Congregation of ONE vs. the counterfeit god

 “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

On your human journey, who is influencing whom? Are you the influencer or the one being influenced?

Jesus  said, “They (the followers of Jesus) are not of this world, even as I am not of it.” (John 17:16)

We are sojourners, strangers in a strange land, ignorant of our reality until our re-birth conversion awakens us to it and the Holy Spirit quickens us to it, guides us and leads us until we go home.

Our adversary, satan, is the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world (at least for now, as God in His sovereignty orders it). As Christians, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”(Ephesians 6:12)

In the end we will “overcome the accuser by the blood of the Lamb and the word (power) of our testimony.”(Revelation 12:11)

What is my testimony? What is your testimony? What is OUR testimony? It is NOT simply our conversion experience - it is our whole life lived-out for Christ as His witness on the witness-stand before the accuser who prosecutes us before his watching world. It is not just words, it is actions, reactions, responses, our disposition, our attitude. It is faithfulness to Him, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in destitution – that is our testimony.

Does your testimony have power? Does it display the capacity to endure which is the essence of grace? When you suffer loss and disappointment and grieve, do you grieve as those who have no hope? (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Who are you influencing and who is influencing you?

R.C. Sproul, in his book Willing To Believe, wrote this,

“There is a price to be paid for nonconformity; a severe cost for resistance to government and cultural mandates to acquiesce to the customs of paganism. It was a historical setting conducive to the practice of what Friedrich Nietzsche would later call a “herd morality”.

Adjusting to the customs and worldview of one’s environment is one of the strongest pressures people experience. To be “out of it” culturally is often considered the nadir of social achievement. People tend to seek acceptance and popularity in the forum of public opinion. The applause of men is the siren call, the Lorelei of paganism. Few are they who display the moral courage required for fidelity to God when it is unpopular or even dangerous to march to His drumbeat.

We remember Joseph (Genesis), who was treacherously sold into foreign captivity and spent his younger years in a prison cell, but who nevertheless remained faithful to the God of his fathers, to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (his Father). In Egypt Joseph was a congregation of one. Without the support of church or national custom, he resolved to be faithful to a God no one around him believed in except those converted by his testimony.” (R.C. Sproul, Willing To Believe, ©1997, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI ISBN 978-0-8010-7583-4 pp.14)

Wow! Where have you or I had to be a congregation of ONE? How about EVERY DAY!

Have you ever thought of it that way?

How often are we a congregation of one whether we like it or not at work or even in our home? That is when our testimony speaks loudest and profoundest. That is where the contrast of our light to their darkness is most apparent.

Don’t doubt for one minute that the “herd” of existentialist, relativistic conformists is watching. They watch with averted eyes lest they be caught in their herd conformity with a non conforming thought or notion. But they watch nonetheless with spirits that yearn for freedom from bondage and being tossed to a fro by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Ephesians 4). God has placed eternity in every man and women's heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11) – every heart yearns for truth.

How many have you or I converted by the power of our testimony and the example of our congregation of ONE? We attend church, maybe we serve there. By the power of the Word (preached or read) and the Holy Spirit we are WEAPONIZED there. we are the  "sent out" as it were. In what theater and in what formation do we sortie into battle and actually launch those weapons? Answer: Usually as a strike team of ONE.

Winston Churchill wrote, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”

Most hurry off. What if “we”, as a “congregation of one”, picked those up and walked off with them from the battlefield?

1) If our body has now become the temple of the Holy Spirit, we, at an elemental level, first become a congregation of one and He is present in and through us where ever we are.

2) Whenever two or more are gathered in His name we are a local congregation and He is present with us. As the Body of Christ we are a congregation of all of us in His presence.

Our adversary.

He is a congregation of one at his elemental level - with a cowering host gathered in guilt-ridden submission around him.

Let’s call him by his proper name. His name is fear and fear is the tool and the fuel of his rule.

Some call him satan, lucifer, prince of darkness, seducer, the accuser, Beelzebub, but he is the essence of fear.

His fear is that he will be found out for the masquerading fraud that he is. So he lies, he accuses and he speaks from the shadows where there is no light that might expose him. 

The Bible says that God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Those three remind me of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Together, they are the antithesis of the other – fear.

Satan's fear makes him lie to hide his charade. He is the father of all lies because he is afraid of being exposed as the imposter that he is. His power is not from compassion but from domination. He dominates through fear. He preys on our fears. He stirs fear up into a chain of bondage and girds our hearts with it.

Satan never states a claim, he never declares a truth. Rather, he poses questions to cast doubt and rouse suspicion and fans the flames of fear that we are being robbed of our worth. All the time he is afraid.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Fear always springs from ignorance.” The counterfeit god leverages ignorance mixed with doubt, regret and untruth to drive us like a herd of cattle into his stockyard.

A poet musing over the true state of the power of the Roman Empire wrote, “He who strikes terror in others is himself continually in fear.” The infamous Napoleon Bonaparte who plunged Europe into war in search of world domination might be classed as such a person who wished to strike terror in others and he is quoted as saying, “Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.” Are not fear and self-interest really the same thing in the end?

The counterfeit god knows this and uses it. He uses doubt and self-interest stirred up into fear to command our servitude.

The counterfeit god preys on the things to which we cling. He preys on our pride, our self-image, our fleeting fortunes, our health, our lives, our future.

 

The counterfeit god distorts the truth, offering bitter fruit presented as good that leads us to shameful acts that ensnare us as conscripts in an army headed to his destination - which is hell. There he will reign his counterfeit reign of misery, darkness and separation from the true and living God surrounded by the trembling host he has yoked with fear.

Yes, he is fear and he flees from one word of truth and he flees from one speck of light. He waits, fearfully in the shadows, whispering from the shadows, calling us closer to the shadows until he can once again cast his hook and reel us into his darkness.

The counterfeit god is a coward. Fear is his name. Fear is his reign.

Know your enemy. Be ready for they day that you are called to testify as a congregation of ONE.

Blessings,

Bill

UNRECOGNIZABLE

We have just celebrated Easter. It’s become popular for contemporary Christians to label it “Resurrection Sunday”. I agree with the categorization but disagree with the undertone that often accompanies it. Use of that label often carries a note of instruction that those who say Happy Easter don’t get it like those of us more authentic Christians who “do” get it. If you catch yourself saying “happy Easter” you must bite your tongue and re-state your greeting for fear of being classed as one of those who worships "hunted" eggs, chocolate bunnies and a certain disgusting (in my humble opinion) Cadbury egg that appears on checkout counters once each year.

The origin of the word “Easter” is debated. Some scholars believe that the word comes from the name of a pagan goddess of springtime or for dawn (e.g. sunrise in the “east” …). Others find connections to the Hebrew word for Passover. From my research I believe the latter, which means that Easter is appropriate for use by any “reformed” Jew - of which all Christians should consider themselves.

As “reformed”/”grafted-in” Jews, the Passover Lamb is replaced by our Lord who is our Passover Lamb - Jesus Christ. In fulfillment of the scriptures, our Passover Lamb is sacrificed for us, is resurrected, alive and seated at the right hand of God to come again one day with His Bride (the Church) to claim His kingdom on earth and reign for a thousand years. The uniqueness of our faith has two essential parts; the blood of the lamb that reconciles us and the power of His resurrection that is the power of re-creation and eternal life. In our faith Easter is victory over death. Easter is the promise of forgiveness, reconciliation with our Creator and eternal life.

Yes, I know – everybody gets that. Or do they?

I noticed that the musical “Jesus Christ Super Star” was broadcasted live on television on Easter evening. What a disappointment. No doubt, millions viewed that broadcast. Many viewers probably thought that they had a spiritual experience watching it. Maybe they had a religious experience but there was nothing Christian about it. Andrew Lloyd Webber stole a story line from the Bible, truncated it and misrepresented it in blasphemous fashion. It's too bad that any viewers who thought they could replace true faith with the experience of a few hours of emotional entertainment are literally “dead” wrong. Deceived by a counterfeit.  In the climax of the rock opera musical, the character playing Jesus is whisked up, up and away on a cross against a blinding bright light and that is it. The end, show’s over folks, go home. That is the end – according to Webber and all “JC Super Star” believers. Jesus, a good man who did a lot of good things and said a lot of profound things dies and that’s it. What a shame – right? Actors and audience crying. The sting of tears. “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting?”(Hosea 13 and 1 Corinthians 15). Death’s victory and sting are intact by that account. But, the music has a good beat, the base is solid and the words rhyme – so it must be gospel. Talk about taking the Lord’s name in vain.

This is what happened. Jesus was crucified and He died. Through Him the sins of the world were nailed to that cross. His Spirit immediately went to Paradise (Heaven). Recall Jesus’s brief conversation with the other condemned man with whom he was crucified? Jesus’s lifeless body is taken off of the cross and is quickly embalmed, wrapped and entombed in order to observe the Sabbath. On the third day His lifeless body miraculously comes to life, He walks out of the tomb. He walks among the people AGAIN for 40 days (witnessed by hundreds - not everyone) before being transformed into a perfect body and ascending up to heaven (in front of a few devout witnesses). This is a continuation of His first coming. He is victorious. Death is defeated. Death has no sting. We are ransomed and redeemed from death through Jesus Christ Who is the plague and the destroyer of death. (Hosea 13:14).

To Mary Magdalene, to two dejected believers on the road back to their home in Emmaus and to eleven disciples cowering in a place where the doors were shut and they were assembled Jesus appears in bodily form. But there’s a hitch. No one seems to have immediately recognized Jesus when He appeared to them after His death on the Cross. He is unrecognizable!

Even after showing up and then disappearing and then showing up again on the shore one morning after a night of fruitless fishing – Jesus is initially unrecognizable.

I often wondered why no one re-arrested Jesus after the resurrection if he was truly showing up as the historical Bible accounts record. This explains it – He was unrecognizable. He showed up un-recognizably, spoke or broke some bread, was recognized, imparted some wisdom or instructions, then disappeared. This happen several times. The Bible says that their eyes were opened.

I don’t think that anyone who was NOT a true believer saw or recognized Jesus during those 40 days. The eyes of unbelievers were not opened. Only believers saw or recognized Jesus. The book of Matthew even records that soldiers reported the disappearance of Jesus’s body to the chief priests and they responding by bribing the soldiers to report that the body was stolen. Why do that if there was hard, eye-witness, evidence that Jesus walked and could be recaptured? Why risk Jesus showing up alive somewhere? There was no evidence amongst unbelievers that Jesus was resurrected, only that his body was missing. By Jesus’s own actions, He proved He was not afraid of the authorities. He never begged for His life nor offered any defense to save Himself during His “trial”. They would not think He was alive and hiding somewhere or scurried off to a foreign land to live out His life in fear of being discovered.

I think we do not see what we do not truly believe. Unbelief is blind. I think Jesus walked about, wounds and all, in plain view, unseen, unrecognized. Except for a few ...

But Jesus is gracious and He knows our heart even when we don’t. He comes close and whispers our name or breaks bread with us in some familiar, intimate way that we recognize it is Him. And He is alive and we see. He whispers and we see Him.

If you are a blood bought Christian, baptized by the Holy Spirit it is no longer you who lives but Christ in you. Are you recognizable? How ought you be?

Blessings,

Bill

Swaddled Not Swallowed

In the book titled Whisper (© 2017, Multnomah Publishing, NY), author Mark Batterson presents the notion that God’s proximity is expressed by the Hebrew word “paniym” (Strong’s # 6440 and related Hebrew root words paneh/panah) which refer to the presence or manifestation of God, His face, His pre-position, to be in or to be before His presence.  What struck me in reading this book is that to “be in” or to “be before” God is not something we really have any part of other than that we can present or open ourselves (our hearts) to Him in moments of conscious deliberate supplication for His will to interact with ours. We are “before” Him always by default on account of His all-presence.

You are Surrounded -  Surrender!

God is all present and we just “are” in His presence always whether we present ourselves or not. In a sense He forever presents Himself to us by His omnipresence.  Batterson interprets the word “paniym” as the split second before and the split-second following – a parenthesis in time. I think I agree.

A.W. Tozer wrote this that helps illustrate this notion in a multidimensional way, “God is above but He’s not pushed up. He’s beneath, but He’s not pressed down. He’s outside, but He’s not excluded. He’s inside, but He’s not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside of all things embracing and inside of all things filling.”

God’s position in this sense is relative to “us”. Yes, He is the source and the true center of everything. But, God actually makes a place in His vastness that creates a free will center within each of us. This is an act of a Father. Presiding, sustaining, embracing and filling all with extraordinary respect for our independent selves. He allows me my “space”, my dignity, without expense or compromise to His sovereignty. We are like little protected islands in the vastness of His sea.

The Proximity of God

This sort of closeness or proximity is remarkable. We are immersed in Him but insulated by a film of free-will, so-to-speak. Though engulfed, we are not consumed by Him or displaced of self – of our freedom – our free will. If this is true, then there is indeed a film of separation in which the free will of a person operates, even if that separation is physical or temporal as a fraction of an instant between what is past and what is unfolding. God crosses the membrane by invitation only with His Holy Spirit to fill and work through us.

Just Do The Next Thing

I have long believed that life is about just doing the next thing and living in the moment. Such a life orientation liberates a soul from the regret and guilt often attached to the past and the fear, uncertainty and trepidation generally associated with the future. Such “proximate presence” or “paniym” brings to mind the words of Psalm 139 and especially verses 5 and 6, “You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.” It also brings to recollection Psalm 46, verse 10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Be still, immersed in Me, in My creation, in the body I created for you. Be still in My face, in My presence all around you for a moment and appreciate your existence for what it is in truth.

While Tozer’s contemplation above is really mostly spatial in nature, Psalm 139 is both spatial and temporal. The hebrew word “paniym” is mostly temporal in context. And so when I combine it all together I see myself in this very thin film of a bubble of free will suspended amidst the timeline of eternity and the physical vastness of space. This is my existence – TIME and SPACE. For the moment I am physically bound by the laws of physics and so I exist in time on this planet in a physical body and subject to the reality of its associated properties and constraints. That is grounding.

God is saying, “I’ve Got This!”

I was discussing this with a Pastor friend of mine and he immediately directed me to Deuteronomy 30 where we read in verses 9 through 14; “The Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your land for good. For the Lord will again rejoice over you for good as He rejoiced over your fathers, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.”

FREE WILL vs. CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Something in my flesh rises up against the proximity of God’s embrace – hedging me in behind and before. A wave of claustrophobic panic washes over me. I feel a little suffocated and confined - restrained. That’s my fleshly reaction as a result of the rebellious spirit that I inherited from the sinful birth - my lineage to Adam.

For nine months a baby develops in its mother’s womb fully dependent on her for everything. Within the confines of that womb is warmth, sustenance and protection. There are spatial and temporal constraints in the womb. A baby cannot rush the day or hour of its birth or roam about. It is constrained for its own good and for its proper development. Resignation to this dependence is natural. A baby has a limited idea of self. The arrival of grandchildren in my life has refreshed the realities of newborns and their needy nature. It has also reminded me of our disposition of selfishness and awareness of ourselves from the moment we take our first breath outside of the womb. In their freedom from constriction babies often inconsolably wail and flail about with their legs and arms. Even a bottle will not calm them. But the counter-intuitive firm embrace of a well wrapped swaddle calms them right down. I see it and I get it, but the tight, restricting, bundling still seems suffocating to me even as an adult. It’s counter-intuitive. Nonetheless, swaddling calms newborns and bundled babes slip into blissful resigned sleep.

Held Yet Free

Understanding swaddling has helped me grasp the notion of an all powerful Creator who embraces me with His glory, rules over me, but does not tyrannize me. It helps me realize the nature of my free will within His sphere of influence, power, protection and resource. I am His beloved creation who walks not on a leash but in an embrace that caresses without constricting, convicts without brain washing and restrains without shackling. I am truly free to think, mentally process, act and do whatever it is that I wish. I am free to follow Him and submit to Him of my own free will. Absent that act of my own free will, the default condition (the sin condition) prevails. This is compelling and convicting.

I do have a part. I am here to do things. I have a role to do things. In life one can live passive to all things (if one can even call that living…) and be tossed to and fro - a punching bag to circumstances. One can live in reactive mode and be directed by every next stimuli (living and acting on instinct and by impulse). One can attempt to be proactively in control of all things and find that even one’s best laid plans do not account for every possibility and adversity. And one can live a responsive life and operate at their interface with reality with discernment, integrity and agility. Passivity certainly has no place in this.

Wild, Dangerous, Unfettered, Free

I am reminded that I am made in the image of God, an image, as author John Eldridge puts it, that is, “wild, dangerous, unfettered and free.” I need to differentiate this from the other sort of unfettered nature, the sin oriented and rebellious nature, that was programmed into me as a product of the fallen rebellious world of which I am an heir by default – unless otherwise adopted into another destiny.

Centering and Willing

Most reassuringly, if I go right or left, forward or back, up or down, God remains about me keeping me perfectly centered in His grace, perfectly free to act as I please every moment in my own center.

When I lash out He gives me space. When I am still and cry out to Him, when I am still and know that He is God and invite His presence - He moves in to embrace me. The film diminishes. I walk in His will and warmth. I am swaddled not swallowed. There is always that thin separation in which I freely will to do. By the power of His Spirit (Philippians 2:13) God works to will and to do in my life. The marvel is that He does not will to suffocate me nor seek to control me like a marionette on strings. Similarly, He does not wish for me to become un-spooled and recklessly out of control. When I run off He eases the line but takes up any slack, ever ready to reel me in when I founder. God works in the moment, in our circumstances. He doesn’t need to come running when we call. He is already there.

What To Do?

What do I do with this? Like my Creator, I can hold things lightly, gently, securely but not with clenched hands. I can remember that, in regard to all things, it is, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”

I struggle with the notion of the “thing” that is in me that God envelopes but lovingly does not barge into in order to leave me with my free will to be heir and servant but never slave. Sin enslaves.

The unsaved person, the unbelieving person, has a free will. So does the saved believer. On either side of a decision to accept Christ and the power of His resurrection there is still “free will”. The unsaved person sins. The saved person still sins. "All" sin and fall short. One sinner is enslaved, another sinner is an heir to a kingdom because of a choice. Amazing? Yes. Amazing GRACE!

The Heart/Mind Piece

Soul destiny is the prize. The destiny of one’s soul is at stake. The soul simply “is”. The essence of what God leaves to us by His grace is the struggle of the heart/mind piece.

My simple analysis of this is that the mind is what we employ to receive, sense and discern what is about us. Hearing, seeing, experiencing, thinking, reasoning, decision making are functions of the mind. Linked to this is our heart. The heart is the fortress of morale character, standards, belief, what we hold as eternal unchanging truth, what we believe and what will override the mind’s nature to react as we live our lives and conduct ourselves in each moment.

Faith is a heart thing. Faith is not faith if it is proven. I can be certain of something unproven by faith alone. There is no need for faith in scientific fact. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Faith of the heart will see you through things that the mind would abandon.

Regarding the pre-disposition of our hearts, the Bible says that “the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). But the Bible also says in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Proverbs 23:7 reads, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Do we think in our heart? God makes a connection there and we should struggle with that. God also discerns the heart and makes note of men and women who were people with hearts after Him (e.g. David), seeking Him, in fellowship with Him, intimate with Him, responding to Him.

The heart and the mind are strongly linked but God works from the heart to the mind. The full scripture from Jeremiah 17:9-10 brings it all together thus; “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

Lastly, Proverbs 4 provides wisdom for spiritual tenacity and endurance. In verse 23 we read, “guard (keep) your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”

The PARADOX

Be swaddled. Be held. Be free. Live in the moment. Live in Eternity.

Be mild/wild, Be gentle/dangerous for God.

Be swaddled and unfettered. Confound those around you with your free will submitted to God.

Blessings,

Bill