Alabaster House; Fire on Hands

Alabaster House, Bethel Church's Prayer House, Always Open

Bethel Church in Redding, CA calls their prayer house Alabaster House, referring to the alabaster vial of perfume poured out over Jesus' head in (I'm fairly sure the following is the particular Scripture to which they refer; someone please let me know if I'm misremembering; that little monument is one of the things I forgot to photograph) Mark 14:3-6 (here in NAS):

3 While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,
and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an
alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she
broke the vial and poured it over His head.

4 But some were indignantly remarking to one another,
"Why has this perfume been wasted?

5 For this perfume might have been sold for over three
hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And
they were scolding her.

6 But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you bother her?
She has done a good deed to Me."

In the same way, when we bring our gifts of worship, prayer, and service to Him, we encourage each other to pour out our most precious gifts unto Him, and if someone wants to call that "waste," then great, let's "waste" the heck out of the best of all we have in offering it to Him!

Knowing that Bethel had a prayer house that was always open was a key factor in my deciding to actually head all the way out to California and go there. Pastor Bill Johnson, I think, once jokingly referred to Bethel as becoming like a "Denny's®: Always Open" when they first started leaving the prayer house open 24 hours. (However, as Alabaster House is overseen by Pastor Beni Johnson, I rather like thinking of it as "Beni's: Always Open" instead.) There is 24-hour video surveillance over every square centimeter as well, so don't even think about heading over there with any ill intent.

Sure enough, the morning after we flew in and got to Redding, I dragged my poor, unsuspecting spouse out of bed at 5:00 and through the chilly, pre-dawn darkness so I could come and pray. What was most surprising is that there were already several people there! There is praise and worship music playing inside at all times, though the volume varied so there must be a control for it somewhere. I kinda wish there were designated "quiet times" of day or week, when one could go and pray and just listen to the waterfall (yes, there's a smaller one inside the building as well as the big ones, with the pond, outside).

There's also been mention of putting a vending machine in there where one could buy little communion packets with a piece of bread and a tiny cup of juice; my opinion is that if there were a place to just take one (or purchase with a nominal sum) and an offering box next to it, they'd probably make more money that way and it wouldn't rob the largely-impecunious student/youth population of the experience. Idea: a vending machine that will take a student's (or any church member's?) ID card swipe as a form of payment, with a limitation of maybe 23 hours between uses (an hour's grace for those who come every day at nearly the same time). Complications abound and, at any rate, I digress.

Were it not for the general imperative that my spouse and I not be separated outside our home city (very long story), I would have basically lived at that prayer house all my waking hours while we were there. Even as things were, I got in several blessed sessions of decent length.

Every time I could relax enough to listen for Him (all except once), He was there, and I was in a place (not just physically) to receive Him. Things started to be revealed to me.

For a while, I'd heard people talking about The Anointing coming upon them in physical ways and, though I did (and still do) have my own peculiar physical manifestations (Maybe I'm a "Lefty"), there seemed always to be a theme among others of a fire-like sensation in the hands that I'd not experienced at all, and I had been both puzzled and dismayed.

Well, it came.

It didn't feel like a painful kind of burning, nor did it feel like sizzling per se, but it was more than just tingling or the feeling of a pulse. When I jotted down an exceedingly brief note of what had happened just after the fact, I wrote, "fire on hands" (not "hands on fire"). There was a sensation of tongues of flame licking but without the actual burning or hurting that one would normally expect to accompany it. It was a fairly strong sensation and felt quite unusual. When it faded away, it went out of my right hand before my left, and the last places it lingered were the left thumb and first two fingers, all the way up at the tips.

Now, what actually came of it? Nothing thus far. I've only tried using it three times, though, so it almost doesn't even count. Actually, I'm really glad it hasn't begun yet because I don't yet know how to carry it, especially now that I'm back in an environment where I'm not surrounded by a "Kingdom culture," full of resources and support. I just got a small taste when I was there.

I got a small taste of a great many glorious things during this trip. More to come.


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So Much News to Give

We had our first trip to Bethel Church this past weekend. Three wonderful days of church (real church!), prayer, and fasting (for me, at least).

I have much to post including pics, miracles worked in me, and many other experiences & thoughts thereon.

Without faith, it would be difficult to believe all that happened for us there. But, having traveled through Buddhism, agnosticism, atheism, and a couple more different mindsets to new life in Jesus, perhaps I'm in a decent situation to try and convey these things for believers and nonbelievers alike.

Also, much love to two new friends, C. G. and M. R.

_______

Sneak Peek
He gave me a word:

Let there be respect for measures of time, but let time only be given measure.

All things important are given without measure: Holy Spirit without measure, mercy without measure, love without measure. Measures of distance across the planet have been largely overcome with high-speed transport and the internet. Our big limitation in being put here on the earth is our being confined to time as it exists for us. That's the only real obstacle with which we have to contend in bringing His heavenly will to our hungry, desperate, longing world.

Measures of space, however, do provide beautiful analogies through which I'll someday soon be able to explain ways of thinking mathematically that will point the way to God, and then to right relationship with Him, especially for the math-minded.

The equations already started coalescing this past weekend at Bethel. So close I can almost taste them.

Praise and glory to the Lord!

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Bethel Church, Trip 1

First Trip to Bethel Church in Redding, CA
March 2009

For the sake of organization in future months, let this serve as an index for posts about this visit.

Posts will be listed in the order in which they're posted (oldest first). New stuff will be added to the end of the list so that once I've written the full scope of what I can, there will be a full index here. Hazzah.


So Much News to Give

Alabaster House; Fire on Hands

Devilweeding

Into Love

Glimpse




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Kingdom Rice Krispies

I have this plan in mind, and for the past couple of days I've been doubting that I'm on the right track, that this is really what He wants me to do. For me it's a pretty radical idea, but they say obedience is supposed to be that way. Still, some pesky little doubtlettes (small doubts) were lingering in my head.

So this afternoon, I'm waiting on my spouse to go out, and my eyes gently roll across the stuff on the kitchen counter: peanut butter, bread, microwave popcorn, and then to the side of a blue cereal box: the print's so small it looks fuzzy and, even though I do recognize the box, my mind parses the text on it as:

Kingdom Rice Krispies

Of course, it really said Kellogg's (I didnt really have a heavenly cereal box in my kitchen), but I started smiling and all the doubt just melted away. It's potentially a beginning stage of a kingdom mindset, as it were, and my confidence is bolstered in what we're about to undertake.

Thank you, Lord, for bringing each of us that much closer to our destiny in You. Even if it's weird. Even if it's radical. And especially if it takes our lives in directions we never could have imagined.


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It's Always in the Last Place You Look

When you're searching for something, it's always in the last place you look.

Not that it's in the last place you would look, but that it's in the last place you do look, because after you find the object you usually stop looking.

The kingdom of God isn't like that, though. Seeking it out is a lifelong process -- I mean, there's more there than we could possibly learn in the natural course of time itself -- so in times of success, when you've reached for the kingdom and have found it and connected with it, and with Him, just keep reminding yourself:

Don't stop seeking; for the kingdom of God is not your car keys.

The thing about the kingdom is that if you seek it out, find it, and feel that point is an endpoint, then you've not found the real thing. Seeing, approaching, touching, and even walking in the kingdom of God should always make you hungry for more.

Just as in good science -- where the questions raised by each significant discovery will far outnumber the original questions that led to the discovery itself -- the more you see in the kingdom of God, the more you'll see there is to hunger for, and thus your hunger multiplies in being fed.

And with this increased hunger comes the potential for so many more ways of having that hunger satisfied. Remember Luke 12:32 (ESV),

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom.

Take a minute to digest that one. When you seek the kingdom and find it, you. give God. pleasure. Think about how huge that is. So many times when I'm thinking or praying I think if only I could know without a doubt that, through all my efforts, I'd pleased Him for just one moment, that would be food for my soul for the rest of my life; that's all I would ever need.

Knowing that would be ammunition enough to blow away the evil ones that still try to come and dwell with me and convince me to destroy myself. It would sustain me through the "dry spells," the seasons in which I might not be able to get as close to Him as I'd like.

It would be an existence proof! In logic, an existence proof means that once you prove that something can be done, you then have to consider it as a possibility (a possible reason, a possible cause, a possible diagnosis, a possible explanation, or just possible to do) in everything you do from then on. If you can observe an instance of a thing, then you've proven that something in that category of things can exist, because it existed at least once: even the category itself does exist, even if it just contains that one instance, but it opens up the realm of possibility that other things might also exist in that category.

If I had an existence proof that I'd pleased God once, then two things happen: first, I can celebrate that one occurrence because it existed and secondly, knowing that it's possible provides encouragement for me to try to repeat the experience and please Him many times.

So seek, find, rejoice, take courage, repeat.
Amen!


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Favorite Biblical Verse

Perhaps my very favorite Biblical verse of all time is John 16:33 (here in ESV):


I have said these things to you, that in me you may
have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world.


Does anyone else see Him smiling while saying that last sentence?


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Pillow Talk

If Jesus is the lover of our souls, does that make prayer analogous to pillow talk? Only of the most intimate and sanctified variety, but yeah, why not!

Anyway, here are some prayers I've been saying lately, that I want to share. I know I've borrowed parts from everywhere in my experience, from readings to teachings to songs and hymns, so I claim no "ownership" of, or originality in, any of these words. For example, the last phrase is stolen shamelessly from prayers in church I remember from childhood. In fact, I feel closest to God when I find myself thinking of nothing as my own, so here; I hope you enjoy my abject and despicable thievery:


Heavenly Father,

Let Your breath be my life;

Let Your light be my joy;

Let Your love be my strength;

Let Your word be my bread;

Let Your call be my walk and my way;

Let Your will be the desire of my heart also.


Father, please help me grow and sustain perfect trust and faith in You;
Lord Jesus, please help me to follow You ever more closely in my daily life;
Holy Spirit, please come to dwell with me, that I might be transformed through Your manifest presence;


Heavenly Father, you know what we need even before we ask it of you;
Please grant unto us everything we need, even (and especially!) if that includes things we might not expect nor even have in mind;


Please help us to become strong vessels, laid upon the sound foundation of Your word, that we might have the integrity to hold together as we are filled to overflowing with Your grace;


Please help us to know Your voice and to see the movement of Your hand in the world, to the end that we might faithfully sow the seeds of Your heavenly kingdom here on the earth;


Heavenly Father, all this we ask in Jesus' name -- to whom with You and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, world without end.
Amen.


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Treasure Revealed

Had a breakthrough on the forgiveness thing (original post). Many aspects of life suddenly have become amazingly easier. I'm also finding shorter pathways to kicking out demons when they try to come.

The person I forgave was an important influence in my childhood so with this new-found forgiveness has come this HUGE treasure chest overflowing with old memories that can now come back to me in a non-destructive form. I'd thought no good memories could ever come of my thinking back on that relationship, but now they're coming in droves! Songs and the words of some prayers and hymns start coming to my mind just about as soon as I start praying -- things I'd forgotten or suppressed for years. The memories emerge with this glow of love about them because the forgiveness I found for this person grew out of a new love for them through the Lord.

It's as though I'd been blinded to the good parts of experiences in that relationship before I could forgive the person, but now I see them -- they were there all along, of course, just my capacity to enjoy (or even perceive!) them had been squelched by the venomous evil with which that relationship was tainted. But there were good parts, and my mind is starting to shut down old pathways and start digging new troughs through which my thoughts can flow.

Heretofore, I'd only been able to remember the bad parts of the relationship and I know that, in order for my thought processes to change, there had to be something to replace the old pathways: a shunt to a new way of thinking. The catch with trying to change your thinking in this way is that the new thought absolutely must be more appealing to think of than the old one; no matter how hard I've tried, I've never been able to push thoughts down another path from behind but always have had to coax them out gently and lead them with a treat, as if holding a carrot in front of a tortoise on which I'm riding (or just holding a big piece of cake in front of myself; perhaps that's the better analogy).

Then good ol' GABA goes to work. Sy Rogers acutally impressed the heck out of me during a talk he gave by starting on about thought patterns and using the full name of this neurochemical: gamma-aminobutyric acid. If I recall correctly, it's GABA in the brain that suppresses the firing of neural pathways (I think glutamine is the corresponding antagonist molecule that stimulates neurotransmission, but I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment). So I would contend that not only do you need to shut down the old pathways but actively seek out new pathways down which the thoughts can flow and to make these the paths of least resistance (or greatest reward) to think about, so props to glutamine as well.

At any rate, just recall Luke 1:37 (ESV):

37 For nothing will be impossible with God.

That word nothing, traced to a Greek word, I believe, has to do with the freshly-spoken word. I'm still trying to tune in to God's freshly spoken words, but I think I'm making some headway there.

Praise God -- from whom all blessings flow!


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Instructions

Another dream just now while napping just after some prayer time; so much happened there's no way I'm going to even remember it all much less get it down. However, I can certainly say that there were some pretty clear instructions there. And it happens that I woke up at about 6:58 PM and was facing the clock when it turned 7:00 PM.

Does anyone else get a little scared when it seems that, with increasing clarity and certainty, He's sending you messages?


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Timing

I just awoke from a dream wherein my dream-self was visited by an angelic presence, and it had a lot to do with timing. I'll attempt to describe it a bit.

A tangle of vehicles, from motorcycles to RVs, some moving and some stationary, a TV in nearly every room of every residence, houses without outer walls such that there were no completely enclosed rooms, and motion, constant motion back and forth among these dwelling places. I was darting around, always glancing at a TV to see what was going on in this community and who needed my help. It was as though I were some sort of spirit of comfort.

People were going through things like relocations, divorces, family issues where children were coming back home, broken limbs, auto accidents, and travel to faraway places. I was somehow zooming around among them, checking TVs as I went; the TVs were changing channels every few seconds and when I looked up at one, I got an eyeful of whatever (or more specifically, whoever) was the object of the current channel. I never had time to stop for more than a few seconds to watch the TVs though, because I'd see some urgent need arising and would need to go to the people I saw who were in need.

They were always glad to see me and they kept asking me questions I coudn't answer; all I could do was go to where the calls were strongest and try to do my best with the situation.

Will my arm stop hurting in this cast; will I get better?
When will my son come home to visit me?
Why do you think such-and-so thing happened in this situation; can you explain it for me?
How long should I keep dancing?
Can I be joyful and celebrate now, or is something bad about to happen?
Is my expected party on their way?
Will I make it as far as I need to go?

but sometimes it was just a cry out for comfort, like:

I'm alone and in a strange place; would you come to me?
I'm feeling sad and need your support; would you come to me?
It seems like the dark times will never pass; would you come to me?

Oddly, it was as though I were still in some period of training; I was still learning how to react to these questions and situations as I visited people, and some visits were more awkward than others. I recall things got a little smoother by the end of the dream as my experience built up.

But at exactly 7:00 PM in the dream (a constant urgency that I had to keep checking my watch as I went around to different people and places), I had to be in a particular broken-down, red truck with a crack extending halfway across the windshield, in the front seat. I felt maybe 80% sure that's what the message was, but I knew that if I got there on time and something happened then and there, it would be something really big. It was one of those thoughts that just comes out of nowhere in my head but comes with great weight and certainty. I just had this faith about it.

I made it to the truck in time (but not too early); I could finally rest a little and take a breather, and my eyes lazily followed the crack in the windshield and I just sat there quietly examining and comtemplating it for a moment, but I didn't have to wait long before the angel came. I either don't remember or never could discern the angel's gender, but it was clothed in radiant white and it was very glad. My spirits absolutely soared, I felt restored and no longer weary, and I burst out into smile and even into joyous laughter as the angel and I communed.

I was as glad to be with this angel as people were glad that I had come to visit them.

Then I woke up.


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Happy Pi 2009!

It's 3.14.2009.


Happy !





Joy of Pi Website

Send an e-greeting card for Pi Day

Stare at a big Pi and listen to a Pi-themed song


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Why Physics?

I've not been terribly prolific lately because I've been spending most spare time reading. Let me share a very resonant part of the book I'm reading; but first, the context.

I've often been asked, "Why Physics?" and I've given many different answers.

1) I love it, I love it, I love it: as soon as I found out what experimental science was, I couldn't keep my hands, or my mind, off it.

2) The people I ran across in math and hard sciences tended to be those whose company I most enjoyed and after whom I most wanted to take as a young person.

3) Physics and math are things I was brought up being told I could not do.

4) I got tired of language, literature, and philosophical fields because every time I'd write my own paper on a subject, I'd see the same thing had already been expressed. Everything had been thought before, written before, and done before.

Reading in the humanities was always disheartening because I kept making connections in my head, arriving at new ideas, and then seeing that same idea expressed on the next page; frustration ensued. When you're reading a physics publication and start forming new ideas in your head and then find out the equation you just arrived at is indeed located on the next page, waves of joy ensue instead.

Also, the people I ran into in the humanities tended to be haughty and exclusive and liked nothing better than to say things like, "oh you haven't read that, you just have no idea, and now you're excluded from this conversation; ha ha." So many treated their professions as an outlet for what I like to call "intellectual masturbation," and many more just loved to hear themselves talk above all else.

5) A physics teacher once gave me a college recommendation letter stating that, in his opinion, I would make for a "perfectly adequate" physics major. If you know anything about wiriting a college letter of recommendation for a student, you know that anything short of high praise is considered fairly abysmal damnation. Come on now, I just had to prove that guy wrong (always tempted to think, "God, bless that fellow... with a brick")!

Those are most of the ways in which I've answered that question.

DISCLAIMER: Now all the negative stuff I've said about people in the humanities most certainly CAN, and just as often does, apply to people in the sciences. I'm just saying that when I was young, at the time at which I was making decisions as to which field of study to pursue, and in the particular environments to which I was exposed at the time, these were my general impressions. Oh boy do I have stories to tell about Math Snobs and the "intellectual masturbation" of some scientists who believe the world revolves around them -- but I digress.

Regardless of whom I ran into, ultimately, the joy of science itself always lit my path of study.
_______

But the whole point of this entire bloody post is that I've finally found the perfect answer to the question, "Why Physics?"

The natural realm is the anchor of unbelief. But that realm is not to be considered as evil. Rather the humble of heart recognize the hand of God through what is seen. God has created all things to speak of Him -- whether it is rivers and trees, or angels and heaven. The natural realm carries the witness of His greatness...for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
-- Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc, 2003. Chapter 4.

In becoming a physicist I trained my eyes to see and my ears to hear God through the natural realm.

Actually, I've given that as a reason before as well, just not nearly as eloquently as Johnson does; I'd blurt out, "I do physics because I'm listening to God talking," or something to that effect, which would most often cause my interlocutor to look at me askance and slowly start backing away, so it's not an answer I've made a habit of giving. But again, perhaps I've just not been hanging around with the ideal crowd.

Now, to continue into the supernatural realm. Yes, I know I've certainly taken my time getting around to reading this book: back to it!


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Not My Week

<-- What's this rectangle doing here? (lol) Anyway...

Ended up not being my week for churchgoing again, to my dismay. Dismay turned to frustration, which turned into anger and, my emotional stamina having been run over by these like a freight train, lethargy took the place of what was supposed to jump up and fight those temptations. (Nothing as troubling as Backslidden, though.)

Woke up with a new song in my head, though; it sounded of the genre of praise and worship music I've been listening to of late (but of course I added in an interlude of heavier metal guitar in there for a solo). I'm musically illiterate but, fortunately, can play by ear and sing whatever I'm thinking. I can lay down a couple of tracks and a few bars to jog the memory but then, if I can get lucky and flesh them out and mix before I get to the point of exhaustion, I'll try to find a site that hosts random peoples' music for linking to blogs and put this up there. (Suggestions?)

Tuesday. Pivotal day for quite a few people, it seems.
They say it comes after Monday.
We shall see.



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To Forgive

Generally speaking, forgiveness is easy, for a lot of reasons:

1. God's love is an infinite source and is given without measure when we draw upon it.

2. If a person has done evil to me and comes to me for forgiveness, their current state of repentance (changing the way they think and act) means more to me than whatever happened in the past. God put us in a world with a monotonic dimension of time for a reason. I believe part of that reason to be that, as our conscious minds live on the cusp of time as it happens (at the crest of the wave), God is making a point that the present time has vastly more importance than the past (recalled) or the future (imagined). If someone is asking me for forgiveness, their present state has a far greater "weight" than any past state in which they have done evil, and so forgiveness is easy.

3. The very fact of someone's admitting they made a mistake is usually cause enough for me to forgive the person before they ask. One of my strongest attributes, to which I've paid a great deal of attention developing over the years, has been the culturing of a compassionate heart. Compassion goes a long way in our life here on this earth, to say the very least.

4. Close to compassion is empathy, the ability to put oneself in the other person's place and feel as that person feels. When you've walked enough miles in your own shoes, you start to find more situations in which you recognize -- if not a person's actual situation, at least the flavor and power of -- that person's emotional state. Sometimes, being able to switch perspective, to understand (in your own way) why someone might have acted as they did, helps make forgiveness easy.

5. I try with all my heart to follow, and thus come closer to understanding, Jesus' commandment to love my enemies as well as my friends and to consider every human being a child of God.


And yet my heart remains hardened toward just one person, the single person in my life I have never forgiven and, in my current state, cannot forgive. If I go through the list above with regard to this one person, here's what comes out.

1. God's love is limitless, but God's love through me simply does not extend to this person. My limitations do not allow it to reach far enough.

2. and 3. As probably doesn't need to be stated, this person did me high-amplitude damage, but this person never admitted wrongdoing nor came to me and asked for forgiveness in earnest, but only with absolutely transparently false tears, all as a tactic of manipulation.

4. I have tried repeatedly and yet have not been able to put myself in this person's place. I simply cannot understand how someone could act as they did; I surely cannot imagine myself doing as they did.

5. There is no love in me for this person. I can admit, on an intellectual level, that they are a child of God, but still my heart is stone cold.

Last, as this person is dead, there is no hope of interactive, human reconciliation. I don't foresee any hope of reconciliation without divine intervention of some sort, for which I actually do hold a pilot-light-sized hope in a faraway corner of myself.


My spouse believes that I do not need to forgive this person. My last therapist was an atheist and did not help at all because he simply could not fathom, in the end, the depth of my need to forgive because it's a manifestation of my hunger to draw closer towards God.

I know that I do need to find forgiveness for this person because the lack of it, I feel, is actively keeping me from drawing closer to the Father. I can walk (or stumble, as the case may be) in some semblance of alignment with Him, as a compass aligns to the magnetic orientation of the earth (ever slowly, and often not quite rightly due to the influence of other, nearer fields), but my distance from Him cannot close any further until I can forgive. It's as though I have to stay a certain radius from the source of the Light, no matter the direction in which I try to travel to "get around" and get closer.

I feel that I could be ready for the next step in my calling should I be able to resolve this issue. Sometimes it feels as though the only thing keeping me limited to my level is my inability to resolve it.

Feeling His light and warmth, drawing as nearly as I can and reaching out as far as possible, I hear His voice saying to me -- with this brilliant, ever-enduring, all-pervasive and depthless love, almost as quietly as to be a whisper, just barely voiced:

No.

Not until I'm able to forgive.

It feels as though I could run up even into Jesus' arms if just this barrier were removed. How I could walk in the spirit! How I could be this force of God's love in this world! Almost. Almost. So very close it hurts, it aches desperately, it makes me cry; it feels like it's killing me.


Now into the early morning of Saturday: just as you can sense another person's eyes on you even not knowing exactly where they are, I feel the Creeping Sunday begin to draw near.

Will this be my week?


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Sin Getting You Down?

This is a lot of scripture to dump on you at once, so if you want to get to what I've got to say about it, feel free to jump down below and then scroll up here for reference as to where I'm getting some of these thoughts. Also look at Kris Vallotton's last sermon; it took me this long to get it, and it just so happens that it gets to the heart of some of my more recent struggles, so I think it merits reiteration, even if for no one's sake but my own. [Edit: Vallotton's opinion and mine do diverge at a certain point, gotta say that so as not to mis-represent him here.]

I had to do a little de-King-James-ification to work this one out, so here it is through my ESV and even so, they use the word "law" so much that it baked a dang tuna-noodle casserole in my head (don't ask where the tuna came from). So here's Romans 7:18-23, 8:1-6 (ESV)

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is,
in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right,
but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not
want is what I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who
do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right,
evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
23 but I see in my members another law waging war
against the law of my mind and making me captive to the
law of sin that dwells in my members.
[....]
8:1 There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ
Jesus from the law of sin and death.
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh,
could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the
flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their
minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of
the Spirit.
6 To set the mind on flesh is death, but to set the mind on
the Spirit is life and peace.

Here's how I'm seeing it:
Flesh = operates according to the law of sin and death
Mind = knows the law of God (we know The Rules)
Spirit = life and peace in Christ
Oneself = the "inner being" (Rom. 7:22), which can focus the mind on different things.


Our simple human time continuum naturally divides itself into three parts:

1) Before the law: people just acted according to their own, innate moral compasses; sin as such was undefined.
2) With the law (Old Testament): people now knew what sin was, so their minds fought with their flesh over what actions they would do, the good or the evil.
3) Now, with Christ: we walk in the Spirit, which transcends the whole mind-flesh, law-sin conundrum altogether.

This doesn't mean that the mind-flesh, law-sin war stops altogether; the law is still good and the flesh still wants all this sinning, so the battles rage on, but if you walk in the Spirit, that whole deal just gets a lot less central.

Imagine being able to concentrate on an infinite number of things at once (being the ULTIMATE multi-tasker): some of those things would be sinful things, from the flesh, just by virtue of our being human (and we're never going to stop wanting them; that's just the nature of the flesh).

But instead, we can only focus on a certain number of things at once -- there's a blessing in disguise (sometimes a very good disguise) -- which means that if I'm focusing all my mind on walking in the Spirit, there won't be any part of me LEFT to get into the sinful things that the flesh wants!

When you're not fixating on the mind-flesh conflict, it fades away, becoming less a giant field of land mines you have to get through and more of just a constant, annoying bickering somewhere in the background.

But if you get stuck in the whole sin-shame-guilt thing, go on back to that incredible fragment of Matthew 6:33 (ESV) --

seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness

and start walking in the Spirit again, and there you'll dwell with the Father and the Father in you, as Christ dwells within you, and the Holy Spirit dwells within you [cant find reference; argh!]. When that's all set up and equilibrated, actions falling out of that equation generally don't end up coming out as sinful.

Seek first that kingdom and a whole lot of the rest just takes care of itself.


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Worthiness and Deserving

Deserving: there's just no such thing, because it only has meaning if different people deserve different things or circumstances. I don't believe there's any difference among people as to what they deserve; everyone deserves a wonderful physical and spiritual life, always connected with the Father.

Yes, the murderers; yes, the evildoers; yes, the Satan-worshippers; yes, those who turn from God. Those who turn from God deprive themselves of the abundant life in God which they deserve; it's their choice.
_______

Worthy of the redemption we receive through Jesus, though? I can only speak for myself, and it's something I don't think I could ever be.

But guess what?
We're redeemed anyway.
This fact thwocks me upside the head like a ton of bricks every time I dig in deep and think about it.

Jesus already died for our sins; if we believe in Jesus as our Lord and savior, we don't get a choice as to wether we're redeemed. It already happened.

If we say we won't enter God's kingdom because we're not worthy, we deny the fact that we're cleansed from our sins (as many as they may be) by the blood of Jesus. If we say we're too full of sin to be saved, we reject the fact that Jesus died for our sins and that we are saved.

If we look down at our spiritual selves and see a grimy corpse with all kinds of baked-on, caked-on sin, then we're living in the "old man/woman," the one who died -- out of whose being we were delivered -- when we were baptized and raised up from the water. We are new men and women of the new covenant through Christ. We are born again.


When I first turned to Jesus in earnest a couple of years ago, it took me lots of time, much agonizing, and tons of logical argument and counter-argument with my spiritual mentor to work out this stuff. Christianity begins with accepting a gift you aren't worthy of.

I can't help but be reminded of John 3:38 (KJV):

38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no
labour; other men laboured, and ye are entered into
their labours.

And also Luke 5:8 (KJV), when Jesus had told the first disciples where to cast their net and they caught so many fish their boat started to sink:

8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees,
saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

But don't forget the next two verses (Luke 5:9-10, KJV) say:

9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at
the draught of the fishes which they had taken:

10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of
Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus
said unto Simon, Fear not; for henceforth thou shalt
catch men.

Christianity continues from there.
That's how I see it, anyway.



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Can You Go without Sin for 10 Minutes?

This keeps coming up as I listen to different preachers speaking on the topic of sin.
Ten minutes? Sure, they can!
Ten hours? Sure, they can!
Ten days? Sure, they can!


Okay, for me? Ten minutes without sin? I can do that. (Being asleep helps a lot, though.) But seriously, I can do that.

Ten hours without sin? I guess I can do that if I'm really distracted with something all day long and just don't quit focusing on it.

One day without sin? I suppose I've gone this long a handful of times throughout my life.

Two days without sin? Maybe a couple of times total, over more than three decades.

Three days without sin? Three consecutive days? Not a chance in the world.

TEN days?!? Even with as much spiritual advancement as I would like to achieve in the rest of my life, I cannot see myself ever going this long without slipping up somehow.


What the heck is wrong with me? Has everyone else just gotten to a higher plane of existence that I'm doomed never to reach? Is there a point along the road where God grants you a gift of being able to block all sexual thoughts from your mind, or perhaps there's a heavenly neutering experience that just removes all those glands and parts of your brain without making you start looking like a member of the opposite gender?**

Is there a blessing these other people have obtained that stops one from ever getting angry again, or that instantly quenches anger with some boundless righteousness? Are there angelic visitations when they're about to let out a curse word that turns "f--" into "whoa" just in the nick of time? When something out in the world triggers their PTSD and they start losing it, does the Holy Spirit come to dwell with them and comfort them before they can fall over the edge?

Or does God just choose some people to live in His grace and to hell with the rest of us who haven't made the cut?

See; I just did it again. Timer reset: 0:00:00.

** Because if there is such a thing, SIGN ME UP AND I'LL BE FIRST IN LINE.

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In Suspense

<previous material deleted>

I've nothing intelligent to say, so I'm just going to wait on something to come rather than filling this space with lamentations or other BS.