Thursday, April 2, 2009
New year, new post
Hi to whoever might stumble across this. I see that it's now 2009 so I figured I should add a new post. I can't think of anything I want to write though, so that's about all. I might add some more wisdom/biblical studies posts later this year though.
Friday, October 31, 2008
When it hurts really bad...
I just started reading through my testimony again and I stopped when I read about my favorite cat and one of my best friends who died when I was High School. I haven't thought of him in years it seems... and so as I recalled my time with him, I just started crying again. I still remember watching TV and him walking up next to me with the expressed intent of having me rub his belly. He would just flop over onto his side and voila, a good 30 minutes of belly rubbing follows. Then I remember the "green bean" incident, when there was a green bean on my chair and he wanted it for some reason. So all we see is this black arm sticking out from under the table, trying to hook the bean with his claw, and he eventually gets it. Mom was laughing hysterically, and everyone else was laughing hard too. That incident is famous in our family. Then I remember the gut-wrenching time when he was dying and died, when I would sleep in David's room because that's where he was staying. I cried long and hard during that time. Mom told me one day that she believes he was born on my birthday. We don't know what day he was born, but her point was simply that me and him were so closely bonded that it really would have made a lot of sense for us to have been born on the same day. I really don't know if that's true, but I've remembered that comment for years. I remember the last time I saw him on earth, when I was in the kitchen rushing to school and I patted him on the head, knowing very well that there was a chance he wouldn't be there when I got home that night, and it turned out that way. The veterinarians euthanized him, because his pain was substantial and chances of recovery non-existent. I cry even now thinking about it. I seriously question how I'm going to survive when any of my close friends die. I think it helps a lot that many of my friends are saved and so I know for sure they're going to heaven just as surely as I am. But I wonder about him; I hope that he is with You, because he was a friend to me and he helped teach me about love, teach me how to love. Maybe you can call this wild anthropomorphizing, but he was wise after a fashion, much more so than many people I know (like me).
Anyway, the answer to friends dying is very, very simple; God's grace is sufficient for me, for His power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). I can't have all my friends be saved, because Jesus was a friend of sinners and tax collectors. As a Christian and a follower of Jesus, I am called to befriend sinners. It is nigh unavoidable that at least one of them will die without salvation, and I don't have the power to change that. Even if I were the greatest evangelist ever, that only means that I would know a multitude more sinners than I do now, and many more of them would die too. The only answer there is, and could *ever* be, is the grace of God; it is the love of God that keeps you and comforts you when you suffer a pain that feels unbearable. When you feel like it's a weight crushing you to death, you're despairing of life itself, totally abandoned and without hope in the world, it's the power of God on the inside that sustains you (2 Cor 4:8-9). As I say often, "Jesus, you are the answer."
When pain overwhelms you to the point of death, Jesus is the answer. He will give you grace to survive, and He will set you free.
I am glad that none of my close friends have died (ever). They all have many righteous deeds and many years of fullness, life, love and good works ahead of them, and I greatly look forward to seeing each and every one of them walk in their life callings down the path to maturity. When they are done, then let each depart to be with the Lord in peace, just like I will depart when my deeds are complete. I'm completely willing to release my friends once they've finished all their appointed tasks. And from all the prophetic words I've heard for them or given to them, I know it'll be awhile before that happens. :)
Nevertheless, I know that if/when one of my close friends die, I am absolutely certain that the grace of God will be sufficient for me on that day. The power of God hidden on the inside will strengthen me to stand in that day and to not faint with grief. Some might say, "That's easy to say, harder to live through." I totally agree. Without the grace of God, I think it's very fair to question how I (or anyone else) can emotionally survive such events. I honestly cannot imagine how non-believers make it through such events. I really truly can't. I just know it would be so very, very hard. I've sometimes pondered with my friend Iris how non-believers make it through life with all the seasons of pain and difficulty that come. I don't know how I would make it without prayer; I can't even imagine life without prayer anymore. It would just be so horrible...
The whole point of grace, though, is that I'm not about "welling up" a particular force of will, or gritting my teeth and toughing out the pain of a loved one dying. That's totally foreign or even contrary to what grace is. The grace of God is the grace that *comes from* God, and therefore I'm just as capable today of declaring that *God* will give me grace as I will be when the day comes that I need it, because it is God Himself who will empower me to stand.
Anyway, the answer to friends dying is very, very simple; God's grace is sufficient for me, for His power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). I can't have all my friends be saved, because Jesus was a friend of sinners and tax collectors. As a Christian and a follower of Jesus, I am called to befriend sinners. It is nigh unavoidable that at least one of them will die without salvation, and I don't have the power to change that. Even if I were the greatest evangelist ever, that only means that I would know a multitude more sinners than I do now, and many more of them would die too. The only answer there is, and could *ever* be, is the grace of God; it is the love of God that keeps you and comforts you when you suffer a pain that feels unbearable. When you feel like it's a weight crushing you to death, you're despairing of life itself, totally abandoned and without hope in the world, it's the power of God on the inside that sustains you (2 Cor 4:8-9). As I say often, "Jesus, you are the answer."
When pain overwhelms you to the point of death, Jesus is the answer. He will give you grace to survive, and He will set you free.
I am glad that none of my close friends have died (ever). They all have many righteous deeds and many years of fullness, life, love and good works ahead of them, and I greatly look forward to seeing each and every one of them walk in their life callings down the path to maturity. When they are done, then let each depart to be with the Lord in peace, just like I will depart when my deeds are complete. I'm completely willing to release my friends once they've finished all their appointed tasks. And from all the prophetic words I've heard for them or given to them, I know it'll be awhile before that happens. :)
Nevertheless, I know that if/when one of my close friends die, I am absolutely certain that the grace of God will be sufficient for me on that day. The power of God hidden on the inside will strengthen me to stand in that day and to not faint with grief. Some might say, "That's easy to say, harder to live through." I totally agree. Without the grace of God, I think it's very fair to question how I (or anyone else) can emotionally survive such events. I honestly cannot imagine how non-believers make it through such events. I really truly can't. I just know it would be so very, very hard. I've sometimes pondered with my friend Iris how non-believers make it through life with all the seasons of pain and difficulty that come. I don't know how I would make it without prayer; I can't even imagine life without prayer anymore. It would just be so horrible...
The whole point of grace, though, is that I'm not about "welling up" a particular force of will, or gritting my teeth and toughing out the pain of a loved one dying. That's totally foreign or even contrary to what grace is. The grace of God is the grace that *comes from* God, and therefore I'm just as capable today of declaring that *God* will give me grace as I will be when the day comes that I need it, because it is God Himself who will empower me to stand.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Choose death or choose life-- no middle ground.
Speaking of the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai, God says this through Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 20:15-20:
"15 Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the desert that I would not bring them into the land I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, most beautiful of all lands- 16 because they rejected my laws and did not follow my decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths. For their hearts were devoted to their idols. 17 Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or put an end to them in the desert. 18 I said to their children in the desert, "Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws or defile yourselves with their idols. 19 I am the LORD your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 20 Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.""
This is a really interesting passage for a couple reasons, but I'm only going to hit one in depth. It's very interesting that God says "Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws." This is interesting because so many people, whether consciously or not, cringe when they hear about the law of God. "Oh no," they say, "a law is what restricts people! It will be composed of rules that restrict my freedom and compel me to avoid things I enjoy and to do things I dislike!" And so there is, whether consciously or not, a shrinking back from God. There's hesitation. (It's also really bad; see Hebrews 10:35-39)
This passage speaks about the law of God in verse 19: "...follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." But it doesn't say this in a vacuum; this is the continuation of verse 18, which speaks about the laws and decrees of their fathers. So what we see here isn't a juxtaposition of laws vs. freedom, but rather laws vs. another set of laws. It's just that one set of laws (the laws of their fathers) masquerade as freedom. Really this is just an attempt to redefine rebellion as freedom.
We know that the man who obeys God's laws will live by them (verse 11, 13 of this chapter). They will obey those laws and obtain life. The natural, though unstated counterpart, is that those who live by the laws of their fathers, the laws of sin, will die by them. They will obey them and obtain death. It's never a question of laws vs. freedom. It's simply a question of who you will obey and who you will disobey. Multitudes choose to obey the laws of their fathers, the laws of sin, and disobey the laws of God, the laws of life.
Now this equation is powerfully redefined in the New Testament. In particular, Romans 6:15-23 expounds on this topic with force:
"15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord."
This passage makes clear the two choices before all people: to be a slave to sin or to be a slave to God. Once again, freedom isn't part of the equation at all, it's simply a matter of choosing your obedience to one and disobedience to the other. It also shows that being a "slave to righteousness" is not a matter simply of following a set of rules and receiving a reward from God, but is a "gift of God". I won't go into detail (of which there's quite a bit), but the essence is that being a slave to righteousness is not a matter of following some set of rules, but of making a heart decision to follow God. Then God Himself gives you the power to follow His laws and decrees and you are enabled by God, the Holy Spirit, to live a life pleasing and acceptable to God. That's the essence of the grace of God. That's good stuff!!
Going back to the original Ezekiel passage, I think the references to the holy Sabbath is also very interesting. I think it's interesting how God calls it a "sign". That is, those who keep the Sabbath are essentially publicly announcing, "I am the Lord's, and the Lord is my God". By the Sabbath, it was made known that they were the people of God. It was their sign of consecration. Pretty interesting. :)
Another interesting, but painful, note is how it says that the hearts of the Israelites were "devoted to their idols." They rejected devotion to the Lord and devoted themselves to idols. Once again, it becomes clear that people only really have two choices: idols or the living God. What you behold is what you become, so devoting yourself to dead things will only transform you into the image of death. Beholding the living God by force transforms you into the image of life, and therefore you become a source of life. That's another big topic though, so I'm going to back off here.
Amen!!
Ezekiel 20:15-20:
"15 Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the desert that I would not bring them into the land I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, most beautiful of all lands- 16 because they rejected my laws and did not follow my decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths. For their hearts were devoted to their idols. 17 Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or put an end to them in the desert. 18 I said to their children in the desert, "Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws or defile yourselves with their idols. 19 I am the LORD your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 20 Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.""
This is a really interesting passage for a couple reasons, but I'm only going to hit one in depth. It's very interesting that God says "Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws." This is interesting because so many people, whether consciously or not, cringe when they hear about the law of God. "Oh no," they say, "a law is what restricts people! It will be composed of rules that restrict my freedom and compel me to avoid things I enjoy and to do things I dislike!" And so there is, whether consciously or not, a shrinking back from God. There's hesitation. (It's also really bad; see Hebrews 10:35-39)
This passage speaks about the law of God in verse 19: "...follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." But it doesn't say this in a vacuum; this is the continuation of verse 18, which speaks about the laws and decrees of their fathers. So what we see here isn't a juxtaposition of laws vs. freedom, but rather laws vs. another set of laws. It's just that one set of laws (the laws of their fathers) masquerade as freedom. Really this is just an attempt to redefine rebellion as freedom.
We know that the man who obeys God's laws will live by them (verse 11, 13 of this chapter). They will obey those laws and obtain life. The natural, though unstated counterpart, is that those who live by the laws of their fathers, the laws of sin, will die by them. They will obey them and obtain death. It's never a question of laws vs. freedom. It's simply a question of who you will obey and who you will disobey. Multitudes choose to obey the laws of their fathers, the laws of sin, and disobey the laws of God, the laws of life.
Now this equation is powerfully redefined in the New Testament. In particular, Romans 6:15-23 expounds on this topic with force:
"15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord."
This passage makes clear the two choices before all people: to be a slave to sin or to be a slave to God. Once again, freedom isn't part of the equation at all, it's simply a matter of choosing your obedience to one and disobedience to the other. It also shows that being a "slave to righteousness" is not a matter simply of following a set of rules and receiving a reward from God, but is a "gift of God". I won't go into detail (of which there's quite a bit), but the essence is that being a slave to righteousness is not a matter of following some set of rules, but of making a heart decision to follow God. Then God Himself gives you the power to follow His laws and decrees and you are enabled by God, the Holy Spirit, to live a life pleasing and acceptable to God. That's the essence of the grace of God. That's good stuff!!
Going back to the original Ezekiel passage, I think the references to the holy Sabbath is also very interesting. I think it's interesting how God calls it a "sign". That is, those who keep the Sabbath are essentially publicly announcing, "I am the Lord's, and the Lord is my God". By the Sabbath, it was made known that they were the people of God. It was their sign of consecration. Pretty interesting. :)
Another interesting, but painful, note is how it says that the hearts of the Israelites were "devoted to their idols." They rejected devotion to the Lord and devoted themselves to idols. Once again, it becomes clear that people only really have two choices: idols or the living God. What you behold is what you become, so devoting yourself to dead things will only transform you into the image of death. Beholding the living God by force transforms you into the image of life, and therefore you become a source of life. That's another big topic though, so I'm going to back off here.
Amen!!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Who is the one who is lonely?
There are many people who are lonely, so I will share some of my recent musings in the hope that one day someone will read this and be encouraged.
Whether you are Christian or not, whether you believe in God or not, the God of the Bible is deeply concerned about those who are lonely, because He Himself suffered from loneliness and separation from other people while He was alive on the earth.
Hebrews 13:11-14 says (NIV):
"The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come."
It's saying that Jesus suffered outside the city to make holy the people inside the city. He suffered isolation and loneliness that others, whom He was separated from, could be healed. If you ever feel alone and like nobody knows what you're suffering, know that God knows what you feel, and even more, He knows what it feels like because He suffered it Himself. In another famous passage, Matthew 27:46, Jesus says (NIV):
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
So again, Jesus is suffering the pain of separation, but even worse than we humans feel. In Matt 8, it says that "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". He didn't have any place on earth that He could call home, the entire time He was alive and living in this world.
Furthermore, who has ever taken concern over the emotions of God's heart? I know many, many Christians who are glad they have the mercy of God, the love of God, the forgiveness of God, but I know very few Christians who realize how much pain it causes God when we rebel against Him and commit sin. I know many more non-Christians who walk totally oblivious to God and grieve His heart tremendously.
Through the midst of the whole human enterprise, who has ever concerned himself or herself for the pain, the joy, or any of the other emotions that God feels? Many people are encouraged by the goodness of God towards us, but very very few are concerned with how their actions affect God.
Now the reason I say all this isn't to condemn humanity for its callousness towards God. I have no right to do so, because it's a callousness that I long walked in before I discovered God's heart towards me. But why I say this is, God knows what it is to be lonely. He knows what it is to be taken for granted, to be ignored and belittled. Because of this, He has compassion on those who feel like this.
In Hebrews 4:15-16, it says (NIV):
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
The truth is that I wrote most of this for myself. I've been really lonely for the past year or so, because I've been separated from a bunch of cool friends I love after we all graduated from university. But praise God, I can rejoice in the knowledge that God knows what I'm feeling and what I've been going through, and He is the one who will be my help in my time of need.
Even greater is the promise that one day, just as it says above in Hebrews 13:14 that "we are looking for the city that is to come", I will be reunited with all my friends from school forever. No more separation, no more longing, no more ache within. Joy and happiness with many friends for time unbounded. It's the hope I live for, and will one day receive as a gift from the one who loves me and gave His life for me, Jesus my Lord and God. :)
If this post finds its way to you who are lonely, and you don't feel that you have anyone who cares for you, if you're separated from the people who you love, or maybe there isn't even anyone that you have ever been close to, there is yet one who cares about you: Jesus. Cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Whether you believe in God or not, just ask Him to show you that He cares for you, and I believe He will. I believe this because of what I quoted above in Hebrews 13:11-14. Jesus suffered so that we, the people inside the city, could be healed. That means that the very reason He willingly endured separation from others and loneliness so that He could take away our loneliness, to any who will approach Him. Would He now, after suffering so much, refuse us the very reason that He suffered? He will not. As it says in Hebrews 4:16: "Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." If you ask God for help in your time of need, you can be confident that He will help you. Speaking is free, so why not?
May you find rest for your soul.
Whether you are Christian or not, whether you believe in God or not, the God of the Bible is deeply concerned about those who are lonely, because He Himself suffered from loneliness and separation from other people while He was alive on the earth.
Hebrews 13:11-14 says (NIV):
"The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come."
It's saying that Jesus suffered outside the city to make holy the people inside the city. He suffered isolation and loneliness that others, whom He was separated from, could be healed. If you ever feel alone and like nobody knows what you're suffering, know that God knows what you feel, and even more, He knows what it feels like because He suffered it Himself. In another famous passage, Matthew 27:46, Jesus says (NIV):
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
So again, Jesus is suffering the pain of separation, but even worse than we humans feel. In Matt 8, it says that "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". He didn't have any place on earth that He could call home, the entire time He was alive and living in this world.
Furthermore, who has ever taken concern over the emotions of God's heart? I know many, many Christians who are glad they have the mercy of God, the love of God, the forgiveness of God, but I know very few Christians who realize how much pain it causes God when we rebel against Him and commit sin. I know many more non-Christians who walk totally oblivious to God and grieve His heart tremendously.
Through the midst of the whole human enterprise, who has ever concerned himself or herself for the pain, the joy, or any of the other emotions that God feels? Many people are encouraged by the goodness of God towards us, but very very few are concerned with how their actions affect God.
Now the reason I say all this isn't to condemn humanity for its callousness towards God. I have no right to do so, because it's a callousness that I long walked in before I discovered God's heart towards me. But why I say this is, God knows what it is to be lonely. He knows what it is to be taken for granted, to be ignored and belittled. Because of this, He has compassion on those who feel like this.
In Hebrews 4:15-16, it says (NIV):
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
The truth is that I wrote most of this for myself. I've been really lonely for the past year or so, because I've been separated from a bunch of cool friends I love after we all graduated from university. But praise God, I can rejoice in the knowledge that God knows what I'm feeling and what I've been going through, and He is the one who will be my help in my time of need.
Even greater is the promise that one day, just as it says above in Hebrews 13:14 that "we are looking for the city that is to come", I will be reunited with all my friends from school forever. No more separation, no more longing, no more ache within. Joy and happiness with many friends for time unbounded. It's the hope I live for, and will one day receive as a gift from the one who loves me and gave His life for me, Jesus my Lord and God. :)
If this post finds its way to you who are lonely, and you don't feel that you have anyone who cares for you, if you're separated from the people who you love, or maybe there isn't even anyone that you have ever been close to, there is yet one who cares about you: Jesus. Cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Whether you believe in God or not, just ask Him to show you that He cares for you, and I believe He will. I believe this because of what I quoted above in Hebrews 13:11-14. Jesus suffered so that we, the people inside the city, could be healed. That means that the very reason He willingly endured separation from others and loneliness so that He could take away our loneliness, to any who will approach Him. Would He now, after suffering so much, refuse us the very reason that He suffered? He will not. As it says in Hebrews 4:16: "Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." If you ask God for help in your time of need, you can be confident that He will help you. Speaking is free, so why not?
May you find rest for your soul.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Building a house with invisible bricks
Just had a cool little revelation and I wanted to write it down before I forgot.
I had received a couple words from God about 5 months ago that, in paraphrase, said, "Persevere in prayer, because you are building a mighty tower." The main idea is that, in prayer, in fasting, in devouring the Word, in seeking God's face, we are building something; we are building on the foundation of Christ something eternal (see 1 Cor 3). This is the essence of our life on this earth; to build something that will stand through the fire and be an eternal reward.
What makes it so difficult, among other things, is the fact that we often don't see what we're building until months or years or even decades down the road. Just think about Paul; he invested heavily in a number of churches, and yet those churches appeared to slip very quickly into deception, selfishness, and perversion (see Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, etc, etc). So he did not, in life, see with his eyes the kingdom of God that he was building on earth. Same thing with Abraham, who did not see in his lifetime the multitudes of descendants like the stars. The life of David is another fabulous example of someone building towards eternity, but not seeing until very late in his life the kingdom he worked so hard to attain.
It is the same today for us. We are called to live lives of faith, which means building a kingdom that is on the inside. We are building with invisible bricks. But what does the bible say about invisible bricks? Check out Rev 21:
18The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. ... 21The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (NIV)
The New Jerusalem is made out of transparent gold. This is deeply profound. What does transparent mean? It means that you could see right through it. It's almost like it wasn't there, except for the fact that it was deeply saturated with the presence of God. This is an incredible message for anyone struggling in the place of prayer and fasting and seeking God's face. When we're building something eternal on the foundation of Christ, a la 1 Cor 3, we're actually building the New Jerusalem, the eternal dwelling place of man and God in full communion. This is both deeply encouraging and provoking. May the light of God's glory saturate the invisible tower of His Kingdom that you are building, in partnership with God, in your heart, even today.
I had received a couple words from God about 5 months ago that, in paraphrase, said, "Persevere in prayer, because you are building a mighty tower." The main idea is that, in prayer, in fasting, in devouring the Word, in seeking God's face, we are building something; we are building on the foundation of Christ something eternal (see 1 Cor 3). This is the essence of our life on this earth; to build something that will stand through the fire and be an eternal reward.
What makes it so difficult, among other things, is the fact that we often don't see what we're building until months or years or even decades down the road. Just think about Paul; he invested heavily in a number of churches, and yet those churches appeared to slip very quickly into deception, selfishness, and perversion (see Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, etc, etc). So he did not, in life, see with his eyes the kingdom of God that he was building on earth. Same thing with Abraham, who did not see in his lifetime the multitudes of descendants like the stars. The life of David is another fabulous example of someone building towards eternity, but not seeing until very late in his life the kingdom he worked so hard to attain.
It is the same today for us. We are called to live lives of faith, which means building a kingdom that is on the inside. We are building with invisible bricks. But what does the bible say about invisible bricks? Check out Rev 21:
18The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. ... 21The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (NIV)
The New Jerusalem is made out of transparent gold. This is deeply profound. What does transparent mean? It means that you could see right through it. It's almost like it wasn't there, except for the fact that it was deeply saturated with the presence of God. This is an incredible message for anyone struggling in the place of prayer and fasting and seeking God's face. When we're building something eternal on the foundation of Christ, a la 1 Cor 3, we're actually building the New Jerusalem, the eternal dwelling place of man and God in full communion. This is both deeply encouraging and provoking. May the light of God's glory saturate the invisible tower of His Kingdom that you are building, in partnership with God, in your heart, even today.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
This Life As a Seed for the Next
This document is still a work in progress, but it has enough substantial content that I'm willing to publish it. The concepts contained within it have really powerfully transformed my life and have formed an integral core of my relationship with God. It has blessed me tremendously, and it is my desire that it will equally impact all who read it.
Daniel.
------------------------------
This is mostly derived from the Shawn Bolz lectures. He didn't go into detail with this stuff, though I get the feeling he probably does in other lectures I haven't heard, so chances are I'm stealing some of his material.
Anyway, the text is 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, but in particular 15:35-38.
When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed... But __God gives it a body as He has determined, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body.__ (NIV, 37-38)
What does this mean? The standard reading is that "there is a corruptible, human body that is the seed for the glorified, eternal body." But if you look at this more carefully, you see that the body that is raised is depending on WHAT KIND OF SEED IT IS. Essence: What kind of life you live, what kind of person you are, is the seed for your eternal, glorified self. *Every* facet of your life is a seed for a glorified facet of your eternal life.
Now we see in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 a continuation of this premise:
"If any man builds on this foundation (of Christ) using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day (judgment day) will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." (NIV)
So this is what we see. This life is a seed for the next life. However, since there can be no rebellion against God's will in heaven, all the worthless things we do in this life are destroyed in God's fire on that Day. This is, of course, assuming one is building on the foundation of Christ. If not, of course, one isn't saved and therefore isn't going to heaven period. But even if you are saved, you can still build things using gold, silver, costly stones, or wood, hay and straw. Some things will be destroyed in the fire, and some things will survive and will be our reward.
This introduces the notion of sand castles. This analogy is from a book by Anna Rountree. But the essence of it is that a lot of people, even christians, spend their lives building sand castles. That is, things that one can build but get washed away by the tide in a matter of hours. Such things cannot last for eternity.
Just yesterday, I was spending time with one of my unsaved friends, and he was showing me some things he had done in an online computer game. Basically, he was spending time carefully, precisely crafting what skills and items and so forth to give his forces in the game, with the full knowledge that he's going back to school in four days. He doesn't have a computer at school, so he will only have this game for those four days. That is, the tide comes in four days. When it does, it will wipe away all the things he has carefully arranged, all his detailed plans for hours and hours of development. He understands that it's totally meaningless because it's going to be just plain GONE in a couple
days, but he builds on. This is a small example of what most people do with their entire lives; building sand castles, often with full knowledge of the tide. Indeed, who builds a sand castle without knowing that the tide is going to wipe it out?
What is building financial security, a good home, lots of material assets, but a gigantic sand castle? What is worldly popularity but a sand castle? This world is going to pass away, nothing we build of this world is going to remain.
You are going to spend your life doing two things: building sand castles or building a structure of gold, silver, and costly stones on the foundation of Christ. God is not going to punish you for building sand castles, but it will be wiped away. Even more, if you build sand castles now, that will be the
prototype for your glorified life. Remember, what we do in this life is a seed for the next life. It's kinda like the OT vs. the NT; the NT is like a glorified OT, and the OT is like a seed for the NT. All the principles and ideas of the NT are contained in the OT, but in a seed form.
It is the same with our life here and with our next life. If we live a life of building up other people, building deep friendships and relationships with others, build a deep relationship with God, build up the traits that God has put in us like music, dance, writing, a love of reading, and all varieties of
godly things, that will be the seed for our next life. Since such things can pass through the fire of God (fire cannot destroy itself; a righteous God cannot destroy righteous things, but only unrighteous things), that will be the seed for our glorified lives. And when you have good seeds, how glorious that
life will be!!!
If you fill your life with self-concern, with temporal things, will any manner of sin or rebellion against God, yet are saved, then such things will be destroyed by the fire of God, and there will be very little to act as a seed for your glorified life, and that is the nature of how your reward will not be
as great. It's not that God will lock you out of heaven, but since such things cannot exist in the presence of God, there is no such thing as glorified sin; it's mutually contradictory, and thusly it simply won't be.
This is the essence of what I learned; going to heaven is not the destruction of the self, but the magnification of the self. Every good thing we do is greatly multiplied in heaven. Do you want to dance and sing in heaven? Why not start now? Do you want to play piano in heaven (I know I do :)? Start now. Do you want to spend millenia playing soccer with your dearest friends? Start by
playing a few hours. Do you love teaching and want to teach for millenia? Do it now. If you want to do it forever, then start by doing it now. Obviously there are some things we want to do in eternity that we can't do now, but we can lay the foundation for such things now. The glorification process is what takes our actions now and magnifies them in heaven so that such things become
possible for us.
This is why our lives now are so important, why we should do what we love and make sure that what we love aligns with what God loves, because such things are the foundation for our next, eternal lives.
If we are obsessed with God now, how great will that obsession be when it is glorified?
On the contrary, if we don't act obsessed with God now, and we say "we have eternity to draw closer to God, I want to live my own life now and I'll surrender to God when I'm done having my own way", that is the seed for our next life, and the vast majority of it will be destroyed by the fire of God;
such people are leaving very little godliness to be glorified for their eternity with God.
So after this, I really started asking the question, "what is it that we can do that will last? What should we do to build towards eternity? What is gold, silver, and precious stones, that we can build on the foundation of Christ and that will pass through the fire of God?"
(this is where I start to walk in more tentative grounds, so I don't hold as firmly to the material below as to the material above. When I did my research, I found numerous verses that have the appearance of contradicting my hypotheses below, and I'm not at this time knowledgable about how to reconcile them. Take as you will.)
I already partially answered this question above, by stating that the things we focus on in a godly way will be the seed for our next life. But, as we all know, there is a righteous way and a sinful way to do many things (cf. luke 14:15-24). So when I asked God how to build with gold, silver, and costly
stones, what He showed me was a seed (kinda like an acorn) morphing into a crown of righteousness. Then He reminded me of one thing that I had prophesied to a friend of mine a while ago, which was a drop of water being a seed (in that case of a rose-looking flower). Water in the NT is a type for the Holy Spirit and for life. So water = seed --> crown of righteousness.
So, this is the essence of the answer; fill yourself with the Spirit of God, especially with the life that God has laid out for you. The more you fill yourself with the Spirit of God and the more closely you follow the desires that God has given you for your life, then all those things will be the seed
for your crown of righteousness in the next life.
I have prayed and asked God for more revelation on this topic, and He has recently given me some more insight into it (and scripture to back up the vision He gave me earlier). So there are three things that we can fill our lives with that are of worth and that will survive the fire of God mentioned in 1 Cor 3: gold, silver, and costly stones. I have what I consider to be very solid, reliable definitions for gold and silver; my grasp of what the costly stones represent is less solid right now, so I'll leave that one out. Proverbs 8:10-11 suggests that costly stones = wisdom. Another interesting scripture is Rev 21:18-21, which mentions both gold and costly stones when describing the future bride of Christ (us, believers). but I don't have any cross-referencing scriptures to back that up or explain it in more detail, so I'm going to leave it at that. Silver is representative of the Word of God in this case; if you build your life on the Word of God, it will survive and count as a reward in the next life. The basis for this is: Psalm 12:6.
"And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times." (NIV)
This is then reinforced by Proverbs 8:10-11:
"Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her."
So in this case, silver is compared to the instruction of Wisdom, which is a personification of God. The instruction of God is given by His Word, and therefore you should choose the silver of God, instead of the silver of this world.
Again in Proverbs 10:20, God says:
"The tongue of the righteous is choice silver..."
So once again silver is being compared to the words or speaking of righteous people. This clearly demonstrates that instruction in the Word of God is what is referenced by 1 Cor 3.
Second, I contend that gold in 1 Cor 3 is a reference to the Holy Spirit of God. That is, building a life using gold is equivalent to saying that one should build their life with the power of the Holy Spirit and to build their life with the goal of being filled to the fullest with the Holy Spirit. How I go about demonstrating this is somewhat more convoluted than my proof that silver = Word of God. Proverbs 8:10 that I reference above compares gold with knowledge, and I'm not sure how to fit that into my analysis yet. Anyway, there are a ton of scriptures that one could use to analyze the biblical meaning of gold, but I've personally been obsessing over Exodus 37:6-9 recently, so I'll use that one. A second scripture that I will use is Revelation 21:18,21.
Ex 37:6-9 says:
"6 He made the atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. 7 Then he made two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. 8 He made one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; at the two ends he made them of one piece with the cover. 9 The cherubim had their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim faced each other, looking toward the cover."
Rev 21:18,21 says:
18The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
21The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
The second reference shows that the new Jerusalem, which is being described in these two verses, is made out of pure gold. Now I am going to claim that the New Jerusalem is a description of the body of Christ, after having been purified and glorified (without discussing the meaning of those terms). But the short of it is, this is the body of Christ after passing through the fire of 1 Cor 3. So gold here is signifying purity and holiness, and also it signifies the born-again believers of God.
I will also assert that in the Exodus passage, the cherubim are symbols for the born-again believer. You can see this because: they are made out of gold, they are priests unto God, which is what we are called as well, they have their hands raised in worship in God's presence, they serve in the Most Holy Place, they are looking towards God, and they are made out of one piece with the mercy seat. Angels are not made of one piece with God, but we are (since our spirit and the Holy Spirit are united in one), so these cherubim must be symbolic for beings united with God's presence, with God's Holy Spirit. So we can see that, having been washed in the blood of Christ (and indeed all the temple objects were sanctified in blood), we are now filled with the Spirit of God and that is why everything in the tabernacle/temple was covered in gold, even if it was made out of wood. In the case of the cherubim, they are made out of hammered gold. Here we can see that the mercy seat is made out of pure gold, because God is pure and fully righteous, but we are made out of hammered gold because God has to work on our hearts and change us to make us into what He wants us to be. Nevertheless, we are both made out of the same material. Since God is a spirit being, what He is made out of is the spirit, and therefore gold is a symbol for the Spirit of God (since the mercy seat in this instance is a type for God).
So that's my elongated proof/conjecture. I'm pretty confident it's true. Anyway...
There are a lot of other scriptures that deal with the topic of this life as a seed for the next, and off the top of my head all I can think of is 1 Cor 13:8-13, but I'm not going to analyze it because you're all intelligent people and I could go on forever looking at different scriptures and their analyses on this topic.
I should note that 1 Cor 15 is now one of my favorite chapters. :)
Blessings, and feel free to forward this or copy it as you wish,
Daniel. :)
Daniel.
------------------------------
This is mostly derived from the Shawn Bolz lectures. He didn't go into detail with this stuff, though I get the feeling he probably does in other lectures I haven't heard, so chances are I'm stealing some of his material.
Anyway, the text is 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, but in particular 15:35-38.
When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed... But __God gives it a body as He has determined, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body.__ (NIV, 37-38)
What does this mean? The standard reading is that "there is a corruptible, human body that is the seed for the glorified, eternal body." But if you look at this more carefully, you see that the body that is raised is depending on WHAT KIND OF SEED IT IS. Essence: What kind of life you live, what kind of person you are, is the seed for your eternal, glorified self. *Every* facet of your life is a seed for a glorified facet of your eternal life.
Now we see in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 a continuation of this premise:
"If any man builds on this foundation (of Christ) using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day (judgment day) will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." (NIV)
So this is what we see. This life is a seed for the next life. However, since there can be no rebellion against God's will in heaven, all the worthless things we do in this life are destroyed in God's fire on that Day. This is, of course, assuming one is building on the foundation of Christ. If not, of course, one isn't saved and therefore isn't going to heaven period. But even if you are saved, you can still build things using gold, silver, costly stones, or wood, hay and straw. Some things will be destroyed in the fire, and some things will survive and will be our reward.
This introduces the notion of sand castles. This analogy is from a book by Anna Rountree. But the essence of it is that a lot of people, even christians, spend their lives building sand castles. That is, things that one can build but get washed away by the tide in a matter of hours. Such things cannot last for eternity.
Just yesterday, I was spending time with one of my unsaved friends, and he was showing me some things he had done in an online computer game. Basically, he was spending time carefully, precisely crafting what skills and items and so forth to give his forces in the game, with the full knowledge that he's going back to school in four days. He doesn't have a computer at school, so he will only have this game for those four days. That is, the tide comes in four days. When it does, it will wipe away all the things he has carefully arranged, all his detailed plans for hours and hours of development. He understands that it's totally meaningless because it's going to be just plain GONE in a couple
days, but he builds on. This is a small example of what most people do with their entire lives; building sand castles, often with full knowledge of the tide. Indeed, who builds a sand castle without knowing that the tide is going to wipe it out?
What is building financial security, a good home, lots of material assets, but a gigantic sand castle? What is worldly popularity but a sand castle? This world is going to pass away, nothing we build of this world is going to remain.
You are going to spend your life doing two things: building sand castles or building a structure of gold, silver, and costly stones on the foundation of Christ. God is not going to punish you for building sand castles, but it will be wiped away. Even more, if you build sand castles now, that will be the
prototype for your glorified life. Remember, what we do in this life is a seed for the next life. It's kinda like the OT vs. the NT; the NT is like a glorified OT, and the OT is like a seed for the NT. All the principles and ideas of the NT are contained in the OT, but in a seed form.
It is the same with our life here and with our next life. If we live a life of building up other people, building deep friendships and relationships with others, build a deep relationship with God, build up the traits that God has put in us like music, dance, writing, a love of reading, and all varieties of
godly things, that will be the seed for our next life. Since such things can pass through the fire of God (fire cannot destroy itself; a righteous God cannot destroy righteous things, but only unrighteous things), that will be the seed for our glorified lives. And when you have good seeds, how glorious that
life will be!!!
If you fill your life with self-concern, with temporal things, will any manner of sin or rebellion against God, yet are saved, then such things will be destroyed by the fire of God, and there will be very little to act as a seed for your glorified life, and that is the nature of how your reward will not be
as great. It's not that God will lock you out of heaven, but since such things cannot exist in the presence of God, there is no such thing as glorified sin; it's mutually contradictory, and thusly it simply won't be.
This is the essence of what I learned; going to heaven is not the destruction of the self, but the magnification of the self. Every good thing we do is greatly multiplied in heaven. Do you want to dance and sing in heaven? Why not start now? Do you want to play piano in heaven (I know I do :)? Start now. Do you want to spend millenia playing soccer with your dearest friends? Start by
playing a few hours. Do you love teaching and want to teach for millenia? Do it now. If you want to do it forever, then start by doing it now. Obviously there are some things we want to do in eternity that we can't do now, but we can lay the foundation for such things now. The glorification process is what takes our actions now and magnifies them in heaven so that such things become
possible for us.
This is why our lives now are so important, why we should do what we love and make sure that what we love aligns with what God loves, because such things are the foundation for our next, eternal lives.
If we are obsessed with God now, how great will that obsession be when it is glorified?
On the contrary, if we don't act obsessed with God now, and we say "we have eternity to draw closer to God, I want to live my own life now and I'll surrender to God when I'm done having my own way", that is the seed for our next life, and the vast majority of it will be destroyed by the fire of God;
such people are leaving very little godliness to be glorified for their eternity with God.
So after this, I really started asking the question, "what is it that we can do that will last? What should we do to build towards eternity? What is gold, silver, and precious stones, that we can build on the foundation of Christ and that will pass through the fire of God?"
(this is where I start to walk in more tentative grounds, so I don't hold as firmly to the material below as to the material above. When I did my research, I found numerous verses that have the appearance of contradicting my hypotheses below, and I'm not at this time knowledgable about how to reconcile them. Take as you will.)
I already partially answered this question above, by stating that the things we focus on in a godly way will be the seed for our next life. But, as we all know, there is a righteous way and a sinful way to do many things (cf. luke 14:15-24). So when I asked God how to build with gold, silver, and costly
stones, what He showed me was a seed (kinda like an acorn) morphing into a crown of righteousness. Then He reminded me of one thing that I had prophesied to a friend of mine a while ago, which was a drop of water being a seed (in that case of a rose-looking flower). Water in the NT is a type for the Holy Spirit and for life. So water = seed --> crown of righteousness.
So, this is the essence of the answer; fill yourself with the Spirit of God, especially with the life that God has laid out for you. The more you fill yourself with the Spirit of God and the more closely you follow the desires that God has given you for your life, then all those things will be the seed
for your crown of righteousness in the next life.
I have prayed and asked God for more revelation on this topic, and He has recently given me some more insight into it (and scripture to back up the vision He gave me earlier). So there are three things that we can fill our lives with that are of worth and that will survive the fire of God mentioned in 1 Cor 3: gold, silver, and costly stones. I have what I consider to be very solid, reliable definitions for gold and silver; my grasp of what the costly stones represent is less solid right now, so I'll leave that one out. Proverbs 8:10-11 suggests that costly stones = wisdom. Another interesting scripture is Rev 21:18-21, which mentions both gold and costly stones when describing the future bride of Christ (us, believers). but I don't have any cross-referencing scriptures to back that up or explain it in more detail, so I'm going to leave it at that. Silver is representative of the Word of God in this case; if you build your life on the Word of God, it will survive and count as a reward in the next life. The basis for this is: Psalm 12:6.
"And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times." (NIV)
This is then reinforced by Proverbs 8:10-11:
"Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her."
So in this case, silver is compared to the instruction of Wisdom, which is a personification of God. The instruction of God is given by His Word, and therefore you should choose the silver of God, instead of the silver of this world.
Again in Proverbs 10:20, God says:
"The tongue of the righteous is choice silver..."
So once again silver is being compared to the words or speaking of righteous people. This clearly demonstrates that instruction in the Word of God is what is referenced by 1 Cor 3.
Second, I contend that gold in 1 Cor 3 is a reference to the Holy Spirit of God. That is, building a life using gold is equivalent to saying that one should build their life with the power of the Holy Spirit and to build their life with the goal of being filled to the fullest with the Holy Spirit. How I go about demonstrating this is somewhat more convoluted than my proof that silver = Word of God. Proverbs 8:10 that I reference above compares gold with knowledge, and I'm not sure how to fit that into my analysis yet. Anyway, there are a ton of scriptures that one could use to analyze the biblical meaning of gold, but I've personally been obsessing over Exodus 37:6-9 recently, so I'll use that one. A second scripture that I will use is Revelation 21:18,21.
Ex 37:6-9 says:
"6 He made the atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. 7 Then he made two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. 8 He made one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; at the two ends he made them of one piece with the cover. 9 The cherubim had their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim faced each other, looking toward the cover."
Rev 21:18,21 says:
18The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
21The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
The second reference shows that the new Jerusalem, which is being described in these two verses, is made out of pure gold. Now I am going to claim that the New Jerusalem is a description of the body of Christ, after having been purified and glorified (without discussing the meaning of those terms). But the short of it is, this is the body of Christ after passing through the fire of 1 Cor 3. So gold here is signifying purity and holiness, and also it signifies the born-again believers of God.
I will also assert that in the Exodus passage, the cherubim are symbols for the born-again believer. You can see this because: they are made out of gold, they are priests unto God, which is what we are called as well, they have their hands raised in worship in God's presence, they serve in the Most Holy Place, they are looking towards God, and they are made out of one piece with the mercy seat. Angels are not made of one piece with God, but we are (since our spirit and the Holy Spirit are united in one), so these cherubim must be symbolic for beings united with God's presence, with God's Holy Spirit. So we can see that, having been washed in the blood of Christ (and indeed all the temple objects were sanctified in blood), we are now filled with the Spirit of God and that is why everything in the tabernacle/temple was covered in gold, even if it was made out of wood. In the case of the cherubim, they are made out of hammered gold. Here we can see that the mercy seat is made out of pure gold, because God is pure and fully righteous, but we are made out of hammered gold because God has to work on our hearts and change us to make us into what He wants us to be. Nevertheless, we are both made out of the same material. Since God is a spirit being, what He is made out of is the spirit, and therefore gold is a symbol for the Spirit of God (since the mercy seat in this instance is a type for God).
So that's my elongated proof/conjecture. I'm pretty confident it's true. Anyway...
There are a lot of other scriptures that deal with the topic of this life as a seed for the next, and off the top of my head all I can think of is 1 Cor 13:8-13, but I'm not going to analyze it because you're all intelligent people and I could go on forever looking at different scriptures and their analyses on this topic.
I should note that 1 Cor 15 is now one of my favorite chapters. :)
Blessings, and feel free to forward this or copy it as you wish,
Daniel. :)
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
To the faithful
(Cut this out of something else I was writing, so don't mind if it sounds like I'm in the middle of a paragraph- I was.)
"To the faithful, God shows Himself faithful, to the righteous, He shows Himself righteous,..." And I was thinking about it and realized; nobody is"faithful" on their own. It's simply not "in" us to be faithful on our own. If someone is faithful, it's because of the faithfulness of God being manifested in them. So one of the meanings of that verse is that God shows Himself faithful to the faithful by demonstrating His faithfulness IN the person, not just to them. That is, the very faithfulness of the person in question *IS* the faithfulness of God *IN* that person. So the reason the faithful understand God's faithfulness to a degree that nobody else understands is because they live His faithfulness. They truly become one with the Lord in Spirit, cf. 1 Cor 6:[16?], in the area of God's faithfulness, and thus have an intimate, personal knowledge of His faithfulness. This principle is true with respect to every part of who God is; anytime you manifest that part of God's nature, it gives you an intimate knowledge of that part of His nature because you're living it out. Remarkable.
The "downside" to this is that if you really want to have an intimate knowledge of perseverance, etc, usually it means you need to go through difficulties and hardships to get there. How can one learn to persevere without having something to persevere? How can one learn to love like God without having people hate you? Etc. However, it's not *really* a downside, because "blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness". It's really a blessing to be persecuted, etc, even though we might not recognize it as such. Well, I for one, have prayed that God would do anything and everything necessary to remove the barriers keeping me from Him, and this is a prayer that I still stand by.
"To the faithful, God shows Himself faithful, to the righteous, He shows Himself righteous,..." And I was thinking about it and realized; nobody is"faithful" on their own. It's simply not "in" us to be faithful on our own. If someone is faithful, it's because of the faithfulness of God being manifested in them. So one of the meanings of that verse is that God shows Himself faithful to the faithful by demonstrating His faithfulness IN the person, not just to them. That is, the very faithfulness of the person in question *IS* the faithfulness of God *IN* that person. So the reason the faithful understand God's faithfulness to a degree that nobody else understands is because they live His faithfulness. They truly become one with the Lord in Spirit, cf. 1 Cor 6:[16?], in the area of God's faithfulness, and thus have an intimate, personal knowledge of His faithfulness. This principle is true with respect to every part of who God is; anytime you manifest that part of God's nature, it gives you an intimate knowledge of that part of His nature because you're living it out. Remarkable.
The "downside" to this is that if you really want to have an intimate knowledge of perseverance, etc, usually it means you need to go through difficulties and hardships to get there. How can one learn to persevere without having something to persevere? How can one learn to love like God without having people hate you? Etc. However, it's not *really* a downside, because "blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness". It's really a blessing to be persecuted, etc, even though we might not recognize it as such. Well, I for one, have prayed that God would do anything and everything necessary to remove the barriers keeping me from Him, and this is a prayer that I still stand by.
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