The Unwritten Self

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Withhold the ink
and the pages of self
drift away, unwritten

*****

Chapter 3742 in the carnal novel of self happens, grows, develops in part because ink is applied to the page.  The ink is the energy, the Light, the Life Force within that propels all action whether it be moving your arm or imagining a giraffe or circulating blood.

I know that my custom has been to wrangle with self after the pages have been written already–crumple and toss some, edit some, hold some up as masterpieces of my awesomeness, hide some in a dark closet.   But, in this dealing with self, in that it takes place in this imaginary world of the false self-image, more episodes of self are written.  That is the game.  That is the unseen bondage.

For self is some type of organic being with some modicum of intelligence.   How does it live?  For most, it lives when it comes for a feeding and I feed it by identifying my true being as being the false self, and engage the false, carnal self-image as who I am.  For some, we recognize there is a “real me” at my core and the self image is a false representation of the “real me”, and a wrestling match occurs, the real vs the false.  In doing both, we give it the energy it needs to go on living.

How does it die?  Well, religion tells us to beat it into submission, to kill it.  To overcome or lay down the self image’s “life” by force of the will.  I think that that is the way of law.

I am currently seeing it this way and I think it might be the way of grace.  We are the pen.  We can, by basically unconscious automatic writing, live the drama that our false carnal self creates, imagining it to be “life”.  Or, we can be at one with The Pen, the source of Life; and control the flow of ink, denying it to the pages of self when we are aware of what is happening, and by starving the self of the life it needs to exist, observe it’s death, little by little.

Amnesia

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God is.
Often I was.
Sometimes I will be.
But we meet at I am.

*****

I had an epiphany after my last post on this blog.  It has changed how I look at things.  I’ve been meaning to make a post here explaining this epiphany and how it came about and what it has meant to me since I had it.  But then I realize, it doesn’t matter.  It’s part of the past.  The past along with the future is where I’ve lived, ignoring the current moment.  So, I’ll just offer the bare bones.

Imagine you go to bed on a Sunday night–normal, you.  And you wake up Monday morning with amnesia.  You don’t remember your life.  If you smoked cigarettes on Sunday, would you on Monday?  If you were a Sunday prostitute, would you do the same on Monday?  If you were bitter, or self-righteous, or liked pizza, or disliked fishing, or hated your parents, or whatever:  how would you be on that Monday morning?

If you were at one time addicted to drugs and somewhere along the line “found Jesus and got saved and got delivered” so that you no longer were addicted to drugs–that being a big part of your life story on Sunday night.  But, how will that matter on Amnesia Monday when you don’t remember it?

From this exercise I realized a few things.  I am not my thoughts.  And, I am not an accumulation of my life’s past events.

Saul Becomes Paul

2.  It’s about hearing our new name.  Abram becomes ‘Abraham.’  Jacob becomes ‘Israel.’  Saul becomes ‘Paul.’  The new name expresses your new identity, uniqueness, and what you mean to God in a way that no one else does.  It is your particularity.  Hearing your new name helps heal the wounds — those blows that were designed to take you out of play and to prevent you from offering what the world needs from you.  As for me, I remember God whispering, “Jim, you are my Aragorn.”  He may not ever whisper that to you, but he knew what it would mean for me to hear that.

–Jim Robbins

Hmmm, I find that extremely intriguing. My full name is very common and I’ve often thought about having a different name.  And I remember testimonies scattered throughout years of sermons where people were given different names…

***

Rev 2:17 To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it

The Treadmill Goes Nowhere

–On the day that Adam ate from that tree of good and evil, he exchanged the mirror of God for the mirror of his own and the mirror of every person on the planet. And his view of life, his equation for now for being OK, instead of just looking at God and asking ‘Am I ok’ and hearing him say, ‘Yeah son, you’re ok’; he got a new equation. Now, he evaluates himself and he focuses on other’s evaluations of him. And so his new equation for being OK is: my performance + your evaluation of my performance + my evaluation of my performance = whether or not I am ok. And that is deadly and dangerous.

–Frank Friedmann

As we were in the loins of Adam when all that happened, we inherit that from Him at birth.  Pride is the sin of comparison. As long as we eat from the good/bad tree, there will always be comparison and competition.  We look at others and see the mirror of ourselves and judge them comparing them to ourselves and judge ourselves comparing us to them.  It’s a neverending cycle of measuring up.

2 Cor 10:12 For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
Rom 5:17 For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

All Grace

…Paul went about releasing people from the bondage of sin and the law and the spys came behind Paul and put the handcuffs right back on, “bringing balance.” You cannot balance grace and law. There’s no middle ground–there’s not a bit of law and a bit of grace. It’s a radical message. All grace, all grace.

–Rob Rufus

You Are Faultless

I said alot of words in my previous post on Christians being reconciled to God.  So let me simplify it a little bit…

Jesus presents you today as holy, blameless and beyond reproach to God.  When you are unreproachable in His sight, it means He doesn’t find fault with you. Let’s make sure we grasp fully what a fault is.  It means:

–a defect or imperfection; flaw; failing
–an error or mistake
–a misdeed or transgression

God does not look at your faults.  He relates to you, not by what you’re doing, but because you are in His Son.

God doesn’t want you obsessing over your faults, failings, imperfections and  transgressions.  That’s old covenant legalistic thinking.  You are now in the New Covenant where your sin is forgiven one time by one sacrifice.

God is holy.  And because we can’t become holy no matter how hard we try, He declares us holy, so that we can relate with Him.  It’s not earned by what you do or lost by what you do.  It’s a gift.  It’s grace.  It’s part of the good news that makes you free when you, by faith, believe it and keep that perspective.

You Are Reconciled

Col 1: 19-23 For it pleased the Father that in Jesus all the fullness should dwell, and through Jesus to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight–

if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…

***

Jesus, through the blood of His cross, made peace between you and God.   You are reconciled (brought into agreement and harmony) with God when you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and are born again.  And you are presented by Jesus to God as holy, blameless (free from and not deserving blame; guiltless) and above reproach (to find fault with; upbraid); right now, today, and for all the days of your life.  God sees you the same way He sees Jesus.  That is the good news of the grace of God.

For God knows that when you do wicked works and evil behavior, when you were lost or now that you are born again, the tendency for you is to estrange yourself from Him in your mind, becoming aliens and enemies to God.   But God, in this wonderful gospel of His invites you to find freedom from that wrong thinking;  He sees you as blameless, holy, finds no fault with you, doesn’t upbraid you no matter what.  In this relationship with Him, He says, this is how I relate to you.

And when we continue in that attitude and are not moved away from that perspective, we remain at peace with God.  When we move away from His perspective of us, then we ride the roller coaster and in our minds become alienated from Him.

Which Is Your Heart?

A. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

or

B. God has given me a new heart, where the Spirit of Christ dwells, into which God poured His love.

The legalist believes (A) and figuratively and sometimes literally walks around with this heavy weight on his chest covering his heart.  It’s old covenant thinking.  And because he’s afraid his heart will deceive him, he lives completely in the realm of his mind, ever debating, ever learning, ever getting his ducks in a row in his systematic theology.  And when you speak to him, he speaks to your doctrine, not you; waiting for the buzzwords to hit his mind so that he can explain things to you.  Sex?  Here’s 12 verses telling you what not to do.  Sabbath? Here’s a 750-page book I wrote on that.  Divorce?  Let me slap this bumper sticker on you, God Hates Divorce.

When you realize (B), that in the New Covenant God gave us a new heart; that he poured His love into your heart and that you can only love from your heart (not your head); well then, grace is not far from you and you can speak the truth in love from a heart that loves the other person.

Why do we ask the lost to believe on Jesus from their heart and then when they get converted to forget that part of themselves?  That you’ll just get messed up in deception and error?  As a christian with a new heart given to you by God with the mind of Christ by the Holy Spirit dwelling in your heart, you’ll be deceived 100 times more often by head thinking than you will by heart life.

Beware of the Leaven

Luke 12:1 Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

What is hypocrisy?  The acting of a stage player, pretending, putting on a mask, playing a part.  And who were the Pharisees?  The law experts, the legalists.

As was said in the post on Emulations, our flesh has a tendency to pretend.  To emulate or imitate some standard of righteousness that we invent or that we’ve been taught to follow.  The legalist says pretend you’re not struggling with sin, follow this or that formula and do better/try harder and one day you’ll be what you’re pretending you are.

Grace invites you, just as you are, into His perfect righteousness; and encourages you to cease from your works and self effort and rest in the One who has already lived the way you are striving to live.   And as you walk in that rest, you’ll walk in freedom and love and joy and peace and self-control.

Just how many of our sins did Jesus die for?

Some of them?  All of them?  Let’s see:

Col 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

Acts 13:38-9 Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things.

Heb 8:10-12 For this is the (New) covenant that I will make… I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

2 Cor 5:19 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them

1 John 2:12 I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.

The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was perfect, a one-time sacrifice for all the sin of the whole world.   So far, so good?  Well, then…here’s a question for you.

The Vinedresser

John 15:1-2 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

***

Jesus is the vine and we are a branch attached to that vine.  And God is the vinedresser, the husbandman, the gardener, the winefarmer.  And almost all the English versions of the bible say that He takes away or cuts off the branch that doesn’t bear fruit.

They take this word in the Greek and translate it ‘cuts off.’  But, it can also mean to raise up, elevate, lift up; to raise upwards off the ground, and it’s translated many times that way in the NT.  For example, we see the same Greek word “airo” in Matt 9:6 when Jesus healed a man he said, “Rise, pick up your bed and go home” and again in Mark 10:21 “Take up the cross”.

The man who I heard relay this truth said he called up a few vineyards and asked them what they would do with branches that were not producing fruit.  Would they throw them out?  No, they said they would lift up the branches and elevate them off the ground and this would help them to produce fruit.

Thank God that He doesn’t look over our shoulder and wait for us to mess up enough times so He can just be rid of us.  No, a thousand times No.  Thank God that when we met the Author of our faith, Jesus, that He will see us through to the finish.  God loves us with His kind of love.  He is patient, kind, longsuffering with good intentions toward us; a love that never fails His children.

The Heart and Fear

I had a wonderful moment in the Lord last night.  To grasp this more completely, please first read my post from yesterday about not letting your heart be troubled.

Here’s what happened: through the tag surfer here on wordpress, I found a post by a christian guy and made a comment on his blog.  Later in the day, I thought about that comment a little bit more.  I believe what I told him was true, but  I wondered if I was too direct or too bold or too harsh or if I went about things right or etc etc.  And I prayed and told God that I was afraid that maybe I went too far and that I didn’t intend to hurt him or insult him or anything like that.  And I talked to Him about it a little bit more.

Later, something peculiar happened.  I had these weird thought patterns, like–and I hope I can put this to words–trying to get into my mind.  It hovered over me like a blanket just waiting for me to cover myself with it.  I could sense it.  It felt like a melancholy, like a resignation, like depression and anxiety all rolled into one.  There was a certain familiarity with it.  It looked comfortable and inviting and I came close to jumping into the blanket and wrapping myself up in it.

But, I prayed.  I’ve been so aware lately of stopping letting my heart be troubled.  And this felt almost like the result of a troubled heart.  I prayed some more and it wasn’t that.  The Lord quietly brought the end of  John 14:27 to my remembrance: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

I had fear over my blog comment and I let my heart linger in that for awhile.  I didn’t stop from letting my heart be afraid.  God graciously made me spiritually aware enough at that moment to see that what was trying to come on me was attracted to the magnet of my afraid heart.  I did see it and I didn’t take on the blanket, and then it was gone and peace filled my heart and I sat amazed.

1John 4:18-There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.

Repent!

In the New Testament, repent is the Greek word metanoeo.  When I look that up in a concordance I see that it means to change one’s mind or understanding and I am struck by the oddity of that.

I know that in times past, I’d repent by turning 180 degrees from something and turning to God and praying and pleading, saying I won’t do it again and that I’d try harder next time and alot of other variations on that theme.

Now that grace has found me, I wonder if  repentance is a truth encounter?  Does not the truth make us free?  I know that my heart is like a garden and out of my heart flow the issues of life; in other words, what’s in my heart will come out and manifest itself on my outside in thoughts and deeds and words.

So, if I believed a lie and that lie has taken root and is bearing some nasty fruit somewhere in my life, how do I deal with it?  Do I throw the fruit down and will myself not to bear that fruit any longer?  Or do I discover that fruit’s vine, the lie, and let the Truth show me the truth, so the vine can be cast out, producing fruit no longer?

Pondering…

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

God created human beings.  He made us.  He knows what makes us tick.  And throughout the Bible we can find these little nuggets of truth that shed light on the human condition.  And because He made us, He gives great counsel to us about us.

After years of religious Christianity I discovered the grace message, this gospel of grace.  One of the first things I took to heart, so to speak, heh, was something Jesus said recorded in the book of John.

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John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

***

I understand that another translation of that could read, ‘Stop letting your heart be troubled.’  And then I could see it clearly in me.  When certain circumstances arose, I would get stirred up inside.  And I would get in a mood.  I would get anxious, frustrated, depressed.  I would worry and fret.  I would get mad at the world, mad at me, mad at God.   All manner of different moods would come on me and I would walk in those moods for an hour or a day or longer.

At the beginning of all those different episodes the same thing happened.  My heart got troubled and I Let It continue.  And then I walked in this internal turmoil, lost in it, losing time.

But now I stop it when I sense my heart getting troubled. I rest in Him. And that peace that is inside of us has more chance to flow.  And I walk in so much more peace these days.  And joy, and love.  And as I go from grace to grace, I notice my heart is troubled less and less.  I thank God that in His Son Jesus we have that peace that we’ve so longed for all of our lives.

Let not your heart be troubled, my friend.
Let not your heart be troubled again.

The King and The Prostitutes

There was a mighty King whose kingdom was very large.  And the King declared that all the prostitutes in his land be pardoned for their crimes.  And he set a date for them to come to his palace and receive a writ of pardon.  And the prostitutes greatly rejoiced.

But as the day approached, the prostitutes realized that they had to make a living.  And that prostitution was all  they had ever known.  And the prostitutes were troubled in heart.

When the day of the pardon had come, all of the prostitutes gathered at the King’s palace.  And there they heard the rest of the story.  Not only was the King pardoning them, but the King desired to marry them.  And the King invited them all to come and stay at his palace where all things were provided for them.  And the King made them his wives.  And He loved them all the days of their lives.

The Revival will begin on the 17th

Pastor Joe: Hey brother, How ya doin’?
Elder Tom: Abundantly blessed and highly favored!!
Pastor Joe: You know we got our annual revival coming up next month.
Elder Tom: Yessir. Got the flyers all printed up and got the ad time bought at the radio station.
Pastor Joe: We got the witnessing team on board?
Elder Tom: Yup, they’re going door to door on Thursdays to invite folk.
Pastor Joe: Good.
Elder Tom: You got a key verse for this year?
Pastor Joe: Yes, 2nd Chronicles 7:14
Elder Tom: Oh yeah, that’s a good one.

***

2Ch 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

***

So often we take things from the Old Covenant and try to apply them to our lives here in the New Covenant.  Here’s the secret:  the day you were born again, you humbled yourself and sought God’s face, you turned from your wicked ways and prayed, believing on Jesus Christ.  And God heard from heaven and came to His temple, which is your body, forgiving you of all your sin and you were born again; out of the old man and into the new man, out of the old covenant and into the new. The idea in this verse was fulfilled when you were born again.

The OT folks tried it in their own strength, they couldn’t make it work and God did what he said at the end of that chapter.  He cast the old house out of His sight, the physical temple in Jerusalem, and to this day it’s no longer there.  But thank God there is a new and living way through His Son Jesus.  Thank God that in Him are ALL things that pertain to life and godliness.  And Thank God that he has invited us and made a way for us to partake of a new life that is found in His Son.

Cain and Abel

We call Hebrews 11 the hall of faith.  And who is the first guy mentioned in this hall of faith?  It’s Abel of Cain and Abel fame.

Heb 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.

See, there came a time in Genesis 4 that God asked the brothers Cain and Abel to make a sacrifice to him.  Abel’s was accepted and Cain’s was rejected.

***

Gen 4: 2-5 Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

***

I used to really focus on that word firstborn.  And I thought that was the reason for Abel’s accepted sacrifice.  Abel brought the best and Cain just brought a hodgepodge of what he pulled out of the ground.  But that’s not it.

By faith Abel offered…Abel heard God and believed God and trusted God.  This occurred sometime after God killed a few animals to make tunics to cover Adam and Eve.  So it wasn’t completely foreign to them to slay an animal.  And because Hebrews testifies that Abel offered in faith, I’m pretty sure God told him and his brother what He meant when it came to an offering.

And so Abel heard Him and trusted what He said, and offered a lamb.  But Cain was a farmer.  And he worked hard to bring in a crop.  And he thought he’d show God something even better than a  little lamb, something he was proud that he produced.  And he brought of his crop to the Lord and it was rejected.

And so it is throughout the span of history and so it is today.  We go about in self-effort doing what we think of as the right thing and ask God to bless it and us.  A common phrase I used to hear in conservative circles was “God will honor that“.  Well, that is hay and stubble, selfworks, walking in law and not grace;  the independent man striving in self-righteousness.  And like Cain there comes periods where the independent man becomes angry and his countenance falls and he says,

I’m trying very hard to please you and do the right thing so WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING!!!

Part of it is, you are trusting in yourself and not in Jesus whom God has sent.  You’re not knowing and acknowledging ALL that Jesus and His cross accomplished for man.  You believed Him for forgiveness of sins, now trust Him and believe Him for the rest.

Emulations

Many times we are taught that a New Testament Christian is someone who got saved and then needs to change his life to be like Jesus.   And we go about doing what we think are the right things and avoiding what we think are the wrong things.

And ultimately, we end up being reduced to trying to imitate what we think  a righteous person looks like.  In the bible that’s called emulations and it’s listed with other works of the flesh like witchcraft and adultery (Gal 5).  It’s in the domain of the old man.  It’s living from the tree of good and evil.  And it’s not the way of grace.

The New Covenant life is one of bearing fruit.   Jesus is the vine.  We are a branch attached to that vine.  We bear fruit outwardly because of that life that is in the vine, which is in us.  It’s not about doing, it’s about being.  The branch doesn’t try to bear fruit.  It just rests in the vine and the fruit comes naturally as the Vine supplies.

The Desert Parable

You meet a beautiful woman whom you love very much and you get married. And the King of Saudi Arabia says, come, spend your honeymoon here in one of my palaces, stay as long as you want. And so you go and begin this marriage relationship with your wife in this wonderful grand palace where everything is provided for you.

And the first few days, you just enjoy your wife’s company and love her and the two of you do everything together. And then one morning you awake and share a bountiful breakfast with your wife. And when the meal ends you say, ‘Honey, the cab is here for you.’ And she says, ‘What, what cab?’ And you say, ‘The cab is here, it knows where to go, just go.’ And she says, ‘Of course, my love.’

And she goes out and the cab takes her into the harsh desert of Saudi Arabia. And the cab leaves her there alone and drives back to the city.

In the meantime, you decide to play 18 holes of golf on the palace golf course. And after that you enjoy a nap. And at lunch time you eat on the roof of the palace, and the servants bring you a lavish lunch of meats and cheeses and fruit and drink. And when the lunch is almost ended, you grab your binoculars and gaze out into the desert to see how your wife is doing. And one of the servants says, ‘What do you see out in the desert?’ And you say, ‘My wife, I am testing her.’

And the servant says, ‘What do you mean?’ And you say, ‘I am testing her so that she becomes better for me. I am building relationship with my wife.’

Transactional Relationships

One friend asks another for a favor:

Guy: Look, when your car broke down, I was the one who drove you to work. When you needed a little cash until your paycheck came, I was the one who gave it to you. Now, I think you can do me this one little favor.

Friend: Yeah, you’re right.  I owe you this.

***

I desired to love.  And yet, my relationships used to be transactional.  You did this for me, so I’ll do this for you.  You hurt me there, so I withhold from you here.  And I used to transact with God that way.  I did this for you God, now You do this for me.

I prayed, I read the bible, I fasted, I went to church, I gave money; I built up some equity in my account with you.  Now you go and do some of that stuff for me that you talk about in the bible, you know, bless me.  Now I was never silly enough to say those things; but, in hindsight that’s what was below the surface.  And I’ll speculate that it’s like that for alot of people who are under the law.

I used to have this mindset that people are what they do.  That people are what they believe.  They are what I see on the outside.  I knew man after their flesh, even though He says not to look at man that way.  And everything is transactional in that land of legalism.  Christians of various brands always going back and forth debating and showing you why you’re wrong, transacting on an intellectual plane, talking to the other person’s doctrine and not the actual person.

Some go as far to say that without grace, all of our relationships become transactional.  That’s pretty deep.  As for me, my mind is being renewed and I’m realizing what a love you can have for another person when you see them free from their externals, from what they possess, what they believe, what they do.  And it’s wonderful.