2They carried me to a lofty spot, to a mountain, the top of which reach to heaven. 3And I beheld the receptacles of light and of thunder at the extremities of the place, where it was deepest. There was a bow of fire, and arrows in their quiver, a sword of fire, and every species of lightning.
Enoch is referenced a number of times in the bible, mostly in Genesis, as the seventh generation from Adam (the eight generation), as the father of Methuselah, and as one who did not die. The OT talks about him as a man of faith who 'walked with God and was no more' and Hebrews 11:5 says this: By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. Righteous! Quite literally, so, Enoch's a big deal: super faithful, translates rather than dies (death has been conquered, btw), and actually has a book that wasn't included in the bible because it's all graphic-novel imagery and stuff most people don't want to read or can't understand. It'd be a best seller if people would be liberated from their mindsets. In any case it's quite a faith-feast and I've gotten a third of the way through it twice. I should probably stick with it and glean some - I'll let you know what I find. I just put it on my kindle and will totally import my highlights.
my heart is beating wildly in my chest.
what are you doing, lord?
connecting, he says.
what with? i ask.
the string of things, the spark and ignition, the beginning, the truth, the spirit and the wind, the water there, the power, the assurance, the simplistic, easy, and free. why do you ask? do you not do the same?
This blog has been an exercise in expression. On many occasions it's become a tool to minister outside of myself, so I've been trying to write for others when really I'm just journaling, walking in/working out my thoughts and moves in salvation on paper. See the mixed motive? I can't lay me out while trying to assemble something for everyone else. I can't convince, and I can't persuade. So, now, conceiving that I receive the anointing by choice and by assumption, that is, taking on that spirit, I am free to initiate one mind.
My idea of self as an individual, as an independent, as just a guy, someone just trying to get by, as a funny person, a writer, a leader, a follower, traitor, liar, holy person, sinner or a saint; all of these that I have operated in and under, trying to fulfil and holding onto as labels for an understanding of where I fit: I pronounce them no more. I am in God. This is my identity. I no longer relate to the world, but I see the world as the fruit of the spirit of God. I do not need to perform a thing (either do this or go here) because I am free. I do not need to be anything (what I thought it meant to be a man) because I am free. I do not need to serve God (it is my heart to do this anyway) because I am free. I choose to hear him, I choose to receive Him, I choose to move with him in faith. I receive the anointing unto empowerment. I am not a soul, but a spirit. I've born witness to the reuniting of the soul and spirit - they were out of order, then separated for clarification, now made one again - and have found how easy it is to move. How easy to believe something incalculable, and how it's a matter of course I lose myself to it.
I picture a wall of water, as thick as your thumb, that you walk
freely through. It shimmers, and when your face breaks the barrier you
open your eyes and breathe in new life you've never known (like crossing
through the Stargate). This is Christ: a removal from all things that
have been and entry into an entirely liberating plane. I cross this
barrier three times a second, and I am only ever new. I am not conscious
of the things that have made me myself up to this point, but focused on
God and his will, so directed forward. It's not a mindset or a state of
mind, it's a propulsion and instinct where faith toward God is
breathing and Every thing is fresh and new. At this point it's ceased
being about me and my hangups, or even my growth, because *inhale*
Christ - the measuring of the depth of my redemption in God.
I'm reimagined six times a second.
I'm revolutionized nine times a second.
And God is constant.
The devil is a keeper of secrets. In the conscious journey we come to pitfalls, stand up to enemies, and must scale mountains all in pursuit of our drive. Obstacles are natural, we say, and yet we stutter and back down when faced with them; I step unknowingly into traps when I travel at night. If I haven't humbled myself before a master of the sword how will I take down my enemies?
_______________
I've seen the mountain for days now, looming grey in the distance. I must achieve the summit if I'm to continue further. I round a bend and there's a man in black standing in the road, debris strewn about him. As I get closer there's a mess of human remains, broken shields, dented armour, and torn standards. There are parts of swords, quivers and used bows. He's been a fixture here for some time.
"Hail, traveler," he calls, unmoving. His voice is hard and provocative. I grow unsure at the very sound of it, which is his strategy, of course: make himself a friend so he's hard to silence, and in a moment's hesitation he'll have the power.
"I seek the road to the summit," I respond, careful to not reveal my further goals.
"The road ahead is hard. Go back from whence you came. Go back to your family and friends. For their sakes, abandon this folly. You shall not pass"
He's right, of course, the road will be hard. But have I trained, studied, and sacrificed for nothing? Do I now, in the face of adversity, at the first word of contention leave off all I know? I've been proud before, but...
He sees my consideration.
"There's nothing up there."
"Then what are you guarding?"
"I'm saving the ignorant from certain destruction."
"Oh, you're a saviour, are you? You saved all these men?"
"What awaits would have been a far worse fate."
I blanch. My teacher has told me what I would face, showed me how to deal with them. But here, gazing up the cliffs, crags, and snow, the very mountain seems against me. What could my teacher not have known?
_______________
I thrust to the side, and he parries. I turn and strike again. He's lightning quick and seems to know what I'll do next. I've got to be unconventional, I think. You can only be conventional, the doubt surfaces in my mind.
Our blades connect with a clang and our momentum brings us together, hilt to hilt.
"Don't doubt yourself," I squeeze through pursed lips, pushing with all my might, neither allowing nor gaining an inch.
"Having second thoughts, are we?" he laughs. Our facemasks are close and his breath is rank.
My foot is on a torn and bloody fabric. I glance down for a moment and time stops. On the ground is a white surcoat with blue and gold trim. Its crest is a crowned, blue lion holding an olive branch, encircled by five shields. The crest is mine.
_______________
I walk past him, chest heaving, and look back. The man in black is a doll mounted to a stick sliding back and forth in a groove. Having fought him now...again... I am somehow unsurprised. Without registering the questions float in the back of my mind: who put him here? Why?
I continue up the incline looking forward to my next trial.
I jus' gotta be real. I'm in a place of decision. Where am I going, what do I want, will I give up my life for it? If I don't now, I can later, but the time...has been spent proving something I already know. Cut out the middleman and move direct.
What does my spirit want? More spirit.
What does my soul want? Satisfaction.
Where does the 'my' come into it? I am not my own, but I am governed by the hand of the one who made me. Have I not prayed 'not my will but yours be done'?
I am free to choose to run and play or stay and study, to hang with friends or work the fields. I am free to make up things to satisfy me or I can go to the source and find out what satisfies Him, because his heart's for me! What does he desire for me?! What magnanimous things! The dreams I've dreamt are all mine because He thought of them first! He dreamed them up! Travel? Yes! Alone? Probs not. Success? That idea is earthbound. Everything's life in God, so yes! There is no falling short and nothing missed because He has enabled me to do everything i want to do. It's just a matter of season.
My soul has been a runaway big dog, but now it is being trained, being pulled into line. I'll ignore it when I must, and apply discipline where there has been none.
...
I don't know what to do. This a matter of doing or not doing, inaction. I keep invoking God to break this, destroy this, destroy me.. if I can just get closer to you, God. I'm dimly aware I'm speaking of mindsets and limitations, of the edges of my faith where God Almighty becomes this gray light in the mist. Write, cruise, teach, learn french, get a degree, get married, save the world. Break me to pieces, God. These questions are stupid and I don't think anyone knows me. Enough. To see something worthwhile....
...
Here's a fissure between what I need and what I want. Not even what I want or desire, but what I want to do, like that's some big idea separate from God and his plans. What I need is God - I don't breathe without him. But taking him for granted like air, I have become accustomed to His mundane presence. ...
Something has changed lately, some sort of promise, flame, has come alive, so I'm at the cusp where the crunched up paper is giving up it's will to the sheer heat around it, the second where it drops it's last touch of moisture, the last defense, and lets go. There's an instant of transition there from what the paper was to what it will become, and that inevitably. Once in the fire you cannot come out unchanged.
I cannot worry about the future, what I will become, all I can do ever is trust that God is. He does what he says. It's not convincing myself he's real and reciting the things I've heard, none of this anymore. He just is. And I'm with him. That said, to worry about the future is to remove myself from him. It's like when you're on a spiritual high and you're experiencing the moving holy spirit as something you couldn't explain. You love it and want it to last forever but the second you think you might lose it it begins to dissipate and then you just sort of freefall out of it. But God and his presence are constant and consistent. We doubt that we can be high all the time because we spend so much time NOT high. But why aren't we high minded? If all my thoughts are stayed on God, am I not with him? Will the eyes of my heart not be opened to who he really is? If I'm willing to put off title, precedence, popular idea, and move with the spirit then I am with him. The emotional, semi-physical high is a sign of his presence, but the faithful don't need signs because they have Faith. They live on something else, yearn for something else, require something other.
...
I believe in God, and that belief has no limits. I speak that which is not as if it were, in faith that it IS and is coming to pass. I don't care whether you believe in God or not. I'm not going to argue with or convince you of anything. All I can do is witness what has happened in my life and how it could not have come any other way. I could never help myself, I could never use witchcraft to achieve hopeful ends, I could never lift myself out of a hole I couldn't perceive. But God, life, love, grace, has lifted my head.
For all I complain (less and less), I am a Son of Faith, called in order to uphold and take on the robes of Righteousness, those tailored to suit this spirit. In assuming this position, I receive an eyesight that saves me daily from terror and destruction because it sees the heart of my Father: purpose in all things.
I've had a certain impression of love since I was a child. It was a rare encounter, and still is, but when it happens I am lost to the world because heaven opens to me as it is.
There's a black sky, with endless diamond pinprick stars all about: it's an ocean of lights, more beautiful because of the contrast. And it expands. This is the key to love - it grows. This endless sea of beauty and affirmation gets wider and deeper and further, and that which is established grows stronger and continues growing stronger as new faith is born into the fold. These stars are me, the faith I find, the people I meet. It's all available and all a promise to me. I gaze into the arc of heaven and bear witness to God testifying to me of his promises. I am made to reach each of these stars - not to touch them but to let them touch me.
Then I'm on a ship, the sound of water lapping the bow, sailing into the night, into an unending sea of expectation and light, stars reflected in my eyes.
Grace covers my sins so I can be near God. Jesus died so I wouldn't have to be perfect, because I'm definitely not. Grace encourages me to do good things, because when I get to heaven or Jesus comes back, whichever's first, all my deeds must pass through the fire, and the bad ones will burn up and the good ones will remain. If the good outweighs the bad, I get to stay.
Or?
Or I go to Hell.
That's rough. Think of all the deeds you do everyday. The word says 'if you even look on a woman you've sinned' - even thinking about it is a demerit. How could you possibly do enough 'good works' to counter the bad?
That's why we have grace. I can't earn my way to heaven, that's why Jesus died.
But aren't you still measuring your salvation by volume of works? The staying power of your deeds?
That's why it's so important to be involved with a church and volunteer organizations who can help you do good for a world that's in such a wretched state.
Wait... what?
What is grace for in this life if I still have to do good works to get into heaven? Once a faulty work has been done, it's done and will burn up at the end. So why grace? Does grace permit me to do the good ones? Wouldn't that mean I'm inherently evil? And if it's 'by grace I have been saved through faith, not of myself, but as the gift of God, and NOT of Works lest I boast', why do I try to be a good person at all? That verse says Faith already saved me; what more do I work for? Well, nothing, really.
Ahaha. That's rich.
The word says that I am being saved. Jesus died for all men, especially those who believe, which means all men are saved: Grace for everyone!
--I accept Jesus and am saved. It's been done and I choose to walk in it.
--I'm being saved: today I had hard times but remembered that Measuring the depth of my redemption is what the Christian walk is all about.
--I will be saved: tomorrow will become today and I will get some more saving in me unto the perfecting of this saint.
My heart is for Him, that higher mind and life, so my drive is to be a "good" person, a whole person, but above that a free person. I haven't really been free, I've been a slave. I've been subject to one who would rule as if he were God, an imposter. He led me to believe that God requires much of me, and that I owe him and must repay him, but that I'll only fail in that endeavor because I'm an evil, sinful, worm.
I'm not evil. I'm not a lost and lonely sinner.
I am made like God looks and like God is. He says 'I am' so I can say 'I am'. But our understanding and perception of the spirit of the living God has been perverted, so we worship dumb idols and ideas on which we have no grasp. But there is hope for children of light. That light is the hope for those who recognize there has been a gap between us and God. You mightn't know what it is, but recognizing this fact is actually a huge hurdle, Overcomer. This huge barrier is the impossible distance from the earthly mind to the spiritual; it's faith that opens your eyes and it's grace that gets you over.
Grace permits us to look to the father when our eyes have been elsewhere. It eliminates the preventative force that keeps me in a holding pattern while I run out of fuel. Grace slices through pride. It subjugates what I have been to who God is, and permits me to walk forward. Not to do more good works, but to be free from the thought that I must do anything, that God requires a single thought from me. Sovereignty is at the top of God's list. His List!
Sovereignty is being a king: preeminence, indisputable, supreme rank, power or authority. I am subject to nobody; God's made me king of my land, my heart. My free will cannot be contested by any man or spirit. It is when I lay my crown at someone's feet that I submit my sovereignty to their heart. I can submit to a harsh task master if I choose to, I can be terrified of demons if I take my crown back from the feet of God and lay it at the feet of darkness. I only have one crown and can only submit to one master. Made sovereign by God, I am growing in humility. It takes a strong foundation for a king to lay his crown down in service to another man, made sovereign by the same God. Another king cannot lay claim to my actions or heart. I am free to submit there or remember my place in God as a freeman. There are no chains on me because Jesus stood me up, dusted me off and said 'hey brother, what do you want to do now?' I'm not indentured to God, and I don't owe a man anything. Obligation and social norms are the bondage of every man. I'm free to be ostracized and empowered to maintain my integrity as a Man of God Most High.
All that said, I cannot demand a single thing of another man, and it's reciprocal. God doesn't demand anything of me, and doesn't impinge on the free will he gave me. He's sovereign and made me the same. If every man's a king, he can do as he will; if he lives in peace, he can maintain peace; if he declares war, war may be declared on him. If he submits to council, he will be a wise ruler. Sovereignty says that I can do whatever I want, and Grace says that it's permissible. God even says it's good. My heart is bent on finding God, so the stuff that looks good and the stuff that looks bad and the stuff that hurts my heart and the stuff that holds my head in fruitless, endless battle is all food for me: I offer it to God and don't need to take a thought for myself. This act offers darkness to the light where it's disempowered, unhinged, and disassembled. Grace is the 'I know a guy' that lets me into God's workshop, a place in which it doesn't matter where the goods came from, he'll take them all. This keeps me safe because it leaves no room for reservation or compromise. I am liberated from the things that have weighed on me, either deed or thought, and I don't desire to continue in either of those. So I'll be a sell-out; all my stocks have been purchased anyway.
This brings God close because whether I am up or down, the Father is still for me. Php 4:12 I have known both to be abased, and I have known to abound; in
everything and in all things I have been initiated, both to be full and
to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. When I do the profitable or the less-than-profitable, He'll be right there. Sitting pretty in the physical things, my heart may still be yearning for the spirit to fill me. Grace permits me to turn from what used to fill me to the table that truly satisfies.
God never wanted sacrifices, but men wouldn't receive that they were loved and well-thought-of. So God gave them animals to slaughter so they could breathe easily about being, in their eyes, less than worthy. Well, killing a man, a bit better thought of than rams and cattle, who walked a perfect walk put an end to sacrifices for good because he woke up. His death made a big impression, as an open declaration of God being an accessible everyman's-God, and his resurrection made all things new by informing people that because God was close and super keen on being known, death just...wasn't anymore. Isn't. These are ongoing statements. We're being saved, remember?
God's active and real, the God of life, so death isn't a thing anymore. People consider this a crazy idea because of course everyone dies. Everyone who's ever been anyone has died - that's sort of the only thing everybody has in common. But death is actually a matter of lordship.
Fear is what you grant power over you (where you lay your crown): people fear death, spiders, and public speaking because they're ridiculous. I have chosen to fear God over giving man power over me; over giving satan power over me; over giving demons, death, and destruction power over me. I am now submitted to a single thing alone: the one true God. Sickness, terror, demons, even the death of this body are no longer considerations for me because I believe by faith that God is who he says he is, that he sent his son as a mediator on my behalf, and that I can LIVE an existence I haven't even dreamed of because God has made himself knowable. There have been men who haven't died - Enoch and Elijah - because they walked with God. They were so wrapped up in who He is that they became one with him and 'were no more'. Whether you believe that or not doesn't really matter: either the word is the final authority or it isn't.
Watch this relate to grace.
When the last sacrifice rose again, man's performing his way back into God's good graces lost 100% of its effect. He took our ability to earn righteousness, our right standing, out of our hands. Now it's a matter of heart. Only a matter of heart. God doesn't need you to do a damn thing (1 - you're loved, 2 - you're sovereign, 3 - you're forgiven, 4 - you can't really impress him, 4.5 - impressing people (which is what we're really trying to do because we don't know God much anyway) doesn't get you any lasting peace.) All you can do now is receive what's been done for you, accept that you can control you're life as much as you can control your 16 year old brother (can't), and trust that God really knows what's best for you. He doesn't want me to go without food for 30 hours unless I want to: I owe him all I am, but that? What is that to him? He doesn't want me to do 25 hours of community service a week unless I want to: if I do it out of obligation thinking it'll make me a good person, I'm just lying to myself. These things arise because I want the credit, I want to be seen, I want to love on people so they'll like how great I am, I want the hours for the honor cord, etc. (This isn't to say that being a servant isn't godly, and that no hearts are pure. Quite the contrary: My faith is active - see the works that come from this faith, this pure heart motivated by the understanding that I'm free to serve or not serve and that I'm loved just the same.)
God's about growing light. He's about having us exercise the freedom he let his son DIE so we could move in. Sin is simply not believing that God is on his throne, in control. When I look on a man's wife, I'm in trouble because I start thinking that God's not satisfying me bodily. When I long for a shiny Red car instead of my blue pinto, I am relating more to what I have than who God is. If I get pissed at my boss (murder), I've lost sight of the fact that God's every moment is about showing me where I'm not founded in his peace. Sin is no big deal. They're just signposts that point to freedom and love. Grace is the road.
Blaspheming the holy ghost, called 'the unforgivable sin' (where I intentionally and without remorse deny that God is doing a thing) is only unforgivable because I clog the conduit through which forgiveness pours. I cram dirty rags (my mindsets) into the opening and so am dry and miserable. It's like asking a master for sagely wisdom, plugging your ears, and then blaming them that nothing's getting through. It's just hard-heartedness, there's even grace for that, and God's faith is steadfast.
So grace is kind of a big deal. You can't find peace by the works of your hands because God's already impressed with you. You are sovereign to choose to pursue Him or not, to turn aside at any time, and to return again just as quickly without shame or judgement. He doesn't demand a single thing of you, including calling your mother on mother's day. You are free to do or not do anything, so be liberated. The crux here is that you are empowered to do any single thing you want, but the hope (expectation) is that you'll find God through it, and not a constructed identity in it. The thing is not the thing - it is an expression of God's vision of freedom for you, performed on your behalf. If you miss it, it isn't an issue: there's grace for that.
There is great division between man and God. It is great and incomprehensible.
In the beginning all things were made one in God, all to fulfill his vision. And then man received another idea.
Either we are in the Father or we are not; either we are light or we are dark; either we heed one voice or another. One cannot serve two masters.
Singularity.
Comprehension.
Bear witness to Jesus restoring cohesion to God and Man. Understand that being 'adopted' into God is being set as a son, no different than any other child or heir. Sitting here, this land is God's land, lush and fertile. Around every corner is a different fruit and a new discovery, a new source of power to propel us further and more freely into the tireless reaches of God hisownself. There you find old faith, the faith that doesn't age, and there you are born.
The innermost places of this walk are where everything is white light and even the shadows bear witness to the day.
