Living in The House of God | On Rewards | On Giving & Pleasing God | On Guilt

On The Body of Christ | On "Falling Away" | To Teachers | A Final Prayer

To reach a sate in which we are not guided by our own will. This is our aim. This is where we want to go - to a place where our will is swallowed up in the will of God.

Is it only certain individuals (monk, minister, etc.) who are called to reproduce the life of Christ on earth? Is it only they who are to overcome death with life and be transformed into His image?

I think not. To be set apart is not necessarily to "set one's self apart," but it is that God has set us apart. It is an interior consecration and not necessarily an exterior one. We need not try to set the body straight and expect the inner parts to follow suit. This is backwards. We will only cause ourselves great harm.

We are called to conscious and manifested internal union with God. It could be said that this is all we are called to. If there is any outward work that any of us is particularly called to, it will only be found in the one call of union.

We are on a journey in which we are constantly losing pieces of ourselves. What is really happening, although to us it seems like what I just said were the case, is that we are escaping illusion. We have been "under the influence" for so long that we don't know up from down, and we are coming into sobriety - not physical, but spiritual. From darkness to light; from sleeping to waking; whatever human analogy you wish to lay over it, it's all the same. We are becoming, wholly, who we were created to be.

It is necessary in this process that we will become less and less aware, acutely, of our personal selves as something separate from the essence of God. In our pneuma (our spirit) we have His own eternal breath living and giving us life. It is there that we are no longer separate from Him. He has, by His power, breathed His self into us so that now, at least in the eternal sense, we are one self with God.

However, that is not the end of the story. It is at once the beginning and the end. We have found our home. We've been given residence. But, we have no idea where we are. We must not, though, start thinking that because we are not familiar with our surroundings, that we are actually not at home. We can't be thrown off and think that we somehow have to "get there" or "find our way" home. This will bring disastrous results! Although we have sight, we are then blind!

What we are doing, then, is allowing ourselves to become acquainted with our new home. And we must realize that we cannot acquaint ourselves with this house that we do not own and which we did not build. We can't just go around bumping into things and falling down stairs, etc. (well, we can but...) We must graciously let the host familiarize us, show us around, if you will, and make us at home, which indeed we are.

We have indeed been brought into "the House," in fact, we have been made the House and are now going about finding out what that is all about. We don't, at first, realize what a glorious and beautiful home we have been given. We are always in the House, always! But, we are not always really aware of where we are. This is a sad thing. What we've got to come to is the understanding that we are the House, or (if you wish) we now live in the House - that it is our home, not a strange hotel somewhere that we will soon leave, but in eternal reality, our HOME!

We must also realize that we are not it's master. This is key. If we never come to know that this is our home, then we will never live here as if it is. We won't be comfortable here and will not avail ourselves of all that is a part of living here - awful thing!

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about our life in God, in Christ. We have found, in Him, our eternal Home. And, in a real way, we have become His home. Jesus came down to earth and took upon Himself, our nature. He died, was raised from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to live in us, to give us life. Our Christian life is now a process of maturing, of learning what that life is all about - what it means to be alive in God.

This is the Spiritual Life - to learn to live in the House of God, to explore every room, to know we are not just "foster kids" who will leave someday, but that we have truly been adopted. It's not a trial run. This is the real, forever thing. God is our real Father and we are really His children whom He loves with an incomprehensible love!

This is the Gospel - the Good News! And it is not just something to say to ourselves to make ourselves feel good. Well, it is something we should say to ourselves and I'm sure that it will make us feel good in a way when we here it, but it is much more! It is what is most real in life. It is the core truth of why we are here and what we are doing.

So, sit back; make yourself at home. You are, you know. You live here now. Please don't act like a visitor! Get acquainted with the place. We're all going to be here for a very long time...

Living in The House of God | On Rewards | On Giving & Pleasing God | On Guilt

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I was talking the other day, and thinking, about my instinctive problem with the notion of "rewards" from God for obedience. This system that many live by doesn't seem right. Something in it goes counter to selflessness. It runs against the grain of New Covenant Truth to say that I am to live my life in order to be "good" and win God's favour-and then He will see that I have been a good boy, and He will of course reward me because I deserve it-but also because God works on a system of behaviour modification. Like Skinner, He rewards us (like rats) for doing the right thing, on and on until we do it by habit (not nature). Oh, and in the midst of all that rewarding for diligent seeking there is also a good bit of punishment to keep justice balanced with mercy (in some circles).

I am definitely strong about this, so I'll say that all that is demonic! Demonic in that I truly believe it to be inspired of the enemy in order to throw us off in the wrong direction so that then, we can't understand who we are or who God is or what our proper relationship to/with Him is. If we live by this temporal, or even eternal, reward system, we essentially live our whole lives for self. We will be constantly focused on our selves-on what we are "doing" and how we are "doing" it. We will be avariciously racking up rewards (earthly or heavenly) in order to... I suppose just so that we'll be rewarded and be really cool and be real happy, so that WE WE WE will have lots of stuff for our selves! This is not Christ! This is NOT the Love of God! This is NOT what it is to be a Christian!

Living in The House of God | On Rewards | On Giving & Pleasing God | On Guilt

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I give because I Love.

That is it. I guess in some way God is "pleased" because the Love of Jesus is flowing through us.

That is why He is pleased-not by some mechanical act that got His attention and then "He was pleased" by that thing that you did.

He is pleased; it smells good to Him when the fragrance smells like Jesus! It smells good to God when what He smells is His own life essence-because that is His ultimate goal and pleasure-that His Life be in us and flow out of us.

So, when we give money or time or energy out of the life of God in us, it is a joyous thing to God because He knows that we are becoming what He wants us to be.

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How do we "take care of that" (meaning: after we "sin" we must do something to take care of it)? Do we "go to confession"? Is it... clean/dirty , etc., etc., etc. - on and on and on!? NO!!! We are clean! He has made it so! Are, then, my outer actions enough to tear me away from that? Again, NO! To "take care of that" - the guilt - we must grow in intimacy with God in our "souls" so that we are renewed to the fact that we are new and stainless, and that He holds nothing against us because now we are identified with His Son.

Our actions and outer thoughts are a fading rememberence of what and who we once were. If we focus on changing them (focus on them), we will be eternally frustrated. But if we turn our affections (minds/thoughts) toward Him and our intimate union with Him then what will happen!? WELL, what HE wants - He will change the rest of us as He has transformed our spirits and made them one with His own. Unity, communion, transformation!

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1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 10:17; 12:12; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 4:1-4; Rom. 8:9-11

We do not quite understand what this whole thing is about. God has done something awesome and He has been trying to explain it to us so that we will be able to live in the reality of what He has done.

We speak about things too humanly. We consider the things of the Spirit in a way which does not lend itself to very accurate understanding. We need to break out of the shell of understanding that we have made for ourselves and receive whatever it takes to grasp the truth!

Some call it a "box". We either put God in a box or we put "us" in a box. Hey! God's not serving up box lunches! There is no containment to the truth of who He is. I want to focus on some things in a way that maybe you're not used to. Put your "God-in-a-box" and your "theology-in-a-box" down for a while and open yourself to receive the truth of God however it comes.

You are the Body of Christ.

I wonder how many grasp the intensity of the reality of that statement. We use it glibly, without properly understanding what we are talking about.

KEY STATEMENT... If you don't understand who you are, you cannot be that person.

You may know your name, where you were born, what your mommy & daddy's mane is, etc., etc., etc. Knowing these things, what do you know? You know the trappings of who you are. You may know the "trappings" of you father but not know the intimacy of who he internally is. Think about it... Think about it... We need not be deceived that because we know the "trappings" of "being a Christian", we truly understand who we are. We need not think because of this limited knowledge, that we have a living understanding of the eternal truth of WHO WE ARE.

+ "You are the fullness of Him who fills the universe in all its parts."

+ "You are a partaker of the divine nature."

+ "You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus."

+ "You are seated with Him in heavenly places at the right hand of God the Father."

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Hebrews 6:4-6
"For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance again, since they are re-crucifying the Son of God for themselves and holding him up to contempt."

Let's agree that up with the "fallen away" in Galatians 5:4 - "You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." In the context we see that "falling away" speaks of not counting on what Jesus DID (past tense) for our righteousness - in this we make ourselves unfruitful.

Binding them together, what we do is receive His salvation by grace and then go on to think as if it is something that we do which keeps us righteous or causes us to grow in righteousness. In doing this what we are doing is RE-CRUCIFYING JESUS OVER AND OVER, thinking that we have to come back to Him over & over again to receive something He has already given us. Thus, we HOLD HIM UP TO CONTEMPT since we do not live in the understanding that we are righteous ALREADY in Him.

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Hebrews 6:11
"...let us leave behind the basic teaching about Christ and advance to maturity..."

Let us indeed! What we have done, and continue to do , is to re-cycle all the over-simplified, watered-down versions of truth and expect them to accomplish what they have never accomplished, because they have been robbed of the "power of truth".

First we were robbed by the general watering down of Christianity as a whole, and it continued with the over-organization of the organism.

I could go on and on, but my main point here is to say that we have been robbed (GRAND THEFT) of the true revelatory teaching which imparts to us eternal truth and causes transformation to occur. We are, instead, simply exposed to the Word (which is indeed powerful and effective) by way of skillful oratory. NOT simply skilled and fanciful speech - that's not it, for I believe that if one is given a gift and responsibility to teach the Body of Christ they will be able to speak well and should strive to do so. What I mean is that we, as men, have developed certain ways of speaking; certain linguistic styles which "capture" people. And we cause ourselves to be defined as "anointed" because of our outer "style". We even become self-deceived because we simply accept what is thrown to us automatically without searching or question.

Clean slate.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6 (v.6) "...who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter brings death, but the spirit gives life."

We have not been gifted and qualified as "administers" of a covenant like the one which has passed away. We have not simply been given the job of "expounding the letter." Rather, implanted within us is the ability to transmit the life of the Spirit into those to whom we minister. This is something far greater than simply taking people through a "reading journey" of the Word and attempting to "exegete" or explain verse by verse (precept by precept) the truth that is contained therein.

We who have been made ministers of this new covenant have indeed been given much more than the ability to take people through a "letter" which teaches itself! Ours is a spiritual ministry-one which is not limited by external, written precepts and principles. God reveals to us the underpinning nature of truth and the practical wisdom of it's living-out. We, as Teachers, are able to explain and transmit the expanded meaning of what God has said; of what He is now saying; and indeed the truth, in eternity, of who He is!

God has, and does continually give us the ability (through our union with Him) to be conductors of eternal truth; in that, we grasp the structure of that truth in the Spirit and translate it into the Soul realm in order that the Body might be totally transformed into His very image and reflection - that it might live out the nature of HE who lives in it and is it's very life!

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