Grounded

I am sure you have those moments as well, you sit down in the empty spaces of your mind and think about how aloof your dreams are, how near your failure is, how nagging your guilt feels, how unreal your redemption seems...

You have to choose. There are two people separated by the train of thought. They both have the same face, same name.

But, only one man can leave the table. As long as the two still sit together, your dreams remain aloof, your failure is breathing down your neck, your guilt won't let go and you will want to ignore your redemption. One man cannot desire to do evil and agree with the other who desires good. One man cannot desire to serve God, while the other desires to serve himself.

One man, one thought, one vision, one purpose; only one man must leave the table of thought because a double minded man shall never be stable. So you must choose.

And we must choose. How do we stand and where do we stand?  All else is sinking sand except Christ the solid rock.



Matthew 14:27-31

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

James 1:2-8
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

The Full Course Meal of Scripture

Several times, in our pursuit of our identity in Christ, we come upon questions and dilemmas from the Word that many times make us question what it is that God is saying. So often, we find things in the Word like "Rom 11:29  For the free gifts and calling of God are without repentance. " and then we find "Job 1:21  And he said, I came naked out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away. Blessed be the name of Jehovah. " We ask ourselves, why is God being two faced?

Hitherto, my Bible reading was like the picture below;

I would take only what I wanted and cut out what I despised or felt uncomfortable with. I was not mindful of God, who in all things let the fullness of Christ come through. All the Bible is God's word. In fact Paul says to Timothy [2Ti 3:16,17]  All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work.

In reading His Word, I have realised this, it is easy for me to extract a scripture and begin to preach a sermon on it, or pass on a message not mindful of the sea it comes from. This is what I mean; the Word is like eating a 7 course meal. The fullness of it cannot be explained in the appetiser or the soup or  the fish or the palate cleanser or the main course or the dessert! When all these things come together, they make a 7 course meal. Separately, they are individuals at the moment.

The working of the 7 course meal is such that "the guests taste a wide assortment of dishes, not to stuff or overwhelm them with food" and also, "It may take four to six hours to completely finish such a dinner, ".
The dessert is not the dinner. The dinner is complete with all the seven courses to the pleasing of the guest of the home. These small factions only make sense within the line up. Not that they would not taste good on their own.

Christ is fuller than the 7 course meal. Col 1:19  For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; He is the dwelling place of the fullness of the Father. We can call the Bible the Spiritual 66 course meal for every book in it compliments the image of the Father. Therefore, it will surely take us more than six hours to complete if we are eating on purpose.

Some parts of the Bible are like what Paul talks about here "Gal 3:24  So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. " There is a time for the law and a time for faith. One leads to another. Perhaps the fullness of Christ is in the main course? Who knows, but there are things leading us to this main course! Appetisers, soups,fishes, palate cleansers...

We must learn to see these things in their context lest we misuse or misunderstand this great banquet of knowing Christ. They are held together in God and all find their place in Him. So when I read a verse in a chapter, I ask myself, where does this fall in within the chapter; so I read the chapter. I may further prod and ask, where does this fall in within the book? Or further yet, where does the book fall in within the history of the time?

So the more questions I ask, the more answers I receive, the more fullness is opened to me by His grace and revelation. I find answers and rest. When the main course is done, then the desserts. All these come together for a beautiful banquet. If one is lost, the fullness is missed. May we continue to behold this marvelous Jesus, all the way from Genesis to Revelation and embrace the transformation into likeness with Him.

Baseline:
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Demise of the Purple Heart

Legacy:the dream of many a legend.

Excuse my lack of eloquence, I am taking baby steps again given how long it's been since I last blogged. I will take it one step at a time.

It is innate, that every man longs to leave a legacy- some sort of thing to remember him by, something worthy of being recorded, someway to carry his life forward even after he dies.

Books, sons and daughters, companies, are some way of preserving legacy. Sometimes, legacy cannot be touched, it comes in form of heroism, villainy.

I hope I do not confuse any of you. This is a death announcement. The prevention of legacy. There will be no more purple heart after this post. This is the end, the realisation that Nevender must rise again. PH, the bitter, sour man has died and Nev shall now live.

Where am I heading?

Heard of alter ego? Laughable really. Sasha Fierce, Slim Shady etc? Well, it explains a lot about our nature. Trying to be good and bad at the same time and get away with it.

The nature of man is pretty straight forward and there need be no research concerning who we are. Men say that sometimes a man is born good and other times he is born evil. That it is not upto anyone but that that is the way one is. Is it really?

Judas Iscariot can be regarded the worst of men because he was not only greedy, his greed led to the death of a not just a good man but the God man- the messiah. Maybe he was born bad. So then, should bad men have a conscience after a lifetime of "badness"? Consider

"Then, Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, felt remorse, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood" (Matthew 27:4)

A bad man felt remorse. In this very sense it means there was something close to good in him.

Paul explains this nature very well

Rom 7:19 For what good I desire, I do not do. But the evil I do not desire, this I do.

It is easy to do bad. Without restraint, man can do very bad all by himself. It is easy to be angry, hateful, resentful. Most of this has the foundation of selfishness, needing to please oneself before anyone else.

Purple heart is a case study. Disappointment gave rise to this (blogger)man/ supposed alter ego and the need to be defiant gave him nourishment. However, where light is, shall no darkness be.

Men use rules to try and keep their evil nature under control. It is actually the grace of God which gives us that ability- innately it is that conscience which differentiates good from evil, and externally it is the law of God presented in the Torah. Having a conscience and knowledge of God's law however does not give one the ability to do good. It only presents a choice. It is like being given a mirror. A mirror cannot change you.

Praise God then:

Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

But be aware:

Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

And take heed:

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For freedom to serve God, man must die. Not physically, but spiritually. Death to me has a new meaning- it is the ultimate humility. If we can kill our flesh, we have given ourselves over completely to God- totally dependent on God. This is why my old (blogger) man is gone. Purple heart is dead. It is a realisation that one must not always think to please himself, to vent ( yes, even doing it on blogger is an issue.) as if he deserves anything. We come into this world with nothing, we go out of it with nothing, how can we say we deserve anything?

One more thing before I go, our natural man has issues I mean look what God says

Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness,

Gal 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies,

Gal 5:21 envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you before, as I also said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

It would do you and I good to read the whole of Galatians 5 and make sense of this issue. Be blessed.

Baseline: Gal 5:24 But those belonging to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.