last night someone was asking me about spiritual warfare. given, i have seen a lot of things, talk to a lot of things, and i ended up asking to not talk about it. this was really odd, since normally anything that attests to the spiritual world and the reality of spiritual war fare i will talk about it without hesitation. i didn't feel led to talk about it with a few of the people around i was praying and just felt led not to talk and to let them no now was not the time. recently my concept and how i look at the entire nature of spiritual warfare. So, everything that is done is meant to attest to the glory of God in someway. when i have seen a lot of horrifying things and i realized i focused on the power of spiritual opposition and left it there.
i was reading through john 16 and one of the things that stood out the most was when jesus thanks his father for the power he gave him in his name. The most incredible thing is that we jesus's name and we are his brother. In revolation it talks about how every knee will bow to jesus and every mouth confess the power of his name. In the end, everything, except us. when things happen in spiritual war fare, even the opposition against jesus's kingdom will confess that jesus is king and will obey what is said in jesus's name. the amazing thing is not that we get to see the spiritual powers and the things outside of our concepts happeneing, rather that all these things are true and the spiritual world, that we are afraid of, confesses jesus's name. the power of jesus name is what should amaze us, since everything confesses jesus's name and sees the reality of this. the odd thing is, every confesses jesus's name, but not us. we try to rationalize the reality of jesus away, but everything that opposes jesus the most confesses his name. just kind of interesting.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
The Disciples’ Grief Will Turn to Joy
16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? 20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16
this passage has been brought to my face over and over in the past few days. i have been having bouts of doubt. I realize that the anxiety i have been having from worrying about how to deal with and when to deal with situations around me were not so much that they were overwhelming, but coming from the assumption that i am in control. the issue with being in control, what goes wrong, you are to blame. the issue with my worrying is that i am clearly not in control, that burden has been lifted. Even more so than not being in control, whatever we are facing, jesus promised that he already went before us and prepared the way for us.
There is an extreme issue with being in control, since we are unable to make situations perfect, we are unable to know the outcome of acting, we are unable to know. simply put, we can only know what has past, unless we are told by someone who has seen the future, what will pass. i am realizing, there are many things that we are called to, but primarily we are called to seek out God through the spirit and do what is right and there is little else we can do. simply, jesus is jesus. there isn't much, there isn't anything, else we can do.
At first, this made my anxiety worse, since i am unable to fix people i love when there are severe issues going on, after stewing on this, it became the greatest comfort, really. the end result of everything is jesus is king and we are his brothers sharing kingship with Him. now, with that in mind, there is still grief, there is still a need to grieve, there is still a need to mourn. however this does change how you see everything. if i really believe that jesus will reign supreme and every knee will bow to him, why does my fear render me incapable with worrying?
in the end, i am realizing regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, it doesn't change my standing with God . he still pursues me, regardless of my pursuit of him. he is not dependent on me. i am not in control of my relationship with god, really. in some ways i am, but in the end, he wanted me and pursued me without actually waiting on me for anything. he pulled me into himself and bound me to him. his love is no less aggressive now than it was then. that is comfort.
something kind of interesting i was just realizing, and here is a little context, i am at the point of emotionally snapping and loosing my ability to function for a bit, and one of the thoughts consistently crossing my mind is that i am hanging on by a thread about to fall. This is an ironic picture considering what i just talked about. I don't have to hold onto that thread, since there isn't anywhere to fall. HA! well, i do feel better after realizing that. The beauty of the gospel and what it does for men, it is fine, actually, it is encouraged, to allow yourself to face your emotions and reality and SNAP from it. Since in the end, living in honesty and living in touch with who jesus is only manafests jesus's glory all the more. Us hiding our sin, our guilt, and everything is simply us hiding Jesus's glory. If he bore all our sins, all our guilt, then we are not supposed to hide it. it isn't ours anymore to hide. Us hiding our struggles is us hiding how much of a conquerer Jesus is. He conquered what we can barely conceive in our minds and creating a kingdom we can barely see the plane it exists on.
The Disciples’ Grief Will Turn to Joy
16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? 20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16
this passage has been brought to my face over and over in the past few days. i have been having bouts of doubt. I realize that the anxiety i have been having from worrying about how to deal with and when to deal with situations around me were not so much that they were overwhelming, but coming from the assumption that i am in control. the issue with being in control, what goes wrong, you are to blame. the issue with my worrying is that i am clearly not in control, that burden has been lifted. Even more so than not being in control, whatever we are facing, jesus promised that he already went before us and prepared the way for us.
There is an extreme issue with being in control, since we are unable to make situations perfect, we are unable to know the outcome of acting, we are unable to know. simply put, we can only know what has past, unless we are told by someone who has seen the future, what will pass. i am realizing, there are many things that we are called to, but primarily we are called to seek out God through the spirit and do what is right and there is little else we can do. simply, jesus is jesus. there isn't much, there isn't anything, else we can do.
At first, this made my anxiety worse, since i am unable to fix people i love when there are severe issues going on, after stewing on this, it became the greatest comfort, really. the end result of everything is jesus is king and we are his brothers sharing kingship with Him. now, with that in mind, there is still grief, there is still a need to grieve, there is still a need to mourn. however this does change how you see everything. if i really believe that jesus will reign supreme and every knee will bow to him, why does my fear render me incapable with worrying?
in the end, i am realizing regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, it doesn't change my standing with God . he still pursues me, regardless of my pursuit of him. he is not dependent on me. i am not in control of my relationship with god, really. in some ways i am, but in the end, he wanted me and pursued me without actually waiting on me for anything. he pulled me into himself and bound me to him. his love is no less aggressive now than it was then. that is comfort.
something kind of interesting i was just realizing, and here is a little context, i am at the point of emotionally snapping and loosing my ability to function for a bit, and one of the thoughts consistently crossing my mind is that i am hanging on by a thread about to fall. This is an ironic picture considering what i just talked about. I don't have to hold onto that thread, since there isn't anywhere to fall. HA! well, i do feel better after realizing that. The beauty of the gospel and what it does for men, it is fine, actually, it is encouraged, to allow yourself to face your emotions and reality and SNAP from it. Since in the end, living in honesty and living in touch with who jesus is only manafests jesus's glory all the more. Us hiding our sin, our guilt, and everything is simply us hiding Jesus's glory. If he bore all our sins, all our guilt, then we are not supposed to hide it. it isn't ours anymore to hide. Us hiding our struggles is us hiding how much of a conquerer Jesus is. He conquered what we can barely conceive in our minds and creating a kingdom we can barely see the plane it exists on.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
to clarify for me readers, i am single now.
so, the interesting thing about chrisitanity is it makes us completely free. the reasons why this is interesting is that we are completely free, yet almost universally when we embrace the freedom, bind ourselves. Christianity moves us to bind oursevles to weakest, the neediest, and the poorest. The reason why this is interesting is we are free to pursue, by our standards, what is the greatest and most profitable. The nature of the kingdom is upside down and reserve of what our standards are. We, gladly and rightly, use our freedom to deny what we are told is most pleasurable and most profitable.
I believe the nature of the kingdom is meant to be upside down, though. we are meant to pursue all these seemingly odd things. i believe we are meant to, since this is how we found our freedom, actually this is how our freedom found us. The nature of our salvation is so backwards, since the strongest loved us, binded us, to Himself. We have freedom, if there ever was a free spirit, it was paul the apostle. He traveled everywhere never even carrying what people thought, rather he just did what he knew was right and disregarded everything else. Where this is logically confusing is that he had a concept of right and wrong, but was completely free and chose to bind himself to the nature of a good God who uses his own freedom, as God, to bind himself to us.
I am free, i am free to masturbate, be drunk, and never deal with my struggles. However, even though i am completely free i have no desires to do this, even though i know it would be somewhat blissful and fullfilling right now. i think the nature of santification is the bringing of heaven into us in someway. Since i know there is going to be even higher pleasure in heaven than we have now or can understand now. I know the things i crave to pursue, for pleasure now, are not focused on what actually matters in an eternal perspective. any person who has just examined what we want to pursue has seen the futility of everything we pursue. it ends and so do we. so what is the point?
the beauty of being free, but bound eternally, is this frees us to enjoy everything we do. the simple act of working now has eternal weight in what it is. If there is an eternity then we have some purpose in what is going on now, since it does not end simply with the act of having sex, doing drugs, running from what hurts. it does not end there anymore. the freedom we have is fullfilled in being bound to eternity. The upside down kingdom frees us by binding us. True love is not free, it is bound. the more it loves, the more it binds us, freely. you are free to leave your wife and she is free to leave you in society, but the more she loves you, the more she is bound to you. Jesus is free to leave us, but he binds himself to us and the more we love him, the more we are bound to him. love is not blind, it is bound.
so, the interesting thing about chrisitanity is it makes us completely free. the reasons why this is interesting is that we are completely free, yet almost universally when we embrace the freedom, bind ourselves. Christianity moves us to bind oursevles to weakest, the neediest, and the poorest. The reason why this is interesting is we are free to pursue, by our standards, what is the greatest and most profitable. The nature of the kingdom is upside down and reserve of what our standards are. We, gladly and rightly, use our freedom to deny what we are told is most pleasurable and most profitable.
I believe the nature of the kingdom is meant to be upside down, though. we are meant to pursue all these seemingly odd things. i believe we are meant to, since this is how we found our freedom, actually this is how our freedom found us. The nature of our salvation is so backwards, since the strongest loved us, binded us, to Himself. We have freedom, if there ever was a free spirit, it was paul the apostle. He traveled everywhere never even carrying what people thought, rather he just did what he knew was right and disregarded everything else. Where this is logically confusing is that he had a concept of right and wrong, but was completely free and chose to bind himself to the nature of a good God who uses his own freedom, as God, to bind himself to us.
I am free, i am free to masturbate, be drunk, and never deal with my struggles. However, even though i am completely free i have no desires to do this, even though i know it would be somewhat blissful and fullfilling right now. i think the nature of santification is the bringing of heaven into us in someway. Since i know there is going to be even higher pleasure in heaven than we have now or can understand now. I know the things i crave to pursue, for pleasure now, are not focused on what actually matters in an eternal perspective. any person who has just examined what we want to pursue has seen the futility of everything we pursue. it ends and so do we. so what is the point?
the beauty of being free, but bound eternally, is this frees us to enjoy everything we do. the simple act of working now has eternal weight in what it is. If there is an eternity then we have some purpose in what is going on now, since it does not end simply with the act of having sex, doing drugs, running from what hurts. it does not end there anymore. the freedom we have is fullfilled in being bound to eternity. The upside down kingdom frees us by binding us. True love is not free, it is bound. the more it loves, the more it binds us, freely. you are free to leave your wife and she is free to leave you in society, but the more she loves you, the more she is bound to you. Jesus is free to leave us, but he binds himself to us and the more we love him, the more we are bound to him. love is not blind, it is bound.
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