Enjoy!

The three previous posts ( Why Settle?, One thing Is Needed, and The Sacred Religious Box) are actually things I wrote sometime last year. I don't remember when. I just found them on my parents' computer. I figured I'd post them here before I deleted them. The most recent one is incomplete.

Why Settle?

Imagine that it's your birthday. You've been given two options. You can either eat at your favorite restaurant or you can eat at your favorite restaurant, go on a shopping spree at your favorite store, visit every continent for a month each, receive a brand new car, receive a brand new house, and receive a pay raise at work. Which would you choose? It seems obvious.

Unfortunately, most Christians choose the first option. Here's what I mean. The Bible is filled to the brim with promises, guarantees, and precedents for a life far more adventurous than even a job chasing tornadoes. Jesus said that every thing He did we can do. If this is not enough to rock your world, He then said even greater works will we do. Paul said that if the glory of the old covenant under which Moses had to put a veil over his face, how much more glory is available under the new covenant. Moses wasn't even saved [according to traditional evangelical theology] yet he talked to God face to face as a man talks to his friend.

Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations and preach the gospel to every creature.

One Thing Is Needed

And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:39-42)

One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. (Psalm 27:4)

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38)

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Matthew 7:21-24)

Living for God is very simple. There is only one thing to concern ourselves with. There is only one thing God wants. Living for God means only one thing, nothing more. Living for God consists of cultivating an appetite that drives us. This appetite must drive us. This appetite must consume us. This appetite must find satisfaction in only one thing, God Himself. Mary only wanted to sit at Jesus' feet, listening to His voice. David only desired to gaze upon the beautiful face of the Lord. Jesus did not care about doing the works. Jesus wanted to know. We simply desire to know Him. He simply wants us to let Him in to commune with us. We are His pleasure. We are His Bride.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. (Revelation 3:20)

Jesus was not talking to unbelievers when He said this. He was talking to the Church. I'm tired of churches locking God out of the services because He will disrupt our routine.

The Sacred Religious Box

In the scriptures, there are at least three instances when people whose lives where tranformed by the power of Christ were actually feared because of what their testimonies meant to the status quo, the religious box. The first instance is the demon-possessed man in the country of the Gadarenes (Luke 8:26-39). This man in whom was a legion of demons was delivered by the power of Christ. Prior to Jesus casting "Legion" out of this man, there is no mention of any complaint from anyone in the region about this man. But after his deliverance, fear gripped the people.

Then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. (Luke 8:37)

Why were they afraid? Were they afraid that this man would now live a normal life? I hardly think so. They would have asked the delivered man to leave. They asked Jesus to leave because He disrupted their comfort zones. They were used to the way things were, and when Jesus came along, He caused comotion. They did not care that an opressed man was just set free. All they knew was that something unusual just happened, and they were afraid of the One who caused it, so they kindly asked Him to leave.

Compared to the following examples, the man of the Garadrenes hardly qualifies as an example of a sacred religious box. The next person is the blind man whom Jesus healed by anointing his eyes with spit and dirt. Immediately after Jesus healed him, the pharisees questioned him.
　
They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see." Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet." But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him." So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner." He answered and said, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see." Then they said to him again, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?" Then they reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from." The man answered and said to them, "Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing." They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?" And they cast him out. (John 9:13-34)

The third person, surprisingly, is Lazarus. His testimony of being raised from the dead caused many of the Jews to believe in Jesus. This infuriated the Jewish clergy.

Now a great many of the Jews knew that He [Jesus] was there; and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. (John 12:9-11)

All of this pales in comparison to the way Jesus infuriated the religious by violating their sacred religious boxes. All throughout the gospels, the pharisees and the saducees are devising how to get rid of Jesus before it's too late. In John is a clear look at what motivated their hatred for Jesus' outrageous behavior.

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, "What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation." (John 11:47-48)

No clever title for this one...

Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Ah! This is His Kingdom. It's so blissful. And I'm in it. It's in me. It's everywhere I go. It overwhelms be. I live in this reality.

I've been a little conflicted lately. I am so utterly frustrated with Western Christianity. It's so utterly fruitless. They walk around under the bondage of their religion and fear - their selfrighteous self-abasement (see Colossians 2:18). It makes me sick.

Time to go to work now. More on this later...maybe. Frustration is not from God so I really shouldn't dwell on it.

Saint

"I'm a sinner saved by grace."

I hate that phrase. I was a sinner. Now I'm a saint because of His Grace.

To call yourself a sinner is to look at yourself and what you've done. To call yourself a saint is to see Him and what He did.

Mystic

mysticism ~ belief in or experience of a reality beyond normal human understanding or experience, the use of prayer and meditation in an attempt to achieve direct intuitive experience of the divine

mystic ~ one who practices or believes in mysticism or a given form of mysticism

When I hear the word mystic, I usually conjure up occultic images in my head. Based on these definitions, most believers should fall into the category of mystics. I'm in.

Dear Mr. Religious Man

What you are about to read did not originate from me. It originated from God.

"Seek first the Kingdom of God..."
~ Jesus (Matthew 6:33)

For the kingdom of God does not consist in logos but in dunamis.
~ 1 Corinthians 4:20

logos ~
a word, embodies a conception or idea what someone has said, doctrine, teaching, anything reported in speech

dunamis ~
strength, power, ability, inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth, power for performing miracles

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine dunamis has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."
~ 2 Peter 1:2-4

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the dunamis that works within us..."
~ Ephesians 3:20

Sincerley and somewhat frustrated by you,
j-mart

The Father's Love

Before we love Him, He must love us. We love Him because He first loved us. Before you pour out your praises, bask in His presence and hear Him tell you how wonderful you are in His eyes.

More on the Nature of God

I've heard it said that the first book one should read when reading the bible is John. I think this is a great idea. I think most "Christians" should re-read it!

A few days ago, I wrote about God becoming a human to serve humanity. This is something I've really been meditating on over the past few days. To say that serving humanity is God's nature seems so incredibly sacrilegious and even heretical, but I'm sticking to it.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
~ John 5:19

First of all, Jesus admitted that he could do nothing of his own power. From this passage, I believe Jesus was fully God and sinless, but did not draw from his divinity to do miracles and forgive sins. This is profound, but it is another topic for another time. Jesus said that he only did what he saw Daddy doing. Now imagine being with Jesus when he washed the disciples' feet. He only did that because the God of the universe was doing it. Wow! That really changes our perception of the Father. He's a King getting on His knees to wash the feet of His royal subjects. What a humble King! When Paul instructed to imitate God [Ephesians 5:1], he wasn't telling us to sit on a chair and command everyone to bow down and tell us how great we are. This is how we often view our Daddy.

Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'?
~ John 14:9

Here Jesus claims that if you've seen him, you've seen the Father. So now we have Jesus only doing what he sees Daddy doing and seeing Jesus is seeing God. Watching Jesus will show you untold volumes of the nature of God. For me, this is life changing...and theology-shattering.

"Jesus is perfect theology."
~ Bill Johnson

This is my political statement.

God is crazy in love with every woman who has had an abortion. He sees their pain and their brokenness and desperately wants to be let into their hearts to heal their shame.

God adores homosexuals. He is running after them without any hesitation. He is not homophobic.

God cherishes illegal immigrants. He knows the rejection they feel and the desperation that drives them. His arms are wide open to give them provision, acceptance, and freedom.

God's love is burning vehemently for every terrorist. He want's His kids back. He want's them to take a seat on Daddy's lap.

If we are to express Daddy's heart to the world, if we are to be Jesus to the unbelieving, we need to know just how intense His love really is.

My Identity

I am a king and a priest to God. Not only that - I'm His son. I know this is true because it's in scripture but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. It's boggling my mind. I am a king. I am a priest. I am the offspring of the Creator and King of the universe. He's my Daddy. Whoa!

Liberating Theology

The Creator of the universe is so in love with humanity that He became a human and conquered every obstacle that stood in our way of a relationship with Him. Contrary to what most "Christians" think, He didn't do this so we could serve Him better. A father doesn't play candy land with his three-year-old so that child can serve him better. He just wants to connect with his child. God lowered himself to our level to have a relationship, not to have a slave to tell Him how good He is all the time.

Jesus said that if you've seen Him, you've seen the Father. Jesus is the perfect representation of the nature of the Father. Jesus said that He didn't come to be served, but to serve. That means that the Creator of everything came to serve humanity, you, me. That's His nature. He's crazy about humanity. When you realize how much God cherishes us, it's hard to not tell Him how good He is... all the time!