Heroes

What is your definition of a “hero”? Courageous? Valiant? Epic? All of these are good answers. But we must ask another question: What is Courage and Valor? What is truly Epic? “So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust,” 2 Samuel 16:13. Is there anything Courageous, Valiant or Epic written here?

I believe there is. It takes great courage to trust God with every outcome. It is both valiant and epic when we do what we know we ought to do without any sign that all will turn out well. It takes faith in God’s abilities and intentions to obey conscience when it would be easier not to. It takes the Mind of Christ to offer salvation at personal cost.

It is heroic to leave your destiny in the hands of God as you rally to exalt the destinies of others. It is heroic to refrain from judging one who has chosen to judge you. It is heroic to bless when you are cursed. It is heroic to love your enemies. It is heroic to stand in the arena of human judgment and believe that God will treat you fairly. It is heroic when you do justice towards those who have not been just to you. It is heroic to defend the causes of those who cannot defend you.

“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you,” Luke 6:35-38. You will be a Hero. Just as Christ was a Hero to you.

It is heroic to leave judgment of even your enemies to the Creator. It is heroic to stand as one merciful, kind and forgiving when it is not gratefully received. It is heroic to believe, in every situation, that God will be just towards you. He will judge you fairly.

And David said, “It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today,” 2 Samuel 16:12. Heroic. Trusting God. Leaving to Him all the judgment. He or she who does this, will be a Hero in the History Books of Heaven.

The Mind of Christ

“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God,” 1 Peter 4:1.

You may have to suffer in this life… .shocking, I know! You may be subjected to ridicule, manipulation, verbal lashings, hatred, lies or physical pain. And this comes as no surprise to the average human! We live in this world where unrighteous things happen day in and day out. So what do you think of it? What is your reaction?

You may be forced in your lifetime to run from danger, defend a life, forfeit possessions or freedom, bite your tongue and walk away. Are you up to the challenges?

Suffering is not a goal. It should never be a personal goal to suffer. Scripture even gives us a standard for suffering. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed… .For it is better to suffer for doing God’s will, then for doing evil,” 1 Peter 3:14. For the believer, suffering should never come as a just consequence because we chose the wrong. Neither should it come because we sought to suffer. Suffering should come to us as a result of the choices of others. We suffer because they choose to ridicule, manipulate, lash out, hate, lie and physically abuse us. This could happen to anyone for any number of reasons.

However, the subject of this script is not suffering. It is about your mind. What do you think about in the midst of your suffering? I can tell you what I often think. Thoughts of unfairness. Thoughts of shame. Thoughts of anger… .sometimes thoughts of retaliation. Thoughts of despair. Thoughts of totally giving up. Thoughts of judging and condemning my opponent. Thoughts that Christ Himself had to face.

“But we have the mind of Christ” 1 Corinthians 3:16. We have been freely given the mind of the The One who has come to rescue Humanity from it’s way of thinking while in this world. We have been given the mind of One who was ridiculed, manipulated, lashed, hated, lied to and physical abused, and yet did not condemn. He did not take the head of His opponent. He gave His life instead. He trusted His Father with personal judgment. This is the mind we have been given. A mind that can rest in God’s fairness. A mind that is prone to deliver his or her opponent from condemnation, rather than distributing judgments. Whoever has this mind, in the midst of suffering, is done with sinning. Nothing in this mind will cause the bearer to act unjustly. They are willing to suffer and wait patiently for God to judge the matter, in His wisdom, in His time…

“Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for you were called, that you may obtain a blessing,” 1 Peter 3:9. Look for ways to save a life even when you are suffering…

A Right Judgment

The small pebble pelted his left temple. David didn’t flinch. “Dog! You filthy, vile dog!” came the ridicule from the hillside that ran parallel to the road. David bowed his hooded head lower. Tears had not stopped flowing ever since their ascent upon the Mount of Olives. “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man!” David heard the taunt so distantly as his mind imagined that young Absalom was now entering Jerusalem, a conqueror of his father’s throne.

The streets of Bahurim were scattered with onlookers. Faces betrayed the presence of many opinions. But a man from the household of Saul, Shimei, shared his opinion openly, “The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the Lord has given his kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.” David’s conscience ached from the verbal blows. This was prime opportunity for Adversarial perspectives. He rubbed his forehead as he attempted to quickly dismiss the questions waging war within, “Did I hunt Saul? No, Saul hunted me. Did I usurp the throne? No, God promised it to me and I was willing to patiently wait. Did I take Saul’s life? No, Saul took his own. In all the opportunities I had to take it, I did not. O God I need your help! Keep my heart from unrighteous anger!”

Abishai, of David’s mighty men, whirled about to face David, swiftly drawing his sword, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over to take off his head.” Abishai’s eyes sparked with too much passion for the kill. David halted abruptly, placed his left hand on Abishai’s armed shoulder, and slowly scolded with his tone, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah?” he paused. Abishai lowered his sword. The king lifted his countenance and strengthened his stance. Even in bare feet, he was more regal of appearance than the greatest among men. All of the mighty men moved not a finger, waiting for the king to speak. Lifting his arm towards Shimei, he said, “If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say ‘Why have you done so?’ Behold , my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjamite! Leave him alone,” David shouted, “And let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today.” David lowered his arm and inhaled a deep breath. He placed the fallen hood back over his head and started down the Bahurim road again. All of the mighty men said not a word as they resumed walking, fleeing from Absalom. Shimei continued to follow along on the hillside opposite David, cursing as he went, throwing stones and flinging dust at David and his mighty men.

This is probably my favorite story in all of Scripture. I consider David’s heroism of heart in this one circumstance to far outshine the Epics of Biblical Tale we usually praise. I see a man on a cross here. A man unafraid of human judgment. A man willing to be tested and tried in the human arena. A man who trusted that his God would always make a right judgment of his life.

We live in a day and time when most individuals deeply fear judgment. Even in Christian circles, we are gun shy of the judgments imposed on us by brothers and sisters in the faith. We often preach, from our personal platforms, more about others not judging us than we are conscience of how much we judge others. We’re frightened. We’re touchy and terrified. But what if the judgments of man did not matter? What if we did not assume that man had this sort of power, authority or control over our temporal or eternal destiny? David was a human being just like you and I. And after years of maturity, he had dismissed his fear of human judgment. David gave that sort of power, authority and control to God. God would justly judge David… .and Shimei. God was able to take care of Shimei’s personal opinion. David would leave himself and Shimei to God.

A Darkened Conscience

Things are not always what they seem. Our judgments are not always correct. Our vision and hearing not necessarily so good. “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” Luke 8:18. It is possible to interpret everything differently than as it truly is.

The circumstances of life can become very complicated as each individual approaches them from a different point of view. “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes…” Isaiah 5:21. It is never a recommendation of Scripture that any one of us become too confident in his or her perspective. Even when searching the motives of our own hearts, we should never trust our own ability to discern reality.

An Adversary of both God and Man is readily available to include his own interpretations. An honest conclusion leads us here: We need a great deal of help to know for certain what is Real and True! But we don’t always admit this…

Provision has been made, through the blood of Christ, for our fallen flesh to personally know Reality as Divinity interprets it. What stands between our knowledge of God’s mind and our emersion in personal interpretation, is usually simply the humility to admit we need His Mind in the matter. We need His wisdom. We need His knowledge. We need His perspective… .of everything. It’s obvious. It’s plain. We need His perspective.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes namely, his eternal power and Divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…” Romans 1:18-22.

When we hold tightly to our own judgments and evaluations, even of self, we risk making innumerable choices, all of which effect others, that may be totally wrong. But we don’t know it because we have blurry, darkened vision. A heart that can only see part of the story. A consciousness that is only alert to some of the atmosphere. And we have reduced our ourselves to living within our limited views. We have subjected ourselves to a personal perspective that may be way off. All because, we couldn’t just admit we need God’s mind to interpret the atmosphere, the circumstances, the relationships, our own hearts… .for us.

Glorify God by seeking His perspective of absolutely everything! A darkened conscience is never able to make a right judgment.

An Adversary

We often forget that we have a spiritual Adversary. Our assaulted souls constantly recall the many flesh and blood faces that leave their unholy mark. These faces bear, not the image of an Adversary, but the image of their Creator. God put them here. The Adversary works steadily and skillfully to create a chaotic existence wherein we are continually shifting the blame for our shortcomings unto the many persons and circumstances that God has left us with. The Adversary reminds us that we were discarded from birth, rejected and unwanted …that our circumstances are God’s direct disapproval ….that the assaults have come because we are undesirable and worthy of nothing else. From the moment of our conception, a protective cocoon begins to form around our heart. Our father’s injustices and our mother’s arguments become our own. We receive the many suggestions against God and man that have littered the thoughts of the human race. And somehow, our Adversary slithers throughout the activity, continually free to roam. “The Lord said to Satan, ‘From where have you come?’ Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it,’” Job 1:7.

Meanwhile, God has His many eyes keeping close watch over the continual thoughts and intentions of every breathing soul. He hasn’t forgotten us. He is watching. He knows that from the formation of our seed sized bodies and whisper willed spirits, we are assaulted by the rememberance of a seperated existence. He knows that from the moment of conception, we were aware of our separation from the Divine. We feel the pangs of love-sickness for a Father we can’t see. We feel the sadness of being driven from His garden and we hear the suggestions of a Liar, “Maybe God wants to be separated from you”. And as our lives cut a trail through the unfamiliar surfaces of earth, a Liar will place people and pitfalls in our way to convince us that this is true. But, from every corner of the earth, God is moving and weaving through our mountains and meadows to retell the true story and reconcile our hearts.

This is the drama that we enter into.

Perspective, Part 2

Pause. Consider. What was it like to just believe God? What was it like to be free of the questions we now wrestle with? What was it like to trust the Creators heart…. .just because? No reason not to, right? What was it like to entertain Divinities company and listen to the expression of His thoughts? What was it like to simply enjoy them? When He spoke we were interested and we reveled in learning to understand. We sought diligently to understand His heart. It was a good, pure heart that we wanted to know. It made perfect sense to know and understand the heart of God…. .It made perfect sense to be sustained by the Creator’s perspective…. .in Eden.

Ever since our Garden tragedy, the human race has never been able to apprehend or understand the heart of God. “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God,” 1 Corinthians 3:11. Our lifeline has been cut off from Divinity and the purity of perspective that runs through the Creator’s veins has become unavailable to the human race. In the womb we heard Him speaking His heart but we hadn’t come to eat and drink of it. We were attached to our human ancestry and hadn’t learned to feed on His thoughts yet. But He was drawing us ….continually, through every circumstance, reaching out with His perspective.

So, from the other side of Eden, it makes sense to question the Creators perspective. It makes perfect sense to entertain doubts, to consider the ancient arguments, to give attention to the suggestions and accusations against Divinity. It doesn’t seem altogether wrong to disbelieve Him when He says, “I love you”. There seems to be nothing shocking in our lack of trusting His heart. After all, we are truly on the other side of Eden where perspectives of absolutely everything fill the air like flies and they are many, various and from all directions. They are clotting our human blood flow. They are in us and around us. Which do we believe?

It is from our conception that we enter into this conquest. The suggestions and accusations that littered the hearts and minds of our ancestors begin to develop in conjunction with our physical bodies. As God speaks to us His goodness and purpose for us from conception, an ancient argument is already waging war against Him in our veins. “…no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed,” Isaiah 54:17. All of these arguments might have been easily laid to rest had no one agreed with them in this world. But a weapon has been skillfully fashioned and pointed at every individual soul to ensure that the arguments become full-grown and steadfast. An Adversary comes along and whispers his true lies about the nature of our First Lover. And the world we live in becomes a bloodied battleground between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of His enemy leaving mankind to make various choices concerning his perception of both.

Perspective, Part 1

Perspective is often unreliable and very dangerous. How well we see determines how well we can walk in a straight line. Scripture refers to those who have bad perspective as those who have eyes but do not see. They are also known as the blind. “We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope like those who have no eyes,” Isaiah 59:10. Our story in this life is formed by many perspectives spoken into our own perspective.

Greg closed his eyes and he wept. Night after night his pillow was moistened by unrelenting sobs and a personal fear: “God, what’s wrong with me?!” The possibility that something might be wrong with his original blueprint heavied his heart well into his adult years. An ancient argument against God’s perspective was full-grown in his heart. And he wrestled with it. Then one day a gentlemen at his church was inspired by the Spirit of God to say this: “Greg, you used to cry into your pillow and ask what was wrong with you. God wants you to know that nothing is wrong with you.” There it was. The truth. And Greg’s eyes were opened. “…You will know the and the truth will set you free,” John 8:32.

Or, when you see the way God sees, you will see correctly.

Our perspectives govern our many choices in this life. Without the interception of Divine perspective, our choices are the products of arguments, desires, human wills and so on. Various divided perspectives determine our destiny. Without the DNA of Christ cleansing our perspectives… .transforming our wills and desires, we see our lives through darkened eyes. We cannot properly perceive circumstances and relationships. We are subject to eyesight that fails us. We are governed by a darkened, foggy, undiscerning conscience. "...you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God..." Ephesians 4:17-18. They cannot see well. They cannot understand correctly. They do not have the Life of God running through their conscience, affecting their perspective.

Our lives would often be radically different, our character deeply righteous, if we could see ALL through His eyes. We would undoubtedly make very different choices, speak very different words, believe very different philosophies… .if we could but see….

If Eve had been fully aware that no other offer was better than her present paradise, she would never have taken the fruit. And Tamar would not have closed her heart and ran into a corner if she understood that God wanted to be her comforter. Cain would have lowered his knife had he not been swept away by a Liar’s suggestion that God desired Abel more. “The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.’” Genesis 4:6-7. But Cain couldn’t see reality.

The Blood of Christ

“Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God,” Psalm 22:9-11.

So, it has been said that our father was an Amorite and our mother a Hittite. Our ancestry and birth is in the land of Canaan. Our cord was not cut off from this fallen gentile state. But we were certainly separated from the Divine. When I consider my human ancestry, there are an awful lot of reasons to despair! My bloodlines are not pure. They are not free from arguments and sins. My ancestors have struggled with the Divine all the way back to the Ad’am in Eden. My ancestral ties leave me little hope for reconnecting with the Creator. I have little faith that the heart and blood of my fathers and mothers could reconcile me to the Living God. I will have to seek another source. Another history. Another ancestry.

“….how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God,” Hebrews 9:14.

The shed blood of Christ is so much more than a deadly experience. The shed blood is not merely a liquid drained from the body of a historically sacrificed man. No… .it is an active source! The blood of Christ has become the available bloodline for the human race. It is a living substance that spiritually restores. It is our history, if we will receive it. It is our ancestry, if we will accept it. We have the opportunity, as separated humans, to be reconnected to the ancestry of God. To be sons and daughters of God. To receive the full ancestry and inheritance of a pure, eternal bloodline. The bloodline that ran through the veins of Christ. He is now our available history. He is now our ancestry. He is now our eternal source of Life.

We must be Born Again! “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3:3. We must receive a new bloodline that cleanses our DNA. We must receive the very blood and Life of Christ. Born into a new family. Of a new ancestry and heritage. The blood of Christ cleanses us of our ancestral human history. We are cleansed of the contentions within the heart of the Amorite and the Hittite. We are cut off from our gentile bloodline and engrafted into the bloodline of the Son of God. We are born into a new history, ancestry and inheritance!

This blood of Christ works itself so deeply into our hearts and minds, that it eternally and spiritually purifies our conscience. We are not even conscious of the old bloodline. We are no longer living among the ancestral arguments. We do not posses any real awareness or identity with the old life that ran through our fallen ancestral veins. We have a new Life, a new Consciousness, a new Birth Family, a new History, a new Perspective of absolutely everything.

From the Spiritual womb of baptism in His Holy Spirit, you have been washed by His Blood and are no longer conscious of the argumentative works of your human ancestral bloodline. You are a New Creation!

Divided Heart

Every human has been aroused to questions about the Divine. Furthermore, questions about self and family, friend and foe, success and failure and every other thing or person in between. Our hearts are all divided up by various perspectives. We are most often a puzzle of pieces that don’t fit rightly together….

The now grown woman of Ezekiel lingers at a crossroads. She considers the works of her Lover and she boils under the pressure of many questions. Questions about who and why and what if? Doubts about intentions. Fears about future security. The haunting of past shame. Why was I left for dead? Why was I unwanted? Is all of this a set up to abandon me again when I am at the height of satisfaction? Is this just a game? Does He really love me for me? Or am I just an expendable object? She considers much too long all of the injustices that once were. All of the unsettled arguments of her ancestry and birth. And she turns the wrong way.

Tamar, now embarrassed, hides away under dark shadows. She dwells much too faithfully upon her lack of virginity. She listens much too earnestly to the voice of accusation. What if you had been wiser to your brother’s intentions? Why did you present yourself so beautifully? What were you thinking? What were your intentions? How much did you desire what happened? How involved was your heart? And she never consciously re-enters the land of the living.

Ishmael festers underneath his wounded flesh. He is aroused to anger. Deep anger. For the day of his birth was not as it should be. No firstborn covenants for Ishmael. No firstborn inheritance. And the four walls of his heart echo with revenge. All of the voices of injustice stir him to shame, accusation and hate. You are not the promised one. But you are the firstborn. Why have they denied you your rights? You look like the fool here. Why don’t you forcefully take what is yours? And Ishmael persecutes his brother although his brother had no active part in the injustice. Ishmael continues to seek his justice today… .through revenge.

What about your questions? What about the questions and accusations you inherited from your ancestors? What of the injustices that have come to you? I, myself, have many that I could tell you about. Therefore, I safely assume that you do also… .perhaps many more. They are real. They are there. They have happened. Now what will you and I do?

Our hearts are typically all divided up by these questions. At any given moment you find yourself re-aroused by past and present injustice. Things you thought you forgot or know how to righteously handle. A voice is always present to encourage our meditation on the shame we feel, the embarrassment, the loss.

This is the crucible. The historical moment of choice. These are the times that we stand at the crossroad. These are the times when vision gets fuzzy. Rash choices are often made. And we have to do the obvious. Stop… .seek the voice of our Lover…. .and believe it. Sounds simple but it always takes real courage to let go of the injustice and trust Divinities undivided heart.

“…Give me an undivided heart…” Psalm 86:11.

There Once was an Infant, Part 2

When God passes by, He has a lot to undo and do.  Several thousand messages are running through our veins.  And several thousand are riding upon the atmosphere.  Most, and I mean most, of these are against the Creator.  Very few agree with His heart.  And we are very vulnerable to all of these.  

It takes dedication.  It takes care.  It takes personal knowledge and skill to nurture an infant life.  It takes even more knowledge and skill to nurture a life that has been alienated from you.  There are many questions about your intentions.  There are many questions about God’s intention.  Since Humanities cord has been cut from the Divine… .since long ago, we became a race and government of our own… .we have no personal knowledge of His heart.  We do not personally know His good intentions. Therefore, we are unsure.  We are unsure of the Creator.  Who is He anyway?

It takes skillful moments, months of dedication, years of planning.  The Divine is careful and concise in His cause to woo us home.  He gathers up an Infant of Ezekiel and washes, bandages, medicates and swaddles.  He nurtures.  He personally attends to growth.  He waits and at just the right moment of a Human heart’s history, He offers mature love.  He becomes a Spouse, a covenanted partner.  Then He gives.  He gives it ALL.  All that He thinks, feels and knows.  

The Lord God has nurtured a Life, not for servitude, but for friendship.

Sadly, despite all of this bestowed affection, the infant of Ezekiel 16 shifts her course.  She doesn’t remain in the protective and provisional garden of His love.  “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his,” Ezekiel 16:15.  Something motivates the young maiden to seek affections from another source.  She works skillfully to attract the eye of other lovers whom she supposes could give her something she is searching for.  “You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. …you also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, with them you played the whore.  And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them.  Also my bread that I gave you – I fed you fine flour and oil and honey – you set before them for a pleasing aroma. …and you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured…” Ezekiel 16:16-20.  

What, I ask you, is she looking for?  Well… .she is looking for answers.  Who am I?  Who are You?  Why was I left there?  What was my past and what will be my future?  Explain these thoughts.  Explain these feelings.  Explain my heart’s condition.  Explain Yourself.  Explain!

The heart of the Amorite and the Hittite did not know the heart of God.  They were foreigners. Since Eden, we are foreigners.  We have many questions about existence and many battles for survival.  They run through our veins and swirl about our heads.  We have many choices in the midst of them.  The most important of all: Will we believe God’s heart?  Will we trust His intentions?

Although this certainly is the story of a maiden gone crooked in her path, it is more dramatically the story of God intervening in an abandoned life.  Her life had been thrown into a crooked path from birth. ….and not by her own will.  She had lost so many things before God passed by.  And so it is with Humanity.  From birth, we have been thrown into a crooked world.  Without any real understanding of our situation, we are still keenly aware of the many conforming contributors.  Although God comes along with His loving and healing intervention, many of us, like the maiden, are conformed instead by the pressures of this world.  We choose to believe the many lies of our ancestors and peers and environments.  And we simply forget that God created us good, saw us abused and abandoned, loved what He saw and longed to restore us.

Then God Passes By...

The screaming and kicking and clawing at open air. The dry tongue clinging to the roof of my mouth. Shaking lips and grasping fists. The wet fluids under and around my soft, vulnerable skin. A moment of truth. A portrait of reality. A message of unsanctified pain. Way deep in our human conscious, we remember our heritage. We weren’t really anything to be counted on or reckoned with. We were a cut-off carcass. Wallowing. Our wailing and howling did not render us attractive.. .so irresistible to the Beholder. But, we wail and howl anyway….

Then God passes by…

Works of strength and intelligence, wealth and ingenuity… .none of it washes or renews. Climbing higher. Reaching taller. Giving my body to be burned. Speaking eloquently. Winning applause. Obtaining reward or recognition. My head exalted above my peers. Standing on a platform that tremors and shakes… .often. My fame does not render me more clothed….

Then God passes by…

Messages. They are written everywhere on my soul. Messages of friendship and adversity. Messages that exalt and topple me. Messages that wash and shame me. Messages….

Then God passes by…

Unceasing remembrance. I am filled up with questions. Challenges for the Divine. All my past Fathers and Mothers asked them. They are stirred up in me. My condition is a message. My exaltation is a message. My shame is a message. Messages that arouse many questions….

When God passes by…

Aroused… .to many things. Humanity is all stirred up on the inside. Who am I? Who are You? Why have I been left here? Where are We going? What was My past and what will be My future? Explain My thoughts. Explain My feelings. Explain My condition. Explain Your intentions. Explain!

And, when God passes by, all of this is going on. He has got an awful lot to undo and to do.

I can’t make sense of my own heart most nights. I would much less feel adequate to make sense of yours. But the portrait of an Infant in Human blood… .well, there it is. It’s what we look like in our deficiency. It is our hearts lying there among many messages, both ancestral and atmospheric. It is our hearts wailing there and determining to resurrect themselves by use of their own strength. It is our hearts governed by the disconnected Human cord. And it is our hearts that the Creator passes by…

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts,” Zechariah 4:6. “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood (in the midst of your ancestral arguments and humanly inherited shame), ‘Live!’ “Ezekiel 16:6.

There Once was an Infant, Part I

There once was an infant “… Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.  And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped with swaddling cloths.  No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, you were abhorred on the day that you were born.” Ezekiel 16:3-5.  

The heart of the Creator was not known by the Amorite and the Hittite.  The infants birth was treated carelessly, perhaps even ruthlessly. She was found exposed to the elements in a pool of blood with a lifeline attached to her naval, but no life.  Without the extremities of compassion, she would die…  

“When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you. ….I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil.  I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather.  I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk.  And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck.  And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.  Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth.  You ate fine flour and honey and oil.  You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty.  And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you…” Ezekiel 16:8-14.   

The Creator bent low and delivered an abandoned infant from her visible shame.  All at once, Divinity became Father, Mother, Sister and Brother to the infant.  Ancestral ties were ignored.  Lack and deficiency were unimportant.  An infant was in need of a Lover.  All at once, upon the advent of maturity, Divinity also became Spouse.  There was a bathing and a washing, an anointing and adorning.  More than that… .He exalted her to a position of holy, splendiferous equality.  She became famous for the love He gave her. 

Far from ancestry, condition and ability… .an mature young woman thrived famously upon richness that He awarded Her… .for no good reason except the reason of Love.

Atmospheric

The special sciences sometimes disagree on the source of our shaping.  Are we influenced by biological chemicals and genes?  Or do we conform to environmental pressures?  Is it poverty or wealth, sickness or health, praise or shame that produce us?  How do we become that person that we become with all of the beliefs, phobias, desires, and preferences that we cling to?  In all of my experience as a human, I have deduced that we are products of all of these things.  Each one contributes to our resulting character and make-up.  We are conformed to the pressures of parents, peers, religion, finances, governments, schools, losses, romance and fantasies.  The issue is truly not about the question of contributors, but rather, the issue is about the fact that we are conformed.  

You are potentially a product of many things… .many influences in your atmosphere.  

The atmosphere of the womb ebbed and flowed with your ancestry.  The atmosphere of your little world on planet earth ebbs and flows with centuries of human ideas, suggestions, arguments and possibilities.  No, we aren’t in the Garden anymore where we were saturated with the Divine and totally secure in it.  We are introduced to a new world with an atmosphere at war.  We are introduced to several possibilities and various choices.

On the day that we are brought forth, on our birth day, not only do we have several ancestral ideas about the nature of God and man running through our veins, but we also are immediately introduced to thousands of other atmospheric suggestions.  Many thoughts and words are contributed to our understanding of who we are and what we are here for.  A little boy or little girl now faces a new sound …a babbling of confused communications about where to find love again.  And our Creator God begins the aerodynamic quest of pointing us in His direction over and over until we return to that first love affair when Divinity and Dust consummated before the cosmos.

The Plan… .the Great Cosmic Program… .is to deliver us from our conformation to ancestral and atmospheric pressures…. .and to deliver us unto the One who will transform us with love.  We ought to be formed by His mercies, caressed by His multi-graces, moved by His magnificence.  We ought to be transformed by the atmosphere of His indwelling…

“Do not be conformed to this world (this age, this atmosphere), but be transformed by the renewal…” Romans 12:2.  “…that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” Ephesians 3:16-19.

Opportunity and Ancient Arguments

God was present on the day of our birth.  He was present within our very make-up and consciousness of our need for love.  We are a grand opportunity for Divinity to express Himself in a truly genuine and unique form.  The God of creation deeply anticipates the possibility our Human being offers.  We are a beautiful opportunity for love in all of its Divine expressions.  And the God of true love could simply have His pure way with us if there were no interference.  But there is a great deal of interference.  There are approximately a million and one ancestral arguments running through our veins that contribute to our perception of God.  We enter this world with many suggestions concerning where to give and take love.  We are conscious of the wars of our fathers and mothers… .the wars that have been waged within their own hearts and minds, the arguments they carried on with the Divine.  We are conscious, yet not consciously, of their battles.  Generations past, all culminating in our blood, have battled with personal disbelief in this loving Deity.  Generations past have struggled with and against the Master Artist and His attempts to woo, restore and express through them.  These battles, these struggle, wage war within us.  These suggestions and arguments carry on from generation to generation seeking answers, resistance, appeasement and ultimately Peace.

Our individual stories are marked by the difficult choices we make inside of these many suggestions and ancient arguments concerning the Divine.  Although God knows us very well, we do not enter this Human world fully convinced of whom He is.  We do not enter the world convinced that He is the Lover we need to experience.  We are left very open to other possibilities and persons who will offer themselves as a necessary source.  We are all too often prey to ancient arguments and free range to other sources, other lovers, other saviors.

The Divine Creator is merely one of many ideas, many possibilities for love.  

Where do all of your perceptions of Divinity come from?  Have you considered how many of them are inherited from your ancestral past?  Your DNA is littered with their arguments against God.  Your blood runs with their perceptions.  What will you do with these?  What will you choose to believe…. .Your Dust or His Divinity?

On your newborn day, God was present to rejoice over you, to discover you, to woo you and restore you, to express Himself through you and baptize you in His goodness.  But you and I and all other Humans of planet earth, were a battleground of ancient perceptions of the Divine.  Some perhaps correct and probably many incorrect.  This was your newborn condition.  You were a grand and beautiful opportunity for the Greatest Love Story ever told, a fantastic consummation of Divinity and Dust…. .or the Bloodiest Battle of all history.  You were and are an opportunity for just about anything, among many ancient arguments.  

The Human Canvas

There are those who suppose we are a blank slate, an unwritten story, an untouched canvas.  This is some true and some untrue.  We are partly blank, partly unwritten and partly untouched.  We are only partly fresh and new.  We are more or less made of recycled materials given an opportunity for re-creation.  We are a canvas that has been painted before, and now will be recovered and painted again.  The old work of art will have some influence on the new.  Some of its formation will be inherited from the strokes that lie beneath.  The brand new You that enters planet earth has a long history.  What is historically, experientially unknown to your outer consciousness will affect your inner spirit nonetheless.  From the womb, your human canvas had already been written upon.  From the womb, you were baptized in the humanness of generations past.  

However, each one of us also carries the imprint of a Spiritual Deity.  Deity has always been part of our personal story and individual painting.  We have been formed in the image of Divinity.  And this original imprint leaves us eternally conscious of our need for the Divine.  From somewhere within our own DNA, we possess a consciousness of God.  He is part of our canvas even if He is not part of our painting.  Divinity haunts us from within our created being even if He has no bestowed part in our story.  Humanity has, embedded within its very flesh and blood, an inborn consciousness of both Divinity and Dust.  “…He has put eternity into man’s heart…” Ecclesiastes 3:11.  From our very own human hearts, we know Divinity is there… .we know He’s somewhere.  But our communication and consciousness with a history of Dust confuse our perspective…. .because…

….we also carry the imprints of our human ancestors.  Our blood already flows with many ancestral belief systems about Deity, humanity, enemies, friends and environments.  History has influenced or Present.  The ancient arguments of our ancestral past have already influenced and conformed our thoughts, our emotions, our will and our desires.  We enter the world a partly touched canvas, a partly written story.  

The Day You Were Born

The day you were born, God smiled.  Maybe He did so much more than that.  I think He laughed with pleasure.  He gathered up all of His most precious thoughts and He soared upon the four winds of the seasons to deposit every single one of them in your atmosphere.  You were everything that He hoped you would be.  Everything that He desired you to be.  You were already all of those things incarnate.  “It is very good,”  Genesis 1:31.  It sounds absolutely wonderful!  But if you are anything like me, the experiences of life have done awfully little to enforce this and it just seems too good to be true.  So is it true?  Is humanity really this desirable?  Even to a God who is far better than us in every sense of the word?  

Actually, it is so much closer to the truth than anything we ever experience.  Our outside influences and generational dispositions find themselves in constant conflict over its reality.  And we are here, born into planet earth, trying desperately to believe that what we see and feel is not true.  Somehow, between all of the twists and turns of life, God’s original evaluation of our person gets lost.  How did it happen?

There isn’t a child born of human descent that wasn’t born for loving.  Our newly conceived hearts are awakened to the need for it.  A natural consciousness sparks within that first mille-second to the whisperings and wooings of Creator God.  Our first arousal is to His communication with our dust.  We are made by God.   There is something amazing and exciting about our introduction to the world.  We have been anticipated, not only by family and friends, but also by God.  Our arrival brings with it another opportunity for our Creator to display His unsurpassed love and indescribable affection on earth.  He has been waiting expectantly to walk with us.  “Enoch walked with God,” Genesis 5:24.  His great pleasure was in the simplicity of sharing company. 

Honest to goodness… .on the day you were born, here is written the unseen Truth: A Deified love song from Heavenly realms aroused your desirable form and function to the Eternal possibility of walking with your Creator, the Lover of your Humanity.  Really, that’s how it all started.  And I venture to assume that the beautiful Heavenly sound, the desire of Divinities heart, went slightly unnoticed and largely forgotten, because… .on the day you were born, you were also introduced to an adverse atmosphere.  And I would also venture to assume that this atmosphere aroused your human heart to a thousand and one ancient arguments against this Loving Creator and… .against You.  Selah.

 

What's in a Name?

Very often, nothing these days.  And that’s okay.  It’s not really your human ancestry that ought to determine your destiny anyway.  Our name may serve as an identifying label, however, it is what we are called that usually forms our perspective of self.  “…You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give…. .You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married, for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married,” Isaiah 62:2-4.  Terms bestowed not as indicators or labels; no, these were perspectives.  Divinity’s perspectives.  They were descriptions of a land that would look restful and fruitful because it was married and delighted in.  Therefore, it would be called….

Who would call it this?  But, of course, anyone with eyes to see.  For the land would look married and it would look delighted in.  Ah, the power of perspective!  For what we are called often determines what we become.  

And where does this “calling” echo?  But, of course, within.  For first, we are called on the inside.  It is the sound of the words we believe.  Within the human heart echos a calling.  A calling to consciousness.  Who are you?  That calling comes from many realms, through many fields of thought, upon many airwaves and from two distinct directions.  One of them for us and one of them against us.  

Yes, we know who they are: the Father of Lies, the Adversary, the Evil One and the the Bearer of Truth, the Counselor, the Righteous One.  Each of these calls us by a name.  A perspective.  Each One sees us from a different point of view.  One with honesty and one with dishonesty.  One to save us and one to destroy.  

The truthful perspective echoing on the inside has the potential to inwardly deliver us from fulfilling an adverse destiny.  We are called to consciousness.  Who are we really?  Listen.  Just one perspective is true.  And Divinity has enabled the human spirit to commune with the Bearer of Truth, the Counselor, the Righteous One.  “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” John 16:13.  What does Divinity call you?  By what name are you known?