John 4:24, “God is spirit,
and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Do you realize that according
to Einstein’s theory of relativity, nothing you see, no physical matter exists
without energy exceeding the speed of light. Of course God says the He is
light, and nothing exists outside of Him, but from an articulable scientific
perspective everything is really nothing more than the sum total of the energy
it contains. We have the planets, and universe, and protons, and neutrons, and
it all because God said let there be light. When light was born energy
accelerated to the speed of light creating photons which are both energy and
matter. As this energy accelerated faster, the stars and planets, and elements
formed etc. So in my theory, if the universe stops expanding faster than the
speed of light, then all things matter cease to exists, and all that remains is
energy. God is there, at that point where matter does not exists. He is in the
creation and outside of it simultaneously. He is what holds everything
together.
So what’s the point?
The point is that God is
visibly invisible. In Him we live and move and exist (Acts 17:28) but all this
“stuff” that is around us is quite irrelevant to seeing the invisible God by
and large. I think of the term murmuration as it describes the synchronistic
movement of hundreds of starlings as if some master painter were sweeping his
invisible brush across the sky. It is that indescribable energy, power,
coordination where we see where the invisible God is. Want to see God? Then you
have to look for the shadow He has cast, and hopefully like the prophet see His
back as He leaves where He has been, all the while trusting He is everywhere
and doing everything.
This is what I find
fascinating, thinking and then praying on things of this nature for hours. How
can I know God more? How can I overcome more often? What about me that I don’t
see controls those things about me that I do see? What is my consciousness? Is
there a difference in my physical brain originated consciousness, and the
consciousness of my soul? When all of me that consist of carbon molecules and
water is gone, what is the energy that goes on? What is the consciousness that
continues? Where in the body does the soul and body interface, as the soul
cannot be the brain because the brain perishes?
We as humanity do a whole lot
of worrying about what we see, and how others see us. We worry about not doing
on the outside when all along we are rotting on the inside. The invisible is
what really matters. The invisible is where eternity is.
The kingdom of God is here
right now… invisible and inside those who know Christ. How to we become more
aware of that now?
Luke 16:15, “And He said to
them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows
your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the
sight of God.”
I first heard this concept of
significance and acceptance from Dusty Kemp who incorporated into a message or
two of how all of mankind universally seeks significance and acceptance.
Perhaps he got this idea from Maslow who placed “esteem” between “love &
belonging” and “self-actualization.” Regardless of its source I think any
self-reflecting individual can agree that we all do want to be accepted and
valued by others. We desire to be respected and to be considered significant,
if not by the world, at least our family and friend groups.
Yet as natural as the desire
of significance and acceptance comes, it is according to Christ not something
originated with God in heaven. “That which is highly esteemed among men is
detestable in the sight of God.” This is not to say that we should be
characters of low self-esteem, but perhaps only that our “self-esteem” should
come from our relationship to God, and not some ability to gain acceptance
among men.
For me, I constantly struggle
with suppressing esteem as a motivation. And God is constantly at work not
allowing esteem motivated actions to yield the praises of men. In fact let me
even say that there is false esteem which seeks man’s acceptance, and though
the scripture does not say it, there are actions which God esteems, namely
Christ at work in us.
I compete at work for little
pieces of plastic recognizing most sales. Do I do it so that I can have a
reminder of God’s faithfulness and blessings? No. I do it so that the people
within the organization will know I am valuable to the company, and that they should
esteem me in my dealings with them.
Sometimes my soul is lulled
to sleep into thinking that I am beyond this very human motivation. Because I
have become very comfortable as a loner, lost in my introverted mind and
thoughts I lose my awareness that family, friends, co-workers, even strangers
continue pull on the false esteem within.
Just the other day I was
sharing with my dad an entrepreneurial adventure I am trying to embark on. It
met with his immediate disapproval and criticism. And that criticism incited
the anger within me. In fact, my first thought was laced with profanity and the
very clear “I will show him.”
Why? Why was I mad? Why did I want to show him?
I did because my human nature
was to seek significance and acceptance from him.
But I did not react. I did
not speak, but miraculously became very aware in the moment. And my reply was, “That
hurt my feelings that you didn’t think I was capable.”
Reality is his acceptance has
nothing to do with my obedience to God. It has nothing to do with my reliance
on God. Because of Christ I am accepted. Because of Christ in me I am
significant. Selling the most at work is God’s blessing. The venture coming
together is God’s walk with me in to a new chapter of challenges and dying to
self.
Nearly 22,000 people have
read my writings at this point. It kills me that there aren’t more comments,
more accolades. But God has a different plan, and that plan is to crush the
need to be esteemed among men.
I wrote a friend the other
day, and to be frank it was 100% God, and it was good. I wanted, I even
expected him to write me back with praises of how dead on I was. But instead he
published my words as coming from an anonymous source. What a magnificent sign
of significance and acceptance from GOD! What a magnificent reminder that I do
not need, though I still want, the esteem of men.
Who are you trying to
impress? Who are you trying to please?
John 14:15, “If you love Me,
you will keep My commandments.”
As I continue to explore the
idea of God’s love, and that God is love… I continue to find conclusively that
love, true unconditional love, is not fair. Or should I say love does not in
any way equate with material equality. And yet, in spite of God being love we
somehow blame mankind for the financial disparity. The chasm of wealth
difference between individuals magnified with comparing Bill Gates to the lowliest
Batwa tribal member has us crying foul. (Batwa being the poorest people on earth)
Does God love Bill Gates more? Has Bill Gates “accumulated” too much? Has
mankind and capitalism counteracted God’s love and created the imbalance?
Better yet, in our own little microcosms is Christmas and the gifts of the
season some kind of example of how it “should” be? Are we righting wrongs and
sharing love in giving gifts equally?
The resounding answer to all
these questions is, no! What we fail to see is that God’s love is only concerned
about today to the degree that that our interaction with life improves our
character for some far off day and purpose in eternity. God, and only God knows
the point at which life truly begins. That beginning point is not birth on
earth, but I would suggest that life begins when our soul can walk and talk
with our Creator in eternity. (I wish everyone could see how powerful that
statement is.) All of this time on earth is the classroom of our soul. For some
it is the potter’s wheel of the soul. For some it is the gold smelting furnace
for the soul. For other’s it might be a garden for the soul. But each day, each
interaction, each breath is governed by God’s love and His desire to be truly
with us in eternity.
God is not, nor ever has been
concerned with fairness as it relates to material or even earthly equality.
Leviticus 19:15 says, “… you shall not be partial to the POOR nor defer to the GREAT,
but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.” And so “fair” has nothing to do
with equality, but transcends the earth and considers the soul’s eternal good.
There is, and will always be the poor and the great (rich), but our
interactions should not be governed by that. This is very much the message of
Christ who in fact said, “You will always have the poor with you…” (Matt 26:11)
Have you noticed how the
Bible tells us very little about heaven and the afterlife? Have you ever
wondered why so much is left to the imagination? In part I think it is because
the afterlife is about directly interacting with God, and what environment that
interaction takes place in is irrelevant in comparison to the fact of being
face to face with God. I think also little is known about heaven is because man
in his god complex and sin infested free-will would try to concoct ways to make
it there outside of a character conformed to the image of Christ, and outside
of Love which is God and is the consideration of what is best for a person’s
ETERNAL soul.
It is the unknown, it is
eternity that love is concerned with, and as such must constantly depend on
relationship to God, and not only relationship but obedience to God. “If you
love Me, you will keep My commandments” Christ said. This is not simply the
commandment to love Him and others, but this is perhaps primarily those softly
spoken commandments directly to our soul. The commands that say, give this to
that person, or write this to her, or go here to see him. The individual commandments
that are acts of love and influence eternity are limitless.
Having said all of this I
would like to be practical with this lesson at Christmas time. Christmas has
become a holiday of spending. For many of us, our background, upbringing,
doctrine, sense of social justice dictates that we must be “fair” and therefore
equal in our gifts. For some we must spend the same amount on each child or
family member. Based on the experience above, this is NOT love. What if you as
a parent have 3 children and $100 to spend? Do you spend $33 on each? What if 1
truly needed something that cost $60? Would you be ok with meeting the $60
need, and giving the other 2 something at $15 each knowing they have no
pressing need? Or does your love dictate that a “need” can be sacrificed in the
interest of fairness? Or worse, would you give the all three $60 by borrowing
$80 more from credit cards or the like?
As a child, is your love
offended if your parent(s) seemingly gives more to a sibling?
In any of the above scenarios
do you respond from instinct and education, or do you give prayerful
consideration to it all. Can the offense of one child, and the need being met
of another both be God’s love? Or has man played favorites? Whose plan are we
executing? Whose kingdom are we building? Love is not fair, but love is perfect
and at work saving us from ourselves.
The photo today is from Jim
Spivey’s blog, and here is what he had to say, “…they claim to want to follow
God’s Will for their lives, but they rarely know how to listen for that,
because they are too busy trying to executing their plan, while protecting
themselves, all the while claiming it’s about God. God rarely conveniently fits into or behaves
within our plans. And He rarely protects
us the way we first want protection.
Remember He is always willing to give us more than we know how to ask
for. We know how to ask for
entertainment, pleasure, safety, surface stuff like that. He has created Life, which will demolish our
plans every time, NOT to hurt us, but to save us from ourselves and our busy,
distracted, frenzied castle-making.”
Love with obedience, fully
understanding love has nothing to do with fairness as we know it.
Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God,
being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even
when we are dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ,”
At some point I might cease
to be amazed by God and how He coordinates all of life to teach us and lead us
in this perfectly timed, orderly expression of His love. But today I once again
“stumbled” upon His wonderful murmurations of love. This time with my favorite
preacher of the past T. Austin Sparks. (May I stop here to thank God for all
TAS’s writings and more so that the are 100%S available on the internet for
free at www.austin-sparks.net)
If you have read my last two
posts then you have walked with me in this crisis of love. I described it as
clearly as I could, but then I read TAS today and he expresses it so concisely.
He wrote in the very first chapter of “His Great Love” that, “Any of you who have known anything of a
life with God can test it by your experience. You have these deep crises, you
come to an impasse by reason of the ways and dealings of the Lord with you, and
the one thing, the only thing, to saveyou is a new knowledge of the Lord. I ask you, has
HeEXPLAINED Himself to you in the first place? Has He ever come to
you and said, "Now this is exactly why I have taken you, and am taking
you, this way" - and so solved your problems and satisfied your mind? Has
He done that? Not in the first place. No, the first effect of this deep
exercise of your heart is the knowledge of His heart; that is, arrival in a new
way at the fact and the reality of the love of God.” That is it… T
Austin gets it… I am at an impasse of my reason, and I long for nothing more
than to know the in comprehendible heart of God.
The
whole work is wonderful to read, but let me share a little more in context before
I go. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. For me it confirms I am on the right
tract and not crazy.
“All
the dealings and ways of God with His own people will have a twofold result -
but mark well that this is with His Own, who have come into some very real and
vital relationship with Himself in an inward way.
THE TWOFOLD EFFECT OF GOD'S
DEALINGS
(a) A DEEPENING EXERCISE TO KNOW
HIM
Firstly,
a deepening exercise to understand Him, to know Him. Think about that. Is it
not true that God's dealings with us and God's ways with us have the effect of
causing us to reach out longingly for a knowledge, some better understanding,
of Himself; when things have got beyond us, nay, the Lord has got beyond us.
For all that we know, for all that we may have learned, He has got beyond us
now. He is too deep, too hidden for us now; He is defeating all our efforts and
all our ability to understand Him. But we are not just prepared to leave it
there and throw up our hands and say right away, "Well, I do not
understand the Lord, I do not know what He is after, what He means; I give it
up." Those in whom the Spirit of God is at work find that, although they
may be in such a position as to be completely helpless and hopeless in the
matter of knowing and understanding the Lord, at this juncture they find theyHAVEto know, theyMUSTknow, they cannot just leave it there
and give up. Everything depends now upon knowing the Lord anew. And it is a
very big everything - far more than our life here on this earth as mere human
beings. If that were all, we should cut it short and seek the way out through
the forbidden door. But we know that something very much more is at stake than
just the finishing of the tenure of our days on this earth. Everything that
matters over and above this earthly life, all that we have said and professed
and claimed and hoped for, is bound up with this crisis. There has to be a
discovering of the Lord in some new way. That is the first effect of the Lord's
dealings and ways with His Own.
(b) THE RESULTANT KNOWLEDGE OF
HIS HEART
The
second thing, as issuing from that, is the resultant knowledge - not in the
first place of His mind, not an explanation to our reason, a solving of our
problems, a satisfying of our enquiries, but the knowledge of His heart. Any of
you who have known anything of a life with God can test it by your experience.
You have these deep crises, you come to an impasse by reason of the ways and
dealings of the Lord with you, and the one thing, the only thing, to saveyou is a new knowledge of the
Lord. I ask you, has HeEXPLAINEDHimself
to you in the first place? Has He ever come to you and said, "Now this is
exactly why I have taken you, and am taking you, this way" - and so solved
your problems and satisfied your mind? Has He done that? Not in the first
place. No, the first effect of this deep exercise of your heart is the
knowledge of His heart; that is, arrival in a new way at the fact and the
reality of the love of God. We shall come to the wisdom of God through the love
of God. We shall come to the understanding of God only along the path of the
love of God. Everything is revolving upon this pivot of the universe - the
heart of God.
Is
that not proved in many ways, and not least by spiritual conflict? Upon what
does spiritual conflict turn and hinge? Well, when we get into the vortex of a
great spiritual warfare, where the pressure is almost unendurable, where
everything is going against us, when the heavens are as brass over us and our
prayers seem to get nowhere, when the Word of God seems a sealed book, when
adversity and disappointment follow on in quick succession, what is the upshot?
The upshot is the love of God every time. When the evil forces create
conditions like that, and when the Lord is giving them so much liberty for the
time being, those forces are always near to whisper about His love, to turn for
us His love into hate. "This is not His love, this is the opposite of
love!" Is that not true? You have only to get right down, really down, to
have that issue of the love of God presented to you. The heart of the universe
is this matter of God's love.”
1 John 4:8, “The one who does
not love does not know God, for God is love.”
In my last blog I wrote a
very heart felt statement of, “Honestly it makes
me cry now, as it made me cry then. Because even though His love surrounds me,
even fills me at time, I cannot truthfully say that I "know" God’s
love. I do not know or understand the fullness of His love. I do not see into
His heart like He sees into mine. And I certainly do not understand God’s love.
Even at this point in my life my understanding of God’s love seems so
objective. I yearn for a more subjective understanding.” Even today
having meditated on God’s love for several days I continue to stand by that
statement though all the while surrounded, even bathed in God’s love though
consciously unaware most, if not all, of the time. And so perhaps this was a
cry of ‘God make me conscious of Your love, help me understand Your love, or
even help me be an example of it.”
Perhaps it
was that very paragraph that trigger in my friend Jim Spivey the need to text
me, “Do you KNOW that God Loves you? If not, HE REALLY DOES… and so do I.” Now
of course I know God loves me, but sometimes I don’t “KNOW” that He loves me,
because in the moment that “love” can feel sadomasochistic. But what really
triggered me about Jim's statement was not does God love me, but the part where
he said, “and so do I.” That is the part that I wanted to call bullshit on. I
thought liar not because he doesn't actually love me, but because I have a
close enough relationship to him and I see how he “treats” others
differently... not that he has ever treated me poorly because he has not.
Stay with
me on this please… Jim obviously loves his wife and children. If you know Jim
for any length of time then you also know his friend Aaron… if Jim were to say
he loves Aaron I could totally agree with him. And it is here, in this
observation, in this thought process that God revealed something to me. That
truth is that love is not fair. Do you hear me? LOVE IS NOT FAIR. Love does
not, nor ever will give equal treatment to all individuals. I was reminded of
the Protocol Son. I was reminded of Peter’s relationship to Christ compared to
the other disciples, and I can go on and on where fairness was never a standard
or measure of love. But how can this be if God loves equally? Why are the
expressions of that love so different? Why was I born a white male in America
in the twentieth century and not Somalia yesterday?
The truth
as God explained to me lies in eternity. Love does what is best for the long
term… namely providing what the soul needs to be maximized in the character and
love of God long after removed from the confines and confinement of the earth.
Still
being unaware of what God is trying to teach me about love Jim continued to
text me over the next several days. The last text came on Saturday. It said,
“You are adored, way more than you KNOW. Realize that this is SO, and that
nothing can make it GROW, and absolutely nothing can make it GO!!” Up to this
very point my thoughts of Jim’s texts were that he does like me, and he is
trying to “fix” my self-image of love. But for some reason, this text broke
through. The break through had more to do with the number of affirmations than
the words of this one, I thought how audacious is God’s love. And with that I
replied, “J”.
The next
day I looked forward to what Jim would text me, and nothing came. My thought
was, “see he was trying to fix me out of his own ability, it was not a true
expression of love because he ran out of energy to do it.” And then the Holy
Spirit spoke as clearly as I am typing. “Those were my expressions of love, and
in Jim obeying Me he shared in My love for you.” Somehow, had there been
another text it would have actually been Jim’s liking of me, and not God’s love
of me. And in all of this, beyond the fact that love is not fair, His love is
also so inseparable from obedience. Jim obeyed, and in that obedience I finally
awoke to something new with God’s love. Oh I have experienced it thousands of
times, but have remained largely unconscious to it.
I could
stop here, but why because God did not stop here.
In His
perfect murmuration I was driving home yesterday, and became thirsty. What
popped in my mind was to stop at the Exxon station. I NEVER stop at an Exxon
station. Walking in there was a homeless black man. He had a rolling suitcase
of all things, and a baseball cap with 3 different kinds of skoal in it and a
pack of menthol cigarettes in it. He was sitting on the suitcase blocking one
of the doors to the convenient store part of the station, and had skoal all
over his mouth. On top of that he was talking to himself and flailing his arms
about. Inside the store the two female workers were complaining about him. I
told them he is obviously mentally ill. To that they showed no compassion, and
told me they had called the police.
I was
filled with compassion. After my purchase I walked outside to the man and said
this, “Unless you are hungry and would like a bologna sandwich and a warm place
to sleep tonight I would probably go ahead and move on. The ladies inside have
called the police.” Immediately he jumped up and left.
No big
deal right?
Until the
Holy Spirit said, “See you do know how to show My love.”
My thirst,
my stop, the man, the compassion, the advice… all an expression of God’s love
to a homeless man. Awesome!
And so I
thought, “Which is better, to give God’s love or to receive God’s love?” The
answer is clearly both.
And to Jim... I do get your
last message. KNOW God's love, so that I can GROW in it, and then GO show it to
others.
Deuteronomy
7:13, “He (God) will love you and bless you and multiply you…”
Several
times in my lifetime I have had a spiritual crisis of trying to understand or
grasp the love that God has for me. In one of these crises God taught me that
He does love me in and of myself, completely outside of anything I can, can’t,
won’t or will do. And yet when I think of this love relationship that I as a
Christian am supposed to have with God, and that He is supposed to have with
me; I most often only consider my own heart and do I truly love Him. I think
more often of Christ asking Peter if he loves Him than I do of Deuteronomy or
even John 3:16 and Him loving us.
As
a result, quit often in my prayers to Him I will be filled with this love of God,
and I will ask Him, “Do You know that I love You?
Most
often His response in my spirit is, “I know you do.”
And
so while driving home the other day I was just filled with the love of God and
I asked, “Do You know that I love You?” And yet this time His response was
different.
He
said, “I know you do… Do you know that I love you?”
Honestly
it makes me cry now, as it made me cry then. Because even though His love
surrounds me, even fills me at time, I cannot truthfully say that I "know" God’s
love. I do not know or understand the fullness of His love. I do not see into
His heart like He sees into mine. And I certainly do not understand God’s love.
Even at this point in my life my understanding of God’s love seems so
objective. I yearn for a more subjective understanding.
I
can describe this like knowing Christ. So many Christians appear to live only
knowing about Jesus, having never encountering Him in relationship. That is
where I am with God’s love. I know that He loves me, I can explain some things
as His love for me, but I truly don’t live in the full awareness of it.
God
asks, “Do you know I love you.”
I
reply, “I know You like me.”
Father
help me to truly, subjectively not only know Your love, but to live in it. Having written this yesterday my friend Aaron unknowingly shared this poem and video below with me.
The Thorn
by
Martha Snell Nicholson
I stood, a mendicant of God, before His royal throne
and begged Him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart I cried,
'But Lord, this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange and hurtful gift which Thou hast given me.'
He said, 'My child, I give good gifts. I gave My best to thee.'
I took it home. And though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
as long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace:
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.
Ephesians 4: 26, “Be angry,
and yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger,”
For the past several weeks
I have been angry at everyone and everything. Angry with co-workers, angry with
fellow drivers, angry with wait staff, helpers, detractors, kids, parents, you
name it. I have inexplicably been mad at all of humanity with special attention
on those who like to drive below the speed limit in the left hand lane.
For me I know some of it is
physiological, and my annual physical cannot come soon enough. Certainly I can
feel my thyroid medicine is off, and perhaps all the others are as well. But
aren't we supposed to overcome anger. Shouldn't we have this mysterious harmony
with mankind simply because we gave our lives to Christ? Isn't peace, patience,
and understanding supposed to overtake us?
I was at breakfast with
some friends a couple weeks ago and I shared with them my overactive
irritability. Jim said he learned to overcome anger when he learned to embrace
and live in the fear?
What? Now I’m pissed at
Jim. Didn't he hear me say I was angry… not fearful?
My wife certainly is ready
for a return of the “sweet Jeff.” And somehow she knows that I am really not
some vicious dog, but more of a whinny tittie baby.
Snap out of it, I tell
myself.
But that doesn't work. I am
mad as hell. Now I know it is God bringing, or at least allowing this “anger
response” to come to the surface. And finally this morning I had a brief moment
where He too was not an object of it, and here is what He showed me.
He showed me that both Jim
and my wife were right.
Have you ever had a rescue
dog? They have be very neurotic. We have a little rescue Chihuahua that will
bark at me like I am going to kill it. Is it mad at me? Certainly not, but for
some reason it is afraid of me. They say because a man abused it.
That’s me. Not angry
because of abuse per se. But this whinny tittie baby in my corner, wanting to
be left alone, but when someone interferes with my peaceful corner, what do I
do? An angry response to an irrational fear.
Get out of my way you
idiot, I say to the driver… but it is really me being afraid I won’t get home
in a reasonable amount of time. Or afraid I will be late.
You deserve to be fired, I
think of my co-worker… but it is really a fear of not making money and having
to struggle to pay my bills.
What are you thinking, I
ask my children… but it is really a fear that they will find themselves later
in life unable to take care of themselves, while I live in the reality I cannot
take care of them myself.
Anger, irritability is part
of life and a body that can respond very negatively to chemical changes,
weather changes, and just change in general. But just because we are angry
there is no need to sin. For me I am going to explore this fear thing further
in hopes of overcoming anger in my soul, in hopes of being more like Christ.
What will you do with your anger?
2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For
even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not
willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.”
Proverbs 14:23, “In all labor
there is profit, But mere talk leads only to poverty.”
The world seems divided
into two camps. The socialists that believe somehow the rich have accumulated
too much, and therefore need their wealth redistributed to bottom. In other
words; tax, steal, or otherwise dispossess some percentage of the population, and
give it to the rest. They argue that the top 15% shouldn't “control”
95% of the wealth. As you should surmise by the end of this, 95% of the
pipeline flows through 15% of the population, but they do not “control”
anything.
The capitalists on the
other hand believe that somehow paying taxes is stealing from their pie that
they worked so hard to obtain. They believe in an American “dream” that anyone
can make it to the top. They believe their intelligence or skills made them who
they are, and yet look how many lose everything. Look for how many the
inflowing pipeline dries up, and the outflowing pipeline leaves them dry.
I am here to tell you that
both camps are wrong. There is a third option. That third option is to believe by
faith in GOD’s economy. An economy where differing responsibilities among the
populous is understood and embraced, and where sufficiency, lack, and abundance
are all a blessing. But how do we find this truth? How to we move away from the
right and left, which are both wrong, and look upward for the third option… the
Christ option.
I think it begins with
first understanding money. Money is NOT wealth. Money is literally 0’s on a
piece of paper that a system called banking keeps track of. In fact, in terms
of printed cash, I would suspect there is less than 10% printed cash available
compared to the trillions of 0’s on paper.
Money is a measurement. It
is a measurement of labor. Nothing more and nothing less… unless you
want to include a medium of exchange, but even in that it is a measurement of
someone’s labor you may not see. Let me give you an example.
Someone labored to get iron
ore out the ground to make steal. Someone else labored to move the iron ore to
a factory. Factory workers labored to make steal. Fabricators labored to turn
that steal into an oil rig. Oil workers labored with that rig to drill for oil.
More labor was used to move the oil to a refinery, and more labor was used to
refine it into gas, and then deliver it to a gas station where we buy it for
$3.00 a gallon. When we pay $50.00 to fill our tank up, that money pays all
that labor. That money flows like a fluid in a pipeline back through all those
hands. The gas station pays the refinery, which pays the oil producers, who pay
for their rig, who pay for their steal. And as money FLOWS through the pipeline
it eventually comes back to us. For me, I work in the mortgage industry. All
that labor paid needs housing, which pays me.
And so money comes in, and
it goes out. All based on labor.
Gold is $1300 per ounce.
That represents the labor it takes to find and deliver an ounce of it. Some is
found in the ground, some is found in peoples safe, but there is labor to find
it. Did you know that Gold has been made from mercury by bombing it with
neutrons? But to do this process it takes $4000 in labor to produce 1/3 ounce.
So Gold is not rare, it is just too expensive (labor intensive) to get it other
than the current way.
Money as a measure of labor
is limitless. Money does not come from a pie where someone has, and someone
does not. In fact, if you were to study the top 15% or earners in America, the
likelihood of them having “money” more than about 10% of their income sitting
in a bank is very rare. In fact it is in the pipeline system. Their money is
moving, just like your money is moving.
Money comes in, and money
goes out. The prudent have a storage of money, so that if the money coming in
slows, the money going out does not necessarily have to slow. Or if the money
going out suddenly sucks from tragedy or unexpected suspense, then too there is
a reserve. The fact that some have reserves and some do not, in general does
not affect the whole pipeline, with certain exceptions like today’s economic
times.
What is important about
money is that there is flow. There is what economists call the velocity of
money.
So what does this tell us
as Christians? How do we move away from idea of have’s and have not’s, to God’s
economy of all needs are met? I think we must first understand that money is a
measurement of labor. If you are to have it FLOW through your hands you must
labor. I labor primarily as a loan officer. My friend Jim Spivey labors
literally for God meeting people in their trying times for comfort and insight.
I get paid by a publicly traded company. Jim gets paid by donations, often from
people he does not even meet with. But God moves that flow through our hands
because of our labor. Because we get up every day, get dressed, and go into the
world to labor at what God has for us. We tap into God’s pipeline which has
limitless flow. It makes no difference if George Soros, and Bill Gates have
billions. The pipeline is there for us all. We only need to understand it is
God’s pipeline; it is not the US Government pipeline, nor the Capitalists
pipeline, and certainly not the socialist's pie.
We labor “as unto the Lord”
and the pipeline flows in… we obey and the pipeline flows out… but I will say
the outflow for another day. Simply tap into the understanding that money is a
measurement that flows like an endless artesian well. Stop living without faith
in the mindset that money is a pie, and that if someone has, I therefore cannot
have too. Start living in the faith that today I labored just as God would have
me, and as a result a measurement (money) of that labor is going to flow
through my hands.
Psalms 37:4 “Delight yourself
in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
This post is a continuation
of “Dead Battery” from yesterday.
It is early October 2013
and Field Trial season is upon us. Field Trials being a competitive season
where (in my case) pointing dogs are run on horseback to see which will find
birds with the most style, grace, and perfect obedience. For me, it is my current
favorite past time.
Last year my dog and I
competed on my horse Zip. He is an awesome paint horse perfect for the trail,
but for field trials which are done for hours at a time at a faster than
walking pace… Zip is not so good. Being ungaited riding him for hours will
literally beat your brains in, and a sore back is standard. Most competitors…
or should I say ALL the competitors ride gaited horses like Tennessee Walkers
or Missouri Fox Trotter’s. Gaited being the way they move, and that movement
being smooth and not bouncy like my Paint horse. But to get a field trial
proven horse can be moderately expensive. A decent horse starts at about $3500,
and it was my goal to have saved for one over the last year. But that didn't work
out.
And so Saturday morning I
was on my way to my friends 25 acre farm to train my dog Remi, and as I went I
was thinking about the two batteries I just put in my truck, and my daughter’s
wedding. I was praying, thanking God for the money for the batteries, and
really thanking Him that He has a plan for the wedding, but I was also letting
go of buying a horse, at least this year. In my mind I was saying there is no
way I can get a horse before a wedding, and was really thinking about riding
Zip again this season.
Mind you just a month ago
my wife was online looking for me a horse. Her only pre-requisite was that she
and her daughter both wanted me to get a horse colored blue roan. And she found
a couple for $3500 but I never went to look at them for lack of a way to pay cash for them. I could have borrowed the money as horses can be financed, but that wouldn't be a God thing.
But back to my story… And
so after training Remi I was talking to my friend about his 4 horses. I said, "You know that old horse over there is a bad cribber? (Cribbing is when a horse
chews on the fence) He said, “No kidding, you want him?”
I said, “You’re kidding
right?”
He said, “No, I’m tired of
him chewing on my fences. In fact, I’m taking him to Eureka, and hope we don’t
come back with him.”
So I asked, “What’s wrong
with him?”
My friends replied, “There
is nothing “wrong” with him. Except he doesn't like men, because one
beat him a long time ago.”
I said, “That’s not a
problem.”
To which his wife said,
“You won’t even be able to catch him.”
Well it took a while, but
to everyone’s surprise I was able to catch him, and get a halter on him. Then
we saddled him up, and I took my new FREE horse for a ride. And he did great.
Smooth as silk.
Now to add some murmuration
to the Gift Horse. The horses name is Huckleberry, but they call him Huck. Huck
is was a nickname my Dad was called when I was a kid. And in case you are not
aware of it, that color is blue roan. :-)
All I can say is. “Thank
you God for loving me soooo much. You never cease to amaze me. How wonderful it
is to get a gift that is beyond a need. I love You!”
This as much as anything has caused me to look back and see all the blessings, particularly in the last year. I haven't counted it all up, but I have seen at least $10,000 literally fall out of the sky. (Miraculous expression of God's love and miracle ability.) I am not destitute, poor, broke, though I hope in spirit broken. My life is not any tougher than anyone elses, but rather a lot easier than 90% of the worlds populations. All of the struggles I write about are not to highlight the struggle, but to highlight God in them. Don't be jealous of me being given anything, and nor do I want you to hurt when I struggle. It is all God at work to bring me to the end of myself so that when I collapse in exhaustion I collapse into His arms. Any struggle is there so I can say to God, "I give up, I surrender, I can't do it, I have to rely on you." Any blessing is not God saying to me that I have done good, or that I have earned anything, or lived a perfect life if momentarily, but it is there to say, "I love you in spite of yourself." And therefore it all is a blessing. The struggle and the gifts are blessings because God causes ALL THINGS to work together for good. I pray today that God would show you the truth of this, not in my words, but in your life.
Deuteronomy 18:39, “You shall
plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor
gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them.”
To you ever feel like
everything you do turns to crap? Or how about just when you are about to get
ahead some problem arises that eats up the little bit of savings you managed to
accumulate? Do you ever feel like your hard work is eaten by worms like the
scripture above suggests?
Sometimes… even too often, I
default into that mindset. After all, for the past eleven years I have
accumulated no savings that has lasted. Not a big issue unless you consider my
daughter is getting married in less than a year, and I would like to participate
financially in her wedding. Or even beyond that there are plenty of fun things
I would like to have or do. On my “Hopes and Dreams” list I have 10 places I
would like to take my wife to along with some needed items and other
materialistic things like a gaited horse.
But as I look at what is not I get
a text from my wife that a $260 check arrived for me. It comes once a quarter,
and is a dividend from an old investment. (thanks Mom) I quickly replied, “I’m
going to save that for my daughter’s wedding.” Wow, God is awesome I thought.
The next morning I go to take
my son to school and my truck won’t start. It has a dead battery. And being
Diesel it has two dead batteries, not just one. Would anyone like to guess how
much those batteries costs? If you said $260.00 you are dead on.
“Why must the worm always eat
the blessing?” I cried out to God. “When am I going to get ahead?”
To which the Holy Spirit whispers,
“I gave you the money for the batteries ahead of time instead of after, are you
going to complain about that?”
There were no worms eating
the blessing. There really was only God’s provision again, supplying a need.
When will my stinking thinking change?
Matthew 6:28…32 “And why are
you worried... Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor
do they spin… for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”
There is a saying that if a
tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? I
say that if you have a problem and no one is there to see it, is there really a
problem at all?
It hit me while driving in
Houston traffic surrounded by literally hundreds of thousands of cars that I do
not know a single problem of another individual driver. In fact, from my point of
view, not a single driver has a single issue in their life other than they are
in my way. So does it mean that because I can’t see their problem that one does
not exists?
Then the other day I was
inconvenienced by a funeral processions. I am sure that there were many
grieving people in those cars with their headlights on, but I felt no grief at
all. To me there was no loss, and therefore was there a loss at all?
When my brother-in-law died
unexpectedly a year ago, my sister and our family hurt deeply, but my friends
who did not know him felt no pain at all, so was my pain real?
When my business collapsed
and there were both friends and family capable of stopping it, but they did
nothing at all, was there even a collapse in the first place?
What fear these personal
events brought to my mind. What would my sister do? How can I help raise her
three kids? What would I do for a living? Would I be homeless? Will my children
go hungry? All the worries of the problems… but wait, did they exist?
Mark Twain wrote, “I had a
lot of problems, most of which never came to pass.”
My sister, my nephews, and my
niece are more than surviving… they are thriving so was there ever really a
problem to worry about. I have never been homeless, and based on my waist line
never hungry either, so was there ever a problem with my business collapsing?
Better yet, did it even collapse, or was God just opening a new chapter?
I have no idea what this
thought process says about someone else’s problems, but what it says to me is
that my problems truly do not exists outside the imagination of my mind. So
many worries of yesterday, and yet today those worries are no more, only
replaced by some self-consuming new fabrications.
Will I make my mortgage
payment? I laugh realizing a hundred and twenty have already been made. Will I
get a vacation? Will I be able to pay for my daughter’s wedding? Is all this
worry killing me? Why is life so painful?
I am in the middle of what
seems like the most beautiful discover of my life, and of kingdom vision and
truth. The pain, the worry, the stress are all lies fabricated in my mind. God
is in control.
Look at the cars on the
freeway. We perceive no problems in the others because there really are no
problems in the others. God is in control. Now imagine you are one of the others
and you are looking at yourself. Do you now perceive a problem with yourself?
You should not… because the problem does not exist. It does not exists because God
is in control… working all things for good for those who love Him.
And then I read this from my
friend Jim Spivey as the Holy Spirit confirms what He is doing in me. “There
are a lot of very unsatisfied people running around pushing and grabbing at or
avoiding each other, frantically searching for more or better
circumstances. They are completely
identified with and by their pain, looking for some relief at any cost…
“getting” won’t “solve the problem,” because… it’s all “inside us,” both our
problem (us) and His Solution (being excavated)… The Answer in Real Life, is in the
relationship between the Father and Son.”
Today, if only for this
moment I am pain and problem free. Father grant me the grace to live every
moment in this truth in the name of Your Son Jesus.
I believe this is the perception
of Christ. I believe this is where He was when He went to the cross. Focused on
the joy of the truth, and not the illusion of pain.
Please watch this powerful
video of God’s word being proven true again.
2 Corinthians 12:7, “Because of
the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from
exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan
to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!”
My step daughter was telling
me about the bible study she is participating in, and said they were discussing
the “dude that got beat up all the time.” (Apostle Paul) I asked if they
discussed that as a member of the Sanhedrin he would have been required to be
married.
She said, “No, but they did
ask us to describe what we thought the ‘thorn might represent.’”
Jokingly I said it was
probably his wife since she is never mentioned in the bible. But reality is
that thorn is for us all the pinch to wake us up. Or should I say the pinch to
wake our spirits up to the temporary and contaminated nature of life on earth.
For Paul the thorn was there to keep him humble, to keep life and his role as a
preeminent apostle in perspective. It was there so that he would not fall into
the trap of not only reading but believing his own press clippings.
The earth, and therefore
life, is contaminated by sin, and we remain in this literal spiritual cesspool to
not only come to know God, but to be beacons of light for the other souls that
join us in this thing call living. However, life has plenty of temporary pleasure
to not only engage in, but to be distracted by, and to be drawn too. Given
enough pleasure we all have an ego capable laying claim to it, and not just
enjoying and pursuing more, but attributing the accumulation of pleasure to one’s
own activities or worthiness. Like the American lie of because I am smart, I am
rich.
And so God, by His grace
allows us to feel the truth of life. That it is temporary and thorny maze. He allows us to remain in the thorny mire, so that as I said earlier we can be
a beacon to the coming souls just as some other soul was a beacon for us.
Think about it. God loves His
creation call mankind. With each human birth a spiritual birth of a soul is
created as well. Earth for lack of a better description is a soul factory. We
are here to recognize our soul, and to connect to God in spirit; then to live
that connection. In living that connection we become the city on the hill, we
become the lamp that is not covered.
Lest we forget that this is
our purpose… to love God, then to love others as He has loved us, God has appropriated
to everyone a thorn or thorns to keep them from being lulled to spiritual sleep
by wealth, health, or fame. Though many exalt themselves to the highest of
pedestals, I have yet to see anyone that has remain there.
Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our
eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE
HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God.”
We call so many things
painful. Our worries and fears are painful. Someone else’s unmet need seems
painful to us. Rejection, ridicule conjure up images of emotional hurt.
Financial insecurity seems as painful as the hunger it can lead to. But is this
really pain when compared to the physical pain of being scourged, and left to
suffocate on a cross having been nailed there through His hand and feet… is any
of the other really pain?
In our selfish little
existence it is pain. Our pains are not having insurance, or money for a cable
bill or being able to get along with our spouse or co-worker because we are too
hell bent on being right v. being at peace with one another. And yet these
pains are real to the beholder. They are so many times the nails being driven
into our spiritual hands. The PAIN is so many times the sharing of the cross of
Christ because that cross represents a place of passing from world to spirit.
It represents a place of rejecting everything man made for everything God made.
It is part of being transferred into the kingdom of God’s Son as Paul wrote,
but the cross is NOT the end.
I, like all of you, can be
tormented by uncomfortable circumstances. And yet, as my friend Aaron told me, somehow
God’s glory is at the hour and pain of the cross. This is very different from the
pain and consequence of sin. The pain of the cross is when you are “trying”
with all your heart to live for God, and things “still don’t go right.” When in
fact they are going perfectly, stripping you of the “junk” your soul has
accumulated to that point in life. But
again I reiterate this pain, this cross, this lot in life is not the end, it is
not the point. It is a place that like Christ we endure even though we despise
it. And we endure because in faith we learn it is also the hour of glory. It is
the hour of intimacy with the Father as we are invited to His throne.
Jesus did not come to teach
us to suffer. Jesus came to give us life, to see deep into the kingdom in spite
of the suffering.
I think T. Austin Sparks was
experiencing this when he wrote, “…it represents a
good deal of breaking and smashing up of our previous ideas. It does represent a terrific stripping off of
a system in which we have grown up, in which we have been trained; but when the
Lord has done it thoroughly, it is marvelous.
You look back and can only say: ‘There was a time when that, and that,
and that was everything to me; it was my system, my program, my line of things,
my very life, the presentation of myself to the world. I did not see anything beyond that.’ But the Lord has done that great emancipating
thing, and you laugh at your utter folly that ever such things should have been
of any account at all.”
What a great
word TAS chose… emancipating. This is the cross… the emancipating pain of
obedience to God in a lost and dying world. Oh to be emancipated from the world
by the cross, because to be free of the world is to be joined with God.
God set the joy
Christ had before us all. Give us His vision, His understanding, His character
in Jesus name.
Exodus 3:14, “God said to
Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel,
‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 16:4, “Then the Lord
said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people
shall go out and gather a day’s portion (just enough) every day, that I may
test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.’”
Luke 9:58, “And Jesus said to
him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of
Man has nowhere to lay His head.’”
I am fully aware there are
large blocks of Christians that believe God is a God of prosperity, and that if
a person is not materially prosperous then their relationship to Him is somehow
contaminated, most likely with sin. But I will assure you that this is not the
case, nor even remotely judge-able.
Not every command of Christ
is to cast the nets on the other side of the boat, and not all results of God’s
command are an overabundance. In fact all too often God is a God of just enough
and just in time. I find no better example than the Israelites having
to be dependent upon God for their daily bread. A dependence that lasted a full
forty years. Christ on more than one occasion was without shelter, or food, or
money. And yet each time God provided just in time.
I know several people who
live wholly dependent upon God’s provision. Actually that is a completely
watered down statement. So let me try again.
I know three people who live
100% dependent on God’s next financial miracle. They obey without consideration
of where resource are coming from, and having watched them from a distance I
can truly say that God has ALWAYS provided just enough, and all too often it
comes just in time.
And so I find myself not in
financial straits, but temporarily absent any cash, and with a bare cupboard.
It is ten days until another payday, and I truly have $5 for lunch until then.
I think of what my friend Jim would do, and it is to publicly cry out to the
Lord. For Aaron, he has said that God has had him thank Him for the past
provision, and then the current provision appeared. For Russell… I don’t know
that he asks or thanks, but more seems to have some certainty that the manna
will appear in the morning. For me, this is what I am doing…
“Father, give me this day
my daily bread. And yes I know that I could stand to skip a few meals, but
Father I asks that I might know your love. I am not asking to “test” You per se
even though I know you test our love, but just to experience it again… to know
that You are for me.”
I prayed this three days
ago. On the first day my dad called and asked if like him to take me to lunch.
On the second day a fellow employee asked if I wanted to go to lunch. I said it
will have to be cheap because I only have $5. He said, “no my treat, I just
want to do something nice for you…” Today is day three… (to be cont’d)
And please understand that
this is not a tale from a poor beggar too broke or too irresponsible, but that
it is a disciple constantly amazed by his God, that He loves him enough to be
so involved in his life. Thankful that He tests him in his obedience to His
instruction.
