Cleaning God's House

Jesus had to be about His Father's business and in His Father's house. What is the business of God anyway? Cleansing the house so His Father can live in it. How does He clean house? By removing the pain and condemnation and then filling it with peace and joy. How can we follow Jesus' example of cleaning? Jesus was willing, through unconditional forgiveness and love, to accept all the pain, attacks and abuse and not rejecting it in self-defense or protection. People lash out because they have been lashed themselves and they are attempting to unload their pain. If we don't accept it we force them to keep it and it intensifies. But if we share in the sufferings of Christ we work with Him in cleaning His house so His Father can live in it. We become channels transferring other peoples pain and suffering through us and give it instantly to Jesus thereby demonstrating to them how to give their pain directly to Jesus and become channels of grace themselves.

When I cling to my rights and resist suffering from others, I block the healing grace of God flowing through me in exchange for their pain, shame or abuse. Being a channel has to work both directions.

Every human will in the end be found clinging tenaciously. It is in our nature even though we may be too proud to recognize it. We either will believe in the goodness of God and cling relentlessly to forgiveness and God's acceptance of us as an unshakable fact of redemption, or we will cling to the lies and our doubts about God and try to figure out a formula to save ourself. Or, we may give up trying to save ourself because we are too intimidated by a god whom we can never please or appease enough and we decide to cling to our sins and milk all the pleasure we can out of them.

Bike Handlebars

Releasing my “rights” to myself to God feels like taking my hands off the handlebars of my bike and allowing Him to steer from behind me. I can only reach the handlebars close to the yoke which makes it impossible for me to steer. If I grab the bar by the handles God will respect my choice and allow me to mess things up. But when I let go of my rights and trust Him, He will guide me and hold the handlebars far back where there is much more leverage. I feel very out of control – which I am. Therefore I have to know Him well enough to be able to trust Him to keep me balanced and keep me from falling off as well as guide me in the right directions through all the harrowing turns and threatening obstacles.

The Law god

We have been trained to worship LAW and rules as our God. In fact, we teach law, rules and tradition and then create God out of that base by stating that God is the character expressed by law. Technically this has truth in it but misses the existence of the heart of God. By worshiping law and rules instead of the true God, we embrace a life of externalism and artificiality, a system of arbitrary, unfeeling cold-hearted punishments and rewards based solely on fear and pleasure. True satisfaction is unfamiliar to most of us for it is found in loving, caring trusting relationships.

It does not matter so much whether the law we promote is good or less than good, what is emphasized is the importance of submission and obedience. We view God's law and rules from the perspective of our laws. Human laws are created primarily to impose the selfish desires of some people on others and control them externally. We weave morality and religious sentiments into nice-sounding justifications for our laws, but if our eyes would be opened to what is becoming obvious, our legal system is largely a system of oppression and manipulation for the benefit of those in power. Lawyers are the priests of this “religion” and worship is demanded from all in submission to this image of God that cannot hear, speak or feel.

These laws can be changed at whim to suit the ever-changing purposes of sinful, selfish men and women. This idol is cloaked with robes of nobility and given titles of justice, fairness and right, but it is a false god no matter how eloquently or intensely it is defended by its promoters. It is based on perpetuation of the faulty system of relationships in the “Babylonian” thinking called Kingship – a hierarchy of unequal relationships exploiting the weak to give pleasure and advantage to the strong. As a result of this thinking even God's laws are viewed as forcing humans into subjugation for God's pleasure. His law becomes the focus of worship instead of His heart. Religion has almost completely lost sight of God's feelings and passions and desires in our steeled obsession and devotion to rules and tradition.

Those who give up trying to achieve value through rule-keeping give themselves over to seeking for anything that brings pleasure and gratification in an attempt to fill the aching void inside created by the law-god. We were created for intimate relations with similar beings and our hearts cry out for a living, loving God. If we have to, we will create a “living” god of our own in other people that we use to give us temporary pleasure. Our whole economic system is crafted to facilitate this idea. We desire peace and satisfaction but are forced to create our own gods to supply these needs because religion has eclipsed the real face of the true God.

But the passion of His truth and glory are beginning to break through the lies and the idol of law is beginning to be exposed for the fraud and impostor that it is. Babylon's system based on artificial values, corrupt economics and heartless, ruthless judicial systems will fall mightily when the real glory of the truth about God fills the whole earth (Rev. 18) and everyone is given access to a love-bonded intimate relationship with a passionately loving, caring Father. His model is family and He rejects any intrusion or imposition of the false system into His home.

Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served,” the heartless counterfeit entrenched in a self-righteous law-worshiping false value-based religion, or God, our loving Father who only can satisfy your hunger for passion and value and more abundant life.

She almost cried...

We had (a young friend) overnight last weekend as a special time for her birthday. She had previously spent a few days with us and was starting to connect with our hearts a little bit. For this occasion I made up a card with a message about how special she was and the gifts God had put inside her. As we sat around the dinner table with her family, my wife read the card out loud.

The card read,

May this Birthday be the beginning of the best years of your life!

You are a very special and beautiful girl. God has hidden many gifts like seeds inside of you that are about to grow and mature into beautiful flowers. He put them there for His pleasure and to demonstrate His passion and love for you. We want to be part of this process and watch you blossom into beauty. You are very important to us.

Sincerely, your friends

Immediately there was raucous laughter as her family expressed their disbelief. Tania later said that she almost cried at the scorn expressed by her family. I was jarred but I hoped Shelby got the message anyway. We are praying that God will begin to open all their hearts for healing of tremendous pain that has to be masked by such humor.

I may not be able to support the status quo in my church or even agree with the methods the members use to “evangelize” if those things are at cross-purposes with God's plan. But I can recognize and affirm the value of each person as a special object of God's affection totally apart from the distorted ideas they have about God and religion. I must see past their behavior and their embedded lies about God and cherish them as all important members of my family. I have to have a lot of eyesalve and humility to be able to do this, but it is my desire and choice.

Confusion About Authorities

As I see one of my friends compulsively returning again and again to argue with their brother in the face of determined close-mindedness I am reminded of a young boy flailing out in anger at his protagonist bully long after he has been beaten and defeated only to be hit yet once again. The bully is almost baffled by the unwillingness of the victim to give up as he continues to deliver blow after insulting blow.

Then I remember that the little boy was, and is still sometimes internally, myself. This has really happened to me and my mind is still deeply entrenched in this angry pride, determined to in the end overcome my opponents by any means possible. I have been desperately searching for several days for the roots of why my heart feels the way it does after my recent unsuccessful confrontation with certain authorities. As I try to honestly analyze my anger and confused emotions I begin to see intense feelings of bitterness and resentment that, left unchecked to extend to their matured fulfillment, could end in violence or worse. It is startling but in a strange way almost familiar.

The bogus so-called judicial system today that assumes guilt until innocence is proved has a trump card on everyone. Everyone is guilty of sinful motives and no one can prove they are perfect and free from any evil desires. So like an evil bully, the authorities harass, intimidate and antagonize “sinners” until they can fish out of them enough sinful response to then use as evidence to accuse and convict them. Sounds like a well-crafted plan conceived in hell and perfected for centuries.

Meanwhile the victims also are plagued with contamination of the spirit of pride and revenge. Satan is the model and mentor for both the protagonist and the victim. In the very last battle he portrays himself as the unjustly beaten victim of a God that he has convinced people treats us just like what in reality Satan has been doing. And as a victim he alternately tries to solicit sympathy and lashes out in torrents of rage and defeated angry outbursts, never admitting defeat.

I am tired of being mentored by Satan and being locked in his schoolhouse. But I am also confused. Satan is refusing to give in to perfect love, and that is reasonable to me to understand that he is illogical. But how does that relate to me being asked to cave in to unjust bullies to be righteous? I'm sure I'm not seeing the picture correctly and I'm sure Satan is behind my twisted confusion.

I have been struggling to understand why my heart feels so pained the last few days and why I have lost the peace of God so much. Satan has successfully stolen my joy and I'm upset about it. But I also know God is using this to uncover deeper levels of sin in me that need to be recognized and released. But until this morning I could not make out anything about the roots. Somehow, I don't believe that giving up everything I've done to arrive at the position of political “freedom” that I am in and once again surrendering to be a government slave abused by the dragon would result in harmony and peace again. Appeasement does not bring peace, only suffocating tyranny. However, direct resistance also seems to be at odds with the teachings of Jesus – do not resist evil. There must be another option that is not yet clear to me. It most certainly and primarily involves attitudes in the heart rather than outward conformity to unjust laws. I'm sure it involves letting go of pride and bitterness, but they have to be recognized and embraced with their roots or, like weeds in the garden, if the roots are not also discovered they will only return again and again.

God – you have a lot of work left to do.

God reminded me that if I am having a big problem feeling compassion or any kind of of love toward the authorities who abuse me and others involved with them – and I most certainly do have great difficulty – then to that extent I am not experiencing His life in me, for He is compassion and love. This is very disturbing.