Sunday, December 16, 2012

What If?





I read Brennan Mannings memoirs a while back and was saddened that the gospel he so wonderfully subscribed to seemed to lack the power to transform. It was disappointing to see him ending as he is...marriage in crumbles and still so addicted to drink.

If Grace is as powerful as it is presented by Paul and our Master (master as in journeyman not as in slave owner) than surely it has power to transform our vile bodies...


His journey into grace so powerfully influenced my own. But the grace he transcribed to seemed short on delivery for him and saddly for me as well. I still believe it is true and practice grace on myself often but I think he missed appropriating it because of a flawed theology that says we remain brocken even after grace is applied.


If the gospel is really good news it must be transformational. Paul uses the word transfiguration ..."be transfigured by the renewing of your minds."


I have determined that Transfiguration is a process...into Christ likeness and grace is the vehicle. Without grace it is humanly impossible...the bar is set too high!


I have been noticing that all Jesus did every day of his life was raise the bar. In fact his whole ministry was about raising the bar into the realm of impossibility.


Until we get that we will never be ripe for grace.


No we will just keep taking stabs at rightiousness, trying harder...read the Bible through 6 times this year, fast 3 months, no maybe 4 months ...why not 6 months this year....pray harder and more often, witness more, love God more, Give more, maybe 20% will get better results.
No wonder the "Grace" message sounds good....and people come up with live and let live concepts of grace and universalism. That is definitely an attractive option...


But what if Grace is better and bigger than we had ever imagined and actually we are no longer brocken and prone to wander. What if we actually are sons of God with access to heaven..


what if????




Hahaha Got you going!


I am still quite tentative in this new leg of the journey haha...don't really have too many answers and am OK with that...
a lot less concerned about right or wrong right now...
actually I was quite tentative about leaving the gospels and just in the past few months have ventured out into the Pauline Epistles quite carefully and wallah I am so enjoying them. I'm discove

ring a Paul who totally gets it. laughing and crying my way through...fun fun. I have underlined with exclamation marks and notes more than not....Paul gets it so good. He isn't the Paul I remember at all.

I truly was afraid I was coming into something that Paul might not appreciate (It has been so long since I have laid my eyes on any other parts of the bible, seriously, my memory was of a different Paul for some crazy reason..well not too crazy actually since the lenses I was seeing through were quite the religious and old covenant mixture lenses)

These new lenses almost have me ready to read the old covenant again. I actually think there were some in the old covenant that had a new covenant relationship with Father that went beyond the religion induced law. David actually danced around behind the curtain enjoying the father with not much consequence. And Moses had face to face talk as a man talks with a friend.

In church on Sunday someone read the portion from Revelation about Jesus where he was so stunning you couldn't look on him fire and light etc wowwow. That for some reason was the most powerful part of the service. I was just bawling not even sure why...imagining that that one so fierce and stunning loves me so dearly...

I told Mary this morning on my way out the door. "Your earthly father sure messed up your take on the heavenly father but so did my religious concept of the father mess me up. He's not at all as I suspected...He really likes me, good or bad." Of coarse the reality is the goodness is all his. He is the one that makes me so attractive...

The best news of the whole thing is there is never again any groveling when I approach him...(That embarrasses him I think.)..no brokenness, no beating my chest, yes confessions from time to time and tears but such wonderful tears... I just climb right up there and have his full attention whenever I chose or remember and he is always attentive. He really likes me! I want to remember more often.

No I am never at a deficit when I approach, never have to go through a certain procedure, never have to look inward first to see if I measure up...never have to measure up, never again. I am his and he is mine! ( that was in the old covenant I think) I never have to wonder if i have been good or bad, he's not keeping track, why should I? I just get to be his son.

No more old covennant. That one was finished on the cross. Now we get to walk right in any time of the day or night, good or bad! Ain't it fun? His father became our father and we get to relate with him in the same way he did just as the father always wanted.

I can't suffer much else right now so don't tell me I might be wrong. I don't want to entertain that thought . I am enjoying this too much! haha!

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  • Lloyd Douglas Clark my end of a conversation with a friend who was concerned I might be getting a little un-balanced...might need a little more wrath and firey indignation..maybe, but not right now thanks!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

We just moved!

We visited a church today near our new town. Mary and I now live in, Fairfax VA.  This group is relating with some of our personal heroes in the faith and we thought it would be fun....It was. There was much to be appreciated. It was also reminiscent. We have been there and done so much of that.

It has been three or four years since we began to come into a personal revelation of Father's love that has one by one challenged and then transformed religious bias's and lies that have been with us from childhood.

Little by little the process of The Word is taking effect in our lives and we are noticing transfiguration going on. It's kind of fun. It's quite super natural!

For instance. The Scripture, the hallowed scripture, that holy book is becoming my "favorite book". That was always something you were supposed to say but if asked now what my favorite book is, the one I will just pick up to read at leisure? I can honestly say it IS the Bible.....albeit for now in the Eugene Peterson's script "The Message". Who knows, I may get brave again some day and venture back to other varieties.

I don't use the words "The Word of God" though to describe it. The Word of God is our Fathers Son in the person of Jesus. There is a big difference and thankfully so. In fact most references to the "Word of God" in scripture are actually referring directly to the person of Jesus, the last and final word of God, the yes and amen of the Father in the embodiment of Christ.

Early on in this season I had gotten to a place where I couldn't read most of the scriptures. It was the end of the road. We had already left the institutional church 10 years earlier and now I was leaving most of the Bible out of my daily life except for "the promises". Everywhere else I read because of the colored lenses I was wearing only confirmed for me the utter impossibility of my ever measuring up. I didn't have the goods!

Almost 60 years of a mixture of Old and New Covenants had finally taken their toll and the shame introduced by religion, produced the schizophrenia between pretentious superiority and self loathing inferiority. Added to this mix was the never ending search for a father.

I read Jesus promises over and over, not venturing far from the Gospels. John was my favorite. He was also the Lords, or so he said...But for years Jesus words to his disciples on the night he was betrayed as shared by John were so confident and bold. I would tell the Lord (we were still on speaking terms) that those promises proclaimed so assuredly by Jesus to his disciples were as far away as the moon in my life. My life reflected precious little of the gold he had promised.

Today when the pastor said the answer for  a better year was to "spend more time in the Word of God", I actually cringed on his behalf. (He meant the Bible) He expressed his personal goal of reading the book through four times this year as well as 6 chapters from the psalms and one from the Proverbs daily.  Whew I hope it works! It will surely have some dividends. I just hope he has the right colored lens's on.

He also suggested that those in the audience who were not paying their fair share, I mean the tithe were under the curse, quoting the old covenant. And he invited them to find another place to fellowship lest this church, the one he pastored would also be cursed with them.

Now that is as far away from the truth as any thing I have ever heard. I was actually surprised at how old covenant this sounded to me. That was fun! Maybe I actually am changing.

I am not pointing these things out to be critical, only to demonstrate how far we all still have to go in becoming the New Covenant Saints He purchased at Calvary. And I'll bet that a year from now I'll be able to say this about some of the religion that is still in my own pores.

The new covenant is such good news! It's a never ending story about a father who loves us. Really loves us more than the religious will ever know. And when we mix the old with the new we leaven the whole loaf. The two are as far apart as the east is from the west. A little religion mixed in with grace is the spoiler. It kills! It steals. And it destroys!

The Gospel is the most freeing word in the universe and comes to us at great expense.
The Gospel is the ONLY route to a Glorious Life.
Good News to All People!

I really want to become this pastors friend.
Now that would be fun! Pray for us!