v.4.28 The Big Picture – Part 11

Lets recap the Big Picture so we can begin to see what He is doing:

Part 1 – God has a Will. He is relational. He declared that He would have many sons. As always, he provides a means of support and sustainability before He Creates. He builds His infrastructure. Thus Creation overtook Chaos and the stage was set for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. He has set the stage for the drama of HisStory to play out. He made man unique, He made him “in our image” having will to act on thought and feelings, to express his heart. The question: Will man choose his Father as his Father has chosen him or will man choose Self and forsake the opportunity to have a relationship with his Father? The question is: Do we trust Him? Do we believe Him?

Part 2 – But Adam did not choose his Father, he did not trust Him, he did not believe Him, and in so doing was cut off from the Life of Spirit he once knew. Now God has provided a Way to come back to Eden. God has left a remnant in Adam (and by virtue of the seed concept all man) of his knowledge of God. He has “set eternity in our hearts” (that is the big hole that we have in us, set aside for Him). We must now go back to the point where we lost our Way, our establishing our will to be done above His Loving Perfect will, to get back on track. We decided to not trust Him, to not believe Him. We did it our way.

Part 3 – Did man choose to return (another word for repent) to his Father? Nope. Instead he listened to the new father, the father of lies, believing that God does not love him and that he is not wanted or acceptable to have a relationship to his heavenly Father. So that was just too much to take. We will show Him. We think we can be good enough, we think we can measure up to be equal with God (like our new father). So we have spent centuries building works that attempt to reach the heights of Gods standards, to set up our own kingdoms and set our own rules. This makes up the better part of the history of mankind, and the history of most men. Achieving great goals through our own efforts. The goal is to never submit to Authority, to prove that we can do it our way. We don’t want to trust Him, to believe Him.

Part 4 – Our Father shows us His heart. He shows us what He wants from His children. Both Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices. One is acceptable, the other is not. We are told in Hebrews, ““By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice…”. Here it is again. God wants us to have faith, to trust Him, to believe Him, not what we see, think or decide we want. Do we trust Him? Do we believe Him?

Part 5 – God begins to build His house on this line of man, a spiritual man, a man of faith, “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” Gen. 4:25. God is building a household of faithful sons (offspring that contain the Seed of His Spirit, who are spreading the Seed, His Word, in the earth). He is building a house and we are all — His sons — living stones from which He is building us up. “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5. God is using Time to produce his building materials, the sons of God.

Part 6 – But we have an enemy (and he wishes we would forget or ignore him altogether) who is plotting and scheming against the purposes of God in the earth. His greatest weapon is your mind. He has access to it and you don’t even realize how much access he has. He has even convinced you that your thoughts originate with you. They do not! So he hides in the recesses of your mind planting lies, deceptive thoughts and doubts regarding your Father and his relationship with you. He will do anything to keep you from being a son of your Father. He accomplishes this mostly by making you believe that He doesn’t love you and that you are all alone, must trust yourself and believe in yourSelf (aka your enemy disguised as your thoughts) for all your provision and protection. A shrewd enemy will separate you from the fold, isolate you and devour you when you are unprotected.

Part 7 – Our Father has given us Time to choose Him, to trust Him, to believe Him. He is forever revealing Himself, His Love and His desire to bring you Home to Himself. But our enemy has a plan too. The enemy is using up all your time by making you focus on your need to fill the hole in you with temporal worldly pleasures. He continually presents the perversions of God’s provision and protection in the parade of what you must do to make yourSelf happy, safe and secure. If you bite that lure you have accepted a life-long project. Just long enough so that you miss the boat to your Fathers Kingdom. Distractions with Self lead you to Death and Eternal separation.

Part 8 – Now we did not do well with the Time given us so God decided to interrupt Time with Eternity — Himself. If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself right? Well, God the Father waited till the Time was just right, then He entered to save the Day. He came and showed us Himself, as a Man, so we could behold Him and know Him, but mostly so we could trust Him and believe Him. He said in essence, “I want more like this Son of mine.” It is the same old song, new verse. We chose not to trust Him and believe His Word in the Garden. We are eating up the clock trying to find any other thing than that — submitting to the will of our heavenly Father, trusting and believing Him.

Part 9 – So now the enemy has a new battleground for your mind — the Image of God. Guess what he does? The same old, same old. He takes the Good gifts of God and perverts them. He takes the Son and repackages Him in a new form — Religion. Whereas God wanted us to relate to Him through the Relationship of a son, by faith, by love, by trust, by belief, we now have a very competitive and attractive option. Rather than being like Him, we just act like Him and look like Him. Monkey see, monkey do never had a more appropriate meaning. Religion has everybody looking at everybody else, but nobody looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Part 10 – The enemies of God may do much to distort our ability to see Him clearly, but He, never to be outdone has slipped them a Mickey. God placed inside Himself fruit full of seed to bear more fruit. When we broke His body on the Cross we released the Seed into all the earth. When He left us, He did not leave us alone. He sent another in the form of His Holy Spirit to continue to show us the Son. Now, though much has been done by religion to distort God in Christ, those who received His Word, and who willingly die to themselves for Him, are His disciples, Johnny Appleseeds (if you will). God went viral and He is busy spreading His Love to all who draw near to Him. To those who trust Him and believe Him.

The Big Picture – Part 11

Repent or Die

Repent or Die. That statement has such an alarming ring. And it should, it is the shout to save your very life! Turn or burn is another way it has been put. In our tolerant modern thinking we have refined our beliefs of God to a milder, softer kind of God. We have remade Him to our liking. We don’t like hard gods that are unbending and unreasonable and don’t do things the way we like them so we just make a new one that is no God at all.

Here is God in Truth. He is everlastingly Love. He loves everyone of His creation, and holds a special place to love men, being created for a special relationship with Him, that being sons, like Him. When He came to the world, the world received Him not. Yet He came out of love, to save the world. The world HAS BEEN REDEEMED in the Son. On the cross, the salvation of man, past, present and future was completed in full. There is no more that ever needs to be done to save you. It is done, it is finished!

So what is the deal then? Why are we all working so hard to be saved? That is a good question. Why are you? Here is the work. “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” John 6:29.

Well, you say, “Of course I believe!”. Do you? Here again we are so easily deceived. We just change our rules to make it palatable. We say we believe because we agree and accept this as truth in our mind. But remember the battle is in the mind. Too often the concept of belief stops right there in the mind.

Belief is not a state of mind, it is a state of being. And a state of being is not inert and dead, it is alive! If you believe, you express that belief. This is where many centuries of religious teaching has hijacked the purpose of God. There has been so much press against works that people have disconnected their faith from their works. We are literally afraid to do things for God, and with good excuse to boot, we don’t want to be accused of a faith by works. So instead we have a faith that doesn’t work — at all. Beloved, faith works!!!

James put it this way, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” James 2:17-20.

Did you catch that? The devils believe too. And as they say in EE, they are not going to heaven.

Here is just how simple God made this. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:9-10.

Many confess Him but do not believe Him. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 7:22.

Your faith must be in Him. If it is, you believe in Him. And when you believe in Him, your faith expresses itself in good works. It is not the other way around as the enemy wants you to think.

This believing manifests itself in that you do not continue to follow yourself, trust yourself, protect yourself, hoard and gain to yourself. You quit having faith and belief in your ability and trust Him and believe Him.

This is the exact meaning God had in mind when He said repent. Quit trusting in your Self, trust in Me. Turn from your ability, turn to My Ability. Have faith in God.

“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Mark 9:26.

v4.11 Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We all like to get where we are going. I’ve noticed that I always like to entertain the idea that I should take the scenic route to work and enjoy the views along the way, but I rarely do. I like to get where I am going.

In travel, especially that travel marked by spiritual landmarks, the goal is to get to the destination, where God wants you to be. Although you may or may not enjoy the journey, and some of the sights can be less than pretty, you do want and need to get where you’re going. The Israelites present the classic example of going places but never arriving. Their Wilderness experience is a lesson in the costliness of lostliness. Lets just say they had some things they had to work out before they could enter in.

God has places we need to go, places we need to enter into too. He has marked out paths for each one to travel to get to the destination of His purposes. Which are, namely, to know Him and the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus, to become complete and mature, fully functional and spiritually operating sons of God. Then, when once we are become the sons of God, He desires that we be set forth in the Kingdom to accomplish His will on the earth, as His delegated authorities.

We have a long way to go by those standards. Many are having trouble finding the pathway much less getting on it and making good progress and good use of time. But lets, for argument sake, assume you are already on the path, following God the Light. That He is able to lead you in His paths of righteousness. How will you try to get there?

Some common modes of transportation we are familiar with are planes, trains and automobiles. Think of each of these descriptions in a spiritual mindset. Look for the parallels of the concepts to the spiritual progress and hindrances they each present.

Of these, trains are the least popular method. Trains have inherent limitations. The time you would save by rolling on continually is lost by the time it takes to start and stop at each loading station. It seems like there is more starting and stopping than forward motion. They also have a very limited number of places they can take you. They can be noisy and a difficult place to find rest. They can however, get you where you are going, but the ride is often bumpy and slow going. Trains are like your emotions.

Automobiles have their own set of pros and cons. An automobile has great agility to change direction and course quickly. It can start and stop very quickly too. You get to decide where you are going and which way you prefer to get there. The more frequently you have gone to a destination the easier and quicker it is to get there the next time. Sometimes you can just put your car on autopilot and it seems to know the way.

On the downside, travel by auto has a more complicated set of rules than the train or the plane. There are frequent lights and stop signs, guard rails and ditches and medians that keep you on a prescribed path. There are police that may pull you over and become costly, both financially and in time spent. Autos require a lot of maintenance and attention too, you continue to pay for them the more you use them. It seems like they are always needing repairs and new parts.

Then, of course, there are all those other pesky drivers that can cut you off, that run contrary to the direction want to go. If you are not careful you may be headed for a collision with others. And don’t forget about the traffic problems and breakdowns along the road. Cars are high maintenance. Automobiles are like our mind.

Plane travel is superior in many ways. I would never dream of trying to fly a plane myself though. I know I need a pilot. Planes get you where you are going quickly and cover lots of distance in short order. They are not subject to traffic jams, and your typical ground rules. They are navigated and attended by a seasoned pilot who has done this many times before. They provide the best comfort and rest as compared to the other modes mentioned. Planes are also the safest and most dependable mode of travel.

Planes have amazing views, taking you above all that is on the earth. They give you greater perspectives of the things below. And your view of the horizon is only limited by the height at which you are traveling. The higher you fly the farther you see.

Planes operate by the laws of aerodynamics that give them the ability to overcome the laws of gravity — the pull of the earth. And with the laws of thrust and air lift you are able to rise above and soar to incredible heights. The things that make planes work is beyond me. I don’t have to understand how they work, just trust them and have faith in their ability to take me where I need to go.

Your emotions will never get you where God wants you to go. Your mind will never get you there either, although you will see a lot, your perspective will always be horizontal. No, if you want to get to where God wants you to go, if you want to see the way God sees, you will have to go there by plane. You will have to leave this earth for a while, get a different perspective and then come back. Planes are like spiritual travel as compared to trains and automobiles. The price to fly spiritually is submitting your will to the pilot’s. You have to trust Him and rely on Him alone to get you where you are going. Just sit back, rest and enjoy the view.

“…they shall mount up with wings as eagles…” Isa. 40:31.