The Many Sides of God

It's funny how you can see an aspect of God, of His personality, and think that only that aspect is how He is.

As I get older, and grow more in Him, I see many many different sides of Him. His gentle side, His passionate side, His wild side, His funny and fun side. I see His sad side, His compassionate side, and His side that stands up to what is wrong with strength and power. I see His angry side, and I see His merciful and infinitely forgiving side. I see His caring and almost broken hearted side. i see that He is, (like us, since we are made in his image,) a person of many many different feelings, emotions, and expressions of life. Wow. Love 'im.

The Power of Disbelief

We always hear about how we've got to believe, how important it is, over and over and over. It's like one of the most basic of tenets of being people of faith. It is extremely important.
However, it is also just as powerful and effective to NOT believe...that is alll the lies.

That's right!! You can choose not to believe them any time, and all the time. It's so simple!! Disbelieving, the stuff from the wrong side, is just as important as believing the stuff from the right side!!!

Innocence Is All That Lasts

Your guilt will die,
your fear will die,
and your shame will die.
Your innocence is all that will last.

Your confusion will end,
your corruption will end,
and your sinfulness will end...
But your innocence will last.

Pride will die,
lust will go,
and bitterness and hurt,
But innocence will live on and on.

innocence will last. in the grand scheme of things, innocence is the only thing that will last. Your innocence. You will be innocent, and you will be innocent --- FOREVER!

A little poetry, perhaps??

Poetry is cool, like this one here, all the things I want to stay, falling on your ear.

You don't know just where it comes from, and you can't remember exactly when it got here, but all you know is, all of a sudden, you're extremely happy!

Happy happy happy, happy happy happy!

Happiness is cool, and happiness is fun, I feel mighty happy, when I'm lying in the sun. And it's warm. And I like it a lot.

just like my dog, who's as content as can be, snoozing in the sunshine. Drinking some old wine.

ok dogs don't drink wine, but you get the point. Back to the poem.

Happiness is great, and happiness is swell, I know that somewhere a proverbial tree went down in the forest, and i heard it when it fell.

now I know thee answer, to all life's mysteries, cuz for I know that a tree makes sound, when falling fast and freee. In the forest. On a rainy day in September. In the morning.

So all you know is that you're happy, and you're just not sure why... All that you can figure, is that someone met you in the sky.

Respect

Interesting thing about the Bible, and how God talks to us. Most of the time everything He tells us leaves us with a choice. This tells me that he respects us. He never forces anything on us. Love always sets you free. Beautiful. I think God is cooler than we all think.

On Being Loved

Well, here we go with some more about being loved. Just love this stuff. You guys can choose to believe my radical beliefs about the intense, deep love that God has for us or not. I know it's true.

So today I'm working for this friend of mine who has a dog. This dog is a great dog, a real, pure bred Great Pyrenees. Huge. Gi-flipping-gantic. Shaggy, white, big dog. Who doesn't know how to be loved.

This dog was apparently abused in its past life, with its previous owners, because he walks around on egg shells. This gigantic, fluffy, furry creation of God, made to love people and be loved by them --because he was abused, and taught fear instead of love-- does not know what to do. He looks out at you with a look of wondering... wondering whether or not he can trust you, and what you are going to do to him. It's the saddest freaking thing in the world.

He's afraid to move. He doesn't know where to go or what to do, because he doesn't know how we, people, his authority figures, are going to react to Him. He is afraid. Of us. Of his owner. Of the very people who brought him to ourselves in the first place, adopted him from the hurtful situations he used to live in, adopted him to be our own, out of love. But because He's been so conditioned to think incorrectly, he responds to our acts of love with fear.

And I believe that the greatest tragedy and mistake that religion in this world makes is to teach fear instead of love. Because fear is not of God. It never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, has been. I don't care what you read in the Bible, or what you see in your life, or what you mistakenly think about Him. He is love. Period. And the greatest tragedy on this earth is the lies that get put on His name. All the fear that gets put on people in his name. There is no greater tragedy in this world, and no greater disservice that religion can do.

I say to all you people out there who are in positions of religious leadership, it must be about love. It all must come back to love. If I have not love I am nothing. nothing. I am nothing without love. When it's all gone, and this whole flipping world is rolled up into a ball and tossed into the recycle bin, and we're all standing there, naked and ashamed, yet perfectly loved, for the first time in our long lives, there is going to be one thing left over. One thing that encompasses all other things, that qualifies all other things, and that judges all other things. And that is going to be love.

So back to this dog. This great big, lovable, huggable ball of fur that you look at and just want to hug, trembles whenever you walk by him. He looks up at you like you are going to hurt him. This is what we look like to God. He created us, just like we are, so He could love us, but because we've been conditioned so long, outside of the church and inside of it, to fear, HE'S NOT ABLE TO LOVE US. Because we don't know how to let Him. This is a tragedy! There are a lot of tragedys in the world, but this is the greatest one of them all. A God who is just dying to saturate us with His love, but who can't because we don't know how to let Him.

Because we don't see it as love! I try to talk soothingly to the dog, and he doesn't know what to make of it. Because he's been conditioned. I know that my only motive in my heart is to love on him, and hug him, and squeeze him and call him George, but he doesn't know it and therefore can't see it, and therefore can't receive it!! God says stuff to us, and because of our conditioning, we think we need to be afraid of Him and so tell others. We pass our fear around. I try to discipline the dog, for his own good, AND HE IS AFRAID. WHEN WHAT HE REALLY NEEDS IS TO TRUST ME SO HE DOESN'T GET HURT. And you can't trust someone that you are afraid of. Fear and trust are like oil and water. They CANNOT mix! So because he (the dog) can't see it, because of his bad training, he doesn't listen -- and so gets hurt.

My heart is breaking writing this blog. I'm a human. How do you think God feels about us, about the people in the church, about the people outside of the church, about the whole world, all of the time?? I've had to learn this through experience. I'm candidate number one for this message. But it's a message we ALL desperately need to hear.

God loves you. I don't care who you are. Jesus, yes, Jesus Christ loves you.

Is anybody getting this? You need to be loved. More than anything else in the world, more than any amount of work you can do, more than any amount of service you can perform for Him, more than any amount of self degradation... you need to be loved!

What already is.

Figured it out today--The old way of trying to make it happen is outdated. Your christianity, that is. That is coming from a standpoint of, "It's not here, or happening, so I have to make it happen, and bring it here." This is what we have been taught for a long time. This comes from a lack, have not, starting point. Which is simply not true. We need to come from the OTHER standpoint, the TRUE one, which is that we have everything. Seeing that His divne love has granted us all things pertaining to life and Godliness. When you learn to do this, you will wake up in the morning and be at total ease and rest, and just flow through your day in Him. in who you really are. There will be none of this trying to get in touch with Him stuff. None of this trying to get in the spirit. You ARE in the spirit, and not in the flesh. You ARE a new creation in Christ. All things HAVE BEEN made new in you. In Him you HAVE BEEN made complete. You ARE His workmanship, created in Christ jesus for good works. All things ARE working together for your good. I could go on and on. It is a FINISHED work.

Stop trying to make it work. When you do this, you automatically start out from the wrong standpoint because you agree that these things are not, and so you try to make them so. The key is to KNOW that they are, and trust it!

As my friend Troy says-- It's all about trust. And it really is!

Trust is the key. But don't get so caught up in "trying to trust". Even that can be turned into too much work. Just Trust!

The reality is that it is already here, it is already complete, it is already fully finished, done, in place, and working in your life. The only thing to do is believe it and walk in it.

I mean everything in your christianity. The whole shabang. It's a done deal. You don't have to make it work, cause He already made it work. All it takes in this new way is trust. Trust is the new way, the kind of faith where you try to make it work every day is the old way. It is a finished work. The truer way of living it is just to live it.

This is not laziness, this is true spiritual work. The work of God is to believe.

Those who did their jobs

Was thinking today about how much I suffer, living where I do, in both the physical and the spiritual environments I live in. And it's really not much, relatively speaking, compared to the rest of the world. And I had to think about why this is. And I figured it out. It's because somebody did their job, spiritually speaking. In fact, a lot of somebodies did their jobs. The fact that we are not living in an entirely chaos ridden environment, both spiritually and physically speaking, attests to that fact.

To Be Or Not To Be--That Is The Question.

Heard this great piece of advice from a very wise guy today. He was talking about the difference between fighting against evil or doing good. You can fight against evil all you want, but that's not the most effective thing. The most effective thing is to do good. Focus on the solution, not the problem. Be good. Don't try to stop the bad. You stop the bad not by stopping the bad, but by being the good. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Stop trying not to do bad things, and DO good things! It is the way!!

In other words, don't try to get the bad "not to be"--"be" the good!!

See, you don't have to, nor should you, spend your life fighting the devil. He's already defeated. We are told only to resist Him, firm in the faith. Resisting him does not consist of hand to hand combat. You've no business engaging the enemy. Jesus already engaged the enemy for you, and won. What we are told to do, over and over, is good things. Tons of them. The whole Bible is filled with suggestions to do good, in a million different ways. The way to beat the enemy is not by hand to hand combat, but simply by ignoring him. I did not say living in ignorance of him. You may be aware of him, but you just don't listen to him, don't agree with him, and don't believe him. And you continue to listen to God, to believe God, and to agree with God. Then the things of God will come out of your mouth, and your life will be constructed His way, and the devil will have no power over you whatsoever. And you will live in the "be" and not in the "not to be".

The best defense is always a good offense. You run a good offense all of the time and it automatically puts your opponent on defense all the time. So you don't have to worry about defense. Plus, you build up enough momentum, and it will be near imposible to stop you.


Living on the defensive all of the time is the enemy's plan. It suggests that he's constantly attacking and you're constantly having to defend against him. This is a waste of time, and it will wear you out. You do not need to live that way. It is a deception. It requires only a shift of your thinking to see things differently and to live differently. You are already victorious, so live like it. Do good. Do all that God has designed you to do. Teach, love, sing, befriend, hike, camp, build, study, learn, help, enjoy, laugh, play, act, draw, write, create, invent, color, compose, work, carve, dance, photograph, lead, serve, encourage, cook, raise kids, show mercy, make peace, forgive, trust God, be in love, sculpt, run, swim, bike, etc. etc. etc. Etc.

Live in the positive, not the negative. Be. Do not "not be". Any bad habit must be replaced with a good one. You cannot just stop doing something. Otherwise there would be a void in the continuum of your existence. Something must fill that slot! Don't try to not do things!! The more you try to not do things, the more you will do them! You must do something different to fill the void. Something will occupy that space in your plane of existence. Want to stop sinning? Find something productive and do that. YOU WILL NOT HAVE THE TIME TO SIN. There is only so much space in your plane of existence, and it must be filled with something!! BE!!! Be a writer, a singer, a jet pilot, a painter, a leader, an architect, a mathemetician, an inventor, an actor, a pastor, a director, a novelist, a drywaller, a carpenter, a plumber, a mom, a dad, a husband, a lover, a wife, a friend. You spend all your time trying to not be and you will not be!! Anything!!

The overemphasis of obedience

It is dangerous to overemphasize obedience. Just as it is dangerous to overemphasize anything. All things must be done in balance. Balance is a key to life.

That said, I believe the church in America is out of balance when it comes to obedience. It's as if obedience is the only thing necessary for a healthy Christian walk. Just be obedient and everything will be fine.

Well, obedience is fine, and necessary, but it is not all that is fine, and necessary. There are many other things that are necessary as well. Love is necessary, trust is necessary, discipline is necessary, healing is necessary, deliverance is necessary, rest is necessary, fun is necessary, etc. etc. etc., you get the picture. Without all of these things, our walk, and lives, get out of balance.

Not to mention, that there are dangers to the overemphasis of obedience. Say you think that all that is necessary for you to live the victorious Christian life is obedience, and so you make that your highest aim. Then something besides God comes along and whispers in your ear, and since your highest aim is obedience, instead of a healthy, balanced , relationship, one in which you also can discern what is His voice and what is not, you do whatever is suggested, and BOOM! Problems. And then you are pissed off at Him, alienated from the people you hurt, and even more confused, because you can't figure out why, since you were being obedient, things went so wrong. This all happened because you made obedience your highest goal, when your highest aim should be, to love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Out of which you will learn to obey. (Matthew 22:38, Exodus 20:1.)

We see fom this illustration that not only do you need to obey Him, but you also need to learn how to know what is His voice and what is not, in order to Obey Him. 1 Peter 5:9 says that we are to resist the devil, so it is pretty important to be able to tell what is the devil and what is God. Something that can be easily missed if your first priority is obedience. On the other hand, if your first priority is love, then you will end up developing a relationship with Him, in which you will learn what His voice sounds like, so you will know it, which will make your obedience all that much easier and effective.

Now of course there are those who, because they are so out of balance still, will say to me, "Yes, but John says that if you love Him, you will obey Him." This is of course true, but notice that the love comes first. Obedience without love is called servitude, and often fosters resentment. Obedience out of love is voluntary, full of joy, and bears much fruit. Paul, in his letter to one of the churches somewhere, refers to himself as a loveslave. Slave to love--almost an oxymoron, but you get the point.

We must have a relationship with Him. It is of the utmost importance.

The Triangle of Love

Have seen a new way to live. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Live in this perspective. God is love. He knows about everybody and knows everybody, and cares about everybody. We, as the body of Christ, are His hands to the world. So, live in the perspective that He is loving everybody, in some way or another. Understand that as you interact with everybody you interact with all the time. And look for the love. Pay attention to how He is loving them at that moment. Pay attention to how He is loving you in that interaction as well. And pay attention to how you can participate in that love toward them. But not only how you can participate in His love for them, but how you can participate in His love toward you in that moment. See, we can live in love all the time. His love for them, His love for you, His love from Him through you toward them, His love from Him through them toward you, your love toward them, their love toward you, and both of you back toward Him!! You can live in place of permanent love if you look at life this way!!! You can wake up every morning and go, "Gee. I think I'm going to live in the Triangle of Love today. " And the results will astound you!!! Just be paying attention all the time to how He is loving anyone you come into contact with, and you can live in the constant Triangle of Love!

Go Deep

It is worthless to live in a shallow religion. The only place worth living, in the entire universe is deep in a relationship. And I mean really deep. Shallow religion will get you nowhere.

In Hosea, it talks about how Israel had turned away from Him, and how He was missing them. And it says this. Chapter 2, verse 16-- "And it will come about in that day" declares the Lord, "that you will call me Ishi, and will no longer call me Baali."

Do we have any idea what this means? Well, the word "Ishi" means "husband", and the word "Baali" means master.

This is God talking to us. I've been trying to say this in my posts from day one on this blog, and I am even more convinced of it right now after hearing my friend read this verse today. So what does it mean?

It means that all of our shallow, irresponsible, fear laden, religious activities, and ways of approaching Him and our Christianity have to stop, because God loves us. It means this--GOD HIMSELF WANTS YOU TO STOP REFERRING TO HIM AS LORD, OR GOD, OR MASTER, and begin referring to Him as somebody that you love...and who loves you.

God never intended to have a bunch of workers. He never intended to have employees. The intent of His heart, from day one, has always been love. He has always, always, always been looking for someone to love. Just like you and me. Why not volunteer for that today? Instead of waking up and saying our prayers, for however much time we have set for ourselves to pray, why not ask Him what He's doing? Why not ask Him how He's feeling? Maybe just try to be with Him.

I present for you, the following evidence, that I think I've posted somewhere in this blog before, but if not, here goes. You and I are created in His image. (Genesis 1:26) It says so right there in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. I'm not making this up. So following that logic we can learn a tremendous amount of information about God simply by observing ourselves. And what is it that you and I want more than anything else on the face of this planet we live on? Haven't guessed yet? Well I'll tell you. It's love. You and I want love more than we want anything else on earth. We want it more than we want cars, more than we want money, more than we want houses, more than we want vacations, more than we want fame, or notoriety, or any other of a million zillion things we desire, He wants it more than He wants obedience, more than He wants hard work, more than He wants good behavior, more than He wants all of those other things that He wants.

At the end of the day, when all of your work is done, what is it that you, and I, and every other human being on the face of this planet is after? We want to go hang out and be with the people that we love. That's it!! It's that simple. What do we live for? Our time at work, or our time with our families and friends? Do we look forward to spending time with our employees and/or bosses, or with our wives, husbands, and children?? In case you don't know, I'll clue you in. We want to be with our families. What do we do when we are done with our work for the day? We go to hang out with our friends.

God is no different. Yes, there is for sure a lot of work to be done here. Yes, we need to learn to obey His voice. Yes we need to discipline ourselves, blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc. BUT WHY?? IT'S BECAUSE THE RESULT OF ALL OF THESE THINGS IS LOVE. The goal of our instruction is love out of a pure heart!!(1Timothy 1: 5-7)...from which some have swerved, and turned aside to vain discourse, willing to be teachers of the law, but not understanding the things they say or assert! This is where we are going to with all of our obedience, with all of our work, and with all of our discipline. It's all for ONE reason. Love!! That's it!! And my initial statement at the beginning of this post, to abandon shallow religion, was not a call to rebellion against Him, IT WAS A CALL TO GROW. WE CAN'T REMAIN IN SHALLOW RELIGION FOREVER. THAT'S NOT WHERE WE ARE GOING TO LIVE FOR ETERNITY. I quote First Corinthians 13 as proof. Where there are tongues, they shall cease. Where there are prophecies, they shall cease. Where there are all these things that we have been doing for so long, without knowing why, THEY SHALL CEASE. WHY? BECAUSE WHEN THE PERFECT COMES, THE IMPERFECT SHALL BE DONE AWAY WITH.

If with the tongues of men and of angels I speak, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all the secrets, and all the knowledge, and if I have all the faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give up my body to be burned, and have not love, I am profited nothing.

Go for love. It is the meaning of life. Whatever it takes. When you wake up in the morning, stop thinking about how you are going to discipline yoursef, and think about asking Him how He is. Or what He's up to. The answers may really astound you and delight you! Maybe focus less on what you are going to do for Him today, and more on just spending some time with Him. Think less about how much time you are going to spend praying, and think more about how much time you are going to sit with Him and let Him love you. Why not, when you see the beautiful sunrise, tell Him how beautiful He looks??

Want to light a fire? Would you like to light the world up?? Want to change it?? Want to do all those things your pastor is constantly talking about doing? Here's a clue. People are attracted to love. The world is looking for love. Do we wonder why we can't convert anybody?? It's because we're not in love. We're trying to make more employees. He's not after employees. How do I know?? Because He says so. Because He says that one day YOU and I, will stop calling Him Baali, and start calling Him Ishi...your husband... your lover... your friend.

Ok, here's the situation--- Your faith is all but gone, your depressed, dejected, in despair, don't know where to go, what to do, who to turn to, if you can turn to anybody, if they'll really be able to help you anyway if you do, you've had it with your faith and with God, and you're at the end of your rope. You're hurt so bad that you don't even care any more. And all you want to do is quit. At this point, someone might come up and try to tell you that quitting is just never the answer, and "things will get better somehow", and that "quitting is never the answer." If that's the case then how come everything in you is screaming "Quit! Stop!! It's killing me!!" ?? It's because the things that have driven you to this point need to be stopped and quit. Quitting IS the answer, but quitting the correct things. The desire to quit inside of you is legitimate. Only you need to know what it is that truly needs to be quit. What truly needs to be quit is all of the fear and the striving and the performance and the things that are driving you up the wall. The attitudes that show no trust and produce no love. And the only reason He hasn't showed up so far is because He doesn't want you to think that all of your fearful, striving, performance based efforts are what are going to endear you to Him. You should not ignore your real emotions. Only you don't have to respond to them the ways that the world always says to respond to them. (Giving up, quitting, etc.) You just need to be honest about them and then see what you can REALLY do to change them. And here is my suggestion. Instead of quitting, trust.

See, you have wrong ideas about God. You think that He is waiting for you to get your act together before He'll take care of you. You don't know that you can stop everything you are doing and He'll carry you. He really will. You just don't know it because you've never experienced it before. Talk about faith. Talk about taking a chance. Talk about stepping off of the ledge when you see no plank there. Your pastors and leaders have always espoused the merits of this kind of thing, so why not do it for real, and see if He doesn't catch you? Cause it's a lot better than walking away from Him. There is an alternative to quitting your faith and quitting on God. It's called quitting your striving and your efforts born of fear and performance, and trusting that He really can be God in your life. Let go and let God.

See, you certainly can quit. Your heart is telling you the truth when it wants to quit. Just quit the right things!!

Saying no to God

Ever wonder if you could say no to God? Ever wonder if He'd get mad at you if you did?

Here's a thought. I believe He does give us the freedom to say no to Him. And it's precisely this freedom to say no to Him that produces the desire inside of me to say yes.

Just a thought.

No fear

Was watching Star Wars Episode 1 the other night, just minding my own business, when all of a sudden Yoda says this cryptic statement, and God starts to talk to me through it. Here's what he said-- " Fear is the path to the dark side, because fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering."

WHOA.

Preach it Yoda. This is what I've been trying to say for quite some time now. WE'VE GOT TO STOP BEING AFRAID OF GOD. Because if you are, it will cause you to be angry at Him. Whether you think about it conciously or not. And how can you possibly be in love with someone you are afraid of?? And since faith works through love, THEN HOW CAN YOUR FAITH WORK WHEN YOU ARE BEING AFRAID OF HIM??

Respect, yes, honor, yes, aknowledgement that He is God, and the Creator of ALL things and therefore the one in charge, the Head Honcho, The One who knows what's best for you, and is worth trusting, and follwing, yes YES YES. But fear? NO. Emphatically and desperately NO!

Anger always follows fear. If you are living in fear of God, you will be angry at Him, and your faith will have a BIG FAT HOLE in it. One which the devil will be able to exploit to his advantage.

You must understand that God loves you... Infinitely, deeply, passionately, and truly. Forever. And you MUST live your life from this foundation. What is the one thing that the Bible says never fails?? Love. YOU may fail, those around you may fail, but love never fails. And God is love.

Repent

So I was thinking today about how many times in the Bible God is telling us to , "Repent! Repent!!" I mean, the old testament is almost nothing but that. (Which, by the way, brings up another good point--namely, the purpose of the law being to show that we can't live that way, underneath it, because God kept having to tell them to repent over and over and over again!) But nevertheless, back to my original point. The Bible is full of calls to repentance. Especially in the old testament, but throughout the new testament as well. Repent, repent, repent. Almost gets kind of scary, doesn't it? NO!! And here's why not!

Was also thinking today about how most PEOPLE respond to seeing someone else doing something obviously wrong or evil. How you and I respond to the people we see doing bad things in the world around us. How I respond, when I see someone doing something that I know is wrong, to hurt somebody else, or themselves. We, as human beings usually respond with such anger that it's amazing. We, I want to usually go over and stop them, and sometimes the ways that I think of using to stop them are not very nice. There's the key.

None of us think twice about the ways we respond to the evil we see around us in the world, however much damage we may inflict upon the person who's doing the bad thing; verbally, mentally, or even physically. None of us think twice about feeling justified in our feelings of rage, anger, and vengeance. In fact, we even tend to think that we are on God's good side when we are feeling those ways, because this person/people are obviously so freaking wrong and evil. In short, you and I and the rest of the human race feel good about about smashing evil people, and destroying them.

But God doesn't. God never crushes them between His fingers in righteous anger and indignation. He doesn't just automatically snuff out anybody who he sees is doing wrong. Which He most certainly could at any given time, as we all know. All He does is tell them to CHANGE!

I hope that just sank into you like it just did for me. We think nothing of our own evil desires to hurt and destroy people (all in the name of righteousness), all the while living comfortably in one another's company, not fearing each other, and all the while living in fear of God who has no desire to destroy anyone. PROVEN by the fact that none of us are destroyed on a daily basis, but are only continuously, out of love, told to CHANGE.

What in the world are we thinking?? How flipping backwards can one race of beings be?? God we need help.

And to be fair, and completely accurate, God did decide at a couple of places in the old testament to just wipe out everybody. Namely, the flood, that killed everybody. But when He was done doing that, He said this, apparently feeling bad about the whole thing--"I will never again curse the ground for man's sake...nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done."

Constant calls to repentance are a sign of His love and mercy, not His anger.

Faith and Trust

Heard a guy say something very interesting the other night. He was speaking about human relationships and business, but I related it to God... Here's what He said.-- "We have to live by faith for a while, because TRUST takes time."

Wow.

And again I say, wow.

Let's think about this in human relationships. If you are a person that I enter into some sort of relationship with, maybe some sort of business relationship, I would have to live on faith, or hope, for a while, that what you told me was true, that what you said you were going to do, you did, and when you said you were going to pay me, you did, etc. etc.

But eventually, after some period of time, my faith would turn into trust, if you came through for me on a continual basis, consistently, over and over and over.

Then, I wouldn't be living by faith any more, ...eventually, I would be living by trust. My faith would have turned into trust.

This is the logical progression in relationships. Healthy ones, anyways. This is the natural progression, it is the way God designed it to work. This is how relationships are formed.


The more I get to know the Lord, the more I find out that He has set things up the way they are for a very good reason, even though we have trouble seeing it a lot of the time now while we are still so young. The point here being that he tells us we're going to have to live by faith for a very good reason. And I'm hoping to possibly explain some of that reason here.

So here's the gig. We are born into this world, with no sense of God, or connection to Him in any conscious sense, until some point in our lives, when he intercepts us, and we get to meet Him. We think this is just the greatest thing since sliced bread, and want to tell everyone else about it, and rejoice in it, but often make the mistake of thinking that that is the goal. When in reality, that is just the very beginning.

So we enter into the scene called "christianity", where we find other people who have had this same type of experience, and one of the first things we discover, from those who have been doing it already for some time, is that we have to "live by faith". In God. And most of us just sort of accept this is true, because God says so, without ever stopping to think about WHY this might be true. WHY would he tell us that we had to live by faith for a while??

IT'S BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT YET LEARNED TO TRUST HIM. Because trust takes time. BUT ONCE WE BEGIN TO SEE HIM FAITHFUL TO US, OVER AND OVER AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN, THROUGHOUT THE YEARS, THROUGH THICK AND THROUGH THIN, NO MATTER WHAT COMES OUR WAY, FOR REAL...

WE BEGIN TO LEARN TO TRUST HIM.

AND TRUST IS THE DOORWAY INTO LOVE.

I've got news for you people. I DO NOT THINK THAT FAITH IS FOREVER. Faith is for now, because we are all so young, and such beginners, and He knows it's what we need in order to survive for a while. BUT EVENTUALLY, YOUR FAITH IS GOING TO TURN INTO TRUST. And that will lead you to love.

"Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease;whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."

Why

Why we don't experience as much of Him in our services and activities as we'd like to. It might be because we still do so much of it out of fear, trying to earn His favor and appease Him. And He does not like this, because it keeps us from receiving His love, because true love can never be expressed under those circumstances, otherwise it is not true love, which is what and Who He is.




Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop. You need to be loved.

But couldn't it be because we need to be more holy??

Exactly.

And one of the greatest steps toward holiness that we can take is to eliminate fear from from our lives, because it is one of the least holy things out there. It is entirely unholy to be trying to earn His love.

God will never motivate you through fear! Fear is entirely UNHOLY! We need to stop being afraid of Him so that we are able to receive His love!

Fear of God?

Also, continuing on with the theme of being loved, I think I understand why it is that so much Christian writing carries with it the fear motivation, and why so much of it makes you feel afraid of God. It's because of the fact that we, as human beings, as a race, are so unused to being loved, and so used to being feared, that when He does something good for us, out of His love, we still, because we've been programmed to think and act and operate that way, see it through the lens of fear.

I think that this is what has happened to a lot of Christians, a lot of people, over the years, and that is why we have a lot of Christian literature that unintentionally makes us afraid of God. Because the people writing it were not able to see past their fear, in the situations where God did something REALLY good for them out of His love. And so they wrote down their experiences, because they rightly feel that they are worth recording and passing on to subsequent generations, but because of their lack of ability to receive love properly, they, because of their lifetime's worth of fear programming, logically then superimpose their fear onto that situation, their experience that they just had with God, where he tried to love them. Then when they write the experience down, they write their fear into it. Which is why, we, reading it a hundred years later, pick up on their fear, feel afraid of God, and assume (assume?) that being afraid of God must be correct, because how could this guy be wrong, who was such a great man of God, because everybody knows that all the great men of God lived in the 1800s, and we're just a bunch of schmucks today.

NO. The people back then were just as fouled up as we are today! They had no corner on the market. The Bible says that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All. Even the great men of the 17th and 18th centuries! The Bible also says that there is no partiality with God!

The Bible says that God is love. The Bible also says that their is NO FEAR in love. What part of no don't we understand? When you sin, there is no fear in love. When you make mistakes, there is no fear in love. When you fail, there is no fear in love. When you give up and collapse under the pressure, becuase you just can't take it any more... THERE IS NO FEAR IN LOVE... AND HE IS LOVE.
God is love. Everything He does is out of love, out of WHO HE IS. It is irresponsible for you and me to abdicate the responsibility for our own relationships with God to someone who lived over a hundred years ago, and was just as screwed up as you and I are. No matter how spiritual their writings were, or are. It doesn't, in any waay, and cannot, in any way, release us from our responsibility to have a relationship with Him ourselves!!!

Your Authority

First John 4:13 states that "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgement: because as He is, so are we in this world."

Holy smoke. Did you catch that? This is possibly the most amazing, most fear smashing, guilt defeating statement statement anywhere ever.

Do you think that God ever got mad at Jesus? Do you think that Jesus was ever afraid of His Father?

Was Jesus afraid of the devil?

No. The answer to all of these questions is NO... and neither should you be!

Why?
BECAUSE AS HE IS, SO ARE YOU IN THIS WORLD.

You, as a child of God, with a new nature created in the nature of Christ, are just like Jesus. All His authority, all His love, all of HIM. WHO HE IS, His nature, IS NOW YOUR NATURE.

We have no business ever being afraid of God again. Ever.