The wound of love…

Every believer encounters it. Some call it spiritual dryness, the wilderness, or some other negative term. The saints of the Catholic Church called it, “the wound of love” and to them, though it felt negative in its out working, it was a blessed experience that established the soul in divine comforts.

All of us endeavoring to pursue our Beloved wholeheartedly and without compromise will come up against this season just like David came up against Goliath. St. John of the Cross referred to this reality as the Dark Night of the Soul, in which all previous comforts of our spirituality are driven away like the early morning fog so that perfect love can be established through the purging and refining of all fleshly hindrances. It is indeed a dark night.

But joy comes in the morning! We should rest assured when we find ourselves in this place, knowing that the author and perfecter of our faith is laboring to work in us an eternal weight of glory. Blessed are those spiritual persons when they can see the discipline of the Lord for it is nothing other than His counting us as sons and daughters. He disciplines the ones He loves. This wound of love causes us to be restless with anything that is not God. All consuming love is the object of Jesus’ labors on our behalf. Maturity is the goal and a sign of that maturity is the depth of love’s sacrificial nature.

Look at me my God, and let me know You are looking, for then I can endure anything!

St. John of da Cross

For contemplation is nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires the soul in the Spirit of love…

St. John of the Cross

Wisdom, come here!

After a quick reading of Proverbs 2 and some meditation on Isaiah 40, I’m realizing that I need a massive spiritual overhaul to even begin to walk in the the light of wisdom.

Sages and scholars from ages past and present will attribute the ability to think, act, or prepare for the future as being wise or at the very least, not being completely stupid. Riddles and stories meant to portray wisdom and its effects will most likely involve an ant because ants are known for their teamwork and ability to sustain themselves through winter due to preparation during summer months, when provisions are abundant.

But biblical wisdom goes above and beyond. Though all would agree that timely preparation and the ability to foresee and plan accordingly is an aspect of wisdom, the idea of the wisdom of God is so cross-current and backwards to our natural disposition that the writer of proverbs says it must be sought out, like silver and gold. What makes heavenly wisdom so completely different from earthly wisdom?

All through the word of God it is made clear that wisdom from above comes by having a mindset from another realm. Wisdom of God is rooted and springs from another time, place, reality, and age. Biblical wisdom differs from earthly wisdom because it is not of this age or place. Pulling wisdom from another realm into the here and now makes that wisdom seem so contrary to itself because we cannot grasp living life contrary to how we want to. But that’s exactly what the writer of Proverbs said wisdom is, living like you’re from another time and place.

Are there any wise among us?

What does love really look like?

I don’t think anyone really doubts that our western mindset and paradigm of love is slightly skewed. If I could find a more descriptive word to use than “slightly” I would; horribly, terribly, sadly, painfully, extravagantly, etc. There you have it.

The media, arts, and every form of entertainment available have all given the general public a “castle made of sand” concerning the concept of true love. Glitz, glamour, passion, and ideals are the earmarks of love in the west. The painful thing about all this is that it is all formed and molded from a concept of beauty that is worldly. What the world calls good is usually just bad with nice packaging. Think about it, every romantic movie I’ve ever seen is based on what the main character gets out of the prospective relationship. It has nothing to do with real, gritty, sacrificial service to another for the betterment of the other, which is how love is portrayed in the life of Christ in the gospels.

Sadly, when it comes down to differentiating between the world’s standards and the church’s on this point, it’s a little hazy. Everyone is longing for love, it is THE stream of human emotion, and it’s supposed to be that the church stands as a beacon of light to cast that light through the shadows of wrong paradigm and misguided belief. But the church and the world tend to have the same guidelines concerning love. We tend to follow Hollywood instead of the Cross. It’s no big surprise though, Hollywood pays a lot better…..on this side. Jesus knew differently, He knew that real love, when given away, cannot decrease. It’s like the singer said, “love is the currency of heaven forever.” The more you give, the more it grows.

Man, I wish there were more people who challenged the world. Man, I hope I can be one of them!

Are you burning yet?

The Lord loves incense. God did not create mankind as vessels of service only. Lest we forget, we cannot do anything apart from Him animating and moving us by His own life, which is our source. So, why would we venture to believe we could offer any work or activity that could ever be considered complete or good enough in and of itself?

Oh, how we need the breath of God’s spirit upon our lives. A life offered for service must first be burning with the incense of love. Work, apart from the aroma of infatuated desire for the Beloved, is as filthy rags.

I believe that God the Father is restoring the incense ministry similiar to what the Levitical priests operated in during Old Testament days. Instead of merely outward and physical incense though, the new priesthood, ones who love the dwelling place of the Lord, will burn inwardly with a living flame of love. Levitical priests in the O.T. tabernacle and temple only offered the purest pressed olive oil for burning in ministry service. This pure oil was used because it gave off no smoke or soot so as to not bring any defilement into the temple. Similarly, God is raising up vessels to burn His light and fragrance through, to burn clean and bright with no excess or compromise.

Our Christian activity may very well be good and appropriate but are we on fire with love? It’s not enough to be a vessel for the use of burning just anything. We must be a vessel and provide the pure oil of living love. Are we burning and if so, what are we burning? To stand, minister, and burn is the chief operation of God’s people. How much then should we ensure quality fuel and extravagent sacrifice for Him whom we so much want to minister to!?

Staying faithful through hardships doesn’t equal faithfulness in favor.

Many of us, in fact, all of us at one point or another, have faced hardships. It is a thread woven into the fabric of all human experience. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, struggle has embraced our race like a long lost acquaintance who, no matter what the circumstances or present prospects, is ready to invite himself over for dinner or for a couch to sleep on as he passes through to another destination. We will all have hardships, it is a fact of life.

Many will say that to be faithful and steady in the midst of this is what proves your strength and endurance. While this is true to some extent, my personal belief is that staying steady in hardships is only half the battle on the road of sanctification.

To me, it is more a matter of how you can handle favor and blessing that more accurately qualifies whether or not you indeed are patient in persevering. Why? I think it’s because the human heart is deceitfully wicked. We are far more prone to pride, disbelief, impatience, selfishness, etc., etc., when things are going good for us, simply because when things go good for us, they go our way and our focus easily becomes ourselves and what we want.

Though being patient and enduring hardship will mold in us one of the greatest gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to men, humility, the real arena of testing and refining comes when favor comes. Weakness is natural for all people and it comes as surely as the rising of the sun. Strength however, can only be restrained by a meek and lowly heart and when favor provokes our strength to operate, only the truly humble will choose not to display it for the sake and well being of others.

The kingdom continued

Can there be a kingdom without a King present? Yes and no. A kingdom must have a leader but if that leader is gone or absent for some reason for any amount of time then the fullness of that kingdom will suffer want for lack of the King to rule it.

The church is an aspect of the kingdom but in no way is it the fullness. In order for the fullness of the kingdom of heaven to be expressed in the earth, Jesus must be present.

The first apostles understood the kingdom to be ruled by and through the Messiah. They held no end time doctrine or theology, their idea of the kingdom was a political entity ruled by Jesus their Messiah as King and Judge.

We in modern times have gone so far away from what the first apostles and fathers of the church held that I wonder how much clarity we actually have on this topic. For the small majority of believers who actually have an eschatological paradigm, which is few and far between, we argue and debate over end time time-lines and means of interpretation when in reality we should be asking ourselves if we really believe that the Lord is an actual King, coming to put all nations under subjection to His Father. It’s not just an issue of how to delineate eschatology but whether we believe the implications of Psalm 2. Is Jesus really our King and will He really be so in the flesh! Knowing how we think about this aspect does so much in clearing up why we believe what we believe and what we should be looking forward to. The apostles knew no kingdom without Jesus being the head and King, in the flesh.

Is the church the kingdom of God??

What is the actual kingdom??

I took a class last fall about this very topic. In some ways it answered this question but in some ways it only served to raise more of them. Though a clear cut yes or no may be impossible to figure out pertaining to this reality, it is expedient in these last days to raise such a question to the forefront of the conscious of the church. Answering this question places us into a school of thought regarding how we see end times, the Jewish people, and the point of the ingrafted Gentiles. What is the kingdom and how do we harmonize different seemingly contradictory thoughts about it?

What are your thoughts??

Thoughts on the Condition of Man continued..

So what then is needed? What is the answer to the dilemma.

Love. The reason that love is the chief end goal and resource in the kingdom is because it is impossible for love, when it increases to turn hearts away from God. Since God is love, loves increase only betters our situation in regards to relationship with Love itself.

The sum; if our end goal and chief good is a thing, then that thing will lead us astray. But because love is a thing and also a person, then love cannot fail in reciprocating itself. And since it can do so, it will never diminish, it will only increase.

This is the wisdom of God wherewith the wisdom of man cannot summon enough strength, ingenuity, resource, or desire to compare to this beautiful reality.

Thoughts on the Condition of Man…

The common, normal assumption among humanity, at least in my experience and reasoning, is the thought that if we had more of something which we consider to be a necessity, we could do and be better than we would be without the increase of the thing we consider necessary. For example, if I knew more about God, then I would more readily love and receive Him; or if I had more money, I would use it to better the lives of the people around me.

The aforementioned examples, and many else besides, only serve to further the indictment against human nature that says such a theory could prove true apart from the Spirit of God. The point is clear in my mind that when we get more, we very rarely respond rightly with such increases. To make the point very strongly I would say, how many people do you know that get power and authority and turn around and use that same power for the betterment of orphans and widows and the like??

The reality, and a sad one to prove, is that we are so selfish in our dealings with others that no political system, religious institution, national tie, or personal disposition is strong enough to curb and correctly re-align these self-centered tendencies. I dare say that even in the church it is rare to find an elder, deacon, pastor, or lay person that is more given to the needs of the less fortunate in their midst.

Indeed, our parents; Adam and Eve walked in the garden with the very manifest presence of Yahweh and yet fell into irreconcilable differences (evil) from selfish tendency to disobey an ordinance they didn’t quite understand. The proof that we as humans can’t quite manage increase and blessing is evident on our human situation and history; one does not have to look very long and hard to see the clear differentiation between our ways and what Christ had to say when He walked the earth 2,000 years ago. What He said was so profound on this point that to this day we still don’t quite know what to do with the sermon on the mount.

Why am I saying all this?? Because there is a movement of reasoning called secular humanism that is sweeping across the earth to turn hearts more toward the doctrine of tolerance and selfish pride, aka evil that is not currently being confronted by the church who is supposed to be a beaken of light and truth to the darkness. This all paints a very dim outlook for the nation of America who has been givin more wealth than most and who have failed to steward such prominence to the betterment of impoverished nations. But we don’t need more money to help the less fortunate. We don’t need more man power or gifts or can-do attitude. As stated previously, when we get more, we tend to hoard, not give. Humanitarian aid very rarely proves beneficial for either party involved, why?? Because if it even gets to its desired location, it is wasted in a months time. It may be lucky enough to help for a month or two. But what after that?? Does it endure and bear fruit?

to be continued…