Deconstruction

It’s starting over. erasing everything on the paper. tearing your model apart. Start from scratch in the kitchen. breaking your wood project to pieces. clearing your mind.

Re-Reading the Bible from start to finish.

This is actually what is going on in many people minds or philosophies,or even theologies. It seems to be the word in christendom. But I believe that it is almost always done outside of the walls of the church. You see, You might be chastised if you were tell the preacher or an elder that this is not right what we are doing in the church.

It is outside the walls of the church building, that things are being relooked at all levels of christianity. Their has been alot of different avenues of christianity that has been pushed, or thought of as the ‘way’ that the scriptures were pointing us to go. Just in the last 100 yrs their has been 2-3 models that have been instituted thru the name of God, that has never worked out. (this is only for the United States)

Let’s start with the oldest one that started in the 1940-50’s that the small evangelical preacher was supposed to ‘Preach Fire and Brimstone’ upon everyone’s head in those small towns to get them to heaven. This was all the rage. It eventually came to the city, and then was always used in the service to have everybody down at the alter to repent of their sins, and to make sure you would get to heaven, and not hell. People of persuasion were bullying people into Heaven.

Just can’t find this in the scriptures as being used as ‘way’ into Heaven anywhere. (besides being a wrong theology)

The second one is the let’s make a difference thru the church by melding our beliefs into the political arena, so that everyone must conform into it by law or legislation that we pass. This started in the 1980’s and has come crashing down upon us in the last few years. Which we won’t get in to. But it was this thinking that christianity must be inside the government to ‘make’ a difference in the US. This was the way to do it, so they thought.

This again, is nowhere in the scriptures the way that God’s people were to ‘sway’ the gentiles into submission.

Another big thing that was all the rage was the actually BIG CHURCH in the town that ‘everyone’ went to, to emphasized the awesomeness of God in one place by either from the pastor, or from the sheer ‘hugeness’ of the congregation. But this too has died a slow death, once everyone figured out that they felt all ‘alone’ in those 15,000 church’s. Their was no attention to the fellowship of people in the more intimate way of sharing each others lives in a daily basis way.

Again, This is nowhere to be found either in the old testament or new testament!. (Israel’s multitude in the time of the Exile when their people were flourishing, is not an example of this) Especially in the New Testament.

I have said this is many other blogs of mine that we haven’t really focused on the theme of the bible, (or what I call the Eternal Purpose)or the actually Forrest of it, instead of the tree, that we seem to be crazy about.

Why have we not just sat down in our chairs, and just DECONSTRUCT God’s Theology for us. Start at the beginning. After we have destroyed everything that we have used before in our theology. This is a must. No, It is a Command!!

Clear your mind of all previous ways, institutions, traditions, sacraments, or inheritance of beliefs and start from a clean sheet of paper!

Start in reading Genesis, slowly reading everything with the concept of that everything that is going on started with a plan a perfectness of God, it went wrong with the building materials God was using(us), but His plan was to get it back to His original plan. Keep this in mind all the way thru the bible, til the very end, tada, it does!

Start over, Today.

Why do you believe?

If you don’t ask yourself this on a regular basis, you need too!

You need to confirm to yourself that this is exactly what you believe and why. This is should be an affirmation to your faith in God. This is daily thing. God’s eternal purpose has traveled down a winding road thru many a centuries to get His blueprint down to us and all of mankind. God has worked thru many people,many leaders, many enemies to get us to where we are now.

God is in control. God has created man, God has put up with man’s rebellion, man’s inability to work with God and live up to his potential. God’s image has taken over itself as a life of its own. We have made our own world,our own rules and our own lives.

This is a road that alot of us have taken. But it is when we sit back and look at God and His purpose and we try to see what God has in store for us that we realize that It was a hard road but it was an easy one. We have to not really rest on our laurels and ‘seek’ out him in all our ways. This is just not about our taking up the gauntlet of our forefathers, but seek him out for ourselves as if was brand new and fresh. Questions need to be asked all over again.

Who is our creator?

Why did He create us?

What is an Image Of God?

Who is an Image of God?

What is our vocation?

What is the body of Christ?

What is the Kingdom of God?

Who is the World?

What is Love?

Why Me?

These are some things worth our time to think on, these things are an macro view of God’s eternal purpose. We are the players in this drama of life and times of God’s people. We are important to the story, all of us.

One thing that has got to change in our very acute way of thinking about God, this story is about Him, his all saving Grace for his creation and His Kingdom. We have seem to think that it is us that sets the rules and regulations on when are where we do things for this or that. God’s Kingdom does not work like that. God’s ways are simple- Love me, Love your neighbor. This is God’s Kingdom, five simple words.

It is time to get out of that box that we worship in and also the thinking box to actually ‘see’ what God really is!

He cannot be confined. He is everywhere, everywhere we are, He is there also. This is the story of Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22.

Spirit of the Law

I wonder sometimes if we understand the difference of the two things. The Law and the Spirit of the Law.

One easy reference we can use and dissect the two is the Law of Moses and the ‘New Covenant’,the Law of Christ.

These two things are the same on the surface but they are totally different in reality.

Let’s look at the first one, “The Law”, it was given to Moses by God for His people, the nation of Israel to follow and heed them to the things of God. It was a human way of doing certain things that made them ‘stand out’ as a group as being different in the world. The three main things that made them stand out were of their food laws of eating certain things or not eaten of certain things. It was a ‘marker’ for Jewish men to be circumcised to be apart of God’s people. It was also a ‘marker’ for the nation of Israel to have specific religious days and rites to their God. These were all specific and obvious things for the world to notice in their daily rituals. They stood out in this time of society, it was that society was just the opposite in their rituals of obedience.

The second one, being the “Spirit of the Law” was different. It was not of the human ways of doing things, it did not pertain to the ‘ways’ of society. It was to be ‘distinct’ in its coming across to the believers of God, and was a showing of what was of the inside of mankind to just be as God. God’s ways, are different. They are ‘seen’ as coming from ‘above’ actions and beings. This is foreign to us even today, we still believe that we have to really ‘work’ at being different in the world to ‘make’ that difference that we think we have to be. This is what we call the difference between the “old covenant” and the “new covenant”, It is different totally in nature and actions. It is because the new covenant changed things, in realizing that the old covenant could not be fulfilled by the second party(the Jews), The first party, the originator of the covenant, then steps in to fulfill the covenant of ‘being the one’ to fulfill the covenant by doing and being the law. This is the New Covenant being set up for ‘new’ steps for Gods people to just ‘be’ His.

It is this ‘step’, God’s son Jesus, fulfills the old covenant as it should of been, but it showed the Israelites that they to were not capable to fulfill the law, as the gentiles could not of either. They were all in the same boat. This is a plural problem of ‘mankind’ that they were incapable to follow a law or laws. Mankind was/is tainted. We need Help!

Help was on it’s way with the God’s son, Jesus to follow the law, and was the law, so to put the law in God’s hands to be accomplished. The Law as we understood it was now irrelevant to us, because we were and still are unable to fulfill these ‘laws’ as mankind wanted to.

God has now brought in His Son, Jesus to follow, in all aspects of our lives, All of our Lives. For it was mankind that failed, not just a few, or a group, a race, or appointed ones to fulfill the things of God. He is giving all the blessings of himself to all men and women to live in the Kingdom of God!

Revelation

or Prophecy. This book in the bible is a strange one, for sure. It is different from all the rest. It is picture into what God is thinking and his mission for his people. He explains it in different ways, that are unfamiliar to us to understand, or even just to read. But it is important for us to try.

I will continue to focus on the just the last part of the book, chapters 21-22. They are the most intriguing ones of the book and some say the whole entire bible. But we will persist in trying to ‘see’ what it says and means to all of God’s children.

We talked about the ‘What’ the other day of the particulars of God’s New Jerusalem, and its impact on us. What we will now talk about the ‘How’ the ‘What’ is to be implemented. Let’s remember that the picture that we see in Revelation 21, it is the ‘Coming of the Kingdom of God(Heaven), the ways or the economy of the righteous ones. It is a picture of a pure and blameless object, A Bride of God’s making. Let’s remember, that alot of this in Revelation is allegory in its content. It is based on something God has said,or done it the scriptures or of the things He said He was going to do in the future, all working to the glory of his name. The ‘What’ is God’s creation is coming back to the original design of God and man living together again in glory! This is the ‘saving’ action that God is taking to bring back his world.

It is the ‘How’ on this journey that we are concerned with now. If you have any of the old covenant and God’s people that was turmoil,wars,hating,mistrust,scandals, and many more things to distract God’s people from understanding of God’s Glory. It has not changed. We have still going thru these things and even more issues that have taken us down the wrong path to God’s Love for us. This is what have been dealing with for the last dozen of centuries to ‘see’ God’s road to the Kingdom of God.

What we have been doing for a long,long time is that we have very short sighted in the christian perspective. We need to look at the ‘How’ we are to be as the ‘community’ of God, and remember what God has told us that we are slaves to ourselves and of their authority over us! God designed us to be servants of Him, in that we are to be stewards of the world. If are alive and well today, all you have to do is look around the world and it is looking like a world wide rebellion against the ‘authorities ‘ of mankind. Government, of whatever form it takes in each nation, their is rebellion. Some would look at this and say that the world is in a mess for all these people to be misaligned with their governments over something as a virus, but lets think about the bigger picture of it.

One could say that the world is on the same page of sorts to be rebelling of their governments, but think of the consequences of this? They are in disagreement of the handling and implementation of a pandemic by vaccines. In another words it is the question of ‘who’ has AUTHORITY! This I believe is the beginning of the ‘New’ Paradigm of thinking for all mankind. Who does have all AUTHORITY?

God is in control! He is coming down to us, in His authoritative way of speaking to us, to bring ALL of us together. One mind, One Heart and One Spirit. God is working within us, to change us in our world, to the ways of His Kingdom.

God is bringing in his people together as one, one with the spirit of God, His Kingdom will be built in the blueprint of Genesis 1-2. God’s ‘saving’ formula is the one that brings in all of creation(remember that this is not just of mankind, but of everything that God created in the beginning. God’s world includes the universe,animals,the sea(evil),Temple(church),and the fact there will not be ‘night’ anymore, these will be all in the context of everything being ‘good’!

Amen and Amen Forever!!

From there to here

What?

What does the title mean? The usual comment that we hear, especially for men on the highway is asking someone how do I get from here to there? This is only after hours of driving around the country in a aimless way, while our wife tells us to stop and ask someone! lol been there done that!!

But this is something different. It is how something from far off, going to come to us? First off, we have alot of questions from this statement. Like, What is coming? From where?, When? How? and Who?

This is exactly what the christian should be focusing on in their studies and understanding of the Passages in Revelations 21-22. This is the picture that will be coming to us in a very methodical and perfect way. It is the economy(word used by Witness Lee for the ways of God) that will be brought to all his people of the world in the rule of God. This is word picture that we should see when we read the passages in Revelation. God has designed this way of eternity just as he did in the very beginning of time as the Garden of Eden scene we read with adam and eve.

What-God’s Kingdom

This is the fullness of God in everything.

If we ‘see’ that the revelation in revelation 21-22 is that of Genesis 1-2,then we must see the same eternal things in both of them. What then should we do then, is to look at Revelations and see what it actually says and portrays as ‘our’ eternal life.

Revelation 21. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,

Revelation 21. 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

The What is God’s Kingdom, No death, no mourning,no crying or pain, nothing is left from the old world! This is all Great but it is the verse three that should make us shout for joy and excitement for things to come.

“Behold,the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them,and they shall be His people,and God will be among them”. Now this is Great, and our ultimate goal of eternal purpose. But, But notice something in this verse, notice on how it is said, notice it, because I believe that we have read it so fast, that we missed an important thing.

It’s backwards in how we have perceived it,It is as God is coming to us,not us coming to him. God tabernacling of God is among us,He will dwell(live) with us, God will be among us. Our perception on our desolate earth is for us to ‘Go'( Church)to Him, It is obvious that in the New Jerusalem that it actually says that there is not temple(this should be our first clue, that we are doing things wrong, we are to be striving for the end result of our destiny in God! We should be first realizing that it is God’s people in the world, not God’s people in the building, that people will ‘See’ Him!

It is the ‘What’ that I feel must happen first in the christian paradigm of the eternal purpose of God. This must be the first change in the paradigm of God’s people, it is the ‘seeing’ this that will make things change and change fast for the world and the christians!

God’s economy,or paradigm,New Jerusalem, or the Kingdom of God, whatever you want to call it, is coming into our man made world to save it, and bring into His own. This is the What. It is coming!

I will blog on the ‘How’ tomorrow.

Hide my face

This is a phrase that maybe not really understood in the context of the scriptures.

Here is an example of God’s use of this phrase. It is in Ezekiel 39.29

Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

Another one in Ezekiel 39.7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

This phrase is used in the scriptures is used over 200 times in various ways with God and His people. When used by God it is in reference to His involvement in certain people at different times. The most used one is when He is talking about His people the Israel nation. This is the reality of the Israel nation that their existence was all based on the face of God being shown on them thru out their existence. It was God being for them in all their lives. This is whole identity of Israel and God with the fulfillment of commitment to the Law of Moses.

It is when the Israel strayed away from the law that the Face of God was being hidden from them, as is the breaking of a commitment or covenant of anything.

But it is this ability of God to shine his face in front of us to see that is what we strive for! What is not realized by most is that this ‘action’ by God is for all mankind! See Ezekiel 39.7 above. This was proclaimed centuries ago by the prophets and to the people of Israel, which they did not follow thru on. Why do we not ‘hear’ this from God now? Why do we not want the world to see his face?

It is ironic that when God hides His face, that it is then that Mankind tries to prove its ability to ‘rule’ the world on its own, to utter disaster over and over again. All we have to do is just look out our window, to see this. Our reliance on either governments,leaders,church,individuals,traditions, or simple just denying the relevance of God for anything has led us into a world of chaos.

God’s Face will shine upon us, soon, when we finally look at him as our Lord and Savior and Creator of the World. and we all said “Sooner than later” would be good!!

As Romans 14.11 says For it is written,
“AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME,
AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.”

Are you being controlled by the Old covenant or the new covenant?

It’s time. Yes, it is time that all christians stand back and look at our ways. Our ways on christianity. What are they and Why?

What things do you have instituted in your life or the life of your community that you are a part of? Go and re look at the things of the old covenant and see if the things of the old covenant of the Israelite’s from God are the things that you are in sync with either in your personal way or the corporate way of you are worshiping God.

If you haven’t noticed in the story of the old covenant, there is no mention of this being a way to salvation for anyone. Even if all the people would of been able to adhere to the commandments they would not of been ‘saved’!

Now, go to the new covenant and look at the beliefs of the New Kingdom and New Creation that God has created thru us. Look at all the beliefs,ways, and actions of this new covenant. This paradigm of God and his new life in his people is the journey that has led us to the eternal purpose, which is the things told to us in Revelation 21-22. There is a connection between the story of the new covenant and the end of the story in Revelation.

This is very,very important to remember(the last sentence of last paragraph), if the things that you seem to think are important to your fellowship,worship,rituals,traditions, or beliefs do not coincide with the journey to chapter 21 and 22 of Revelations, then those things need to be re-looked at if these things are the wrong path to go down to get to this paradigm.

To many institutions have gone down this path, to lead us to the wrong beliefs,practices,traditions, and worship to get us to our goal. This is where it is up to us and us alone to read the scriptures and seek out the truth of the Lord, to get us to the eternal purpose!!

Go,Now and search the scriptures and see the New Covenant and go to the New Kingdom of God!!

It’s a process

As with the understanding of the Word of Lord, there is a process, I believe that it is morphing into the identity of God and man, as God intended it to be.

Anyone that has studied the bible and the institution of Church, knows that it has gone thru alot of changing in what we have thought what the bible(God) was telling us. It started right after Jesus’ resurrection and question that everyone was asking “Now what?” or What did all this mean to us or to the world? It wasn’t until Paul came along to put his take on things to say, that It was Jesus’ death on the Cross and His resurrection from the grave that there was a reason for this. But What?

Paul, being singled out by God to chastise him one day while just walking down the road doing what he thought he was supposed to be doing for the Lord, that God points out to him that he wasn’t helping but hurting Him, by way of hurting him, by way hurting his body(the church).

It was when Paul understood this from God, thru the changing of his mind(set) of what really is the ‘Kingdom of God’. We have to stop here and go the verse in Romans 12 verse 2 it says “And be not fashioned according to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” This verse I believe is the key for the christian world to realize that we have not renewed our mind from the fleshly thinking of this world in which we are supposed to be thinking,acting or being of “Christ”.

It is the human ways that we have forever and ever been ‘thinking’,’doing’, ‘believing’ and just ‘being’ in what is supposed to be of the “Kingdom of God’! Our failure of understanding of this has just led us down some bad backroads of christianity that is nowhere near what God has wanted us.

If we were designed to be in the “Kingdom of God”,it is different that the “kingdom of Man”,totally!! Man!! lol There are different rules and regulations for each of these kingdoms, just ask man, he will tell you how you have to act,do, and think on everything! (ha,ha) God’s kingdom is different, you cannot carry over the things of man’s kingdom to God’s Kingdom. Not one thing is transferable. sorry folks. Different all together.

It all starts with Romans 12. 2. The changing of our thinking. We are of God. We cannot think or do the things of this world in God’s world. It will be apparent to us if we renew our minds to the ‘New Man’ of the Kingdom of God that we will not do the things of the old man.

I am ‘seeing’ mankind ‘renewing’ parts of their world here and there around me and even far away from me. Take time to look around you, and see people renewing their minds by doing, thinking, or just ‘being’ different from the world, they are ‘standing out’ from the world in everything they do. They are the ones that are renewing the minds and they are proving what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God!! Amen and Amen.

Vocation?

This word is really not used much in the world today. At one time it was. If I remember it correctly, it was used alot in the school systems in the terminology for the question to a student by the counselor in referencing “What vocation are you going to be striving for in your school path”? It was one of those questions that every student answered by saying “I don’t know”.

It was back in those days that the emphasis of life as a student was not just to go thru high school, then to college to get a piece of paper to say you have a piece of paper for a job, but was given some alternatives as learning and practicing a career in school with word working, metal working, FHA, Future entrepreneurs, or their were others in different schools. It was just a way to start on something that a student already was doing in school to continue in life as a part of the community.

The emphasis for the last 30-40 years has been that the only route to life is going thru the college scene. Which is a shame because not everyone is cut out to be a student of the academics and all that it entails. Anywhere from 2 to 10 years of your life is compressed into just learning a degree for a particular field, only to realize at the end of that experience it isn’t for you!

What if we all have failed to realize that ‘OUR’ Vocation has already been given to us from the time we were born. Yes, it was, and is. Just maybe we have just took this upon ourselves that we ‘thought’ that we knew what we were doing, but it really doesn’t seem like it, if you look around the world.

Let me tell you what it is.

Genesis 1: 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [fn]sky and over every living thing that [fn]moves on the earth.”

See. It has always been right there in front of our eyes, and we failed to see it or even worse, just do it!

Be fruitful and multiply…… We have done this fairly well it seems if we look at the world’s population. It is the next part that we have had the biggest issue in trying to accomplish.

Subdue it……. ‘To bring under control’. This seems to be the really hard one to understand or to work on. But let’s not look at it from our perspective from today, but of in the context of the moment of adam and eve. God told them that this was their vocation for the life. To reproduce and take care of the creation. How hard could that of been? Really. What is more outstanding is the fact that they were living in the Garden of Eden. It was the creation in a nutshell right in front of you with God already had all the plumbing done for the world, water from below and from above to drink for the garden. Their was no weeks! Thank goodness. It was an Oasis, a Paradise with perfectness all around you.

So what was the problem? Man was not content in this scene from God. Man wanted to create and own his own world to run it his own way! We know how this ends up!

So Why did we not just go with the vocation from God from the beginning of the Garden of Eden? God created us, man and women to be fruitful and to multiply, to subdue it, and be in charge of everything that was created by God above us,below us, and with us. Why,Why did we not do this?

You be the judge on this, why did we not want the vocation of taking care of the garden of eden? More importantly is the question why don’t we do this now, knowing that this is our vocation ever since we were born!

Dying

This is a word that will change your life when someone says it about someone.

It is a word that creates things in your mind about the person in which it is said. It brings sadness, sorrow, horror and complete disbelief of the news. We know that this word points to ending of one’s life in the physical life as we know it. This mortal body is coming to an end of it’s time, for whatever reason that has brought about the dying of it. It will be over. Finished. Done.

It is with this mindset, and reality of death that we must use to instill in ourselves in the understanding of these verses in Romans 7.

      1      Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
      2      For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.
      3      So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
      4      Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
      5      For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
      6      But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 7:1–6). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

This illustration of dying in and of the law is as true to the finality of something as a person that has just been told they are dying. This story of the law and its repercussions of living under its jurisdiction, is just devastating to one and its life of being.

Let’s break this down. Let me insert something here that is always helpful in understanding the scriptures. The Bible was ‘not’ written to us (ponder on this for a second) but ‘for’ us. The ‘law’ question that is being raised here is generally used for the Israelite’s in their worship of God. They have the 10 commandments. They also have 613 minor laws that are to be followed in the observances of these main laws. It is these that we are concerned about.

I am going to be talking not of the black and white of romans 7. 1-6 but of what it is actually saying to us in the deeper meaning of Paul’s illustration. The ‘law’ that is talked about is the ‘slavery’ that we are under with the power of ‘ the law’ of sin. We are slaves to it, we have no recourse but to follow it’s instructions. We are trapped. Sin is there. It is the law that exasperate it that makes it larger than life and brings it out into the front of our lives. It is all around us, in everything that we want to do, it is there, making us do the things that we don’t want to do.

The Law of marriage says that they and us today that if we are married, we are married to that person til death do us part. It is this and only this that cancels this bond. Anything outside of this bond is considered to be adultery for it is outside of the law.

Jesus uses the things of this world as the example of things that are to be understood in His Kingdom.(Not the other way around) It is here that we will transpose this example into what Jesus is really saying.

Jesus is telling us that our master is the sin of our flesh must die, so that we may again be with our original owner of God. Jesus, being the perfect example of fulfilling the law, and only one, must die to it, to then have no ownership of Him or of anyone else. Jesus has taken the effectiveness of the law and has abolished it, so that it will not have any influence on us.

God’s decree on His servants, is that they are free from bondage of the law, and are now servants of the creator. God is always faithful. He brings back to him his children that are lost. As like the prodigal son, God always will welcome us in our journey back to him with open arms, and to prepare that awesome feast for us to announce that all are back in the fold.