The "White-Out"

God raises us like a father raises his children.  He wants us to mature, which requires knowledge and experiences, with wisdom sprinkled in amongst our days.  But God also keeps His loving eyes on our relationship with Him, and therefore brings us insight and understanding about His character and intentions, as well as our own.

Some of us are strong in listening and hear God well.  This makes for a closely-guided relationship.  However, the experiences can become stale and, well, sterile, if we do not apply God’s lessons from our own free will.  We do not grow more like God just by listening because knowledge alone can be applied in many ways.  His wisdom lets us know more about how to do what we’re doing, but just the doing of God’s will is not enough to mold us into His image.  We must let our hearts get involved.

God plans our lives so that we will not insulate our heart from Him, nor from our brothers and sisters.  Though it is imperative that we know when God is speaking to us, we must hear from the hearts of others as well.  When Jesus healed people we often read that it was because He was moved with compassion (Mt 14:14).  He was not His Father’s robot; Jesus was His Father’s image, heart and mind.

A few years back the Lord gave me a dream wherein I walked through a “white-out”.  This indicated an information shortage.  In the dream I was walking by faith, and not by what I saw, nor by what I heard.  And yet the Lord was with me.  When this “white-out” first came into my life, I didn’t like it.  I was used to knowing many things beforehand, and knowing why they were going to happen and what to do about them.  God had shown me how He saw things and imparted this knowledge to me in dreams for over 35 years . . . and then came the “white-out”.  I felt miserable, and abandoned.  Though I could listen and hear, it just wasn’t the same as receiving information in dreams.

At the close of the “white-out” the Lord spoke to me about this season of my life.  One of the things He did during the white-out was bring me into balance by causing me to depend more on scriptures, the Living Word.  The application of God’s word involved my own heart and was coupled by a close relationship with the Holy Spirit teaching me about God’s intentions in speaking what I was reading.   Also, during this time I grew closer to people, developing a deeper empathy for their problems.  I hadn’t realized how I’d let my prophetic gift separate me from people until the Lord removed the emphasis of prophetic dreams.  Though these dreams never disappeared altogether, God was at work, deepening my heart and nurturing our relationship through the Life that was in His written word.  That Life couldn’t help but to be touched by the lives of others.

God’s nature is vast and beyond knowing.  I doubt that any one of us could achieve perfection of His nature in this life time.  Yet we can trust our heavenly Father to bring into our lives just what we need to grow closer to Him and to His children.  Being in His image includes loving like He loved.  Many Christian self-help books would lead us to think that a “white-out” season occurs because we have sinned. Yet the very scriptures tell us that there is nothing that will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (see Romans 8:31-39). 

Let us remember that “those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rm 8:29).  We will be more and more in His image as we go through the different season God brings to our lives.  Trust in His love for you.  God walks with us through our “white-outs” and through each new season, working everything to our good according to His purpose (Rm 8:28).  Amen.

Philosophies verses Faith

For the last few days I have been reading in the book of Colossians.  It is a book that sets forth the supremacy of Christ Who has liberated the believer from sin.  This is contrasted with the former bondage sin brought us under. However, there is what I call a “maintenance clause” for our freedom: “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” (Col 1:23)  Jesus began a work in us that will be completed only if we maintain our faith.

Once liberated from the bondage of sin, the new Christian is “made alive” with Christ (Col 2:13).  Yet there is a second bondage Paul warns the believer about: “hollow and deceptive philosophies.” (Col 2:8)  The thoughts of the mind can make a person their captive and render them unable to walk in faith.  Though a new convert may begin strong in faith, thankful for God’s forgiveness, his new life may seem like it needs the help of his old way of thinking.  And this is a difficult thing, setting one’s own thoughts aside for the supremacy of the Holy Spirit’s thoughts.  Yet that is exactly what a Christian must do on a daily basis to follow Christ (2 Cor 10:5).  If we let our own thoughts determine the philosophies which guide our life, our faith suffers.

There is a religion that is pure, and there is a religion that is from the philosophies of Man.  The pure religion is expressed through the heart of Man by the works he does. The love in this man’s heart keeps his faith hot.   These works may cause inconvenience and sacrifice, yet they carry the sweet savor of Jesus on them, just as incense carries fragrance upward.  The works from deceptive philosophies come from the mind of Man.  The heart of this man is lukewarm, and eventually will grow cold.  Outwardly these men have an appearance of goodness, but the works that proceed from them are far removed from the heart.  These works protect a man’s life from getting dirty with the soil of those who need his help. 

A Christian who begins in freedom from bondage to sin and ends up serving a religion based on hollow philosophies is swinging from the heart, where faith began, to the mind, where service to God is being defeated.  For some people, it is more comfortable for them to dwell on their own thoughts than to submit their mind to God’s thoughts. Though we have an invitation to hear the Lord, one’s own thoughts do not take faith to receive.

The Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Is 55:8-9).  The way to maintain our faith is to set our minds on those things, or thoughts, above (Col 3:1).  We are seated with Christ on high and hear what His thoughts are when we overcome (Rev 3:21).  This verse is taken from the letter to the Laodiceans, whose works were “neither cold nor hot.”  Jesus told the Laodiceans that they were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”  To maintain their faith, and to overcome the error of their ways, He asked them to “buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”  God asked them to do these things so that their hearts  would warm up again, making their faith productive.

Peter tells us that our faith is like gold, tried in the fire (1 Pet 1:7).  The Laodiceans thought they were rich in faith but were not.  Like some of the Colossians, their works were based on hollow philosophies of the mind instead of proceeding from their heart.  For faith to make one rich, it must produce works that survive the trial by fire.

Paul tells us that we are clothed when we put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love (Col 3:12-14).  These virtues are the topic of Jesus’ parables wherein we learn that clothing, feeding, providing shelter for our brother, and forgiving him are of utmost importance to God. (Mt 25:34-40; Mt 18:23-35) Virtues come from a warm heart and are expressed in godly works.  “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (Jm 1:27).  Practicing virtue keeps our religion pure and our hearts warm towards God and Man.  Practicing philosophies defiles our religion and causes our hearts to grow cold towards God and our fellow Man.

To have eye salve is to be healed from seeing things from the worldly point of view.  John tells us that worldly people see things from “the viewpoint of the world.” (1 Jn 4:5).  Those who see things from this viewpoint won’t find the works of love valuable.  The logical mind will not find works of love reasonable and will shrink away from faith.  However, the heart with love in it will find the courage to do works rejected by the logical mind.   Love takes risks.  Love will take a person in a different direction than his own personal thought-life would go. Love gets its hands dirty in order to touch another soul. And it is the works of the heart that clothe us so that we aren’t caught naked.

When we stand before Jesus our Savior we will be rewarded according to the works our faith has produced (Rev 2:23).  There is no record of His interest in the number of ministries we have started . . . only how many people we have loved.  Let us make certain that, in whatever we do, we are clothed with the virtues that come from the heart, for true faith expresses itself through works of love (Gal 5:6).  Amen.

Seeking God to Know Him (part 2) by David K

Clean Hands and Pure Heart

(Part 2 of the lesson called “Seeking God to Know Him)

In traditional logic there is a distinction between the words “or” and “and” in a logical statement.  The word “or” allows that only one of the two conditions needs to be met for the statement to be true.  If the word “and” is used, then both of the conditions need to be met for the statement to be true.  In Psalm 24:3-4, David uses the “and” condition for someone to ascend to the Lord and stand in His holy place.  This means that in order to join together with God, both conditions need to be met, not just one condition.

                This is important to know because many in the church come to the Lord with clean hands, but they do not have a pure heart.  Jesus foresaw this with His teaching in Mathew 7:21-23.  These are individuals who had clean hands because they were able to do religious works in His name.  Yet, in all of their religious activity, they had not accomplished the second condition – the pure heart.  Therefore, Jesus would declare that they had not met the condition of intimacy with Him and reject them from participating together with Him in His holy place.

                Jesus showed that these individuals accomplished very impressive religious activities – they prophesied, they healed people and performed many miracles, they cast out demons – it all sounds very impressive as many are trying to accomplish these same things in the church today.  These are “clean hands” works.  But they have left something out.  Even though they have done these things in Jesus’ name, they have done them out of their own will.  They could have been following some spiritual leader and were trying to emulate him or her.  They could have been trying to impress an audience with their spirituality.  They could have been trying to fit in or build a reputation for themselves.  They could have been trying to “conquer the world for Christ”.  The main thing was that they were acting out of their own will instead of following the will of the Holy Spirit.  This also shows that it can seem that people are doing God’s will when in fact they are doing their own will while doing religious works.

                A pure heart comes only when one lays down his or her own will to follow the will of God, as Jesus demonstrated.  This is unusually hard, because it means one has to swallow all sense of pride.  A person is easily led astray, especially if something “good” (like a miracle of healing for example) is happening.  God recognized that continual infirmary, beatings, and endangerment were all “good” for Paul to help him not become prideful concerning the work he was doing for the Lord.  Paul also saw that God’s grace would be sufficient to help him keep his heart pure and allow him to finish his “race” thereby fulfilling both conditions to be with Jesus.

                It is very difficult for people to lay their own wills down because they want to be successful and have the admiration of their peers, family, and supporters.  They want to build a big church/ministry or be part of a successful church/ministry.  They want to feel like they are successful in God’s eyes and they want to feel like if they are doing the religious works (clean hands) they are told to do by their leaders.  Just remember that none of that is sufficient without the pure heart.  It is not possible to join with Jesus without an intimate relationship with Him.  It is not possible to be intimate if one does not lay down one’s own will and follows God’s will instead remembering that worldly success and accomplishment is not God’s agenda.  Even good health is low on God’s priority list if it would interfere with His calling for that individual.  God’s grace is always sufficient and He works with man’s weaknesses – not his strengths – lest any man should boast.

                Don’t let yourself get caught up with the “clean hands” works and lose sight of the “pure heart” aspect of the two conditions that have to be met to join in with Jesus.  God may use you, but it will be at a time of when you see yourself at your weakest and not when you are being championed in a manner as the world raises up heroes.   

Seeking God to Know Him

I had a sad conversation with a close friend a few years ago.  He and his wife were leaving Christianity for another religion.  One of the things he said struck me deep in the heart; he said that no one could know God.    In the following years I found many who remained in the faith of Christianity, though they also believed they could not know God.  However, though God’s thoughts and ways are not like our own, the Lord asks us to be proud in the fact that we know Him (Jer 9:24).

In all our busyness serving God, when did this pagan notion of serving a god we don’t know enter Christianity? Perhaps it has always been there.  Men sacrifice their time and money because Jesus sacrificed His life. It became a natural step for pagans who converted to Christianity to institute the ritual of sacrifice.  But it is a different thing to become like someone in appearance by copying their life, then to be as them in essence.  The former takes observation; the latter takes knowledge of the heart.

Men study one another to be like one another.  Yet those who never take the time to be in each other's presence only attain a ritualistic resemblance of that which they strive to attain.  The secret of men’s hearts remains theirs to share with those whom they are intimate with.  God only shares His secrets and His very nature with those who seek Him for Who He is.

The scriptures tell us that those who stand in God’s presence have clean hands and a pure heart (Ps 24:3-4).  King David knew God, and He knew that his heart must be right with God to continue in this relationship.  Many seek to stand in God’s presence today, but not so that they can know God.  They do repent of their sins, and arrive with clean hands.  Yet they want to be in God’s good graces so that they can do their own thing, and not so that they may know God.  This heart is not tender towards God.

To stand in God’s presence is different than being part of a house of prayer, or worshipping God with the congregation.  Many want God’s blessing on what they themselves want to do.  They want new information or direction and so they return to the same meeting place, like a ritual, to find what the Lord has to say about what they want to do.  These men want God to speak about those things they desire. Their relationship with God is about business, and not about the pleasure of knowing God.

Marriage is the relationship that reflects the highest attainable intimacy between people.  A husband and wife come to know one another, their preferences, and their dislikes.  Those who spend time getting to know one another have the same type of relationship as those who spend time getting to know God.  If men do not know what pleases or displeases God, they are not yet His Bride.  Yet, by standing where we can hear God, we will know His heart (Jer 23:22).

If men would realize that God wants a people to dwell amongst, they wouldn’t be so busy (Rev 21:3).  He has always wanted to spend time with His people, as a husband lives with his bride.  Today as you seek the Lord, let your listening be as a wife whose heart is tender, and as a wife who  loves and hangs on her husband’s every word.  Come to know God.  Amen.

The Strong Bear the Weak

Last night the Lord sent me a short dream to answer a question of mine . . . or as it were, a couple of questions.  This will be a little longer lesson than usual.  The dream is as follows;

I was hearing myself talk to our dog, Max, comforting him for all his troubles.  He had just been hospitalized with seizures, and was adjusting to medications that made him dizzy.  On top of that, he developed a skin infection on his neck and was wearing a cone on his head.  Poor puppy!

Then the visual part of the dream began, showing me cradling an infant in my arms, seated on a love seat in our house.  The baby’s outfit snapped all the way up his face and over the top of his face.  “Can you see me?” I smilingly asked.  Then I unsnapped it, and a very young infant boy could be seen, contentedly sleeping in my arms.  “There” I said, continuing to cradle him and smile.  End of dream.

Besides our pet Max having 2 afflictions, Dave & I had just hosted a family of 7 in our home for the summer.  Yesterday’s prayers to the Lord included the question “Is there anything you want to teach us, Lord?”  Therefore this dream was sent as an answer.

Infants are the weakest of the weak, totally dependent on those who care for them.  The infant could not “see” me, or that I cared for him, until I unsnapped his outfit.  We wouldn’t expect our pets or infants to “see” all we do for them; this dream was about caring for those who are weak and dependent on us.

 The scripture that the Lord shared was that the strong need to bear with the failings of the weak (Rom 15:1).  This scripture also tells us “and not to please ourselves.”  Not only does the Lord want us to be strengthened on the inner man, but He asks us to prefer to use our resources to help those that need us.  By asking us to care for the family and for our pet in their time of need, the Lord was keeping us “other-centered” so that we wouldn’t get self-centered.

 In looking at the references using “weak”, we see the admonition in several scriptures to come alongside those that need us.  This was the answer to my question last night when I asked the Lord what He wanted us to learn.  In reviewing this lesson with me the Lord reminded me of a scripture I had prayed about a few years ago (God has a good memory!)  It is Isaiah 53:12 and is not about the weak; it is about the strong. 

“Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.” 

After having read this verse my prayer had been “Lord, I want to be among the strong.  I want what you have won!”  I then wondered what it would mean to be “strong.” This dream also answered my questions about being strong; the strong help those in need.

The two verses tell us that if we are strong, we will lay our lives down and care for those who need help.  Jesus did this by pouring His life out for us.  He asks us to do no less, giving towards our brother’s and sister’s needs instead of pursuing our own pleasure.  In fact, I don’t believe Jesus can divide His winnings with us unless we are willing to lay our lives down for others.  Jesus teaches a very down-to-earth approach to living in the Kingdom of God.  He tells us that those who will inherit the Kingdom will feed their brethren, give them a place to stay, and clothe them.  They will look after their sick brethren and visit them in prison (Mt 25:35-36).  Perhaps it might seem easier to reach out to the unsaved and let our brethren in need care for themselves, however, Jesus said “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me.” (Mt 25:40)   If they are brothers of Jesus then they are our brothers in the faith.

The next time the Lord brings you someone in need  (a brother, a family, a pet), let it be seen as an opportunity instead of as an inconvenience.  God will not overlook our good works.  He intends on sharing His winnings with us if we will be strong, in Him.  Amen.

Vison of Black Sands and Iron Pyrite

On 7/31/13 I had a short vision, as follows;

I saw black sand in someone’s hands, sparkling with gold.  But the gold was iron pyrite; fool’s gold.  End of vision.

There is black sand on beaches in Hawaii.  In this vision the Lord is using something beautiful to represent something false.

Here is the interpretation from the Lord;

“I chose the black sands of Hawaii to represent beauty, for Hawaii is beautiful.  People will say “How can something wrong come out of something so beautiful?”  The relationship they form in their thinking , or “correlation” as you say, is in error.  “Wrong” comes out of men’s carelessness by which they speak, and by their spoken words, to create. Their think tanks can only produce good fish if the water is fresh.

Men will cite unity as their strength and as a validation of what proceeds from their meetings . . . but it is not pure; it is fool’s gold.  This will happen because they have shut the mouths of the prophets I sent to them and have chosen their own instead.”

This is what the Lord said to me today.  May we all receive the men and women the Lord sends to our meetings, and may we be slow to speak, and quick to hear what the Lord has to say to us.  Amen.

Perfect Works

We are God’s children and often see our relationship with Him as a Father to His small children.  God is so much greater than we are that it would be difficult to see ourselves as anyone more than a toddler in comparison.  But God does not compare our lives to His; He enables us to live as He does.

Though we want to have the child-like trust to receive God’s kingdom (Mk 10:15), He does not want us to remain as a child.  One area this becomes evident in is our works.  When we offer God and our fellow believer works that are incomplete, often the little that we have done is expected to cancel out the lot that is left to do.  This is what a child would expect.  Many parents will nod their heads in acceptance at the intentions of a small child’s heart and not expect perfection.  However, with adulthood our works are to take on the polish of being finished and done well.

God accepts our attempts, as imperfect as they are, for a while.  But He also expects maturity eventually to cloak us. If our imperfect and incomplete works were satisfactory, he would not have told the Sardinians to “Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of My God.” (Rev 3:2b).

It is because God has put great potential in us that He sends challenges into our lives to help us grow beyond mediocre.  He has given us great power in the Holy Spirit, and we are invited to ask Him for His wisdom.  For that reason, we misuse the Holy Spirit if we settle for a relationship that does not outgrow childhood expectations.

There are many reasons that a Christian will not perfect His works, but the most common is having an unwillingness to lay down one’s will.  This unwillingness will often find its justification in a person who is weak, or infirmed. However, infirmity and weakness are brought into our lives in order that God might manifest His great strength in us (2 Cor 12:9).

I used to admire Paul for saying “when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:10b).  Then one day I had a flu that I just didn’t seem to recover from.  For months I grew weaker and could barely eat.  When I was at the very bottom of my strength the Lord asked Dave and I to host a family with 9 children in our home.  The mother had just born her youngest child and they were temporarily without a place to live.  In my mind I never considered that I would be doing things for their family because our home was a fully functioning house upstairs where Dave and I lived, and fully functioning downstairs where the family lived.  However, this is not how God saw the situation.

Soon I took over cooking dinner, and shopping.  Every day the Lord would ask me to serve the family, and He was faithful to supply the grace to do so.  The week that they packed to move I found the Lord asking me each day to take some of their children to the beach.  He supplied the strength, and we would stop off for an ice cream cone on the way home.  Through their six week stay I got very acquainted with the greatness of God’s grace, and found that being stretched beyond my physical limits was a great opportunity to grow into an adult child of God.  He had brought the opportunity to serve Him into one of His weakest servants, and yet His grace brought the strength because I was willing.

I don’t always lay my will down so perfectly to the Lord.  At times I feel the burden of what He asks is too heavy.  Then I hear “You can be angry, or you can ask for grace.”  The anger comes when I keep my own will.  The grace comes, and brings strengthen and power with it, when I lay down my will for God’s. Then the work I do becomes perfected under God’s watchful gaze.  Those same eyes that did not find the Sardinians’ work perfect can watch over our works until they are.

On this earth we will work for the Lord until that day we die.  Even in our prayers we labor.  Let us pass the time on this earth as ones becoming mature, passing from childhood to the sons and daughters of God who will rule and reign with Him.  Though the works He calls us to may not be our choice, nor come at a convenient time, His plan is to enable us to do them well.  And for those who want to do works of healing, and raise the dead, become acquainted with His power in every work appointed.  Amen.

The Grace Package

Today's lesson is about shame and God's unmerited favor; grace. People who are ashamed form an image of themselves to work towards . . . one that would be acceptable to others, and one they themselves can agree with. If they are fat, they work to be thin. If they are awkward, they seek fluidity of speech and movement. If they feel socially unaccepted, they study how to be received in social circles.

Shamed people seek to be acceptable in man's eyes and all their efforts are a tangled web of bondage, never knowing their true identity and ever running after the inner-affirmation of perfection. Shame does not mold people to be sons and daughters of God, for in the end of their lives they will love their molded image more than God's image.

The Holy Spirit sets people free in exchange for their mold. A captive released from darkness will see his unique design by the the Lord. God's favor to those entangled by shame will mend their broken hearts and cause them to feel acceptable to God and in their own eyes. It is an unmerited favor called "grace". The Holy Spirit brings with Him a "grace package", described in Isaiah 61.

God's "grace package" brings the inner healing people need. He sets them free by releasing them from darkness. The Holy Spirit brings comfort, taking away the grief and mourning of rejection felt from self and from others. God makes provision for us so that we can lay down despair and have hope once again. He gives us true inner beauty, gladness of heart and praise in our spirits so that we will not feel disgraced. And in taking away our shame, the Holy Spirit brings out our true identity as people who minister for the Lord. Those who have been restored to God's image can restore others to God's image as well.

 For those who have been molded by shame, there is a better, yes a far more excellent image to be molded into. Set aside your entanglements and invite the Holy Spirit to open His "package" up in you. Focusing on your faults was never God's idea; it is your enemy's plan to defeat you. Satan wants men and women to stay focused on weaknesses and faults so that they will feel separated from the One who can take their shame away; God. Though you yourself may think yourself undeserving, opening up the "grace package" will change your life forever. Amen.