Purging Fire, Burning Pyre

The reason and purpose for this baptism (fire) is to give the power of this pursuit from the zeal and passion of G-d for His house to purge continuously, purify eternally, and be expectant perpetually. It will surely divide rightly with clarity with what fire we are of, for the day will manifest it.  

[[The baptism into fire enables (gives power to) this pursuit (power traded from God’s stock of Zeal and Passion) for us to Purge Continually, Purify Eternally, and Expect Perpetually. It divides rightly and clearly what fire we are of, because the light manifests it]]

We do burn, but with what fire? 

Ischus is the wind for the flame, dunamis is the the ignition. I've received this baptism [to whelm, to cover wholly with fluid] unto fire - the purifying flame; strengthening, powerful, inducing.

Losing myself to the fire doesn't make me any less holy or without God - it makes plain where the Lord is winnowing my flesh. The smoking furnace and burning lamp are a testimony of His faithful pursuit. My temple's been a mess, but he erects a pyre and burns up the junk so there won't be any more money changers in this temple.  

Burn up my idols! 

I was convinced today that I couldn't be faithful - that I must put off those I've known as 'faithful' and be off, lose myself or die. Quick, that. Rather than leave it at this, I look at the rationale that led me to this conclusion: What so moved me that this sovereign King, Son of God, would abdicate his throne and take his own life? 

It was all how I saw; how I did the job, how I relate to those I'm with, how I can earn my place in God. I was lied to, quiet while a snake whispered in my ear. Be active, Man! Zakar! Remember who you are! Stand on the Word, Jesus, and be affirmed. It's never a matter of circumstance; it's a matter of position in relation to the light: are you looking to the light or gazing on your shadow?

I

m just 

here

to watch the fireworks.

I watched my shadow today, when, immediately and without my knowledge, I was talking to God about it.  I was crying out to him that I couldn't complete what I was trying to do - it was brought on by the works of my hands, painting, but the issue was tied to my heart. I saw the pain of my association in an entirely different light, and praised God for being faithful. I moved from the outer court to the inner, and back again, smoothly. A first, I think. 

And all of this, the thoughts, emotions, ties, perceptions, reactions, rejections, false images, all the stuff that makes me a man and a sinner are nothing to God in light of Christ. Because I receive him and the measuring of the depth of my redemption, my heart is turned, uprooted, washed, planted and tended, harvested, separated, burned, made clean. The pure was always there, is always here, but it's the fire that destroys the stuff that can't stand up to the Word. There is more to me than there used to be because I bear witness to active display of God's recreation in me. Ha! He's re-created me, and recreates here too. He likes fireworks, so increasingly, I let his fire work. He's always known his work was Love for me, I just couldn't see it. 

A vessel of light

of honor dishonor

of pain patience and practice

of glory and fruition

judgment and fluidity

of friction and purification

an open demonstration of 

power. 

I am measured and 

not found wanting. 

little lies grab my attention

I give it (to) a-way,

a different way,

my choice.

Until I step into 

the Great Fire of the Lord

where everything around me burns

and I cry out to the Strong One

who reminds me he's with me

and that what I've been hoping in

was dead and dry-

perfect fuel for fire.

His water rushes over me

reviving my lips and eyes

and I see him and speak him

and he's everywhere

and everyone

and I move through the garden again

Thank God for pressure and high heat that shows us what burns and what we're made of.

Remember, be

What's my self-perception? My words seem stopped up even when I don't think about them. but it's not me. I am in Him, and walking. What moves in me is fully moved in me, and fully realized at that moment. My understanding of it will grow - this is only first light. May I stop moving if I ever think I've gotten something. I am free, tied to nothing.

"Make the heteros get married." bahaha
I feel like this self of mine is getting more flimsy: that the stuff that comes is all just fine, fine. I get a little harried, but it's not consuming. I guess I expect consumption. I desire consuming fire - but passion, I suppose.


Zakar means 'male' or 'to remember'.
Jehu means 'he is God' or 'it is Jah [who is God]' - (n.) A coachman; a driver; especially, one who drives furiously.
Concerning Ischus and Dunamis, I'd say it's a man who remembers who he is. 

Something's been imparted. I've thought too much and carried too much and considered and believed I knew what it would look like. But I don't.
I don't, okay?
You tell me I'm wonderful, and you provide for me at every step. You show that you're outside of me, and it still feels like a headgame - I might win if I can just catch the rules. So you manifest to me, and we have a very real encounter i sound crazy expressing. I assume I want healing. But it seems like all I want's to be right. Your life is LIFE, and I can talk about it. But for now, I'm content to stress about all the I's in me. Faith toward God; not toward the self. 
A MAN REMEMBERS. It's who he is; it's his makeup. I remember you, lord, when I'm falling. I remember you when I'm catching fire. I remember you, head, when I attempt to make my own way. I SUBMIT TO YOU, HOLY SPIRIT, WHEN I'M WRITING, SPEAKING, AND BREATHING. MY THOUGHTS ARE NOT MY OWN BUT THEY ARE DIRECTED AT YOU. I DEVOUR YOUR WORD FOR IT OPENS MY SENSES - MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU.
I can't do you, I am you. There's the game. I spend all my time trying to figure out how to be this one particular person I can't get all the details to, and I'm him all my life. If I'm you; I'm content. I'm powerful, and able. Secure and easy, unharried. I create in rest and, well, am rested. If I celebrate you I no longer have to celebrate myself - this, whatever you made - this gift of operation. I can just write you. I still need training, but I can participate if I'm you. I'm yours.

I'm expecting something crazy on my behalf, but you're with me, so I guess everything's just outrageous.
Thanks, pop, for being kindly. For smiling on me when I would run. Thanks for bringing me home. This heart is yours. And I'm a man, so I don't swear, but I remember my word and now my yes is yes. I do.

The Pursuit of God

The following is from A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. Read it with an open heart and discerning spirit; real work can begin through this.

    Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual
experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must
be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work
within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an
ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered
under Pontius Pilate.
    Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the
thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human
experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff
of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away
is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death
no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made
can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the
cross would do to every man to set him free.
    Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil. God must do
everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and
then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy “acceptance” from the real work
of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of
self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen.
    Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly,
but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its
work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain
is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the
Presence of the living God.

Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Letters for Edification

Email to a friend October, '09.

     I'll expound on the shape my life has taken.
     I lived in Colorado for a year, attending Colorado Christian University, and it was good. At the end of the first semester (this is fall '06) I knew I wouldn't go back for a second year. This is unfortunate because this private institution charges 26k a year - a wasted investment? I hemmed and hawed unsure what to do with life as I still had no major and virtually no direction and in that vacillation between something (because I occupy space and a thing will ALWAYS be happening to me) and nothing (because the spiritual state of The Lost is so whelming that I can quite literally be undone though here) I made a call to my Brother in Law who said 'there's always room here.' So I went to Alaska, my homeland, to Commercial fish for the summer. I discovered that the local community college, an extension of the University of Alaska, was waiving out of state tuition in a program to increase enrollment. So I went there, getting a full year's credits for 1/5 the cost of my first year - paid in cash, no less (fishing money). I live in my sister's garage - and have done so since August '07.
      I may tell you about being engaged someday, but not right now. I'll tell you that I've had to learn to grow up in 'the real world' instead of on college campuses, but in this I've had a protection that most kids our age don't get: supervision by men who care for me. That is, I'm part of a church body which gathers pretty much constantly. It's a home church of about 9 families and there are elders who have wisdom that comes from experience and from God, not to separate the two. For lack of parents, having adults in my life to whom I can turn and say 'insurance what?' and 'how do I change my oil?' and 'you're GIVING me this vehicle?' and 'you're showing me how to build a house?' and 'you're being watchmen as I grow spiritually affirmed in who I was and you're facilitating the development of me into the mighty man of God I will be and actually am?' is something most early-20's don't have.
      That said, not much has happened since I've been here. Rather the events have been changes that occurred in me, and they have been...multitudinous. Enough to fill a book like .. the bible. What I know is that I've found a God who loves me, and won't compromise His Word or his unending affection for me as he brings me what I've asked for: perfection in Him. I've discovered that I had no idea what love was - I had poor models (divorced parents), movies, and tv to go off, and we know how great these portray reality. Love on tv is affection and building music and chases to maintain these emotions, but what is left when that fire ends? It's boredom and desire for more of the same and inability to engender it because familiarity leads to searching elsewhere for entertainment. But God's love is uncompromising: it presents truth and lets me choose between it or something else. What's cool is that the word of God is divisive and clear once you learn how to hear it, that is, with ears for truth and without judgment. In any given second you're either in God or you're not. And when you are, it's flippin' fabulous and when you're not, it's made plain, so you can recognize something's off. The problem is that we've been  raised in the world's ways (not in God) so we are used to where we've been and what we've been of, we like the things we do and how they make us feel. So when God comes to say 'mmdear? you're in hell...' we think he's judging us and we spit at his feet and head into greater judgment because we've cursed the one who made us. This is what makes the walk tough - when we cling to our life, our rights, saying that we've been correct. God doesn't judge where we've been and what we've done - he forgets it all and does not hold it against us (that's one of the most difficult things in all of the cosmos to believe, but it really is true). He comes to shed light on the muck we've called faith, hope, love...faith as lip-service, hope as desire, love as compromise and worldly affection. They've been perverted. It's not our fault, we just get to learn to hear the call of the one who desires to lift us up. My father will not forsake me: this I've learned.
      He is near, he is a God of power, he is a God of grace and favor. We have so many mindsets and so many impressions of the way things are and we hold to them, maintaining our worldview and strengthening the idols we worship: body image, politics, money, music, sex, drugs, intelligence - anything that has a hold on us. But we don't understand this. We try to figure God out when we think he's big and judgmental and wrathful and far off and he inflicts all the woes of the world on me even though he's impotent and why won't he save me? 
      God is everything good and perfect - peace, patience, caring, understanding, love, longsuffering...all the fruits of the spirit. Perceptions. He waits in faith knowing that though I reject Him, He is the cry of my heart and I have said yes. My walk will bring me to know Him as I give up myself and the things I've elevated over Him.
      People call our church a cult because a few of the families left a local church at the same time and we meet in homes. Nobody asks questions, so they slander. It's really weird - but to be expected. When they come face to face with the Truth (the voice and word of God) and reject him, they rise up in offense saying 'how dare you blasphemer!' and 'that's not the God I know' and it continues.
      It's in His power to change us, but he won't take that place - he's not  a tyrant or overlord. He gave us free will to choose him or not. He is jealous, God, but he's jealous as a husband for a wife.
      I have identified with the stuff that has ruled me calling my very enemy myself. "I'm sick. I'm stupid. I'm not very fast. I'm not as good-looking as him. I could never approach her." So be these things unto me. When God comes to show me these are not how he made me to be, he comes with fire and vengeance upon my enemies, but I call them me: I protect them and so I get burned rather than they, and then I curse God. This is way of things.
      I have discovered a more real reality, a surer foundation and a more intimate love and life than I could have imagined.
      We can reason all we want, but that comes from an impure heart, not coming under the Lord's order to receive - we try to find the pieces and assemble God the Puzzle. But God is like a seed planted in the ground of the heart - it must come from above and it must be received. We can't take the bits we like and make a collage of who we want God to be: we'll be disappointed and then angry when he's deaf and dumb. But this is what we do.

     You needn't read this. You also needn't feel judged. This is for MY edification - you can take it or leave it. I'm just glad to know you. This is who I've become. Your friend asked if I was a bible beater. I'm not. At this point I just live as I know true. I'm not about converting people. The bible says 'all men are saved Especially those who believe.' To know you are saved is to walk in the liberty that comes with knowing you don't have to figure stuff out for yourself because you're loved no matter what. To not believe is to be saved but not have any understanding of the way life could be- that's hell.
So for me, I believe and get understanding and by Faith I find myself with God, in heaven.

Quote Me

The light will disturb us when we're comfortable, and comfort us when we're disturbed.
We turn to Spirit for help when our foundations are shaking,
only to find that it is Spirit who is shaking them. - Dan Millman

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world.
Then you can love, and do what you will. - Dan Millman

What if you slept, and what if you dreamed,
and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower,
and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand?
Oh, what then? - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The important thing is this: To be ready at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Dubois

The seed of God is in us:
Pear seeds grow into pear trees;
Hazel seeds into hazel trees;
and God seeds into God. -Meister Eckehart

The faithfulness of one taps a dam.
The faithfulness of two rings out loud.
The faithful gathered together dives down deep where no man can hold anything.

Change

I despise this post. I wrote it 30.Dec.11, and thought I might fix it up. It's rank and has some neat bits:

Change
A tradition of uniformity yields effective uniforms, both hallowed and respected. But old wineskins can't hold new wine. Reimagination permits the expansion of unheard of thoughts and ideas - new flavors wouldn't develop if the wine-process was flawless every time. Little variables become lifeblood and direction.
The Father's vision is 'wine' and Man gets caught in the (so limited) 'this wine, this way' mindset. The new flavors are not an abomination or departure from God's purpose - they're wine - just not the wine we may have wanted or expected. And yet through new notes and tones we are enriched in the variety he provides.
Evolution has a negative connotation in my head. I'd rather 'variation'. (Is this compromising the Word?)
I know the father is of one vision, a pure word that creates and imbues life. On the surface, it would seem that any modification to this word would be to detract from its purity and perfection. But He doesn't want us to be plain. Simple, yes, for ease's sake (a childlike faith). There are more than a thousand varieties of apples grown in the United States, bred and re-bred and altered. This is excessively amazing. We don't need this much variety, but it shows where our hearts lie. And this is a matter of heart. Why all that? Is it to exert influence so we can feel strong and in control of our lives and world? Is it to exercise creativity? An unforeseen accident is one thing: oh, the bees cross-pollinated our Granny Smiths with our Pink Ladies and aha: Granny Ladies!  Why invest in the science of apples when there is life in the Father to be had?! You might be called to breeding new apples, ones with a longer shelf life, more meat, or a natural bug repellent, and all these things are great and helpful, but how does this enhance the living of life?
All things are permitted, and in faith (submission) all things are life.
How does a true and simple thing become complex?  The hands of man take control. They wrest their 'freedom' from the hands of the greater one and run about fulfilling grand schemes. Like a teenager, like the prodigal son. Some live that way full-stop, and some repent and head back home. OR God sparks inspiration and the man seeks out its purpose and execution in humility, the intended end for the work. This life isn't about what's done, it's about the heart-work through it. We're only around to open, suspend, dissect, animate, reanimate, and suture what's been (and we constantly find as) a deadened heart.
No man, culture, or worship is better than another. Not in God's eyes, anyway. "Be with me in spirit and in Truth and I'll be with you." I think that's scripture. In me it is.

Tattoos and Light

I was subject to a ball of light today. It was a large sphere of pulsing yellow brightness with flares of light jetting out. It was so bright I couldn't tell whether it was heavy or super-light. And in a moment of clarity I realized it was potential energy. I had been put in a situation with eyes to see it, and the light was the energy that would become whatever I chose: negative (heavy) or constructive (liberating). There's no pressure in God, just a growing clarity to choose him faster, more often, and with greater ease. My world is in my hands, but I give it over to God; I can make my life, or I can let him do it. He's a far better creator than I. So I chose the lighter path, prayed into the Father, and any sense of burden I carried regarding the interaction vanished like vapor. The brightness of that light became me and I grew light. I grew lighter (less heavy), lighter (more transparent), and lighter (more glorious), all at once.

The Lord's tattooed me before: Righteous across my arms and chest from wrist to wrist, Faithful around my throat like a necklace, but today I received an intricate design. It is a tree whose roots begin at my groin, whose trunk rises up, narrow, through my navel and solar plexis, and whose thinly leaved branches extend broad across and over my pecs, leaving off at the tops of my shoulders. It is beautiful and becoming, instructive and living as I am living.