Worshipers?

I was recently thinking about John 4:20 where Jesus is speaking with the woman at the well and they break into a discussion about worship.  "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."  I was struck that the Father is not looking for worship, like let's sing some songs in church or let's sing Cumbya around the fire.  He is looking for people who have an identity as true worshipers.  How do we become true worshipers?  Good question, I believe that Jesus worshipped the Father through works of grace (miracles, healings, and signs) but really His whole life was worship.  When the Father put us "in Christ", Jesus the true worshiper is in us and we were seated "in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 2:6) which is where there is continual worship.  Since we who are in the New Covenant receive all the promises, a new identity, and payment for our sin through the finished work of Christ not through our own works or effort.  I think of Romans 8:15 "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption by which we cry out, 'Abba, Father!'."  The Spirit of Christ in us is crying in to worship the Father, later in Romans 8 it even says that all of creation is groaning.  Deep inside of us there is a groaning, a desire so strong within us that the only satisfaction that comes is from worshipping the Father.  We were created to worship the Father because "in Christ" the glory of the original creation Covenant is restored.  You were designed by the Father to worship Him because in worshipping Him you come more fully alive.  The other thought the Lord connected for me was reflecting on Romans 12:1 which says "Therefore I urge you, brethern, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrafice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."  I was blown away when I someone shared the revelation that under the Old Covenant we would never be an acceptable sacrafice but now "in Christ" being a living sacrafice we are holy and acceptable.  We are not our own and when we offer ourselves to let His Spirit live through us, this is worship.  The fire of the Holy Spirit is in us to consume all of the sacrafice, transforming us into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).  So does God want us to sing songs or does He want to transform us into true worshipers.  So every person can be a temple of worship to the Father through the indwelling Holy Spirit, I believe we would see a lot of glory.

Worshipping Him,
Bret

Establishing the Secret Place

The Lord has been revealing that from age 6-16 years old I hid in a shell, covering the inner pain and sadness as a way to protect myself.  When you have experienced a lot of damage to your soul, it is often hard to see an end to the pain and difficulty.  Since my father committed suicide he gave up hope and even believed God would disappoint him, this iniquity was passed onto me.  Where in a lot of ways it seemed easier to give up hope than put myself in a place to be disappointed and hurt again.  The Lord gave me the verses in Isaiah 45:2-3 as a promise for this year, I read these verse almost daily.  In these verse the Word says, "...I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places..."  The Lord spoke to my heart that He wanted to make the place in my heart where I had gone for these 10 years as a boy the "Secret Place" where I meet with Him, instead of the place of sadness, loneliness, rejection, and hopelessness.  As I had looked at thoses verses in Isaiah I realized that the shift from the Old Covenent to the New Covenant, meant that the external symbols were now fully fufilled by "...Christ in you the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  So the secret place wasn't some building, a temple, or even a garden but a place that the Lord was establishing in my heart where I will have communion with Him.  Yet the Lord chose the place of greatest isolation, sadness, and pain to establish a place of deep intimacy.  This seems almost cruel, yet I believe He is giving me the treasures of darkness.  Remembering back to the years between 6-16 years old there is a lot of darkness, pain, sadness, and isolation.  The Lord is going into a place the Enemy has brought his lies and destruction to rescue my boyhood heart.  This is the Spirit of God's journey into the deep places of my heart, do I allow Him to touch these places of pain for redemption.  We live in such a culture that is always looking for the easy and painless way, yet my God invites me into the depths of pain for redemption.  I don't go alone because Jesus entered this place before me and as me so that He could rescue me into the safety of the Father's arms.  I am amazed at the more honest I get about my choices in life, the more I need Jesus redemption from the darkness.  I used to believe that I was basically a good person before Christ, but I know see that there was a part of me that is described well in the Bible "a child of wrath".  The Lord has also spoken to my heart about how He wants to establish the "Secret Place" through worship and soaking in His presence.  I realize that since I have chosen to heal through so much of the lies in my childhood, that I am used to working through things to find freedom.  The Lord is showing me that this is different, it is about His invitation to meet Him in the "Secret Place".  He is transforming me into a "worshipper", up til now I worship more as something that is part of church.  Transforming me into a "worshipper" means that I will have a song in my heart to Him and that praise will come forth out of my heart.  I look forward to the results of the transformation and I pray for the grace to enjoy the journey as well.  Where is He wanting to establish the "Secret Place" in your heart, where you meet with Him and enjoy times of communion.

In His Love,
Bret

Groaning not grumbling!

In Romans 8:23 the Word says "And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."  People often grumble that life is not what they want:  their job is unsatisfying, their kids are not what they hoped, marriage is not all they hoped, church is unfulfilling, vacations are not as good as the brochure says, and life basically is not the stuff of dreams.  We all grumble at times but I was struck that grumbling is really making a commentary on my life.  So why is there such a lack of joy around us and maybe even in our own homes.  I believe because the life we long for does not exist first here but in heaven to then be manifest on earth.  In another words without heaven's resources we pretty much have to follow a statement my kids made, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit".  But I believe the Bible is giving words to our grumbling but we tend to come to the end-result of our grumbling and accept it as fact.  The Word of God does not stop there because this groaning that is described going on in us who have received Christ, ultimately is to result in our adoption by God (bodily redeemed).  In other words this groaning has a purpose it is for us to be adopted as sons and experience bodily redemption.  I don't believe this is just to "poof" happen at the second coming but rather we are in this process of becoming "The Bride of Christ" til we fully become and He returns.  I am in a season where I really feel the groaning within myself, where I long to be so much more than I am today and experience so much more of who He is than I do today.  In my heart's eye I see a radically loved son who is free from the fear of rejection and loves others with strength, risk, and compassion.  What I see really manifest is small steps of boldness, many other steps of fear and intimidation, discouragement, frustration, and a hope that the next day I will manifest Him more fully.  I think I am beginning to see that since it is God who put this life in me in the first place, it is up to Him to more fully manifest His life.  I recently went to hear a woman speak (Heidi Baker) who has seen 1 millon come to Christ, daily cared for 10,000 orphans, seen miracles, and loved the least of these.  My heart soars to believe that some day I could be something like this amazing person but then sinks with all my unbelief, fears, and apprehensions.  This amazing person calls herself "little person" with a Big God.  I am calling on a "Big God" to change this little person (me) into a radical lover of Him and others.  In my more clear moments I can see that the "groaning" is an indication that Christ in me is coming forth.  Why does the birth of the "New Creation" have to be so painful and why does the baby get stuck at times?  I long to walk in the manifest presence, power, and love of God but the waiting is painful.  This groaning does not seem to fit into church or discussions of daily life, it is a deep and raw groan.  My wife recently described her hunger for God and I looked at her like:  "You have that too?"  She described an almost insatiable desire for His Presence that has not been easily satisfied or even expressed by others.  Sometimes I am so aware of the groaning that I can't seem to function in life but I always ssaw it as past pain I needed to work through, rather than this person I am becoming.  As we understand the New Covenant we see that we are "in Christ" which means we have a new identity, yet there is this tension because we realize we have a lot of lies about our identity.  These lies make up what is "our truth" about ourselves and the life I currently function in, yet the Holy Spirit inside of us is bursting to be more through us than these lies.  Groaning.

Groaning,
Bret

What is reality?

As I started my week of renewing and refreshing with the Lord I was reading a fiction/fantasy book that challenged me about what is reality.  We have so often accepted a reality that is not influenced by God's Kingdom but more by our experience of this world.  Heaven is not just the "sweet by and by" but actually a place and a superior reality to this one, since Heaven created earth not the other way around.  Since the gospel boldy states that not only have we been united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6) but also His acension (Ephesians 2:6).  In the verse in Ephesians we are told that we are "and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus", this is not future tense but past tense.  Amazing that this is something already accomplished through the finished work of Jesus Christ and by His grace in the New Covenant, this is all part of being born again.  What a low view of ourselves we have compared to this radical truth which is the gospel.  I can see how unbelief is our primary problem, which so limits our experience of our inheritance in Christ.  Since our spirit is now seated (which is a position) in heavenly places in Christ, does this amazing work of God have a function or is it merely a honorary title.  I believe that the Word boldly declares that our "citizenship is in Heaven" (Philippians 3:20), I don't often think of a citizen of a country as just someone who visits there but a daily resident.  Since I am a daily resident of heaven then to have experiences of heaven would be normal for us as believers.  But I am caught in this contrast between two worlds, one in which I often feel painfully normal (or below normal), and another where I am told I am someone amazing who through the Holy Spirit can do amazing things.  Everyday I am giving this feedback on a moment to moment basis that I am merely human and not extremely special.  I believe disappointment has a lot to do with shutting down our dreams and hopes of who we are in Him.  I began to see through the Holy Spirit highlighting it in my heart that when I was disappointed so many times then I began to stop hoping (as a child).  In our dreams we dream of being someone better than we are now, we dream of our needs being more than met.  When you live in an earthly reality where you needs are rarely met and you live with the daily pain of unmet needs, you begin to accept this as normal.  As a child I dreamed of a father who would love me unconditionally, teach me how to be a man, believe in me with his strength, and fill the holes in my heart that were so painful.  But after a season I began to lose hope and then give up all together.  Then my hope was reignited through the accepting Christ and the Gospel.  Yet when my beginning experience of the love of God began to fade, others around me seemed to be okay with a God who loved them from a distance.  Either they were okay with it or they had the love of God that I so desired.  I see that in heaven there is no limit to the love of God poured out on us (Ephesians 2:7), yet why do so few seem to experience what is clearly written in the Word.  Sometimes I feel as though I am going to explode with tension between these two realities, just like the character in the book "White" by Ted Dekker.  In this book Thomas Hunter is torn between a reality where good and evil are clear and so is God, then an earthly reality where things are hidden.  Thomas Hunter believes he is dreaming in both realities but soon learns to draw strength from God (called Elyon) in the one reality, to change the earthly reality that is unfolding into disaster.  I feel like Thomas Hunter.

In His Grace,
Bret