The New Kingdom.6

"Have you ever heard this reading from the scriptures:

“The stone which the builders have rejected has become the honored cornerstone; this is the Lord’s doing, and marvelous in our eyes?”

Behold, the kingdom of God will be taken from you who listen and do nothing and be given to a people working to bring forth fruit in their lives."

--Jesus

The Builders

Who are the "builders" in society? Why would it matter whether they rejected or accepted a thing? The case can be made it is either A: those who insist on maintaining the status quo (like the Pharisees of Jesus' time using legalism to keep people in line.) B: the visionaries who "see" the way society could be shaped through the marketplace or government coercion.

Henry Ford, for example, was a visionary who saw

how the automobile could change the way people lived. By devising a way to mass produce them and make them affordable, he allowed the marketplace to drive societal change.

The issues surrounding Covid 19 Vaccine is another example of a coercive method to change society

driven by the “experts”(a significant arm of today’s “builders”) . The Mrna technology is a complicated science that seems to hold great promise for healing many human diseases. But, like any complicated technology, for example cell phones, rather than patiently educating the public and allowing the marketplace to drive the acceptance of the change in dealing with disease, Governments are using the power of the state to force people into compliance and dramatic changes in society.

The builders of any era are usually the wealthy and/or credentialed who, of course, consider themselves superior to the common man and, by their worldview, reject any infringement on their goals. Manipulating public opinion is always an important aspect of the work of the builders. While living in Gratiot County Michigan several years ago, we encountered a technique developed for that purpose. It is called “The Delta Technique.” We discovered that our county had made a great effort to develop what they called “The Gratiot Master Plan.” It contained Eight objectives ranging from recreational activities to downtown business development. In essence, it was a Communist style central planning effort for the communities of Gratiot County.

The meeting we attended to introduce the “Master Plan” utilized the Delta Technique to near perfection. A charismatic Moderator introduced The Master Plan to an audience of about 100 citizens. Then the audience was broken down into 8 small groups where a Facilitator armed with a marker, paper sheets and easel guided discussion in the groups. Unbeknownst to the group the facilitator was trained to marginalize ideas that distracted from their objective. The facilitator’s goal was to enthusiastically report to the main audience that their group had freely come up ideas to implement the plan! Ideas the group was unwittingly led to embrace!

Questions the builders of Jesus’ day posed to Jesus usually had to do with His authority to teach and act in the way He did, which most often exposed their own spiritual bankruptcy. Questions such as “why do your disciples not follow the traditions of the elders?”, rather than show their spiritual authority demonstrated an arrogant unwillingness to learn from the Lord of Life.

George MacDonald accurately describes these types of questions as distractions from the essential work of doing what God asks us to do:

“[they] spring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the fruit of the tree of life.

• Men would understand; they do not care to obey;
• to understand where it is impossible they should understand except by obeying.
• They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing their part in it—
• thus making it impossible both for the Lord to go on with His work,
• and for themselves to become capable of seeing and understanding what He does.
• Instead of immediately obeying the Lord of Life, 
• the one condition upon which he can help them, 
• and in itself the beginning of their deliverance, 
• they set themselves to question their unenlightened intellects as to His plans for their deliverance…”

It reminds me of a young man on my bus recently who was acting up. I told him to stop what he was doing. He responded with, “Why?” I immediately stopped, got out of my seat and walked to the back of the bus to have a little chat. I reminded him that he will always have people in his life telling him what to do, and for the most part, they want him to make a good go in life. "Rather than question why and deciding for yourself if you’ll do what’s asked, the proper response, and the one that will ensure a lifelong measure of success, is to just do what’s asked and learn to quickly and cheerfully figure the best way to do it!"

After all, it's really an attitude of the heart, isn’t it? Rather than people who chafe at and question everything he tells them to do, why wouldn’t the King of Glory want to populate His kingdom with people of the humble heart, demonstrated by their desire to quickly, cheerfully and completely obey the things that show they trust and love Him! 

It is the only way to know His heart, understand His purposes and help Him build a society truly worth living in! Let us then, always be mindful that every time we do what the Lord asks us to do, or not do what He tells us not to, we are helping Him build a world worthy of Life and Love!

The Problem of Religion.5

"You make ceremonial offerings of even the herbs that grow at your front door. 
All the while, 
   you have forgotten 
      the weighty matters 
         of the law: 
judgment, mercy, and faith." 

--Jesus

What gives anything weight?

"Gravity is the force that gives an object weight. Weight is merely a measure of the amount of force

image from thinglink.com

 gravity exerts upon an object. Weight is not the same as mass, although these two terms are frequently used interchangeably. Mass is a measure of how much matter an object contains. Weight is the gravitational force that acts upon that mass." -from answers.com

God's Perfecting Will is the force that gives our obedience weight!  The real question is: how can we enlarge our obedience (mass) to give greater weight to the work God intends in and through us?

Me and the Law: "I'm approaching forty years of marriage to the same woman.  I've never committed adultery! Hurrah."

Judgement of Jesus: "If a man looks at a woman to lust after her he has committed adultery in his heart."

Me: "(silence)"

Mercy of Jesus: "Blessed are the Pure in Heart, they will see God."

Me and Faith: "Lord Jesus, I want to see joy in Your Face, and hear Your Voice saying: 'Well done, good and faithful!' Consuming Fire, burn out the impurity in my heart!

He ain't heavy, He's my Brother!

O! What a Savior!

Disciples & Servants.12

"You call me master and teacher. If I, then, am willing to be your most humble servant, should not you be willing to serve one another as well? I have lived my life as an example before you. Imitate me, and do the same to others as I have done for you." 

--Jesus

It is truly remarkable how many people think they know What Jesus Would Do.  What car

he'd buy, what cause he'd promote, who he'd vote for.  And to prove it, they'll show you their colorful wrist band...

In fact, the Jesus Seminar, consisting of a group of "theologians" used colored beads to "vote" on biblical passages they thought were most like the true Jesus. Sadly, not only was Jesus not invited, but was reduced to a venerable but harmless "teacher" who did little but advocate for social justice ensuring all people would be treated "fairly".

Consider this statement by MacDonald:

How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought, that we may have learned him wrong. That must be far worse than not to have learned him at all: his place is occupied by a false Christ, hard to exorcise!

The point is, whether we have learned Christ as he taught himself, or as men have taught him who thought they understood, but did not understand him. Do we think we know him—with notions fleshly, after low, mean human fancies and explanations, or do we indeed know him—after the spirit, in our measure as God knows him?...Is only our brain full of things concerning him, or does he dwell himself in our hearts, a learnt, and ever being learnt lesson, the power of our life?

Whatever be your opinions on the greatest of all subjects,

• Is it well that the impression made upon your generation with regard to Christianity , should be that of your opinions, and not of something greater than opinion?

• Is Christianity capable of being represented by opinion, even the best?

• If it were, how many of us are such as God would choose to represent his thoughts and intents by our opinions concerning them?

• Who is there of his friends whom any thoughtful man would appoint to represent his thoughts to his fellows? 

 ...To hold a thing with the intellect, is not to believe it. A man's real belief is that which he lives by; and that which the man I mean lives by, is the love of God, and obedience to his law, so far as he has recognized it. ... he acts and lives in a measure like the true God. What a man believes, is the thing he does. This man would shrink with loathing from actions such as he thinks, or has been taught, God justified in doing; but like God, he loves and helps and saves.

What have you done this day because it was the will of Christ?

• Have you dismissed, once dismissed, an anxious thought for the morrow?

• Have you ministered to any needy soul or body, and kept your right hand from knowing what your left hand did?

• Have you begun to leave all and follow him?

• Did you set yourself to judge righteous judgment?

• Are you being wary of covetousness?

• Have you forgiven your enemy?

• Are you seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness before all other things?

• Are you hungering and thirsting after righteousness?

• Have you given to some one that asked of you?

Tell me something that you have done, are doing, or are trying to do because Jesus told you. If you do nothing that he says, it is no wonder that you cannot trust in him, and are therefore driven to seek refuge in the atonement, as if something he had done, and not he himself in his doing were the atonement.

That is not as you understand it? What does it matter how you understand, or what you understand, so long as you are not of one mind with the Truth, so long as you and God are not at one, do not atone together? How should you understand? Knowing that you do not heed his word, why should I heed your explanation of it?

You do not his will, and so you cannot understand him; you do not know him, that is why you cannot trust in him. You think your common sense enough to let you know what he means? Your common sense ought to be enough to know itself unequal to the task. It is the heart of the child that alone can understand the Father. Would you have me think you guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost—that you understand Jesus Christ and yet will not obey him? That were too dreadful. I believe you do not understand him. No man can do yet what he tells him aright—but are you trying?

Obedience is not perfection,

but trying. 

(from The Truth In Jesus, Unspoken Sermons II, by George MacDonald) 

Disciples & Servants.8

"If you know these things, happy are you when you do them. Continue in the light of my word. Only then are you truly my disciples."

-Jesus

"It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ."--George MacDonald

Buried Treasures, by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, describes the beauty and power of the Hebrew language for shaping all of human life. In its enduring structure and ordered nuance lie secrets to the very heart of God.

As an example, unlike palindromes in most languages, i.e., words or sentences that mean the same thing forward or backwards, often Hebrew words spelled backwards have opposite, or curiously connected meanings, a connection that amplifies the lessons of the text.
A lesson that stood out to me was the word for dream: CHaLoM. Spelled backward, MeLaCH, it means "salt". Salt, as a mineral, is one of the four basic elements of life and when used to describe the character of a follower of Jesus means one who is grounded and effectual. By contrast, dreams, like words, can only impact life when they are brought out of the ethereal or theoretical, and acted upon.

In much the same way the Words of Jesus must be taken out of theoretical discussions in "bible studies" and acted upon with vigor and alacrity for them to have the effectual impact on our lives and the lives of those we are strategically appointed to impact.

a·lac·ri·ty  [uh-lak-ri-tee] (noun)

cheerful readiness, 

promptness, or willingness; 

liveliness; briskness

Lapin points out that an ancient tradition "reports a very curious fact related to dreams. It observes that if, upon rising in the morning, a person cannot remember his dreams, he should be considered wicked. Hitting the snooze button or lolling around in bed dulls the ability to latch onto those fading dreams given in sleep. One effect of not getting up with alacrity is that we cannot remember our dreams."

Jesus' commands-when not acted upon with promptness, willingness, liveliness and briskness-will quickly fade into futile uncertainty and unprofitable resistance to his leading. But when we "rise like a lion" with gusto and passion, dedicating our lives daily to his Will, we will feel His pleasure!

Here's to the end of snoozing; to the end of dull discipleship. Here's to alacrity and joyful obedience to the Lord of Life, Light and Love!

On Being Born a Second Time.4

God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through his son might be redeemed.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned; 

but whoever does not believe stands condemned already,

 because they have not believed in the name of God's only son.

--Jesus

con·demn  

/kənˈdem/

Verb Express complete disapproval of, typically in public; censure. Sentence (someone) to a particular punishment, esp. death: "the rebels had been condemned to death".

Synonyms convict - denounce - censure - sentence - decry - doom redeemed  past participle, past tense of re·deem (Verb) Verb Compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something): "a disappointing debate redeemed by an outstanding speech". Do something that compensates for poor past performance or behavior. It comes to this, as it always has, what does it mean to "believe in Him?" Each of us individually can only provide the answer, but this may help, from our dear friend George [emphasis added]: Do you ask, 'What is faith in him?' I answer,  The leaving of your way,  your objects, your self,  and the taking of his and him;  the leaving of your trust     in men,     in money,     in opinion,     in character,     in atonement itself,  and doing as he tells you.  I can find no words strong enough to serve for the weight of this necessity—this obedience.  It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ.  The work of Christ is not the Working Christ, any more than the clothing of Christ is the body of Christ. If the woman who touched the hem of his garment had trusted in the garment and not in him who wore it, would she have been healed? And the reason that so many who believe about Christ rather than in him, get the comfort they do, is that, touching thus the mere hem of his garment, they cannot help believing a little in the live man inside the garment.  It is not wonderful that such believers should so often be miserable; they lay themselves down to sleep with nothing but the skirt of his robe in their hand—a robe too, I say, that never was his, only by them is supposed his—when they might sleep in peace with the living Lord in their hearts. Instead of so knowing Christ that they have him in them saving them, they lie wasting themselves in soul-sickening self-examination as to whether they are believers, whether they are really trusting in the atonement, whether they are truly sorry for their sins—the way to madness of the brain, and despair of the heart.  Some even ponder the imponderable— whether they are of the elect, whether they have an interest in the blood shed for sin, whether theirs is a saving faith—when all the time the man who died for them is waiting to begin to save them from every evil—and first from this self which is consuming them with trouble about its salvation; he will set them free, and take them home to the bosom of the Father—if only they will mind what he says to them—which is the beginning, middle, and end of faith.  If, instead of searching into the mysteries of corruption in their own charnel-houses, they would but awake and arise from the dead, and come out into the light which Christ is waiting to give them, he would begin at once to fill them with the fulness of God. 'But I do not know how to awake and arise!' I will tell you:—Get up, and do something the master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, Do it, or once abstained because he said, Do not do it. It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do not anything he tells you. If you can think of nothing he ever said as having had an atom of influence on your doing or not doing, you have too good ground to consider yourself no disciple of his. Do not, I pray you, worse than waste your time in trying to convince yourself that you are his disciple notwithstanding—that for this reason or that you still have cause to think you believe in him. What though you should succeed in persuading yourself to absolute certainty that you are his disciple, if, after all, he say to you, 'Why did you not do the things I told you? Depart from me; I do not know you!' Instead of trying to persuade yourself, if the thing be true you can make it truer; if it be not true, you can begin at once to make it true, to be a disciple of the Living One—by obeying him in the first thing you can think of in which you are not obeying him. We must learn to obey him in everything, and so must begin somewhere: let it be at once, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of our conscience!" from The Truth In Jesus, Unspoken Sermons II,

Health And Healing For Body And Soul.3

"Is it easier to say, 

'Your sins are forgiven,' or, 'Rise and be healed'?

That you might know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive all wrongs, I announce to the sick:

"Rise Up! Be of good cheer; 

your wrongs are forgiven.

Go your way! 

As you have believed, so shall you receive. 

Your faith has made you well!" 

-- Jesus

Let us agree on this simple notion: 

 Jesus cares little for our opinion.

If you think he was asking for a show of hands when posing the question; if you think he cared a wit about whether they thought one form of the command was more effective than another; if you think that getting our opinions in order is the objective of Jesus or, for that matter, any writer of the Bible...then you qualify as a modern day disciple of historic Pharisaical proportions!

Test yourself:

When considering a doctrine or command of scripture do you say, 'Do I believe or feel this thing right?' In doing so have you forgotten the true question: 'Have I left all to follow him?' 

"To the man who gives himself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come right; the Lord himself will see that his disciple believe aright concerning him. 

If a man cannot trust him for this, what claim can he make to faith in him? It is because he has little or no faith, that he is left clinging to preposterous and dishonouring ideas, the traditions of men concerning his Father, and neither his teaching nor that of his apostles.

What I insist upon is, that a man's faith shall be in the living, loving, ruling, helping Christ, devoted to us as much as ever he was, and with all the powers of the Godhead for the salvation of his brethren. 

It is not faith that he did this, that his work wrought that—it is faith in the man who did and is doing everything for us that will save him: without this he cannot work to heal spiritually, any more than he would heal physically, when he was present to the eyes of men.

Do you ask, 'What is faith in him?' I answer, The leaving of your way, your objects, your self, and the taking of his and him; the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and doing as he tells you. I can find no words strong enough to serve for the weight of this necessity—this obedience.

It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ. 

The work of Christ is not the Working Christ, any more than the clothing of Christ is the body of Christ. If the woman who touched the hem of his garment had trusted in the garment and not in him who wore it, would she have been healed? And the reason that so many who believe about Christ rather than in him, get the comfort they do, is that, touching thus the mere hem of his garment, they cannot help believing a little in the live man inside the garment.

Get up, and do something the master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, 'Do it', or once abstained because he said, 'Do not do it'. It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do not anything he tells you.

If you can think of nothing he ever said as having had an atom of influence on your doing or not doing, you have too good ground to consider yourself no disciple of his.

Jesus' mission was not correct opinion concerning himself or the Father, his objective was and is obedient love in the heart of the poorest he healed or persuaded. That is his kingdom come."

(adapted from MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons II, The Truth In Jesus, emphasis added)

I Believe

"Do not be afraid any longer, but believe. Everything is possible to the one who believes."

--Jesus

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I have been initiated into the company of those whose work is to send sin out of the world, first of all by sending it out of myself, by being done with it.

• He has a right to my absolute obedience. 
• He is making of me a new creation capable of right action, right being, right attitude, right relations. 
• He accomplishes this through my unsteady striving to obey His words of spirit and life. 
• He knows that the scale of my being is too large for me to manage on my own and therefore gives me the gifts of His Spirit, reason, hope, faith and power to grow into a being like Him. 
• His is Perfect Love that created the universe and goes on creating for His own expansion of joy and pleasure. 
• He is a Consuming Fire that refines the unlovely in me to produce more through me capable of Divine Love. 
• I trust Him. I do not trust in language, doctrines, theologies, traditions, experiences or opinions about Him. 
• I believe. I am not afraid.