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Posts Tagged ‘kingdom of heaven’

Beatitude

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

I looked it up, the word, beatitude. It actually comes from the Latin word, beātitūdō, which means perfect happiness. I was already suspect with the idea of “perfect,” not to mention the leap to my struggle with perfectionism. Add the expectation of happiness, a most elusive beast [it’s right up there with joy], and I feel like the entire premise is a prescription for failure.

Matthew 5:1-3a
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Blessed are . . .

Of course, it gets worse before it gets better. Most people have the general understanding of the beatitudes. They know it’s a list of blessings based on a series of paradoxical statements. In other words, be perfectly happy when you are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, and pure in heart while peacemaking and being persecuted. Now, if that doesn’t make you want to jump up and follow Jesus, what will?

I’m only kidding, of course. But really, the beatitudes feel like the high end of understanding and following Jesus. Despite professing the Christ for over thirty years, I break out in a sweat when I have to revisit the beatitudes. They seem to uncover me or reveal me in a way that nothing else in scripture does. I feel like I need to go to a meeting, stand up and say, “Hi, I’m Irmgarde, and I’m not living out the beatitudes.”

You know, the implication is that this was the summary teaching, the preview of everything that came later. Jesus ultimately walked out these seven verses [Matthew 4:3-10] in the next three years of his ministry. And all the while, he’s saying, this is the way despite what you may think or see. Here is the real freedom. Here is answer to what it means to be fully human.

Let’s all pause and think about that today.

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Lower and then Higher

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Two Angels by Peter Shor

Part of the mystery of God’s plan for the Messiah was that he would enter human life fully, and although he would be restored to that greater place in the Kingdom, he would first live among us, that life lower than the angels, yet full of potential for kingdom living.

Hebrews 2:5, 7-8a
It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
“You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” [Psalm 8:5-6]

Jesus spent his short but intense ministry doing everything he could to explain, describe, and illustrate the mystery of living and loving in the kingdom of heaven on earth. Undoubtedly, if all else fails, once we let go of our mortal bodies, a fuller understanding of heaven will manifest. And yet, I have to agree with Rob Bell in his latest book, Love Wins, that we are missing the opportunity of our lifetimes: to experience heaven now, to be fully present and responsive to the Holy Spirit now, and thereby, “draw all men [and women] unto Him” [John 12:32]

Currently, I am still reading Sun Stand Still by Stephen Furtick and was caught off guard by another aspect of this idea (which he has reworked from A. W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy), that our view of God drives how we live out our faith. If our God view is that of a disciplinarian, then we will work hard to “perform” well for God. If God is a dictator, then we’ll limit our actions to what we believe God allows. If God is loving and kind, then we will live freely and in confidence that we can make mistakes. “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” [A. W. Tozer]

If it’s true that God provided a Redeemer, a Messiah, to help all human beings “start over” and establish direct and intimate relations with God, the supreme and sovereign One God, then why bother? What are we supposed to be doing with this renewed relationship? Is it just a personal escape from the fires of Hell or are we supposed to be living out our lives more like the Christ?

We are still “lower than the angels” but I do believe that we are called to be higher, blessed and reunited through our life with the Holy Spirit.

How many times did Jesus chastise his own disciples for their “lack of faith?” [Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 16:8, to name a few]

“Whoever finds his [lower] life will lose it [the higher life], and whoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find it [the higher life].” [Matthew 10:39, Amplified]

What might that look like today?

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Saved from What? Again

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

Photo by Roy Mac

A friend of mine derisively asked me what traditional Christians believed they were being saved from? She, who believes more so in the oneness of all things and the greater gestalt of body, mind, & soul, has no reason to entertain an eventual end result of hell. Is that what salvation is all about: “not” hell and “yes” heaven?

I Timothy 4:16
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

It’s not quite so simple for me. I mean, I believe in a God that is so not like us that we can’t fathom what God IS. Why else would God say, “I am that I am” [Exodus 3:4]. God is non-dimensional in a human sense and because God probably dwells in a non-dimensional or other-dimensional world (for lack of a better term), is that heaven? Or is that simply not our world?

Then, to complicate matters, some of this non-dimensional space exists within us — that’s the “kingdom within” stuff.

“Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is within you.’ “[Luke 17:20-21]

Isn’t the kingdom heaven? Yes. Within . . . and without. Because God is greater than my interior self or my personal piece of the Holy Spirit.

So what is hell then? Well, it’s certainly NOT any of those things. It’s not experiencing the kingdom within or without. It’s not being aware of personal spirit, much less Holy Spirit. It’s a separation. The question is whether there is sentience (awareness, mental perception, consciousness) after the body stops working, after the body dies. Is it hell because the self knows it is separated? [See the story of Lazarus, a poor man who begged at the gate of a rich man every day. Lazarus died and went to heaven while the rich man died and went to hell – and knew it. Luke 16:19-31]

Christ says the way of the personal spirit, the soul if you will, is easy after “body death” when it’s connected to a “host.” We are literally invited to become parasitic and leech off the Holy Spirit as much as we want. I know these terms are generally used in a negative sense, but think about it. And for interest’s sake, I found that one of the synonyms for parasite is follower or apostle as well as bootlicker, sycophant and servant.

“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” [I Timothy 2:3-4]

Knowledge of the truth is awareness of the way.

To be saved then is to discover the inner way and to be conscious of it, to choose to jump on the back of the Host. Once attached and embedded, then Self is redirected and desire is born to love, to help, to enlighten, to listen, to bear, to hope, to renew, to persist, to expand, to glow, to know, and to become transparent.

There are a lot of people who are bashing Rob Bell for his latest book called “Love Wins.” Lots of hype. But it’s interesting to me to discover how many people are angry that he is saying that Love might be so powerful that it will become the ultimate paradox and break open the gates of hell. God is Love and God provided the Christ to reveal the mystery of the love message and the Holy Spirit to work the message in our lives.

In the early days of my Christian walk, I cringed when well-meaning people in passionate church settings would ask me if I’d been saved. I had no idea what they were talking about except for some vague sense of possibly escaping the fires of Dante’s Inferno if I asked Jesus into my heart. Asking Jesus into one’s heart is only effective if we latch on tight to the Host. Life is a rodeo. And hell is a tsunami of the soul.

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Glory of the New Covenant

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Where is this glory of the New Covenant? Some would say it is totally manifested in the Christ through the Holy Spirit. That’s fine to say, but where is it today? I have heard others say, the glory is the character of Christ. Is that all there is to it? Really? Just a concept?

II Corinthians 3:7-8
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?

This scripture references the specific glory that was reflected in the face of Moses as a result of his time with God and the creation of the ten commandments. It wasn’t just his demeanor and it wasn’t the Holy Spirit shining out from within. But it was Light and it was Power and it was evident. And according to Paul, the glory of the New Covenant, the power and light of the law of Spirit written on the hearts of believers, that message is brighter and stronger.

I think the Light has been shuttered by unbelief.

There’s so much talk about “scriptura sola” (by scripture alone) and the inerrant Word of God and yet, some of the most potent statements are tamed: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” [John 14″12] or “. . . I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” [Matthew 17:20b]

Until we are operating in these arenas, we have not experienced the fullness of the New Covenant.

Until we are loving God and loving others fully, we are not functioning according to the truth of Christ.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is Light and power and strength. But the Holy Spirit will not do battle with us either. We must work together.

I’m still going “my own way.” I confess. I make a plan and constantly ask God to bless it (or fix it when things go badly). And, in His grace and patience, God waits for me to get it, to really let go.

Dying to self [John 12:23-25] is not be just some nice poetry. It is the true “way” to the out-flowing of power, the unshuttered Light, the glory.

But to die to myself is change like no other change I have ever known or seen. It’s a total unknown. What does that dying look like? What does that feel like? What do I say or do? Or not do or say?

Some people have sought out this place of Spirit flow . . . they’ve laughed themselves silly, they’ve twitched, they’ve dropped gold dust from their fingertips, and they’ve spoken in tongues for hours and hours. But until the Glory manifests through the presence and release of the Holy Spirit, these are interpretive manifestations.

I don’t have any answers at all, but I do sense a missing piece.

Like the Kingdom that is within so is the Glory. It’s there. It’s here. Holy, holy, holy.

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Opposing God

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on November 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Acts 11:17
“So if God gave them [gentiles] the same gift as he gave us [Jews], who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I [Peter] to think that I could oppose God?”

How often do we make judgments against others? How often do we doubt that God can touch a life? How often do we assume that we have “it” right and the others do not?

If we didn’t doubt, we would be telling our story every day. We would be loving everyone whose life path crossed our own. We would love as Jesus loved.

One would think I’d get this right by now. After all, I was once on the other side of the story.

After I accepted Christ as my guide and my King, my savior and my redeemer, I returned to acting school in New York (I was in my brother’s home for the holiday). As people began to hear about my conversion experience, I was told quite bluntly (and more than once): “You? You are the last person that I would ever expect to become a Christian.” My life was so depraved that no one imagined that I could change. My language was peppered with swearing; I really doubt there was one sentence I could say without some form of f**k, sh*t, or any of the other expletives, be they verbs, adjectives, adverbs or nouns. I was a regular drug and alcohol user. I was active sexually. I even worked as a bookkeeper in a place where I kept two sets of records. I was a liar and a thief. I justified my behaviors easily because I was totally self-absorbed.

There were some things that actually did change overnight but there were many other lifestyle habits that did not. Was I any less a believer or lover of Jesus?

I can see now that it was the Holy Spirit who was my patient teacher. And I am learning that it’s not about “being” a Christian by following the laws or rules. Instead, it’s about walking on the Way, a process of integrating the kingdom of God into my heart, mind, soul, and eventually, my daily life. The Bible can open the door but it is the body of believers who walk through it together that changes lives.

A young woman who was in one of my bible studies once asked me if I really believed that a Democrat could be a Christian. And I say yes, because God is not limited by political agendas, sin, violence, or religious dogma. God can touch anyone, teach anyone, love everyone. Who am I to oppose God?

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Out of This World

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on September 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

John 18:36
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

If one of us from the 21st century was catapulted back in time, we might encounter some small understanding of the differences between Jesus and the “world” in which he found himself. His appearance in human history was a great turning point. His ministry time was spent trying to explain, through teaching, stories, actions, demonstrations, miracles, and transformations, what his kingdom was like. For some people, it continued to be a “foreign language.”

Becoming a true follower of Christ requires some “out of the box” thinking. I think we have really downplayed his supernatural Self. What would happen if Jesus showed up in our century? How would he convince anyone that he was not of this world… that He was the Son of God… that he was the king of another kingdom?

The first thing he did was live among the people for some thirty years. He learned the “ways of the land.”

In the end, he did a very simple thing: he built relationships and told stories. He accepted people where they were and shared his insights with them. He even healed some of them. And each one, either through a story they heard, a touch, or a healing, each one was sent out to tell what he or she had heard, saw or felt.

We all respond differently to what we experience. Each story, each testimony, each image, and each word we share is part of the tapestry of Christ’s presence on earth. Jesus’s kingdom is all about potential: a mustard seed, a treasure hidden in a field, a mystery, a fisherman’s net, a small child, a banquet. Each one is a word picture for another way of living… another kingdom.

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Save the World

Posted in Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

John 3:17 (Amplified edition)
For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

How many of us have forgotten that the Son didn’t come just “to save” us as individuals but for the sake of the world. Just like the world in the time of Noah, we have been on a crash course for ruin. And everything has suffered: the animals, the landscape, the oceans, the weather, the children … everything. So God sent his “only Son” to make a supreme sacrifice so that the law of sowing and reaping could be nullified for anyone who believed in Him. This process is not just so you and I can go to “heaven” when we give our bodies back to the Earth. This “deal” was made for the whole world. This was a supernatural transaction.

Those of us who have believed are in the recovery business…. recovering that which has been lost.
We are in the lighting business… shining in the dark places.
We are in the food business… bringing savor (salt) to the tasteless.
We are in the hydro business… bringing streams of water to the dry places.
We are in the messenger business… bringing the good news that the Kingdom of God is near.

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