Faith Believes God

Romans 4: 1-8, “What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’ Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: ‘BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.’”

Man can never obligate God; the Sovereign can never oblige Himself to the thing He has created (save out of love). He cannot do that and remain true to His character. Paul makes it clear that what makes the Law appalling is the attitude that can accompany it. As always, it is not what you do but why you do it. When the Law is kept with an attitude that the Creator is now indebted and obligated to the Law keeper, that Law keeper has now become the enemy of God.

I have watched this attitude covertly manifest itself over the years, usually revealed in a hint of frustration. First, do you believe that if your sin, behavior, or flaw were to leave you, God would then do something for you? Rather, do you believe that God would actually owe you something? Why do Christians say things like this? “I did everything the Scriptures said and my unwed daughter got pregnant.” “I went through premarital counseling and prayed, yet my marriage fell apart.” “I have served God my whole life, and yet my mate died and I am left alone.” “I followed the advice in all the books on financial responsibility, and still I lost my house!” “I have done all this myself” goes the assertion, and a close listen reveals there is a hint of the “God owes me” attitude, the attitude of keeping the Law, obligating God, and becoming an enemy of Christ. There are many religious programs that feed this attitude: prayer programs, child-rearing programs, and relationship and church-growth programs. Do this or do that, pray all night every night, and God will owe you a blessing. As we have mentioned, there is a big difference between religion and faith. Religion is man-based, gives man activities, and then asserts that this earns for man the “right” to ask (require) something from God. Faith recognizes and values the activity of God, whose action toward us is what is important, and it is not based on our behavior. Faith is based in our response to His activity. Many wonder why keeping the religious law (whatever flavor that takes today) leaves them depleted, feeling hopeless, and somehow unacceptable. The explanation is simple; the attitude of doing in order to get is anti-Christ. God will never become anyone’s debtor. “God so loved the world that He gave.” God is the initiator; He loves and He gives. There was no arm-twisting by man to get the Father to give His Son, and to think that a created being could do that kind of arm-twisting is error. Remember, if man could twist His arm at one point by keeping the Law, he could twist it at another. Hence, Abraham was accepted by faith; he was not receiving what was worked for. Abraham’s life played out for us that which is in line with the character of God.

Well, I have never been known for rededication services, for asking people to bow their heads and raise their hands. I am not known to motivate people to surrender to the ministry or the mission field. I do not ask that people choose tonight never to have another fight in their marriage, never to take another drink, or never to look at porno. Why? Those activities do not work. However, there is something I would ask the reader to do.

There is a wonderful story of Jacob’s encounter with God in Genesis 28. To paraphrase, God met Jacob in a dream, and Jacob realized that he was dealing with the one true God. Acting on that revelation, Jacob in effect said, “I want to make a deal with You. I see that You are God. I am going on a journey, and if You keep me safe, give me food, clothe me, and make me wealthy, I will do two things for You. I will let You be my God and give you back a fraction of what You give to me.” Wow, what an offer! I can just see God talking to an angel in heaven and saying, “My, how do I pass up that offer?” Jacob was offering nothing for everything! God’s response was, “OK!” Jacob was living in faith, not by the Law. He was not offering something as a bargaining chip and then obligating God. He simply recognized God and let God give freely to him. I wonder if what went through Jacob’s head in the following days went something like this: “My God will not accept anything from a man and yet gives everything. My God does not want anything from me except my recognition. He is a God that loves and gives. This God is not like a man; He is the one true God.” Jacob was justified by his faith. Before he departed, he put a stone in that place and called it, “God is in this place.” He had an encounter with the true and living God who is so outside the box of all the false gods that are claimed to demand activity before they are even reputed to listen. Remember that all false gods live in a contract relationship with man. When man does, then they do. The one, true, living God establishes a covenant relationship with man. He does, period.

Back to what I would ask you to do today, I would like you to make an exchange with God, make the deal that I made with Him. One day I said to Him, “I will give you nothing if You will give me everything.” He said, “OK,” and since that day I have received, received, and received the revelation of Christ in me, the hope of glory. Can you offer Him your nothing? Is there anyone too weak to have a “nothing” to trade? Do it and you will move into faith and an experience of God that is so precious that all other things will be counted as rubbish. Do it and you, too, will say, “God is in this place.” “There you go again, talking about all that God does and leaving us with nothing to do!” Well, I must give you something to do: rest and receive. You will receive not because you kept the program but because God loves and gives. Until the above happens all attempts to keep the Law will end in disaster. He did not give to you because you obligated Him through the keeping of the Law, but because you gave Him your nothing, so what is left in which to boast? “If anyone boasts, let Him boast in the Lord.”

 

Psalm 34

1    I will bless the LORD at all times;

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

2    My soul will make its boast in the LORD;

The humble will hear it and rejoice.

3    O magnify the LORD with me,

And let us exalt His name together.

4    I sought the LORD, and He answered me,

And delivered me from all my fears.

5    They looked to Him and were radiant,

And their faces will never be ashamed.

6    This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him

And saved him out of all his troubles.

7    The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them.

8    O taste and see that the LORD is good;

How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

 

Life On Earth, Part II

Revelation 4:21, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 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.”

There are two things that strike me in this passage. First, it is a deathblow to the prosperity preaching that raises its ugly head from time to time. The passage acknowledges that in this life, in a Spirit-filled believer, there will be pain. I read that the denomination with the healthiest, longest living members are the Seventh Day Adventists. Apparently, those in denominations constantly harping on the exercising of “faith” do not live as long or as healthfully. I have discovered that the longing for physical healing is equal to a person’s lack of inner evidence of the indwelling Christ. It the past, I was baffled when I saw all of the longing for physical healing, but then I realized that it was slanted more toward being validated by God than physical comfort. I did not say that, He did! “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.” Does this mean that we are not to pray for healing? Never! God does heal, but He does not do it to affirm His acceptance of us, to make a show of it, or to prove Himself. We are commanded to pray, and we must. I like what Andrew Murray and Watchman Nee taught: Death is our enemy. We do not yield to our enemy until the day that God tells us to. We pray for healing until the day that we know God is calling us out of this body. Often I have had it in my spirit to pray for the healing of someone. I actually witnessed the raising of a child from the dead, and, to my surprise, it was not spectacular, but in the normal course of ministry it was Jesus being Jesus, and no one stopped at the miracle but went on with Jesus. Also, I have told believers it was time for their departure when I knew that to be true in my spirit. I asked them to write letters to their families, sort out all of their finances (not to leave a mess for the kids to handle), and make sure all relationships are right. I am all for healing; however, I am also for God’s using our sickness. I was very ill in Nepal and prayed through the night, “Lord, You must heal me, for I am not returning home. I have much work to do.” The answer came early in the morning, “I will not heal you, but I will carry you through this sickness. You will not miss a meeting, and I will take you home.” It was remarkable to be carried, in the arms of love, from meeting to meeting. It took me a few days to enter into the faith of what was happening and to believe that He would take me home. But He did! Since that day, no matter how sick I am, I remember that experience of how “He carried me.” That occurrence of having been carried is one that I would not exchange for all the health in the world, for it has given me a wonderful confidence to move on, no matter how I feel, into the proclamations of “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

Belief Versus Faith

Romans 10:16b & 17, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

We must say over and over again what every translator will repeat: “We stand and fall on our definitions.” Certain words are nearly worn out among Christians and yet are rarely defined. Two such words are belief and faith, which generally are used interchangeably, and that merits clarification for Christians’ daily living. Romans 12:3, “God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Faith is something that is given from God and something that all men have and are born with; it is something received. We have said in the past that faith is the organ of the spirit that allows man to receive what God is doing. “With the faith of a mustard seed” is an easy passage to understand when faith is defined as an organ of the spirit that receives. God gave a very small eye to the mouse and a very large eye the whale, and yet both do the same thing, they receive. Likewise, faith receives what God is doing. Galatians 2:20,“. . . the life I now live, I live by the faith OF the Son of God.” That is a good case made for the fact that I live by the faith that proceeds from Jesus to me. Hebrews 12:2, “Jesus is the author and perfecter of faith.” Man must have this received faith; without it he would not cross a street, get in a car, or fly in an airplane. “Faith is the conviction of things not seen.” We do not see what is coming ahead, and therefore, man must have a given faith, something within him that enables him to move on into an unknown future. Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” While faith is God-given, belief is my response to that gift. No matter what level of faith God has given to me, it is my responsibility to respond in belief. Do I believe the word of Christ? Now, if I have the faith of a mustard seed (God given), and this faith, proceeding from Him, is telling me to move a mountain, I must exercise my belief and act. However, if I decide to move a mountain and endeavor to generate my own faith for doing just that, it is another level of playing God as I next attempt to exercise my belief in my own faith and not His. This error causes some silly statements, such as, “If you have faith, you will be healed.” “If you have enough faith, you will get pregnant.” “If only you have faith, you will keep your job.” “If you have faith, you can move your ‘personal mountain.’” All of these are silly because we should say this: “Did Jesus tell you that He had given you the faith to be healed? If so, exercise your belief.” “Did Jesus tell you that your mate would be raised from the dead?” Faith-in-faith teachers have caused much harm. Faith and belief are two different things; faith originates from God and belief proceeds from man. Remember, faith is a fruit of the Spirit and therefore must come from God. Here is a fun exercise. Go through the book of Romans, and every time the word “faith” is used, replace it with, “The faith that proceeded from God and was given to me.” In this context, what is a believer? Someone who has responded to the faith that proceeded from God; someone who has responded to Jesus.

The Faith Hub

Hebrews 11:1-3, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

I have always found systematic theology to be a bit of an enigma, since I do not see how man (the lesser) with his minimal intellect is able to systematize, or rather, put God (the greater) in a category or a box. At its best these attempts reveal a Western mindset and at their worst reveal unbelief, for it is the one that lacks faith that must try to figure out God to know what He is going to do next. I find it interesting that the vast majority of splits in the church/Christian club do not come from a disagreement over what Jesus says in the Gospels but rather a dispute over what the Apostles said in the rest of the New Testament. The gyrations that take place among the differing theological camps are, sadly, comical; for no matter what systematized framework is developed, there will always be a number of passages that do not fit neatly into the arrangement. This makes unfortunate passages be twisted and distorted, with proofs from what the “original” Greek actually says, until they fit the system. Of course, Jesus is lost in all of these systems for which right doctrine is the goal. Just as God divided the people because of the tower of Babel, He also scatters believers at the tower of systematic theology. There are many examples, but I will pick some of the more obvious.

–God said that a prostitute must die. That is absolute. Then He tells Hosea to marry one! He says an adulterer must die; that, too, is absolute. Then He tells Hosea to go bring home his adulterous wife.

–Jonah was commanded to say, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Again, this was an absolute statement; Nineveh was going to be overthrown. Jonah knew the test of a false prophet was whether or not what the prophet said came about. When Nineveh repented and turned to the Lord, Nineveh did something that went against what God had told Jonah. This made Jonah out to be false, and he was angry because God had broken out of the system. Jonah is more concerned about the system and his own reputation than the wonderful fact that Nineveh repented.

– God provides, but I am commanded to work.

– Grace is free but truth is purchased.

– We are predestined but we must choose.

Now all of this brings me to the central point. There are many truths in the Scriptures that, from an intellectual standpoint, oppose each other. There are passages that do not agree, period. What I am suggesting is that we move from a Theological (the very term is filled with presumption) system to a faith-based system where everything agrees. For example, if we view the attributes of God, He is Love and yet judgment. Well, how can this be? Think of Theological systems as square wheels and think of a faith system as a round wheel with spokes and a hub that allows the believer to move forward. The spokes (Scriptural truths) at the fringe appear far apart, as though they do not agree. However, looking down the spokes it is easy to see the truths getting closer and closer until finally they meet at the very center of the hub. This center–called faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is what holds all opposing truths together. It is faith that allows us to believe and rest in them even though we cannot systematize them. Persons of faith do not need a system, for we have a faith in what is greater. All of us, I suppose, have had experiences as believers that baffle us. However, in Him we find no fault when we examine Him. We do not have to spiritualize or understand the “reasons” for the experience. All we need do is rest and trust Him, in faith.

Many Religions and One Faith

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Eph. 4:5)

While traveling in a remote area of India, we were passing by an estimated 500,000 pilgrims walking barefooted (up to 500 miles) toward the temple of Shiva that rested on top of a mountain. Many had bloodied and blistered feet. Once they reached the temple, their heads would be shaved and they would receive a bit of sandalwood paste that had fallen off of an idol. Drinking the paste in a mixture would secure the favor of Shiva, and they would get the desire of their heart. Not long afterward I found myself in Tibet, where the pilgrims were falling forward to reach the great temples of Buddha. Some had come as far as 300 miles in this manner; they would stand, make a praying motion with their hands, and fall forward. While lying prostrate, they stretched out as far as they could and placed a piece of paper at the end of their fingertips; this was the marker for where they were to stand next and fall forward. Men, old women, and children alike, were working their way to Lhasa by the length of their bodies. Some even had callused foreheads. These types of activities are played out around the world.

We often look at the passage in Ephesians where Paul mentions that there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism and apply it to the Christian Church. However, it must be viewed in a broader sense. Taken as a whole, the world brandishes very many religions, but there is only one faith. Religion, as it is most easily defined, is success resting at the feet of man. All religions have this in common, even the Christian religion, for it becomes a religion when the enemy and the flesh of man move focus away from the work of God to the work of man. I visited an Orthodox Religion “church” building in India after visiting several Hindu temples. I turned to my friend and said, “Do you think a Hindu would feel the least bit uncomfortable in this Orthodox religion?” He replied, “No, the Hindu would have everything he needs here: candles, icons, idols, a secret place for priests, gold altars, and more.” The common thread of religions–that success rests in man’s effort–is often accompanied by the tantalizing hope for success through somehow twisting the arm of the false god to get a favor. In contrast, there is only one faith, so never let it be said that people belong to different faiths; they only belong to different religions. The one faith is faith in the only God, His only Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

The success of the one faith ends at the feet of God, who loved us and gave us His son. God works in us, Christ moved into us and is our life, and the Holy Spirit makes the things of God and Jesus not only reasonable but also doable in His power. It is all about the accomplished and ongoing work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Move from the one faith that believes in what God does, period, and move into an obsession with self and what men must do, and find one of the most miserable religions in the world, which is Christianity without Christ.

Captive to Something How?

“Therefore it says, When He ascended on High, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men” (Ephesians 4:8).

So many of us, at some time in our Christian lives, believe ourselves to be enslaved to something. It is either a returning habit or a new one, but the slavery seems very real. We have said it before but God cannot, as a shepherd, lead someone that is sitting. We must move to be led, and that means that we must move into a truth to discover the reality of the truth. He has taken captive everything that could have held the believer captive. We are free! Growth for Christians does not comprise a series of efforts to make us free but a series of revelations that make known our freedom. We look at our Red Sea and wonder how WE will part it to obey and go forward. In reality, we step into it and discover that HE is the one that parts it, but only so far as needed for us to place one foot at a time in it. That is the life of faith. It is a lie that we are enslaved or captive to anything but Christ. However, the voice of sin, Satan, the world, and flesh are so loud that sometimes we sit in the chair and bemoan a condition that we do not even have. The glory of God is in choice, and there are none freer to make a choice than the believer. I have counseled people in a variety of situations, among which are several prisons, orphanages, alcohol and drug treatment centers, and with couples in troubled marriages. I have given them information and witnessed some miracles, but it was not the information that ever set the people free; it was their choice to act on the information and to walk in the freedom Christ had already given them. The one dispensing information can never take the credit for a changed life; it was simply that the believer chose to walk in a freedom that was given by Him. I am happy that being obsessed with Betty long before she knew it, that upon her discovery of my love, she chose me. I chose her first, but she responded by choosing me. I am happy that she was not forced to marry me but responded to my choice with her choice. God has chosen you, He chose to set you free, and now you will thrill Him by choosing to walk in it. It is a hard pill to swallow, but if you can choose not to go shopping naked, you can certainly as a believer choose not to walk in what you believe to be a behavior to which you are held captive. Admit where you are so you can leave where you are. Admit that you are choosing to stay in your state and let God work with your honesty.

Only His Death

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” I Peter 3:18

I begin every morning the same way, “Thank You, Jesus, that You are my separation from God, and therefore I can never be separated from Him.” It is a beautiful revelation. His mercies are new every morning! Every morning! Christ was my separation and that settles it all. I have often heard it taught that it should have been me hanging on the cross and not Jesus, but here is the problem. Let us assume that it was me hanging on the cross for my own sins; how can a sinner bear his own sin? Had it been me and not Him, nothing would have happened to elevate my sins. Thousands were crucified for their sins; Jesus had a thief on both sides. One was invited into paradise by Jesus, but not because the thief suffered for his own sins. The thief’s death on a cross did nothing to redeem him, but rather it was his recognition of Christ that redeemed him. My point is that if Christ had not taken my sins on the cross, then going to the cross myself would have accomplished nothing. In this regard it was a substitution, for if I refuse the substitution, I might die on a cross but I could never be a sacrifice for my sins; I would have a just death for my sins. What Jesus did was wonderful. Being sinless and blameless, He was actually able to take my sin out of me, have it placed on Him, and then become a substitution that redeemed me and set me free. His was the only death that could have accomplished such a feat, and He did it for all men. This is not religious dogma but faith in the Son of God who has loved me and was delivered up for me. Today we say, “Thank You that because of the cross, that because You were my separation from God, that because You took my sins upon yourself, I have no obstacle with God. I will be heard today, helped today, shown compassion today, and You will treat me as David, a man after Your heart that will do all of Your will. All because of You, Jesus!” Amen, what a confidence.

Blast! A Woman’s Desire Will Be For Her Husband?

Gen. 3:16:  To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband,  And he will rule over you.”

Amen, what a thing to say. However, if we see the Lord and His love, we can appreciate that there are two wonderful types of faith into which only a woman can enter. “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.” In the giving of birth, a woman becomes completely other-centered, exactly the attitude that sent Jesus to save mankind; He was other-centered. The most self-centered woman will become other-centered upon the birth of a child. This is an experience that no man will have. The second great move of faith comes from trusting a husband that has flaws. “Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” What a step of faith for a woman. God did not put woman under man because man is superior; on the contrary, He put the woman under the man so she might exercise her faith. Rather than seeing man in the relationship, she would see the God that gave the command and move up in faith to trust Him who asked her to put herself under a flawed man. It is not the command but the God of the command in which a woman must trust. The danger comes with the temptation to put the husband under a magnifying glass to amplify his shortcomings and use those as reason enough to refuse to come under the husband’s headship. Remember, it is not the man but the God of the man under which the wife is to come. If the man were perfect, she would need no faith; a flawed man insures that his rule must be an act of faith in God for a wife. God is not out to get women; He is not an inherent chauvinist. He is all about our learning trust and faith, and a husband and children will make a woman learn just that.

Only One Faith

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:4-6).

For years I would read the passage in Ephesians and attempt to discern what was the “one faith” of the Christians. I think I had read the passage so many times with a religious pair of glasses that I was missing the context. The “one faith” referred to is not the one faith among the many faiths in the world, but a statement of fact that there is but one faith, and everything else is a religion. The basic difference between faith and religion is that religion’s success will somehow end at the feet of the worshipper, whereas the success of faith ends at the feet of God. Hence, religion is all about man, and faith is all about God. Religious people are not exercising faith in God; just listen to them talk to realize that life for them revolves around their behavior, knowledge, or attitudes. Whether it be the piety of the Buddhist, the meditation of the Hindu, the gyrations of the Voodoo priest, the Law keeper, the candle (or incense) lighter, the kingdom builder, the “cutting edge” preacher, or the doctrinally correct, there exists between them the fellowship of the religious. Among them, too, a great lie is perpetrated that the exercise of their religion somehow either alters the very flesh of man or the plane of flesh on which all men live. Religious people have an appearance of godliness, as described by Paul to Timothy: “For men will be lovers of self . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these.” Religious people define what form the godliness will take, so oddly enough they succeed at their own definition! Honestly, I have no vested interest in stating the obvious, but all religious people are failures. The adherents of humanism–which is one great competitor of faith–continue to take human beings’ less than 1% success at playing God and amplify it in their minds and communications until it looks more like 100%. Any of us could come up with a lengthy list of famous people that have been sainted beyond human recognition. Christians have done the same general distortion through stories and images of believers to the point that they would be unrecognizable to those that actually knew, lived, and worked with them. The saddest thing is that many, upon hearing of the exaggerated portrayal of a spectacular spiritual life, begin a lifelong journey to emulate the Christian, who in reality is non-existent. This imitating leads to the disastrous consequences of “acting religious” as they flesh out phony copies of the exalted. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Religious people, no matter what the religion, have fallen short of the glory of God. It is interesting that religious people will focus on certain aspects of religion that most cannot achieve in order to maintain their “position” in their manmade religion. Amen! There is one faith, and in that one faith God deals with man by putting success at His own feet. He gives an attainable faith, for God’s goal is to bring in as many as possible, while religion’s goal is to be as exclusive as possible. ^“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’”  Paul, seeing the difference between the efforts of man that lead to religion and the work of God that leads to the one faith, rightly says, “Where then is the boasting?” ^“But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Religious people are like shadows that do not exist in the manner in which they would like to portray themselves. If there were one thing I would have changed in my early life as a Christian, it would have been to take all of the religious people and move them to the fringe of my life, keeping Christ in the center. In this one faith, there will be times of discouragement, failure, doubt, bewilderment, rebellious children, loneliness, outbursts of anger, walking in the flesh, and more. There will also be times of unspeakable joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, encouragement, faith that is mountain moving, and unwavering focus. We are unique creatures, half spirit and half flesh. Just as we walk on two legs we must, for now, walk in two realities, that of the flesh and that of the spirit. Religious people seem to want to go through life hopping, either on the leg called flesh and wanting everything that the visible world might offer, or on the leg called spirit, living a life of avoidance of the world. Did you know no revival has ever taken place around a monastery, whether Buddhist or Christian? We must be of the one faith, of those that see this physical world as one in which life with a small “l” will reveal and perfect Life with a capital “L.” The human being is not an accident, but is exactly what God wanted, for the physical must come before the spiritual. This earth, our bodies, our souls, and our spirits have a common goal: the revelation and choice of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Just as we bring a bit of heaven to earth, we will also take a bit of earth with us to heaven. Our minds will not go blank when we enter heaven. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.” When we enter heaven, we will remember and rejoice all the more in the Lamb that was slain.

Living to Man!

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