Saturday, October 29, 2011
Intentional Gap This Time
Going searching for the Kingdom of Heaven. Don't plan to be around the internet that much. Adios.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Two Tunics
Beware of overdoing the metaphors.
In Churchianity, pastors have become exceedingly good at using old testament and new testament stories as metaphors for their teachings. The exodus of Israel out of Egypt becomes the template for a called one to become a faithful follower of Jesus. This is often good. But also, very often it is used incorrectly. Coming into the promised land becomes moving from the old paid for building, to the new indebted building, and enlarging your tents means getting richer.
In Churchianity, pastors have become exceedingly good at using old testament and new testament stories as metaphors for their teachings. The exodus of Israel out of Egypt becomes the template for a called one to become a faithful follower of Jesus. This is often good. But also, very often it is used incorrectly. Coming into the promised land becomes moving from the old paid for building, to the new indebted building, and enlarging your tents means getting richer.
They also use plain and simple instructions as metaphors for larger principles. This can also be good, but I think it becomes much easier to think of these things in the neighborhood of make believe, than in the real world of stuff. I challenge you to go out into the actual real life world and find someone needing a shirt, and give them yours. We can have all kinds of wonderful faith in the confines of our heads, but the only way to know if there is any substance to that faith, is to go out and command it to DO it.
Side note: one reason it becomes difficult to DO it, is that those who really need don't often walk around out in the open with big red painted signs saying "I need a shirt." You and I have to take enough interest to find out.
Needs. Some are hungry. Some are cold (even in South Texas this happens). Some need a place to sleep when it rains. Some have a place to sleep, but have no money to buy food. Some wear better clothes than I do, but sleep alone at night with the mosquitoes and ants on concrete.
Churchianity has had clever metaphors for many hundreds of years. It's all worthless unless you go out there and DO the things.
Side note: one reason it becomes difficult to DO it, is that those who really need don't often walk around out in the open with big red painted signs saying "I need a shirt." You and I have to take enough interest to find out.
Needs. Some are hungry. Some are cold (even in South Texas this happens). Some need a place to sleep when it rains. Some have a place to sleep, but have no money to buy food. Some wear better clothes than I do, but sleep alone at night with the mosquitoes and ants on concrete.
Churchianity has had clever metaphors for many hundreds of years. It's all worthless unless you go out there and DO the things.
Monday, October 17, 2011
End War
I'll throw my two cents into this.
I agree, no nation that I know of has any business making war (declared or not) on another nation's people. Any nation (U.S.) that kills millions of it own unborn children obviously has lost all good powers of judgment and has given up its rights (if it ever had any) to rule. How can a man rule another man's children if he encourages his own to run wild?
They use the lie that, "They are fighting for the freedom that you enjoy, so you should support them." No doubt that there have been many valiant soldiers who have endured much hardship and given their lives for the lie of national freedom. Is it a big surprise? All death comes from a lie. I appreciate the strong character of those who have valiantly and innocently given their lives for the nation, but I count it as tragedy, not heroism. The only true tragic hero is the Lord/Lamb Christ Jesus. All freedom that is worth anything comes from believing in Jesus.
But to create anti-war organizations and march around carrying signs opposing all war in general is just a waste of breath, I'm afraid. Let the people who don't know God do that; they are haters of God, but violently oppose war. War will not cease until the anti-christ ends it for a short time (even then, it may be a mirage). True end to war will not happen until the Prince of Peace reigns.
So, instead of fighting to end war, which is itself a kind of war, fight to make straight the way of the Lord's coming. Preach Jesus to all nations, teaching them everything Jesus has taught you. We fight all our battles as we always have, by drawing nearer to the person of Christ. Make no mistake, we are at war; it is not a war of bullets and bombs, but of turning the other cheek and giving away your second tunic.
I agree, no nation that I know of has any business making war (declared or not) on another nation's people. Any nation (U.S.) that kills millions of it own unborn children obviously has lost all good powers of judgment and has given up its rights (if it ever had any) to rule. How can a man rule another man's children if he encourages his own to run wild?
They use the lie that, "They are fighting for the freedom that you enjoy, so you should support them." No doubt that there have been many valiant soldiers who have endured much hardship and given their lives for the lie of national freedom. Is it a big surprise? All death comes from a lie. I appreciate the strong character of those who have valiantly and innocently given their lives for the nation, but I count it as tragedy, not heroism. The only true tragic hero is the Lord/Lamb Christ Jesus. All freedom that is worth anything comes from believing in Jesus.
But to create anti-war organizations and march around carrying signs opposing all war in general is just a waste of breath, I'm afraid. Let the people who don't know God do that; they are haters of God, but violently oppose war. War will not cease until the anti-christ ends it for a short time (even then, it may be a mirage). True end to war will not happen until the Prince of Peace reigns.
So, instead of fighting to end war, which is itself a kind of war, fight to make straight the way of the Lord's coming. Preach Jesus to all nations, teaching them everything Jesus has taught you. We fight all our battles as we always have, by drawing nearer to the person of Christ. Make no mistake, we are at war; it is not a war of bullets and bombs, but of turning the other cheek and giving away your second tunic.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Out With The Trash
Yes sir, it is done.
I went and researched the origins of that song and found what I suspected. It is not a good song. It may be art, but art does not achieve the Glory of God. (in this sense) Art is beauty broken. It still has some beauty, as a carry-over from its original state, but it falls short because perfection is the requirement, nothing less. You cannot paint a picture of a tree more beautiful than the tree itself. To try is like taking pictures of a war torn, ruined city scene. You may find shapes and images that make your jaw sag, but they are still pictures of distruction, not life.
By the new title, I'm not trying to be prideful, but submissive to the prompting in me. The wonderful hidden mysteries are open to anyone who walks the path of our Christ. Glorify the Lamb today, and definitely sing Hallelujahs!
I went and researched the origins of that song and found what I suspected. It is not a good song. It may be art, but art does not achieve the Glory of God. (in this sense) Art is beauty broken. It still has some beauty, as a carry-over from its original state, but it falls short because perfection is the requirement, nothing less. You cannot paint a picture of a tree more beautiful than the tree itself. To try is like taking pictures of a war torn, ruined city scene. You may find shapes and images that make your jaw sag, but they are still pictures of distruction, not life.
By the new title, I'm not trying to be prideful, but submissive to the prompting in me. The wonderful hidden mysteries are open to anyone who walks the path of our Christ. Glorify the Lamb today, and definitely sing Hallelujahs!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Guidelines for the Church
Guidelines for the Church
Do not engage in any buying or selling. If there is any exchange in goods or moneys or properties, it is to be by free gift only. But also, don't begrudge those who do. Why? Because the love of money is the root of many evils. Exchanging goods and services for money, even in the innocent beginnings (to support the ministry), easily and quickly slips into another godless business of money-making. Instead model the ministry after the example of Jesus when He fed the five thousand; let the increase come from Heaven.
Do not join with any worldly entity. Any union between the church and the government or state institutions will result in a snare for the church. The Church is made up of individuals who are free spirits, freed by Christ, and not to be caged again. As people, obey all the laws of the state, until the event whereby the state tries to enforce a law that is contrary to the command of the High King, Jesus. Create no institution; so that the state, IRS, or law makers can not get their hands on you.
Do not set up a name for yourself. Do not signify yourself in any way other than "the Church," or the "body of Christ," or other named recorded in scripture. You can signify the part of the Church by the geographical location it is in. For example, "the Church at Corinth, or the Church at Corpus Christi." Just as the man, Adam, named his wife, so Christ Jesus names His Church.
Do not set up any man or woman over you. The individual members are to submit to one another as unto Christ, and unto Christ directly. If there are pastors and prophets and teachers, they are co-laborers and servants, not the boss or a priest through whom you are to learn Christ. You learn Christ by individually dying daily and participating in His Resurrection, and by washing yourself in the Word. If you listen to a pastor or teacher, or anyone else, listen not to them, but listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit through them. You can learn to recognize this Voice by turning away from all the junk of the world, and devoting your pursuits to the scriptures, and prayer.
Believe the scriptures with a pure conscience. If you read a passage and don't understand it, don't try to explain it. The Holy Spirit alone gives understanding to hidden things. If you try to explain it before the Spirit of Truth teaches it to you, then you will fall into a snare. Trust in God always, and never lean on your own understanding.
Build no Kingdom on Earth. Instead, be the light of the world, be the bride of Christ, and comfort those who mourn and suffer, and give every earthly resource to the increase of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord and King, Jesus will bring His Kingdom when He comes, not too many days from now. Our place is not to set up kingdoms, but to lower the mountains, and raise the valleys, so that when His Kingdom comes, it has cleared land to set up on. So, don't drain all the resources that we are to use to feed the hungry, and clothe them, in order to build bigger buildings, and produce flashier bulletins. Meet in facilities that you already have, or in homes, or in no facility at all, in restaurants, in parks, online in various groups, on the streets, in office buildings, in football stadiums, at the beach, or anywhere else you can. If you seal yourself away in brick boxes, you are not the light of the world.
Do not quarrel, but search the scriptures diligently. Being saved from sin, and slow to speak, and quick to believe what we see in the scripture, we can come to the knowledge of the truth.
Do not engage in any buying or selling. If there is any exchange in goods or moneys or properties, it is to be by free gift only. But also, don't begrudge those who do. Why? Because the love of money is the root of many evils. Exchanging goods and services for money, even in the innocent beginnings (to support the ministry), easily and quickly slips into another godless business of money-making. Instead model the ministry after the example of Jesus when He fed the five thousand; let the increase come from Heaven.
Do not join with any worldly entity. Any union between the church and the government or state institutions will result in a snare for the church. The Church is made up of individuals who are free spirits, freed by Christ, and not to be caged again. As people, obey all the laws of the state, until the event whereby the state tries to enforce a law that is contrary to the command of the High King, Jesus. Create no institution; so that the state, IRS, or law makers can not get their hands on you.
Do not set up a name for yourself. Do not signify yourself in any way other than "the Church," or the "body of Christ," or other named recorded in scripture. You can signify the part of the Church by the geographical location it is in. For example, "the Church at Corinth, or the Church at Corpus Christi." Just as the man, Adam, named his wife, so Christ Jesus names His Church.
Do not set up any man or woman over you. The individual members are to submit to one another as unto Christ, and unto Christ directly. If there are pastors and prophets and teachers, they are co-laborers and servants, not the boss or a priest through whom you are to learn Christ. You learn Christ by individually dying daily and participating in His Resurrection, and by washing yourself in the Word. If you listen to a pastor or teacher, or anyone else, listen not to them, but listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit through them. You can learn to recognize this Voice by turning away from all the junk of the world, and devoting your pursuits to the scriptures, and prayer.
Believe the scriptures with a pure conscience. If you read a passage and don't understand it, don't try to explain it. The Holy Spirit alone gives understanding to hidden things. If you try to explain it before the Spirit of Truth teaches it to you, then you will fall into a snare. Trust in God always, and never lean on your own understanding.
Build no Kingdom on Earth. Instead, be the light of the world, be the bride of Christ, and comfort those who mourn and suffer, and give every earthly resource to the increase of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord and King, Jesus will bring His Kingdom when He comes, not too many days from now. Our place is not to set up kingdoms, but to lower the mountains, and raise the valleys, so that when His Kingdom comes, it has cleared land to set up on. So, don't drain all the resources that we are to use to feed the hungry, and clothe them, in order to build bigger buildings, and produce flashier bulletins. Meet in facilities that you already have, or in homes, or in no facility at all, in restaurants, in parks, online in various groups, on the streets, in office buildings, in football stadiums, at the beach, or anywhere else you can. If you seal yourself away in brick boxes, you are not the light of the world.
Do not quarrel, but search the scriptures diligently. Being saved from sin, and slow to speak, and quick to believe what we see in the scripture, we can come to the knowledge of the truth.
Redeemed Hallelujahs
I was blown away yesterday; after having written the prevous post, I was walking and listening to the radio when God sent me this song. Except, it wasn't the same: someone had taken the lyrics and redeemed them. It was just what I had been talking about, and God mercifully sent it to me on that same day. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah
Monday, October 10, 2011
Title Change?
On a lighter side, this blog title "Broken Hallelujahs" is starting to bug me a little. I chose it because I thought it sounded cool, and because that song it comes from was such a mystery to me. I thought the blog should be kind of a symbolic exploration of that mystery.
I don't really know what the writer of the song was going for, but I take an existentialist approach to songs anyway. That mean that regardless of what the song's intention is, I take the sound of it and the lyrics, if I know them, and try to think of it in a sense that I understand. Why should a person sing someone else's song? They shouldn't. They should either make their own songs to sing, or warp other songs into their own. Of course, some songs are so wrong that they cannot be used at all, but some can be made useful if I just swap out a few words here and there. Many country songs can be turned into great worship songs just by changing a few silly words out for better ones. I could never sing in the choir because I would be changing the words all the time (and the tune, for that matter). That would be funny.
They way I generally view the position of the singer of "Broken Hallelujahs" is one of an enemy of God's eventual bowing to the truth of His Lordship. Or maybe it's that there can't truthfully be exultantly sung Hallelujahs, because Hallelujah means "You are exalted, and I am not." I don't know if the previous statement is entirely true. Maybe it's a piece of false humility to believe that we can't be exultant in the Lord.
In any case, the song is not complete. There is a time for the enemies of God to be humbled, and there may be legitimate place for them to then sing broken hallelujahs, but the next right(eous) step is to repent and believe. You don't stay in the broken hallelujahs stage forever, but must move on.
I don't really know what the writer of the song was going for, but I take an existentialist approach to songs anyway. That mean that regardless of what the song's intention is, I take the sound of it and the lyrics, if I know them, and try to think of it in a sense that I understand. Why should a person sing someone else's song? They shouldn't. They should either make their own songs to sing, or warp other songs into their own. Of course, some songs are so wrong that they cannot be used at all, but some can be made useful if I just swap out a few words here and there. Many country songs can be turned into great worship songs just by changing a few silly words out for better ones. I could never sing in the choir because I would be changing the words all the time (and the tune, for that matter). That would be funny.
They way I generally view the position of the singer of "Broken Hallelujahs" is one of an enemy of God's eventual bowing to the truth of His Lordship. Or maybe it's that there can't truthfully be exultantly sung Hallelujahs, because Hallelujah means "You are exalted, and I am not." I don't know if the previous statement is entirely true. Maybe it's a piece of false humility to believe that we can't be exultant in the Lord.
In any case, the song is not complete. There is a time for the enemies of God to be humbled, and there may be legitimate place for them to then sing broken hallelujahs, but the next right(eous) step is to repent and believe. You don't stay in the broken hallelujahs stage forever, but must move on.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Messy
I'm contemplating a lot of things. It's messy. The truth is not messy, but trying to enact it in the "real" world is.
I want my foundations to be solid so I don't build something that will fall when we get down the road a ways. But how solid is solid enough? If I spend my life only in making the foundation strong, what of the building that is the foundation's purpose?
I want to behave like the part of the body that I am, in submission to all the other parts, yet I don't know where those parts are. Where is the group that has like-minded-ness? Is it a good idea or a bad one to go out alone, without at least one co-laborer? And what of the ends of the earth? If there were a path to walk there, I believe I would start walking today, though the journey should take years.
Yet, simulaneously, I feel that wretched nature at the door, like a disobedient cat, ready to dart inside if I leave the door ajar for the slightest moment.
I want my foundations to be solid so I don't build something that will fall when we get down the road a ways. But how solid is solid enough? If I spend my life only in making the foundation strong, what of the building that is the foundation's purpose?
I want to behave like the part of the body that I am, in submission to all the other parts, yet I don't know where those parts are. Where is the group that has like-minded-ness? Is it a good idea or a bad one to go out alone, without at least one co-laborer? And what of the ends of the earth? If there were a path to walk there, I believe I would start walking today, though the journey should take years.
Yet, simulaneously, I feel that wretched nature at the door, like a disobedient cat, ready to dart inside if I leave the door ajar for the slightest moment.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Hearing Speaking Doing but the Greatest of these is
Profound thoughts are coming at lightning speed these days, but I fear the "be not hearers of the Word only, but doers." And I have yet to figure out a way to remain confident about how that doing is to be carried out.
What is to be done? "Go into the everywhere and disciple all unto Christ." But I don't have the power to go to the Salar, it seems. Go where here? Downtown? To the rejects of society? Who are the rejects? Homeless people seem to be more popular than ever in the news, and among the charities. That's fine, I'll go to them, I suppose.
But I feel powerless. I feel like I need to learn more. What if my doctrine is not correct? Just the other day I saw that my understanding of baptism was in error. What if there are other areas that are misguided like my baptism was? And shouldn't I have a partner? Jesus sent them out in twos because there needed to be two witnesses to new things. Should I wait till God provides a co-laborer? Should I wait till God drops on me special words of knowledge to guide me into whatever ministry He should desire, in the same way He told the eleven to remain still until Pentecost?
Or, is "doing" included in recording these profound thoughts that seem to be truthful. Is my ministry supposed to be in teaching and exhorting by writing? How can there be time for that? So many have done that before and got nearly no where.
And the homeless probably know the gospel better than the average church goer. Maybe. I guess there's only one way to find out.
What is to be done? "Go into the everywhere and disciple all unto Christ." But I don't have the power to go to the Salar, it seems. Go where here? Downtown? To the rejects of society? Who are the rejects? Homeless people seem to be more popular than ever in the news, and among the charities. That's fine, I'll go to them, I suppose.
But I feel powerless. I feel like I need to learn more. What if my doctrine is not correct? Just the other day I saw that my understanding of baptism was in error. What if there are other areas that are misguided like my baptism was? And shouldn't I have a partner? Jesus sent them out in twos because there needed to be two witnesses to new things. Should I wait till God provides a co-laborer? Should I wait till God drops on me special words of knowledge to guide me into whatever ministry He should desire, in the same way He told the eleven to remain still until Pentecost?
Or, is "doing" included in recording these profound thoughts that seem to be truthful. Is my ministry supposed to be in teaching and exhorting by writing? How can there be time for that? So many have done that before and got nearly no where.
And the homeless probably know the gospel better than the average church goer. Maybe. I guess there's only one way to find out.
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