Walloped in the Spirit

Every few days I think to myself, "I am learning SO MUCH, I need to blog about it." But there is so little time! My life is like a music magazine lately--by the time I write about the newest thing, something else new has already happened and the other stuff has become old news. But, I am still going to talk about it, even if it is 'old news', because God is doing great things in my heart and deserves glory for each movement within me, big or small, past or present.

• I have realized some very significant truth about the fine line between serving self and serving God.
•  Hard-heartedness, pride and unbelief can be realized as problems, but cannot be truly transformed without the Holy Spirit.
• The Word of God cannot be simply read page by page without background study, because without background study, you miss the full story, the full picture, the full depth of what the life, death and resurrection of Christ actually means to us and the world.

It all started with the book of Hebrews. We've all heard about the transforming power of the Word. I've never experienced it to the extent that I did last week when we studied that book.

Hebrews has the highest theological content of any book of the New Testament. The description and detail the author takes in describing the significance of the new covenant vs. old covenant, as well as Christ's priesthood vs the priesthood of man in the old covenant is beautiful and eye-opening. It puts everything in perspective. Suddenly, the holiness of Christ makes sense, the kingdom of God makes sense, grace makes sense, forgiveness makes sense. But, the book of Hebrews is a letter written to Christians with a Jewish background, Christians in Rome enduring persecution in the time of Nero, tempted to leave this new freedom of Christianity for fear of death, and go back to the Jewish customs, the old covenant--in essence, renounce and reject the sacrifice Christ made for them.
The author of Hebrews acknowledges their doubts, yet warns continually throughout the text against the readers developing hard-heartedness and unbelief, such was that of their fathers in the wilderness. The continual rejection of Christ, the Holy Spirit and the new covenant without repentance leads to a slow depreciation of spirit and is one of the ways that lead directly to hard-heartedness and unbelief. These two things create ears that are 'dull of hearing' as the author states, unable to hear the voice of God, as well as regression in faith and wisdom, causing a need for re-teaching of elementary doctrine instead of progressive learning and growth in mature doctrine. The author transitions to encouraging the readers to once again have faith, the 'assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen' (faith is necessary in times of fear, as fear can be so blinding), to not grow weary, and to engage and have hope in the priesthood of Christ once again, not only to be free of the law of the old covenant, but also to be free in spirit. He ends by naming different ways we can 'sacrifice' to God through Christ, our Priest, in a new covenant way, which are not animal sacrifices anymore, but sacrifices of spirit: brotherly love, rejecting sexual immorality, rejecting the love of money, being confident that Jesus will 'never forsake you', praise, prayer, etc. It is through these, and others, that we create rich communion with God.

I've known that I've had a hard and unbelieving heart for a while now, and I've also known I haven't heard the voice of God clearly in a very long time. But I didn't really know what to do about it. I tried to soften it myself, forcing myself to worship and pray and offer these 'sacrifices' of my spirit, even asking for forgiveness for my hard heart, but every day I was left with anger and frustration and disconnection with God. After reading this book, a few things jumped out at me. 1. Continual repentance and reliance on the Holy Spirit is key to connection with him. There is a necessary heart-check that must take place on a daily basis: one that releases the worship of self and submits to the worship of God. 2. Sacrifices of the spirit are pleasing to God and don't necessarily always have to be done through gritted teeth, as I've been experiencing for so long. Sacrifices of the spirit, when coupled with a soft heart toward the Holy Spirit, and repentance, lead to a more vibrant communion with God, clarity in his voice and love for his people. 3.Study of his Word will lead to revelation and transformation beyond the wisdom of man--in order to grow in your faith, in-depth study is a must. I'm not sure anyone could have convinced me of these truths--it was the power of the Word and the Holy Spirit that convinced me. These are necessary things. You can't expect God to be loud and clear, dumping blessings on you 24/7, if there isn't any sacrifice on your end. Because of the new covenant, Christ is now the way we connect to God, and we must offer ourselves up as "living sacrifices" (Romans 12:1), in order to bridge that gap. Granted, his love for us remains whether we do this or not--but does our relationship with him stay alive, and does it move forward? According to the book Hebrews, and according to the new covenant: it doesn't.

I have felt deep connection with the God that I love once again, freedom from negativity, selfishness, obligation and just an all around crappy attitude and spirit, after studying this book in depth. I want to encourage you in saying that the Word of God is alive, and He is alive. He wants to connect with us, but we must offer something on our end, as in any relationship. Studying the Word and being receptive to the Holy Spirit to teach you through the Word is something that guarantees connection. Maybe not without a fight, but it is guaranteed, because the Word transforms. As it is written in Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Amen.

Even after writing all of this, I feel like I've barely summed up what Christ has been doing. If you have questions, please ask, or leave a comment. Thank you for reading and caring about my journey.


P.S. On a lighter note, I posted more pictures of my adventures here on the post below. Enjoy :))

Be Careful

Greed, fear, hate, selfishness, gluttony, intentional ignorance, and the myriad amount of silent, quick-spreading evils are best established through passivity and negligence of the highest form of Good and/or thinking we already know what that Good is.

Disarmed.

God, God, God.

That's all the words I can seem to muster lately when I pray or worship or stand before God.
Our God is huge. And all encompassing. Completely unpredictable. and 100% NOT formulaic.
I'm frustrated lately because I'm a very formulaic and step-by-step person. Normally, you do such and such, to get such and such. It's logic. It's the law of Causation.
But God does not work this way. And I think He ups his mysteriousness and unpredictability and evasiveness even more so to those who have problems with formulaic religious thinking in order to show them that He is not this way. His arm is the one thing in the life of an analyzer/controller, that they cannot through will, force or manipulation of any kind, twist. And to us analyzers/controllers, that's disarming, frustrating, infuriating and exposing of our true nature.  It's something ugly we don't like to see. We can petition, we can ask, we can plead, but nothing we do with intentions of boxing Him in will ever work.
So, given that, I'm finding that during prayer, I can repent, I can praise, I can ask, I can do anything, but none of that will guarantee He will speak to me.
During worship, I can pray for humility, I can pray against pride, I can sing through gritted teeth, but none of that will guarantee I will meet with God and give Him the praise He deserves.
In my day-to-day, I can begin with meditating on His word, appreciating His creation, listening intently to my neighbor, preferring others above myself, but none of that will guarantee that at the end of the day, I glorified God.
I don't get God. If God was religious, this whole thing would be so easy. All of the above would be completely successful. But it's not. They're all good things, repentance, praying against pride, preferring my neighbor, meditating on his word...they're all beautiful and gifts from God. But if we cling to these things as ways to manipulate and 'get to' The Father, then we lose the beauty and the wonder of the fact that He is like wind through the trees: there for a few seconds then gone. Moving and invading the surroundings, then off to affect something else. Tangible on your skin for a split second, then He disappears. You try to catch him, but instead He flows right through your fingers. Who is this God?
I'd like to say that lately I'm in wonder of the evasiveness of God. But I'll be honest and say that I'm frustrated. God makes no sense. Ritually, I'm holy. Spiritually, I don't feel so holy. But yet, He loves and He gives life to me, slowly and subtly, despite the fact I'm frustrated and irritated with the most beautiful part of His being! If that's not anti-formulaic and upside-down, I don't know what is.

God, God, God!

Christians Need To Be More Offensive

 Trying to find God truly is like trying to catch vapor or the wind. Every time you think you can pin him down or label him or catch him, he slips right through your fingers, yells "gotcha!" and scampers off in a random direction, leaving you bewildered and questioning the things you think you know about him.

I was reading the beattitudes yesterday and came across this one--
Luke 6:26--"Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way."

This is one of those verses that makes me think, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" I don't even have one enemy (to my knowledge). Does that make me a poor catalyst for the kingdom of God? After reading through the rest of the beatitudes (Luke 6: 20-38), and seeing the verse in it's context, it's pretty obvious what Jesus is getting at. Being a follow of Jesus comes with strife, difficulty, sacrifice, death, mourning, hunger, and more. It is not easy. But when we can engage in the difficulty and find the face of Christ in it--that's when the true blessings of Christ are received. So, I got to thinking about verse 26, specifically. I got to thinking about Jesus and how "he did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword Mt. 10:34)". And how usually, after preaching, everyone wanted to stone him or kill him or throw him off a cliff. When we read the things he said now, we think, "That's not even shocking or offensive, why was everyone freaking out so much?"  It's because everything he was saying during those times were things that were disturbing, realistic, dynamic, unprecedented and raw. Aka--truth. Anyway, you guys all know these things. But here's my question and conversation starter--

If Christ, when he came to Earth, came to bring truth, which caused division and upset...as Christians, wouldn't he expect us to do the same? Not going around picking a fight (that's just stupid and arrogant), but speaking truth when truth is needed. When truth needs to be spoken and represented in a situation. How often do we, because of our fear of being seen as "pushy Christians", pull the "grace and forgiveness" card and keep quiet and peaceful, when raw truth is necessary? What's so bad about offending/getting offended? It rustles feathers, it stirs uncomfortable feelings, it makes people think. If anything, that's good. Great, actually. What am I getting at--If we can't be the kind of followers of Christ who aren't afraid of division, then we can't truly follow him. Because he was offensive.

The second level to this question is, if Jesus' preaching  Jew and Gentile equality, or grace vs. law was enough to get him thrown off a cliff in his day and age, then what is the equivalent to that in our day and age? What truth that needs to be shared would make people so uncomfortable and offended that they would want to punch you in the face (and I'm talking about TRUTH from God, not something out of our own perception and pretension)? Pray about it. Ask God to help your thinking and actions to be ever evolving, creative, new and truth-filled. As him to help so that you can be a tool to bring the kingdom of heaven to Earth. Because as unchanging and steadfast as our God is, he's also fiery and an advocate for change and new-ness. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have sent Christ. Lets celebrate that facet of our God and dwell in it.