The truth about lies

Tags

adam and eve, alpha and the omega, emotional maturity, spirituality

John – God

8:32

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

8:31

“…If you hold on to my teaching, you are really my disciples”

8:33

“…We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been a slave of anyone…”

8:34

“…everyone who sins is a slave to sin”

Genesis – Serpent

3:5

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil”

Genesis – God

1:27

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

John – God

14:6

“Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life…”

Revelation – God

1:8

“I am the Alpha and the Omega”, says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty”

We see highlighted here some scripture from across the bible describing the fact that God is truth, the one and only objective truth, and that God is the only uncreated, the one who always has been and will always be. And as God has always been, truth always existed, because just as he is love he is also truth and truth exists because God is. We see also highlighted here how the serpent spoke the first lie. We just need to define what that lie was, what in fact all lies are.

He said they will be like God if they did what he told them to do.

Let’s look at the facts here for a second, as we see in Gen 1:27, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God (the definition of “being like God”). Nothing they did out of their own power would make them like God, it was established at creation! (He created them in his likeness). So for the serpent to say that if they did this one thing, the will be like God and therefore know good and evil, he was using the carrot of being like God to entice them to do something very stupid. He enticed them by telling them he could give them something that they in fact already had. He was therefore merely taking advantage of their lack of knowledge.

Look again now at this verse in John 8:32

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Truth is God revealed to man. They walked with God in the Garden of Eden… Every day! He revealed himself to them in an intimate and personal way, on a daily basis. They knew the truth! They knew good! God is the source of all good and the full extent of good! They knew the truth and they knew that is was good, and by knowing good; evil is merely that which is not good. They were caught by the first magic trick of sleight of hand. They were made to focus on what was withheld, being the one tree (merely the choice that made love possible), and forgot about what was given, the knowledge of truth and good.

The whole design of the lie was therefore twofold, first to point out what was withheld and then secondly, as their focus were now on what was withheld, to offer what was already received, as a reward for taking the steps to obtain what was withheld, by their own power. What was withheld was made out to be something of higher value than anything that has been received, where it was in fact nothing. Nothing but a choice to live by knowing truth and good by knowing God in person and to know evil as that which is not good, rather than seeking to find good outside of God. They found evil to be the choice of seeking good outside of God and they lost the privilege of living in intimate relationship with good, with God.

How is this then relevant to us today, living in the 21^st century, where almost every one of the 7 billion people define good in their own way and feel that they have the right and the calling to seek and find good as a subjective truth. We are being bombarded with lies, but there is still only one truth. An innumerable amount of carrots are being flung around our heads but there is still only one good. And evil is still that which is not good, everything that is not God or of God.

We still have one thing that is being withheld from us; one choice to make. We need to choose how we want to know evil. Do we want to know good, know God, and as a result of that knowledge know evil as the opposite thereof, or do we want to seek good outside of God, i.e. do we want to seek evil? Because if you seek evil you will not find God, and if you are not only looking for good in God you are choosing to seek good outside of Him, a good that you will not find, as it does not exist.

So every lie that crosses our path should be rebuked as not being from God, something (lies crossing our paths) that is possible due to that first decision to seek good outside of God. By rebuking it as not being from God we remain focussed on God and good. We remain living from the truth.

What does this practically mean? How does this knowledge help us identify and reject lies? First we need to seek God to know God and good. That is first and foremost what we were created to do, seek God, and if you seek him you will find him, that is a promise he made to us. Secondly we need to stop seeking good outside of him and lastly we need to compare everything we engage to what we know of him, in other words, we need to evaluate everything in our lives and everything in our hearts; every thought, every emotional reaction, every choice and every motivation behind our deeds as either good or bad through our knowledge of good (God). Every lie we identify this way should then act as a revelation of truth as every lie is the opposite (or deviation) of truth. When we see a lie, we can find a truth. By comparing every lie to what we know of God we will have so many chances to get to know more of God as there are plenty lies in and around our lives.

How do we put this in motion though, how do we make this happen and make the most of this approach to life and lies. The answer is simple; seek God; read the bible to get to know him, pray to get to know him, go to church to get to know him and relate with others to get to know him. When you don’t know if something is truth or a lie, just seek God and you will know.

To sum all of this up then; seek God… and you will find Him, you will now the truth and the truth will set you free from slavery to sin (lies).

The problem with burdens… And advice

Tags

emotional maturity, spirituality

We all struggle with burdens sometimes, be it tough decisions or situations, loss or lingering sin causing shame. We want to step out of the shadow of these burdens and we honestly want to do the right thing, but sometimes we just can’t find the answer or the right path to follow because we are staring too deeply into the situation. That’s when we need guidance, we need wisdom to regain perspective and make the right decisions.

Depending on our level of emotional maturity we will use different ways of asking our faith family for help. It will also greatly depend on the closeness of your walk with the fellow believers in your faith family. Sometimes the closer you are, the more difficult it is to ask for help. Regardless, we ask for help in these situations, we might call it a shoulder to cry on or only needing someone to listen to you for once. We might even call it accountability or a prayer request, fact is we ask for help, we cry out for help because we just can’t get it together. And there is nothing wrong with asking for help, just look at the masses of people that ran to Jesus asking for help with their problems.

The question now is; who do we turn to for help, who do we listen to. Below I point out the most typical responses we get when we ask our friends and families for help, sometimes they even respond this way when we don’t ask for help. People (fellow believers) will generally respond to a situation in your life in one of these ways:

1. The hardliners: We’ve all seen these people; most of us even went through a phase being these people. I call them the hardliners because they quote random scripture to every situation. I am the first person to tell you that scripture should be at the centre of our lives and the ultimate truth and basis for our decision making, but before you can apply the truth of the living word of God to a situation you need to discern the residing situation. It is very important to address the correct problem/sin and not just throw scripture at each other. Our typical response to these people is one of irritation or even anger. We feel they judge us and we don’t need their help at all. We tend to ignore them with future problems and remain extremely defensive in their presence. Now we have to admit that sometimes these emotional responses to this kind of help indicate immaturity on our behalf and even an unwillingness to correct our ways. I am referring here however to undiscerned help to problems by way of out of context and unrelated scriptural quoting with judgemental motivation residing. The problem with out of context scriptural referencing is that it will always lead to guilt and shame where God is all about forgiveness and freedom through Christ. It is impossible to apply the solution of problem B to problem A and failure leads to guilt and shame.
2. Then we get the joiners, those people who always seem to want to relate to our problems, even though it might be worlds apart. Generally our response to these people are that we are extremely grateful and want them near us, if they are trusted people, but afterwards we feel more like we celebrated the problem rather than addressed it. See, even if the problems are exactly the same, we are all very different people and respond differently to similar problems, we also work through these problems in different ways which makes their help quite useless. Focussing forever on the problem will also not help you address it. We feel we need wisdom to help us make the right decisions, not a list of decisions to make based on someone else’s successful handling of the same problem.
3. Finally we have the opportunist, and here is where most young believers find themselves these days. We are always trying to lighten the load by either being funny or quoting clichéd wise sayings from the bible or history. These people could also be called the avoiders. They avoid the real issues with commendable passion and determination by encouraging your character in general.  They don’t care enough about your problems to really discern what is going on and get involved in the way that is needed.

 

Who then should you listen to, or how do you respond to a friend asking you for help or who opens up to you about their problems?

There will only ever be one person who did things right for every single problem presented to Him and that is God through Christ Jesus. He always:

• Immediately discerned the residing problem/sickness behind the problem and forgave the sin/broke the bondage by the authority He has.

1. We need to affirm the forgiveness through the cross and,
2. Reclaim the authority we have over all the bondage broken on the cross

 

• He laid hands on them and prayed/expressed resolution of the problem

1. We need to pray with each other proclaiming the truth of Romans 8:1, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, living in the spirit not the flesh. No condemnation means no bondage can remain!

 

• He sent them away with love and responsibility taken up with passion by grace.

1. We need to release each other into the truth and start living from the truth of Christ; there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ! Proclaiming the truth is probably the most important part of living in freedom, we can never stop proclaiming and can never feel that we have something settled and sorted, truth is needed every-day regardless where we are in our journey of conformation to Christ. Responsibility has never been a burden, it’s an honour and we should remind, and be reminded of it daily to and by our faith family. Everyone left Jesus’s side but did not take their problems with them, they left it there, and He took it upon Himself. You need to go to Him to be able to leave your problems with Him!

 

So what do we listen for when deciding whose guidance or help to use and apply? You listen for Matthew 11:25-30

You listen to the person telling you Matthew 11:28 as the central theme to their help and you should give this guidance when approached for help. There Jesus said the following:

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”

The only thing that can take away burden is rest and there is only one place where your soul will find rest and that is in the arms of Christ. You need to GO TO HIM TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE YOUR BURDENS WITH HIM!

You therefore listen to the person shouting; GO TO CHRIST!!! There you will find rest. If you are the one giving the advice you need to speak clear and without your own agenda, you simply keep on saying: Let’s take this to the feet of Christ, let us go speak to Him, let me go with you. You take that person by the hand and you go speak to your healer; that is where rest is.

 

Pray with someone if you don’t know how to take your burdens to Christ, but an easy way to do it is just to:

1. Start telling God how you feel about what is happening to you
2. Then ask; how do I picture God in this moment?
3. Lastly compare that picture to what the bible says about God

 

After this you start relating to God for who He is as you get to know Him and your burdens will disappear.

Getting to know God is how you take your burdens to Him and how you are able to leave it with Him. You basically pitch up with your burdens and you leave with knowledge of Christ, but I guarantee you, you won’t leave. You will remain in Christ but your burdens go to Christ leaving you free and healed.

 

If you find yourself praying with someone to help them take their burdens to Christ you need to affirm the following truths:

1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ; sin is forgiven in the presence of God.
2. Problems disappear when they are given to God; no-one left Jesus side with their problems.
3. But above all; everyone who approaches Christ will receive the living water of knowledge of Christ. This knowledge will set you free from all your burdens!

 

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”

Prayer 101

Prayer:

New International Version (NIV)

 

Matthew 6:9-13

⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

Matthew 21

²¹ Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. ²² If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Mark 11

²² “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³ “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Luke 11

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

For centuries we have been told by every spiritual leader that we should pray daily, and we do. We pray and pray and pray, but unlike promised in scripture we don´t receive. In this post I want us to look at why I believe we don´t receive and how to change that.

God is not human that He can lie, when He promises that we will receive if we ask, then that is exactly what is guaranteed by Him. If we then do not receive when we pray then the problem has to lie with us and I believe the reason behind the failure starts with our motivation for praying and ends with what we pray for.

If we look at the above scriptures where God himself teaches us how to pray then there are a few very interesting aspects of prayer coming to the fore; firstly I believe there has to be a vision to our prayers. Before there can be any requests there must be a reason for the approach, as prayer is us approaching God for some reason. When we look at the quoted scripture there is a central theme of trust and faith behind all the asking going on. Jesus is teaching us how to pray from a place of trust. Trusting God should therefore be the central attitude when we pray; and the only way we will ever fully trust God is when we realise that He is fully trustworthy. For that to happen we need to get to know God. The first and most important reason for approaching God, praying in other words, is therefore to get to know God. He is fully trustworthy we just need to see the fact for ourselves and the only way is to get to know Him. We should therefore start praying with a single minded devotion to get to know God. That should be our first and total motivation for approaching Him.

(I want to refer you to a great resource that will help you in this first and most important step; a book written by Dr Larry Crabb called the PAPA prayer. This book started me of on this road of changing my prayers and will help you start out the right way in your prayers and truly revamp the way you pray)

I want us to go a little deeper than we have gone thus far, every time you approach God I want you to ask yourself the following question;

If I pray to get to know God better, why do I want to know Him better…?

If you’re answer is not one of the following then we need to start again:

1. I pray to get to know God better so I can truly see His holiness, and be holy because He is holy, and therefore live a life of thanksgiving by expressing His holiness rather than my sinful nature (… 1Pet 1:16)
2. I pray to get to know God better so I can truly worship Him (…hallowed be thy name)
3. I pray to get to know God better so I can truly become more like Him and throw my weight behind establishing His kingdom here on earth (…thy kingdom come)

We try to manipulate God by pretending we are coming to Him to get to know Him for His purposes and His will. The three mentioned reasons are in my opinion the only deep lying motivational approaches to get to know God for His will and His purpose. If we cannot honestly and assuredly answer yes to one of those questions when we approach him we need to find the actual reason for our approach, the following are generally one of the reasons we approach God for our own will and advantage:

1. I pray to God because I need something from Him
2. I pray to God because I need Him to change someone who is currently making my life difficult
3. I pray to God to help me get through a certain situation that is very challenging to me
4. I pray to God for protection
5. I pray to God for blessings, be it spiritual gifts, patience or wisdom.

These are all acceptable prayers but only when we pray from a place of trust and knowledge of God´s will. Let me explain; when we pray these prayers one of two things will happen, either God provides and we are happy and worship and praise Him for His goodness and provision or He does not provide and we start to ask serious questions of His goodness and his favour on our lives; does He really care about me? Does He really want me to be happy? These are all prayers that should be asked from a place of trust as is evident in the Lord´s teachings on prayer; always saying you should trust God and believe what you are asking is going to happen. Now if anything not happening causes you to question your trust and believe in God´s goodness, it was not asked from a place of settled trust. There is enough evidence in the bible that God is trustworthy and that He is looking out for His children that no non-occurrence of anything we ask for should cause us to doubt His goodness. God is good because He is, not because of what we see happening around us, His goodness is an established truth and attribute, like his holiness and righteousness, it is not something He needs to prove to anyone. As we get to know Him we see this about Him and we build a trust in our hearts towards Him, then when that relationship of trust is established we can ask for our daily bread and to be protected against evil; these prayers are reminders to us that He is good and that He promised provision. He tells us that we do not need to worry about tomorrow and to look at the carelessness with which birds live, a total abandonment to His trustworthiness.

There is another problem with why we pray, an energy pulsing in our hearts saying that God will not provide good in our lives if we do not ask Him for it, but that is not true, the only thing we need to ask for is His Holy Spirit which He then promises He will provide, that’s a guaranteed answered prayer; ask and you will receive. The rest of the things we ask for are more about us reaching a place of peace in our hearts than a necessary action to release His provision. He knows exactly what we need and He is good and will provide the needs in line with His will.

What and why should we pray then?

We need to pray to observe His holiness so we can be holy like Him and express His nature rather than our sinful fleshly nature.

We pray to get to know Him and worship Him, for who He is, not for who He is to us.

And we pray to become more entrenched in His kingdom and please Him by expanding it by our witnessing.

Only then when we established a prayer life based on His will and who He is can we fully trust Him and pray to Him from a place of trust. The final aspect of a Godly prayer life is an attitude of continuous forgiveness, powerful prayer requires us to live in total grace and forgiveness towards each other as that is the privileged position we have been raised to by the actions of Christ, we cannot be unforgiving to anyone and expect God to listen to our prayers, we need to mirror Him in the way he prayed for those hurting Him whilst on earth and not judge them. Judgement will come when our Lord Jesus Christ returns to take us home.

To finish off I want to encourage you to pray for spiritual blessings in reaction to spiritual gifts (1 Cor12). God explains His will towards situations through His gifts; knowledge of the residing situation, wisdom of His will for the situation and He even provides the words to pray to establish that will through prophecy.

Discernment (Watchman Nee)

After reading the book, spiritual discernment (Watchman Nee) I decided to write this piece in an attempt to clarify the matter for myself and others if possible.

According to Mr Nee we can only discern the things we see others do in their spirit, if we ourselves have done it at some stage and received discipline by the Lord for trying it, basically the self behind our actions, the bad motivation for doing good (or bad) that we at one stage attempted but have been made aware of by the Spirit of God in our lives. These are the mistakes committed by others that we can now see with our spirit and know that it is wrong. This is quite interesting; it appears to be the greatest way to move us into action to help others. First we know what went wrong in the other person’s heart and secondly we can relate to it, as we ourselves have made that mistake at some point, and by relating to the problem we can fully buy into the solution.

This is an amazing change of view of the need and purpose of discerning wrongdoing! Anything that is in contrast with what we know about God, by Him teaching us, will not resonate with our spirit! We know something is wrong because God has at one stage showed us the truth.

There are certain things, in my opinion, that we will always discern to be wrong without extensive “training” on the matter given to us by God. An Evil spirit in someone will immediately clash with the Holy Spirit of the Lord in our hearts and therefore we should be able to discern any outright evil spirits. The tricky part of discernment comes in when we must start discerning the flesh in others actions. A beautiful example of the difference between evil and flesh, and the different actions to be taken when we discern these two types of wrong, is evident in Jesus’ handling of Peter’s actions while on earth.

The first situation plays off in Mat 16:23 where Jesus rebukes Peter as Satan when Peter said that he wants God to not let His Son be crucified. This was a situation where Peter was clearly inspired by Satan to say something that is 100% against the will of God. Jesus discerned the evil that clashed with his Spirit, being God, and rebuked it as evil. The second situation plays off in Mat 26:51 where Peter tries to protect the Lord with his sword. The Lord tells him that living by the sword will lead to dying by the sword and that if He needed protection it would be by way of legions of angels and not physical weapons. In this moment Jesus knowing how He is protected, in the spirit, discerned that the way Peter wanted to protect him is different from the true protection that would have been in place if deemed necessary and judges the act of protection coming from Peter. He corrected the error, placing the ear of the guard back and healing it, and rebuked Peter’s actions which were in contrast with the truth He learned. It is clear that other’s actions can only be discerned by the knowledge of the truth, either by knowing a specific truth about a specific situation (Jesus’ protection) or knowing the truth that is God’s plan. The devil will always work against God’s plan, where our flesh might not know the depths of knowledge that is in Christ. It is in these depths that we can move deeper into and then be able to discern the errors by others due to fleshy motivation.

What is clear though is that discernment of other people’s error need to be corrected by way of healing and stating of the truth. Those errors might cause pain; we should see the pain it causes and pray for healing, then those errors also indicates a lack of knowledge, and we seeing the lack should have access to the knowledge and share it with the person erring.

Works and Faith

Works and Faith

In our world there seems to be a bit of confusion in terms of the way faith and works fit together.

Firstly let it be clear that our works will not save us: Tit 3:4-7 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,  (5)  he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,  (6)  whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,  (7)  so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Remember that faith is defined by perception in our spirit, which should then turn into conviction in our soul and find expression in our lives.

Now we find scriptures like James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”

What is James trying to say in this scripture? That faith is not enough to save you or that you have to add works to faith to be saved? No, I believe that James was stressing the point that faith should be evident in our lives by the choices we make, if we believe something with our whole heart, how can it not bear fruit in our lives? Remember what John wrote: 1Jn 1:6 “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” He says that if our acts do not reflect what we confess, we are living a lie, not telling a lie.

So if our works do not save us, why the fusses about having our lives reflect what we confess? You see the problem lies with our perception about being saved. Being saved and entering the Kingdom of God is not the end of the journey, it is the beginning. You see, if being saved was all there was to the Kingdom, then why do anything after being saved? We can just sit around and wait for God to come and get us, be that by Him coming back or us dying.

The Kingdom is not something that will happen one day when we go to heaven; the Kingdom starts here and now. Luk 17:20-21 “And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:  (21) neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Living for the Kingdom of God is what faith is about, perceiving what God is saying and doing from an intimate relationship with Him, letting it become a conviction in your soul (change of worldview) and then giving expression to it (works). So what do we do if our works do not reflect the Kingdom? Do we read the bible and make a list of do’s and don’ts? No this is what we call “dead works”. Heb 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

If your works do not reflect the confession, return to where faith starts; perception of what God is saying and doing from an intimate relationship with Him. You see, your works are the fruit you carry. Mat 7:18 “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” If you think you can change the tree by hanging different fruit on its branches, you are mistaken.

Let your fruit be a measure of the level of intimacy between you and God and if the fruit is not looking good, sit at God’s feet in His presence and spend time with Him, allowing Him to change you from the inside out.

Heb 10:19-25  Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,  (20)  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,  (21)  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  (22)  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  (23)  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  (24)  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,  (25)  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

In Christ



Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

 

The Word of God tells us that once we step into Christ our spirits is captured with Him in the Most Holy Place. We then should see Christ when we look around, we should smell Him in the air, and we should carry a strong fragrance of Him as well. We should experience Christ EVERYWHERE around us, the truth about Him is that which we see in the spirit, with the eyes of our spirit we thus see the truth that is in heaven! We are all called to take up the calling of proclaiming and establishing that which we see in Christ right here on earth with the boldness and authority that is found in Christ. The hands and feet of the body always act on what the head thinks and dwells on, so listen to Him, look through His eyes and ACT as He did whilst on earth, in faith, as He saw the truth in heaven He then acted and established that truth right here on earth…

 

Eph 5:23 …even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.  

 

Living for the Glory of God

This post is just a little follow up on a few of the things we have mentioned in our previous posts.

Joh 17:1-10 “Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said: Father, it’s time. Display the bright splendor of your Son So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.  (2)  You put him in charge of everything human So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.  (3)  And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, The one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.  (4)  I glorified you on earth By completing down to the last detail What you assigned me to do.  (5)  And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor, The very splendor I had in your presence Before there was a world.  (6)  I spelled out your character in detail To the men and women you gave me. They were yours in the first place; Then you gave them to me, And they have now done what you said.  (7)  They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,  (8)  For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced That I came from you. They believed that you sent me.  (9)  I pray for them. I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world But for those you gave me, For they are yours by right.  (10)  Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them.” MSG.

What an awesome scripture!

Firstly see what Jesus describes as real and eternal life: “That they know you, the one and only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.” This is absolutely profound. To truly know someone you need to be in an intimate relationship with them, thus to understand what this life is truly about, you need to intimately know God.

2Pe 1:3 “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!” MSG.

Jesus then says: “I glorified you on earth by completing down to the last detail what you assigned me to do.” Jesus knew Who He was. His whole life here on earth was an expression of Who He was and so He brought glory to the Father. This is amazing, if we give expression to who God created us to be, we will bring glory to the Father. Do you see the difference between giving expression from our Godly given significance, and trying to get significance by our actions?

Realize that the first is an expression of who we are in God. Transparently being who we really are. Being real. The second is fake; we try to identify ourselves by the reactions we receive from random acts. The first is a motivation to express the fullness of what God created us to be, the second is a deficit motivation to try and prove to ourselves that we are actually something.

“Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them.” Remember now that we are called to be the body of Christ. Every one of us reflect a certain part of Christ and together as the church His life should be on display to the whole world to see. Mat 5:14 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.”

As is evident in Efe4 we need to get together in expressing God to the world, we are all a piece of the puzzle and for us to show the face of God to the world as He did in His Son we need to step into unity and portray that unique part of His heart that He is revealing to us. Together we will show the world who God is and together we will find significance (men) and security (women) in our relationship with our Creator and each other. We need to step up to the plate, take hands and start living the life of Christ as He showed us with His life being an example of us rather than an example to us. We need to stop looking towards other to vindicate our value, this is the truth: You are significant and valuable because God is alive and because He loves you not for what you are doing but for being His creation!

RR & DM

Presence vs Ego

Men need to feel significant. Men want to be seen as someone of influence, we want to leave a legacy in whatever way we can. Before sin entered the world through Adam’s silence and passivity we men had an attribute of significance, in our relationship with God we were significant to the core of our beings, and everything we did was an expression of that significance, now everything we do is an attempt to find significance. Our biggest need is to find significance in life…

The culture of our day dictates what makes a man significant, what targets we now set and work towards to attain that feeling and reward of significance. The only way however to reclaim that God-given attribute of significance is to go back to where it comes from, a Spirit-filled deeply intimate relationship with our creator – The Lord Jesus Christ.

Men have been working for millennia to find a way to reach a place of fake-significance, a certain comfort zone that help to keep us going, something we call an ego. Whatever it is that we are good in, that is what we focus on to build this reservoir of self-initiated confidence that becomes our motivation to keep on running after that fix. We all realise at some stage though that it is all in vain and that this ego we have is in fact a water bucket with so many holes that we don’t get too far before we have to start over again, to find another target to work towards. Women know in their hearts to look for a confident man, a man with a very strong attribute of significance, over the years of hard work by many men to make this ego look like the real thing, women have slowly but surely lost their ability to see the real thing, that is women who are still searching to find their own security in God, and they have been affirming ego instead of seeing through it and calling our bluff. This has lead to men spending most of their time and effort into finding more effective and quicker ways to build up their egos and to make the best of it while it lasts.

We all go through this, then one day we meet our creator and that ego is instantly deflated, leaving us scared and lacking in confidence. We find ourselves trying our best to surrender our whole world to God and to step into His story, to find the place and way we can reflect Him in every second of the day. This is a process though, a lifelong journey to reclaim fully the attribute of significance in our standing with God, we need to lay down our egos in an instance, never to be picked up again, as the process will have to start over again if we do and it is a journey that leaves us vulnerable for long periods at a time. We need each other to daily affirm our worth in Christ, we need to spend increasing time with God to increase our significance, which is directly related to laying down our own kingdoms and picking up His. We need to understand that we won’t turn into Paul in a week, but we need to realise as well that God WILL use us from day one if we let Him. Women need to realise the fake-ness that is an ego and start affirming the presence of God in men, start interceding for the men in their lives to listen to their spirits and to react to the most inherent need in their lives, being close to their Maker and to show His heart to everyone they meet (We men also have to greatly thank the ladies in our lives that are able to discern Christ in our lives and carry us on their hands because they are truly scarce and of amazing value in their own standing with God). We need our brothers to keep us accountable in this journey; we need to stay strong and show courage and never take back our ego in moments of weakness.

Our significance should be found in God’s word over our lives. Do not ask the creation who you are, ask the Creator. Spending time in the presence of God will result in a better knowledge of who He is, which in turn will result in a better knowledge of who He created us to be. Know God, to know yourself. Walk by faith: learn who you are in God’s presence by intuition (spiritual senses), form a conviction in your heart about that which God learns you and then give expression to it in this life. “For all of creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…”

The presence of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives increases our significance and the value we can add to the kingdom of heaven.

(Watch this space for detailed discussion on significance)

DM & RR

Dependence, independence and interdependence.

Community as seen from dependence, independence and interdependence.

Being dependent is relying on or requiring a person for what is needed. Children are dependent on their parents for everything. If their parents did not feed them, they would die. Obviously you can be dependent on a person for more than just physical needs, children are also dependent on their parents for emotional needs.

Independence is self governing. You take charge of your own life and do things yourself. This off course is encouraged by the world. People are admired for being independent. The less you need people, the more “independent” you are. Most of the world stops here, at independence.

Interdependence is stated as follows by wikipedia: “Interdependence is a dynamic of being mutually and physically responsible to, and sharing a common set of principles with others. This concept differs distinctly from “dependence” in that an interdependent relationship implies that all participants are emotionally, economically, ecologically and or morally “interdependent.” Some people advocate freedom or independence as a sort of ultimate good; others do the same with devotion to one’s family, community, or society. Interdependence recognizes the truth in each position and weaves them together. Two states that cooperate with each other are said to be interdependent. It can also be defined as the interconnectedness and the reliance on one another socially, economically, environmentally and politically.”

I am of opinion that these three are steps in a journey with interdependence being the ultimate goal. Let us view this from the perspective of a Christian community. All of us start out dependent in the community, like Paul says, babies that need milk and not solid food. We need the mature in the community to feed us milk.

We will then grow from dependence to independence. Independence should be the place where we establish our identities in Christ. This should be the stage where we learn our gifts, talents and abilities. We learn how they work. We also learn what we are not in this stage of the journey. This is very important. We have to realize that we cannot fulfill every role there is to play in the community. When we understand who we are and what we are capable of through the gifts God has given us, we move to interdependence.

Interdependence is where the community of believers function. Every person in the community understand who they are and know what they have to offer to the community. They offer this part to the growth of the community and not with expectation of personal gain. This is how we function as the body of Christ, interdependent. In a community where people live interdependently, there will not be competition to outdo anybody else, because we know that each one is unique and plays a part in the bigger picture.

Let us all work towards the community of interdependent believers. Following the journey of dependence, independence and interdependence, knowing the role each part of the journey plays.

The freedom to be a servant and the boldness of being a Prince/Princess

For as long as I can remember there has been an intense friction or conflict in the human heart due to our misunderstanding of the term; Fear of the Lord. For so long there have been a divide between the spiritual “hippies” and the rigid self-righteous “religionists”. Why do both feel so wrong?

It has to do with who and when. Look at the life of our Lord in the flesh. He called Himself God and he washed his disciples’ feet. He was the King of the Jews but he was also a servant. He came to serve.

In the presence of the Lord we will forever feel like servants, due to His almighty power, not our insignificance. We will relish in that roll, we love that role, when we face Him in intimate conversation we will and must forever remember our place; His servant. He is the king and we are the servants. Like Samuel we must say; speak Lord, your servant is listening.

In that intimacy we will however receive knowledge of His character, of which our characters are and should be a reflection. In that knowledge we can step out into the world and face anyone with the boldness of a son/daughter of the Almighty, knowing that we should try our best to reflect the perfect relationship that He is giving us in our own.  In His heart you will find your own heart of servant hood, with which you will serve your neighbor, but you will never be a servant to anyone but God. In His heart you will find boldness and authority and that will become part of who you are, but you will never be more important than anyone else. God alone is King and you are his servant. You are also His son/daughter and will serve with an authoritive and dignified manner, reflecting the way He did it during the time He was like you, in the flesh.

Lets go out and serve with a bold and humble heart.