In2Freedom

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

On This Day: "To Hear, to See, and to Hope"

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

On This Day: "God's Thoughts About My Thoughts of Him"

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Monday, January 16, 2023

On This Day: "The God Who is With Me"

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Friday, January 13, 2023

The Now and Then of the Children of God

One of the things I have really appreciated about meeting with my heavenly Father in the mornings is his determination to show me that his side of the relationship is constant and unwavering no matter how much my feelings are like a rollercoaster of never-ending ups-and-downs. In fact, it often seems that the more honest I am about the Deeper of how poorly I am doing when I awake, the more glorious the Higher is when God makes his word known to me in the most real and personal of ways.

This morning was no exception to this. I was thoroughly honest with God (without belaboring how I was feeling) and came to him with the boldness that honors him even when I am struggling. I approached him with an expression of dependence that it is up to him how my time with him turned out, and he opened the eyes of my heart to come to know him by experience in a wonderfully new facet of what it means to come to Mount Zion.[1]

It began here:

Within her citadels God

has made himself known as a fortress.[2]

This is the way I have known God for the past three decades, that my coming to him every day is coming into the fortress of God himself, the one place and the one person who is always happy to see me, always forgiving of my sins, always wanting the absolute best for me.

Then I continued on with the next verse:

For behold, the kings assembled;

they came on together.[3]

I spent some time considering how things look under the new covenant when there are really no physical protections in place as there were under the old covenant, and there are no promised earthly blessings as there were under God’s covenant with Israel.[4]

This led to a deep appreciation for how Jesus’ first coming contrasts with his second coming, and the parallel between what the church looks like now in the world with what it will look like at and after Jesus’ return.

In summary, Jesus’ first coming was quiet, humble, and unnoticed, leaving only 120 disciples with whom he would build his church.[5] The second coming will be so brilliant, glorious, and visible, that the whole world know it is him and will mourn what they did to him. As it is written, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”[6]

In a parallel way, the church during the church-age (between Jesus’ two comings) is unnoticed. It is persecuted because the world is blind to who we are. The media does not speak of the wonderful things Jesus does in his church. The nations do not speak of how Jesus transforms people out of their earthly religions into genuine relationship with God. But Jesus is quietly building his church without any fanfare. For now.

But at his return, the trumpet will blast, the dead in Christ will be raised first, and Jesus’ angels will gather those believers who are alive at his return so that all God’s children will be taken up to be with Jesus as he comes down to judge the earth.[7]

Which brought me to this expression that sums up what it is like to presently come to the Mount Zion of God’s throne-room while the world does not know we are doing so:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.[8]

In the present time, believers coming to Mount Zion is invisible to the world. We suffer in this world because the world has no concept that they are defying the living God. Even those who do so blatantly do not really know with whom they have to do, and what a horror it will be to them when Jesus appears.[9]

But what is coming is an experience of “the glory that is to be revealed to us,” and that glory includes “the revealing of the sons of God.” And we will be revealed to the enemies of God as every eye is on Jesus and his return, and the world in its terror and anguish and mourning sees who is gathered to join Jesus’ angels and come to be with him in judging the nations. And when all believers are standing there with Jesus, everyone will know who are the sons of God.

I hope that gives a glimpse into what it felt like to come to Yahweh as my fortress this morning and be thoroughly and delightfully surprised to receive such treasures of wisdom and knowledge that cannot be found anywhere else or in anyone else. And all this was such a wonderful (and wonder-filled) gift to a child whose heart came to God unable to imagine how he would help me. But help me he did, and for that I give him praise!

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

[1] My ongoing theme as of late based on Hebrews 12:18-25.

[2] Psalm 48:3

[3] Psalm 48:4

[4] Yes, there are promises to believers that apply to our earthly life, but the new covenant is not based on the same material blessings and curses that were clearly stipulated in the old covenant for the nation of Israel.

[5] Acts 1:15

[6] Revelation 1:7

[7] This is a mixture of the glorious thoughts revealed in Matthew 24:29-31, along with Paul’s teachings about the return of Christ in I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Together, they picture Jesus appearing in the clouds, the dead in Christ being raised, the angels gathering all the believers to be with the Lord as he continues to descend to the earth, believers being with our Savior as he judges all people, and then watching Jesus invoke the horrible and wonderful realities of the purging of the present heavens and earth and the making of the new heavens and earth (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; II Peter 3:11-13; Revelation 21:1).

[8] Romans 8:18-19

[9] Revelation 6:12-17 describes this horrible reality.

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Glorious Tapestry of the Pleasures of God

Yes, I know that people mock the very idea that the Bible is the word of God. And, yes, I know that people claim that king Darwin has dethroned the Creator with his fanciful fairy tales of the evolutionary religion.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!

While the blind lead the blind away from the glories of God’s word, the poor in spirit open the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge and are moved with awe and wonder at the splendors of their Father’s mind.

One of the treasures of God’s Book that constantly delights me is the way he weaves his words together like the threads of a tapestry so that the combination exalts the big picture of history as God’s glorious work of making a people of his very own, his treasured possession, his beloved and cherished children, and, at the same time, the big picture of the tapestry draws attention to one thread after another so that the very intricacies of the connections glorifies God for so masterfully revealing himself through words, and by his Spirit, that we can feel the joy of knowing God as our God.

Here is a glimpse into the way God masterfully wove together so many threads of wisdom and knowledge this morning that my praise to him had to be directed into praise about him.

For a while, God has drawn my attention to a scene in the tapestry that is described as, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”[1] This is written to Jesus’ church, the people of the new covenant. It is telling us that, while we face persecution and trouble in this world, we are not to think of God as some scary being that is totally unapproachable.[2] Instead, we are to see what Jesus has done for us in the new covenant and come before God in a way that is illustrated by God’s people coming to Mount Zion while under the old covenant.[3]

This has taken me on a journey of following the “Mount Zion” thread from its first appearance in the tapestry all the way to the glorious scene I just mentioned, and even further into the final book of God’s word that gives such majestic and glorious revelations of the heavenly Jerusalem that will be the home of God’s children forever.

Here are some other threads God wove together in my mind and heart so I could see the picture of what it means to come to Mount Zion today in the kingdom of God as illustrated by all the ways God made himself known through the Mount Zion of old.

In the last couple of days, I have followed the “Mount Zion” thread into Psalm 48. There I read that Mount Zion is God’s “holy mountain, beautiful for elevation”. Both “holy” and “beautiful” indicate that Mount Zion, the place associated with God’s presence with his people, is set apart and exalted above and beyond any of the locations the nations use to worship their gods and idols.

This thread wove into another that reminded me of the way “God has highly exalted” Jesus[4] so that the holy and beautiful elevation of Mount Zion includes the holy and beautiful exaltation of Jesus Christ our Lord.

But then I noticed another thread attached to these others as it reminded me that God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”[5] This means that even while we are here on earth looking up to the Mount Zion of God’s presence in heaven, there is another side to this in the way we who are “in Christ” are raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places. Somehow, already, our spiritual position is at the foot of Mount Zion where Jesus is exalted, and we are seated with him at the right hand of the Father.

These threads added another that reminded me that, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”[6] We do not let ourselves adjust our emotions to the evil of the world, but we attach to the realities of Mount Zion that is filled with joy because of the joyfulness of God, and where Jesus himself is seated at the right hand of God’s eternal pleasures giving real pleasure to his beloved brothers.

As I pondered and meditated on this, considering how we are both living as “sojourners and exiles” in this world[7] while also seated with Christ in the heavenlies, I saw how this thread was woven all the way back to Abraham who lived in tents while “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”[8] Abraham, the Father of our faith, lived like a stranger in the land that God has promised him, not looking only so far ahead as to consider the nation that would come from his son, but even further to the heavenly city he already knew was the focus of the story.

And that led me to Paul talking about our earthly life as living in a tent,[9] just like Abraham, because this earth is not our home. This earthly body is not the one we live in for eternity (falling on the ice at public skating Friday has reminded me in new and painful ways that this body just ain’t what it used to be!). We will one day be clothed with immortality as we are given our resurrected bodies, and in that much superior version we will rejoice in heavenly joy forever.[10]

The conclusion of all these threads weaving the picture God wants me to see right now is that everything he wants his children to think about in the darkness and evil of this world is that we are not coming to our nations, or our governments and leaders, or other world leaders and evil elites, but we are coming to the God who reigns from the heavenly Mount Zion where we are positionally seated with Christ in the most joyful and pleasurable place that exists. That is where we set our minds while the world’s evils try to wear us down.

As the writer of Hebrews had already stated,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (like Abraham), let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.[11]

There we have it: Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God on Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, where we are seated with him, where the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore pour into our hearts from above while we endure the darkness of this evil world below, and as we “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,” we will “not grow weary or fainthearted.”[12]

And I trust that my considering of the Triune God of Mount Zion helps you in that direction as much as it has helped me.

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

[1] Hebrews 12:22

[2] As described in Hebrews 12:18-21 when God came to Mount Sinai to give Israel the Law through Moses

[3] The rest of the scene is described in Hebrews 12:22-25 but my focus at this time is on the Mount-Zion thread

[4] Philippians 2:9-11

[5] Ephesians 2:6

[6] Psalm 16:11

[7] I Peter 2:11

[8] Hebrews 11:9-10

[9] II Corinthians 5:1-5

[10] Paul gives an extensive description of our resurrected bodies in relation to the resurrection in I Corinthians 15.

[11] Hebrews 12:1-2

[12] Hebrews 12:3

Friday, December 2, 2022

The Stage for Getting On With It

Okay, this is how real it gets!

If you have ever been blind-sided by intense attachment-pain for any reason whatsoever, do I ever have a testimony for you!

Instead of giving story-specifics, something that always seems to involve other people, I will use Paul’s example when he referred to his “thorn in the flesh” without telling us what it was.[1] That description invited everyone to identify with him in anything that feels similar in our lives, and look at Paul’s testimony of how God helped him through his situation so we can be encouraged about how God will help us through ours.

Let me just say that my situation involves the very common experience of attachment-pain, and any kind of attachment-pain situation can relate.

The generic applies-to-everything answer to this and every other situation in life is, God speaks to us through his word, he shows us what he is doing (usually starting with is work in us), and he invites and helps us to join him in his work. We need to know God like that every day of our lives no matter what we are going through.

However, there is a specific and personal testimony of how God is helping me with my attachment-pain experience, and it may add some personalized details that will encourage you as well. The aim is to help you listen to what God is saying to you through his word, admit what he is doing in you and around you, and build up your courage to join him in his work no matter what lovingly-heart-searching things you must feel or express to know him in your situation.

Context: There is something on today that heightens the possibility of encountering a sensitive and painful situation where attachment-pain has already happened. There are lots of feelings about this, and I am staying close to Father about it. There is one set of emotions in play considering what might happen to cause new attachment-pain, and another set at the ready if nothing takes place at all (a different facet of attachment-pain).

Prelude: last night (I think as I was praying in bed), God made clear that my earthly-relationships side needs to take a backstage role to my agapè-hesed-love-disciple-of-Jesus side.[2] Jesus is not telling me to stop feeling grief in any attachment-pain I experience, but he is telling me that I need to attach to him so that, should I encounter the circumstances-of-concern, my interest is in how anyone else involved will experience God’s best for them rather than a resolution to anything that has happened between us. This orients me to where my heart ought to be because I am pursuing the agapè-hesed-love of God towards everyone I meet, enemies included.

Spotlight: My time with God:

1. I began by considering how Jesus related to the things he experienced with Isaiah 53:3 in mind, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Astounding and inviting!

2. This means he truly knows what I have gone through and is giving me permission to use these very words to describe my experience.

3. I looked up all the key words in that verse so I could meditate on them more in-depth. It is quite mind-blowing to consider what Jesus went through, and how it was prophesied that he would do so, which means he KNEW IN ADVANCE!!!

4. The biggest “AHA! Moment” was considering what Jesus did next. And that takes me into Isaiah’s description of Jesus laying down his life in order to give us life. The lesson to me is obvious. There are things to “lay down in love” so they become stepping-stones to loving better rather than stumbling-stones to loving less.[3]

5. And that brought me to another experience of this scripture: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”[4] A weaned child becomes calm and quiet because they are no longer crying and screaming and demanding that they need to keep nursing. Once the child is “weaned”, the process of weaning is finished, the child is resigned to being a big boy or girl, and there is no further demand to go back. The application is obvious.

6. All of this was still in the context of John 5 that even when despised and rejected, Jesus did NOTHING of himself, and ONLY what he saw the Father doing. That is clearly what God is working into me even while living with my own experience of similar things.

7. I will make this the last one, that there was a thought hovering over all my meditations the whole time, and that was what it was like for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I believe that, in Gethsemane, the way Jesus prayed is what it looked like for him to interact with the Father over the most intense and pure sorrows and grief the human heart could ever experience and never once separate himself from the Father because he was angry, or hurt, or disappointed (I have lots of examples of people shutting down to God when they are hurt, angry, or disappointed, so this is amazing).[5]

As you may imagine, this was way too much for me to take in this morning. It was like watching the Spirit show me all the props on the stage, explaining why each one was there, but now I will see the scene unfold in real life over the next while so that I get to know Jesus as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief more than ever, and will attach to him in laying down my life in love for anyone he chooses, including the worst enemies who have caused me the greatest harm.[6]

By the end of my time with God I was in awe and wonder at the realities of the word, and the personal ministry of the Spirit to overwhelm me with his wisdom and knowledge for my good and the Father’s glory. I hope it helps you get to know your heavenly Father better than you have ever known him before!

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

[1] II Corinthians 12:7-10

[2] “Agapè” is one of the Greek words in the New Testament that is translated “love” in our English Bibles. However, it is referring to the distinctive nature of God’s love. When us children of God are called to agapè-love others just as Jesus has agapè-loved us, it is calling us to love with that distinction that we are imitating and expressing God’s love rather than limiting ourselves to family-love, friendship-love, or brotherly-love. “Hesed” is the Hebrew word from the Old Testament part of the Bible that speaks of God’s covenantal love, or the distinct love God has for his own people as expressed through his covenants. This word is so deep with meaning that it is typically translated with double expressions like, “unfailing love,” or, “steadfast love”. It includes the qualities of mercy, kindness, and goodness towards God’s children because of their distinctive relationship with him. Both Hesed and Agapè combine for God’s children in Christ as they show us so clearly how God loves us and how undeniably this love expects us to pass on to others what we have freely received in Christ.

[3] John 10:17 and John 15:13 relate to Jesus laying down his life for us; I John 3:16 shows the expectation that we “ought to lay down our lives for the brothers”.

[4] Psalm 131:2

[5] Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42

[6] Psalm 27 is one of the scriptures that I have been able to attach to in my situation, and so is Psalm 119:81-88. There are others that describe similar situations, so we know we are never unique in what we go through.

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

The Beatitudinal Promises of Longing in Prayer

I am now old enough to know the difference between the longings of youth and the hopes of old age. I trust that I have a couple more decades to see how much further my education will go in this, but I share some thoughts on this topic because I am sure there is a reader out there who struggles with letting yourself feel longings for things that are good and real because they feel hopeless at the same time.

Today’s question is, what does the child of God do with a heart full of hurts and longings when life-experience has trained us that most people are quite willing to block our goals for satisfaction? Do we bury the longings because it hurts too much to keep feeling hope for things that will never happen? Do we bury the hurts and disappointments because they seem to put us in a holding pattern of unfilled desires?

Or is there a way to face longings with God that does not require denial of anything, whether disappointments or desires, but leads us to a place of peaceful rest that God is truly working all things together for good in our lives in ways we could never accomplish by anything we tried to do in our own strength?

Ah, so you guessed which of the three choices I am going to focus on? Well, let’s aim for the bull’s eye and see how close we get.

For context, I am going through some painful life-experiences. Lots of attachment-pain. Lots of bewilderment. And lots of triggering my propensity to fix things. Enough time has gone by that things have solidified to the point that, humanly speaking, it is hopeless. Enough said. I am sure many people can relate.

I always begin my time with God telling Father everything I am feeling about life. It isn’t so he is well aware of my thoughts and feelings on the matter, but that I have opened my heart to him about whatever he has to say. As I then listen to what he speaks from his word, he always responds directly to me as his child, and always takes me places in his truth I couldn’t have known in advance. Here is how God met me today.

The first thing God did this morning in my time with him was connect David’s paragraph of prayer in Psalm 119:81-88 with the Beatitudinal reminder that:

· letting myself accept my poverty of spirit in fixing broken relationships

· and letting myself mourn both the hurt to me and the failures in me

· and acknowledging in meekness that I cannot fix any of this but can surrender myself to the authority of Christ who can fix all things

· and then fully receiving the feeling of hunger and thirst for the righteousness of how Jesus would do things if I relied on him

· will lead to satisfaction in righteousness however Jesus chooses to fulfill his promise to do so.[1]

With that in mind, I began prayer-journaling through this verse:

My soul longs for your salvation;

I hope in your word.[2]

My “soul” is my person. The essence of me. It is where I think, feel, have desires, and feel my conscience directing me for good or ill. It is ME. To long for something from my soul means it is the deepest most real kind of longing for what is real (as contrasted to the frivolous and superficial longings for BEEPS[3]).

“Longs” is where the battle is. We cannot let ourselves long for things we believe are hopeless. Even when I am constantly trying to figure out what to do, it is because I have a hope-springs-eternal belief that if I just do the right thing, or say the right words, or avoid the wrong things or the wrong words, people won’t reject me. As much as I have failed at it, that ALAON[4] propensity is a strong belief in my sark (flesh) that believes I can do it. Because I believe it (as wrong as that is), I keep trying to make it happen.

But to say that I “long” for Yahweh’s salvation means that I have given up trying to cover up my hopelessness with trying harder. I have accepted that I am never going to get certain things I want by trying to get them. However, instead of believing that my apparent 100% failure rate is hopeless, I have been blessed by God to “see” with my heart, soul, and mind, HIS salvation, or HIS way of doing things.

This means that, trying to trust God while having an inner belief that it is hopeless is not the least bit what David is expressing in his prayer. There are two things David knows that lets him fully feel his longings without despair.

First, there is the fact that this is “your salvation”, meaning, God’s salvation. The only way we can fully give up any hope of fixing things ourselves and fully surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ is if we have come to that Beatitudinal place where we KNOW God’s salvation! When we know the promises of God in our salvation, we can let ourselves long for the fullness of that even when all we feel is a “hunger and thirst for righteousness” that has no hint of satisfaction whatsoever. The satisfaction is in “your salvation”, and since it is Yahweh who owns this salvation, it is ours in Jesus’ name!

Second, the way that David knew to long for Yahweh’s salvation was because his experience of “your word” was filled with “hope”. Church folk who cannot let themselves long for the full experience of their salvation have an inner belief that living by God’s word is hopeless. Surprising? Find yourself arguing against the idea? All you need to do is look inside at anything that feels hopeless and ask Father what promises of his word you believe are impossible for you. If any of us cannot let ourselves long for things that are part and parcel of our salvation, we have a problem with hopelessness in relation to God’s word.

There is something that every child of God MUST let happen in our lives. We must let ourselves feel a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God in what we are going through that is founded on our “hope in your word”. It is by God’s word that we understand “your salvation”. And when God’s word gives us understanding of God’s salvation (not our sarky version of it), we KNOW we can let ourselves hunger and thirst to experience righteousness in any situation and that longing “SHALL BE SATISFIED”![5]

This sharing flowed out of my time with God this morning as I processed my own thoughts and feelings on this matter. Relating to David’s prayer through the first four Beatitudes gives me a sense of what Father is saying to me, along with a good clue as to what he is doing. The second four Beatitudes tell me where God is going with this.

I am going to join God’s work today by continuing to pray through this Scripture in my downstairs prayer time, making it absolutely personal to my situation, and letting myself long for the realities of God’s gift of salvation while feeling the loss and grief that goes with the love-territory, so to speak.

I will attach to my longing for God’s salvation by confessing my hope in his word and living in expectation for how he will “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”[6]

And I know he will satisfy that longing!

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

[1] Based on the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12.

[2] Psalm 119:81

[3] BEEPS is an acronym we learned from our Life Model family that summarizes addiction to Behaviors, Experiences, Events, People, and/or Substances.

[4] ALAON = Attachment Light Always On, as contrasted with ALAOFF – Attachment Light Always Off. A healthy attachment light, or healthy attachment, knows when to attach and when to rest, but many of us have failed to experience attachment like that.

[5] Yes, that is the direct promise of the fourth Beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

[6] Psalm 90:14. Note: the expression “steadfast love” translates the Hebrew word “hesed” which is that distinctive kind of love God has for the people who have covenanted themselves to him. It doesn’t do justice to use only our English word “love” to translate this word, so it is partnered with adjectives like “steadfast”, or “unfailing”, to signify that God will always perform his covenant and will never fail to do so. “Hesed” is the Old Testament partner to the “agapè” love of the New Testament.

In2Freedom

Pages

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

On This Day: "To Hear, to See, and to Hope"

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

On This Day: "God's Thoughts About My Thoughts of Him"

Monday, January 16, 2023

On This Day: "The God Who is With Me"

Friday, January 13, 2023

The Now and Then of the Children of God

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Glorious Tapestry of the Pleasures of God

Friday, December 2, 2022

The Stage for Getting On With It

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

The Beatitudinal Promises of Longing in Prayer

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