Pure Bride

"Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say.
Forget your people and your family far away.
For your royal husband delights in your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord."

Psalm 45:10-11

The question has been on my mind lately: Is this it?

Jesus said He's coming for a bride without spot or blemish. His bride, as we are all well aware, is the church. If we are to be the pure bride, then we must become purely of God. Altogether Godly, altogether renewed, altogether taken from the vile, unholy, and impure state we were in and fully brought into the holiness (divine distinctness) which Jesus has made available to us.

So again I ask: is this it?

Is my life, are my thoughts, is my preaching, is my attitude, is the way I spend my time, are my affections -- are they "it"? Is this the life Jesus suffered and bled to make me able to live?

My heart burns to become the bride that He desires; to fully prepare myself for my King. Anyone who has seen Him should have the same attitude, because His worth so overshadows everything else.

Can you imagine what this looks like? A human being living as he ought, truly. The perennial question of humanity will ever be "How should I live?" To what end, and in what manner, ought life be spent? To know the One, the Truth, the Answer -- it is a privilege beyond compare.

Yet again I ask: is this it?

God, put a dissatisfaction in us.

Compelled by Love

I've got nothing on my mind or heart at the moment, so let's just see where this goes as I give an update of what's going on with me.

The internship is still going full steam. It seems like it really always is -- the question is whether I'm on board. There are weeks where I feel ready to leave to Africa and conquer the world for the Kingdom in a moment, and then weeks where I find myself dealing with paltry issues of life entirely absorbed in a natural mindset. I've begun to look for evidence of my spiritual progress not so exclusively in ministry numbers or how I feel this week but how much am I really being changed into Christ's image by yielding to the holy spirit and how much are my people being changed. This must sound cliche but you must understand what I mean. It's no grandiose revelation that fruit -- not loudmouthed speech or an exclusive avenue of spirituality someone has carnally spent themselves on to look good -- but fruit is the standard of measurement of a person's level of conformity to Christ.

See, what I seek is to be changed to change. To be wrecked to wreck. To so assault whatever in me is not like Christ so that I can legitimately gain the authority and power to wreak havoc on the work of the devil. As Paul said, "I beat my body into submission." Masochistic? No, but things worked out such that we have a body fit for destruction. If only we could see that suffering its loss -- not physically through death but by yielding (a most uncomfortable venture) to the holy ghost -- we are made like Him.

I hope what I am saying makes sense. This is one of the most impacting revelations I have gained since being here. It's the concept of humbling oneself to be lifted up supernaturally. This is the practical application of "I must decrease, that He may increase." If we really want God to "take it all", as so many of our songs and prayers cry, then why do we shy away from the smallest leading of the holy spirit? Why don't we lay hands on that person in the wheelchair at the mall? Why don't we confess our foolish words to the person we've been talking badly about? Why do we shy away from being the one whose gas money is spent?

I was talking with my good friend about this. If I have a totally new nature that is like Christ, and yet it is evident that I often live in such a way or do something that is inconsistent with the Spirit of Christ, then what is up? My friend was like, "yeah I'm saved, and I'm not looking at porn or lusting after everything in pants, but why do I still from time to time get those thoughts? If these desires have been crucified, then how can they still exist?"

I believe it is because we have settled for a level of holiness that allows us to look good in comparison to one another without that ever-present holy discontentment for greater conformity to His image. There's no discontentment because we're content. The question we ask here is, "I'm all for being like Christ, but why do we really need that discontentment if we're already for sure saved?" This really is a paramount question, the answer to which distinguishes mere followers from disciples.

This desire for more is not to the end of simply being more spiritual but rather it is to the end of the salvation of the world. It comes from recognizing God's vision for the world -- His purpose in creating everything -- and from there realizing one's place in His vision and from there stopping at nothing to please Him by moving forward in faith meanwhile having the fleshly nature being lost in the translation.

We've got to get our eyes off of the fact that we're going to heaven and onto the realities of the Kingdom of Heaven. This thing is bigger than your eternal destination, and I am sorry if someone's preaching gave you a different idea.

Imagine a church full of warriors -- people who have realized these things and march to the heartbeat of the father, who must become like Him to carry His power to conquer the darkness in the world so that God might get what He wants. That's all there is to this thing -- that the Lamb that was slain might gain the reward of His suffering, that the Father who gave infinitely might enjoy mankind eternally, as was His purpose in the beginning. These people are not concerned with how early the service starts, or whether the air conditioning works. Their eyes are on the King, and their love for God that was birthed in them when His display of love (the gospel) gripped them, such that no reward - even of salvation and all the blessings of heaven -- could ever satisfy, save the reward of pleasing Him. These people would give whatever it takes to see Him pleased. They would become so desperate to please Him that they be driven to confront every remnant of carnality that remains in them so they can live in the caliber of Christ likeness required to see this thing done.

Oh, pierce our hearts!

the Contrast of Truth

Let me say as a preface that all of this blog outside what's written between the [added] cursors was written a few months ago. I had it saved and decided to put it up, along with some ranting from today.

Leave me some feedback, it lets me know who's actually reading this stuff.

I most anticipate writing when I write with no agenda. It eliminates the need to preface a presupposed point with introduction that I tend to get lost in which effectively scraps much of my attempts to write something worthwhile. More simply, it helps me get real, fast. It's sort of like how I feel when speaking publicly -- my strategy has become one to make fun of myself and the situation out loud, hitting all my nervous thoughts such that I am no longer attempting to be someone I am not.

I have realized that I cannot change anyone objectively; that is, in my efforts to help people, there is no power in my vision for a person to experience a change that I can see they need if I haven't experienced it in myself. I can't preach a life higher than the one I live. I can't promote a precept that I don't practice. I can't push a change I don't display.

I observe many placating the call to action that they feel from the Spirit of God by preaching, talking about, or at least accepting in the realm of possibility the Christ-likeness in men that would turn the world upside down. In other words, those with open eyes will see what must be done (the world must be saved), how it will be done (through the true gospel), and through whom it must be done (me), and rather than taking the sensible course of putting into practice that which the Word shows them, they talk. And think.

I just don't want to be stuck in a process so long that the world wastes away and goes to hell while we keep worrying about how we're going to be taken up into heaven.

I don't think we need to worry so much about understanding God as much as obeying Him. We're not going to stand before Him on judgment day and have him say "how much did you know about Me?" but rather "what did you do with the cross?"

There's no greater question. The cross isn't just whether our sins have been forgiven. Think of it as a firefighter who died saving you from a burning building and also left you his million dollar life insurance policy. Most Christians are just content to know they're safe and they forget about the rewards of being saved.

Really, we use salvation and the payment of our sins as a license for fleshly enjoyment rather than a means of full spiritual fulfillment. The rewards of the cross aren't of this world, and because of that they are far better. The rewards of the cross have nothing to do with our carnal desires which is why so few pursue them and fewer use them. The rewards of the cross are what enable us to do all that we want to do.

Jesus told the disciples "ask anything in my name and I will give it to you." Why doesn't that work? Because we ask amiss. Our minds are on the level of "I'm free, let's party!" instead of "He has freed me, let's honor Him!" From the true gospel comes true understanding of the cross which always produces a true desire for the rewards of the cross. The desire is not based out of selfish ambition but rather a humble love and is therefore pure. Because our desires have become His, we can ask anything and it will be according to His will and therefore all the riches of heaven are ours to the glory of God.

[added later:]

The issue this thought brings up is one that's been on my heart to confront in writing. It is the issue of a Christian's perception of his salvation's practical purpose. Like, what does salvation add to life now? Is it career success, good kids, balanced budget, some nice friends, a good church, eternal security? If these things describe the best you can think of that being a Christian practically adds to your life, then chances are your Christianity is totally perverted to serve yourself. Look at what James says:

1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Your desires. There's scarcely a battle in most Christians' hearts anymore. They're so settled in what they have because it scratches the God itch (by religiously conceding the loss of a few earthly pleasures, to make them feel spiritual enough to deserve heaven) meanwhile letting them live their lives at a comfortable level of carnality. I hear Christians who say "Oh, I know Paul said 'it's better not to marry', but I could never go without a wife/husband." In one way or another this concept of an unsurrendered desire exists in probably 90% of the Christians I know, whether it be a career, a home, a country, a dream, a friend, movies, some music. People want to hang on to some stuff. Problem is, well, look what Jesus said...

57As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

58Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

59He said to another man, "Follow me."
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

60Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."

62Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

True disciples, true Christians have made up in their minds that this thing is either worth everything or worth nothing. Friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. You're wholly his or serving two masters. He cannot be your Lord if you are still calling shots in anything. He said "Leave all and follow Me". Having been overwhelmed with the riches of our glorious inheritance over the past few months, I've largely gotten off the message of being truly given to His Lordship. But that is the foundation upon which the house can be built.

A week or so ago we were studying a scripture in prayer stream -- Jas. 5:16.

"Confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and produces wonderful results."

The foundation is Christ crucified, as Paul talks about in 1 Cor. But what clears the way is true repentance. Without the framework of Christ's complete sovereignty/authority in a life, there is no room for the great structures of powerful ministry to be built through the use of the aforementioned rewards of the cross. In this scripture, we're instructed to confess and pray so we can be healed. In the context of repentance, the healing this speaks of must be the healing of the scars that sin leaves in a person. I believe sin left unconfessed becomes the holes that ministers fall into later on in life (hence why John the Baptist, in his call to repentance, said that EVERY valley would be filled in, and every mountain made low to make way for Jesus). Only then from the standpoint of a whole, fully repented righteous person can we see power and results. I truly believe that the depth of a person's repentance determines the height he reaches in ministry.

I'm now going to attempt to come full circle back to the issue of self-serving Christianity. See, people today haven't repented of anything. They've become convinced of a coming judgment, and we preach that if they sacrifice sex outside marriage, drugs, alcohol, and pay their tithe, they're going to be okay, and even worse, exactly where God wants them to be. Because of this, there is no vision for anything. That's why 90% of the churches in America get less than 5 people saved in a year. Our heartbeat is not that of the Father. No, in fact it looks much more like that of our father, the devil. What do we have that condemned demons do not, if they also believe in God? That's why we think we're still okay, because "Yeah, but we still believe in God!" But we do not have changed hearts! Jesus said we should show our repentance by what we do. If we do nothing, our repentance means nothing.

"For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. 29 No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people." rom. 2:28-29.

The putting off of the flesh is a MIRACLE. The change of heart that the Holy Spirit produces is the only thing that qualifies a person as saved. A person with a changed heart could not live in Christianity today. My heart was changed, and it made me so dissatisfied that I dared look for something greater than I had seen according to the promises God made me in His word. If I can move a stinking mountain, what am I doing battling pornography? Why is the fight I fight against depression, or gossip, or what have you? No, my battle is the war for the souls for whom Christ gave His all as my example, and my motivation is His heartbeat, put in me by the Holy Ghost.

I believe the time has arrived where we don't want "good" Christians anymore but rather Christians who truly have the heart of God transplanted in the place of their own. From there we capture His vision, and have His power, and who we were and what we cared about and thought was important is all melted away in a love that's too great to understand. This is what life is about!

[end added stuff]

He's itching for us to close our umbrellas that keep the infinite rain of His resources of healing, prosperity, joy, peace, victory, love, etc. and just let Him spoil us.

We believe in a God who loves us unconditionally, yet spend so much fighting to gain spiritual ground in hopes that He might be pleased more with our effort. We endlessly attempt to satisfy conditions of receiving from Him that don't exist.

I'm so ready to just let go and believe God. This is something I say often. Grace coupled with mercy makes the most wonderful gift mankind could ever receive. Salvation from an eternity in hell and the establishment of heaven in your life on this earth all in one bloody package.

Oh, make known to us the riches of this salvation! No longer through endless study, but may we discover You from the inside out. Bear with our weaknesses and manifest yourself through your Spirit. Let us no longer strive in processes and methods but rather receive with the heart of a child from your infinite love. Let us enjoy how good you are to show how good you are. Then you get all you want. Let us conquer by testimony of your greatness, not by any other way.