Piggy Pearls

Matthew 7:6, "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample the under foot, and turn and tear you to pieces."

This scripture has stuck with me for 2 days. I say stuck, because for me the traditional interpretation does not fit its location. Traditional interpretation says to not offer doctrine to violent or abusive people because they might curse you or bring you harm. But that just doesn't seem like the Jesus I know. It also only loosely fits to the passage contextually.

The verse sits like a lonely piece of sandwich meat in the middle of the bread and condiments. Preceding it is exhortation to not worry, and then not to judge others. So is Jesus saying don't worry about things, but worry about people? Is He saying, don't judge people, but somehow identify dogs and swine without judgement?

Immediately following the verse is the Golden Rule, where we are commanded in verse 12 to "treat people the same way you want them to treat you." For me I certainly don't want someone to treat me like a dog or swine and withhold anything good from God.

So what is Jesus telling us in this veiled message?

I believe that He is telling us how to minister. He is saying don't worry and don't judge. But when you encounter those clearly not following God in your path then never just throw scripture, doctrine, or belief out there. Don't just give a pack of dogs a bone. On  the contrary how would we deal with dogs? We make them behave before feeding them. Perhaps they sit (pay attention) or beg (ask for) what it is we have. Swine too specific ways to be dealt with. They too can be unruly if you just haphazardly cast food, or anything for that matter, in thier direction.

I think what Jesus is saying here is remember what you are dealing with. Spreading the love of Christ is not some haphazard casting of doctrine about. It is getting in, inner acting with, and being an example to the dogs and the swine. They can't handle the heavenly food just thrown into the pen. They will tear it up and you along with it. Instead, build the report, take the time, with patience and long suffering even the dogs and swine will see the example of being treated as we want to be treated. They will not see the judgmental eye. But instead by first seeing and example of Christ in us, followed by the treatment, will be feed without the chaos.

It is funny, but perhaps the illustration is the best interpretation of all. Don't cast pearls before swine, because a pig does not know what to do with pearls. Instead be wise like a serpent and innocent as a dove.

Don't worry, don't judge, don't preach, just treat them like you want to be treated. That is Matthew 7.

Discipleship

Matthew 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me..."

From Discipleship in the School of Christ by T Austin-Sparks...

"Every teacher has his subject... What is the subject of the Lord Jesus?

... the answer is: Himself. He is His own subject. Jesus was always the subject of His own teachings. He related everything to Himself. He said, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life.' (John 14:6): 'I am the good shepherd.' (John 10:14): 'I am the bread of life.' (John 6:48): "I am the door" (John 10:9): 'I am the resurrection, and the life.' (John 11:25). He is His own subject. He spoke about many things, but He always related them to Himself...

He said:'I and the Father are one' (John 14:9)...

So the one business of disciples is to know Him, and to do what He called His disciples to do: 'Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me' (Matthew 11:29)."

Disciple, as Jesus used it, comes from the Greek work meaning "learner." If we are to be disciples, if we are to make disciples, then we must do as Jesus commanded and learn of Him, or as the New American Standard says, "learn from Him."

The point is that this thing we call Christianity is beyond the moment of salvation and believing Jesus is the Son of God. It goes even beyond declaring Him Lord. And it even goes beyond the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is indeed the Helper. Without this Helper we could not know Jesus, or discover salvation. But discipleship, Christianity if you will, is learning Christ is the most subjective and experimental of ways. It is, in it's fullest forms, being so emptied of self that our vessel is filled, even possessed by Christ. Discipleship is not sitting in class objectively memorizing everyone else's written explanations of their experience. On the contrary, discipleship is getting out and walking through life with the Risen Lord alive inside of you, guiding you, speaking to you, so that the explanation of the experience is written on your heart.

Be a disciple, so that you can make disciples.

Labor Day 2011

Galatians 4:11, "I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain."

I woke up this morning fully intending to write a post about labor, and tie it cleverly into God's word. And after have several different ideas, none seemed to be what God was wanting. So my next move was to have no post at all. After all, surely one day there will be nothing to say, and perhaps today is that day.

Content with no post, I decided to go back to the beginning of this labor of love, and see what Propel has been about. Has it been a labor in vain? The thought hit me that it is all in vain if the person I am does not become a clearer reflection of Christ. Why would anyone care that these words have been immortalized on the internet if I, the author, has not grow closer to and more like Christ.

So as I read back through the many posts, I am suddenly unconcerned about their effects on the reader. I realize this labor is not about someone else. This labor is about me. It is in so many ways a diary of my walk with Christ. It is God's labor with me.

I am amazed to see where I have come from is such a short period of time. From confusion, chaos, concern, to the peace of a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. A transformation, still incomplete, but one that has brought me from judgmental to loving. So many lessons, so much change. Wow! I love you Jesus. Thank you for your labor, thank you for working on me.

Circumcised Heart

Deuteronomy 30:6 "Moreover the Lord you God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live."

In my daily time of devotion, as some would call it, I came across the following from T Austin-Sparks. This article titled Government by the Holy Spirit said, "...One of the primal features of this new day is this (take careful note of it because it is the key and the basis of everything): the voice of the Spirit is to be taken account of rather than what is going on in the religious world around. It is that which cleaves things asunder, puts things into two different realms in this book of ''The Acts.'' With this new age we see on the one hand in the religious world that which claims authority with power, position, and influence, which has established itself and taken possession, but which is shown to be something which is not according to the Spirit of God. On the other hand, over against that, we see what is brought out into such clear, manifest relief, that to hear and to take account of the voice of the Spirit of God may be, and very often is, another thing altogether.

You recall Stephen's defense. You know that he comprehends the whole of this history. He starts with Abraham: ''The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham'' (Acts 7:2). That is the beginning of this religious history, and he traces right through stage by stage until he arrives at the murder of the Lord Jesus; and he sums it up in one great declaration, sweeping away the whole ground of that established thing on the earth and saying, as comprehending it all: ''Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ear, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit'' (Acts 7:51). Something spiritual, a taking note of the voice of the Spirit of God, is something very different indeed from an established religious order on this earth, and very often runs directly counter to it.

That is a strong statement, but it is said in order that we may immediately get to the very heart of what it is the Lord is seeking in this present age: a people of a spiritual life who are governed by the Spirit of God, who take account of what the Spirit says and are obedient and conform thereunto. It is a spiritual people God is after in this age, not religious people.

Paul has built a very great spiritual structure upon this very principle. A large part of his letter to the Romans and the whole of his letter to the Galatians is occupied with the sole object of pointing out that traditional religion is one thing and life in the Spirit is another; that religion as here on this earth in all its forms may be one thing, while what is of the Spirit of God may be altogether another thing. That is what Paul set out to make clear, and he built this tremendous edifice upon this fact. If you read Galatians carefully in the light of that, you will see that that is what he is after, to divide between this religious thing and this other, which is of the Spirit...

...At any rate, the world will know something if we are really living in touch with the Lord, and there will be a language which only the spiritual can enjoy and understand. There will be those spiritual counterparts of the seed of Abraham, a people different from all the rest...

...The progress and increase of spiritual life mean this, that the gap widens all the time between the children of God and those in the world who are not such. That is not to be taken literally in this sense, that we begin a mistaken system of hiving off, shutting ourselves up, getting out of touch. That is a wrong application of the principle. The Lord Jesus is preeminently our example in that He could move in any circle, and He did so deliberately, publicans and sinners, all classes, He moved amongst them, but His power over them was in His basic difference from them. Let us be careful how we are caught in this great movement of conforming to this age. To conform is to lose spiritual power. Well, spiritual seed is what God is after, a spiritual seed of Abraham.

This is the day of the Spirit, and those who are the spiritual seed of Abraham, who are now under the power of the Spirit, governed by the Spirit, will be made alive by the Spirit continually to that which is of the Spirit and that which is not. The more we go on with the Lord, the fuller and clearer will become our perception as to what is spiritual and what is natural, even in our Christian life. It is a whole life of education. Things that we thought at one time were quite all right, quite permissible, quite in line with the Lord 's will, as we go on we come to find that even those things have come into a realm of question; the Spirit is not agreeing with them now. We have come to discover that He never did agree with them, but we were not enough alive to Him to know His mind about them. He deals with us as with children as long as we are children, but when it is time that we should leave childhood the Spirit begins to deal with us very drastically if we are going on with the Lord.

It is this kind of people that the Lord is after in this age. Oh, what a difference it would make if all the Lord' s people were really governed by this law of the Spirit of life in Christ, if their hearts were truly circumcised, that all the fruit of life should be wholly unto God, because this law of the Spirit is not outward but inward."

In all of what T Austin-Sparks writes I agree. The intrigue comes to me in the notion of this circumcision of the heart. What great implications this genderless circumcision carries. What explanations to the soul being laid bare and sensitive to God. What a description of surrender, and of the occasionally painful process of the removal of that which is in the way of our heart being totally in love with, and in touch with God. What better description of the un-learning that must take place to truly be a bond-servant of God. The removal of walls, triggers, calluses, all things preventing a pure heart. Best of all is the prayer it can be. Father, circumcise my heart that I might fully love You.

The consequences of which are described here by T Austin-Sparks.

Bondslave

1 Peter 2:16, "Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God."

Bond-servant/Bondslave... that term can conjure up some horrific connotations. It even sounds bad coming off the tongue. Think about it. Who would want to become someone's slave over a debt? That's what a bond-servant is. A slave to the lender until the debt is paid. And yet it is fairly understandable why post salvation we might all be bond-servants to Christ. After all, He did pay our debt of sin, and we do owe him for His obedience. Yet this servitude under compulsion is not what Paul, Peter, Jude, James, or any other character of the Bible was talking about when they called themselves a bond-servant of Christ.

The type of bondslave that embraces his servitude is the one like is found in Exodus 21:1-6. If a Hebrew owed another Hebrew, he would be enslaved for 6 years. On the seventh year he would be allowed to go free. (v.5&6) "But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out as a free man,' the his master shall bring him to God, the he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently." This bondslave is one of his/her own free will. This bondslave subjects his freedom to the master out of love.

In the revelation of the Kingdom of God, in harmony with the Holy Spirit it not only easy to say, 'I love my master... I will not go free,' but it is nearly impossible to not willingly become a bondslave of Christ.  A slave to love as T Austin-Sparks wrote when he said, "There is nothing which makes slaves of us more than love, and it is an ecstatic and sublime slavery which never wants release, and only dreads that a breach might at some time come."

In bond-servitude it is never about us, but about what He can be through us. It is about Him using us as His hands, His feet, His instrument. In bond-servitude it is not about what I can "accomplish" or my successes. On the contrary it is about me being less and him being more. On the subject Oswald Chambers writes, "Jesus did not say - "he that believeth in Me shall realize the blessing of the fulness of God," but - "he that believeth in Me out of him shall escape everything he receives." Our Lord's teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all."

Christ was the first bond-servant of God and He poured Himself out for the Father on our behalf. This is the level of emulation, of Christ reflection we can expect to be constantly drawn to.

Soul Pain

2 Corinthians 4:17, "For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comprehension."

There is a physical pain that comes from nakedness, being shelter-less, starvation, disease, and other inhumanities. These pains must be dealt with immediately by those closest, and exposed to the need. This is the lesson of the good Samaritan.

But there is a whole other kind of pain that comes with death, burial, and resurrection of the soul. There is a pain associated with surrender, which is nothing more than laying down your own ideas, abilities, and thoughts to be in absolute obedience to God regardless of effort, outcome, pleasure, or pain. This pain of the soul, this pain of having character transformed, is not something to be cured or fixed by the outsider. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the shaping of the Potter's wheel.

Soul pain is momentary and light, though in the moment it seems insurmountable and crushing. But this pain is what forces us to confront that character in us that is not Christ. It is the pain of our soul being out of integrity with the spirit. It is the wake up call that something is wrong, and it is the ache that something is growing. Namely us as vessels of Christ. Soul pain is the stretching of the wine skin as the new wine ferments and is being prepared to be poured out.

This pain in not anyone's fault, and is not curable unless the cause, namely otherness from Christ, is uprooted from the soul and allowed to die. As George said the other day in Love Machine, "You have to feel your own pain, and get to the place you just hurt." Hurting without blame is one of the first steps to finding that joy of the soul that will either cure the pain, or allow the individual to endure it.

The point is that we as loving, caring, Christians have to learn to listen more and talk less. We have to be with people in their pain of the soul, but not rescue them. This pain is not a place for advice, because advice covers up, advice builds walls, it is man's solution to a God problem.

I might go a little farther and say that if a person does not share the same experience of the soul, advice is always the wrong thing. For example, I cannot advise the soul of a widower having never overcome that myself. I cannot advise the soul of a drug addict having never been one myself. But I can advise the soul of a childhood sexual abuse victim. I can advise the soul of the bankrupt, the divorced, the cheated on, etc. This is advice I can give because these are areas that I have an abundance of God in my heart for.

Soul pain is like birth pain. It is unavoidable. It is largely untreatable. And it will cease shortly after the birth is accomplished. Like an epidural... if treated it only prolongs the process.

So for those of you experiencing the pain deep in your soul, God will complete His work, and your pain will be looked back on as momentary light affliction.

For those who know someone giving birth in their soul... just be there, take the heat, wipe away the sweat and tears, but unless you have birthed the same thing in your soul, it is best to keep your advice to yourself. If you have birthed the same thing, then most often you will understand there is no advice that would help anyway.

Jim Spivey's Love Machine

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 "Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

Same passage from The Message. "Since God has so generously let us in on what He is doing, we're not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into the occasional hard times. (Or uncomfortable situations) We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don't maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don't twist God's Word to suit ourselves. Rather we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves the presence of God."

I hope that everyone who reads this blog and participates in any of the thirteen Love Machines sees the implication of this scripture, and it applicability to our groups. Because in love there is nothing hidden, there are no crafty games of one up men ship. But there is a commitment to the truth and allowing that truth to be exposed to every member's conscience in the sight of God. This to me is what Jim Spivey's Love Machines are. But if that doesn't explain the experience enough then how about this.

Have you ever been to the zoo or an amusement park where you can insert two quarters and a penny into a machine; turn the handle, and smash the penny into a "souvenir" collector's piece? That's the kind of machine love machine is. Imagine God turning the handle. On some visits you are part of the machine's inner workings like the gears and dies. Most of the time, visiting Love Machine means being the penny dropped in for it's customary reshaping and commemoration.  And that is just what happened to me on my most recent visit.

Here cog met cog, one persons exhaustion triggers someone else s fear, which triggers a joke, which triggered a rebuke, which triggers an opening in relationship, You see, I made the joke, and was the recipient of the rebuke, and a part of the opening of relationship. It turns out the rebuke was not about the joke at all, but about an offense I caused weeks before. But talking about it allowed the animosity to subside, for forgiveness to enter and love to rule. But in it all it triggered in me something I have not been conscious of for some time.

To be personal about it, because that is what I do... that is shameless surrender to me... I have an issue with women in authority. (except for my beautiful wife and soul-mate) And for that matter, I have an issue with women taking offense at me. I have never set out to offend anyone, and it is so often that I say the wrong thing that gets me into trouble. Some would say between my brain and my mouth there is no pause button. But in the past those offenses have cost me ministries I love, a job I needed. Offending females costs me a marriage or two, and so much more.

So here I was a happy cog, spinning away watching others be flattened by the Holy Spirit into something unique and beautiful, when suddenly I found myself the penny. Crushed by the realization of so many people I had not forgiven. Un-forgiveness that unconsciously manifest in so many defensive and judgmental ways. And so, as this transformed penny comes out of the crushing cogs of love, I find myself forgiving anew many of the opposite gender that have offended me with their offense. I find myself forgiving some for the first time, even though I know I said I never would.

That said, I have no intention of worrying about not offending anyone. I will continue to love, and if someone takes offense to it, then what I promise is to not get offended at their offense, and to not harbor un-forgiveness for anyone.

This is not what I intended to write in today's post. But this is what has come out as I sit at the keyboard. So I will trust the Holy Spirit, His anointing, and His judgment and obediently post this with the eternal hope that it will influence someone to experience Christ on a deeper level today.