Who is this Man? We are captivated by His brilliance and glory, as revealed in the book of Revelation. Yet this is the same man who walked the earth, and talked with us. We followed him for a few years. Then he died and was raised on the third day. Yet he still, even with his glorified body, did not display his brilliance and glory.
We are captivated by his brilliance and glory.
May we also be captivated by his humanity.
May we learn that it is both.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Poverty of Spirit
Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
Poor in spirit means to recognize that in myself I have nothing, and that I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It means to rid myself of me and to fill myself with HIM. And to be filled with HIM is to truly be rich in spirit.
Poor in spirit means to recognize that in myself I have nothing, and that I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It means to rid myself of me and to fill myself with HIM. And to be filled with HIM is to truly be rich in spirit.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Spiritual Promotion
How often have I thought that promotion meant getting ahead of someone else. I realized today I was I listening to the RHOP podcast, that spiritual promotion was being promoted in God. It has nothing to do with being "ranked" to other people. It has everything to do with how far we have gone in God.
As He presents us with tests and challenges, and as we respond well to those things that He allows in our lives, he promotes us in Him, so that we will be able to experience more of Him.
As usual it is all about our relationship with Him.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Sermon on the Mount
I'm here at RHOP again. The team is doing a marvelous job their first week into the glory realm and Revelation 4. It is a great place to be and a transcendant scripture to study.
I reach into my bag and pull out a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and begin reading. It is such a familiar place, that it is like being home again. The practical and the spiritual all combined into one. I love it.
I reach into my bag and pull out a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and begin reading. It is such a familiar place, that it is like being home again. The practical and the spiritual all combined into one. I love it.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Las Vegas
I was in Las Vegas yesterday. I landed after a brief flight on Sunday night. I don't like Las Vegas. To me, it is a loud, brash city that sees any sort of suggestion of restraint as the equivalent of the complete revocation of all human rights and freedoms.
As I was departing the airport with many other people, I overheard two Las Vegas natives commenting to each other about some exuberant passengers nearby. One man said to another "It's interesting that everyone comes to Vegas laughing, but no one leaves laughing." That comment really struck me as quite insightful.
After a productive meeting, I was back in the airport, waiting for my plane to take a short flight back home. I could feel my spirit losing ground to the oppression around me. The feeling had been growing all day, but now that I was "alone with myself", I was suddenly aware of the feeling and what it actually was.
I began to pray, asking God for insight into the people around me. Looking around, I saw so many people in pain; and my inner pain also continue to grow. The pinnacle was when I saw a couple get off of the plane I was about to board. They were matter of fact, the husband walking a step of two ahead of the wife. The wife was holding the hand of their daughter. Their daughter was why I had even noticed the couple in the first place. She was about ten years old, wearing a blue cotton dress with brown hair and a moderate case of Down's Syndrome. I was amazed and impressed by the couple that they had actually allowed their child to live. I continued watching this small family as they walked away, down the terminal when I realized that they had another child, a son about 18-months old, who didn't have Down's. I was even more impressed, as most people stop having children after they receive a child with a handicap.
As I watched this family, my heart began to weep. I was overcome with emotions that I still can't identify. The pain of all of the people around me, the heroic parents who had defied culture, stood their ground and were raising a child who, in all likelihood, would always remain a child, living with them, the oppression of the city that I had been experiencing for the last 24 hours. All of these things welled up inside my heart and it began to weep. I was simultaneously thanking and praising Him for the life of this child who had been spared and crying for those who felt so alone.
Later, on the airplane, just as it began to accelerate for take-off, I thought to myself. "I'm glad to be leaving. I hate this city." The Holy Spirit instantly replied, "I don't hate this city. I love this city. She is to me a daughter. And just as a good father cries for a wayward daughter, so do I weep for Las Vegas." It brought to mind when Jesus wept over Jerusalem and I quoted the verse to myself, but different. "O Las Vegas, Las Vegas, how I long to gather you to me..."
As the plane ascended into the air bringing me home, I was, for the first time, struck by the beauty of the city. Actually, for the first time of any city, I saw, why people can describe a city as beautiful. I can't explain it, but I saw it. The landscape, yes, even in the desert with the glittering, sparkling city, rising like an oasis out of the desert floor, was to me beautiful.
I began to ponder why the city refused (so far) to turn from its ways. I saw it as a beloved daughter of God, run away from home, like the Prodigal Son, living out in the desert, so worn out and depressed from chasing other things. But instead of returning home like the Prodigal, she decides that it would be better for her to die "free", rather than return home to have to live with her Fathers "restrictions".
I turned on my iPod, turning to the next podcast on the list. It just happened to be "The Beauty of Holiness." The speaker said something at the beginning that struck me, that holiness is beautiful. Having just had my eyes opened to the beauty of Las Vegas, I reflected on that thought for a moment. That Las Vegas is called to be a holy city. A city set apart from the world as a city that can and does reflect the beauty of the holiness of God.
It is clearly not walking in that calling yet, but one day it will. Today, it sits atop the the cities of the United States as the epitome of the "Longing for Beauty" and the inhabitants and the visitors exist as a constant reminder that everything the world has to offer is empty compared to the riches and beauty available to everyone who desires after eternal things.
As I was departing the airport with many other people, I overheard two Las Vegas natives commenting to each other about some exuberant passengers nearby. One man said to another "It's interesting that everyone comes to Vegas laughing, but no one leaves laughing." That comment really struck me as quite insightful.
After a productive meeting, I was back in the airport, waiting for my plane to take a short flight back home. I could feel my spirit losing ground to the oppression around me. The feeling had been growing all day, but now that I was "alone with myself", I was suddenly aware of the feeling and what it actually was.
I began to pray, asking God for insight into the people around me. Looking around, I saw so many people in pain; and my inner pain also continue to grow. The pinnacle was when I saw a couple get off of the plane I was about to board. They were matter of fact, the husband walking a step of two ahead of the wife. The wife was holding the hand of their daughter. Their daughter was why I had even noticed the couple in the first place. She was about ten years old, wearing a blue cotton dress with brown hair and a moderate case of Down's Syndrome. I was amazed and impressed by the couple that they had actually allowed their child to live. I continued watching this small family as they walked away, down the terminal when I realized that they had another child, a son about 18-months old, who didn't have Down's. I was even more impressed, as most people stop having children after they receive a child with a handicap.
As I watched this family, my heart began to weep. I was overcome with emotions that I still can't identify. The pain of all of the people around me, the heroic parents who had defied culture, stood their ground and were raising a child who, in all likelihood, would always remain a child, living with them, the oppression of the city that I had been experiencing for the last 24 hours. All of these things welled up inside my heart and it began to weep. I was simultaneously thanking and praising Him for the life of this child who had been spared and crying for those who felt so alone.
Later, on the airplane, just as it began to accelerate for take-off, I thought to myself. "I'm glad to be leaving. I hate this city." The Holy Spirit instantly replied, "I don't hate this city. I love this city. She is to me a daughter. And just as a good father cries for a wayward daughter, so do I weep for Las Vegas." It brought to mind when Jesus wept over Jerusalem and I quoted the verse to myself, but different. "O Las Vegas, Las Vegas, how I long to gather you to me..."
As the plane ascended into the air bringing me home, I was, for the first time, struck by the beauty of the city. Actually, for the first time of any city, I saw, why people can describe a city as beautiful. I can't explain it, but I saw it. The landscape, yes, even in the desert with the glittering, sparkling city, rising like an oasis out of the desert floor, was to me beautiful.
I began to ponder why the city refused (so far) to turn from its ways. I saw it as a beloved daughter of God, run away from home, like the Prodigal Son, living out in the desert, so worn out and depressed from chasing other things. But instead of returning home like the Prodigal, she decides that it would be better for her to die "free", rather than return home to have to live with her Fathers "restrictions".
I turned on my iPod, turning to the next podcast on the list. It just happened to be "The Beauty of Holiness." The speaker said something at the beginning that struck me, that holiness is beautiful. Having just had my eyes opened to the beauty of Las Vegas, I reflected on that thought for a moment. That Las Vegas is called to be a holy city. A city set apart from the world as a city that can and does reflect the beauty of the holiness of God.
It is clearly not walking in that calling yet, but one day it will. Today, it sits atop the the cities of the United States as the epitome of the "Longing for Beauty" and the inhabitants and the visitors exist as a constant reminder that everything the world has to offer is empty compared to the riches and beauty available to everyone who desires after eternal things.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Fellowship of His Sufferings
I am here at RHOP, wondering why I am here. After talking at length with Greg he encouraged me to just use this time to sit and inquire of the Lord as to my purpose and my calling. Then Mike Grant gave an encouragement at the beginning of the EGS as to knowing who you are and knowing your calling.
So I was positioning my heart to seek and the Lord interrupted me and reminded me of the prophecy from the Prophecy class. The word was that I was an olive in an olive press, and that the olive press will squeeze me, and that only a little oil of the anointing will flow from my life. But that after that one olive is crushed in the olive press, there is a basket of olives to be crushed, with an even greater anointing. And then, after those were crushed and the anointing had flowed from those, there was an olive tree heavy with ripe olives, waiting to drop, so heavy they would dent cars. ("So much it would even dent my car" she said).
The last few days I have been listening to a sermon from IHOP-ATL about Entering into the Fellowship of His Sufferings. The crushing of the olive reminded me of the verse that says "It pleased the father to crush His son." If I am truly a son of the Father, then I too have to belly up to the bar of suffering. This drink that the barkeeper has prepared for me will not pass. Neither will it be skipped. If I don't drink it, it will continue to wait for me. If I leave, it will be here when I get back. Where else can I go, only He has the words of eternal life.
Drinking of the cup of suffering is like giving little kids an immunization. They hate it at the time, but it really is for their good.
Why do I fight the suffering so much? It hurts. I don't like pain. And I'm not supposed to like pain. The point isn't to enjoy the pain, but to respond well, by turning my gaze towards heaven, feel his gaze shine on my and then, in that place, I have embraced my cross and have continued pressing into fellowship with Him, experiencing suffering with Him.
Who else has suffered more that our Lord. And I don't just mean on the cross, though that would have been enough. Who has suffered more than the Creator being hated by his creation, being rejected by us, even unto death. We hated Him so much, and He loved us so much that just to prove how much he loved us, he died for us. But he didn't stay dead, for love is stronger than the grave and His love is the truest love we can ever experience.
So Lord, here I am, in your presence. I submit my will, my flesh, my soul, and my spirit to you. I am yours. If you crush me like an olive in a press, still I will say you are good. I set my heart to know you and I direct my gaze towards you. I desire to know you in the fellowship of your sufferings. But Lord, you know, my spirit is willing and my flesh is weak, and that is what you are doing, you are stripping my flesh of it's weaknesses, so that I can run, as a salt racer after you. I worship you oh Holy one. I adore you loving Father, come and inoculate me.
So I was positioning my heart to seek and the Lord interrupted me and reminded me of the prophecy from the Prophecy class. The word was that I was an olive in an olive press, and that the olive press will squeeze me, and that only a little oil of the anointing will flow from my life. But that after that one olive is crushed in the olive press, there is a basket of olives to be crushed, with an even greater anointing. And then, after those were crushed and the anointing had flowed from those, there was an olive tree heavy with ripe olives, waiting to drop, so heavy they would dent cars. ("So much it would even dent my car" she said).
The last few days I have been listening to a sermon from IHOP-ATL about Entering into the Fellowship of His Sufferings. The crushing of the olive reminded me of the verse that says "It pleased the father to crush His son." If I am truly a son of the Father, then I too have to belly up to the bar of suffering. This drink that the barkeeper has prepared for me will not pass. Neither will it be skipped. If I don't drink it, it will continue to wait for me. If I leave, it will be here when I get back. Where else can I go, only He has the words of eternal life.
Drinking of the cup of suffering is like giving little kids an immunization. They hate it at the time, but it really is for their good.
Why do I fight the suffering so much? It hurts. I don't like pain. And I'm not supposed to like pain. The point isn't to enjoy the pain, but to respond well, by turning my gaze towards heaven, feel his gaze shine on my and then, in that place, I have embraced my cross and have continued pressing into fellowship with Him, experiencing suffering with Him.
Who else has suffered more that our Lord. And I don't just mean on the cross, though that would have been enough. Who has suffered more than the Creator being hated by his creation, being rejected by us, even unto death. We hated Him so much, and He loved us so much that just to prove how much he loved us, he died for us. But he didn't stay dead, for love is stronger than the grave and His love is the truest love we can ever experience.
So Lord, here I am, in your presence. I submit my will, my flesh, my soul, and my spirit to you. I am yours. If you crush me like an olive in a press, still I will say you are good. I set my heart to know you and I direct my gaze towards you. I desire to know you in the fellowship of your sufferings. But Lord, you know, my spirit is willing and my flesh is weak, and that is what you are doing, you are stripping my flesh of it's weaknesses, so that I can run, as a salt racer after you. I worship you oh Holy one. I adore you loving Father, come and inoculate me.
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