Love the Lord your God with all your mind!

I am afraid that an entire generation has forgotten to think. It is so easy these days to just flip on the tube, relax, and check out……veg out man. That’s the current context and sentiment for an entire generation plus some. Do you realize how many ads you see in a day? All of them telling you what to think, what to eat, what to wear, what to say, what to believe, what to love, what to do!!!

Do we realize how much our culture is in us, in the church! I think maybe we have failed to fulfill more than one element of the great commandment. Love must have the preeminence, strength must be given to the Lord, our hearts need to be tender and engaged, yes yes yes, all of these. But our minds, our minds need to be enthralled in thoughts of God.

I fear we have left theology to the academics. We are all called, however, to be theologians. For what is theology but thinking upon God? We were all made, fashioned, and designed to dwell upon the mysteries of the God head. We must think again, we need to give our minds to Jesus.

What does it mean to love the Lord with all our minds? Can we start by filtering what we look at, what we give our time to, and what we read?

Meditation from St. Anselm of Canterbury

Any athiest that argues against the person or being of God is attempting to deny existance of any and all good. To me, athiests are just angry and seek to perport that anger is all there is. If they hold a correct view, that there is no such thing as a God, then they necessarily believe that there is no good at all in this world or in the heavens. If they did believe in any good or any good thing then they must use reason to dedact that that good came from some good thing and one chief good thing.

St. Anselm says it this way; “We have found then, that there is something supremely good (because all good things are good through some one thing, namely that which is good through itself). But in the same way we arrive at the necessary conclusion that there is something supremely great, since whatsoever is great is great through some one thing, namely that which is great through itself…..and since only that which is supremely good can be supremely great, it is necessary that there is something that is best and greatest, i.e. of everything that exists, the supreme.” Or, God.

For someone to say that there is good that does not flow from some other good is to say that rivers flow in and out of themselves without being fed by some other water source, it’s incoherent.

This idea mentioned begs many questions to those seekers of truth but for those who reason it is sound enough for now.

No kingdom without pressing in. No kingdom without violence.

Luke 16:16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.”

Matthew 11:12 “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”

In order for true Christianity to permeate the heart  (what I mean by true Christianity is that belief in Christ as the son of God and in the devotion to living a life fully dedicated to God) there must be a violent disposition to lay hold of Christ and to follow through on the promises of His word.

The kingdom of heaven suffers violence. What does this mean? What is causing violence upon the kingdom, what is the clash? I believe it is the way of the world that is in violent opposition to the way of the kingdom. The love of money, the love of pleasures, the idols of possessions, and the unwillingness to be obedient and submissive to truth are all enemies of the cross of Jesus and the kingdom rule which that cross inaugurated.

In order for the kingdom to come we must be more violent in fighting for righteousness than we are violent to gain pleasure and ease. Violence implies resistance and where there is no resistance to the spirit of this age and love of the world then I wonder if there is any kingdom dynamic present. It takes focused energy to encounter the manifestations of the kingdom but it takes little to no effort to encounter manifestations of the spirit of this age. Violence of heart against the fleeting pleasures of sin is not enough; there must be a violence within to pursue holy lifestyles and to experience God himself, personally and tangibly.

What does it profit us to stop halfway in the journey? It would be like a man in a burning building fleeing the dangers of the burning top floor only to stop on the stairs and declare his safety and trust that the fire will not spread to the downstairs! Eventually the whole house will be ablaze. We must be vigilent in pursuing the fullness of the kingdom lest we be in danger of false safety.

Travel makes one think

I’ve recently been in Macon, Georgia doing some ministry at the house of prayer there. I was amazed to see the hunger and the desperate need for God’s presence while I was there. It was a great encouragement to my heart as an intercessor to see that God is truly raising up a people to be completely set apart for His purposes in the earth. Glory awaits those who take the kingdom by force. To suffer it violently to receive its glory, that is our call now and the greatest test for the church in this age. God be with us.

It takes discipline to receive.

To him who has, more will be given. To him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

The Lord gives extravagantly. And he asks us to do the same. The reality is that He will give more to those who can receive more, and receiving takes discipline. It’s hard to take something you don’t deserve, well, sometimes.

There is a renewal of the mind that needs to occur in order to see the Lord rightly, as He is. There is a shift in our inner man when we come to faith in Christ but that shift continues to happen throughout the process of the Spirit sanctifying us. Some of these shifts comes by free grace and the complete work of God’s mercy on our hearts but some of this transformation is completely up to us; we still have free will when we choose Christ and we still have free will when we receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost. And so, we still have free choice when it comes to sanctification. I believe this is what the apostle Paul meant when he commanded the church to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

It takes discipline to receive because our way of life and our culture is so contrary to the way of Christ and the way of His kingdom. In order to receive supernatural mindsets and paradigms, we must of necessity, discipline ourselves out of our current context of living in the world and being of the world. The Lord initiates and provokes us into this but the response must come from us. Righteous response comes from disciplined habits. The best conditioning for life in the Spirit is to walk in the Spirit, with the Spirit.

Thoughts on Music…

I wonder how closely music and the making thereof parallels the laws of the universe. It seems to me that creating, writing, and performing music imitates, more than any other medium, what God actually did in creating the heavens and the earth; the universe and the laws that sustain it. I think maybe this is why music is so spiritual and moving to us.

When God made man in His own image He put a creative drive within us similar to His. For some reason or another, whether by design or by coincidence, man has developed in the area of music far more, in my mind, than in any other arena besides in sin.

What this tells me is simply that God is an artist or more specifically a musician. Think of a world without sound. Imagine how uninteresting it might be. Think of waves and wind and trees and animals and everything creating a symphony of sound that ascends into the heavens. Music makes life special and humans more than any other creatures make music beautiful. God has given us this gift and I believe it is one of His most precious endowments to the natural order.

Who is Jesus Anyways?

I am currently looking into who Jesus actually is. I’m in a group that is exploring what the bible really says about the God-Man and as I delve deeper into the subject I’m beginning to realize that most of my thoughts about the man that I love and serve and have given my entire life to….are based more on culture and tradition or even human sentiment than the actual truth of the person.

There are things that I know Jesus is not. And this is where my thoughts start; He is not the Father’s errand boy. Jesus isn’t the guy who did the will of the Father because no one else would or because He had to make His Father proud or to avert the Father’s wrath. Though there are elements of these realities that may have aspects of truth, Jesus was and is God himself. Jesus is the image of the Father and the fullest expression of His heart. He is the co-equal, co-creating, co-nature of the Father, or as the saints of old have said, He is the only Begotten Son of the Father. He is equal and like Him in every way because He is Him in every way.

Also, Jesus is not superhuman. And my head just exploded. What does it mean to be fully God and fully man? It is difficult to say both aspects with clarity at the same time, so I’m just focusing on the “fully man” part. You want to know what this makes me think of? Poopy diapers. Really, Jesus was a baby and did all the things babies do. Which just makes me think of how much He really does delight in His creatures, that he would become one. And though poopy diapers is in no way the best description of what it means to be “fully man”, it is a thought provoker on the topic that is helpful in moving us out of stuffy traditions that may be hard for the common person to relate to. By the way, Hebrews says that He became like us in every way just so He could relate to us as we are, hence my boldness in saying that He needed to be changed as a kid.

I’ll stop here for now just because I’m getting the sense that this will be a series of posts with much meandering along the way, bunny trails in abundance as it were. Feel free to weigh in on these matters as well. One thing is for certain, we could spend years searching and mining these ideas and thoughts and I may just well do that. If there is one thing that is wise time management it is searching out who Jesus is.

I’ll leave now with this thought from saint John, the so termed “disciple whom Jesus loved”: “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose even the world itself could not contain all the books that would be written. Amen.” John 21:25

How do we spend?

There is a currency that only grows when it is given away.

Its value never decreases and it cannot run dry.

No one can serve it and another. Because this currency rules all.

It cannot be saved, exploited, laundered, faked, neglected, stolen, or compromised. His way is wealth and His wealth is love. Love can be spent like no amount of money could ever dream.

Will Jesus find faith??

The mandate of a messenger of the mysteries of God is not to explain but to proclaim. True faith regarding the person of Jesus is the object of the Fathers pleadings through the voices of apostles and prophets. Faith that is embraced through the wisdom, arguments, equations, reasonings and philosophies of men is not ultimately real and true faith. It may be a belief sure enough, about something that may or may not be attributable to God, but it stops short of actual belief in God.

When it comes to attributes or ideas about God it is good to believe whatever may be true about Him but it is another thing altogether to believe in Him, regardless of our understanding or misunderstanding the fullness of His character. Albeit, knowing His character and ways helps us to know Him but it does not necessarily cause us to believe in Him. Belief has an element of love, real and evidential love. We may believe He is full of mercy but we must go on to the understanding and the belief that He in and of Himself, is mercy. There is an element of blind faith here that must be settled.

Even Jesus said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” Seeing is not necessarily believing. At the end of the day we may have all the facts about God himself but love compels us to agree with and love those facts for in doing so we love God Himself, thereby exemplifying the nature and fullness of true faith. We do not see in order to beleive but we believe in order to see. In other words, we love so that we may be loved. Love can only be freely given when that love is unhindered by what ifs! Faith, similarly, can only be fully expressed when it is ok with the what ifs! The portion of believers is to embrace God’s person regardless of our understanding or thoughts about God’s ways. Once we embrace His person then all paradigms come slowly into perspective and align themselves appropriately. This is, after all, the inside, upside down kingdom.

The dilemma and the remedy…

There is trouble stirring in the middle east. The trouble is the rage of the nations towards the Lord and towards the Jewish people. Psalm 83:2-4 says, “Behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

The present situation with political leaders in Islamic nations is almost the exact same as these verses. I wonder if these leaders know they are practically quoting these scriptures to their own condemnation.

But the Lord has a remedy and a solution for the rage of the nations. It’s gentiles. The prophet Isaiah saw it yet to come and prophesied this realtiy of gentile intercession for the nation of Israel; “I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” (Isaiah 62:6-7)

There is a prayer movement sweeping the earth right now. Small town churches, inner city congregations, messianic Jewish communities and global ministries are taking up the call of intercession for Jerusalem because of the zeal of the Lord of Hosts for Israel’s destiny to function as a light to the nations and a diffuser of the knowledge of the glory of God. As a church, it is our destiny and function to provoke Israel into their destiny by praying and fasting on their behalf. We are to lay down our lives in prayer for this nation to move into its prophetic destiny and the fullness thereof. Start praying church.