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Your focus of worship, what you depend on to bring you life and salvation has been your lineage from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You have believed that because you are a Jew that you have the inside track to God and because you possess intellectual truth more than the others in the world that you can be saved by it.
But it is not membership in a group or possession of piety or power that you need to be saved. It is an intimate, personal acquaintance with the author of life – Jesus the Messiah. He is the One that God has designated to be honored and worshiped. He is the One with a servant attitude, an attitude opposite yours, who spent time among you demonstrating the real truth about God. But in your religious blindness you disowned the very One who came to rescue you. You went so far as to force death onto the very Author of life. This should tell you something about what is inside of you.
But God, the very essence of life, raised up the One you had killed and filled Him with even more glorious life. You are in a tug-o-war between life and death and you need to realize you are at the wrong end of the rope, the opposite end from where God is.
Our part in this is not to condemn and judge you. Your own hearts will do that to you when you realize the truth. But that too will not save you. Our function is simply to testify to what we know and experience of the truth about God and His transformational work in our lives. It is the power that occurs by knowing and trusting Jesus that has been revealed in this man's heart as well as his body. When this man exercised faith in the revelation of the truth about God's attitude toward us as revealed in Jesus, he received healing, liberating, life-changing power right here in your presence. It all happened in the presence of you who still cling to death-producing attitudes.
Why was this man healed? Because he opened his heart and mind to the real Source of life and God is glorifying His Son Jesus through this man. Now this man, like us, has become a true witness who can testify to you of first-hand experience of the truth about God. God, the true source of all life and blessing, has given this man perfect health in every way. That is what God delights to do and desires to do for everyone if they would only give Him permission by entering into a faith-producing submission to Him.
Yes, This event has created great conflict and tension in your minds. You are feeling very guilty and convicted now that you see reality and your wicked attitude toward the real God. But even so, you have been ignorant of the truth about God. But you did not surprise Him when you killed His Son in ignorance and bigotry. He prophesied it all long ago. But now that you realize your true nature you need to act in the light of the true revelation of God and turn away from the lies, the prejudice, the false piety and self-centered religiosity. Turn to God, be transparent and honest with Him so that He can cleanse your hearts and minds of all this death-producing fear, guilt and condemnation. As you enter the presence of God you will experience wonderful times of refreshing renewal. He will fill you with life and joy and peace.
This is not a new religion. This truth about what is real and God's relationship toward us is actually the true understanding of our own history. Moses himself, the one you revere as a champion of your legalism, actually believed and prophesied about this very thing. He believed in Jesus himself. In fact, the law itself that came through Moses warns you that if you do not heed this revelation to your heart you will be cut off from God's people. All of your prophets have uniformly looked forward to Jesus and the true means of salvation if you understand them from God's point of view.
You yourselves are privileged to be descendants of these very prophets. You are already privileged to be in this covenant relationship with God through which God intends to bless all the families of the earth, not just Jews. You are right now in the very unique position of already being in this blood covenant and to be first in line to receive God's blessing directed to you through His Servant/Son Jesus. This blessing comes by Jesus turning each of you away from wickedness, fighting against life and God, toward the true source of life and health and real peace.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Amazement or Unbelief - Gatesitter series
Amazement is often an external symptom of internal unbelief. If we believed the truth about God's real desires for us we would not be so much amazed as overjoyed when we see it enacted in our lives. Peter realized that the people needed to get past amazement to focusing on Jesus (in his response to healing the lame beggar). If they stayed in amazement they were resisting belief.
The reason you are amazed is because you have always falsely believed that personal piety would produce power to work miracles. You believe in perfectionism and worth based on genealogy. This miracle doesn't fit your criteria of qualifications. It confronts many of your foundational religious assumptions. As humans just like you we do not possess power or piety that invokes power from heaven. It is not even our forefather's piety that empowered this miracle. The Source of all power and all piety is farther back than our ancestors – it is God Himself. And in your supposed piety and obsession with power you disowned Him by rejecting His Son. Your piety led you to choose a murderer over the Son of God. Your idea of power led you to kill the very Author of Life Himself. (Acts 3:12-16)
Monday, March 6, 2006
Gatesitter scene 6 - Power and Piety
“...as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? (Acts 3:12)
The paradigm of humanity is the craving for these elements to be the source of salvation. We want POWER – lots of power, overwhelming power to FORCE change. We want to be so powerful we can intimidate others into compliance with our beliefs or wishes. We believe power is the answer to sin and pain and dysfunction, but we don't understand the way God uses power. We want power to establish our plans. We use power in the context of fear. Even our promotion of God is usually based on fear, the wrong kind of fear induced by the lies about how He uses power.
In the same vein many believe that piety is the answer and the means of salvation. This belief is far more subtle and dangerous because it appears so righteous and religious. It is picked right off the Good side of the Tree of Knowledge. It sometimes promotes itself as the more noble approach to successful religious life than power. It is viewed by some as stronger than forcing others into conformity. It is usually centered in forcing one's self into religious compliance with an endless list of expectations and achievements that must be performed to satisfy the demands of holiness. It is assumed that if enough piety is generated in the life then supernatural events will begin to occur as a result to validate their accomplishments of piety. These miracles, it is believed, will be given as acknowledgment of this person's growing proximity to the perfection of God. If a person can achieve a high enough, pure enough piety before God and men then God will begin to answer their prayers more often and will endow them with power to perform miracles so that others will recognize and acknowledge their achievement of successful piety.
At this point it is believed that their piety and corresponding power will produce amazement, wonder and awe in other people that will be their witness as others focus on their accomplishments. People will appreciate and honor them for their righteousness and God will be more pleased and/or less angry with them.
Because the lame – now healed man was probably very aware of this theology at least intuitively, he understandably found himself clinging to the ones who had apparently healed him. As the crowd quickly thickened and the amazement intensified he felt not only pressure from the publicity of his transformed identity but felt obligated to steer all the attention and glory away from himself to not only God but onto Peter and John. It appeared that, according to the evidence and based on religious assumptions, these men must have somehow figured out the right formula of piety to unlock the power of God. Thus the crowds were ready and eager to perform their role by heaping praise and glory on these men for their piety and accomplishments. They were also eager to find out the secret formula for themselves so they too could exercise this kind of power.
Thus the situation was urgent and ripe for Peter and John to clarify what was reality and what was false assumptions about religion and God's ways. At this point they seized on the opportunity to launch into a most powerful expose´ of the truth and God's real plan for His children. It was time for people to hear the real good news.
Sunday, March 5, 2006
Gatesitter scene 5 - Focus
He began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. This is exactly what they requested of him. While it is true that he had never been presented with an opportunity to be healed before, it was equally true that he could miss this opportunity if he did not focus his attention on what was being offered him.
Focus has multiple implications. Inherently focus means tuning out all other demands for attention, no matter how apparently important or urgent. Focus means actively discipling the thought and emotions to be directed at only one person or thing. Focus demands active participation and an exercise of choice, to use the “kingly” power of our will.
Focus also implies an object of focus. He had probably focused many times on different things: his bitterness over being lame, his poverty, his helplessness, his parents, potential sources of income... He was likely under heavy influence of the spirit of Mammon. He was focused on doing whatever it took to try to get money so he could eek out a living.
After years of fruitless attempts to better himself by focusing on different sources of help and hope for his life, he may have come to the place where he hardly cared to focus on anything anymore outside himself. Hope itself was slipping away, especially after Jesus the healer had been killed, and deep depression and hopelessness was settling into his soul like a thickening fog. Everything was now viewed through a deepening mist and there was very little reason left to even continue living. All his hopes and dreams had been swallowed up by the relentless approaching fog and he was settling into a mindless routine of just surviving to beg for one more day.
So when Peter and John suddenly stopped in front of this man's lowered head and insisted that he look them straight in the eyes, it came to him like a shaft of sunlight bolting through a rift in the clouds. They asked for the one and only thing from this man that is the only thing any person genuinely owns that can be offered to another as a gift – the gift of his undivided attention. They were already giving him this gift themselves and they asked him to respond likewise. If he chose not to respond to their request because of choosing to remain in his self-pity and despondency, he would not have placed himself in the position to receive the far greater gifts they had to offer him.
They did not offer him more of what he thought he needed. Instead they wanted to re-awaken the original dreams and hopes that he had now given up as unrealistic for his life. God had placed the hope for healing in his heart originally. God had inspired him to want to dance and twirl and leap for joy like some of the little children he used to observe. There had been a time in his life when he was a friend of many of the children who played around the temple area. He had listened to them and been a friend to them as they had shared their sympathy and their own hearts with him. But lately even the children didn't come around much because they found him too depressing. He was more alone than ever and wondered why God wouldn't just let him die.
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