely and look for its underlying triggers, but that one of the most effective methods of disarming this overwhelming rage that threatens to destroy me is to implement the principle of real forgiveness that I have also been learning over the past few years.

I have felt so enriched and blessed as I have been learning the real truth about what forgiveness really is recently. But that insight has continued to deepen each time that I revisit it, and this time is no exception. It seems that time after time God brings me into new situations and then reminds me of my lessons from the past that He has taught me separately and asks me to view the pieces put together in the present. And each time I get the distinct sensation that the puzzle picture just keeps getting clearer and more obvious. This is always a source of encouragement for me and causes me to want to know even more of the ways that God has designed reality and how to live in a way that causes me to thrive and live from my heart in peace and joy.

What I am becoming acutely aware of now is that I need to apply the principle of authentic forgiveness that I have learned alongside the principles of exposure and healing that I have also been learning in order to more effectively deal with my current exposure of this hidden rage. Anger is a warning that something else much deeper is lurking behind it that needs attention if I am to ever resolve the cause of that symptom. I have been learning to be more intentional and observant in discerning what might be hiding behind various emotions like anger and find out what it has been trying to mask for so long. There is almost always a different emotion hiding behind anger that is very fearful of exposure but that needs to be identified and dealt with directly before the anger trigger can ever be dissipated.

Over the past few years as I have sought to practice this new skill, I am finding that it is becoming easier to spot these hiding background emotions and coax them out into the open as long as I make my mind safe for them to disclose themselves. It is as if they are like little hurt children terrified of being abused or misunderstood yet again and simply need time and caring attention to make them feel safe enough to disclose their secret fears and feelings. As I cultivate an internal atmosphere of kindness, honesty and freedom from all condemnation in my own heart, these quivering “little people” inside of me feel more safe to come out of hiding and trust me with their secrets in hopes that they can be released from their cells and grow up into full maturity and wholeness like other parts of me have been able to do.

Many times these “little people” are living in very old memories from my past that are long forgotten by my conscious memory. But nevertheless they are just as real and powerful as the day that they were forced into their little prison cells by the legalistic guards of condemnation and false religion long ago.

Oh my! As I just wrote that last line it hit me very forcefully how close this analogy is to the situation that my friend has been experiencing over the past year. Maybe that is why this situation is stirring up so much intense feeling inside of me besides the fact of the obvious abuse he has been suffering. What I may be feeling is resonance with a lifetime of similar feelings but from very different sources. I do not imply in the slightest that what I have experienced could be anywhere near as traumatic as what he has gone through. But the resonance remains and serves as an opportunity for me to discover some hidden prison cells inside of myself that contain prisoners kept in darkness far too long just as he has been.

One reason that I did not get up early this morning and begin writing all of this down sooner as I often do is because I wanted to focus more on experiencing it at the heart level instead of capturing it with my left brain, as stimulating as that may be. I am trying to move more into learning how to apply the many things I have been learning about healing and wholeness to my own heart to have more balance in my own experience and also become more authentic. So I just laid there in bed and talked with God about what I was thinking and feeling and focused on practicing the kind of forgiveness that He was prompting me to do. I found that as I did the peace that had been lost began to return and to fill my heart once again.

The more I focused on intentional forgiveness and taking ownership of my bitterness and resentment, the more I felt in real time the presence and love of God coming back into my emotions and internal atmosphere. I realized in amazement that all of these theoretical things God has been teaching me recently really do work in real-life difficult situations if I am willing to humble myself and choose to practice them against my natural feelings and reactions. I also realized that I need to be consistent in keeping my mind focused on that path and not allowing myself to indulge in even little feelings of resentment or I may be jerked off the road to real freedom quite quickly and have to make my way back all over again.

I am beginning to experience the awareness of the difference between knowing how to come to healing and actually choosing to go into it myself. I suppose this is the process of de-hypocritizing my life if I can make up a word here. The more I choose to practice with my heart what I am learning in my left brain the more real these things will become inside of me. I am very aware of how easy it is to learn and learn and learn but to continue to avoid submitting to the needed repairs in ones own self. But I want to come closer to having authentic balance in my soul where my left brain knowledge library is used to assist my right brain real-time applications of the principles I have been so privileged to learn over recent years.

In this case I am faced with the need to directly focus my attention on the rage that I am tempted to feel toward this judge in particular who is so obviously despotic and cruel. I remind myself of the destructive effects that my own anger will have on me if I allow myself to indulge in desires of revenge against him. I am then reminded forcefully of how God feels toward everyone who has sinned against Him and how much grace and forgiveness He has already unconditionally provided for everyone whether they want it or not.

God reminded me of the study that I did for several months on the roots of bitterness. Part of that study included facing my need for taking very seriously the command to let go of my desires for vengeance. This time God also reminded me while I was facing that choice again that He has been showing me the importance and benefits of obeying that command. The more that I have learned about how God feels toward me and toward all sinners, the more acutely aware I become of the truth that God's ways are not my ways and that His methods for retribution are very foreign to the way most of us want to see it carried out.

Then, in case I still have doubts about the validity of viewing this evil person from heaven's perspective, God reminds me of the consequences of not choosing this path of receiving His attitude of unconditional forgiveness and compassion. From the parable of the debtor I am forcefully reminded that I will only put myself in the hands of torturers and will keep myself in prison if I think I can get away with remaining angry and bitter toward anyone who makes themselves an enemy of truth and right. This thinking is totally contrary to my natural assumptions and perceptions of the right way to relate to evil people, but it has been clearly shown me through many lessons and revelations from the Word of God for a number of years now. It is just that now I am faced more intensely with actually practicing it at the heart level and applying to myself all the things that God has been making clearer to my head over the past few years.

What amazes me is the sudden and unexpected new feelings and perceptions and thoughts that appear in my mind and heart after I choose to act on what I know is the right way to respond in spite of my human logic and feelings. The impossible begins to happen very suddenly inside of me and I actually find myself becoming free of the very animosity that so recently was tormenting my heart and keeping me in chains of bitterness and even rage at times. But these new feelings and impulses are like tender little plants showing up that I need to protect, nurture and cultivate if they are to have time to take deeper root and grow up into stronger maturity in my own life. I cannot just assume that because I am enjoying their sudden appearance right now that I am safe to relax. I find myself repeatedly needing to make the choice to let go of my right to justice and fairness and to take full ownership of my pain without indulging in cravings for revenge. Otherwise the enemy will have more access once again to my heart and will fill it very quickly with the old chains and lies that have keep me from thriving for most of my life.

God, I want to praise you for the incredible things you have been teaching me over the past few years. I want to praise you for your faithfulness and goodness and kindness that leads me to want to live your way instead of the familiar ways of revenge and retaliation. I thank you so much for how you have been leading me all of my life toward real freedom from fear, guilt, shame and especially condemnation. I still want to feel completely safe in your arms, but I also know that this is more about you than it is about me. I choose to believe that you are going to continue to do what you say you can do in my life.

Thank-you for your unconditional forgiveness, your unconditional love, your unconditional grace. Continue to live inside of me, to display your character through my life, to make me a successful experiment of your powerful grace to transform a legalistic, condemning religion addict into a loving, humble, trusting child learning to reflect your beauty. Father, I am so painfully aware of how very little of your beauty can yet be seen in my life. I claim your forgiveness and simply trust you to continue your work in me until I fully grow up into the likeness of Jesus your Son.

Global Warming - Bring It On!

Symptoms of global warming. You don't have to look very far to hear all sorts of excitement and controversy about this hottest topic of debate in our world today. So, what's the big deal about it anyway? Why is there so much fear surrounding this that fuels the intensifying arguments and causes people to become environmental fanatics more radical than even religious fanatics?

Well, I am not totally ignorant about the issues being tossed around in this debate. I am aware of the consequences that might take place if the massive shelves of ice were to slip off of Greenland and suddenly sink into the waters of the surrounding oceans. The sudden rise in sea levels would certainly cause some very interesting changes in the familiar outlines of many continents and many resort islands would suddenly find themselves needing to build rather tall pylons on which to perch all of their luxury hotels and homes. Florida might become a gigantic wading pool instead of a retirement village and inland cities would suddenly be faced with building docks for ships that once stopped hundreds of miles away.

All of these things while maybe tongue in cheek are quite realistically possible if the global average temperatures continue to elevate. In addition it is believed that the central regions around the world would become much more desert-like while the colder northern and southern climates would begin to warm and dramatically change their current landscapes. There is even talk by scientists that in a very short time from now that during the summer that possibly ALL of the ice surrounding the North pole may disappear completely leaving our planet looking almost naked from outer space. There have already been news reports from several years ago of tourist ships arriving at the North pole only to discover that there was no place for the passengers to get out and walk around because the ice had melted into a large lake at that very spot.

So why am I excited about global warming? Well, let me give you a hint. Because I am starting to feel some of the effects of deep cracks developing in the titanic glaciers of ice that have encapsulated my own heart. I believe that I am witnessing some potential developments in my own heart that may soon lead to much bigger changes over which I will have little control but that will forever change the landscape of my life as well as everyone else around me.

It suddenly occurred to me more clearly this morning what the main composition is of this ice that has held me frozen in its wintry spell for so many years. It is not unlike the long winter referred to in C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories. What came clearly to me this morning was that the ice field that has kept me frozen and incapacitated from really living for most of my life has been the reign of fear in my heart.

Just like ice, fear can freeze a person making them unable to move or function as they wish, sometimes locking them into a self-fulfilling terror of being hurt by a danger that they are immobilized to respond to effectively. Fear is our worst enemy because it robs us of all our power to live as God designed us to live – with joy and spontaneity, freedom and creativity. Fear blocks the heart from being able to trust others, to form bonds with other hearts through love and humility and real friendship. Fear isolates people more and more from everyone around them as it moves all of humanity closer and closer to an eternal ice age that would become the playland of demons gloating over their victory against the light and warmth that fills all of heaven. This might be the proverbial event of hell freezing over for real.

I have suspected for a long time that I had some deeply buried glaciers that were hidden from my view from years of overfill that kept them securely cold and inaccessible to the light of day. But there is something very significant about the nature of ice cover that needs to be understood. Ice and snow block the warmth of the sun from being effective by bouncing away the light and heat that would otherwise be absorbed into the earth or water and that would cause more melting of the ice. As long as there is a cover of white on the surface, it is generally very difficult for any significant melting to be able to occur and effect any real change in the conditions on the ground.

But as scientists are now explaining, as more and more pockets of melted water appear during the warm seasons and more land is exposed to the rays of the sun, more heat is being absorbed into the surface and transmitted into the infrastructure that dramatically accelerates the warming trend. Melted water then begins to move around and cause even more melting. It forms holes in the ice and then drops down through those holes to the ground below and begins to form a layer between the ice and the rocks. This has the effect of lubricating the movement of the ice sheets so they can more quickly slide toward the ocean which in turn opens up even more exposed surfaces behind that can absorb even more heat accelerating the process exponentially.

For many scientists around the world this process itself is becoming a great source of alarm and fear in their minds. Since most of them do not believe in a sovereign God in charge of everything on this earth, they are convinced that it is totally up to humans to attempt to reverse this process of warming so as to keep the status quo as we know it as much as possible. They believe that the very existence of humanity depends on our own success in saving our planet completely by our own efforts alone. Does that sound like anything similar to other beliefs floating around in this world? We have to save ourselves – now where I have heard that before?

I have been fascinated for years by many of the macro issues in science, partly because it just seems so intriguing to watch massive changes transform the earth's landscape in dramatic ways. Volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and dramatic changes in the polar regions have always held a special fascination for me most of my life. Now I wonder if that was not at least in part due to my deep desires to experience dramatic transformation in my own life, to experience radical shifts of thinking and to break free from the emotional restraints and habits that prevented me from really living life more fully.

There is one common thing about all of these events of nature that nearly everyone agrees on. There is almost nothing that humans can really do to alter their happening. We may be able to slightly better predict their occurrences at times, but we cannot alter the explosion of a volcano or have any affect on what an earthquake does. I know that there is a huge battle going on in politics and science as to how much human activity contributes to global warming. But I suspect that the real battle comes down more to who can manipulate and control the public media in order to convince the most people of their opinions more than what actual realistic ability people have to affect what this planet does in relationship to its core and the deep space that surrounds it.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this planet really is going to experience dramatic warming of the atmosphere and that all the terrifying results will in fact take place sooner or later, with or without all the attempts of humans to reverse it. And the reason that I am completely confident of this is because the irrefutable Word of God has already forecast it to happen in our day. Revelation forecasts a time coming very soon when the sun will scorch men with overwhelming heat that will be inescapable and that inhabited islands will disappear. Does that sound like global warming to you?

But there are other prophecies that make me even more excited because they have to do with the landscape of billions of hearts of the people all over this planet. While externally the global warming of this planet is inevitably taking place, God declares that there is going to be a massive and irrepressible display of the glory of God that is going to fill the whole earth with its warmth, its light and its transformational power. Nothing that humans or all the demons of hell can ever do will be able to prevent or thwart this outbreak of fresh life and revelations about God's love that will flood the whole planet with an exhibition of the real truth about God. But that global warming event will polarize every person and bring them to decide fully on which side they are going to be in the great battle over souls taking place primarily right here on this planet.

When this explosion of glory takes place in its fullness as described most clearly at the beginning of Revelation 18, the titanic forces of evil that have kept this world frozen in a cold wintry fear about God for so many millennia will not be able to stop the massive thaws that will occur in every home and heart and family throughout the whole earth. But that does not mean that the forces of evil will give up in dismay. No, evil never gives up as long as it is in existence, for the very nature of evil is resistance against the love of God and all demonstrations of the truth about God. The mighty battle of Armageddon is going to revolve around the forces of cold darkness confronting the release of this mighty heat of God's truth and glory that will permeate every place in this battlefield.

The outcome of this mighty battle, which is not military in nature as many Christians have mistakenly assumed, is possibly going to result in the true conversion of an amazing percentage of the world's population according to some people's beliefs about prophecies in Revelation. Quite possibly one fourth to one third of the whole population of the world will be converted to obedience to God's ways and will keep all of His commandments and devote their lives totally to His service.

But that is not the end by any means. The rage of the enemy will become so intense as never before in the history of the whole world that a counterattack will take place that will produce a time of bloodshed so horrible that it is impossible for us to imagine. But by what I am starting to perceive in my observations about these prophecies, nearly every one of those people who embrace the truth about God plus a great many more will be slaughtered in various ways in a last-gasp attempt by Satan to eliminate every loyal follower of God from this planet and claim this planet as his own through the use of brute force.

Only a very small number of God's people will survive this massive time of terror if I understand prophecy correctly, but this small group of people will be those who are so totally possessed by the Spirit of God that they will demonstrate the perfect spirit and reactions of Jesus in every situation, for Jesus Himself will be fully living out His life from within them without any resistance at all on their part. They will be totally surrendered to His Spirit, they will be pure followers of the Lamb who have become completely absorbed by His presence and will demonstrate in the last days what Jesus demonstrated Himself during His last days when He lived here on earth.

What does this have to do with me or global warming?

What I have detected the last few days are shock waves emanating to the surface of my consciousness of deep cracks beginning to happen at levels far deeper than I have detected for a very long time. Like pockets of superheated gases escaping to the surface in a volcano that cause earthquakes before a major eruption, I have felt some deep shudders of internal earthquakes that alert me to the fact that something very big may be about to happen. I also am detecting an unusual amount of thawing taking place of the ice and snow that have been in place in some areas of my life that have been frozen for as long as I can remember.

All of these symptoms are actually making me excited more than afraid. Do I have fear? Do I have FEAR??? Well, let me say that fear is an understatement at certain times. As I was sharing with a friend quite recently, the pockets of emotion that have unexpectedly shown up for brief moments have been more along the line of almost unexplainable terror instead of just fear.

But at the very same time another part of me welcomes these events and signs of something beginning to happen deep inside my soul. There is a growing desire for a real climate change in my life that will result in a much warmer personality, the liberation of vast areas of potential natural resources that have been frozen deep under glaciers of fear for many decades. I am sensing that the warmth of God's love seeping into deep passageways in my psyche that I have no direct control over are preparing my heart and mind for some very startling surprises in the near future. I probably don't even want to know right now what those are going to look like, it might exceed my capacity to even accept it at this point.

But what I can do and must do is to cling to my growing confidence in the heart and motives of the One who is orchestrating all of this taking place in my life. He has been working for years to thaw out key control centers and repair and replace many of the deep lies about Him that have kept me at too much of a distance from His warming presence. I have been experiencing more and more regional thaws over the past few years and months as I come closer to Him, but I suspect that they will pale in comparison to the staggering dimensions of the total meltdown that is awaiting me in the near future.

This brings up a key issue that I have to make a daily decision about. If I want to maintain control over my life, to try to continue to protect my own reputation or manipulate what others think about me, I will not be able to move fully into this thawing experience and will find myself sliding toward an even deeper darkness that will encapsulate me in even deeper glacier's than I have ever been in before. The only viable option that I can choose as I move forward is to practice the art of letting go of control over my life, of releasing my grip on my guidance systems and to increasingly trust the heart of the One who offers to lead me to a place that I am currently too afraid to go to by myself.

As I keep letting go, as I become more and more willing to die so that His life can thrive within me, I am assured that the outcome is not only going to be amazing beyond belief but that everything I have ever longed for or could even dream for will be realized in dimensions that I do not yet even have capacity to imagine. This is the future promised for everyone willing to lay down their weapons of defense, who surrender to the offers of love and forgiveness and allow themselves to be swallowed up in the waves of passion and love that flow from the very throne of God. That is what I want and this is what I choose. And as Luther said in his greatest hour of terror, “So help me God!”

Persecution

Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Timothy 3:12)

I am not feeling well today. I woke up this morning right at 2 AM and had to get out of bed feeling like I was about to lose the contents of my stomach. I spent the rest of the morning huddled in front of our fireplace keeping warm and trying to position my body in various ways to appease my upset tummy and hopefully keep it contained until it recovers. As a result I will be rather late for work today if I manage to feel well enough to go at all.

As I felt a little better, at least enough to sit in my chair and read a little, the impression came to me of a verse that is well known among Christians. It is the verse quoted above. As I thought about this verse I sensed that this is yet another one of those places in the Bible that I have usually subconsciously avoided and where some of my inner discomfort gets exposed whenever I read it. I am not sure why God wants me to think about this right now, but even saying that much arouses feelings of apprehension that betray the very issues that I need to get healing for, to get freedom from.

I think it started up this morning while I was thinking about my relationship and feelings about my various blog sites. I have tried to be very careful to not allow these to become a source of pride or a soapbox for me that are used to try to force others to change their opinions about certain subjects. That is not to say that I don't think it is right to present things that differ from what other people believe. The closer I get to God and the more clear my perceptions of His ways have become, the more I feel inner urges to share these life-changing insights and discoveries with anyone that God may lead to read what I have been learning.

But I am also aware of some other dynamics that lie a bit more obscured in my heart in regards to this as well as my relationship in other aspects to those who believe differently than me. My personality has long been one that in certain respects is very timid and fearful about upsetting other people with ideas that they strongly disagree with and that might likely stir up intense opposition. I have had a life-long aversion even toward sales jobs because they almost always require that one uses pressure to change other people's opinions so that they will buy what you are selling. I used to say that I couldn't even sell a heater to an Eskimo. But what I am beginning to sense more clearly this morning is that at a deeper level, part of what I am really afraid of is persecution.

Now I feel compelled to qualify even that statement. I have seen way too many people who almost seem to thrive on a persecution complex, who seem to consider it a badge of honor or an affirmation of correctness to get themselves persecuted for being at odds with others in religious things. I am all too familiar with that kind of confused thinking and I do not want to fall into that model either. But what I am sensing is that my deeply-rooted fears of arguments and opposition, especially when they attack my vulnerable weaknesses through shame and dishonor, these fears are preventing me from fulfilling the role and intentions that my heavenly Father intends for me to carry out within the body.

I have long been very aware of Satan's penchant for using fear to manipulate and stifle the people of God. That is such a classic tactic that it should be a no-brainer to unmask and avoid. But fear lies at the very root of our fallen nature and controls us through the heart, not the mind. As such it is one of the greatest battles that anyone has to face. Feeling vulnerable to having my sense of value diminished, while cognitively is something I can perceive, still is a major threat when it comes to my heart feelings. And it is what we believe in the heart much more than what we believe in the head that determines our course of action and our decisions under pressure.

But as I thought about this verse this morning I could almost hear the Spirit say quite plainly to me, If you are unwilling to face your fears of persecution, of people attacking what you believe in the wrong spirit; if you don't deal with this vulnerability in your character, then in reality you are unwilling to live a godly life in Christ Jesus. I sense that this is simply a statement of reality, a law of the universe that is unavoidable and non-negotiable just as much as gravity. It is a choice of one option or the other. If avoiding conflict takes precedence over accountability to God's directions in my life personally, then the alternative to suffering persecution will be a life that is not godly from heaven's perspective.

I do not have to go to the other extreme and try to stir up opposition to me in order to live godly. That is just as un-godlike as avoiding confrontation at all costs. But I am realizing more clearly as I take time to meditate on this that God wants me to listen to what He has to say to my heart about this and cooperate with whatever plans He has for me in this area. I am in desperate need of boldness while still maintaining a spirit of meekness and humility. And those are not mutually exclusive character traits.

I suspect that possibly everyone is sooner or later going to have to make a decision on this point and maybe it is time for me to face it more openly. If I am really serious about living a godly life in Christ Jesus – and I am – then I have to allow the Spirit to expose these vulnerable areas of weakness in my soul and give Him permission to began seriously launching some major healing and repair operations inside of me.

As I read through the next few verses I began to also see some other exciting things that I have never noticed before. But right now I think I will leave this here since I still don't feel well enough to focus very long.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject if you feel convicted in this area or if you just have some good counsel for me. I am just as much in need of admonition and encouragement as everyone else in the body.

Heart Talk and Worship

I just had a discussion with someone that opened my eyes a little bit more as to how much I am still influenced by my old problem of image management – living in such a way as to influence what others think about me. As I thought about it more this morning I also realized that this is one of the greatest inhibitions preventing me from being able to worship God freely as my heart desires to do.

In the culture in which I grew up and am still a part of to a great extent, there are some things about expressive worship that by many people in my culture are considered too far outside the box to be acceptable. Oh, they may or may not say something about it to me, but it is sufficient that inside my own mind the accusations and subtle feelings of condemnation are very present and effective. So generally, I don't feel the freedom to worship as my heart needs to unless I am in a completely different culture – which then presents its own different set of inhibitions – or more likely when I am totally alone.

Actually I am very resentful in a way, of this state of affairs. And I suspect God is not real pleased about it either. For if the worship that is due Him and that connects our hearts to each other is being short-circuited by the false gods of image management and men-pleasing, then in fact I am being controlled and am serving false gods in violation of the second commandment.

I became aware of this sinful condition in my life a couple years ago and wrote extensively about it then. I also think that my awareness of this state of my heart has at least help me to make some progress toward freedom, but I still have a long way to go. And it will not help to simply try to lay a guilt trip on myself in an attempt to shame or frighten me into changing the way I act and think. That is the counterfeit religious practice of my past that I am determined to turn away from. But at the same time I must be willing to accept both the attractions and convictions of the Holy Spirit and also the warnings that alert me to the tragic consequences that are inevitable if I refuse to submit to coming into harmony with the principles of reality as revealed by God.

I, like everyone else, am designed and wired at the deepest level of my psyche to worship. And I, like everyone else, will worship quite frequently even though it is not generally labeled with that term. But the more I understand the truth and substance of what makes up worship, the more I become aware that far too much of my worship is going to the wrong places. I am giving too much authority to false gods in my life, and as a result I have no room to view critically or harshly those in the Old Testament who worshiped idols and think how silly they were. When the light of truth begins to expose my own futile practices of living in fear of what others think of me instead of living in joyful service to my Creator and Savior, then I have joined them in their disloyalty and idol worship and am in need of repentance just as much as they were.

I do not want to keep hiding from this problem. I (at least a part of me) do not want to keep resisting the promptings of the Holy Spirit to be more open and honest in all areas of my life. I realize that I have some very intense areas of blindness in my thinking, but I continue to ask God to open my eyes and show me what I normally cannot see. I believe that this is just one of those blind spots that He is trying to get me to face more directly.

I actually feel very encouraged by this conversation I just had that helped me remember and see better this problem in my life. I feel encouraged in a strange sort of way when I see some of my faults because I know that God is showing them to me because He cares enough to offer me healing and restoration in that area if I am willing to accept and apply His grace to my heart.

During the discussion I was able to actually peek into some of the feelings behind my actions and inhibitions and realize that what I am doing much of the time is trying to avoid shame. Shame and fear are two of the greatest inhibitors in my life and are some of the worst slave-masters that keep me from enjoying the true freedom of the sons of God. Even many of my diversionary temptations are targeted at helping me to avoid facing the shame and fears that still lurk in the background and affect so much of my thinking and my relationships with others. My desires to watch movies are deeply rooted in trying to use pleasure produced vicariously through artificial emotional stimulation as a means of masking my real need to address the much deeper roots of shame and fear that haunt me from the background atmosphere of my soul.

But it is up to me to exercise my power of choice to face these things and to fast from anything that I may be using to avoid facing them. As long as I resort to anything that may help me procrastinate facing the inner pain of my past, the resentment that I carry toward others, the shame that is still so prevalent from my childhood and the fears that haunt me from the residual lies about God in my heart – as long as I allow those diversions to satisfy my hunger for real freedom I will remain in the slavery of bondage to those things even though I may feel like I am free on the surface.

The symptoms of that bondage can be seen in the inhibitions at the gut level that still bind me to the manipulation of what others think of me. I may be ever so independent in many ways and believe that what others think about me has little influence over my choice to live outside the box that others are trapped within. But in deeper ways that is still a mirage in many respects. At the heart level I still crave acceptance and affirmation and to be valued and appreciated by others. I suppose in some ways there is nothing wrong with those desires except when they cause me to subtly seek satisfaction for these needs from others above seeking God's face and believing in how He truly feels about me.

As I was sharing in my conversation, shame is one of the primary emotions that I still don't have very much skill in dealing with effectively yet. When I first became aware of the enormous influence and presence of shame in my life some time ago I was shocked at how much it controlled my thinking and my relationships with others. That is still true today, but it is very difficult to perceive it most of the time because it stays under the surface of my conscious awareness. So because I am not conscious of the presence and strong influence of shame's control over me I too often fail to take action to face it more directly and learn how to deal with it effectively.

During our discussion we both agreed that fear and shame are the primary problems that we both have to deal with and that strongly influence how we relate to others and inhibit our relationship with each other. We also realized that we really desire a mentor in our lives who could show us how to face this problem effectively and learn to live in the freedom and peace that our hearts crave so much. But the problem seems to remain that there are extremely few people around who are mature enough and willing enough to mentor others in the ways of God, and whoever they are they don't seem to be anywhere near our lives right now.

As a result it appears to me like God is going to have to mentor us directly without using any humans to be His agents unless He has someone in mind that we are totally unaware of at this point. Many times in my life when I felt totally alone going through intense struggles and wishing for someone to join me and emotionally guide me through those times, I wondered if maybe God was allowing me to go it alone in order to be trained to help others whom I would encounter later who felt totally alone. I can distinctly remember situations where I nearly felt like screaming out, longing for someone to be with me in my problems and frustrations to overcome problems in my life. But the only answer that seemed to come was that when I learned this lesson I would be better situated to have compassion and sympathy for others in similar circumstances.

I don't know what God has in mind for the process of my healing and I am cautious to try to second-guess how He plans to accomplish that in me. But I do know that what I am learning about Him from the Bible in my own personal encounters with Him each day is full of encouragement and is awakening more hope and love in my own heart. I ultimately have to come back to throwing myself on the promises and words of God that I find written there and trust His heart to guide me through the confusing maze of inner mysteries and outer temptations to the freedom and joy and security that my heart was designed to thrive on in His presence.