Unity to Oneness

I was struck when I was reading an email talking about prayer for revival in our state.  I have believed that unity will be a mark of this revival in Colorado, especially since their has been so much "stake claiming" since the days of the Gold Rush.  In these days men would do anything to claim their stake and defend what they believed would bring them gold and riches.  This same attitude has prevailed in many churches where there is a need to protect their flock, their church, and build it up rather than see the Kingdom of God brought to all churches in Colorado and many lost brought into the Kingdom.  This is what I read in the email:  "In John 17, the Lord cried out to the Father asking that we be ONE as He and the Father are ONE.   Unity speaks to being on the same page in a horizontal relationship with one another that tends to focus on a common goal, project or objective. The challenge is that unity is easily broken based on man's issues of pride, offense or being self-serving.  Greater than the concept of unity, Oneness is all about being in a vertical relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.  If we are truly submitted to the Lord and are one with Him, it is much easier to be ONE in the Spirit with other believers who are also one with Him....God's unconditional love will reign in our hearts making the bond of spiritual oneness difficult to break  regardless of man's issues (the three-stranded cord).  This spiritual oneness can attract the Presence of God to a home, a school, a church or a whole community and lead to sustained transforming revival."  The Holy Spirit had taught me a lesson back a few years ago about unity that transformed the way I saw ministry and the Body.  I was meeting with an entire family that included the parents, three adult children and there spouses.  This is not typical of my ministry, so I was crying out to the Lord for help and direction.  I felt the Holy Spirit dropped into my spirit, Ephesians 4:2-3 says, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  It was the Holy Spirit changing my lens from thinking about this family one way to another, "what am I going to do to help them heal as a family" to "there is already unity in the family because of what Jesus did on the cross, you just need to help remove the stuff that gets in the way."  I realized that I no longer had to try to bring unity, peace, and harmony in the family because through the finished work of Jesus Christ it already had been purchased, since each of the family members were "born-again".  So I had a high view of unity, since this encounter with the Holy Spirit that taught me to look at relationships in a whole new way.  Yet I sensed that Father wanted to take it to a whole new level by showing me that what He is truly after is Oneness.  The unity that I had seen in the family came from the unity of the Spirit which is similar to Oneness, yet Oneness is what Jesus prayed for in John 17.  In John 17:21 says, "that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me."  The Father's plan through Jesus Christ was to bring all the people who were so separated, disconnected, and lived as orphans into One family "in Christ".  Jesus is praying this prayer before He is about ready to go to the cross, it is said that you say your most significant words before your death.  Did God fulfill the prayer that Jesus prayed that we would be One as He and the Heavenly Father were One?  The answer is yes, through His death on the cross.  And yet, I am one who wants to know- How did Jesus make us One not only with the Father but with one another?  I will be exploring what He reveals in answer to the question.  Knowing the sacrifice the Father made to make us one is unveiling another dimension of His love for us.

One in Him,
Bret

Healing an Orphan Heart through child-like trust

Father has had me meditating on child-like trust and faith, I recently preached on it at our church.  The orphan heart is rooted in a belief system that at it's core is that I am alone and can trust no one but myself.  So the need to be child-like in trust to receive Father's love smacks head-on to the orphan heart and invites us to throw ourselves unreservedly into the loving arms of our Father.  It is like a little boy or little girl who jumps carefree into the waiting arms of their daddy without a question that they will be caught.  Yet we live in an orphan planet that questions trusting anyone else unless I figure out it is too my benefit, in this world to blindly trust is to get hurt.  As I was sick yesterday, napping, and trying to recover I decided to watch "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and I forgot how wonderful it is to get lost in such magnificent tales of adventure, magic, and royalty.  I loved in the story as they step into the world of Narnia, instantly they are reminded of their true identity as noble, honorable, and good kings and queens.  It is only when we see ourselves in a heavenly setting that we will truly remember our true identity and purpose.  Being mired in an orphan world with constant lying, cheating, manipulating, stealing, backbiting, and selfish ambition we are deluded to believe we are not noble in character and identity.  You and as children of the Father of glory are amazing and brilliant people, who are often not recognized by the darkness around us and at times not see by our own family, friends, and even ourselves.  Could it be that you are far more brilliant, honorable, and good than is commonly seen?  It is only when we allow the Holy Spirit to take the Word of God and our child-like imagination that the truth is opened up to us.  Since you have been born-again and are a New Creation, filled with the Light of Christ you are truly from another world.  It is this wonderful and innocent child-like imagination that opens up the realm of the unseen, to reveal mysteries and wanders.  I believe Jesus lived as a child to His Father in constant child-like dependence but also in wander of the absolute goodness of His Father.  I will even submit to you that this Father He knew so well, I believe also brought Him surprises at times.  Children loved to be surprised by wonderful new things and adventures, Jesus lived with this type of innocence and wander.  Jesus invitation to the disciples in Matthew 18:1-4 to become child-like was not to try it out just a little and return to orphan like living but to get lost like a child in the Father's world.  Father has not only seated us in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and given us an inheritance (Romans 8:17) but invited us to partake of heavenly resources (Philippians 4:19).  This is world of child-like imagination, adventure, and new realms that we must have simple trust to see opened up to us.  As I went into our pre-service prayer, one of our intercessors said that an unusual thing happened that morning, that there was two large warrior angels who had come in.  My orphan thinking started to go off about, yeah right large angels, can you really see them, ......  All this unbelief and orphan ways, til in a child-like way I could delight in a Father that knew my need for protection and deployed two large angels to watch over me and the message I would deliver.  When I let myself enter His world, I saw that the message I was about to deliver was significant and that people's lives would be greatly changed and transformed.  See in Father's world we are someone and in His world supernatural and even mysterious things can happen because His world (heaven) operates by different laws.

A little boy with a BIG DAD,
Bret

P.S. You can check out my sermon at www.bridgeway.us under sermons.  Enjoy.

Rebuilding Ruins

I was recently watching NOVA about the World Trade Center being destroyed but more importantly rebuilt into a new building, museum, and memorial.  I sensed the Holy Spirit highlighting to me the parallels between restoring this icon of the New York skyline and rebuilding the temple of God which is the Body of Christ.  I had never reflected on this before, that the Body of Christ is called His temple being built up on the chief cornerstone being Christ with apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3 & 4).  We individually are also called the Temple of the Holy Spirit and Jesus said that He was the temple that they could destroy and God would rebuild in 3 days.  As NOVA described needing to move 1.8 million tons of debris from Ground Zero to get down to the bedrock, I see how the Holy Spirit needs to remove tons of orphan thinking, living, and strongholds that have become devastation in our lives.  There are lies we have believed, vows we have made, judgements we have made against those who have hurt us, sin we have committed in response to the hurt that has being visited on us, and broken hearts from those who have sinned against us.  Like the World Trade Center this is massive undertaking to restore the Body of Christ to her intended glory.  Of course, the architects of the new One World Trade Center wanted to build a safer, more secure, and more stable building then the original World Trade Center.  The World Trade Center was the only steel structure skyscraper to ever implode on itself because of fire.  The Lord often gives us prophetic symbols in the natural world to point to what He is doing in the unseen Spirit realm.  I believe the World Trade Center is one of those type of symbols, if we are willing to see what He sees.  In Isaiah 61 the anointing that is on the coming Messiah is described, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD"  (Isaiah 61:1-2).  Jesus stops mid-sentence when He is quoting this Scripture in the Synagogue(Luke 4:17-21) because the second part of this Scripture refers to the time period of His second coming.  Jesus Christ is about bringing Good News from God about the redemption and restoration of people who are in need of a Savior.  The second half of this Scripture is, "And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.  Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, They will raise up the former devastations; And they will repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations." (Isaiah 61:2-4).  Resurrected a temple of God made up of people who have yielded their lives to total surrender and dependence on the One who created them and now is recreating them "in Christ" is a much more amazing feat than the millions of tons of steel, concrete, and glass it is taking to rebuild One World Trade Center.  Like the account of Nehemiah rebuilding the desolation of the walls of Jerusalem, this is a tremendous undertaking with much risk, lots of resources, energy, and time committed.  Yet since God took such care to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem which is a city, can you imagine what He is willing to do raise up His Bride and His Body.

Former desolation being rebuilt,
Bret

Closing the Door to Orphanhood

The Holy Spirit highlighted the ministry of John the Baptist and his main message, which was "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 3:2)  The Holy Spirit revealed to me that John the Baptist whole ministry was to prepare the way for Jesus, so if we want to encounter Jesus we must repent.  Those who did not repent from their way of thinking and living were not able to recognize who Jesus really was as the Messiah and ushering in the Kingdom of God.  The Holy Spirit was also highlighting when Jesus corrected the disciples thinking about who would be greatest in the Kingdom of God by sitting a child on His lap and convert to a child they would not enter the Kingdom of God.  The word convert is similar to repent, converting and becoming childlike meant being trusting, lowly, loving, and forgiving (according to Matthew 18:3 Amplified version).  The disciples at this point were acting out of an orphan heart and orphan thinking when Jesus calls them to repentance to becoming childlike (sons and daughters) to enter the Kingdom of God.  Recently, the Holy Spirit challenged me to close the door on living as an orphan.  I asked Him when this door got opened and how to close it.  He showed me that at age 5 when I did not feel protected by my mother that I began the journey of being alone in the world.  We have a tendency to follow the first orphan (satan) and the first parents on the planet (Adam & Eve), declaring our independence and being alone (the Fall).  The truth is we were never designed to live in independence from the God who created us, we were meant to live in continual fellowship with Him.  The Holy Spirit then showed that after age 5 the door to orphanhood was completely opened when I believed the lie at age 6 that I alone in my grief and pain.  This was the age when my father committed suicide, it was not the event that caused so much damage but what I believe and chose based on the lies.  Later at age 7, I remember being alone in my room and believing the lie that I would never have a father.  The door to being an orphan was standing wide open, inviting me to live a life of loneliness, fear, and survival.  Going through this door meant that as I played sports, went to class in school, or walked home that I was walking the lonely road as an orphan in the darkness only accompanied by the great weight loneliness with it's dark and foreboding talons that dig deep into the heart.  I believe this is the old man that died on the cross (the lie-believing orphan), according to Romans 6 and the new man that came out of being united to Christ was a son who lives in continual awareness of God's Presence.  Jesus as the firstborn Son lived in a continual awareness of His Father's Presence, only doing and saying what the Father said and did.  This was a relationship of childlike dependence, Jesus is our model for sonship and the one who has made a way for us to be sons and daugthers of God.  I finally was ready to shut the door to orphanhood, fatherlessness, and loneliness as the Holy Spirit had identified the key lies and times when I believed them.  I needed Jesus help to shut this heavy wooden door with huge bolts holding it together, it was much to heavy for a small child to shut but with Jesus's help I was able to shut it.  Then with Jesus helping me we nailed the door shut, then we nailed boards across it so that it will never be opened again.  It takes declaration in the Kingdom to see things shifted.  The Door to being an Orphan, Alone, and fatherless is now closed never to be opened again!!!!!!  I am not alone and will never be alone, I will live life continually in His Presence!  Declaration aligns me with the truth of what has been purchased for me through the death, burial, resurrection, and acension of Jesus Christ.  The invitation is for you to close the door to being an orphan and start living in your true identity as a son or daughter.  You were made to carry the Presence of God (the Holy Spirit) and live in continual awareness of your Father who loves you.  I like this version of the Father's Love Letter because the reality of the truth of Father's love is sinking in deeper to my soul.

In Father's Love,
Bret

P.S.  Listen to messages on Orphan to Son by Peter Young at www.bridgeway.us.