We have a saying in the "church world" (or at least in my little circle of it). And it goes like this: It came to pass, not to stay. We say that because over and over in the Old Testament the Bible uses that phrase, "it came to pass." And the thought is that while we may have to go through things, things don't have to go through us. Because we are safe and secure in Daddy's loving embrace. My verse for today, and really for this entire Rant series, is Psalm 9:9, "The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble." I think this is an important truth for us to understand, because the bottom line is that life happens. To each and every one of us. Every single day. Being a "Christian" doesn't mean smooth sailing all the time. What it means is that we have been equipped and empowered with everything we need to WEATHER the storm. Or, believe it or not, to CALM the storm! I've kind of been working on an idea where when we understand that the Kingdom is a present reality, and we start to unlock, or manifest, the Kingdom in our lives--not by forcing it into existence, or taking the Kingdom by violence, but simply by believing that it's already here... it's in us, and it IS us--then what is really true (ALREADY true!) becomes true for us. I'm NOT saying you can believe any old thing and it'll become your reality. I'm saying there's what the world gives you, and there's what the Word of God says. And whichever one of THOSE you believe in... that's what will manifest in your life. Let me say it like this, in times of trouble, we have a refuge. And His name is Jesus. His name is love. It doesn't matter what the world throws at you, because greater is He that is within you than he that is in the world. Basically, the fire in you is always hotter than the fire you're in. So when "things happen," we don't have to freak out about them. We don't even really need to tell God how big our troubles are. What you magnify is what will manifest. So if you focus all of your time, and talent, and treasure (the three T's), if you focus all of your energy and attention, on your problems... then you're really empowering them. You're making mountains out of molehills, if I can use that old expression. And here's what it comes down to: You can try to "fix" your problems, but I've found that when you bang your head against the wall all you get is a headache. OR you can rest in the arms of the One who already finished the work. You don't have to overcome when you know (and believe) that Jesus already overcame. And watch this: When you truly understand just how finished the work is... you'll understand that there is NOTHING LEFT TO OVERCOME. You'll stop trying to conquer and you'll live out of your true identity as MORE than a conquerer in Him! Works don't work, but when you can rest things get easy. You don't have to do it yourself because Jesus already did it for you and as you. No matter how bad things LOOK... you're safe and secure in Daddy's arms.

Doesn't it seem like (at least if you follow my ministry for any amount of time) it always comes back to the central truth that what is true about "us and God" is also true about "us and each other"? There's no separation between us and God. Nothing--and no one (except ourselves to some limited degree)--can separate us from the love of God. The love that IS God. And because of that great, unstoppable, consuming fire of love... nothing can separate us from each other, either. Sometimes we LET things "seem" to separate us from God, and sometimes we LET things separate us from each other, but the truth of the matter is that there IS no separation. Love is the glue that binds us and holds us together. I don't know why it seems like "human nature" is to destroy things. To tear things (and people) down. But I DO know that on this side of the cross "human nature" isn't the old man beast nature. It's the love nature of the New Man! And when we begin to understand our new nature--our new DNA, or Divine Nature of the Almighty--then we begin to understand that our default setting is not earthy soulish selfishness. Our default setting is not to try to get something that we think we don't have. Because, through the Holy Spirit--we know exaclty who we are and exactly what we have. We have been filled to overflowing with the love of God, and nothing can separate us from that love. Even giving it away can't separate us from it, but it is an abundant supply that never runs out! Let me say it like this, "And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah" (1 Kings 17:15). The barrel of meal is the bread from heaven--Jesus. And the oil is the Holy Spirit. God is our source and He gave us everything we will ever need when He gave us Himself. When, on the cross, He gave His life FOR us and He gave His life TO us. He took up abode, or dwelling, in us and He's never moving out. So we can't run out of what we've got. Which means we don't have to be afraid to share what we've got. In fact, perfect love casts out ALL fear! Fear of our love not being returned, fear of giving what we've got and being left with nothing. When we know just how loved we ARE, we can love others no matter what. Silly little things (that SEEM like big things in the heat of the moment) don't have to separate us. Theological differences don't have to separate us. We can love everyone in every situation because our Daddy loves US in every situation! That's how this whole "Christian life" works. Works don't work, but the FINISHED work works. The cross--the greatest expression of love a man can have, laying his life down for his friends--works. God reconciled us to Himself, and reconciled us to each other! We love Him, because He first loved us. We love Him BY loving each other. And that, friends, is what it's all about!

Let me try to work this patch today: If there is NOTHING and no one (except ourselves, in a sense) that can separate us from the love of God... then what's the deal with the sheep and the goats? Because in Matthew 25:31-34 we see this, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Ok. First things first: When did the Son of man come in his glory? On the cross! So this isn't something that's GOING to happen, this is something that ALREADY happened! I like to say it like this, "On the cross, God got your goat!" And notice that nobody in this story is being separated FROM GOD. The sheep are being separated from the goats. And to me this simply means the old man beast (goat) nature is being dealt with. Or let me say it another way: On the cross, when Jesus died, YOU died. The old man died. The goat was separated, and the old man was buried. So now we're talking about the sheep. The Lamb of God. The Son of God. Jesus. Because on the cross, both Jesus and Adam died... but only Jesus was raised back up to life. And who is the Kingdom for if not for the King? See, we live IN the Kingom, but at the same time we ARE the Kingdom, because the King lives in us! Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. That makes us kings and lords. Kings and priests. So when we see this prophecy--and remember, ALL the Bible prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus and His finished work of the cross--we don't see "Sinners going to hell, and saints going to heaven." We see the consuming fire that is God, that is love, consuming everything in us and about us that wasn't Him. We see purification. We see redemption. We see reconcilation. Ephesians 5:25-27 says it like this, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Chirst also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Jesus washed us with the Word (which is LOVE) on the cross. He separated the sheep and goat IN US, and presented us to Himself without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. Now we are holy and without blemish. Now we couldn't find anything to separate us from Him if we looked for it. Now we're not on a sin hunt, but a righteousness hunt. And our righteousness (the righteousness of Christ, not self-righteousness) isn't what we DO it's who we are! He became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him!

Yesterday we looked at the question, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?..." (Romans 8:35). And we answered a similar question, because nothing can separate you from that love. But we kind of missed the original question. WHO shall separate us? And the answer, in a sense, is "only you." Because even though nothing can separate us from God's love... we seem to separate ourselves from it at the drop of a hat. And we use any and every excuse we can think of to do so. I always come back to the garden of Eden to try and explain this. God told Adam that on the day he ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death) he would surely die. And this isn't any sort of punishment, but simply the natural consequences of eating from that tree. Just like how eating from the Tree of Life gives you life... what else could the tree of death give you? It wasn't a COMMAND from God as much as it was a warning. But this is what Adam seemed to hear, "If you eat from that tree I'm going to get mad at you and punish you." Because as soon as Adam ate from it, and his (natural) eyes were opened, he realized he was naked, and he was ashamed of his nakedness, and he hid from the presence of God. Did you catch that? God didn't cast Adam out of His presence. Even when God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden... His presence went with them. Even that wasn't a punishment, because God was protecting Adam from eating from the Tree of Life and remaining in that "fallen state" forever. Basically Daddy always has our best interests at heart. All of the time. Basically NOTHING can separate us from His love. (Get it?) The problem was not our nakedness. And the problem was not how GOD reacted to our nakedness. We were naked the day before we ate of the tree of death and He didn't care. The problem... was how WE reacted to our nakedness. Shame. Hiding. A guilty, sin consciousness. And, really, that's been our problem ever since. So when we think of this idea of separation--that God is "way up there" and we are "way down here"--what we're really doing is separating OURSELVES from Him, when all He has ever done is love us and give His life for us and to us in order to reconcile us back to Him. Think about that for a minute: "Separation" that WE caused... that WE put there... and God gave His life in order to get rid of it. That's some serious love. That's some, "I don't care who you are or what you've done, because I can't live without you," love. And that's WHO GOD IS! We never have to see ourselves separate, or apart from Him. Because He lives in us and we live in Him. He gave His life for us, and He gave His life TO us. And now we can say the same thing that Jesus said in John 10:30, "I and my Father are one."

Here's the question: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?..." (Romans 8:35). And here's OUR answer: Anything and everything. The smallest little thing. A bad thought. A mistake. Not doing enough. Not being good enough. Missing church. Not reading our Bible. Here's the REAL answer: "...I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, not things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!! And since God IS love, that means nothing can separate us from God! Let me say it another way, "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). And even another way, "Daddy's don't just love their children every now and then. It's a love without end, Amen" (George Strait). Now watch this, because this is important. Daddy doesn't love us because of what we do. He loves us because of who we are, and who He is. He loves us because He IS love. Here's why this is important--if we're secure in God's love FOR us, we can also be secure in His love THROUGH us. We can love others with the same love what we are loved with. I see things like, "Don't cross oceans for people that wouldn't cross a puddle for you." And all I can think is: THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT NEED LOVE THE MOST! You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. So if someone hurts you, it probably doesn't even have a whole lot to do with you. They're only giving what they have. They are hurt, so they hurt other. We are loved, so we love others. It's all about what's inside you coming out of you. That's the natural order of things. That's how it works. What's inside comes out. Naturally. And, again, that's why it's so important to know and believe the love of Christ. To be fixed and secure in Daddy's love for us. So that we know what we have, and we can give what we have. We receive it and release it. And we don't have to be afraid that any little thing can separate us from His love. Paul said, "I am persuaded." That's what faith, or belief, is all about. We don't HOPE God loves us. We KNOW He loves us. He convinced us of His love for us by giving His life for us and giving His life to us. When Jesus said the greatest expression of love that a man can have is to lay down His life for His friends... He didn't just SAY it, He DID it. He went to the cross and laid His life down for us. He SHOWED us His love. He took it out of being a idea, or something we wish we could have, and He made it real. He gave it to us. And now that we have it, we can share it. Now that we have it we can stop trying to earn it--and rob ourselves from enjoying it--and we can rest in His loving arms. We can stop stressing, and stop pulling flower petals trying to figure out if He loves us or not. He does. He always has, and He always will. And nothing can change that.

I really don't like this idea that we seem to have that sin separates us from God. And you all know that my definition of sin is "unbelief." So I guess in THAT sense sin, or unbelief, is the only thing that COULD separate you (IN YOUR OWN MIND) from God. Colossians 1:21 says it like this, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." Right there is the problem, and the solution. WE were God's enemies IN OUR MINDS. He was never our enemy. He never has, and never will, separate from us. In fact, Jesus promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us. So. We need to go all the way back to the garden of Eden to see what would really happen. Adam and Eve disobeyed God--even though I think God was really giving them a warning more than He was giving them a command--and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then this happened: "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, becuase I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" (Genesis 3:8-11). Even though Adam and Eve ate from the tree of death... God continued to treat them as He always had. BUT THEY HID FROM GOD! Nothing had changed on God's end but everything had changed on man's end. Because man's natural eyes had been opened and his spiritual eyes had been closed. Man was hiding and scared because all of a sudden he knew he was naked, and he was ashamed. But God didn't care about man's nakedness. Man was naked the day before and God didn't care. It wasn't until MAN started to care about things that God never cared about that we really started to get ourselves into trouble--and NOT into trouble with GOD, into trouble with our own selves! Nakedness wasn't a problem for God until it was a problem for man. And then, if we continued the story in Genesis, we would see that God didn't punish our nakedness. He gave us skins of an animal (a Lamb, perhaps?) in order to cover our nakedness. Again: Not because HE had a problem, but because WE had a problem. We were alienated and enemies in our minds... and He reconciled us to Himself. WE put separation (or the false idea of separation) in between us and God... and He came and got rid of it. He rolled away the stone, and nailed the Law to the cross because it was contrary to us and against us. He did everything that was necessary in order for us to understand that there IS no separation. He's not mad at us, and He's not keeping us at arm's length. He's mad ABOUT us, and His arms are open wide (as they were on the cross) in an eternal, everlasting, embrace of abundant, Resurrection Life!

Apples and trees. Fathers and Son(s). DNA (the Divine Nature of the Almighty) passed down the family line as we partake of that divine nature. Creator and creation... or rather, Creator and creator, as we create our own reality by believing the Word (Jesus, love) of God. There's a unity that many times we seem to misunderstand. We say things like, "I want more of you, God," when we already have the fulness of Him. We say, "I want to be closer to you, God," when He already lives in us and we already live in Him. Acts 17:28 says it like this, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being..." And the reverse of that is also true: In US He lives and moves and has HIS being! Jesus said He didn't do anything unless He saw the Father do it, and He didn't say anything unless He heard the Father say it. Which may make it seem like we're supposed to try to "follow in our Father's foot steps." But that's not it at all. His foot steps are too big for anybody to follow in. The key is not trying to follow in His foot steps, but to let Him make His own foot steps with our feet. I don't do anything unless I see Daddy do it... because when I see Daddy do it, He's doing it in me and through me and as me. I don't say anything unless I hear Daddy say it because I hear Him say it with my mouth. It constantly amazes me when I hear my words come out of Logan's mouth. Not because I order him to say what I say... but because he receives it and releases it. And listen, this doesn't happen 100% of the time. Logan isn't a mindless robot. And neither are we mindless robots blindly trying to obey an antiquated Law that was never given to us in the first place! In fact, this DNA that was passed down from Father to Son... is the mind of Christ! We aren't mindless at all. Not when we let this mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. Not when we stop trying to be someone we're not and just start being who we are! And watch this: Logan is my son regardless of what he does. He doesn't have to act a certain way in order for me to accept him. He's my son. Always has been, always will be. The fact that he hasn't fallen far from the tree simply means he knows his daddy loves him. And he loves me because I first loved him. As I pour myself into him, I see myself coming out of him. God poured Himself into us on the cross. He laid His life down... He gave His life FOR us and He gave His life TO us. And now we have that same abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that flowed through Jesus flowing through us! Now we know and believe the love of Christ, and now we love one another with that same love! And do you know what happens when I see myself in Logan? I'm well pleased. Do you know what the Father thinks of us? We are His beloved Son in whom HE is well pleased! Why is God a happy God? Because He has the best Son (us!) in the whole wide world. Because the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I have to give my mom credit for this one. And isn't it funny the way the Spirit works? Something on my heart is on her heart too and it helps us both to understand what the Spirit is speaking. Ok. So we're talking about the apple not falling far from the tree. Talking about how we were made in God's image, and then on the cross CONFORMED to the image of His Son. About how important it is to know where we came from, so we can know where we're going. Well, in a sense I'm going to take it even a step further today. Look at Isaiah 40:28-29, "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." The Creator empowers His creation. And (here we go, Mom...), since I and my Father are one, it's not even really "Creator and creation." It's "Creator and creator." I don't know why we're still waiting for God to do something. Jesus did everything He needed to do on the cross and then He sat down at the right hand of the Father. We're always waiting for a move of God... when God already moved. What we really need is a revelation of Jesus. We need to know HOW God moved, and what it means that He HAS moved. And what it means is, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father" (John 14:12). It means that instead of expecting God to create something for us--He already did that when He created the heaven and the earth--we can now create things for ourselves! But here's the key--even as we exercise our dominion as kings and priests who rule and reign on this earth... you still have two choices. Choice number one is take what the world gives you and try to make the best of it. Choice number two is, as Jesus said, believe the Word of God and manifest the Kingdom. Because I'm NOT saying you can just willy nilly make anything happen. It doesn't matter how hard you "believe" (or, realistically, HOPE) that you're a millionaire. Check your bank account and you'll see what I mean. This creative power we possess is really a key that can unlock the Spiritual realm. When teaching His disciples to pray Jesus instructed them on the "natural" order of things. He said, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). In the book of Deuteronomy it is referred to as the days of heaven on earth. This Kingdom of God that is all around us--that is, in fact, WITHIN us--comes out, or manifests in our reality when we believe it. When we receive it and release it. So we can't create just any old thing. But we can create the true realm of the Kingdom. And that's better than any old thing anyway. Because that's righteousness, peace, and joy. True and lasting things that everybody needs. Apples and trees. Father and Son. Creator and... creator. Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Which makes us kings and lords. Because... as He is, so are we in this world. The works He did... we are empowered to do. And greater works than those! But only if we stop trying to be someone we're not, and begin to let Him reveal to us (and in us, and through us, and as us) who we really are!

Sometimes, in order to know where you're going, it's important to know where you've been. A big part of this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is enjoying the journey. But, as the song says, "How can I be lost, if I've got nowhere to go?" If you feel like you're stuck, like you're not moving forward... that's a miserable place to be. In the same manner, in order to know who you are, it's important to know WHO you came from. I think it's so interesting that when you look at the chronicles of the kings of Isreal and Judah, it always came back to one of two things; either the current king DID or DIDN'T follow in the foot steps of, "David his father." Which is NOT to say that David was the physical father of each and every king. But which IS to say that he was, in a sense, the spiritual father of all the kings. Solomon was the people's choice, but David was GOD'S choice. David was where the DNA of the king came from. And your DNA goes a big way in defining who you are. I'm not arguing nature vs nurture--I think both are important--I'm simply saying the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And if you know where you came from, you can have a reasonable idea of where you're going. If you know who your Daddy is, then you can identify yourself as His Son. Let me say it this way: since you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God... if you want to find your life you need to know where to look for it. Instead of looking for love in all the wrong places we can go straight to the source. Not just a God who loves you, but a God who IS love. Not an angry taskmaster who is always waiting for you to mess up so He can get you, but a loving heavenly Father who, on the cross, GOT you! On the cross God conformed us to the image of His Son. He showed us who He is. And by doing so He showed us who we are! No longer do we have to try to follow in our Father's foot steps (like all of those kings of old--some followed in David's foot steps, most didnt, and even those who DID still failed a lot of the time). Now we can rest in our Father's loving arms. We don't have to earn His love. We know that He loves us and is well pleased with us. Check out Deuteronomy 32:9-10, "For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." When we were wandering in the wilderness, God was in Christ reconciling us back to Himself. He was gathering us under His wings. When the heaven and the earth (the mind and the body... YOU!) was dark and void and without form, He said, "Let there be light!" And when that light of the world began to shine--on us, and in us, and through us--we began to see things clearly. We began to stop running FROM Him and started running TO Him. We began to understand who we really are, and where (WHO) we really came from. And that revelation literally brings the power of life. A life of purpose. A life... of love!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Because the same DNA is passed on from Father to Son. Genesis 1:26 says it like this, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth." Interesting that when God was describing His image and His likeness He spoke of having dominion. Of ruling and reigning. Because that's who He is--the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And, in the same manner, that's who we are. Because we were created in that same image and that same likeness. The problem has never been who we are. The problem has always been KNOWING who we are. I always say, "What you do flows from who you are." But that's not EXACTLY accurate. Because, really, what you do flows from who you BELIEVE you are. What you believe defines your reality. What you believe about yourself, and what you believe about God. Because what you believe about yourself IS what you believe about God, and vice versa. If you see yourself as a sinner, you see God as an angry taskmaster. But if you see yourself as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, then you see Him as a loving heavenly Father. And when you have that question of identity settled--when you know where (and who) you came from--then you start to live BY God instead of trying (and failing) to live FOR Him. See, Adam didn't know who he was, and that's why he squandered his dominion. He (and, as usual, I'm talking about Adam AND Eve when I say Adam... talking about humanity), swallowed the serpents lie because he didn't know the truth. He was MADE in God's image, but he didn't know what that image was. It took the cross to bring us into that revelation knowledge. Because on the cross, this prophecy was fulfilled, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29). In the beginning we were MADE in His image. On the cross we were CONFORMED to the image of His Son. The light shined and we were able to see clearly. See who HE is, and thereby see who WE are. Now instead of identifying ourselves as slaves (to sin) or even as servants (to God), we know that we are His Son. We are Jesus. He drew us into Himself and He planted Himself in us. What's true about Jesus is true about us because as He is, so are we in this world. The same power and authority that He has--that we were originally given--is what we are now equipped and empowered to operate in. The same abundant, eternal, everlastin, Resurrection Life that He gave for us, and gave to us, on the cross, is the life we now live in the flesh BY the faith of the Son of God. We live it by letting Him live His own life in and through and as us. We don't try to "be like God" through the knoweldge of good and evil. We simply eat from the Tree of Life and rest in the truth that we are already like Him!