Blog

Recently, I joined a Step Study at Celebrate Recovery. In CR, they have a process called “open share”. In these gender specific groups, individuals share their hurts, habits and hang ups. They have the opportunity to pour their hearts out and put it All out there. No judgment or condemnation is reciprocated. Only mercy, love and understanding. No one is alone. All have fallen and come short of His glory.

At first, when I went to the open shares I would be angry when I left and didn’t understand why?

When I share I am brutally honest. That is what some have told me. The caveat is I didn’t realize I embarrass myself. What is happening is the self-image that I have carried and created over the years is being confronted and I don’t like it. I believe this image is false humility, religion, hypocrisy at times and pride. It is the image I am comfortable with. I have labeled it me as a Christian even. Not good. In these open shares, real intimacy is experienced. This freaks me out. It means they will know me. Christ told Jeremiah, “I Knew you before you were in your mother’s womb.” Paul says, “That I might know Him.” He also says, “I know Whom I have believed.” Something happens when my relationship with God goes from managing an image, dead works, religion, to a Person to person relationship. Paul speaks of the fellowship of the mystery, fellowship with the Spirit and the fellowship of His sufferings. John says to make their joy complete to have fellowship with the Father, His Son and with us (the Church).

James says the word is like a mirror. Paul says, “That God might reveal His Son in me.” I believe knowing Him is knowing me. Colossians says our lives are hid in Christ.

I have seen a vague image of myself lately that I carry. It is heavy. I believe fear, the past, hurts, hang up, resentments and the like attach to this thing through the heart. Paul says, “We have the true circumcision. That is of the heart not made by human hands, but by the Spirit of the living God.” Paul says, “Who shall separate me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God for Christ Jesus our Lord!” Galatians say, “Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

In Him, we have redemption and have been bought back because we were originally His. In Him, He has set me free through His Body and Blood, in His forgiveness. I have head-knowledge and am praying for heart knowledge. Jesus sets me free from me. A brother told me, “What I (him) need to do is get our of God’s way.” Very true. His love, truth, grace and revelation of Him and His glory pushes me out of me into the real and true me. This true me is at rest and peace. He does not strive to be, but just is because Christ IS. He said, “I am that I am.”

When I manage an image I am not being. I am striving to manage in the hopes of not failing to justify myself before me towards God when in reality I am the righteousness of God apart from anything I could ever accomplished. Paul had a lot of image management that he considered dung that He might have the excellency of knowing Him more and more in this life and the life to come.

Father, I pray separate, sanctify, renew and change me into Your Son’s image to give you glory. You are worthy Lord. Thank you for worthying me into the Kingdom of Your dearly loved Son. Open the eyes of my understanding and heart. Thank you Father.

Rom. 5:2, ” hope of the glory of God”

Rom. 8:24, ” saved by hope”

1 Cor. 9:10, “partaker of his hope”

1 Cor. 15:19, “hope in Christ”

2 Cor. 1:7, “hope of you [is] stedfast”

2 Cor. 3:12, “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:”

2 Cor. 10:15, “Not boasting of things without [our] measure, [that is], of other men’s labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,”

Gal. 5:5, “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.”

Eph. 1:18, “hope of his calling”

Col. 1:5, “hope which is laid up for you in heaven”

Col. 1:23, “and [be] not moved away from the hope of the gospel”

Col. 1:27, “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”

1 Thess. 5:8, “and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.”

2 Thess. 2:16, “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given [us] everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,“

1 Tim. 1:1, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, [which is] our hope;”

Titus 2:13, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”

Titus 3:7, “That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Tonight the Lord told me, “When you try to be perfect you expect others to be the same.” After hearing this, I said, “I forgive myself for not being perfect.” I felt a weight lifted from my heart. Thought it would be good to write about. For years I have thought failure is not an option. Especially, if it is in public. Can you say hypocrite? I learned a new term recently, “image management.” I fire myself then. Lol. I think that happened at my baptism into Him at salvation. Who I was is dead in Him. I was drowned and rose in newness of life at resurrection with Christ by grace through His faith working inside. This perfect image stuff is for the birds. It is very difficult to forgive myself if I am not perfect because in doing so I have to admit I am not. Pride then can get in the way of allowing myself to forgive myself. I believe pride is a form of idolatry and self-strength. How can I truly offer forgiveness to others then?

That is why I like Col. 3:13. In order to offer forgiveness I need to experience His true forgiveness. I believe that is why He said, “Peace I leave with you and peace I give unto. I do not give unto to you as the world does.” He is the free gift. His forgiveness gives me Him and He is peace. Otherwise, I have the opportunity to chase my tail like Gal. 2:18 and experience insanity, wasted energy and time. Redeem the time, Eph. 5:16. By His complete work, He gives me a new life and now time is on my side in Him.

Hebrews 10:1, “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.”

I realized today when I trust someone I tend to expect ONLY honesty in return. This is not trust. I have trusted like this because I don’t want to get hurt, but end up getting hurt anyways because of this expectation. I am trusting based on my past hurts. These past hurts cloud my expectation of trust. This is not trusting. It is control. The past hurts alter my motive to trust. My motive to trust then becomes selfish based on my expectation. In the long run, this expectation is rooted in fear and the end result is hurt and pain. This is a deception and a unnecessary cycle of emotional heartache. In my life, I have expected this in family, church, police, medical, government and the list goes on. I also see when the world betrays me I have even tried to blame God! In reality, He has not fallen off the throne or changed. His ways and thoughts are not ours. That is for sure. People will always fail me, but He won’t. That is amazing. He is truth and truth does not lie or change.

If I expect others to be honest or trustworthy towards me then truly how can I trust them? With this perspective, I can’t really trust anyone. The greater the expectation of trust the greater the betrayl. Those in authority posses more responsibility and accountability. It is easier for me judge someone in authority if they are supposed to know better. So, the tendency for me is to earn that trust. If I earn their trust then I value myself on their trust and opinion of me. If I make choices based on their opinion then I am a slave to their thoughts. I am reminded of Galatians 4. Christ has set me free from this judgment of myself and others. He could have judged and condemned me, but desires a relationship with me that will grow in trust (on my part). So, what does He do? He enters into this world and becomes like me, dies for me, preaches peace in Sheol (hell), comes back to life, preaches more, ascends into heaven, is glorified and sits down forever as my High Priest granting me free access to have an eternal relationship with Him and the Father of our spirits. It doesn’t get any better. God is love. Knowing this love gives me everything I ever desired. His love surpasses all knowledge.

Matthew 11:3, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” John the Baptist probably was pitted out needless to say. In prison, about to be decapitated. His eyes began to focus on what he saw and not on what he had been preaching. Vain thoughts and imaginations were creeping in. So, John responded to the thoughts and not faith.

Jesus’ reply…awesome, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:” He didn’t say, “Uh yeah, John it’s me dude.” The the Lord references what He had been doing so John will believe by faith since these things were prophesied about.

Matthew 11:5-6, “”The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

Then in Matthew 11:15, “”He who has ears to hear, let him hear!“

As we grow in the revelation and knowledge of His will and are edified and built up in His love we mature unto “sons” of God. In the knowledge of His will there is great liberty and we no need instruction and guidance of the schoolmaster. His will is that all men might come to a knowledge of the truth unto salvation, spirit, soul, body, through His Son Jesus. Hope creates constant, passive, ever-eager, joyful expectation of His will. This comes by grace through faith according to hearing the word of truth. A son will does what he sees his father doing and then does it. He does so because he desires to do so. Paul, as a son of God, said the love of God compels him. Godly, unconditional love is the motivator by grace and faith in the Spirit and newness of life.

God foretells through the prophet, “And I will dwell with my people..”

How? Ephesians says for Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith.

Luke 17:20-21, “Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Gal. 1:11-17, “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.”

Today, 12/03/10, the Lord revealed something that I saw glimpses of, but now I see it. And that is He dwells in our hearts by faith. Well, that’s nice. I like how sometimes I read the bible and read the black inked letters, but not the white. Today, I saw the white. I was listening to praise and worship. In particular, Phil Wickham “Cannons”. I felt led to go into worship. I perceived His presence then He said or I felt or perceived that He moves, lives and dwells IN OUR HEARTS IN US! Yes, all caps. Want to ensure the reader hears this. This is beautiful and bigger than me. It is Him in me! And He is in every believer! Thank you Lord.

No wonder Paul says to sing and make melody in your hearts. I think he is saying to sing in YOUR heart unto the Lord because you want to.  I really like this song. It touches my heart. It is personal and intimate. He dwells in truth not in a religious symphony. He is the Truth. If truth is there He is there. The Father seeks those who worship in spirit and in truth. Not in flesh and falsehood or hypocrisy.

This is also the fellow of the Spirit with Him.

Every believer is an apostle, sent one, messenger or has apostleship with full power of attorney to do the will of the Sender. Every believer is an ambassador for Christ. Every believer is a pattern of obedience or falling into rank unto the faith by grace to the unbeliever. Every believer can do the work of an evangelist and is given power from above to be ministers of Christ and obedience unto the faith.

The apostles of Acts, Corinthians and Ephesian verses administer sound doctrine with power, 1 Cor. 4:1, Eph. 3:9 (dispensation is used in some texts instead of fellowship.) There is a dispensation and fellowship of the mystery by grace imparted to the office of the apostle. This differs from apostleship. The office of the apostle is to be a foundation builder. The foundation is the Christ in us. Peter and John ministered the “logos” word and testified. Philip proclaimed and preached Christ.

Scriptures building on Kicking a dead horse.

Romans 6:10, “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.”

Romans 7:1, “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?”

Romans 8:10, “And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.”

Gal. 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith OF the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

1 Peter 5:7, “Cast (Throw) all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Peter knew about self-strength and self-righteousness. In self-strength, we impose our will even on ourselves, lives, situations and othes in our life. Our will apart from Him has the potential to create the expectation of fear. We cannot separate the old man from the new. Christ said, “I make all things new.”

I saw in prayer today that I was throwing away my cares that tug on my soul. These attach to the person or soul, but the word of truth is able to separate and distinct both soul and spirit. The word imparts His will. He is the word. He is the hope of glory. This hope does not bring disappointment, but passive, ever-eager, joyful expectation.