Searching for Body Life

“A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving the church because they have lost their faith. They are leaving to preserve their faith."



Reggie McNeal

The Calf Path

When talking about today's Christianity, I thought this a fantastic picture of how we start down the "paths" of religious traditions.

The Calf-Path
by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

The Re-emerging "Church"

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Shopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)

If God is working, like I believe He is, in correcting the damage done in the last 1,700 years to what He intended Body life to be, then what stage are we in? I believe it is the first one - ridicule.

I believe we are on the bottom of the wave - a long way from the crest. We may not even see it in our lifetimes or even our grandchildren's lifetime, but I see him moving His Body.

If this is true, then we have yet to experience true persecution from those who will violently oppose us. That is, the one's who have the most to lose.

Poured Out

Jesus said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" ...You'd better know that you are already filled. Because those rivers are flowing out of you, and you're going to have a hard time getting a drink for yourself. Your tongue isn't quite long enough to reach those rivers of living water flowing out of you. Why? Because they are for somebody else. You don't need to drink. You are permanently drunk. You don't need to eat. You're already fat on the Spirit. You're filled.

If we see ourselves as a liability or as hungry and thirsty, we'll say,"I've got to have some of that for me, then I'll give some away." But we're getting free of that, aren't we? We have no need...in the spirit realm, because Jesus has promised us, "I am your sufficiency. I am your filling."

From The Rest of the Gospel by Dan Stone

God is.....

The All Sufficient One, He alone is my rock and my salvation, my hope and expectation. He is my shield and exceeding great reward, my glory and the lifter of my head. He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, my counselor and guide. He's my bread from Heaven, water from the rock and comfort in a storm. He's my apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, helper, and healer...He's all I need.

And Now for Something Completely Different

One of my favorite works of literature is I Claudius and the sequel, Claudius the God. In I Claudius, Robert Graves has Augustus pondering this upon learning that the Senate has voted to make him a god:

The Senate voted today to make me a god in Palmyra. There will be a little statue to me in the temple and people will bring offerings to me, ask me to bring rain or cure their father's gout. Tell me, Livia. If I'm a god, even in Palymra, how do I cure gout?

Great question!

More on Fruitfulness - What is it Really Supposed to Look Like?

Part of our confusion about fruitfulness stems from our bent to QUANTIFY everything as a measure of success – number of converts, bodies in pews, churches in the denomination, etc. Certainly our society’s penchant for focusing on the bottom line is no help here. Add to that an incomplete view of our Scripture’s use of fruitfulness and it’s no wonder our view is blurred.

The Old Testament uses fruitfulness almost exclusively to refer to having babies – progeny. “Fruitful” is used 13 times in Genesis, and 12 of those times specifically refer to increasing in number, mostly through bearing offspring. From God’s first instructions to the animals He created to his promises to the patriarchs, fruitfulness was specifically linked with an increase of numbers.

Only a few references hint at God’s deeper view of what it means for us to be fruitful in His kingdom. Psalm 72:3 links fruit with righteousness and Isaiah 32:17 extends that application: “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.” But perhaps the clearest reference comes in Hosea 10:12: “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers the righteousness on you.”

Fruit, here is seen as an expression of righteousness that comes from the unfailing love of the Father. Here Scripture’s definition of fruitfulness deepens beyond a simplistic increase of numbers and deals with the depth of our character.

In the New Testament, the tables turn completely. There is only one reference to fruitfulness as expanded numbers (Colossians 1:6), and that passage deals with the fruitfulness of the gospel. When the fruitfulness of INDIVIDUAL lives is addressed, however, only one definition is used: Fruitfulness is the demonstration of God’s transforming power in the character of his people.

John the Baptist encourages us to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” In Philippians 1:11 Paul exhorts believers to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.” In Ephesians 5, he contrasts the difference between the fruit of the light (goodness, righteousness, and truth) with the fruitfulness of darkness.

Finally, in Galatians 5:22, 23, a passage long revered for its profound simplicity and clarity, he lists the fruits that God desires from His people:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Fruitfulness has nothing to do with how many Bible studies I’ve taught for how many people I’ve lead to Christ, nor has it any attachment to any other religious activity. FRUIT IS BORNE IN OUR CHARACTER. It is the transformation of our lives so that we reflect God’s nature to the culture around us. In John 15, the call to fruitfulness and the command to love one another are one and the same.

When we love the way God loves, we bear the fruit of His kingdom. It’s what He wants to work into us through the long process of growth and maturity. The fruits of the Spirit are not what we can make ourselves do for a moment, but what God makes us to be for a lifetime. At its fulfillment, this fruit is how we freely respond to people and situations. Obviously, this kind of fruit is not produced overnight. Learning how to respond like Christ is fashioned in us over time as God walks us through our joys and disappointments, all the while transforming us from the very depths of our being.

Our ability to reveal God’s image to the people around us is more important than our worship, our prayers, our religious deeds, our devotions, our spiritual gifts, even our acts of evangelism. For without this fruitfulness there is no spiritual work that counts, no evangelism that succeeds, and no gift that prevails. All of these other aspects are valuable in our growth in God’s kingdom, but these are not the fruit that God seeks in our lives. If the objective of our time in worship or Bible study is not to allow God to transform us into His image with ever increasing glory, then it means nothing.

From Tales of the Vine by Wayne Jacobsen

Over Spiritualizing Billy Joel

Please don't judge me too harshly, but I was thinking about my newly realized identity and how the Father totally accepts me, and this song came to my mind. You can say it was not God, and you'll probably be right, but I kind of think it kind of fits:

(God talking to me)
Don't go changing, to try and please me,
You never let me down before,
Don't imagine, you're too familiar,
And I don't see you anymore.

I would not leave you, in times of trouble,
We never could have come this far,
I took the good times,
I'll take the bad times,
I'll take you just the way you are.

Don't go trying, some new fashion,
Don't change the colour of your hair,
You always have my, unspoken passion,
Although I might not seem to care.

I don't want clever, conversation,
I never want to work that hard,
I just want someone, that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are.

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew,
What will it take till you believe in me,
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you, and that's forever,
And this I promise from the heart,
I couldn't love you, any better,
I love you just the way you are.

Okay, let the fur fly! ;-)

Brother Dan Stone

If you have been enjoying some of my postings lately, you can thank the late Dan Stone (he went home in 2005). I am not going to post these articles because of their length, but you can find them here http://www.christasus.com/Letters/DSPage.htm.

One Nature

There's a deep rut in the Christian faith, as most believers experience it. It's like a ditch that you run your car into and can't get out of. Unless God tows a believer out of the rut, he or she will never fully live out of their union with Christ.

The rut is this: most of us believe that in the depths of our being we are both good and bad. Or, to put it in theological terms, we are both righteous and sinful. Using a common illustration, we believe that we have within us both a white dog and a black dog, a good nature and a bad nature, that are fighting for control.

But that is not true. It is vital that we know it's not true, because if we believe that we are both righteous and sinful, it will be impossible to live out of our union with Christ and to rest, trusting that He lives through us moment by moment. Instead, we will be focused on ourselves, on getting our act together, on winning the war that supposedly rages within us, trying to suppress the bad part of us so that the good part will reflect the character of Christ. This endless self-effort is the complete opposite of what Paul wrote:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God... (Galatians 2:20)

The only way out of this dilemma, of believing that we are both good and bad, is to understand that the realm of the spirit, above the line, is singular. It is one. The realm of appearances, below the line, is a duality. It is two.

In the realm of appearances, there is constant evidence of good and evil, both outside and inside us. If we judge by appearances, we arrive at the logical conclusion that we are both good and bad. That looks entirely valid. Christians have believed this for centuries. Except for a small minority who have come to know their true identity in Christ, the whole Christian world accepts the lie. Unfortunately, although something may not be true above the line, if below the line we think it is true, it still controls us. We must choose to live out of what is singular, rather than what is dual.

The realm of the spirit, the singular realm, is eternal reality. That is where our spirit being lives, and where our true identity is settled forever. The realm of appearance, although we must live in it in the here and now, is false as far as our identity goes. All of life depends on which realm is ultimate reality to you: the realm of spirit or the realm of appearances. That's going to determine what you believe and how you live.

Choosing to believe that you are not both good and evil can be difficult. All of the external proof, all of the apparent evidence, all of the sight, supports the opposite: that you have two natures. "You are good, yes, a little good, but boy, you are still wicked; you are still evil." Only the Holy Spirit can reveal to you that you only have one nature, not two. In the core of your being you are not both righteous and sinful; you are only righteous.

From: Stone, Dan, The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out. Dallas: One Press. 2000. pgs. 89,90.

Fireproof (Spoilers maybe)

Wife (Donna) and I went and saw "Fireproof" on Saturday. We enjoyed it very much. I thought that the sharing of Christ was handled pretty well. At least, there was no mention of what the person(s) was supposed to "do" after they accepted Christ.

I thought that the two leads did a very good acting job and the situations were very believable.

The other parts were obviously handled by non-professional actors, but were none the less, enjoyable and likable, some even lovable.

It had a great "redemptive" message and the audience (me included) clapped at the end.

I will admit I cried a little throughout the movie as I saw God's hand in the lives of the two protagonists.

In short, if you like movies, and want to see a pretty well done "Christian" picture, I recommend it.

The Hope of Glory

An incredible passage:

"Christ in you, the hope of glory." Yes, glory now, just as they saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God intends for others to see the glory of Christ in us. Don't you look for it. It isn't yours to see. It's for someone else to see, and those God means to see it as they cross your path will see it. Those who are hurting are going to see Him - the sinners, the harlots, and the publicans. To the rest, He looked like Beelzebub. But to those who were desperate, the light of God was on His face. You know Christ is pouring His life through you, so take it by faith that it's so and others will see Him. And they'll be drawn to the One who is in you, thinking they have been drawn to you. But you know it isn't you, it's Him.

Dan Smith

If you want to read the entire (lengthy) treatise, you can find it here. It will be worth your time.

http://www.christasus.com/Infinite%20Supply/EnjoyBeingYourself.htm

The Mystery of Union

Paul's teaching to believers focused on a great mystery. To the church in Colossae he wrote of

"...the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:25-27)

Christ in us. That is our only expectation of experiencing and expressing the glory of God. Elsewhere, Paul expressed the mystery in another way:

"But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit (with Him.)" (I Cor. 6:17)

Actually, the words "with Him" aren't even in the original Greek. The translators added them for clarification. So:

"The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit."

He or she, a spiritual being, who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit. There are two... they are one. You and He are one.

We are one spirit with God. We function as one. We are not absorbed into the Lord, however. There is an I and there is a He, but we are joined to Him and we function as one. It is a function of cooperation, like a union of gears that mesh together. Our union with God doesn't mean that we are so swallowed up in God that we lose our identity. But neither is there a separation. Rather, the two function as one for the purposes of the greater one, God.

He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. That is a mystery. One plus one equals one. How can that be? The divine and the human are one.

Until we know and live out of our union with Christ, we will never fully manifest the life of God within us. Some of it will inevitably shine through now and then, despite us. But for the most part we will manifest our own merely human life.

Until we know union, we are constantly confronted by the illusion of separation. "God is up there; I am down here. How do I draw close to God? Give me a plan. Give me a program." Plenty of people are ready with the answers. "Read your Bible. Pray. Study. Witness. Tithe. Take communion. Here are the plans. Here are the programs."

But once you know your union with God, there's nothing left for you to do. Oh, you may still do some of the outer things. But you aren't doing them to get close to God. You and God are one. There is no more separation.

When you begin living out of your union with Jesus Christ, you move beyond Christ plus anything, no matter how good it might be. ...We live and move and have our being in God, who is our life. We are saved by His life. He is our life.

Christ lives out His life in us ­ funny old you, funny old me. We have all kinds of different shapes, forms, and fashions, all kinds of interests, all kinds of diversity, all kinds of uniqueness. Praise the Lord. We don't have to look like, act like, talk like, or be like anybody else again. We are free to be ourselves. People see us, but we know it's Jesus living through us.

From: Stone, Dan, The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out. Dallas: One Press. 2000. pgs. 80-82.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

As believers, we bear all kinds of fruit: lemons, limes, and grapefruit, as well as apples, oranges, and tangerines. Some of us are sweet apples and oranges and people come and pick us. Some of us are lemons and limes, and every now and then somebody will say, “I’ll pick that one.” What kind of fruit we are is not the point. We’re just producing. People do the picking. Don’t worry about what your gift is or what your fruit is. It isn’t for you. It’s for someone else. They will see in you a particular expression of the life of God and they will come and take it.

An important part of the life is getting yourself on the shelf and not worrying anymore about, “What’s my fruit? What’s my gift? What’s my talent?” You get that settled and say, “God, I’m your person.” Once you understand that you’re His vehicle, you can rest. “God, I’m the perfect expression of You. I may look like a lemon, but there are folks that like lemons.” They will see your life and they’ll come to you and pick you.

From The Rest of the Gospel by Dan Stone and Greg Smith

The Mysteries of God

Col. 3:3 (NLT) For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

I've tried to remember if I have ever heard a sermon on this verse. I don't think so. It is probably one that almost every believer - preachers included - see and just skip right on by. It is too "mysterious" for us to understand, they would say.

God's Word says that we can only know Spiritual things through revelation by the Spirit - HE searches the deep things of God. That is, only God CAN know and KNOWS God. We can "know about" Him, but only the Spirit can allow us to "know" Him.

That is where I am - I have learned about my true position in Him - but have not had it truly revealed to me - yet. I have faith that He WILL reveal it in HIS time.

Our minds are so small and so in tuned into the temporal that we cannot see the spiritual - we have scales on our eyes, if you will.

I am trusting in Him to show me how to trust in Him.

The Bear and the Cabin

You are a stranger in the woods in Alaska and no one is around. You have been told that a man-eating bear lives in these parts, and he has just spotted you on his turf. He is eight feet tall and weighs 600 pounds, and mean as a junk-yard dog. At the moment he’s running at top speed towards you. It’s going to take him about 10 seconds to close the gap between the two of you and eat you.

Your mind starts working, retrieving information about bears. You won’t remember things like, Bears hibernate in the winter. No, you’ll remember stuff like, Bears eat meat, and I am meat. Running is an option, but bears can run faster than people. However, I could be running while I generate more options. Climbing a tree is no good, since he’d just eat me in the treetop. But then you spot a little cabin in the trees, and mind says, I can run into that cabin!

All options are recommended by your mind to your will at varying levels of intensity according to how strongly mind believes the option will solve the problem. Will is then going to have to choose from among the options presented.

Meanwhile, feeler is getting in on the action. Feeler’s going to generate but one emotion appropriate to the situation: fear! On a scale of 1 to 10, that’s a 10! Thus, feeler socks it to will at level 10: “I feel like the bear’s going to eat me alive, so get moving!” Now, feeler is a tremendous motivator to will. When feeler is talking 10’s, will is heavily influenced to submit to its demands.

Being thus motivated by both mind and emotions, your will quickly chooses to command the brain to make the muscles propel you into the cabin as fast as the legs will move, and they'll be empowered by special rocket fuel injected into the carburetor by adrenal glands at feeler’s direction. Feeler has the God-given ability to bypass having to get will’s permission to trigger adrenaline flow into the bloodstream. You then cover the forty yards to the cabin in record time (for you).

Now, the cabin’s constructed from railroad ties bolted together – even the roof. It’s built like a fort. But it’s also covered with vines, so that you can’t discern its construction. The instant you get inside, you slam the door, which is made of cured-oak bridge timbers three inches thick. You drop a huge wooden bar into a cradle behind the door, and when you do, you instantly become safe in the cabin.

Just as you drop the bar in place, the bear, who was right on your heels and closing fast, slams his nose into the locked door. It stops him cold. He raises up and puts an eye to the lone window (which has no glass, by the way). His head is big; he can only put one eye to the window at a time. He sees you in there and goes absolutely bananas with rage! He begins to rip the cabin apart to get at the nut inside this big husk. (You can relax now; I am not going to let him get in.)

Being a stranger to these parts, you have no idea about the construction of the cabin, and the vines and inner darkness don’t help. If someone where to see you know, they would see you plastered against the far wall of the cabin, as far away from the door as you could get, fearfully waiting for what you believe is the inevitable – that any moment the bear is going to crash though that door and you are going to be eaten alive!

But wait a minute, you are safe in the cabin, remember? You could lie down on the floor and catch up on your daily Bible readings, since you’re going to be there for a while with nothing to do.

Ah, but the problem is that you don’t know you’re safe. Feeler is saying to will, “I feel like that bear is going to burst in here and eat me – that’s a 10”! Mind, being thus influenced by feeler’s intensity, says, “Well, since I feel so strongly about this matter, I believe that my emotions are telling the truth. I believe I am going to be eaten by the bear, and that’s an 8!” Will, having no input to the contrary, chooses to command brain to make muscles act like a man who is about to be eaten by a bear, and there you are – doing an imitation of wallpaper.

Do you see that you could actually die of a heart attack in the cabin and never benefit from your safety? You are safe and you don’t even know it. However, since you don’t know you’re safe, you could still die of a heart attack. So what good would your safety do you? It isn’t enough to be safe – you must believe it! That is Step 1, truth.

A critical factor in this story is time. As time marches on, you are going to survey the situation and ultimately come to the conclusion; I believe I am safe in this cabin. That is Step 2, faith.

This is not Christian faith; it’s cabin faith – faith in the cabin and the cabin’s ability to meet your need. It will take you who have what some call “feeler flesh” much longer to arrive at THAT conclusion than it will others. You have a flesh pattern of belief that your feeler is usually telling it like it is. You often arrive at “truth” by trusting in your emotions; you make them the object of your faith. (Faith is a function of the mind; it means believing something, and it must have an object. It is never a feeling, but a belief upon which you take action. And it’s a fatal mistake to make feeler faith’s object.)

Now that you believe you are safe, you begin saying things to yourself like, “Oh, I am so thankful! Without this cabin, I’d be dead!” But all the time you’re saying how safe you are, you remain plastered to the wall. Can you see that arriving at step 2, faith, that you could still die of a heart attack with your faith?! What good would your faith do you? None, because it is faith without works. Faith without appropriate action won’t do you one whit of good. You might as well not have any faith at all.

Knowing that you are now safe, why would you be acting as if you are unsafe? Because the intensity of your faith (in your mind) is about a two, whereas feeler is still demanding its way at level ten. Will is choosing to go along with feeler’s assessment of the situation, even though will knows better. Feeler’s recommendation is five times stronger than mind’s at this point. Will is intimidated and chooses to go along with feeler’s demands in order to relieve the pressure. But remember who’s boss – will can overrule feeler or mind simultaneously, no matter how intensely the apply pressure to sway his choice – will is in charge.

With the passage of more time in the cabin, you will arrive at what the King James version calls “works”. That means performance, activity, behavior. You’ve got to put some action to your faith if it’s ever going to benefit you. Mind is going to say, “That bear can’t get into this cabin! Here I am with sweaty palms, dry mouth, heart palpitations, and shaky knees. I am going to have a heart attack if I don’t get my act together! Get off this wall! Sit down on that floor and relax!”
Will is beginning to act on mind’s suggestion instead of feeler’s and is starting to slap feeler around a little. “Now, relax,” you tell yourself, “shake it out. Breathe slowly and deeply. Close your eyes. Don’t look at that bear. That’ll just get your emotions all bent out of shape again. Plug your ears; don’t listen to him. Unclench your teeth, and let your tongue unstick from the roof of your mouth. Now, imagine some relaxing scene in your mind like sitting in the sun out on the creek bank in the springtime. Relax!”

You are choosing – forcing yourself – to “live like a safe man lives.” You are bringing your behavior into line with the truth, according to your faith. God’s Word calls this “walking in the light.” You are choosing to go against feeler’s recommendation because your mind has gotten more information about the security of your situation. You might say your faith has increased as a result of becoming better acquainted with the object of your faith (the cabin). Will has now determined that it would be the wise thing to overrule feeler’s intense recommendation in favor of mind’s weaker one. You have thus arrived at Step 3 – Live like a safe man lives. Act like a safe man.

As will forces all your members (except feeler) to relax on the floor and insists on exercising the authority that is his by God’s edict, Step 4 will evolve – I finally begin to feel safer – sort of.

In other words, you can never get complete control over your emotions. True, you can exercise some control over them, but never total control. It is humanly impossible to do so. God has created us to be unable to control the emotions. As a saved person, you can control your mind and will, but not your feelings. God’s plan is for us to believe Him and choose to submit ourselves to His loving care and authority regardless of how we feel.

As you have probably guessed by now, the cabin is a type of Jesus. If the believer is in Him, then aren’t we more safe than in this scenario even if we don't feel like it?

God is committed to training you to walk in the Spirit by faith, and a critical part of that training is to teach you that you cannot trust your feeler, but you can trust Him. At times, He will give you all the zingy feelings you can handle, but He won’t let you build a tabernacle there. Sometimes it will feel as though He has gone to Mars for a summer vacation. He will withdraw all experiential evidence of His presence in order to train you, indeed, to box you in and force you to walk by what you know rather than what you feel. Your job is to keep believing He has everything under control. It’s just that He’s allowing a testing time to come upon you. Don’t be anxious about it. Keep operating by what you know.

Adapted from "Lifetime Guarantee" by Bill Gillham as originally told by Chuck Solomon