The Upper Room

How can something small be famous?

There is something to be said of the use of multimedia and a sound system that fills a room with music capturing the attention of a crowd; the gathering of thousands of believers as they worship the God they feel great affection for; a towering monolith of architectural beauty proclaiming to all who stand in its shadow the purpose of worship. And yet, there is Jesus in an upper room washing the feet of his disciples.

During a shared meal celebrating and worshiping the Creator’s providential salvation of his people, Jesus took the time to show humility in washing his student’s feet. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, his students were again in an upper room and Christ came to them at that place. The early church was marked by people gathering in homes to lift high the 

name of Jesus as the One God. The fame of Christ was spread far by those devoted to his cause. Household after household was converted from a home to a church. Then something changed. People started to think that glory had something to do with “big.” Now in today’s time there is more attention given to how church looks than to who the church is.

A friend posed this question recently, “Is there a better way to spend a Sunday morning then in a hallway?” A hallway converting into a church, where the Creator of the universe meets with his people by the intimate connection

of His Spirit with ours made possible by the birth, death and resurrection of Christ? No. The people willing to meet in an upper room, or a house, or a hallway do so for no other reason than the purpose of their gathering.  The beauty of the raw dedication, unwavering faith, and absolute dependence of Jesus in the small things far out-shines any production or display.

Jesus once told an individual, “There will be a day when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” Jesus was telling this person that people argue about relics like a mountain, created by God, or the relic of the Temple, built by the devout, are the place of true worship; but that neither was what the Creator desires. The Creator desires the people, not the place.

No matter where we are or what style of location we have big or small, fancy or shabby, we are the church. We are the indwelling of the Almighty. We are his image, through Christ, we are his presence.

Darkness that shines within.

Matthew once wrote, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

                At one point, the words “I don’t see any color in life anymore” were uttered to my mother. Life seemed grey and dull. Boring is not an adequate description of the viewpoint. It lacks the depth of hopelessness. Life had no color, because life had no promise; no purpose; no living. There was only

darkness that shined within, driving out all things that held light. This dark nothing soon made all things as its own; keeping me a prisoner of nowhere, and in the company of no one. To be lost and alone would be one thing, for there would be hope in being found. This darkness stripped away even the purpose in searching for rescue and help. The darkness claimed me and became me. There was only one thing to do. Die.

                The god of purpose and love had been preached to me. And preach to me they did, telling me I could find hope in him because of a prayer made by my mouth. As before, when needed, I went to this god and asked for the end, for this was the only hope I could see: to

die before him and all others so that the lifeless existence would finally cease. I prayed and planned for death as if it was mid-day meal. How is death best served on a Tuesday in late Spring? Standing outside a church building starring into the sky wondering why this god won’t answer this one little prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep, in hopes to die before I wake.

                Death was the only answer, and I am glad it came to me. Though the way it came was not what I was expecting. The strong suspicion that I could not hear god was made denser by the darkness. But, what the darkness did not understand was that true light was about to show up. While musical notes filled the air and stage lights flooded the scene, with my eyes closed I heard a voice and saw green. Three words to change life forever, spoken from my savior; “I love you.” My Lord and my God, I give you my life! My will died that day. The promise and hope of a life worth living was given to me, because a long time ago Jesus died the death that I asked for and is now longer required of me.

Jesus is my God.

We are a GMO.

Eating a fruit not made for us changed our biochemistry.

       I am not going to claim to know much at all concerning the GMO debate, but I am fairly certain that the concern is that the genetically modified organism is effecting humans when they eat it. Despite the fact that all of nature is genetically different than it was 5,000 or so years ago; this could be a valid concern. I would venture to say that our current state of our world is because of a GMO.

       The tree of knowledge of good and evil brought death, not just because the creator said we would die (so we do as punishment for disobedience), but because that is what would happen if the fruit was

eaten. The fruit genetically modified us and not in a good way. Humans gained an understanding that we were not designed to have. A friend explained his view of evil to me as the absence of God. When considering the Creator’s goodness (the standard of all things good), it is logical to assume that what is not of God is evil. This view can lead to a dualism in nature of prime reality. However, the Creator, describes himself not as the Good God, but as the I AM. God is, and the absence of “is” is nothing. God is existence and life, in which the opposite is death.

       The tree of knowledge of good and evil, made in us the existence of life and death's dualism. We fight to stay alive, but eventually death claims us all. Our survivalist instincts (to cheat death), bring about a self-focused reality and distorts our view of what the Creator declared as good. Our bio-electric and biochemical response to stimuli has been negatively modified. Public nudity…good or bad?

I know some will disagree but it is typically viewed as bad, hence the reason we have worn some type of clothing for the past 6,000 years. Adam and Eve felt shame for how they were, even though the epitome of goodness said it was good. They had an improper bio-electric and biochemical response to the stimulant of seeing each other and themselves naked.

Humans are now Genetically Modified Organisms.

Virgin Birth?

It’s Easter not Christmas…I know but it’s relevant.

                For the resurrection of Easter to mean anything, Jesus had to actually die. Returning to life is a nonevent if there was no death in the first place. Thus he had to actually die. And not a death that was in thought only, but a death of tissue and blood cells, for that is what was returned to life. And that is what our hope is as well. For Jesus to experience a physical death he had to be human. Yet, what kind of human?

                The curse of death was placed on Adam and Eve and passed onto their children. Our DNA is encoded for death. One way is the mitochondria death trigger. What kind of DNA did Jesus have? He was born of a virgin and did not receive chromosomes from a male father. This leaves two options. One, that Marry was Artificially inseminated by the Holy Spirit, which in my opinion is weird. Option two, is that Jesus was another creation of a human. In other words that he was a new Adam.

                I lean heavily on Jesus being a new human, closer to the original set of DNA, like Adam was before the fall. Thus, death was not his curse to bear. He willing took on the curse of death, even though his body was not going to die. And he cried out when he felt this forsakenness from the Father as he took on death, our curse. So, no we make a trade, his death for our life. We accept his death as our curse and offer our live to be lived by him.

We then have the hope that our view of death is the same as Jesus’ view. Sleep now, to be awakened again. This is the promise of Easter, the resurrection because Jesus was a new man and through him we become new again. 

The Pitfalls of Worship

Could it be that you look at it all wrong?

Are your defenses up after that question? Consider the Children of Jacob, or Israel as they were called. They built a golden calf by melting down their jewelry and worshiped what they “made with their own hands.” They gave up on Moses coming back and worshiped a god of their own crafting. When Moses came back down the mountain he was furious and he threw the tablets of testimony and burned the golden calf in a fire. After that Moses was setting up a tent outside of their camp where he would go and meet with YHWH (I AM/God).

When Moses met with YHWH in the tent, a pillar of fog would stand at the entrance. All the people would stand outside by the entrance to their own tents and they would bow down in worship. YHWY then gave Moses specifications for the people to follow in order to build a Tent of Meeting or Tabernacle. They took gold and jewels, wood and dyed skins for the finest craftsmen (male and female term here people…) to construct articles of worship. They made the Tabernacle, the arc of the covenant, a table, lampstand and more with their own hands. They then worshiped YHWH as a god of their own crafting via YHWH’s instruction.

So, could it be that great articles of faith that we even have today are simply tokens of our own crafting? Gen 2:8 “When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.” They heard (sound vibrations in the air) God walking and recognized the sound (they knew who to hide from). They had been walking with God up till that point. God had a physical presence in the garden. Adam and Eve walked with God in Paradise. Noah also walked with God (Gen 6:9), it is this walking with God that made him the only blameless person at that time.

God of the cosmos and DNA

What has any of this to do with the other? The Creator reveals himself to show us the immensity of his being, and we seek to make him a creation of our own hands. We can reduce God to prayer, reading the Bible, singing in church, listening to a sermon, when he is so much more! And our worship of his should be so much more. Worship and walking with God are inseparable. True worship is done by understanding that we are no longer the death cursed loner we used to be, but that the One True Creator God is living and walking in us. When we remain in that understanding and keep our mindset bonded to it we abide in Christ and he abides in us and we are one with YHWY.

As we go Lord…

Gnostic Gospel

Is what this world made of bad, and only what is of heaven good?

There is much confusion about the seemingly distinction between the physical and the spiritual. Is it not it true that the physical blood of Christ purchased our spiritual redemption? So, is there really a distinction between the two? Current Christian thinking has a far to Gnostic approach to the Kingdom of Heaven, then what is taught by Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and the other writers of the New Testament collection.

People do not seem to grasp the fact that God our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness, and by our trust in his resurrection as our complete rebirth is complete. We now live a life in the body through faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. The life we live now while working out this salvation is by Jesus to increase his fame. To pray to God and say, I know I am nothing and have nothing good to bring you, except by your grace is not a continual prayer for someone who is not now nothing but has been made to be a “son of God” or heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.

There almost seems to be a Deistic flavor to this Gnostic interpretation of the Kingdom as well. Heaven is some other realm where the Father dwells and is beyond our reach. However Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is near. We are read also that the return of Christ is near. Neither of these usages of “near” has anything to do with time, but space. The Kingdom and the return of Christ are close, right next to us.

James taught that true and pure religion is this: to look after widows and orphans. In other words to do something actual and physical for people is the true spirituality. To say to someone I’ll pray for you, or do you want to talk, is well and good, but if that is all we ever do, is there any action to our faith? Is our faith working out our salvation by interacting in a physical world with eagerness to do good?

It is by the physical blood and body of Christ that we are who we are now, a people of the Anointed One. To separate the laws of physics, biology, chemistry and the like from what is “spiritual” is not only a non-ancient Jewish thought, but a non-Christian ideology as well! Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, which means to love God by every facet and fiber of your being, down to the very cellular fusions and bioelectric impulses.

There is no sacred and secular to a Christian, for by our connection with God all we do is done in the presence of the All Mighty! Live accordingly.

Home Worship

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Home Worship on Prezi