Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thursday Musings March 21, 2013
Thursday Musings
Tonight as I sat reading a stack of emails that I had printed to "read later" I read the following from a well known Christian leader. Please, because I comment about something he wrote, doesn't mean that I am criticizing him or even that he really doesn't believe what I am saying. But I do quote some words that were written just to bring forth a thought that is so pertinent in this hour as we move in to the season God is bringing us into.
I read: True discipleship will lead to being like Christ and doing the works that he did. It will also lead to persecution just as He was persecuted. Even so, to do the works of Christ is the greatest experience we can have. To love as He loved us and to demonstrate this love with our lives is our highest calling.
The jist of the article on Discipleship I fully agree with but this first paragraph holds a common misconception which I have fallen into so much of my life. No where does it say I will do the works that He did! It says Greater works than He did. I am not called, that I see anywhere in the scriptures to "do the works of Christ."
Instead, I am to do the works that Christ IS doing. Today Christ, the Anointed One, The Messiah is able to touch thousands in a group of people at once while in his day he was limited to touching people one on one. Today as the Lord Jesus moves across a group of people by His Spirit, He touches groups and we are to walk and follow what He is doing, not doing them "ourselves."
Jesus said he only did what he saw His father doing...he only said what he heard the Spirit saying. If Christ is in me, the mystery hidden from the beginning of the ages then I am to be in process of working out that Life, learning to follow Him, walk where He is leading, move where He is moving, speak where and what He is speak so He can do what He wants to do and I will get to be a part of it!!
This is a far cry from what I was taught or learned in my years of church. Does it mean the Lord didn't use me? Nope....even in my ignorance of his ways He chose to be who He is in and through me because He honors His name and His Word!! But what this understanding allows is for me to be fully at rest in WHO HE IS and to have my eyes opened to What He is DOING, instead of being focused on what I am doing. I am learning to see HOW HE LOVES and if I am in Him I will love as He loves...not as HE loved! It isn't a past tense thing...it is a NOW thing. GOD IS not was. The I AM not the I was. He is doing works today...and I am called to walk in those works that were predestined for me to walk in IN CHRIST JESUS before the foundation of the world. Outside of time....yes! Now manifest on the earth in time by the Holy Spirit as He works in and through me!!
Recently listened to a message on YouTube on Faith and it too addressed the issue that it isn't about our faith any more than it is about our righteousness. It is His Faith, His Righteousness, His Healing, His Comfort, His deliverance....all flowing through me as I walk with HIm and see Him and yield to Him as He is doing what He has determined that He will do. It is the day of proclamation!!
What does this mean? It has changed the way I pray to begin with. I seek the Lord and then pray as I see what He wants accomplished, what He by His spirit is doing. Today I was called to pray about 11 am and again tonight about 7. I "saw" what He was doing and was invited to be a part, a co-laborer with Him in what He was doing in a situation. I don't know how to pray in many of the situations that are about me. I am learning to lay my self down at the cross, my inability to know and see and to understand anything. He alone is the Light and He shines in the darkness and when His light shines in the darkness of my understanding I am learning to move with Him as He is doing something. I desire to be a part of heaven coming into the areas here on earth that I know His Word says He cares about, into people's lives that are full of darkness that HE IS Lord over and HE IS Light, even those who blaspheme his name and know not the Truth!! How much He loves is seen in His shining His light into the dark places that to as many as are willing, they can choose the light and to follow Him.
Do I know how to walk in the Light as He is in the Light? I trust I am his disciple and He is my friend and master and that He is leading me. Recently He brought me out of a very very dark night by shining the Light of His Word so brightly into my heart that I saw the way and in the power and light of His Word was able to walk through the dark night of my soul and a dark situation. In the same Light I am learning to walk through this new ground called Retirement! I think of it as getting a new set of tires for the next step of the journey...don't think they are retreads either!! But then there is a generation out there that wouldn't know what retreads are!! We are all "working out" this life in our Saviour, in the process of being saved and saving. For He is our Life!!
Meri Ford
I retired officially as of 3/14/2013 after almost 12 years in the field of chemical dependency counseling. I have four grown children, three daughters and a son. All but the son are married and two have children. I have a grown granddaughter and one of my daughter's has her fourth child about to be born.
We live on 8 acres in rural Lewis County with just my husband and I in our 40' fifth wheel. We also have a bunch of cats: guard cats!! And they do alert us to anything going on!
Just what this year will hold is yet in the mind of the Lord and not yet revealed to me but I trust that He has a whole new agenda for me in these "retirement" years. I know in His Kingdom there is no such thing. I know I am going through a "re tire ing" or "getting new tires time", being "refitted" so to speak for the equipment needed for the journey ahead and with great enthusiasm and praise to Him in whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Semi retirement to Retirement updated 3/21/2013
Many things have transpired since Wednesday March 13, 2013 (3/13/13). I went home from work that night questioning about everything I knew except that I knew that God had given me the words that are listed at the bottom of this post. My idea as I left work that Wednesday was that I would take the agency up on the offer to work part-time. To "semi-retire." I admit I was in somewhat of a daze as I got home and began to ponder everything that the Lord had spoken to me. I got out these words that I had posted out to the list and back to myself on Jan 1. I had made copies of them and they were pinned to the cork board behind my office desk since January. I had read them a few times.
Somehow I knew that these emails were about the time I was in on 3/13/13. ALso an article I had written about change in 2013 was posted January on the Stormharvest Website http://www.stormharvest.com.au and I have enclosed that below also.
As I sought the Lord in the night hours the first thing I did was open my bible to where I had been reading in The Revelation of Jesus Christ..to Rev. 3 and since it was 3/13 I went to Rev. 3: 13 and it said, To those who have ears to hear let them hear what the Spirit is saying.......and so I eagerly read on to see what the Lord was saying. Buy Gold of me, gold tried in the fire, white raiment....some of the verses that have great meaning to me and then to Rev. 4:1..and I saw a door opened...or an opened door as some put it!
Then I knew that God was telling me that He had an open door out of where I had been and that there is an open door on into the future. I recalled a dream I had years ago in which I was sitting on a curb with all my luggage...I'd been in a car which represented some kind of ministry but now I was sitting on the curb and behind me was this doorway. It was full of light, brillant colorful light, so bright one couldn't see through the doorway to see what was on the other side. I knew that the Lord was beckoning me into that doorway. The street was dark and there were tons of neon lighted buildings and nothing pleasant or attractive anywhere to be seen. I also knew that some how I was to get up and go through that door way into whatever it was God had for me. Since 2001 I went into a new direction when I was hired by New Directions Counseling and there were prophetic words at the time indicating that it was a brand new direction for my life! And it has been these 12 years! I would have completed those 12 years on July 26.
Instead...on March 13, 2013 my services as they had been for the past years were no longer needed at New Directions Counseling though I was handed an offer to work part-time.
As I sought the Lord I remembered the dream I had which is told in the article that was in StormHarvest. I was told in it to take whatever my boss offered me "from my hand. Accept the changes as “gifts from me.” Meaning from the Lord's hand.
Then as I had my attention drawn to the others "words" that I had felt the Lord was speaking I saw that He had told me a "test" was coming and Try to see it as an adventure, because then you can strengthen your resolve to continue hearing Me and staying on the right path. You have had a victory and are walking in My will. You have stood strong against him in the past and you will do it again.
How grateful I was to His word! His comfort! And then I read more: Say no to the attractiveness of the same old patterns when they knock on the door of your heart. It's easy to continue down the path with which you are familiar. Challenge yourself to go a different route whenever possible. Discover a way to test what I have put on your heart. Leave the enemy of your soul in a bewildered and confused state of mind
I knew then that I was to retire, to cut ties if I was to go in the direction that the Lord had planned and purposed and not be caught up in the trap of the enemy. The enemy was the enemy of my soul who was trying to trap me and trick me into staying some place for some reason when God was saying MOVE ON MERI. The how and the why weren't important and still aren't. My boss is not the enemy, nor anyone I worked with at that agency. Most are my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and like me, at times the enemy can use them but in this situation God Reigns. Nothing they can do can divert me from the pathway that God has for my life which was predestined for me to walk in, in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world.
I knew I was walking in victory over the pull of the devil who wanted me to hold on to the comfortable, the known and that comfortable income that God had so graciously provided for the last 12 years. When I started New Directions life was really tough. I was doing my Chemical Dependency Studies every night four nights a week, working part time, dealing with a nasty divorce, a single parent of two teenage girls. It was an awesome time of learning and growing in the midst of great times of struggle. The staff at New Directions were loving and caring and compassionate as they worked with this new trainee. Now it was time to leave. Would I have ever chosen to leave if it hadn't happened this way? I don't know if I would have been able to hear His voice. But for the last three months I have been working with an intern and during those three months I have sought His face and His wisdom and insight more than any other time in my life. I have loved the time I have spent with Him and so I had been "listening" and sharing with the Lord differently.
I knew as I went to work Thursday morning I was walking in the Victory! HIS WORD SAID SO! I had passed the test! I handed the boss my office keys and told him I was retiring and would not be coming back after I finished that day out. I had already removed much of my stuff the night before and by the evening class at 6pm my office was "no longer mine." I can only trust that the hours I spent in that office trusting the Lord, sharing the Word with my clients, loving on them, remains as a testimony that no one can dispute! I was privileged that last day to give away the last two copies of the New Testament called The Voice that I had. Thank You Jesus!! I was privileged to tell my clients that I was retiring. I rode the waves of the Spirit of God in praise and thanksgiving with testimony of the greatness of His Name and HIs word right up til I got in my car that night. And getting in my car, I remembered something the Lord had directed me to do. And I got out of my car, and went back to the doorway, and wiped my feet off as if to shake the dust off my feet. I left, in praise and thanksgiving, knowing that I had shared all of the love of God in the way that He had chosen to use me and what they did or didn't do now I had no responsibility for.
I knew that the Spirit of God was not done with the agency. Most of them were my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and another was one I have believed God to shine the light of His love and Truth in Christ Jesus into and reveal Himself in the midst of the darkness of good works that his theology preaches. How wonderful to know that He who lead me to the place was leading me out....and that I was leaving behind brothers and sisters in the Lord that HE WAS IN CHARGE OF!!
Being prophetic I know more than I am writing here and shared some of what I knew with the owner of the agency and another person as I spoke forth out of the power of the Spirit of God that day from that "high place" called the sanctuary! There the snares of the enemy can't get to me for I am safe in the Secret Place of the Most High. But also as never before I have learned since that day what it means to be righteous.
These are some of the posts that the Lord stirred to my remembrance 3/13/13. The first is a post that I sent to my small list and was picked up in January by StormHarvest website The others are emails from various sources that I gathered Jan 1 and sent to my list and kept copies of believing God was saying these things about 2013. How much they applied to me was and is still a continuing process. Meri
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the things that I am hearing as this year ends is CHANGE. I am going to just share with you some of the things that I am “experiencing”. If they are meaningful to you great! If not...let them slide, please!
I was in bed, not sure if I was praying or meditating or what, and I saw a picture of my boss Scott telling me that he had changed four evaluations that were scheduled for me to do. There was a list of four that I saw that he referred to that he changed the times and who was doing them in the appointment book.
Along with seeing that I heard this:
“Take whatever Scott does as from my hand. Accept the changes as “gifts from me.” It is about you being a part of what I am doing.”
I went on to understand.
“Meri, the kingdom of God/heaven is not about what I do for you. It is about you being equipped to be part of what I AM DOING IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH.”
What I do for you doesn't change you. It is being equipped by the Holy Spirit, “changed” by Him to walk with Me, being a part of what I am doing.
I begin teaching you as you see I love you and that I am there in all you do. That's a beginning not the goal. When you learn I AM, it is not longer about you, but who I am and your beloved relationship in Me.
It was as if He repeated himself saying “again, it is who I AM What I AM doing. You've always seen it as what I am doing for you rather than who I AM and what I AM doing because of who I AM. I walk with you because of who I AM not because of who you are.
Who you are is defined by who I AM, in you, around you, etc.
Who you are gets redefined by my blood. I AM holy. There is no sin, when I see the blood...MY BLOOD, the BLOOD OF JESUS, over you, we are ONED. When you rely on My Blood, we are Oned.
My pure seed entered the earth in the form of a baby. You have seen that it has the victory over unclean seed, over the corrupted seed of Adam, over sickness, over demonic forces over all things!”
We have often referred to the blood, spoken the blood of Jesus over our loved ones. I used to say as the kids left for school and at bedtime: “The Blood of Jesus covers you!” Little did I comprehend the power of that blood which I was trusting in!! We sing, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” “Oh the Blood of Jesus..” So many truly valid sayings yet I realize how little I understood the meaning of of the blood!
Now when I refer to the blood, I am aware of how powerful that blood is for it is totally unaffected by my sin or anyone else's sin. When He sees the blood, the Lord stands between us and any kind of destruction just as it was true on the day of Passover.
Jesus is our Passover Lamb, born in the manager where the lambs that were sacrificed in Jerusalem were fed and protected. His blood forever is seen throughout the heavenlies on our behalf and everyone else's.
Change...this year ends with a whole new way of looking at so many aspects of my life in Christ Jesus and new ways of addressing things including changes that will take place in 2013. The blood has never lost it's power because it is Holy...One, there is no sin in the blood of Jesus, no seed of man.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
Somehow I knew that these emails were about the time I was in on 3/13/13. ALso an article I had written about change in 2013 was posted January on the Stormharvest Website http://www.stormharvest.com.au and I have enclosed that below also.
As I sought the Lord in the night hours the first thing I did was open my bible to where I had been reading in The Revelation of Jesus Christ..to Rev. 3 and since it was 3/13 I went to Rev. 3: 13 and it said, To those who have ears to hear let them hear what the Spirit is saying.......and so I eagerly read on to see what the Lord was saying. Buy Gold of me, gold tried in the fire, white raiment....some of the verses that have great meaning to me and then to Rev. 4:1..and I saw a door opened...or an opened door as some put it!
Then I knew that God was telling me that He had an open door out of where I had been and that there is an open door on into the future. I recalled a dream I had years ago in which I was sitting on a curb with all my luggage...I'd been in a car which represented some kind of ministry but now I was sitting on the curb and behind me was this doorway. It was full of light, brillant colorful light, so bright one couldn't see through the doorway to see what was on the other side. I knew that the Lord was beckoning me into that doorway. The street was dark and there were tons of neon lighted buildings and nothing pleasant or attractive anywhere to be seen. I also knew that some how I was to get up and go through that door way into whatever it was God had for me. Since 2001 I went into a new direction when I was hired by New Directions Counseling and there were prophetic words at the time indicating that it was a brand new direction for my life! And it has been these 12 years! I would have completed those 12 years on July 26.
Instead...on March 13, 2013 my services as they had been for the past years were no longer needed at New Directions Counseling though I was handed an offer to work part-time.
As I sought the Lord I remembered the dream I had which is told in the article that was in StormHarvest. I was told in it to take whatever my boss offered me "from my hand. Accept the changes as “gifts from me.” Meaning from the Lord's hand.
Then as I had my attention drawn to the others "words" that I had felt the Lord was speaking I saw that He had told me a "test" was coming and Try to see it as an adventure, because then you can strengthen your resolve to continue hearing Me and staying on the right path. You have had a victory and are walking in My will. You have stood strong against him in the past and you will do it again.
How grateful I was to His word! His comfort! And then I read more: Say no to the attractiveness of the same old patterns when they knock on the door of your heart. It's easy to continue down the path with which you are familiar. Challenge yourself to go a different route whenever possible. Discover a way to test what I have put on your heart. Leave the enemy of your soul in a bewildered and confused state of mind
I knew then that I was to retire, to cut ties if I was to go in the direction that the Lord had planned and purposed and not be caught up in the trap of the enemy. The enemy was the enemy of my soul who was trying to trap me and trick me into staying some place for some reason when God was saying MOVE ON MERI. The how and the why weren't important and still aren't. My boss is not the enemy, nor anyone I worked with at that agency. Most are my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and like me, at times the enemy can use them but in this situation God Reigns. Nothing they can do can divert me from the pathway that God has for my life which was predestined for me to walk in, in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world.
I knew I was walking in victory over the pull of the devil who wanted me to hold on to the comfortable, the known and that comfortable income that God had so graciously provided for the last 12 years. When I started New Directions life was really tough. I was doing my Chemical Dependency Studies every night four nights a week, working part time, dealing with a nasty divorce, a single parent of two teenage girls. It was an awesome time of learning and growing in the midst of great times of struggle. The staff at New Directions were loving and caring and compassionate as they worked with this new trainee. Now it was time to leave. Would I have ever chosen to leave if it hadn't happened this way? I don't know if I would have been able to hear His voice. But for the last three months I have been working with an intern and during those three months I have sought His face and His wisdom and insight more than any other time in my life. I have loved the time I have spent with Him and so I had been "listening" and sharing with the Lord differently.
I knew as I went to work Thursday morning I was walking in the Victory! HIS WORD SAID SO! I had passed the test! I handed the boss my office keys and told him I was retiring and would not be coming back after I finished that day out. I had already removed much of my stuff the night before and by the evening class at 6pm my office was "no longer mine." I can only trust that the hours I spent in that office trusting the Lord, sharing the Word with my clients, loving on them, remains as a testimony that no one can dispute! I was privileged that last day to give away the last two copies of the New Testament called The Voice that I had. Thank You Jesus!! I was privileged to tell my clients that I was retiring. I rode the waves of the Spirit of God in praise and thanksgiving with testimony of the greatness of His Name and HIs word right up til I got in my car that night. And getting in my car, I remembered something the Lord had directed me to do. And I got out of my car, and went back to the doorway, and wiped my feet off as if to shake the dust off my feet. I left, in praise and thanksgiving, knowing that I had shared all of the love of God in the way that He had chosen to use me and what they did or didn't do now I had no responsibility for.
I knew that the Spirit of God was not done with the agency. Most of them were my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and another was one I have believed God to shine the light of His love and Truth in Christ Jesus into and reveal Himself in the midst of the darkness of good works that his theology preaches. How wonderful to know that He who lead me to the place was leading me out....and that I was leaving behind brothers and sisters in the Lord that HE WAS IN CHARGE OF!!
Being prophetic I know more than I am writing here and shared some of what I knew with the owner of the agency and another person as I spoke forth out of the power of the Spirit of God that day from that "high place" called the sanctuary! There the snares of the enemy can't get to me for I am safe in the Secret Place of the Most High. But also as never before I have learned since that day what it means to be righteous.
These are some of the posts that the Lord stirred to my remembrance 3/13/13. The first is a post that I sent to my small list and was picked up in January by StormHarvest website The others are emails from various sources that I gathered Jan 1 and sent to my list and kept copies of believing God was saying these things about 2013. How much they applied to me was and is still a continuing process. Meri
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the things that I am hearing as this year ends is CHANGE. I am going to just share with you some of the things that I am “experiencing”. If they are meaningful to you great! If not...let them slide, please!
I was in bed, not sure if I was praying or meditating or what, and I saw a picture of my boss Scott telling me that he had changed four evaluations that were scheduled for me to do. There was a list of four that I saw that he referred to that he changed the times and who was doing them in the appointment book.
Along with seeing that I heard this:
“Take whatever Scott does as from my hand. Accept the changes as “gifts from me.” It is about you being a part of what I am doing.”
I went on to understand.
“Meri, the kingdom of God/heaven is not about what I do for you. It is about you being equipped to be part of what I AM DOING IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH.”
What I do for you doesn't change you. It is being equipped by the Holy Spirit, “changed” by Him to walk with Me, being a part of what I am doing.
I begin teaching you as you see I love you and that I am there in all you do. That's a beginning not the goal. When you learn I AM, it is not longer about you, but who I am and your beloved relationship in Me.
It was as if He repeated himself saying “again, it is who I AM What I AM doing. You've always seen it as what I am doing for you rather than who I AM and what I AM doing because of who I AM. I walk with you because of who I AM not because of who you are.
Who you are is defined by who I AM, in you, around you, etc.
Who you are gets redefined by my blood. I AM holy. There is no sin, when I see the blood...MY BLOOD, the BLOOD OF JESUS, over you, we are ONED. When you rely on My Blood, we are Oned.
My pure seed entered the earth in the form of a baby. You have seen that it has the victory over unclean seed, over the corrupted seed of Adam, over sickness, over demonic forces over all things!”
We have often referred to the blood, spoken the blood of Jesus over our loved ones. I used to say as the kids left for school and at bedtime: “The Blood of Jesus covers you!” Little did I comprehend the power of that blood which I was trusting in!! We sing, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” “Oh the Blood of Jesus..” So many truly valid sayings yet I realize how little I understood the meaning of of the blood!
Now when I refer to the blood, I am aware of how powerful that blood is for it is totally unaffected by my sin or anyone else's sin. When He sees the blood, the Lord stands between us and any kind of destruction just as it was true on the day of Passover.
Jesus is our Passover Lamb, born in the manager where the lambs that were sacrificed in Jerusalem were fed and protected. His blood forever is seen throughout the heavenlies on our behalf and everyone else's.
Change...this year ends with a whole new way of looking at so many aspects of my life in Christ Jesus and new ways of addressing things including changes that will take place in 2013. The blood has never lost it's power because it is Holy...One, there is no sin in the blood of Jesus, no seed of man.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
I retired officially as of 3/14/2013 after almost 12 years in the field of chemical dependency counseling. I have four grown children, three daughters and a son. All but the son are married and two have children. I have a grown granddaughter and one of my daughter's has her fourth child about to be born.
We live on 8 acres in rural Lewis County with just my husband and I in our 40' fifth wheel. We also have a bunch of cats: guard cats!! And they do alert us to anything going on!
Just what this year will hold is yet in the mind of the Lord and not yet revealed to me but I trust that He has a whole new agenda for me in these "retirement" years. I know in His Kingdom there is no such thing. I know I am going through a "re tire ing" or "getting new tires time", being "refitted" so to speak for the equipment needed for the journey ahead and with great enthusiasm and praise to Him in whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Part 2, Our animalistic nature and temptation
I finished the last post with these words:
And the Lord God had said, that in the day that you"eatest thereof ( of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) thou shalt surely die." Whenever I, by choice, whether knowingly or unknowingly, follow desire or lust I have chosen to respond to something externally based on how it will "make me feel, make me wise., etc. rather than to choose to drink of the internal life of God which fills me by Holy Spirit. I cannot use my will to "make myself feel good" and drink of the water of Life in Christ Jesus at the same time.
Our language of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes in many expressions. And when we understand this we will understand Genesis 3:16 more fully. And I will save this for yet another time of musing.
When the serpent tempted woman in the Garden, he appealed to her "desire" or what some of us might call our "lust." We women can especially identify with this when it comes to some handsome young man who comes into our life and suddenly we feel that great sense of warmth, an actual physical feeling. I can still remember sitting in my boyfriend Bill's Studebaker in front of my mom's house at about age 16, and Bill reached over and held my hand. I still remember that warm feeling that filled my body. The men reading this will probably identify with the stimulating feeling in the genital area of your body when you see a sexy woman go by. That is "desire." That is "lust." It is neither good nor bad in and of itself because it is an operation of our human being just as it is of the rest of the animal kingdom. The difference between us as humans and the rats and dogs and the cats is that we have the ability to recognize that "desire" or "lust" and choose whether or not we will respond to it or whether we will choose to address that desire or lust with other choices, other thinking, stirring up other feelings. One way of describing such a process is the "renewing of our minds." It is a process and doesn't happen without some kind of intervention and invitation to make a choice. Sometimes many of us "delayed" gratification of that lust because we "thought it was wrong" and stuffed it down only to find that it wasn't something that disappeared and often then it was gratified "sideways."
The result of woman being "deceived" by all that "stirred her" externally as the animal aspect of our human nature was stirred by the invitation to feel good (which invitation itself stirs the desire and creates a state of feeling already which then we have choice to deal with if we are aware) was that she made the choice unwittingly to invite the deception of the pull of her own animalistic desire to separate herself from the Source of Life itself. Her relationship in and by the Spirit of God was broken as she yielded to an external source which had made her "feel good."
The ultimate result found in Genesis 3:16 (please note the similarity to John 3:16 which is the redemption from Genesis 3:16) ...that woman's DESIRE would be for her husband and he would rule over her.
How often have I heard people refer to Geneisis 3:16 as the basis of male and female relationships as Christians in their own sense of deception and ignorance? Of course I can talk about "them" knowing that I spent most of my adult LIVING in that sense of deception and error, in that place of desire and lust. My language of those years and sometimes even now tells the tale. He makes me feel good. He makes me happy. He upsets me Even as parents how often are we deceived in our understanding as we say things like: My child frustrated me. My child made me angry. You made me feel good. You made me mad.
These are all the language of deception come from our animalistic nature which was fed by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If I am dependent on you to make me feel good, to make me happy, then what am I without you? Therefore, I will continue to "desire you" because I need you and am dependent upon you to make me feel good. (my dopamine delivery system working at its best.)
When we look at the other side of the "fall of man", what we see is the difference between woman's deception and man's knowing choice.
Woman's fall came out of the deception of "feeling" and "desire" which overwhelmed her ability to make a decision. She was deceived into thinking that that "feel good state" was something that her relationship with God had kept her from having. You know something....it was true. That isn't how we function when we are in Christ. It isn't about my feelings. Joy isn't about "feeling joy." Being blessed isn't about "being happy". Being at Peace, isn't about feeling peaceful. It is a state of being that comes from relationship IN Peace Himself, in the Beloved, being in the Joy Giver. Yet, how often do we still talk about "how good it felt to be in church!!" How good it felt to be in the presence of God!! yikkes....that cuts some of us to the core of our "spirituality" doesn't it!!
So what was the story of Adam's sin? If you read the scriptures it says, "The woman you gave me to be with me,, she gave me of the tree and I did eat "(KJV). Earlier it is said: "She took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." The big difference between the two actions of woman and man, is that she was deceived or "beguiled" as KJV puts it. She also said of the situation: "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat." We are able to understand now that her "eyes were opened" and she saw the consequences of her actions, that she had indeed been "beguiled or deceived." If one wants to interpret this to say she "blamed the serpent", I personally think that that is not within the context of this scripture. It would, on the other hand, appear to be "an eye opener," to see that indeed she had been deceived, fooled and that she had responded to that state by eating of it. Is that blame?
Now it comes to Adam. We know that Adam had been told as we see in Gen: 3 11, that he had been "commanded" not to eat. Back to Genesis 2: 17. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good nad evil, though shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest therefore thou shalt surely die." But that is not the end of the Lord God's conversation with Adam. He also said BEFORE WOMAN WAS CREATED....at the time the commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him." Scripture goes on to say that when woman was brought to man Adam said, This is now bone of my bons, and flesh of my flesh; she sall be called Woman, because she was taken out of an. Therefore shall aman leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and hiw wife and they were not ashamed.
Prior to Adam partaking of the fruit that woman was to give him, he lived in relationship to her in a state of "fellowship." He saw in her some "parts of himself" that previously had been a part of his own being....now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man."
Now the commandment had been given to man and he was not deceived or beguiled. The serpent hadn't worked that animalistic type of "desire" on man as he had with woman whereby she made the decision to eat of the fruit out of what we might call an "altered state of being." I am kind of laughing at this as I look back at my own life and realize how often I made decisions out of an "altered state of being." Something or someone had "made me feel" a certain way and I unwittingly responded to the situation or person out of that altered state of being. We understand today from the research that has opened up our understanding and given us knowledge even as God has spoken saying that in the last days knowledge will abound, that this is all about our "dopamine pathways". We understand this when it comes to pornography, that there is a physical change in the structure of the brain when people continue to get sexual stimulation from looking at sexually stimulating pictures. And that stimulation creates a "demand" in the brain each time the brain visualizes anything like it for more and more of that stimulation. The same with gambling. The more thrill you get "from" gambling, the more desire a person will have that draws them back to gambling. The same is with extreme sports, sometimes with exercise, often with food, and even work!
So where was Adam at the time that woman handed him the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Unlike woman (she had not yet been named Eve) who was in a state of deception due to whatever animalistic desire had been activated in her brain and had overpowered her ability to make a --for lack of a better word, a rational decision based on what God had told Adam. Adam had full control of his decision making process. And what did he know? He knew that God had told him not to eat of it if he wanted to live. He also knew that since woman had eaten of it and was now separated from him, that God had also said : It is not good for man to be alone." He knew that this woman he was now separated and he chose to receive the fruit rather than be separated from that was "bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh." He was not in the "heat of desire." He was not under the influence of a Satanic deception. Adam sinned knowingly, choosing separation from God rather than separation from "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh."
In the business that I have been in for 12 years and from my life experience, I can still say that while the male species does succumb to "desire and lust" as do all of us human beings since "sin entered into the human lifestyle and children were begat out of desire rather than conceived by and in the prescence of God as before the Fall" I continue to see men make horrendous decision just because they don't want to be "alone, without a woman."
Alone even for many of us females seems like a death sentence in itself. AH, sounds a little like "original sin?"
I have to say that I can identify with that. There were times in my life I did not have faith and trust that the Lord God could keep me if I didn't have the husband I had there to meet my needs. And I certainly didn't know how to trust in the Lord to meet my needs when I had a husband who "didn't meet all my needs and expectations."
The end result of this sin of Adam and woman: Besides saying that he would "greatly multiply thy sorrow and they conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; He says....and thy desire shall be to they husband, and he shall rule over thee. "
The quickest way to give another person power over you is to "expect them to make you happy." We use this kind of language all the time, sometimes expressed in the positive. "You make me happy." or in the negative "You make me sad." THIS is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Our original sin, as some call it, is relying on something outside of ourselves to affect our feelings instead of taking responsibility for our own feelings and realizing they come from our experiences and are there to "give us choices to act with our will." So when I am angry, I accept that those are my feelings, based on my experiences that were stirred up by the way I think about something that has happened. This is the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus. To make choices based on who we are, how we feel and then to be able to be "renewed in the spirit of our minds" according to the Mind of God as stirred in us by the Holy Spirit....to as many who have received the Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ.
When I look to you and say you make me happy, that "feeling" is now controlling me and I WILL expect you to be the agent to affect my emotions again and again. And if you don't.....I will feel violated, and I will blame you for "making me angry" and put the responsibility on you to change you, instead of seeing the whole situation with my feelings and my happiness and my anger as something that comes from and out of my relationship with the Holy Spirit with whom I am connected spirit to Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, when I became a "new creature" in Christ Jesus, instead of the old man after my animalistic nature acquired through the first Adam when he knowingly separated himself from Life in God.
Sin is "missing the mark." What is the mark? RELATIONSHIP IN AND WITH GOD. Missing the mark is not violating the Law. When I violate the Law, I missed the mark of relationship in Jesus Christ. Life in Christ who fulfilled the Law frees me from the consequences of violating the law which is death and separation from God. When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he chose gratification by his own will and choice rather that ongoing Life and it's gratification in God. Gratification by our own will always feeds more and more "desire" for more gratification. And that desire is illuminated by our understanding of what is "good and bad." Knowledge of good and evil, says Paul, is a force working in me that is independent or separated from my conscious choice. (Rom. 6-8) What is my salavation from such "knowing?" Life in Christ Jesus accessed through response to the gentle invitation of Holy Spirit to have faith (the measure of is given to each to believe) in the invitation and availability of His life.
Part 3 will follow some day...
I finished the last post with these words:
And the Lord God had said, that in the day that you"eatest thereof ( of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) thou shalt surely die." Whenever I, by choice, whether knowingly or unknowingly, follow desire or lust I have chosen to respond to something externally based on how it will "make me feel, make me wise., etc. rather than to choose to drink of the internal life of God which fills me by Holy Spirit. I cannot use my will to "make myself feel good" and drink of the water of Life in Christ Jesus at the same time.
Our language of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes in many expressions. And when we understand this we will understand Genesis 3:16 more fully. And I will save this for yet another time of musing.
When the serpent tempted woman in the Garden, he appealed to her "desire" or what some of us might call our "lust." We women can especially identify with this when it comes to some handsome young man who comes into our life and suddenly we feel that great sense of warmth, an actual physical feeling. I can still remember sitting in my boyfriend Bill's Studebaker in front of my mom's house at about age 16, and Bill reached over and held my hand. I still remember that warm feeling that filled my body. The men reading this will probably identify with the stimulating feeling in the genital area of your body when you see a sexy woman go by. That is "desire." That is "lust." It is neither good nor bad in and of itself because it is an operation of our human being just as it is of the rest of the animal kingdom. The difference between us as humans and the rats and dogs and the cats is that we have the ability to recognize that "desire" or "lust" and choose whether or not we will respond to it or whether we will choose to address that desire or lust with other choices, other thinking, stirring up other feelings. One way of describing such a process is the "renewing of our minds." It is a process and doesn't happen without some kind of intervention and invitation to make a choice. Sometimes many of us "delayed" gratification of that lust because we "thought it was wrong" and stuffed it down only to find that it wasn't something that disappeared and often then it was gratified "sideways."
The result of woman being "deceived" by all that "stirred her" externally as the animal aspect of our human nature was stirred by the invitation to feel good (which invitation itself stirs the desire and creates a state of feeling already which then we have choice to deal with if we are aware) was that she made the choice unwittingly to invite the deception of the pull of her own animalistic desire to separate herself from the Source of Life itself. Her relationship in and by the Spirit of God was broken as she yielded to an external source which had made her "feel good."
The ultimate result found in Genesis 3:16 (please note the similarity to John 3:16 which is the redemption from Genesis 3:16) ...that woman's DESIRE would be for her husband and he would rule over her.
How often have I heard people refer to Geneisis 3:16 as the basis of male and female relationships as Christians in their own sense of deception and ignorance? Of course I can talk about "them" knowing that I spent most of my adult LIVING in that sense of deception and error, in that place of desire and lust. My language of those years and sometimes even now tells the tale. He makes me feel good. He makes me happy. He upsets me Even as parents how often are we deceived in our understanding as we say things like: My child frustrated me. My child made me angry. You made me feel good. You made me mad.
These are all the language of deception come from our animalistic nature which was fed by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If I am dependent on you to make me feel good, to make me happy, then what am I without you? Therefore, I will continue to "desire you" because I need you and am dependent upon you to make me feel good. (my dopamine delivery system working at its best.)
When we look at the other side of the "fall of man", what we see is the difference between woman's deception and man's knowing choice.
Woman's fall came out of the deception of "feeling" and "desire" which overwhelmed her ability to make a decision. She was deceived into thinking that that "feel good state" was something that her relationship with God had kept her from having. You know something....it was true. That isn't how we function when we are in Christ. It isn't about my feelings. Joy isn't about "feeling joy." Being blessed isn't about "being happy". Being at Peace, isn't about feeling peaceful. It is a state of being that comes from relationship IN Peace Himself, in the Beloved, being in the Joy Giver. Yet, how often do we still talk about "how good it felt to be in church!!" How good it felt to be in the presence of God!! yikkes....that cuts some of us to the core of our "spirituality" doesn't it!!
So what was the story of Adam's sin? If you read the scriptures it says, "The woman you gave me to be with me,, she gave me of the tree and I did eat "(KJV). Earlier it is said: "She took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." The big difference between the two actions of woman and man, is that she was deceived or "beguiled" as KJV puts it. She also said of the situation: "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat." We are able to understand now that her "eyes were opened" and she saw the consequences of her actions, that she had indeed been "beguiled or deceived." If one wants to interpret this to say she "blamed the serpent", I personally think that that is not within the context of this scripture. It would, on the other hand, appear to be "an eye opener," to see that indeed she had been deceived, fooled and that she had responded to that state by eating of it. Is that blame?
Now it comes to Adam. We know that Adam had been told as we see in Gen: 3 11, that he had been "commanded" not to eat. Back to Genesis 2: 17. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good nad evil, though shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest therefore thou shalt surely die." But that is not the end of the Lord God's conversation with Adam. He also said BEFORE WOMAN WAS CREATED....at the time the commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him." Scripture goes on to say that when woman was brought to man Adam said, This is now bone of my bons, and flesh of my flesh; she sall be called Woman, because she was taken out of an. Therefore shall aman leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and hiw wife and they were not ashamed.
Prior to Adam partaking of the fruit that woman was to give him, he lived in relationship to her in a state of "fellowship." He saw in her some "parts of himself" that previously had been a part of his own being....now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man."
Now the commandment had been given to man and he was not deceived or beguiled. The serpent hadn't worked that animalistic type of "desire" on man as he had with woman whereby she made the decision to eat of the fruit out of what we might call an "altered state of being." I am kind of laughing at this as I look back at my own life and realize how often I made decisions out of an "altered state of being." Something or someone had "made me feel" a certain way and I unwittingly responded to the situation or person out of that altered state of being. We understand today from the research that has opened up our understanding and given us knowledge even as God has spoken saying that in the last days knowledge will abound, that this is all about our "dopamine pathways". We understand this when it comes to pornography, that there is a physical change in the structure of the brain when people continue to get sexual stimulation from looking at sexually stimulating pictures. And that stimulation creates a "demand" in the brain each time the brain visualizes anything like it for more and more of that stimulation. The same with gambling. The more thrill you get "from" gambling, the more desire a person will have that draws them back to gambling. The same is with extreme sports, sometimes with exercise, often with food, and even work!
So where was Adam at the time that woman handed him the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Unlike woman (she had not yet been named Eve) who was in a state of deception due to whatever animalistic desire had been activated in her brain and had overpowered her ability to make a --for lack of a better word, a rational decision based on what God had told Adam. Adam had full control of his decision making process. And what did he know? He knew that God had told him not to eat of it if he wanted to live. He also knew that since woman had eaten of it and was now separated from him, that God had also said : It is not good for man to be alone." He knew that this woman he was now separated and he chose to receive the fruit rather than be separated from that was "bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh." He was not in the "heat of desire." He was not under the influence of a Satanic deception. Adam sinned knowingly, choosing separation from God rather than separation from "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh."
In the business that I have been in for 12 years and from my life experience, I can still say that while the male species does succumb to "desire and lust" as do all of us human beings since "sin entered into the human lifestyle and children were begat out of desire rather than conceived by and in the prescence of God as before the Fall" I continue to see men make horrendous decision just because they don't want to be "alone, without a woman."
Alone even for many of us females seems like a death sentence in itself. AH, sounds a little like "original sin?"
I have to say that I can identify with that. There were times in my life I did not have faith and trust that the Lord God could keep me if I didn't have the husband I had there to meet my needs. And I certainly didn't know how to trust in the Lord to meet my needs when I had a husband who "didn't meet all my needs and expectations."
The end result of this sin of Adam and woman: Besides saying that he would "greatly multiply thy sorrow and they conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; He says....and thy desire shall be to they husband, and he shall rule over thee. "
The quickest way to give another person power over you is to "expect them to make you happy." We use this kind of language all the time, sometimes expressed in the positive. "You make me happy." or in the negative "You make me sad." THIS is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Our original sin, as some call it, is relying on something outside of ourselves to affect our feelings instead of taking responsibility for our own feelings and realizing they come from our experiences and are there to "give us choices to act with our will." So when I am angry, I accept that those are my feelings, based on my experiences that were stirred up by the way I think about something that has happened. This is the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus. To make choices based on who we are, how we feel and then to be able to be "renewed in the spirit of our minds" according to the Mind of God as stirred in us by the Holy Spirit....to as many who have received the Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ.
When I look to you and say you make me happy, that "feeling" is now controlling me and I WILL expect you to be the agent to affect my emotions again and again. And if you don't.....I will feel violated, and I will blame you for "making me angry" and put the responsibility on you to change you, instead of seeing the whole situation with my feelings and my happiness and my anger as something that comes from and out of my relationship with the Holy Spirit with whom I am connected spirit to Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, when I became a "new creature" in Christ Jesus, instead of the old man after my animalistic nature acquired through the first Adam when he knowingly separated himself from Life in God.
Sin is "missing the mark." What is the mark? RELATIONSHIP IN AND WITH GOD. Missing the mark is not violating the Law. When I violate the Law, I missed the mark of relationship in Jesus Christ. Life in Christ who fulfilled the Law frees me from the consequences of violating the law which is death and separation from God. When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he chose gratification by his own will and choice rather that ongoing Life and it's gratification in God. Gratification by our own will always feeds more and more "desire" for more gratification. And that desire is illuminated by our understanding of what is "good and bad." Knowledge of good and evil, says Paul, is a force working in me that is independent or separated from my conscious choice. (Rom. 6-8) What is my salavation from such "knowing?" Life in Christ Jesus accessed through response to the gentle invitation of Holy Spirit to have faith (the measure of is given to each to believe) in the invitation and availability of His life.
Part 3 will follow some day...
I retired officially as of 3/14/2013 after almost 12 years in the field of chemical dependency counseling. I have four grown children, three daughters and a son. All but the son are married and two have children. I have a grown granddaughter and one of my daughter's has her fourth child about to be born.
We live on 8 acres in rural Lewis County with just my husband and I in our 40' fifth wheel. We also have a bunch of cats: guard cats!! And they do alert us to anything going on!
Just what this year will hold is yet in the mind of the Lord and not yet revealed to me but I trust that He has a whole new agenda for me in these "retirement" years. I know in His Kingdom there is no such thing. I know I am going through a "re tire ing" or "getting new tires time", being "refitted" so to speak for the equipment needed for the journey ahead and with great enthusiasm and praise to Him in whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!
Our Animalistic Nature and Temptation Part 1
I started this post after getting a phone call from my dear friend Diane telling me of the death of her oldest daughter Annette last night. Annette has battled alcoholism and other addiction for many years.
Many of you who read this have probably come to the same conclusion that I and many of those I work with and know, which is, that we hate alcohol and drug addiction!! We hate what it does to people and how it gets them stuck, known to many of us as bondage!! My heart has gone out to Diane and Annette the last two years since Annette has been back in her active alcoholism, cleaning up for a week or two and then unable for some reason to get into a program of recovery, of going back to her drinking. The back and forth of drinking and not drinking completely screws the brain up. It acclimates to the drinking, then the drinking is withheld and it tries to acclimate to no alcohol and it isn't unusual that in one of the cycles, the brain forgets how to tell the heart to beat or the lungs to breathe! Likewise the heart muscle full of alcohol for two or three days gets used to functioning with it, and then it is gone, works to adjust to no alcohol and it wears on the heart muscle until sometimes it just doesn't function at all. In either of these cases, CPR often doesn't work because the brain or the heart just isn't in the condition to work.
Even for those who know Jesus, learning to draw from His Life revealed in us by Holy Spirit, recovery from such bondage is a learning/growing process and journeyg that often gets totally screwed up by the "bondage" issues we have found ourselves in. Oh how we wish that suddenly we were all different!! Even for those of us who have been "delivered" out of bondage, it takes the process of learning to walk and exercise faith to grow in the security of His love so we don't go back again into the bondage from which we were freed!!
I think of a dear friend who was dealing with some serious issues in her life and she went to see a deliverance minister who gave her very wise advise. This isn't fitting for all people but was seemingly appropriate in this situation. The minister told her something like "I could cast out those forces that are coming against you, but because you do not have the security with which to stand against them and secure the ground so they don't come back in, the end result would probably be worse than where you are now." She therefore recommended that the woman go home and sink her roots deep into the love of God in Christ Jesus and gave her some specific suggestions saying that as she grew on the foundational level those forces that were harassing her would increasingly lose their power. In her situation they were not forces that kept her from her drawing out of the life of Christ but were just harassing her walk and circumstances.
I had a client just last week tell me that he had prayed what some call a first step prayer, .asking God to take away his cravings so he could move on through the learning growing process of recovery without that constant demand. He reported that they were removed to the point his brain didn't automatically tell him to go take a drink or a drug without him having the opportunity to make a decision about it. That demand is a function of the dopamine pathway of the brain which when it is overstimulated as it often in with drugs and alcohol and other addictive behaviors such as pornography, gambling, eating disorders and sexual behaviors, it overpowers our frontal lobe inhibiting our ability to make a rational choice or judgement, but calling forth our animalistic survival mechanisms into place which we act on apart from conscious choice.
Recently I heard someone talk about the temptation of Adam and woman in the garden. Who was the tool by which Satan deceived woman? It was the serpent which is what??? An animal!!! And what does the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil activate in the human being? What did it activate in woman? Her animalistic desire, lust, need, whatever you want to call it. If you look at the language of the serpent animal's proposition, so to speak, to woman, was that it will "make you beautiful, make you wise, and it will be good to taste." These things like ANYTHING that we rely on to "make us feel good" activate our dopamine pathways which come out of our "survival" or "old brain" which is the same portion of brain every creature in the animal kingdom has. The different between the human being and the rest of the animal kingdom is that our frontal lobe is more highly developed so that we have been given the "freedom" to make free choices between our thoughts, our feelings and chose our actions apart from "instinct" or programmed DNA responses. We can choose who we have sex with while those in the animal kingdom are programmed by their DNA what choices. Maybe we'd be better off being like the geese who are programmed to mate with one mate for a life time (just joking). Most of us can readily admit we have engaged in sex "to make ourselves feel good" and even prompted by the "desire" or "lust" or "feeling horney". To relate on such a base is to engage on the same basis as the animals engage in sexual activity. And we often hear ourselves and other human beings say things such as "Well, I have needs." Or "I am just doing what comes naturally."
Love, on the other hand, by it's very nature as we understand our God, our creator, our Lord and our Saviour who Is Love provides choice....free choice. He created us with the freedom to choose to be in relationship with Him and other people by choice not by animalistic drive and/or satisfaction.
In the Garden, the serpent (an animal) was used by Satan/Devil to stir up that instinctual part of woman to invite her to respond to that animal, lower nature of desire rather than choose to continue in total fellowship with the Lord God and Adam. I have wondered for years how woman was "deceived." And it was only this past week after hearing Joseph Prince preach and refer to Satan as using an "animal" to tempt woman, that some of what I am sharing here was illuminated in my understanding. This post is an effort to share with you some of what I am seeing and learning as the Lord shows me some of these things.
Most of us can say we understand that wonderful feeling called "lust." At least we used to call it wonderful. That warm feeling that goes all over our body when we are stirred by something or someone or when "desire" is stirred up? It is always a desire "for something to make us feel some way." Sounds just about the language we see in Genesis that was used with woman. And the Lord God had said, that in the day that you partake of the "fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" you will die. Whenever I, by choice, whether knowingly or unknowingly, follow desire or lust I have chosen to respond to something external based on how it will "make me feel, make me wise., etc. rather than to choose to drink of the internal life of God which fills me by Holy Spirit. I cannot use my will to "make myself feel good" and drink of the water of Life in Christ Jesus at the same time.
Our language of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes in many expressions. And when we understand this we will understand Genesis 3:16 more fully. And I will save this for yet another time of musing.
Meri
I retired officially as of 3/14/2013 after almost 12 years in the field of chemical dependency counseling. I have four grown children, three daughters and a son. All but the son are married and two have children. I have a grown granddaughter and one of my daughter's has her fourth child about to be born.
We live on 8 acres in rural Lewis County with just my husband and I in our 40' fifth wheel. We also have a bunch of cats: guard cats!! And they do alert us to anything going on!
Just what this year will hold is yet in the mind of the Lord and not yet revealed to me but I trust that He has a whole new agenda for me in these "retirement" years. I know in His Kingdom there is no such thing. I know I am going through a "re tire ing" or "getting new tires time", being "refitted" so to speak for the equipment needed for the journey ahead and with great enthusiasm and praise to Him in whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Does God Slap Us?
March 5, 2013
Have you ever heard a person say something like, "God needed to slap me in the face to get my attention." I heard this recently and actually had enough restraint to keep my mouth shut. But inside I was shouting, That isn't MY God!" I read on a post tonight by Charles Capps that the Word says that Paul attributed his thorn in the flesh to an emissary of Satan sent to buffet him.
I have so often heard people talk about God kicking their butts and things like that. That isn't my God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ, who paid for my sin and who makes His power available to me to deal with any circumstance in my life. When through my failures I reap consequences such as a Driving Under the Influence charge, it isn't God doing it. That probably isn't even the devil, but the consequences of my flesh seeking the self satisfaction that it is used to having.
Have you heard men talk about being a "good man?" I often hear this kind of language from people and even one video that I use tells the audience "they are good." The more I thought about this kind of thinking the more I realized this kind of person often thinks they deserve the wonderful things God does for them because they are "good". Otherwise they wouldn't think it is "bad" or God is treating them "badly" when uncomfortable and unpleasant things happen.I have a friend who says he is a "good man" and he calls everyone good . What is he measuring himself up against? What is his standard of good? And often "good people" thing they deserve all the "good things" in their lives because they think they are good.
Paul says to see no man after the flesh but Jesus Christ and him crucified. I value men because they are alive and they have worth and value because of the Life that they have that my God gave them and through which He desires to have fellowship with them. Jesus is the only one that makes it possible for God to have fellowship with us and the only reason that I can value and honor and respect another person, not because of their works either positive or negative.
I know very ""nice men", who have great smiles and who seem to be highly functioning in terms of society and the ability to "make money" and gain acceptance in society. But they are just "dead" good men.They may be men who live by a higher sense of morality than others. However, we know that this animalistic/flesh man in us does not ever submit 100% to any standard of "rightness." It fights against relationship with God as a result of the seed of Adam. So how often we find men that are very "moral" suddenly fall because they aren't "righteous"? How easily are we deceived even as woman was in the Garden!
How could we see it when we see ourselves through our own judgement of "good and bad" and as a result partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? We are deceived of the capacity of our own human nature and it's characteristic limitedness that needs the life of Jesus Christ in us and us in Him to have a relationship with the Father!! And He alone is "good".
With that I will close and hopefully in the next few days I will have to time share some musings about what constitutes "righteousness" which could be considered part two of this subject.
Meri Ford
Meri Ford 516 Park Rd Winlock, WA 98596 360 520 4503 blog http://meriford.blogspot.com/
I retired officially as of 3/14/2013 after almost 12 years in the field of chemical dependency counseling. I have four grown children, three daughters and a son. All but the son are married and two have children. I have a grown granddaughter and one of my daughter's has her fourth child about to be born.
We live on 8 acres in rural Lewis County with just my husband and I in our 40' fifth wheel. We also have a bunch of cats: guard cats!! And they do alert us to anything going on!
Just what this year will hold is yet in the mind of the Lord and not yet revealed to me but I trust that He has a whole new agenda for me in these "retirement" years. I know in His Kingdom there is no such thing. I know I am going through a "re tire ing" or "getting new tires time", being "refitted" so to speak for the equipment needed for the journey ahead and with great enthusiasm and praise to Him in whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!
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