creation

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. [Matt. 4:4]

Sometimes heaven breaks through to our experience like a butterfly that is seen for a moment and soon flies out of grasp and sight. My suspicion that reasonings and signs do not necessarily take us to the reality of God was greatly confirmed when I pulled up an article by Joseph Herrin yesterday. (Ah, if only you were a little more succinct, Joseph!) I had just been talking to someone about my discovery of our mindsets around the time that Joseph was apparently blogging about the same. (We must have the same Lord, after all.) Joseph talked about three mindsets: Greek (Gentile), Jewish and the called-out ones. The Greek (Gentile) mindset looks for knowledge; the Jewish mindset looks for signs; and the called-out ones see all through the Cross.

I believe I see the correlation between the kind of mind we have and our ability to live out of God and thereby to change our relationship to the entire universe. There have been many such moments in my life, and it has mystified me as to how one can sense the nearly concrete presence of the Lord and then lose it for a season. It’s like crossing a river on stepping stones and then having those stones dissolve beneath one’s feet. I begin to understand that the words of God can one day become the whole stream. Though the stream may remain a stream, yet for the God-minded it can also be a road.

It seems as if we begin by seeking God with our minds — and don’t ask me how it happens — but He suddenly lifts us into some corner of His thoughts. We see, experience and participate in the life of God Himself by means of some outworking we can’t explain in human terms. It’s like a living word has been dropped into us and everything shifts. What happened to me yesterday only confirmed this as I reflected upon similar past events.

There are times when God places His word in us with the result that a powerful effect has been accomplished in our environment or even in ourselves. I recall once being in an awful situation with a house I needed to move out of for several years. I begged and pleaded with God to deliver me from the place, seemingly to no avail. I finally gave it all up to Him, recognizing that I had no life but His because of the Cross.

A few years later I awoke one August with a urgent sense to pray that God would move me. I could feel the words of God living in me to pray this prayer that I had abandoned in my own self-effort. About a day later I received a phone call that changed everything, and within two months a relative enabled me to pay off the house (I paid him back over time), I moved to a much better place at half rent, yet my living expenses were no more than they had been.

When the word/mind of the Lord moves in a person, it has a way of rearranging the whole world. I believe that one day the world will be renewed by that same word. It is not our experiences per se that teach us truth, but it is truth that — once received in our experience — becomes recognizable on an ongoing basis. We begin to learn the ways of God apart from the rigidity of interpreting the written word.

Recently I told my very good friend Alex of my sense that the Lord wants us to live out of His words. His response to me was surprising, to say the least. He could have written his own article. I begged him to let me quote him. I will let him finish the rest of this article, and may the word of the Lord dwell richly in each of us as the substance of our lives.

…First in regards to God Himself. He is integrated in His own being just as we are integrated in our own being of body, soul and spirit. Hence to speak of the Father is also to speak of the Son and the Spirit. Likewise to speak of my spirit is to speak of me just as to speak of my soul or body is to speak of me. The life of each member of the Godhead is inseparable from God Himself. Likewise with our bodies. Our bodies are not “Earth suits” as is popular to say. Our bodies are inseparable from the life of our selves. This is why the bodily resurrection of Jesus is a fundamental doctrine of the Church. And we must have our bodies back after we die and are in Heaven because we will be lacking a fundamental life of our being. We will not be whole beings in Heaven. Only when we return and our bodies are restored into the glory of immortality.

Second in regards to God and His creation. Jesus was a created being just as we are created being. Yet the distinction between Jesus and us is that even though He was created, He began His existence in creation already integrated with the eternal life of the Creator. When Jesus said that “I and the Father are one” He was referring to this integration of His life with God. That means that God, as the Creator, experienced the creation from the created point of view. So Jesus is our High Priest because, God through Jesus, experienced all of life. Not only life, but death. God can not die, of course, but the created man could. So when sin was placed upon Jesus, only at that time was the Creator separated from the created Jesus. However, after sin was expunged from Jesus when He was justified as innocent, thus was resurrected, the memory of the pangs of death and sin that the created man, Jesus, experienced, remain. Therefore, in the reunion of integration between the Spirit and the man, Jesus, God in His holiness, now knows first hand through Jesus the agony and misery of sin and death.

This integration of God with the created man, Jesus, has further cemented the everlasting existence of His creation. Yes, the heavens will roll up like a scroll, and the sun will not be needed in the brightness of the New Jerusalem, but they will exist because God, in Jesus and the Church, has integrated Himself with Creation so that Creation is not only sustained by God, but, by extension, has become a part of God Himself forever. So the Earth will abide forever.

The spiritual world is another dimension of the creation. When that expression “dimension” is used, it usually connotes ambiguity and vagueness, but it is a concrete statement. Space is 3 dimensions. A line is the first dimension, a plane is the second dimension and depth is the third dimension. Each dimension is a specific element, but is part of the entire entity called space. The line is as much integrated with the depth because they are attributes of the same thing.

Time is considered the fourth dimension. The universe is called by science, “the space-time continuum” because you move space at the same time as when you move through time. Time is in the line, the plane and the depth, but it is none of those things. It is something completely different than the 3 dimensions of space. Yet time is integrated in space. Time moves slower near the force of gravity and faster farther away. Therefore a clock will run slower at sea level than it will on a mountain top by several minutes difference. A black hole is a force so strong in outer space that time stops moving altogether at the event horizon. So in this illustration we see that time and space are dimensions of the same thing, but are quite different in their attributes, although impacted by each other.

Years ago there was a band called the 5th Dimension that I did not understand the meaning of their name. Now I do. The spirit world is the 5th Dimension. It is part of the same creation as time and space and is affected by time and space since they are the same entity of creation. But they are not the same attributes. Just as time is completely different from space, the spirit world is also different, even though it is part of the same thing. What happens in the spirit impacts what happens in time and space, just as what happens in time and space impact the spirit world.

This what Jesus came to teach us. What we believe and speak is the bridge between spirit, time and space. I am convinced that when Jesus performed His miracles, He was merely functioning according to the laws of creation in the dimension of the spirit that we tend not to understand, so they appear miraculous, just as technology would appear miraculous to societies without technology.

Which brings us back to the law and prophets of the Old Testament. The laws of the Old Testament touch upon the laws of the spiritual world. Living in harmony with those laws here in space and time brings harmony to the spirit world of our own lives. For we are spiritual beings at the same time that we are physical beings. The Law is spiritual and we could not fulfill the spiritual by the physical only. We had to be born anew into the Spirit once again to see these laws to be able to walk in them. I am not talking about religious activity of the law which is observing the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, and abiding in that.

So studying the Old Testament is profitable for godliness and life when we see the spirit of the Old Testament, which Paul did when he made that statement to Timothy. It is a shame that legalism undergirds the “freedom” of so many who reject the Old Testament who claim that they are not under the Law. That claim reveals their lack of understanding and merely demonstrates their continued bondage to the natural mind.

My main reason in posting this little series has been to point out that the narrative of Jesus-Christ-and-Him-Crucified has continued in spite of the cultures and institutions that have sprung up. Jesus has not left us as orphans in this world. The real danger, though, is when the narrative disappears.

Much of my fellowship in these few years since escaping the cultist house church has been on Internet forums where I’ve scooped up some very interesting people. It has been my question to God, following this very long hiatus from insane church groups, what to do next — where to go and whether I shall taint the purity of my walk by getting mixed up in any more nonsense in organized groups.

In the meantime, I have run into my share of wayward Internet fellowship — individuals that, supposing themselves to be free from the institutional churches, have actually cast off all restraint and lost their sense of discernment. During this time, I chanced to meet a group of die-hard Hindus (in real life) and started researching on that account. Then, when a Wiccan showed up on my then-favorite forum, and I saw there was no discernment, I found myself by necessity writing about the differences between what people think of as “God” or the “Universal Force.” Here is what I posted:

Thomas Merton was one of the neatest and most messed up Christians I have ever read. We would have gotten on “famously” as they say. He mentioned something in his Asian Journal that I think is profound and I’m astounded that he didn’t see the full implications of it himself.

He described the approach of East and West in arriving at truth. Western thought measures truth by logical analysis. We like to line up all our ducks, circle them and draw the circle tighter so that no mistake can be made–we have not missed anything. Western hero: Thomas Aquinas and systematic theology. Charles Finney is a descendant of this kind of thinking. Only problem is that this thinking has led to lots and lots of ridiculous and conflicting beliefs. The East believes it arrives at truth through experience. Eastern hero: Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism. This method also produces much diffusion of thought.

I chanced to meet some devout Hindus who were ready to beat me over the head as heartily as any Bible-thumping fundamentalist you ever saw. A man said to me, “You can’t get God out of a book!” referring to the Bible, no doubt. I made a point to research Hinduism with an open mind and came to see that no other religion has produced as many books as Hinduism! Further investigation showed that Hindu thought, while replete with experiences, has no witnesses to testify to anything. You are just supposed to believe things because someone says here’s how it is.

I agreed that no one can get God “out of a book”. And then a young Hindu told me, ‘I have seen God — many times!” I wondered how a heathen can “see” God. And if it’s true, then why would God put such a difference in both Old and New Testaments between heathen and true-God worship? Was it true that there was no harm in mixing them? Are they really just different ways of looking at God? And if reason is a faulty means of proving God and so is experience, then what is the way to be sure?

I did more research on “seeing God”. I finally found my answer. Hindus recognize three “Lords”: Lord Krishna, Lord Buddha and Lord Jesus. They consider them all ascended masters. (One must wonder at this juncture why Jesus, who was contemporary with practicing Buddhists and Hindus never invited those guys to teach the Jews the truth about God.) I discovered that Lord Buddha holds the ticket for both Hindus and Buddhists.

The point is to get to Nirvana — that blessed state of bliss in which one dies to one’s own desires, possesses all things and becomes one with the universe. When one is enlightened, the trees and mountains, etc, take on a wondrous air of “godness” and the person becomes one with them. This is “seeing God”. There is no “me” and no “you” but all are one and one is all. This is to see all things without illusion. I thought there was something familiar about all this. I have experienced a taste of this myself. I definitely was one of those kids growing up who felt the liveliness of rocks and mountains and ponds and stuff. All of Creation groans to be clothed upon… But I never identified this as “God”!

This is how I recognized that this is NOT the SAME GOD as Jesus worshipped at all!!! I have said that neither experience nor logical reason are enough to discern truth. In fact, I don’t think truth can be discerned at all except through faith. Jesus did many miracles in the Gospels, which evidence might have appealed to both reason and experience, yet some people still couldn’t see the truth. Jews came to Him and asked what works He did and wanted to do the work of God also. They were interested in the “goods”. Yet Jesus said to them, “This IS the work of God — that you believe on Him who He has sent.” Some see miracles and do not believe. Most people who believed throughout history never saw a single miracle –that is a miracle in itself — that they should believe anyway. Clearly, that is the work of God if we can say anything is — no logic and no experience. Not even an outward miracle in most cases.

But how should anyone note the difference in the switched Gods without reason or experience? Intangibly through faith — or tangibly through a greater Reality bursting in from without. I have had that greater Reality and without it I might have been fooled by all the wonderful what-ifs taking place on the other threads. [The speculation had completely undermined the purpose of the forum at this point.] But I recognized both realities. The Hindus and Buddhists have chosen the lesser one. It is the reality common to all Creation — humans, trees, mountains, universe. It is real and it is vast. But they have chosen to make themselves one with the groaning Creation and mistaken that as God. The God I know is personal and grander than all that. He has proven to me that He can burst through the Creation as someone OUTSIDE all that. He is not One with His Creation. He is over it, in it and through it, but He is not part of it. Had I not walked both sides of that fence, I never would have known the difference.

Much reasoning and much grasping at wisps of ideas only confuse the issue. God must be eaten to be understood. (Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood…) His words are spirit and truth.

Soon to follow on the heels of this incident with the Wiccan were amazing and convoluted heresies staunchly defended by those who had read many books instead of going to God for insight. I was flabbergasted that in a few short years the worst issues on the Internet were no longer people picking fights or strange “prophetesses” appearing out of nowhere with floaty language that meant nothing. Now we had believers in Christ utterly carried astray, thinking themselves enlightened, yet having no discernment. They had become “black clouds” in our feasts.

I knew, discerning the times, that it was time to make some decisions — whether to continue aloof as I have for some years, testing those things that remain, or to begin reaching out across the boundaries and trusting God to steer me past those things that so easily waste my time or box me in with narrow-minded fears of demons and the Anti-Chirst. I choose trust. Here is what the Lord is speaking to me recently:

He that walketh with wise [men] shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. [Pro 13:30]

A lot of things have happened in my life this year, as some of you know. These past few weeks I have waited, recovering from the emotional and physical toll. But I have prayed and I have listened, knowing the Lord is going to take me a new direction. It does not appear to be exactly the direction thought, but some place different. But I am a better witness for the times I’ve spent sharing the Lord’s teaching among my fellows.

A friend from afar mentioned that I have become a spiritual support of something the Lord is doing in his life. After some prayer and some mulling things over, I think he is right. “Where are You taking me, Lord? I am tired of walking with fools. Give me wise men to walk with now.”

Here is a site  with an interesting perspective on our role in the redemption of creation and animal welfare advocacy. Must say that I always wondered why evangelical Christians ignored things like this. I never understood why the care of creation became the domain of left-wing political groups. To me, care for the Creation is the outgrowth of God’s love to the world.

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Ben DeVries, the site’s founder, makes a very good case for why we need to care for all creatures great and small.

Many Christians worry that diverting time and resources from evangelism, discipleship and other ministry and humanitarian needs will compromise the Church’s calling and focus.  While the Christian community’s first priority is to respond to human needs, spiritual and otherwise, the first responsibility which God gave humanity was to care for his creation and creatures.  We can’t simply set this responsibility to the side, especially when it is in our own selfish interests to do so.  Our response to the gospel must in some way involve caring for animals, which are often terribly vulnerable and suffering exactly because of human neglect, abuse and misuse.

When I was coming up, it was simply assumed that care for animals was the natural outgrowth of God’s love. For that reason, I never thought to take it up as a cause especially since the earth is filled with so many suffering humans. DeVries makes a compelling case, though, that “small” matters add up to a larger universe.