The Cost Of Intimacy

 I was reading through Daniel this morning. It's always a great time in Daniel. Many people look at his life in amazement and consider key moments like the lion's den for life lessons. But the lion's den was only the fruit of something more incredible.

I am always amazed at his visions and how he moved about and interacted in these key spiritual moments. His visions/dreams were astounding and much was shown to him. His fame was because he was a dream interpreter, but it was the Lord who explained to him the dreams. But this too is only a fruit of something even more incredible.

There are people who wish they had the same ability to interpret dreams and receive such incredible visions. There are others who wish they could have the strength of faith that Daniel demonstrated. People wish for it but are not willing to pay the price.

"Pay the price" isn't really the best way to say this but there is a cost involved with having the intimacy with Yahweh that Daniel had. The cost is time. Friendship requires an investment of time. Daniel spent a lot of time with Yahweh in prayer and this relationship created sensitivity toward Yahweh.

Daniel's experiences were the fruit of his intimacy and intimacy developed with the time he spent "hanging out" with Yahweh. If we want intimacy, sensitivity, openness with Father it will require one of the greatest sacrifices in this age : time.

This is our great challenge because our society has been very good at developing distractions. There are many "minute robbers" throughout the day. Little things of little value that eat up our time so we have the sense of being busy, convincing ourselves us that we do not have time for Father's priorities. These priorities are simple to understand : love him and love each other. It is hard to love the things we do not value enough to give priority to.

I'm talking to the man in the mirror here. It is so easy to give priority to the distractions without knowing we are doing it. If we kept track of a day in our life and figured out where we were using our time, we may discover that what we value does not match up with what Father values. It may match in our thinking but not in our actions and it requires actions to move into the intimacy we desire.

If we really desire the awareness of the "oneness" that Jesus spoke about, we would start with a simple change of blocking out more time to "hang out" with Dad. Start there and see what it leads to.

What Is Sin And Why Do I Struggle With It?

Maybe our problem is the way we define sin. Maybe that is what all the confusion is about. It seems that we are confusing the fruit of sin with the root of sin and we need a little education from the Word to better understand the parameters of our discussion. Let's start with this fact:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

And just for good measure we shall add:

"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:10)

So something everyone in this world has in common is this fact that we have all fallen short of Yahweh's glory. None of us can ever claim that we have never sinned against Yahweh and thus having sinned stand guilty of our rebellion. But consider the root of all our behaviour, which is rebellion against Yahweh:

"All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

The lying, stealing, cheating, sexual immorality, hatred, murder, and all the rest are only the fruit of sin. Just as love, joy, peace, hope and all the rest is the fruit of his love in us, all the negative stuff is the fruit of our sin nature which is rebellion against Yahweh. How is sin defined? "We have turned, every one, to his own way." That is the best definition you are going to find. Our actions are only the fruit of the root and the root is a heart that is turned to it's own ways instead of the righteous path of Yahweh.

All the epic battles in your life have come down to the struggle between your selfish nature and Yahweh's holiness. Eve's sin was a selfish act, when she put her wants ahead of Yahweh's instructions. David's many sins stemmed from the same source as has every sinful act committed by every single human in history.

Only Jesus has made it possible for this bondage to be broken so that we can make ourselves slaves to Yahweh's righteousness. If that is not your desire you will continue to stumble, struggle, and war against yourself. Peace is found when we swim out to the current of Father's will and allow ourselves to be carried along, swimming with the current instead of against it. Understand the source, the root of the fruit that is produced in your life. Is it the good stuff produced by the Spirit in you, or the rotten stuff that comes from your heart rooted in rebellion? If you can understand this root, you may discover you have been sinning without knowing it, blocking your destiny with Yahweh. Discover it, confess it, be set free from it, and begin to soar as you were designed to soar.

The Problem Isn't The Message; The Problem Is Our Heart

We live in an age when words rule. We all like to talk, whether verbally or written. The Church is filled with words; people talking, debating, arguing, disagreeing, and there are a lot of books being written. There is a huge war of words as the philosophers of the Church argue with each other in front of the whole world. We are hearing "false prophet", "false teacher" being thrown around far too easily. It is like we have forgotten the Word that tells us:

But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. (1 Corinthians 4:19-21)

But it is difficult to understand this when we have allowed the Church to be lead by the academia and we know how teachers love words. Where is the gospel that comes with power?

If we follow this thought it leads us to the realization of how many of those words are empty. The Word of God is never empty, filled with power to convict and change the hearts of the receivers. The empty words come from those who would rather debate the word instead of submit to it. Those words lack any good. So what we should be looking for is the fruit that is produced. That is how we know the true content of the heart, by the fruit it produces.

There are many passages of Scripture that teach on this but I appreciate a certain passage in Isaiah 32:

For the foolish person will speak foolishness,
And his heart will work iniquity:
To practice ungodliness,
To utter error against the Lord,
To keep the hungry unsatisfied,
And he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. (Isaiah 32:6)

Case study number 1: The Fool. Look at what such a heart produces; ungodliness, uttering error, keeping the hungry hungry, spoiling the drink of the thirsty. The heart of the fool produces emptiness. Those who are seeking Jesus will not discover him in the words of a fool.

Also the schemes of the schemer are evil;
He devises wicked plans
To destroy the poor with lying words,
Even when the needy speaks justice. (v. 7)

Case study number 2: The Schemer. Look at what this heart produces; wicked plans, destruction through lying words, denying justice. Pity the seeker who is looking for Jesus in the words of a schemer.

But a generous man devises generous things,
And by generosity he shall stand. (v. 8)

Case study number 3: The Generous. It is obvious what such a heart produces; generous things. This is the heart of love as defined by Jesus in Luke 6, giving recklessly, without thought of personal cost, to the benefit of friend or foe. In these words we will discover the power of the Kingdom.

So many of the words spoken and debated today are spoken from selfish, puffed up hearts that think nothing of the consequences of their speaking. The fruit that is produced is confusion and division. No one is growing into spiritual maturity from these things. They are destructive to the Body of Christ. We should pay attention to the wisdom of Proverbs:

Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

That should give us something to ponder as we ask the Spirit to examine our hearts, but let us not stop at this familiar verse but let us put it in context of what follows:

Put away from you a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you.
Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your foot from evil. (vv. 24-27)

The only way we are going to see the power of the Kingdom return is when we stop the foolishness, examine our hearts and walk the walk we have been given. Fix your eyes on Jesus and stop trying to make a name for yourself by tearing down other servants. If they are in error the Spirit is not impotent; he will correct. But you, you keep your eyes on the prize, understanding your tasks and allowing the power of the resurrection to flow through you. The world needs to see Jesus in us, the Church, the Body of Christ. Let your heart be true and may they discover Christ through the fruit that is produced by his reckless love in you.

Pass Me The Salt Please

It is corn season in my part of the world and many of my friends are loving it. I do not know why I am not partial to it but they obviously love it. Going into the grocery store we find a big bin overflowing with the delightful treat, all wrapped up in its protective husk. Beside the filled bin is a large empty container for the use of the stores customers. For those uninitiated to the tradition of corn husking this may seem a bit strange. The thing is that with the corn all tucked away in its husk you never know what you are buying. Imagine how disappointed you would be to get home, your mouth watering with great anticipation, the pot of boiling water waiting to receive its object of purpose, only to discover rotten corn as you pulled back the husk. Perhaps an insect had crawled in and spoiled the corn or perhaps it had dried out. There are any number of things that could have made that corn unfit for consumption. So this is why most people husk their corn in the store to make sure they are getting a good product.

The Christian life can be compared to this corn. On the outside everything looks great but when we peel back the image we often project we may be surprised, even horrified with what we find at the heart, where it really matters. I am one who believes that it is possible to be a vibrant, alive and even passionate Christian and still end up rotten. It is a matter of neglect, laziness, maybe pride, lack of maturity and understanding that can lead people to let go of Christ and start believing in their own abilities. The sad thing is that these people can fool themselves into believing that everything is okay and that they are on track.

What we know is the Christian is suppose to have a certain flavour about him. We could say aroma as well but for the purpose of the scripture we are using we are going to stick to flavour. Jesus taught:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. (Matthew 5:13)

The only way we can retain our flavour is by remaining in Christ and Christ in us. Jesus gave us a great image to understand this relationship:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15:5-6)

It is possible to remove ourselves from the vine. It is possible to become a dry twig that fools itself into believing it is still connected to the vine and producing. However, in the Body of Christ it is an easy thing for people to know what is at the center without doing any peeling. Perhaps it is a thing we choose to ignore because we do not want to be accused of judging and we don't want to get mixed up in any problems, so we ignore the evidence. Yet, Jesus taught us how to know:
 
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matthew 7:16-20)

We must make every effort to stay connected to the vine, because no one has the authority to remove us except the Father and he will only do it if we are not producing fruit. We know the fruit because it is the fruit of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

We cannot fake this fruit because the fruit is not produced by us but by the Spirit in us. The Spirit produces it in us because we are connected to Jesus. Without Jesus there is no Spirit and without the Spirit there is no fruit. The fruit is not the source of our connectedness with Christ but instead it is the result.

We have a specific flavour about us, whether the world appreciates it or not. That flavour is not us but is of Jesus. The last thing we want is for the world to taste our flavour because there is no value in that. We have nothing to offer this world except Jesus so if we are without Jesus we have no value. We are as disappointing to people as that rotten corn is to the hungry man. The solution is not a difficult one: make your relationship with Jesus Christ the most important priority in your life. Hold on to that saltiness by holding on to Jesus. Immerse yourself in his love, in worship, praise, testimony. Write about him, sing about him, tell stories about him, talk to him, walk with him. He must be your everything and remain your everything if you are going to be a fruit bearer. Value in this life is only found in Jesus Christ. The sooner we understand and accept that the sooner the Spirit is able to produce things in us that please our Father.