further, deeper, greater

When I consider the depths of who I am, I realize I cannot even fathom what is there. I am a mystery even to myself when I strive to understand the depths of the soul, spirit, and body. I read Psalm 139 about a God of light and dark. A God of mountains and ocean! Even those things I can at least see and take in, but Psalm 139 reminds us that we are further, deeper, and greater than even the mountains, light, dark, and ocean.

Psalm 139 reveals to us the depths of our spirit, but it also praises a God who knows and controls all these very depths that we cannot even reach with any entirety. Ozzie Chambers says, “The work of the Holy Spirit is in the dim regions of our personality which we cannot get at.”

We are reminded by the Psalmist that God is deeper, further, greater than we can grasp, but that His Spirit truly does change and restore that core place of who we are; that place we struggle to get at. That ongoing restoration is entire and complete (1 Thess. 5:23)

The greatest disappointment is for us to assume these depths of ourselves and the work of the Holy Spirit with these depths are myth because we have no conscious experience of them. There are depths to our spirit we cannot consciously experience, but we need God to be our God, who can search and restore the depths we cannot get at.

We need the cleansing of sin at the very depths we cannot get at. We are terribly mislead when we say we are not conscious of our sin. Sure! There are depths to our darkness we are not conscious of, and God does regenerate and restore those things if would but ask.

There are depths to our light that we are not aware of either, and God will reveal the brighter parts of who we are when we would but ask.

There is depth to our greatness as men and women created in the image of God, and He will reveal and unleash those things if we would but ask.

When we think on these things of soul and spirit, we realize God truly knows us better than we know ourselves.

The Music of Trinity

* Precursor: I know nothing of music theory or taken any classes for this. I am, by no means, an expert in this area.

It is my understanding that a chord is made up of three notes.
Chords are based off of scale of 1-7.
So a major chord is when 1,3,and 5 are played at the same time.
For instance: a G Chord is made of the notes G(1),B(3), and D(5) being played at the same time.

Have I lost you? Hopefully not; you do not have to really understand what I just said, stick with me.

Have you ever had a difficult time understanding or explaining realities of the trinity? One God, three persons
Father, Son, Holy Spirit; each distinct yet not a part of the whole, but each a whole

If I sat at a piano and played the note, G
The sound would fill the room we sat in. The note alone could fill the entire space with its sound. That note never changes. That G is always G. Same with a B and D.

But if I play these three distinct notes at the exact same time
they make one whole Chord that is beautiful
and it also fills the entire space we are in with its sound
while each of these three notes also fills the entire space with their sound

You can sit and think about this all day. I have…several days.

Allow for struggle

Some of the best thoughts come through struggle. God honors our struggle and despises our tepid, lukewarm droning.  We are not preschoolers who walk straight lines attached to a rope.  God honors the honest struggler.  There are too many Christians trying to find life through soothing their soul, but true passion is brought forth in honest struggle.  Our wrestling match with God is pregnant with passion and confidence.

Because God will ENFOLD AN HONEST STRUGGLER IN LOVING ARMS.  The good news is that hatred of God and others decreases as Christ takes the heart inch by inch, but it comes only through honest and passionate struggle with God.  We may be a new creation, but we are not a perfect creation.  The war over hatred and sin may be won ultimately, but the battle to replace hatred with love will be over only when we see Jesus in flesh.  We can and will be angry with God, but have to be honest without reserve.  We must understand the Holy Spirit will not allow a bottomless cup of anger to exist, and most often the heart will be engulfed in love when we are honest with God.

Affective Passion

The word passion means “to be affected by” [Tweet That]
Think of the things you are passionate about.

You are passionate about those things you are most affected by, and that may be just about anything. When I think of the picture of my life and its passions, I want to create a picture of how ridiculous it is to be more passionate about anything other than Jesus Christ and his presence, his love, his grace, and his Spirit.

Does prayer affect me? When I pray, do I come from a place where my heart is affected and affectionate, or are they words without thoughts?

Does my time in God’s word affect me? Do I read the things I read wanting to allow myself to actually be affected by what I read, or am I just reading words without thoughts?

Is my life affected by the love of God today? Not effected, but affected. The former I do not control, the latter I do. Do I allow my heart and life to be affected by the gospel? Am I truly passionate about my life with Christ? Does it affect me today? Do I allow his grace to affect my emotion, my choices, and my thirst for MORE?

These are the true questions of passion.

Natural can’t be wrong?

“For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” -Galatians 5:17

There is a common reflection and understanding in our culture that if something feels or seems natural, it must be right.

A few problems arise here. First, some things only feel natural when they are not, in fact, natural. Some of these things might be unnatural and we want to believe they are. So we disregard what really might be true. Other things we have to realize disorders for what they really are. Our brains and hearts can be very deceptive.

On another hand, just because something may be natural does not make it okay or even best for us. I crave a lot of things that are not good for me, but my cravings are natural reactions in me for pleasurable things.

But finally, there is the understanding that our flesh, which is our natural state, is at war within us against the Spirit. Living my life lead by the Spirit is going to oppose all the natural cravings within me. When compared to the pursuit of the Holy Spirit life, we come realize why and how everything else is so much LESSER.

Those natural things inside us oppose the Spirit within us, and moment by moment we choose which to do. Those cravings are more powerful than we give credit. When we disregard how powerful those cravings are, we will likely begin following them naturally, and in so doing, have already begun opposing the Spirit within us. Those are the moments we get discouraged and wonder why or how we have come to do things we do not want to do.

Our cravings are strong, and they may even be natural, but they oppose the Spirit in us. We have to want the Spirit more than what feels natural.

* yes that is a donut burger up there

Starving Spirit

“When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it.”

Ozzie Chambers has me chewing on his words today.  These words of Ozzie’s are a gristly answer to the question, “Why do we pray?”

As Christians, we have accepted Jesus into our hearts.  Cliché aside, the Spirit of Jesus now resides within us.  That Spirit is now a part of our spirit.  The Son always desires a connection with the Father.  This is the part of us, which desires a huge connection with the Spirit of Abba.  Prayer brings the connection the Son pangs for.

Lacking prayer does not affect us nearly as much as it does the Spirit of Jesus within us.  It feels horribly disconnecting to us, but that is only because the Spirit of Jesus is so overwhelming within our heart.  The Spirit of Jesus has overwhelmed our spirit, and when the Son has disconnection with Abba, it pangs and twinges for the reconnection…for the intimacy.  And since the Spirit of the Son has so overwhelmed us, we also feel that pang.  This is why we pray!

Prayer nourishes the relationship of Son to Abba and Abba to Son.  This is why we pray!  We understand that relationship is alive within our spirit, and we can either nourish it or allow it to slowly die away.  What is our choice?  This is why we pray; that the life of the Son within us may be nourished in intimacy with Daddy.  When we nourish that connection within us, we know intimacy because the Spirit of the Son has so overwhelmed our spirit that the web grows more intertwined…and strong.  This is why we pray!

“Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.”

What Moses dreamed of

“would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them.” (Numbers 11:29)

What Moses basically dreamed of IS our reality today. ALL followers of Jesus have his Spirit in them and upon them. This is absolutely incredible and we rarely tap into it, use it, or listen to what Moses only dreamed of.

Death and Life: when Jesus is not your comfort

The death of Stephen in Acts 7 was one with huge implications for me.

Just as he is about to be violently stoned to death, the Holy Spirit allows him to see Jesus standing next to God. He finds so much comfort in seeing Jesus he is able to fall asleep as he is being stoned to death

He found a peculiar peace and comfort in knowing he would soon be near Jesus. Seeing Jesus in death is only comforting if Jesus has been savior and LORD in life. Seeing Jesus in death is only comforting and something you look forward to if Jesus is your joy and dependance in life.

So a difficult question arises in my heart today.

If I could get to heaven and receive all that heaven promises (streets of gold, no more sorrow or pain, a new body and name, etc.) but Jesus would not be there, would I still want to go there?

The honest answer in death reveals the truth of Jesus’ place in my life.

How to hope

If I am going to continue a life of healing in Christ, I will need HOPE. Hope is often highly misunderstood. Since hope is fundamental to our healing, it would serve us well to know what it means.

First of all, hope is not a concept. There is substance and definition to hope. Essentially, HOPE is projecting the positive things I am experiencing NOW into the FUTURE. This means HOPE says, “Months from now I will be better of than even now.”

The problem with hope is our tendency toward the opposite. We could have the tendency if we are not healing, feeling or working through things to say to ourselves, “Months from now, I’m going to be screwed and worse off.”

HOPE PROJECTS YOUR CURRENT STATE OF BEING INTO YOUR FUTURE.

That being said, there ARE a couple things required of us to live a life of hope. To live a life of hope requires a positive current state to project into the future. This means that our current state needs to change.

There must be a CHANGE in our lives in order for us to begin a life of healing and hope. This change, though, requires a RISK be taken. Am I going to be willing to take risks for the cost of healing? If I want to know a life of healing; a life of hope, I have to be willing to take some risks so that change may come. If I stay COMFORTABLE in my current state (the one without healing) I will project THAT state into my future, and I will be the same or worse months from now.

On the other hand, if I look at my current state and get bold enough to take a risk and change it, I will begin to see healing and change. Then my current state changes and I can project it into my future…THIS is hope.

“but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. And HOPE does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” – Romans 5:3-5

Think of it this way: Holy Spirit

This year at the Christmas Eve service, I was stricken with something. I had a new understanding of the Holy Spirit within each of us who knows Christ. What does it look like to have the Holy Spirit in you?

Think of it this way:

If you had the spirit of LeBron James inside you, you would have constant urges to shoot jumpshots, slam dunk, work out, and sell out.

If you had the spirit of Steve Jobs inside you, you would have the urge to create things no one has thought of before. You would have creative instincts, and you would have an eye for turtlenecks and dad jeans.

If you had the spirit of Bono inside you, you would have the urge to sing and create. You would have an interest in Africa and sunglasses.

So the question remains: what would it look like to have God’s Spirit inside you?

Well, as theory would have it, your urges and interests would change. You would notice different things. You would desire different things.

So the problem is that we DO have this Spirit inside us if we have come to know and accept Jesus Christ. We do know the Immanuel who became tangible and was left in Spirit to be present even now. The problem is, though we have that Spirit within us, it does not seem to make much of a change in some of our urges, interests, desires.

The challenge after the Spirit is within you is to increase your ability to listen. You have to increase the connection between your spirit and the Holy Spirit within you. We have to increase the ability to listen more to the Spirit of Jesus within us than we do to our own spirit.

The more we listen and obey the Holy Spirit within us, the more our urges, interests, and desires will change. The more those change, the more our actions and lives begin to change.