The Only Voice That Needs to be Heard

In the sea of many voices

There is only One who needs to be heard

The still small voice of the Holy Spirit within

It is the Spirit that speaks Truth to my soul

It is the Spirit that speaks and warms my heart

It is the Spirit that speaks and enlightens my mind

It is the Spirit that speaks from the One Word

The One Word from God is Jesus.

He is the Voice that speaks The Way, The Truth, The Life

The Holy Spirit faithfully speaks The Word of God

And in the sea of many voices

That is The Word that needs to be heard.

A TRUE CELEBRATION FOR THE CHURCH OF GOD

To me the church as the Body of Christ doesn’t speak about so much as what the church does, as it speaks to what it is; the Body of Christ is the Presence of God on earth today.  To me that means I need to look at how Jesus was while he was on earth, because he was the Presence of God, incarnate.  He did not abolish the law.  He was the fulfillment of all of the law and the prophets.  He gave them meaning.  Today we throw off the law and the admonitions of the prophets and claim that Jesus made love the hallmark of the Christian faith.  That is true, but Jesus never separated love from obedience to the law or the admonitions of the prophets; they built on each other giving a complete meaning and a firm foundation to build on.

Love wants the best for another.  Often the best for another looks different to different people, and more than often looks different to Jesus.

Giving up my life in order to gain a better life doesn’t look like the best for me; hearing I need to stop what I am doing because it is wrong and actually harmful to me doesn’t look like the best to me. Asking for forgiveness, repenting, and admitting I am wrong doesn’t look like the best for me.  I want the freedom to be who I think I am and do what I think is best for me so I will look for people who reinforce and support me and stay clear of those who don’t.  I don’t want to feel convicted by my conscious so I will declare my conscience as null and void.  I will feel healthy, no matter what I am doing that might be unhealthy.

In the story about the woman brought before Jesus by the religious leaders for being caught in the act of adultery speaks clearly to the power of his presence.  The religious leaders left convicted and went home without bringing the woman to the justice she deserved by their law.  He could have said, “See, no one condemns you, and neither do I so go back to what you were doing.”  He said, “See, no one condemns you and neither do I.  Go, and sin no more.

In the story of the prodigal son the younger son went out and squandered his life and money in reckless living.  He had fun for awhile but that ended and he found himself as empty as he thought he was at home.  He came to himself, realized he had chosen wrong, repented and went home to seek forgiveness from his father, healing their relationship.  His father celebrated his homecoming.  The older son was equally squandering his life in resentment and bitterness.  But he never came to himself, to the conviction that he was choosing wrong and treating his father poorly.  In the eyes of others he was doing everything right, everything a son should do.  He never was brought to repentance or to the awareness that he needed to ask his father for forgiveness.  He missed the celebration and didn’t heal the relationship.

The restoration in relationship between God and human beings is the hallmark of Christianity.  Love has a great deal to do with that, but so does repentance and forgiveness for that breach in relationship.  The love of God leads us to repentance. When people who were in need came into Jesus’ presence, they experienced God’s love and they were healed. Jesus acted and spoke true to who he was.  People who didn’t think they were in need left his presence the same because they didn’t hear or didn’t see who he was and consequently could not celebrate in his love.

It is not true love to thwart the reconciliation of the relationship between God and one who has turned aside from God’s standard.  It is not true love to say that everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and that God delights in them, just so they won’t feel bad. This is not what is best for anyone.

The church as the Body of Christ needs to be light and salt to the world.  It needs to stand true to God’s laws, God’s prophets, and to Christ Jesus.  It needs to stand true to the covenant God made with Levi.

“My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to

him.  It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me.  He stood in awe of

my name.  True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found

on his lips.  He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he

turned many from iniquity.  For the lips of a priest should guard

knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he

          is a messenger of the Lord of hosts.”  Malachi 2:5-7

The church as the Body of Christ needs to stand firm on a solid foundation of love and obedience.  But is it?  Unfortunately in our day the church appears to be falling into the same condition that Malachi speaks of in the rest of that chapter.

“But you have turned aside from my way.  You have caused many to

stumble by your instruction.  You have corrupted the covenant of

Levi, says the Lord of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased

before all people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show

partiality in your instruction.”  Malachi 2:8, 9.

The church as the Body of Christ is His Presence in the world today.  As we love one another and encourage one another and build one another up, let’s make sure we are true to the standard and the plumb line that God uses.  Then we will be able to truly celebrate at the restoration of the relationship that God has been waiting to celebrate with us.  And oh, what a glorious celebration that will be.

THE CHURCH THAT JESUS IS BUILDING

“But who do you say that I am?

Blessed are you, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

But, my Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 16:15

It is easy to be ‘evangelized into a church; invited to a place and group of people who make you feel loved and care for you.  It is easy to become committed to the church that offers that sense of belonging that all people need.  But that same sense can come from joining a club, a sports team, or many other social constructs we have built into society.  Those groups of people built that group into being, with charters, admission requirements, regulations, rules, and methods of accountability of the members, one to another.

As I look at the churches today I somehow sense that Jesus had something else as his building plan.  Human institutions are not sustainable because humans are flesh and blood and are not permanent.  Human institutions cannot withstand the gates of hell coming against them.  The institutional, human built churches are falling apart, due to dissention between members, economic depletion, compromises to God’s standard of life, and failure to achieve the original intention Jesus proclaimed for His Church. If anything fails it is not of God, but of human devising.

“My word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me

 empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose

 for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

What is to be, what is to come, already is.  That is what Jesus came to tell us, to show us.  What we need to know about the things of God flesh and blood can’t tell us.  We must hear those things from God Himself. God will add those people to the Church He is building.  That is the Church that will withstand the gates of hell.  Christ is the Rock His Church will stand on; not on flesh and blood, not on human thoughts or ways, but on God’s Word revealed by God Himself.

THE AXE IS AT THE ROOT

What if Jesus’ first coming to earth was today in 2014?  What expectations would our world have of him?  I suspect they would be the same as the expectations those folks years ago had.  They expected him to overpower and correct the Roman Empire; to ease the suffering those tyrants were inflicting on them; to take charge and be King.  He didn’t do that then so I suspect he wouldn’t do that today.

The problems of the world are not the evil deeds done by tyrants.  It is the roots of pride, arrogance, and perverse speech that produce the deeds of evil, and those roots are in all people of all persuasions and positions; rulers of nations, of religious systems, of political systems, of educational systems, and of social systems.  They are in individuals; rich and poor, men and women, of every culture and background.  Every one of us had the roots and the potential for evil, as God sees evil, within them.  That is why Jesus came; not to fix the world systems, but to fix us, everyone of us in this world.

         

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created

it.”  Albert Einstein.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words; words become actions;

actions become habits; habits become character; character becomes

destiny.”  Lao Tse

Jesus came to fix us by transforming us and the way we think.  There are thoughts all around us and within us, and we often grab onto them and absorb them unconsciously, without much thought.  Thoughts run free range, the good with the bad, the creative with the destructive, and the right with the wrong.  The world’s problems all began with human thoughts, thoughts that may have looked good but were bad, looked creative but were destructive, looked right but were wrong.

Jesus came to set us in our thinking and that thinking is not rooted in pride, arrogance, or perverse speech.  It is rooted in, “But, I say to you” just as in the beginning, and “God said.”  To live our lives well, creative, and right human beings need to listen to, and obey what God says; listen to and obey His Word.  Until we do, we will all continue to be wicked and capable of evil.

“Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

And let him return to the Lord…”For My thoughts are not your

thoughts, nor my ways your ways”, declares the Lord.  “For as the

heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your

ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8).

It was human pride and arrogance and perverse speech that Jesus spoke to and condemned.  He didn’t look to the actions he went right to the roots.  “The axe is laid unto the root.”  Let’s accept the work Jesus does to our pride and in humility look to God to lead and direct our thoughts, our words, and our actions.  It’s the only Way.

SEEING THE WHOLE BIG PICTURE

The teachings on non dualistic thinking are beginning to bear fruit in the way I am viewing things.  I still believe there is good and evil, a way of life and a way of death, but looking at the big picture those distinctions are very clear and there is a lot in the middle that people tend to put those clear and distinct labels on that God didn’t.  Those distinctions are man made constructs and tend to be based on personal preference and opinion.  I learned this the hard way when a teacher said that all music, except classical music was evil and I gave away all my records.

God created human beings with a freedom of choice; listen and obey God or not.  Not listening and obeying God means listening and obeying another voice, one from outside or one from inside; ones own voice.  Adam and Eve listened to an external voice other than God and then listened to their own voice, deciding on their own what to do.  The world still suffers the consequences of that choice.

Depending on my own understanding of good and evil or listening to another voice other than God’s leads to judgment and prejudicial thinking which leads to hate, violence, and injustice.  In the end we have only ourselves to blame for the condition of the world today.  As a people we have committed the two evils that God spoke of in Jeremiah 2:11-13.  “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”  As a nation we have “changed its gods, even though they are no gods, and have changed their glory for that which does not profit.”

This evil is done so simply and blindly by people.  We put our trust in government or we protest government. We put our trust in money or business or we protest money or business.  We uphold some ideals and values or look down on other ideals or values. We fight amongst each other about solutions to these problems but only offer faulty solutions to the problems; faulty because they are just other man made solutions composed of opinions and prejudices.  And, in the midst of all of this warring and confusion we keep rejecting the God who created us and the standard of life we are meant to live so that live will go well.  It is a clear standard but unfortunately we ignore and/or reject it in favor of having our way.  Most people think nothing of this treatment towards God.  But to God it matters a great deal and He speaks out to the rest of creation, saying, “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord” (2:12).

What are they thinking?  What are they doing?

God was speaking to the Israelites but His words ring true today.  We are working hard on many minute issues created by our own knowledge of good and evil rather than seeing that in the big picture there is only one issue and one solution.  Listening and obeying God’s Standard of Living.  That was the picture Jesus was teaching and demonstrating.  He did not come and correct the faulty systems of humans; he did not come and offer a new and better religion, philosophy, or political solution to the problems of life.  He came to remind people that God’s Standard was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, from the beginning until the end, the alpha and the omega.