Sin is Hungry

Sin looks to consume you, and it will hunger for your life as long as you live. Its like a predator laying in wait for a moment to strike. It will lure you with desire until it has grown to maturity, and when it has consumed you you will die. That's pretty obvious though isn't it? When a beast consumes you, then you die. I would be dead too, if a lion consumed me; so it is with sin, its design is to kill us. These three are our true enemies: temptation, sin and death, and the three of them are allies. They are a house of evil that stand together. None of them are of the lord, and in the end they will pass away to be blotted out from our very memories forever and ever. Praise be to the king of kings.

The kingdom of God is like a war; God is the army saving us from captivity, and the walls of our prison are temptation, sin, and death. They separate us from him. And its a well defended fortress with centuries of ancestral sin as its guards, except the archers do not aim out at God, whom can not be defeated. The archers fire inward at us; keeping us stolen by fear and shame. The foundation is sin and the mortar is desire but the wall is death. The crowning architectural achievement of the enemy is this wall of death; for Satan could not have made it himself. The enemy is not a child made in the image of God, and therefore he can not create things. Only creators can create and so he must use us to construct our own prisons. This is why Satan is the tempter; he provides us with the materials needed for his designs; this is temptation. Like an evil blueprint for death we look over it and make plans to destroy ourselves. Sin is the work of our hands and the finished product is death. Satan makes death through us by tempting us to sin; it is for this reason that sin's main goal for all times is to bring about death on the children of God. How then are we saved from this horrible cycle? The army of the lord bashes down the wall of death and then he turns our tools to good. Instead if building up the wall we are trained to tare it down. We are given the tools of deconstruction, dispossession, selflessness, and love.

Death is a force but God's love is demanding as the grave. On the third day Jesus rose to life and tore down the wall. Death could not hold him from God's love. Now sin is like a starving bear searching for a soul to eat, but death has been turned against it. One died for all so all have died. To take up your cross is to die to yourself, and dying to your self is the end of Sin. Who have rest from sin? The dead. So we who are living give our selves over to death that sin might be swallowed up in victory, starved and abandoned. Sin's goal is now our greatest weapon. Now only temptation remains; Satan's last foot hold. Cling fast to the holy spirit. Those who are led by the spirit find the path to life, and it is a guide to all truth.

So put to death the old self and be born again, not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husbands will, but born of God; and God is spirit.

Sin is hungry but among the camp of God's people it only finds the food we give it.

The Path Goes Ever On and On

I've found a companion on this journey. In truth there are many, but this new one is so very appropriate. "God sent" is the most accurate word, and I think he might say that's exactly the point, if he were alive. In my quest to Seek the Other, the life of Thomas Merton is exemplary, and so too his writings. Most especially the collection entitled "Seeds of Contemplation" Seeds indeed! A potential harvest of life changing meditations. His journey, more than most, is founded at the heart of seeking the other. Looking back on where I've been this last two years I can see we were meant for each other. He is my guide or my predecessor, which ever is less idolatrous. Or maybe I should say he has taken a very direct route of the narrow path, and made deep its groves and foot falls.

In any case it is like the word in flesh once again when I read his work. The man himself is a redemptive case, like us all, I have no doubt. My point is not to set him further apart, he would not appreciate that very much. He has run the race though, and done it recently. The text is brought to life for me. The words of Jesus are accessible to my heart in a way that bypasses the filters of my mind, and the mind can be such a hindrance. The layers of time must be pealed back by an incarnation of the Lord's work, displayed in his people. This is done by his holy spirit and so my confession today is confidence in Jesus' promise. The spirit of truth is a guide, a councilor to truth. One we could not go with out. The councilor leads us into all of God's will, and that is the revelation at which I have arrived recently. We, us, ourselves cannot lead our selves in the perfect will of the father. His will for us has nothing to do with us. This is the edge of a great mystery. One revealed in Christ and made as promise in his resurrection. He bares testimony of the fathers will: to keep your life is to loose it and laying it down is to gain it, and this is all proved, as Paul would say, in the fact that he was raised from the dead. Acts Chapter 17.

I've been sick this week, but I have not been in lack. I have found that suffering can lead us so very deep along this road. High and wide, deep and far. It is the path to love. Let me explain. If you've ever done work, used your energy to accomplish something worth while you should know that it requires strain to do so. Suffering is very different from misery in this way. You know its misery if you're not getting anything out of it. When suffering occurs you've done some work. In misery there is no purpose. Suffering is purpose, or it has it in the lord. Nothing of value can be gained with out an exertion of the self anyways. In exertion the self must be put to the side, and pain endured for the creation of something new. Thomas puts it this way:

"In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be,

and in order to find myself I must go outside myself, and in order to live I have to die."

Every moment in life, pleasant or not is an opportunity to take in a seed of truth that is in part a piece of the father's self. For he has given himself to us by displaying it in all of creation (Romans 1:20)

The baring of our crosses is the path Jesus has laid before us, to save us from our selves and the unreality of a life centered around self. It is similar to his commandment: Love each other as I have loved you. For there is no greater love than this: to lay down your life for your friends." in order to abide in him and him we must not abide in us. When this happens he abides in us and his love is made a house and temple in our hearts. The living God with in a humble chamber, broken and fallen. This is the redemption of our bodies. God's temple has no room for anything else but he himself. At first thought this suffering sounds like a burden, but this is not true for Jesus yoke is easy and his burden well you know. The truth is, as far as I can explain it, love is a selfless cause that requires work, a work that is not so hard when we get outside ourselves. This is the grace of suffering: it gets you outside yourself, or it should. Anything else is misery. God is love, and love is his command. In it we abide and he remains. Ever giving, but ever receiving and all from the other to the other, who in the end is God. This is the design of the trinity.

Please join me, reap a harvest in love this day.

Ps: thanks mom this book is soo good.

Righteousness and Lord of The Rings

Lean not on your own understanding, but trust in the lord......

This is hard, even harder if you grow up in the church, or any form of religion. The lord God of Israel calls us to an obedience that puts its power in trust. The reason this is so hard for me is the fact that I want to earn everything I do. I want to make "my' faith "my own." What a misunderstood concept this has been for me.  For many of us it describes a change that occurs in the formative years of early adulthood, but the language is completely miss leading. There is a spirit of understanding there that knows the desire of the father for us to be brought in closer to his heart, but to use the language of "my own" has proven destructive and dangerous in my life.

The constant foothold of the enemy, the space known as "my own"

"Its mine, my own... my precious" as Gullum puts it. The ring, the ring of power, is just that. It was made by the enemy, can only be used by him and never gives us what we want. The reason being: It is an object designed for private use.

Here is righteousness at work in a very real way. Say what you want about Gullum but in the end he's just like the best of us. When the ring goes into the hands of our friend mister Frodo Gullum does all sorts of things for the good guy's side. Say what you want, but Gullum is never an intensional instrument of the enemy, Sauron. 

"But Gullum is on his own side!" we might say. Well, exactly. For a long time that has been my lot in life. I may not be a follower of the enemy, but his designs are fulfilled in my actions when my actions are made for my own fulfillment. Look at the scripture above in this light. It's what i've tried to do for the past couple months. This is what it comes down to for me: I stated it in a previous blog "I'm Not Jesus" but maybe put in a better line of thought in this scripture. "Lean not on your OWN _______ but trust in the lord." Just fill in the blank because the place you put your understanding effects every decision you make.

Here let me give this a try:

Josh,

Lean not on your own understanding

lean not on your own ability

lean not on your own resources

lean not on your own love

lean not on your own forgiveness

lean not on your own grace

lean not on your own plan

lean not on our own visions for the future.................ugggggh here comes the big one

lean not on your own.... righteousness,

That last one really gets it wrapped up! lean not on my own righteousness or, lean not on my on efforts to make me right with God and people. Holy father thats hard! 

How do most religious people come to a faith, and not just budism but christianity as well?

If the world is filled with any one remotely like me than they come to religion in hopes of filling their existance with justification for their share in this place called life. Ok, maybe in the western world of insurance and abundant provisions at least, this might be the case. (thank God for the poor and needy!)

Ok, heres what I'm getting at: I've spent a lot of my life trying to earn the identity that christianity bestows on its followers. I've been trying to figure out, ok so now what do I do to be that person. Right, I know it doesn't sound all that much likee Gullum yet, just give me a second. When the lord God called me to his throne and asked me to kneel at the feet of his laws he did not do so expecting me to fulfill his wishes to a "T" He wants me to, as the path of life was given to us through his instructions, but he never wanted me to fulfill this path. I had to ask myself why? Heres what i've come up with. SO THAT THE PATH OF LIFE IS NOT MINE. 

If I could find and make life on my OWN, how could I be a created thing. It comes down the the basic fundamental understanding of what I am as a human being. I am not God and he has not asked me to be him. I am not the path of life and the lord has not asked me to fulfill it, he already did. In the first act of creation, by taking nothing and making something God has set himself apart and in control. In the second creation built upon the cross he put himself under everything and was thus exalted so that no one could boast. He is the alpha and the omega, he is the begining and end. To seek life by my own design is not only foolish, but impossible. Jesus lived the life that is life. Jesus chose the way that is the way. Jesus was the light that is the light. Being both man and God....well what i'm getting to is not something to be taught, only learned. So I pray that the spirit lead us to that end.

So...

Lean not on your own plan, to make you right with God today. Know that Jesus did that, and there is nothing that you can do to earn the father's love for you, or his salvation!

And if you desire righteousness this day, you're going to have to do it the way Jesus did, with a cross. Because he already set the path. You can't make one just as good, you can't make one that works better for you. If you want righteousness your going to have to let Jesus in and shape your time, shape you descisions, and shape your mind. In Phillipians chapter 2 Paul asks the church to "be of the same mind" he doesn't mean "What ever you do, in word or deed do it with the same goal and reason" he means "be of the same mind as christ" and remember the rest of the chapter? Here comes one of the most quoted verses in scripture:

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Shining as Stars

 12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.