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Monthly Archives: November 2013


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Governance by Fear vs. Love

Governance by Fear vs. Love

 

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

 

Immanuel came to give us of His spirit, a part of the Heavenly Father, to regenerate our minds, hearts, souls, spirits, and flesh in divine love. In this transformation, leading to new creations fashioned in His likeness, the Father’s spirit through love, not of fear, governs us.

Born into Fear

In being disconnected from the ways of divine love, fear has ruled us from our birth. We are taught at a very young age to act or not act in certain ways by fear; fear of punishment, being yelled at, spanked, intimidated, threatened, ignored, rejected, or neglected. We are taught to obey through fear by our families, employers, teachers, officials, spouses, religion, and other relationships.

Further, from our beginning, people treat us in non-loving ways; ways that induce harm thus fear; criticism, judgment, harsh treatment, oppression, abuse and so on. And how thankful we are for the kindness received amongst these. However, we spend the rest of our lives trying to avoid those treatments, thus living by fear. It directs our thoughts, words, actions, behaviors and choices.

Governance of Fear

Governance by fear creates a plethora of problems. Here are three. First, those being governed can never draw close to someone who uses authority by fear, which creates a ubiquitous fear in their lives. Fear creates distance, not closeness. It causes us to want to run from and not draw near to others. If someone desires love from us, presiding over us by fear doesn’t work. We can’t have a relationship of love on a foundation of fear. Fear divides.

Second, if the authoritative party desires love from us, a rule of fear doesn’t allow those following to truly act in love. If we are governed by fear, we make decisions to avoid the fear (criticism, judgment, punishment), thus we aren’t making decisions out of love. We may be more obedient to defined rules, but that doesn’t create new and abundant loving results, only self-preservation. A mindset of fear verses love creates two very different outcomes. A fear-based rule can’t create a love-based reality.

Third, fear gives birth to lies, deception, and hiding ourselves from others, because we fear the consequences. It’s very hard to be totally open and honest under a rule of fear. We want to cover-up our mistakes and that makes it hard to grow and learn from them. For the one to teach us the right way is the one we are trying to hide our mistakes from. Further, we can’t bear the disapproval housed in fear, so we hide ourselves as much as possible. Thus it makes it difficult to deal with our weaknesses and brokenness for our anxiety of those areas being exposed keeps them hidden and unhealed.

Being established on this framework, our fears dictate most of our actions to some degree. In fear of disapproval, being left out, made fun of, forgotten, unloved, and disrespected, we act very differently than if we didn’t fear these things. We all go great lengths to avoid our fears. We haven gotten so use to responding based on our fears we don’t recognize it. It is an undercurrent of our lives to such an extent that it shapes our personality.

A Change of Governance

A ruler of any type of authority can govern by fear or love. Obviously love is far superior for it manifests actions from the followers out of love and not fear, which produce far superior results. However, those under love’s reign have to understand and know love. Without understanding it, they can’t be governed by it. If there is a treasure chest in front of you, but you are blind and can’t see it, you won’t grab a hold of it. Fears are immensely prevalent, seen and known, and divine love is not, so people remain in their fears.

Because fear has been our foundation from our birth, we have to push through fear to seek to learn and know divine love. (Divine love is far different than the love we learn from the world, which is peppered with fears.) The path of understanding divine love isn’t an easy transition for fears go very deep into our subconscious, and are tied to lies and harmful experiences. But this is part of the renewal of our minds by the Spirit of Truth who sets us free so we can be a creation governed by love.

Freed from Fear

Once we intimately know divine love so that we begin to give and receive it, it starts to replace fear in our lives. Through this growing awareness of what is of love and what isn’t we start to become free from fear, and start to be governed by love. Fear is based on lies so it can’t stand in the face of truth. Love is truth, thus in knowing it, it prevails against the fears. Truth always defeats the lies for lies aren’t real and truth is.

Divine love is the fulfillment of all our desires. When we start to experience it, we are transformed by it into spirit-minded creations who think and act according to the ways of God. It becomes our sole desire. Thus, one foundation is replaced with another, and we start to walk in the spirit-mind governed by love and no longer the flesh-mind governed by fear.

New Covenant

The new covenant between our Creator, who is love, and us is a governance of love. Love is the supreme mindset of a creation. It’s one in which the creation will do amazing acts of goodness for others. It’s one in which the creation can always grow and expand into eternal life. It’s one in which the creation desires to become so deeply connected to it’s Creator because it’s drawn into the source of love.

Love seems weak and fear strong only because people have not known divine love. Fear has been the ruling entity in this world. Yet, love is far stronger, for once we taste it, all we want is to go deeper and more of it. We will turn from all that is contrary to the point of becoming willfully and fully governed by God Himself. There is nothing more powerful. The heavenly Father’s righteousness reign is one of love. It is in love that He will come to us to make us His dwelling place in the spirit.

May we be spirits who seek to operate by divine love within ourselves and with others. May all of creation be released from its bondage to fear.

Isaiah 14:3 It shall come to pass in the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve,


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Prisoners of Hope

Prisoners of Hope

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Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

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The higher we ascend in understanding of divine love; the more our hearts start to mourn for the suffering occurring in this world. Our own peace doesn’t comfort us, for how can one who loves be comforted while others continue to suffer, and suffer greatly? In a world of suffering, peace is a byproduct of a hope, thus an illusion until the hope is fulfilled.

In lack of understanding, we are unaware of the extensive suffering throughout the world on many levels and the part we play in perpetuating the cruelty, suffering and pain. We don’t really “see” it. We may hear of it, but it doesn’t penetrate our being causing us to make a change. We feel empathy for a moment, but the blindness allows us to get caught up in our daily lives feeding the very cruelty we despise. Our hearts and minds are darkened so that we think “things aren’t so bad” and “we are pretty good”, thus others who are enduring suffering feel the coldness of a “hardened heart”. It’s understanding our blindness and the ability to be blind that creates true humility. We don’t know as we should. 1 Corin 8:2

For all creation is in bondage to the cruelty of others, as well as their own cruelty upon themselves. As a human being it’s near impossible to not be an instrument of cruelty to creation on some level. Our infrastructure isn’t built on the care of others, but on their abuse and suffering. And as it continues to expand upon cruel foundations, the suffering only increases. It’s like mud is everywhere and we can’t become clean, and the current mud makes more mud.

As we start to awaken to the truth, thus divine love, we start to see both the suffering and the part we play in it more clearly. This mindfulness is difficult to behold, for it cloaks the heart in a garment of mourning and sadness.

In this awareness, our hunger and thirst for righteousness grows strong and we push into it with all our being. Our hope is that the Creator will soon have great mercy and come to His creation to save, heal, restore, and renew. We have enough suffering. We need healing and renewal. Malachi 4:2 We need the medicinal touch of the Creator to flood this world like a light in the darkness to set us free from fear, pain, suffering, and death that we receive and give. To open up the door into this realm and let His presence overtake this place. For with every day, the suffering increases and a spirit of mourning grows heavy.

It’s a hope that can only be fulfilled by His spirit alone infusing this realm, infusing us, for it is impossible for the enslaved human spirit, which is bound in weakness, to break such strong bonds. With this hope of deliverance for all of creation from the chains of suffering, we become prisoners of hope. Prisoners, in their weakness, who can become so much more by His power in them. We are the problem, and we, in our very weakness, are the cure for Christ came to make us into the temple of the spirit of God, the spirit we all so desperately need. May we seek to be the temple of His divine nature.

Psalm 30:11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

This verse and others like it, put a spark of life into the sadness, a hope. The hope that one day soon the suffering will end, that there will be no more cruelty, pain, and death. That the dawning day will truly bring in a Day that the Lord has made. Psalm 118:24 A Day to change all days. 

The ways of life are so beautiful. They captivate the spirit like the most stunning sunset. The purity and perfection they contain is glorious, harmonious, loving and life-giving. Yet, here in the world it is near impossible to abide in this beauty that our hearts so long for. Thus our hunger and thirst for His righteousness increase by which perfection is manifested among all of creation. We need deliverance, a healed creation, and the promise of it keeps us prisoners to this hope. I pray a hope that is soon fulfilled.

While we wait for the consummation of all our hopes, may we continue to seek to increase and abound in loving kindness. In this world, even little lights seeking to love others in sincerity and truth make a significant impact.

Zechariah 9:11-12 “As for you also,

Because of the blood of your covenant,

I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 

Return to the stronghold,

You prisoners of hope.

Even today I declare

That I will restore double to you


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Purified vs. Stream of Righteousness

Purified Vessel

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Stream of Righteousness

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beautiful arch in rock in Bryce CanyonThe narrow path, into the narrow gate, is the path of purification of our heart, mind and soul so that we are transformed to be a spiritual offspring of the divine and not of the carnal. Matthew 7:14, John 3:4-6 The narrow gate is our purified spirit, and through the narrow gate we enter into the power of God, and the power of God into us.

The narrow gate is entrance into the kingdom of eternity, where nothing that defiles can enter in, only those purified in heart. Matthew 5:8, Rev 21:27, 1 Corin 6:9-11 The gate is our spirit (sum of mind, heart, soul). Once purified, we can connect or be opened to the realm of the divine to receive the dynamic nature of the righteousness of God. Righteousness is the perfect wisdom for the moment. It’s thinking, doing, and saying the right thing at the right time, which is to love perfectly. Being only a gate, we control none of righteousness flow. We are simply a pure vessel of honor for it to flow through. 1 Thess 4:3-5 For, it’s with a pure heart and mind that we are able to “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. Romans 12:2 Once cleansed from the residue of the rebellious mind by the truths of God, then we are able to enter the narrow gate into the realm of the divine, as partakers of the divine. Thus, we are one with God and He with us. John 17:21-23

Though our vessel (mind, heart, soul) is cleansed so that we think, desire and act in purity, we still lack righteousness. Self-righteousness is thinking (judging) we know what is righteous in any one situation or moment. Because we are not all knowing, it is impossible on our own, no matter how pure we are, to know the perfect loving thing to do in any one moment. For any one response to someone, there are always a plethora of choices of what we could do or say, and further we don’t know the true deep needs or hurts of another. Thus, though we have good intentions, we can still hurt others because of our lack of knowing. Our inherent limited capabilities keep us from acting perfectly right, thus righteous.  So though we may be purified in our thoughts and desires to only give divine love, we are still not all knowing, thus we need the wisdom of God to flow through us as a continual stream every moment of our existence if we want to walk rightly.

This difference between being purified as a vessel and actually able to act in righteousness is taught in the life of Job. When we walk the path of purification, our minds are completely transformed so that we desire nothing but goodness and love for all of creation. In this, we can mistakenly assume that we can walk in righteousness, for our thoughts and desires are pure.  It says that Job was “blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil.” Job 1:1 He was pure in heart, yet he still lacked one very important thing that is everything, righteousness. Righteousness can only come from God as a continuous river, which God is the source, because only God knows the perfectly right thing to do in any one moment. Amos 5:24 This is why Jesus said, He only does what He sees the Father do. He was streaming the righteousness of God. John 5:19

Job was blameless, but he mistaken that purity for righteousness. Job 34:5-6 But by stripping away his life fruit was he able to see his inherent weakness. He came to the understanding that even though he was man of purity, that was nothing without the righteousness of God moving through him; a righteousness he could never contain on his own as a limited created being. It can only flow through him. Thus an ever-dependent need on God. This realization is what it means to be poor in spirit. And, the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. Matthew 5:3

We are nothing apart from the vine. John 15:5 But to be apart of the vine, we must first become a purified vessel, so the living waters of righteousness can flow through us. Otherwise our rebellious nature and mind stand in the way of the flow of the righteousness.

Christ is the door. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. He is the one that leads us on that path of purity as our internal teacher, out of the mind of rebellion. He leads us to the gate, which is an oneness with His spirit. Like a bride clothed in white prepared for her husband, He purifies us by teaching us the truth and we in turn obeying His instruction on how to abide in divine love. Thus, through Him we have access to the living waters of righteousness. In oneness with Him for all eternity, righteousness is a never-ending river flowing through us so that we live in righteousness as He does.  He truly is our righteousness, the Lord our Righteousness. Jeremiah 33:16

It is this union that contains the power of eternal life that this world and we so desperately need. The work of the Holy Spirit has been to teach us and lead us into all truth, thus all purity. He cleanses our thoughts, minds and souls preparing us for an oneness with God, for only the pure in heart see God. Only the pure in heart can enter into God’s holy presence. This path of purification is the race we run. Hebrews 12:1 It’s working out our salvation with holy fear and trembling. Phil 2:12 It’s obeying Christ, the truth, because we love Him and want to be one with Him, thus one with His truth. Our obedience to abiding in divine love is our purification process to ready us for unity with Him, our continual righteousness.

The lesson we learn before entering the narrow gate is we must not mistake our purification for righteousness. The purification of our vessel is what allows perfect righteousness to flow through us. For eternity we are dependent on this flow of righteousness from Him for every moment, and this is what our oneness with Him gives us. And in this flow is His power.


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How do you “see” God?

How do you “see” God?

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Do you “see” the true God? How do you know? He is invisible and spirit, so what we “see” and experience is actually our understanding of His nature. We see His reflection, in our lives and in creation, and that reflection is based on our particular and individual understanding. Our understanding makes up our image of Him. Our image in turn defines what we see. Do you see the circular effect of this and the problem it holds? Our image determines what we see, thus how we believe Him to be, which comes from our original understanding. And the question is where did that original understanding come from? So, how do we know we have the right understanding, thus the right image? Especially in a world of many people holding many different images?

The pure in heart will see God. Matthew 5:8 The pure in heart have the right understanding of the nature of God because their path to purity taught them to “see” Him correctly. Understanding and obtaining true purity only comes from One more pure.

This truth that the pure in heart will see God is why religions and religious people seek to portray an outward pure or holy persona. Many dress up the outward to fool others and even themselves of their piety, but it’s the purity of the heart that allows us to “see” God. If we are drawing near to the true God, we are growing more and more pure from the inside out.

The pure in heart is one who seeks, practices, abides and gives divine love. God is perfect love. Only by living by and for divine love do we know what it is. Thus it must be lived, not just talked about. When we start living it we start “seeing” the true nature of God, for God is love.

Becoming Pure in Heart

We come to this purity through grace and wisdom by being faithful disciples of Truth, the Word, our internal counselor, shepherd, and overseer of our soul. To become pure in heart is a very personal journey, this is why we can’t learn about God from another. If we do, we will hold a false image instead of a true image. We learn about love from within. Someone can describe love, but to truly know love, we have to become an expression of it in truth and sincerity. Within our soul is where we learn about divine love and how to live in it. The only Teacher who can penetrate those depths is the spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. Love is only known when it is lived.

The path of purification is a long, winding and arduous road, because this world is corrupt and we are born with corrupt natures. Matthew 7:14 If we truly hunger for the true God and truth, His spirit of truth takes us on an intense schooling through our life situations that purify, purge, and change us in many ways before we can give anything close to this divine love. In this love there is no resentment, bitterness, envy, jealously, contentions, pride, backbiting, judging, self-pity, lusts, vengeance, cares for this world’s ways, or temptations counter to the nature of divine love. It’s full of mercy, forgiveness, beauty, true wisdom, understanding, long suffering, patience, compassion, care, kindness, gentleness, humility, meekness, peace, which extends far beyond our personal cares to the care of others. To go through this exchange in our soul is becoming a new creation altogether. Nothing stays the same. We have to be remade and re-born of a different spirit. Until, we are no longer an offspring of corruption, but an offspring of purity.

If we start to seek and engage this divine love, we learn it requires a great purity of mind, heart, soul and life, for it’s of holy ground, for it’s the nature of the heavenly Father. This is why few find this path; it’s a very pure path, thus contrary to most of the world’s ways. As we journey this purification path, the understanding that comes from growing in this love creates the right understanding thus “image” of God, His nature and ways.

Along this narrow path of ever-increasing purity through purging and renewing, we are brought to a point of having sold all (all that is contrary to divine love) in order to obtain the pearl of infinite worth, entrance into the kingdom of God. We sell (abandon) all the lusts, cares, and temptations of the world as we learn the superiority, beauty and perfection of the ways of God and the absolute joy they bring. The pure words of our Teacher and High Priest, Christ, replace the lies that once governed our beliefs, thoughts and actions, and we are now governed by the truths of God. Thus, our minds and spirits are cleansed exuding the likeness of a beautiful pearl. John 17:17 This purity allows us to slip through the very narrow gate to the realm of the divine. Purity opens the gate at the end of the narrow path to “see” God. And it is through this gate that prayers ascend to the ears of God and are most powerful. 1 Peter 3:12

The pure in heart are the ones who “see” God. These, who once lived as children of disobedience as all of mankind, are the ones who are purified by the fire (the truth). They are free from corrupt desire, sin, and guilt. 1 John 3:9 They are blameless and holy in conduct. Ephesians 1:4-5 Above all they abide in divine love. 1 John 4:7

Suppose you learn and start to live according to this divine love. What you realize is that God is not here in the earth, because if He was this would be a very pure and holy place. There would be no suffering, cruelty, pain or sorrow. There would be healing, beauty, and eternal life. God not being here is why so many images of God exist in the minds of people. There is nothing to tell the masses what He is or isn’t. We individually can know His divine love, but having an understanding versus abiding in His fullness thus power are two very different realties. Though I believe the former precedes the latter.

This is why we yearn for the coming of His spirit. Divine love is real, we can taste its goodness in our lives by understanding. This is a love not of our own making, but something much higher and pure than mere human nature. It goes against our basic primal nature we are born with, yet it is the supreme desire of our soul. It’s our desire, because we are made with a desire for our Creator, for love wants to abide in love with all of His creation. His love beckons us to draw near to be a part of His nature, and if we answer the call then our spirits ascend to places we never knew we could go, and eventually unto eternal life. If we were all pure, we would hold one image, and the right one. This is the work that Christ came to do and will finish; it is His glory to behold, and gift to the Father of All. Hebrews 12:2 

You become pure in heart.