Snow yesterday. Freezing rain today. Then more snow. Fun, fun. Happily, the icicles on the roof of our rental are about a foot long. :D
From Truth Messages:
Whenever we come to the Word with an open heart and an open spirit, we immediately touch both the Word and the Spirit as the truth....Two or three times every day we need to come to the Word....What a wonderful instrument the Word is for contacting the Lord! When we are disappointed or depressed, feeling empty within, we can open ourselves and come to the Word. After reading for a while, something within us rises up, and we enjoy the presence of the Lord. This is the experience of the truth, the reality. It is the Triune God in His Word being imparted into our being. This is the truth.
Just got back from a series of 12 messages on Psalms. I felt like it was a time of recalibration, from our hospitality to the messages, even to the fellowship with other believers during the break between the meetings. It just felt like the Lord was speaking in sometimes unspeakable ways, a sense here, a sense there.
Message-wise, there were many points I enjoyed. The need to know and experience and enjoy resurrection, because it's the principle of how God works. Our need to be perfected in our praise (so we don't only offer up a vacuous "Praise the Lord!" as our highest praise) by enjoying and experiencing the Lord in deeper ways, and praising the Lord for that. The Lord's deep desire for the reality of the Body of Christ, and our need for a heart that's a duplicate of His in this matter, that it would control and govern our whole human life. The fact that when the Word incarnated, it was the whole Triune God incarnating in the flesh as the reality of the tabernacle for us to enter into and enjoy. Wow. Wow. Wow. Lord, give me the time, and cause me to take it, to digest these messages and pray them back to You.
I particularly enjoyed one hymn that was called. It's one that's on a cd, and you enjoy it, but you never pull out a hymnal and sing it on your own, so you don't get the chance to enjoy the richness of the words. It's hymn 769:
Thankfully, last week I managed to get into Galatians four out of five days, which is much better than I've done in a long time. The time was understandably rewarded with much light. I'm in Galatians 3:1-14, and at the beginning of chapter 3, Paul begins to make a turn. While chapters 1-2 focus on Christ (vs. religion, etc), chapters 3-6 are supposed to focus on the Spirit, and from this first section, it's pretty clear that the focus has switched. From my study this week, I found a lot of matters which I've heard becoming a bit more revelation to me. It's becoming clearer and clearer the two ways we can take: either the flesh by works of law, or the Spirit by faith in Christ. In the first way, we try to keep the law, which manifests itself in works. The law is related to the flesh and depends on the effort of the flesh, which is the expression of the "I", our self. In the second, we simply believe by the appearing of our wonderful Lord. This faith is related to the Spirit (there is no way to believe without the Spirit) and this Spirit is the realization of Christ.
The first way is the Old Testament way, and is related to Moses and the law. I did a quick search through the New Testament, and almost all mention of Moses is in relation to the law and trying to do the law. As you get to the Epistles, the mention of Moses decreases, except for mentioning his person and what he did. If we take this way, we have only two ends: either we fail and give up, or we succeed and we have some righteousness of our own, through our works, which causes us to condemn others who cannot meet our standard. Our condemning others is a sure sign that we are in the way of the flesh by works of law.
In contrast, the second way is pre-Moses (Abraham), and is both the New Testament way and God's original intention. In this way, we believe and we are richly supplied with life and the Spirit (Gal. 3:5). Actually, the Spirit is the blessing of the gospel that was preached to Abraham eons ago. What a blessing!
Lord, do save us from being distracted back to the law and works. Infuse us with faith and cause us to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit!
At my new workplace, I've been enjoying the sunsets over the past few months. We're on the eighth floor of a building that's a block from Pike Place Market, at the northish end of downtown Seattle. We have an northeast-facing office, so we get a sweeping view of the Sound, the Olympics, and the port. While we're not as high up as other buildings, we're high up enough that there are no taller buildings between us and the water. It's an unobstructed view, and it's made for some amazing sunsets some days.
There have been times when it's clear and all you see is a ball of flaming fire as it sets below the horizon. Other times, there's cloud cover, and all you see of the sun is the last 20 minutes as it sets below the cloud cover, reflecting equally in clouds and water, and maybe silhouetting a ferry on its way to Bremerton. Still other times, the cloud cover is more varied, so as the sun sets, it reflects on the clouds in all shades of saturated reds, oranges, and yellows.
Most days the sunset's nice, there's at least one guy opening the window, taking pictures with his iPhone.
Ruth and I went to Florida for Thanksgiving to visit her side of the family. Samuel also flew down from Ohio to join us, and we had a very enjoyable long weekend, filled alternately with packed people-meeting and lazy half-days. We did quite a bit of driving during our stay there, and while we drove, we listened to some of the messages from the Thanksgiving Day conference.
Listening, I sense more and more of a desperation in the brothers speaking - we must go on, and we must be in the focus of His recovery. If we aren't, it's very likely that the Lord will pass us by, or do a purifying work in His recovery. I'm just impressed, both in this conference and in the conference in the Northwest a few weeks back, how the brothers again and again are relating the high truths (those ones that seem so theoretical and doctrinal to us) to our daily, moment-by-moment living. This is crucial. If these high truths do not become practical in our day-to-day living, we have no way for them to become experiential, and the Lord has no way to go on. Yet, at the same time, the way these truths become practical is not in the way of miracle, but in the way of life and habit. Small, seemingly insignificant choices - to turn in that particular situation, to spend that time reading a chapter in the Word - these are what will make the high truths so practical and real. Lord, may You gain a testimony in Your body which satisfies You.
I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Galatians 2:20
Some portions of the footnotes from this verse:
This [verse] explains how it is that through law we have died to law [as stated in verse 19]. When Christ was crucified, according to God's economy we were included in Him. This is an accomplished fact.
As regenerated people, we have both the old "I"...and the new "I"...The old, terminated "I" was without divinity; the new "I" has God as life added to it. The new "I" came into being when the old "I" was resurrected and God was added to it....The two, Christ and Paul, had one life and one living.
We have died in Christ through His death, but now He lives in us through His resurrection. His living in us is entirely by His being the life-giving Spirit....God's economy is that the "I" be crucified in Christ's death and that Christ live in us in His resurrection. To keep the law is to exalt it above all things in our life; to live Christ is to make Him the center and everything in our life.
The divine life, the spiritual life in our spirit, is lived by the exercise of faith, which is stimulated by the presence of the life-giving Spirit.
The failth in which we live God's life is of the Son of God, the life-imparting One.
The Son of God loved us and purposely gave Himself up for us that He might impart the divine life into us.
When we believe into the Son of God, a marvelous thing happens. We don't just believe into a doctrine of some sort. We receive the life of the Son of God, which makes us one with Him. He was crucified. We are one with Him in this crucifixion. Thereafter, we don't live by our life; our life has been crucified with Him, and we are dead to the law, having fully fulfilled the demands of the law (you have sinned and you must die). We live by another life, a life that spontaneously lives a life satisfying to the Father. (Phil. 3:9 is explained by this) This is the life we live in faith, believing in the One who loved us and gave Himself up for us. By our believing into Him and living by Him, the law is spontaneously replaced. However, if we do not live by Him, we nullify the grace of God, and essentially Christ has died for nothing. Lord, may we see that You really, truly replace the law.
Oh, from myself deliver,
From all its misery;
I'd henceforth be forever
Completely filled with Thee.
Spotted, today, in the rain, on a curb at the edge of a parking lot, in downtown Seattle: Two apples.
One large Golden Delicious.
One small Red Delicious.
And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is out of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith.
philippians 3:9
There's been a bit of a backlog of bits I'd like to write about, unfortunately. We started watching the Wednesday night ministry meetings this past week in Renton, and watching the first one reminded me of something that was intriguing and sobering at the same time. It concerns the verse above - Philippians 3:9, specifically the phrase, "not having my own righteousness." Have you ever really considered this phrase? When I really consider it, my first thought is that it's impossible. When I'm right, I'm right, and that rightness is my righteousness. That's the way many of us were raised, and that's the way (unfortunately) many of us continue to live. The brother in the message said, "The self is strongest when we think we're right." I can definitely corroborate from my experience - my anger is fiercer when I'm convinced that I'm right. This is having our own righteousness. What's the other option? It's righteousness which is out of God. In this case, we don't stand on our own righteous deeds; rather, we stand on the redemption of Christ, which makes us righteous. It's so mysterious. When we believe in God and allow Him to be lived out of us, this is righteousness. Then, we don't wear our righteousness (attained through the keeping of the law) like a badge of honor. If we allow God to be lived out of us, spontaneously and even unconsciously, our living is righteous. This righteousness is not reckoned in our sight, but in the sight of God. Utterly mysterious, but so experienceable. Lord, do make this our experience.
