I am Lot

I am Lot. Abraham is willing to go to war for me and my city, in spite of my bad choices. Abraham is willing to plead for me and my city in an intercession motivated by the reality of an impending righteous judgment. He intercedes based on God's character to show mercy. Love protects, love rescues, love intercedes, I am Lot.

On my heart is the question, "How do we transition from a gathering of people who have as their center, their needs and wants, to a gathering of people who love not their lives unto the death, and have the glory of God as their center?" I think the “shaking” and the trials that are to come will eliminate the grey area that now exists and the true followers of God will become very apparent. So it is critically important to know God and His ways and to develop a deep trust in Him that leads to a rest in Him and a total dependence on His life.
Don't waste any of your time. As time drags on there will be a tendency to start to drift and slide, Fight that tendency! Press in, “Your God reigns” and He has a plan and He is wanting to do a deep work of preparation in your heart here and now. Your life is not “on hold” this is an important time where deep truths and deep lessons are available to you. Cry out for the grace to walk in His power and peace.

There is a "contentment" that is the "anti" of the rest and peace that God gives. Lord break us free of that!
Something like being okay with God having a piece of your life but not the whole of it. Outwardly you are "good" and life is good, but He is not your Lord, He is an addendum that adds to your life, but He is not your life.

How do we "hold back" God?  with our own ideas, agenda, trying, doing something again just because it worked one time, not yielding an area of our personal life that He has put His finger on, doing what we 'think' is right, doing what He wants us to do but in our timing not His, 

If you have not been through it yourself, you do not know 

what they are going through.  Shut-up listen and pray.

Drugs like Xanax and Ativan mask the problem and take you around the problem, but they prevent you from facing the problem.  (Some drugs are to help balance chemicals, but these drugs are to mask and depress our normal reactions.)

Be the first to apologize, even if you can't think of anything you did wrong.

Think of different music styles as different languages that reach different people.

Relationships and eternity that is the stuff that matters.

2015 coming to a close and these were the highlights that have been poured into my life by friends as we draw to a close.

The Book of Hebrews

Six hour marathon Bible study with many friends contributing, many souls adding to the understanding of this amazing book.  Now for the challenge, summarizing 6 hours!
Our culture runs away from pain and suffering.  Suffering is the path of life, even Jesus had to walk it and "benefited" from it.  We are not cut off from eternal life, His life is for us here and now to flow through us, the truth is, "You exist in that life now."  Kimberly Comer
The path of the priest is suffering, so that, he is merciful and faithful.
David understood he was from the Melchizedek priesthood.  Priesthood that does not eliminate the promises to Abraham and the Hebrews but predates them.  His priesthood is one of forgiving sin and iniquity.  The transition in 3:5,6 from "servant" to "son" is an amazing blessing.
Rest is destroyed through disobedience.  Rest is trusting in His life to flow through us.  Unfortunately, "We are more comfortable with the anxiety than the rest."  Joy Burd
Death creates "rest" because we are "dead" and in need of being acted upon by the life of Christ.
4:3 God's works are finished, but he is still working.
4:9,10  lines up with Col. 1:29 and Hebrews 4:11 It is His life flowing through us while we rest.
The context of 4:12,13 is dividing between dead works (Lord, Lord did we not) and works that flow out of the rest of God entered into by faith.
Hebrews 6 basically states that the rest of God being entered into by faith, that allows for the life of God to flow through us is MILK!   That is amazing to me, because many moons into this walk with Christ I am just coming into an understanding of "rest."
Hebrews 6:1-8 and Hebrews 12:25 are "holy ground" scriptures that I feel it is only right to read and not to comment on.
(Sometimes people do not need a 6 hour Bible Study they just need a little 10 or 20 minute seed.)

When our life comes into alignment with the life of God, with what His will is, we are in the place of rest.
7:16  Wow the power of an indestructible life!  The Melchizedek priesthood, has this life as its foundation, not laws but life!
Hebrews 10:14  We are perfected and from that perfection we are "being" sanctified.
10:20  This is a living way, hence my term "organic order".
11:3 =  1:2  In Hebrews 11, these guys that are being talked about persevered by faith not seeing just trusting in God to make a way with a Melchizedek priesthood of forgiving iniquity.  It is those who are seeking and trusting in His mercy and forgiveness who are "perfect" because it is about perfect trust in His forgiveness.
12:10,11 Discipline from God is the path to holiness and righteousness.
12:12-15 Help your brothers, "see to it" that they don't fall short of the grace of God.  How?  By showing them mercy and forgiveness.  That is our place as the "church" to repent of with holding mercy and grace that have caused a root of bitterness to spring up, and then when it does we stand off at a distance and criticize them.
"It is patient mercy that we corporately lack."  Laura Bean
12:16  Esau really gets a "beating" here, not sure how to take that.

Rest and get to know Me

Trying to take some moments and stop and hear what the heart of God is saying.  He seemed to ask what do you think of when you think of rest, and I thought of sleeping and lying down motionless.  He seemed to say, "It is more like the capsule at the top of the rocket ship, the rocket part is doing all the work, the capsule is 'along for the ride'".  Christ in me the hope of glory is guiding and empowering all I do and my "life" is along for the ride, at rest.

Another day I felt He said, "As you spend time with Me you will become like Me."

Another time I was chided by the words, "You saying Holy Spirit is like you saying "escargot in Istanbul". You have never had escargot and you have never been to Istanbul.  We really do not know what we are saying when we use those words.

Art Katz teaching made me think that one of the hardest things in the command, "Sell all that you have." is to relinquish the "good efforts" and the "good things" that we think we do.

The deepest thing said to me this year was by Julie Trommeter, "Worship is God hands us the Lamb and we hand the Lamb back to God."  When Moses is consecrating Aaron to the priesthood, he hands Aaron the wave offering, Aaron waves it and hands it back to Moses.

Singing was definitely a part of worship, but it was singing in the presence of burning flesh and bloody sacrifice.

In order for the priest to worship, there was a process of stripping, washing (by another) Clothing (by another) Anointing with oil (by another) and the application of the blood from the sacrifice (by another).

At the mount of transfiguration Peter wanted to "make a place", but God wanted them to listen from the place of a dependent and costly relationship.

The Son of God born out of "bitter."

Found my paper from the quiet prayer time on Tuesday night.

Mary means “bitter” so God chose to have His Son born from “bitter” not “mother of many nations” or 'beautiful” or “blessed” but “bitter”.

Jesus knew He was born in Bethlehem at the time of the census and could have easily defended His honor when He was attacked as being a bastard son from the poor village that had no mention in prophecy. Jesus chose never to defend Himself which left all the room that God needed to be His defense. When we do not defend ourselves we are leaving God room to be our defense.

When we carry the ark without letting our stinking flesh touch it, nobody gets hurt.

When we are at rest in Him we are weilding the strongest weapon we have, our trust in Him.

It is so terribly important to wait on Him and seek for what He is saying in any given situation.

If we take the time to learn from our circumstances, if we fall on our face when the guy who reached out to steady the ark dies, if we cry out for Him at a time when we just want to accuse Him of being not who He says He is, then we enter into Holy Ground.

Paul speaks of being born “out of time” understanding that the salvation and healing of the Jewish people is “on hold” while the time of the gentiles is being fulfilled. He knew he was a miracle of mercy and was given a taste, a “down payment” of things to come.

Quiet day so far, did some dishes said some prayers, listened to some songs on you tube and listened to the sheep among wolves movie again.

Put two posts on facebook. “This world is not my home.

                                              This life is not my own.”

and

His amazing plan is to overwhelm a vicious army of wolves with a small group of sheep, sheep who are wise as serpents and who have no power of their own but are relying on the resurrection life of God. (my take-a-way from this film) Sheep Among Wolves.

Quiet Prayer and Bible Study

ot 3 things in the Tuesday night quiet time of prayer. 1) Since I have been having trouble “responding” in the right way to my wife lately. I just simply asked Him, “You always responded right, how did You do it? I felt His response was, I was not “responding or reacting” I was simply letting the life of God flow through Me. Mercy flows from the heart of God. I don't need any amount of changing of outward acts, I need to die and let Him live. Galatians 2:20

2. Rev. 3:21 Behold I stand at the door and knock... the church, and the individual does not open the door because we know that it is going to cost us our life. Fear keeps us captive because we don't know who we are, where we are, why we are?
3. The gifts and call of God are irrevocable because they are not based on performance. They were not earned by performance and they will not be taken away based on performance.

Wed. I sat down for Bible Study with Pastor Dave, Luke and Elijah Psalm 102 The first few verses make it very clear that this is about a desperate man, a desperate people. Verse 10 is an amazing turning point due to the fact that the person/people are able to SEE that it is God who has lovingly and redemptivly not punitively judged them and put them into this position. “I deserve this.” God will work this for my good. I trust You God. Are all amazing statements that flow from this desperate place. BUT I KNOW THAT THE TIME WILL COME WHEN I WILL SEE YOUR COMPASSION BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPASSION. Verse 13 When is this compassion released this powerful life changing compassion? Verse 14 When God sees that His compassion has been “worked into the heart of His bride and they are now reaching out to and loving the Jew with the same love He has” that is the ultimate fulfillment but when we individually consider the suffering of others more important than our life then His life can flow through us. God has an ultimate plan, revealed in Isaiah 60:21 ““Then all your people will be righteous;
They will possess the land forever,
The branch of My planting,
The work of My hands,
That I may be glorified. “ The nation of Israel will be a kingdom of priests and a light unto the world for 1,000 years. WE get to play a part in that, if we are willing to
“come and die”.  

The desperate beauty of the new covenant!

"A lesson from the prophetic realm… 
Hope, substantial hope, undeniable hope is the primary prophetic focus and idiom, because the prophet is sent to speak to a people, which God has chosen on the basis of an eternal covenant and on the foundation of an irrevocable and ongoing redemptive operation – in Christ Jesus, 
Eze 36:23-28, Hebr 7:25, 1 Pet 1:5"

Ezekiel 36:23-28    I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. 24 For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.28 You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

Wow is that good stuff or what!  So after Israel fails to keep the covenant God says I will give you a new heart/ a new spirit, My Spirit!!!!  that will be able to keep covenant!  You will live in the land and no longer be kicked out.

Hebrews 7:25   "Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

This "new covenant" made with Israel and Judah, is something that we individuals and the body of Christ get to experience the joy of, but it is their amazing national covenant! 

 Jer. 31:2,3  Thus says the Lord,
“The people who survived the sword
Found grace in the wilderness—
Israel, when it went to find its rest.”
3 The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness."

and this

 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

So all this talk of chastisement is from a redemptive and not a punitive stand point.  From a God whose heart is Mercy, whose Glory is mercy.  

Let us reason together, the "spirit" of talk radio is evil

This meme from Lysa Tyekeurst was posted on FB

 

"When I set out to prove I’m right, it always leads to conflict escalation. When I set out to improve the relationship, it leads to conflict resolution."

 

my response

 

At my last Christian gathering at the Hazelfon Federal Correctional Institute this statement was made by a brother who has been in prison since the 90's "You don't have to agree with a brother, but you must understand them." I blame talk radio with its rudeness and bullying by the host for at least part of the problem that has made every disagreement into a struggle to prove "why I am right and you are wrong" instead of, "I want to hear what you say, and truly understand where you are coming from, because I care about you more than the issue at hand."