Religion Part 2

Read part 1 here!

Religion is an insidious and diabolical attempt to establish an identity independently from the creator himself. There never has been nor will there ever be anything within the spawn of religion that remotely has anything to do with being the “church” which IS His body.
I grow weary of the erroneous notion of those re-birthed by God the Father emphatically saying or implying they have left the “church”, what they have left is an entity fostered out of the sick madness of one known as Satan who inspired the first man to embrace, to taste his doctrine of, “you shall be as gods” (you shall not surely die.

On the other hand I love where in scripture it says, “that he Jesus by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
Simply having exited the bondage of a religious establishment is not synonymous with now being free, anymore than the Jews led out of Egypt into the wilderness sadly discovered that the ingrained matrix of religion, that which had polluted there former captors was very much a fixed identity within their hearts.

The tiniest iota of law commingled with grace becomes the food rooted in the doctrines and teaching of demons. A little leaven will totally corrupt just as a mixture of half truths is in reality a recipe for disaster.
Men seem to love religion and its many expressions; it is no different today than it was in the very beginning of the church, here is but one example where Paul is imploring the believers to take heed to what is going on right under their nose.
“For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that!"

Also here where Paul is speaking to the church, “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.”

The harnesses that men have in mind for the believer who has vacated the premises of any religious establishment have no idea of how many other entrapment's yet await him, not so much from without, but from within!

Rich

In Awe Of Him

For those wondering where Rich is, well I'm still here. It's not that I have nothing to write about or share, quite the opposite, I have way too much to write about. I'm simply in awe of my loving heavenly Father and how he continues to burst through the veil of the seen and continues to open the eyes of my heart to gaze upon the unseen which is so much more real than that which is here today but then gone.

Something has undeniably happened and continues to be happening deep within my heart, as I recently turned the corner and discovered I was now 60.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Rich

Eye Witnesses

“For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

It also says regarding our brothers in Christ from the beginning, “That which we have seen, heard and handled, we have made known unto you.”

The thing is, if our relationship with Christ is tied only through the umbilical cord of what others have seen and heard, where does that leave us?
Is our faith really something that is alive because the author and developer of it is making me/us today, eye-witnesses?
It says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, in a court of law; the only valid and permissible persons allowed to testify are those who are ‘eye-witnesses.’
I’m often reminded of an exorcism that certain Jews were trying to perform on someone, as they got into it the demon in the person said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who the hell are you?”

So much stuff so many are trying to do apart from it being what He alone wants to produce within us as us, and that comes right back to making us eye-witnesses .
At different times and places the scriptures say, “Without a vision (of His redemptive purposes in the earth) we perish, or for a lack of knowledge, a similar fate is very real”.

It was the heart cry of the Father made alive in and through our brother Paul who constantly held up his siblings before the Father, that He would give them (us) a spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the eyes of our heart to see and know the truth of whose we are, and to experientially know what it means to be fully alive because of the life of another in us as us!

If Jesus lived out of, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word the Father speaks” then how much more so for the many sons alive today?

Rich

Trials and Tribulations

I trust you are enjoying and hopefully having Father by his spirit opening the eyes of your heart even more to see and know whose you are.
I often wonder if it is a fear-pride thing when it comes to seeing the much more there is in continuing to keep growing in the grace and true knowledge of whose we are.
Meaning, I hear so many adamantly quoting Paul where he says we are complete in Christ, and I totally agree, but, just maybe that completeness is much like what God said regarding Adam, where he said over his handiwork, this "is very good."

It was very good indeed, but not yet completed by a long shot, and please hear me what I'm talking about is NOT something that we do, but has everything to do with Grace continuing to save us!

Rich

This second kind of knowledge is gained from the Spirit through the experience of our daily walk as our heart is… made to turn to the Lord. This knowledge comes to us by the indwelling Spirit as our teacher, who speaks within us as we endure the situations of life.

Every believer has received the “Anointing” of “HIM.” This “Anointing” is known to us by the sense that is of “the Spirit of CHRIST…IN YOU”; teaching us.

1 John 2:27 But as for you, THE ANOINTING (THE UNCTION) which you RECEIVED FROM HIM abides [permanently] IN YOU; [so] then you have no need that anyone should instruct you. But just as HIS ANOINTING TEACHES YOU concerning everything and is true and is no falsehood, so you must ABIDE IN (LIVE IN, NEVER DEPART FROM) HIM [being rooted in Him, knit to Him], just as [His anointing] has taught you [to do].

This second kind of knowledge is neither the innate sense knowledge, nor a mere mental ascent to a truth of Scripture as may be gained by memorization or Bible study and then recorded in the mind. Learned knowledge gained by mental effort would be the Greek word “gnosis,” mere head knowledge.
This second kind of knowledge I speak of here arises out of our personal experience, so we call this “experiential knowing.” This is the kind of knowledge that we gain by an intimate moment with the Lord. It comes out of the intimacy of that moment when we come to know or perceive by His indwelling Spirit.

We know that when the Bible says “Adam knew Eve” (Gen 4:1) it obviously was an intimate moment, which was fruitful and actually produced children. The word “knew” here is the Hebrew “yada,” as the Hebrew equivalent of the New Testament Greek “ginosko,” which speaks of “coming to see or perceive” as an “experiential knowing.” When the word “know” is transliterated from the Greek “ginosko,” it is speaking of this kind of intimate personal experiential knowing. For the believer, this then speaks of a personal revelation of Christ or of our relationship and walk with Him.

We gain this kind of knowledge by revelation from “the Spirit of God” within us. Quite often this is a perception or even as an inner voice that comes to us from Him in our spirit in conjunction with the experience of recognized failure and/or need. It often comes to us on the heels of suffering a situation we cannot fix or control. What we experience for ourselves, personally, is what is most real to us, and this is forever life-changing.

1Cor 2:12 says we have “received… the spirit of God (so) that we might know (ginosko, we might come to know by experience) the things that are freely given to us of God.”

Example: We can only come to know His “grace” that is “freely given to us” by an experience where God brought it to be revealed in us. We always were saved by grace through faith…apart from works, but now…we know it by experiential revelation that is only of “the spirit of God.” This new revelation likely came to light through the instrumentality of us having labored and suffered under “the law” of religion for many years before we came to really see “the grace of God” as it really is. This is that second knowledge, “revelation knowledge” that we come to by the experience of our living and suffering the experiences of life.

Tribulation and trials are the tools our Father uses in our lives for our good. We often gain revelation knowledge by the experience of life’s situations. Would you like to become more patient? Then consider this verse. Romans 5:3-4 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: KNOWING THAT TRIBULATION WORKETH PATIENCE 4 And patience, EXPERIENCE; and experience, hope:

The other side of our suffering brings the fruit of His life – a knowledge that permits us to endure, knowing that we will thereby gain the attributes of Christ in our soul. We cannot produce such knowledge, or patience, or experience in and of our self. This is the work of God in our lives, as He orchestrates all the happenings of life…for our eternal good (Rom 8:28). God develops the “fruit of the Spirit” of Christ’s life in us … by allowing us to experience trials, circumstances and situations in which we are tempted to express the exact opposite quality as we would express if we were to live by the indwelling “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

Two Kinds of Knowledge

I simply love what I hear Father saying through what my brother and friend Art continues to share here.

Rich

Another blessing of enduring suffering is that it brings us to genuine knowledge of and greater intimacy with the Lord. I want to address two important kinds of knowledge that operate in every believer’s life whether they recognize it or not.

The verse below indicates the first primary kind of “knowledge” that operates within the believer’s life. This knowledge is dependent upon the literal presence of “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who indwells every believer’s spirit from the moment of their rebirth. This first kind and level of knowledge is automatic and spontaneous, it’s always there as the sense of inner peace or the inner sense of Spirit that indicates something is wrong or we are about to go wrong.

The first kind of knowledge is seen here below.

1 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth (eido, innately by an intuitive sense) the things of a man, save (except) the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth (eido) no man, but the Spirit of God.

We see the word “knoweth,” transliterated from the Greek word “eido,” meaning an innate inborn kind of knowledge that operates spontaneously by the indwelling “Spirit of Christ” as God. Every believer has the spontaneous operation of “the Spirit of God” who indwells the “spirit of man” from the moment they are reborn.

“Eido” speaks of a “sense knowing” that every believer has by the “anointing” or deposit of “the Spirit of Christ.” (Rom 8:9-10). It is a “sense knowledge” that was added to our five physical senses. We sense the peace of God or that peace is disturbed.

It is a sense we have by the indwelling “Spirit of Christ” that “you all know [the Truth] or you know all things.” (1John 2:20 below). John speaks of this kind of innate knowledge when he here writes to the diaspora (scattered) of Israel .

1 John 2:20 But YOU HAVE BEEN ANOINTED BY [you hold a sacred appointment from, you have been given an unction from] THE HOLY ONE (CHRIST), and YOU ALL KNOW [THE TRUTH] OR YOU KNOW ALL THINGS.

Rom 8:16 is an example of such innate knowledge for the believer. We have the innate sense that we are God’s child and He is our Father, made known to us by the innermost witness of Christ’s Spirit within our spirit. Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself (Himself) beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now WE HAVE RECEIVED, not the spirit of the world, but THE SPIRIT which is of God; (so) THAT WE MIGHT KNOW (ginosko, come to know by experience) the things that are freely given to us of God.
In 1Cor 12:12, above, we see the second kind of knowledge. Paul says “we have received…the spirit which is of God (so) that we might (come to) know.” The word “know” here is the Greek word “ginosko,” which is a kind of knowledge that we come to or arrive at though experience.

Even while having “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a) within us as our innate sense knowledge, we still begin our Christian life with a “knowledge gap.” This gap exists because, though we have that innate knowledge by Christ’s Spirit of life as the anointing within us, we’ve not yet “come to know” who we are by Christ in us as the new us. We’ve never yet realized all that Christ is to us by His Spirit dispensed into our spirit…as our new all-sufficient life.

Stalking His Prey

There is something that is becoming wonderfully clear to me; it is that our Loving heavenly Father has been stalking each and every person on this planet.
Go with me if you will and soak in this visual illustration I want to share. The picture I have used here is that of a wolf, stalking his prey, every muscle is rippling with compressed strain and tension, just waiting for that exact second when he is catapulted like a bullet from a high powered rifle onto his un-expecting victim.
In the case of the wolf it is to kill and devour its prey, to snuff out its life, not befriend it.

What would our world look like if suddenly out of nowhere this stalking loving God and Father were to burst in upon your consciousness not to destroy us, but to destroy that which keeps us prisoners to fear and the lies we live with moment by moment, year after year completely clouding our hearts?

That is more and more the longing of my heart, to see, to be made so much more aware of the reality of every moment I take my next breath, He is there in it!
It is from this place of knowing whose I am that I trust Father to keep opening the eyes of my heart to increasingly bring before me what and for whom to pray, I at best see only the surface at any time, but he, the lover of our soul says, “Son, the secret things belong to me, and to those I choose to make them known.”

This morning was such a morning, bringing names and faces I know before our Father, but in the process I was abruptly stopped, Father, please show me more than just names and faces, show me your heart for these beloved of you. The more I presented so many before Him, my heart began to break from the weight of Glory I became aware of flowing into these precious and deeply loved ones!

Rich

Too Many Snapshots

I could see her from behind doing the dishes but what was it about that scene that froze me in my tracks? I felt a longing to rush up to her and cling to her and yet somehow I felt that I had done something wrong, was I to blame?

It suddenly dawned upon me that I was a little boy and resting upon my right shoulder was a warm firm hand lovingly squeezing me in light of my speeded up heart beat and a stiffness that seem to come over me.
I turned and somehow I recognized this man, yes, it was Jesus, and with his concerned but smiling face, he said, Son, it’s okay, your not to blame for this, it’s not your fault! Let me take this out of your heart and mind, never to hurt you again.

This was but one of God knows how many Kodak moments, snapshots taken inside my little child world, and as a grown up I have come to realize that children are great observers but very poor at interpreting what they have observed.
In a blur which seemed slow compared to how rapidly I was being communicated to by Jesus about what I was seeing, I was being set free from something that had deeply entrenched, burrowed itself like a living parasite deep within my soul.
He was saying to me, that my mother, the person I was standing behind was deeply wounded and infected with what had infected every person ever born, she and her world like mine had been misshaped by the same lies she to was born with and into.
There was some inner turmoil eating away at the little of any identity she had left, and somehow it was that which I perceived as being my fault that she was very upset, mad and hurt because of me, it must have been my fault!

All of what I have shared here was what happened today, this afternoon shortly after laying down to get some rest, as I have been home since Friday of last week with a vicious cold. Father was bringing to the surface unresolved issues, conflicts that were still causing fearfully learned sin responses (habit patterns) to things in my world I am living in as a soon to be 60 year old man, wow.

I so love this God who I see ever more clearly as my loving Father, who’s delight is in making us free, as it says, “Whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.

Rich