Right: Joian & Zion
Curiosity has been in some ways, a besetting sin in my life. I have always wanted to know the why. I suspect at different points in my life I have even had a heart attitude with God, which conveyed, if you don’t explain this to me, I’m not moving from here. So my friend Jack has given me a couple of words I use to enlighten my stubborn heart.
The essence is if you know the “Who”, the why and how will fall into place. Or to paraphrase, Joian, quit trying so hard to figure it out and give it to the Lord………just surrender.
What within us wants to see what’s coming down the road that might hurt or harm us or those we love……… what desperately believes it has the power to………… avoid all these things in the future, if not our arch enemy……….our soul. The soul is where that driving fear comes from. It drives us to find some power to be in control of our lives
I have a 7 year old grandson named Zion. More than any of my other 11 grandchildren, he never stops asking questions. If you explain something to him he accepts your answer and from that, asks another question and another, staying with the subject being discussed until he is satisfied he knows it all. All the while I know I have brought my answers down to a 7 year old level. But he goes happily on; assuming he now knows all there is to know, having asked all the questions.
This past week, two from Tentmaker, wrote some very anointed messages. I printed and took them with me to lunch, rereading them several times. Jack asked both Roy and Dean (TM names REB and MOOCH) if we might use their posts on our blog and they have agreed.
Rarely, have I read words that made clear the road ahead and in some ways explain the road behind. It seemed their words point to “WHO” and "WHY" and then again, maybe it only seems so to our 7 year old mind........LOL..........yet I sensed my heart lift, as I read the things shared by my brothers.
Joian
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Greetings Folks,
I have known many that have "chosen" a wife/husband they felt would walk with them even in these things and the spouse they have chosen becomes their enemy opposing them from the time the sun comes up until bed time the next night. How strong would your will in Christ be under those circumstances? I have known those that have mapped out a plan even in Christ and had it crushed every step of the way. They have actually been very blessed....
To be driven to the place that no strength remains, even to follow Christ. To come to the place that you would curse God and die because every day is a burden, even in Him. It is a blessing I tell you. To be crushed to such a place that the only thing that keeps you going is God Himself. To realize that person wouldn't even follow God if not for "deep crying unto deep" within them. It doesn't mean such people are driven into nonexistence or become auto trons of some sort. It doesn't mean they give license to unbridled sin.
Some of you say that you have met those that use grace as occasion to the flesh. I have also seen such. But, there is another way that grace is taught and that is what some are saying here. There is a place to be driven to that one realizes every breath they take is because of grace. It is a place where one is constantly bowed in the heart, crushed within but realizing "when I am weak, you are strong." There's a place that one realizes that they are as limited in vision and perspective as Adam and Eve were. Where reliance upon what I know and what I think is the same as them in the garden. He must show me. He must empower me.
All things in me aren't under subjection to Christ yet. It isn't that I don't desire them to be. Neither do I blame Him that they are not. I trust Him. I have no desire to sin and I don't excuse myself for those areas in me that aren't Christ like yet. And, don't get me wrong. I am not saying the Lord has left me in blatant sin. There are just many a small thing in me that I know isn’t right yet. People around me think I am a very upright moral guy. But, I know that isn't enough. I know what is in me. But, I trust Him. It is all for my good. It is all on a time schedule to bring me into Him.
Some of you are concerned if we don't tell others of their "responsibility" their blood would be on our hands. What of those that are crushed and caused to flee under such hard words because they need to hear of His power, His forgiveness, His love. What of those that have had lives filled with responsibilities that haven't been rewarded for them? People are at different levels and differing backgrounds. When you speak such hard words to them and they are crushed, what of their blood?
I am not trying to be hard on any of you. I see much in all of you I respect and I know the Lord does a great work in your lives. I am not your enemy and the things I speak here I speak gently and in love.
John, you say you came to a place that you feel you walked away from God and it was your responsibility to come back? I have been driven to a place time and time again in recent years that I was in places of such despair that I had no power to come back. Yet, way down inside, He sustained me. He brought me back. I am so grateful He would do such a thing! He has driven me beyond my own strength and then showed me it was Him in me that had the power to endure. I am completely reliant on Him.
Please forgive me singling certain things out here. It isn't done in any way outside of His love. I am sure I have misunderstood or been too general with some things that you folks have said as, I think, you have possibly been with me. Typing out our hearts on these message boards leaves much out and much misunderstood. That is why we must be patient with each other. Only by continuing to talk do we truly get to know each other and the depths of what each truly believes.
Your friend,
REB
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Thank you all for this discussion.
My past is full of a life obsessed with "taking dominion".
How could it be otherwise? I was born into a family and a nation that had overcome the evil forces of Hitler's insanity. They had been raised with a belief in their own unlimited potential, experienced the fruits of their beliefs through victory in the war and then eagerly set about the getting of their share of the American dream in the years that followed.
I was not in any church at the age of 22 in 1974, and it was in February of that year that I met Jesus. Unlike Paul I went to church and it was there that I learned the doctrine that I had chosen Him... that I had 'made' Jesus Lord. I would embrace many doctrines over the next 25 years that reinforced the message of my family, my education, my culture, my country and then of my Church...The message I heard and fervently believed.
I make things happen for I'm powerful.
Now in most every aspect of my life it seemed as though I was making things happen, that I was powerful. I was experiencing the American dream. The family, career, respected in my community and Church, the kids were in private Christian schools...YET, there was one aspect of my life that I tried over and over and over again to make things happen with no success. Prayer, Bible study, scripture memorization, church attendance, tithing, giving, rebuking, resisting, speaking the word, claiming, receiving, binding, interceding, speaking in tongues, prayer lines...
What I could not make happen, what I could not change...was me.
I lived the first 26 years of my 33 year Christian life with almost the same self-centeredness and fear and selfishness and lusts and judgments and arrogance and pride as I came in with.
My story is that 7 years ago God caused me to surrender. I fought to keep my grip on the things I believed I had made happen, things I held closest to my heart and I lost almost all of them. It was after over a year of fear laden suffering that I somehow stopped needing to fix the collapse of my life. I had never been in such a place. It was a place, of what I call, nothingness. It was in that place, in the nothingness, that God revealed to me that He Is, and that I was not alone. Please forgive my words that fail to adequately describe surrender. Perhaps it is best to say that concerning God, surrender is just going over to the winning side.
I no longer believe that I make things happen. At best I need only to be human and I think it is no coincidence that the inside job of transformation, the conforming of my being into the image of Jesus Christ, is happening.
Much Love In Him.
Dean
As I reread these testimonies this morning, I was again moved to tears. These dealings of our Lord are.......all part of his way to draw us to himself...........I realize so many of his ways are beyond our comprehension. Yet, it is not his intention that he never be understood. Now we see through a glass darkly, but coming is "the face to face ".
Joian
