Anger's Importance

As we watch the news seeing reports of horrible violence perpetuated against people, murders, and assaults it quickly leads us to condemn all violence and anger.  Our attempts to make people be nice seem only to suppress a deep rage within those who are suffering injustices.  This is evidenced by the lashing out of the Black community in America against police and police brutality.  Efforts to squelch the violence and make the Black community calm often result in more clashes and anger.  Jesus was angry on more than one occasion and yet did not sin in it.  Jesus cleared the temple with a whip overturning tables, clearly expressing anger that His Father's House had been turned into a business.  Scripture clearly talks about Jesus anger with the Pharisees but Jesus never goes down the road of wrath.  Wrath and anger are different, a person with wrath has sought to be god themselves determining how the person they have wrath with will be punished (judgment).

So Jesus was filled with anger at times and yet in the next scene after clearing the temple, we don't see Him whipping the disciples for their stupidity (they certainly displayed it at times).  We don't need to look far inside or outside the church to find how anger is expressed in unrighteous ways, there actually seems to be a growing anger/rage underneath the surface.  Road rage is on the rise each year and 37% of road rage cases involve a firearm.  I believe all the sin involved with anger has given anger a bad name.  After all Ephesians 4:26 says, "Be angry, and yet do not sin..."  It seems overall in the Body of Christ we seem to major on "...yet do not sin..." and wander why men are not as interested in church.  On a given Sunday there is an adult crowd that is 61% female and 39% male.  When church sends the message to men that they must be nice, the fierceness that is in men is quietly made unwelcome.

I am realizing that much of my anger has been surpressed in an effort to please my female run home as a child.  I have found the more my anger gets surpressed, denied, or pushed away there is a loss of the fierceness and passion needed to face life's toughest circumstances.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:12, "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force."  I don't know any violent men who don't have anger to go along with the violence.

How do we see the fierceness within our identity "in Christ" released and how do we see the Body of Christ rise up as the warrior bride she is called to be.

In the Fierceness of the Kingdom,
Bret

Father's Love: Old Self Crucified

As I worked with a ministry in the past for 7 1/2 years there would be much talk of your Old Self being dead and others who were learing their identity would talk about "dying to self".  I have to be perfectly honest all this talk about "dying to self" was not really inviting or encouraging because it seemed contrary to a God who is love and life.  In this ministry they would even talk about how God killed you (Old Self) to free you.  Again from a place in my heart and spirit this did not sit right, another part of me was offended and I know I missed some of the truth that would have helped me in my journey.

Then as I talked with someone who was stuck in the cycles of the flesh with anger, animosity, unbelief, and control I realized that the most loving thing Father could do was crucify this Old Self hiddeously married to sin.  Father was not after killing our True Selves (our identity made in His image and then united to Christ) but ridding us of the slavery of sin.  Romans 6:6-7 says, "knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin."  I believe our issues, struggles, and difficulties come from the memory of our old self and then all our attempts to fix, change, or improve what is dead.

Freedom is not to work on the Old or even listening to the Old Self it is dead but to listen to the Spirit of Christ in us who is united to our New Self.  I woke up this morning realizing that I still often feel obligation to figure out my days and orchestrate everything.  Holy Spirit said to me, "whatever you (flesh) intiate you will likely feel responsible to keep going."  Father is inviting me into a place of upgrade to be led by His Spirit and the New Man at a whole new level, yet there is a tendency to feel bad about all the distrust, disobedience, and rebellion toward Him I have walked in.  Praise God the Old Man is dead, this Old Man was crucified and done away with.  I am a New Creation, a son of God, and a New Man who is learning to trust the Holy Spirit's leading in every area of life.

What if we were to begin every day with the truth of being New Creations, beloved sons and daughters of God, seated "in Christ" in heavenly places, royalty, and righteous?  Simply leaving all the Old behind and allowing it to stay dead.  Father's love freed us from the tyranny of being obligated to the flesh, we are now obligated to the New Creation we are "in Christ" daily seeing more of who we really are in Him.

Living out my true identity as a Beloved Son,
Bret

Covenant and Inheritance

In our American society that is full of contracts with tons of legal eze and escape clauses, the whole idea and understanding of covenant is hidden.  Contracts are written with a lot of "if then" clauses, meaning that if you do this then the other party will do such and such.  Most of the time a contract to buy a car or other big item are all about protecting the parties and often benefit the seller or store.  Covenant is different, a blood covenant is based on unconditional love and is actually giving of oneself to another.  Blood covenants which are throughout the Bible and the most glorious of all covenants is the one in Jesus Christ.  Covenants are usually made between two parties, often they were made from say a lesser tribe who needed protection from a stronger tribe.  They would make a covenant binding the two tribes, that when the lesser tribe was attacked the greater was bound to come to their aid.  Since the relationship covenant was bound through blood, agreements/oathes, and a meal it would not be broken until one party died.  Different than previous covenants, the covenant in Jesus Christ is unilateral meaning from God to human beings.  God being the stronger one to a weaker one (us).  Since all of the previous covenants (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, etc..) all had a human representative who was unable to completely fulfill their side of the covenant, God chooses the only one who will not fail Jesus.

Since Jesus Christ the Son of God is both a God and man, He can perfectly represent our side by being human but will not fail because He is God.  The New Covenant does not depend on our performance, our ability, our works, or anything we do.  The covenant is between God the Father and Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit been the revealer to us of the covenant.  What is your inheritance?  There are 750 promises of God made in Jesus Christ that according to 2 Corinthians 1:20 are "yes" and we say "Amen" (so be it in our lives).  These are all the Promises (which are the life of Christ) given to us, they touch every area of our lives and our needs.  Yet many of us are not standing in the Promises of God because we think we are unworthy, don't believe it is possible, or think it is up to us.  So when we experience lack, difficulty, and adversity in our lives being ignorant of the Promises of God we wallow, fight in our own strength, or simply experience more defeat.

We have been given the Promises of God that the Holy Spirit reveal to us and fulfill in our experience so that God is glorified (2 Corinthians 1:20).  God is not glorified by your defeat or even your struggle, He is glorified when the Promise He has given is revealed to us, fulfilled and manifested in us.  The enemy of our souls is always looking to disqualify us by getting us focus on ourselves, our circumstances, or past failures.  We are in a spiritual battle and we advance by our intimacy and trust in God's goodness through His finished work in Jesus Christ and His promises.  Every promise of God is accessible to you and in every situation where there is difficult God has attached a promise so you can overcome.

In His Goodness,
Bret

God is always the Initiator

Orphans always feel like everything is up to them, nothing will get done unless they do it.  In a world that thinks like orphans there is constant pressure to handle life, it is in this backdrop that the Father speaks His words of life through Jesus.  We are bombarded in our modern world by messages of:  how to get ahead, how to get healthy, how to lose weight, how to be beautiful, how to get rich, etc...  All these assume one core truth, there is no loving Father who has already made provision for your deepest desires and needs.  I was struck by this in my own life, when a deep need of my heart came up and I was amazed that a root belief is "it's all up to me".  It is in this backdrop of being bombarded that Jesus invites us into rest.  During His time it wasn't the same exact messages that were being hurled at people, there was a ton of obligation in the religious world.  They had taken God's laws, which they believed fulfilling them would please God, and added over 600+ rules.

God is always the Initiator, He is the One who began the plan to save us from our eternal death.  Since saving was all God's idea that we had nothing to do with it, our ongoing salvation and saving is what He continues to initiate.  Imagine God saying, "I know I did a good job getting you "born again" but now the rest of your journey is completely up to you."  Yet this is often how we live.  Paul confronts the church in Galatia in Galatians 3 that having begun in the Spirit are they now being perfected by the flesh.  It is an offense to our pride and a death blow to say that we are always to be the Responders to God, He is always the Initiator.  Christ in us who is the One who is outrageously creative, who gives us our "good ideas", did you really think the idea came to you apart from God.

Romans 5:8 is so encouraging, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,Christ died for us."  We see that love initiates salvation when we were not looking for it, because we were sinners (consumed with ourselves and sin, not alive to God).  This is such good news because God is unchanging in His character, which means that since salvation was all His idea He continues to initiate your salvation on a daily basis.  This is a huge relief for me, like the day God revealed that when Jesus proclaimed "Our Father" that He took responsibility on Himself to Father us for all eternity.  Jesus saying that the Father is the Vinedresser in John 15 means that He is the One who is perfecting, changing, pruning, and transforming us.  Our response is to surrender and submit ourselves to Father's work in us, which includes in every situation that comes into our lives (God causes all things to work together for our good.....).

God being Initiator frees us from needing to initiate everything in our lives and brings us into a beautiful place of child-like dependence on God.

Resting in Father's Love,
Bret