I've heard it said, "If you fail to plan then you plan to fail." And never is this more accurate than in the Kingdom. See, we have so many immaculate gifts available to us. But if we don't know what we've got, then we can't do anything with it. If we don't know that the work IS finished, then we'll spend all our time trying to finish it. And, as Jesus said in John 10:1, "...He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." Like we saw in the last Rant series, if you try to do it yourself you will fail. You will rob yourself of the gift of eternal life by trying to live Jesus' life. Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. That's why it's so important to understand that on this side of the cross it is Jesus who lives in us! He IS living His life... in and through and as us. But, again, this behooves us to understand what that abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is all about. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Anything we wish to understand about ourselves... we find in Him. He is our true identity. As He is, so are we in this world. If it's true about Jesus then it's true about us because we ARE Jesus. He is the head and we are the body. Now let me show you something from the book of Exodus. From the Passover. When God was giving instructions for the eating of the Lamb He said, "And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in you hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD'S passover" (Exodus 12:11). The eating of the Lamb wasn't the END of the story, it was the BEGINNING of the story! It was what prepared the people of Israel for the journey ahead! They had their shoes on. They were ready to go. They were about to make the transition out of bondage and into the Promised Land. And having Lamb in their belly is what fueled them to do what was necessary. Here's what I'm saying: A life of spiritual rest is NOT a life of inactivity. It is a life of Holy Spirit directed activity. And I've said this many times before--I don't believe the Holy Spirit gives direct orders in a, "do this or else," type of direction. I believe the Holy Spirit testifies of our true identity (by testifying of Jesus) and then our actions flow from that identity. But at the same type, I believe the Holy Spirit speaks in a still, small voice. So we must be prepared to listen. We can't just take this finished work for granted and assume that by doing nothing everything will just work itself out. The Bible tells us that LOVE never fails. And charity is love IN ACTION. So, as always, our part of the deal is to believe. To receive AND release the love of Christ that we are filled (to overflowing) with. A friend of mine said it like this, "A Christian at rest looks a whole lot like a Christian at work." It's the motivation that's different. We aren't working to get something. We are working because we HAVE something. And that's where this idea of preparation comes in. Being ready for whatever comes our way. Knowing and believing that we are loved so that we can love!

If you're a meat head you think you can do it yourself. You think you please God with your behavior, with what you do for Him. But according to Hebrews 11:5, "...without faith it is impossible to please him..." Because faith is knowing and believing that the work is finished. Faith is trusting in God because He has shown Himself faithful. Faith is trusting God and not yourself. The carnal mind is all about YOU and what YOU can do. Faith (or the mind of Christ) is all about JESUS and what HE did (for us and as us) 2,000 years ago on the cross. A meat head tries to finish the work because he thinks, "If I finish the work, and do a good job, then God will be pleased with me and I can rest." But when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove... when the Father affirmed His Son by publicly declaring that He was well pleased with Him... Jesus hadn't done anything yet. He didn't begin His ministry until AFTER the Father declared His pleasure. And that, friends, is the difference between works and labor, and rest. The carnal mind thinks it has to earn the Father's love and acceptance, and does everything from that place of trying to get something it thinks it doesn't have. The mind of Christ knows that Daddy loves Him and does everything from that place of sharing what He does have. You can't act the right way in order to GET salvation. You act the right way because you HAVE salvation. And by salvation I mean, "salvation from sin." Which is why Jesus came. He didn't come to save us from some firey prison called hell that you go to after you die if you're on the naughty list. He came to save us from our sins. He came to save us from unbelief. He came to save us... from ourselves. Remember that we were God's enemies IN OUR MINDS because of our wicked works. God was never our enemy. He always has and always will love us. He vowed to never leave us nor forsake us. But we FELT like enemies in our carnal minds because to a meat head the simply equation of "If I do good I'll be accepted, if I do evil I'll be punished," makes perfect sense. Things like mercy and grace and unconditional love can only make sense in the context of the relationship between a heavenly Father and His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. That's why Jesus said, "...no man cometh unto the FATHER but by me" (John 14:6). Listen, Jesus didn't come to improve you. He came to remove you. He came to crucify and bury that old man, that carnal mind, that meat head, and raise up a new creation in Him! He came to give us life and that more abundantly. He came to move us out of religion and into relationship. He came to show us the Father. He came to save us from our sins so that we could stop TRYING to please God and so that we could KNOW and BELIEVE that Daddy IS pleased with us. Daddy loves us. Not because of what we do, but because of who we are. That's the good news of the gospel. You don't have to (and can't) earn Daddy's love. It is a gift that is freely given, and received through faith by the Holy Spirit!

If the carnal mind isn't subject to the things of God (and CAN'T be subject to them), then why are we spending so much time trying to modify people's behavior? If it comes from the outside-in, from an external list of laws, then it will never produce real, true, lasting change. Because it's not about changing. It's about understanding the change that took place on the cross. It's not about changing your mind, it's about letting the mind of Christ (that's already in you) BE in you. It's about BEING transformed (into what we've already been transformed into) by the renewing of our minds. Here's what I'm saying: Instead of telling people what to do, we should be telling people who they are! Instead of trying to get people who are in the flesh--of human effort, trying to "be a good person" through the knoweldge of good and evil--to behave differently, we need to try to get people to SEE differently. And in order for someone to SEE differently we have to SHOW them something different. The world is full of condemnation. The natural mind is almost singularly focused on avoiding punishment. That's why Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of God--not because He was mad at them, but because they THOUGHT He was mad at them. That's always our first thought--He's mad at me. I'm a dirty sinner and God's out to get me. We judge ourselves by our actions, specifically our BAD actions, and we think God is mad. But let me say this about it, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled" (Colossians 1:21). We thought our wicked works separated us from God, even though He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us. See, "sin" is not a problem or an issue to God. Jesus is the Lamb of God who TOOK AWAY the sin of the world. God isn't afraid of sin. Even when sin was at it's worst... Jesus BECAME sin so that we could be made the righteousness of God in Him. Our sin doesn't separate God from us. But what happens is we let it separate US from Him. We run from Him until we feel like we've earned the right to return to His presence. But, again, that's not how it really is. When we were enemies (in OUR minds) He reonciled us back to Himself. When we were trying--through the flesh--to stay out of trouble, God drew us to Himself and said, "Son, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad ABOUT you. And even though YOU are the one who put this sense of separation between us, I would rather die than be without you." He died, and removed the separation. He died, and then rose again. And since we were in Him when He did it WE died and rose again. And now we are NOT meat heads. Now we do NOT try to do in order to be. Now we simply be who we are because we KNOW who we are. It's this knowledge of our true identity as the beloved Son of God in whom He is well pleased that allows us to rest. That allows us to receive and release the love of our heavenly Father!

Wanna know why forcing Jesus down people's throat doesn't work? They'll choke on Him. "Because the carnal mind is enmnity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:7). You can't force Spiritual stuff on a meat head. You can't MAKE somebody believe something. In order to believe something you have to know it first. You have to experience it. That's what happened to Paul (then Saul) on the road to Damascus. He was literally knocked off his donkey--figuratively knocked off his high horse--and had an experience with Jesus. An experience that changed everything. See, Paul was pro-God but anti-Christ. He knew the Law backwards and forwards, and persecuted those who would dare to transgress it. He described himself this way, "Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the rightesousness which is in the law, blameless" (Philippians 3:4-6). Basically Paul was the most religious "religious dude" you could ever want to meet. He was as self-righteous as they come. In the flesh--or human effort--he was getting it done. So why then did Jesus knock him off his donkey? To shine His light on Paul and show him--showing is much more effective than telling--how things really are. To show him that the carnal mind had passed off the scene at the cross and that the mind of Christ was now in Paul! So that Paul could BE transformed (into what the cross had already transformed him into) by the renewing of his mind. That's why in verses seven and eight of Philippians 3 Paul says, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord..." All the religious knowledge in the world--all the head knowledge--didn't mean anything. It's not head knowledge that we need--knoweldge puffs up. The more we know the more we think we can do. That's the lie of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It's heart knowledge that we need. Experiential knowledge. That's what God--who is love--is all about. He's all about relationship. He's not about working in order to earn something. The work is finished. The eternal life that IS the knoweldge of the Father and the One whom He sent--the knowledge that God is our heavenly Father and we are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--is the GIFT of God. You can't earn a gift. But to a meat head, earning your bread by the sweat of your brow makes sense. The carnal mind is enmity against God. The carnal mind can't understand or accept the true nature of God... the true nature of love. It doesn't make sense. It seems too good to be true. That's what the mind of Christ came to show us... came to give us... the truth that God's love isn't too good to be true. It is so good that it MUST be true. And it can't be earned, it can only be received!

Yesterday I said a meat head was a dummy. And here's why: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God..." (Psalm 14:1). Or, if you take out the italicized words, "The fool hath said in heart, no God." See, a meat head, a Biblical fool, tries to do it on his own. In his own power. He works out of the realm of the flesh, or human effort. That's where we get into trouble so many times: instead of resting in the finshed work of the cross we try to take matters into our own hands. We try to finish the work. And if we're trying to finish the work then we don't know--or believe, or understand--that the work is already finished. We either think in our heart that there IS no God, or we refuse God in our hearts. We think we have to do it ourselves. That's the lie that Adam and Eve swallowed way back in the garden of Eden. The lie that says we have to do in order to be. We don't have to do ANYTHING in order to be who we are. In fact, when we understand who we are... that's where everything we do flows from. The Spirit in us flows out of us when we stop trying to make something happen. See, we ARE filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and everything that entails--the love of God, the grace of God, the righteousness, peace, and joy of God--and when we stop trying to GET all of those things, or "fake it til we make it," then what's in us flows (overflows!) out of us. But it all comes from that relationship. From that heart knoweldge of who God is (our heavenly Father) and who we are (His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased). Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing..." (John 6:63). That's why He took away our carnal mind and gave us His mind--the mind of Christ.  That's why He fulfilled the Old Covenant--the covenant where mankind was judged by His actions, by the external, by the flesh--and moved us into the New Covenant where our sins and iniquites (our wrong believing and the actions that flowed from that wrong believing) are remembered no more. God didn't want us in a place where our focus was on our actions. He wanted us to be in a place where our focus was on Him. That's why Hebrews says that even though everything IS under our feet... we don't always SEE everything under our feet... BUT we see Jesus. He's all we need to see. On the mount of transfiguration Peter tried to include Moses and Elijah (the Law and the Prophets) but God cut him off and basically said, "Jesus is all you need." That's the difference between being a meat head (and following the carnal mind) and being the Son of God (and being led of the Spirit). That's why the Apostle Paul told us that we have the mind of Christ, but also told us to LET the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. We have to receive the gift we've been given. We have to enter into the New Covenant. That's where faith comes in. That's where knowing (with head knowledge) becomes believing (with heart knowledge). As a man thinks in his heart, so is. A fool says in his heart, "No God." A Son says in His heart, "Yes, Daddy."

I heard a pastor friend of mine use this phrase years ago and I absolutely loved it. A meat head is, in the natural, someone who is kind of dumb. A meat head, spiritually speaking, is someone who is using the carnal mind. And that's the trouble we find ourselves in so many times. There is something else available to us--the Kingdom of God--but we find ourselves stuck in the appearance realm of the world. We have our affections on things of the earth and not on things above. The book of Hebrews verses 8 and 9 says it like this, "Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." All things are under His feet, which means all things are under our feet. As He is, so are we in this world. But we don't SEE all things put under His (and our) feet. We get caught up in things. We lose focus. We get stuck, or distracted. We try to overcome things instead of realizing that Jesus overcame it all and there is nothing left to overcome. We use natural minds and natural eyes. That's the problem. Because what we see is what we be. What we see is what we say, and (as we saw in the last Rant series) what we say, or confess, is what we create, or what manifests. Here's the solution: We see Jesus. Jesus suffered death both for and as every man. When Adam sinned he lost his mind. He left the garden of Eden--the finished work of God--and tried to make something of himself in the world. He was in a dimension of good and evil, of doing in order to be. He was cursed to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. He was under an Old Covenant economy that made perfect sense to the carnal mind. He was a meat head. I'm telling you: Do good and be rewarded, do evil and be punished makes PERFECT sense to the carnal, unregenerated mind. But, as always, there's a more excellent way. And that way--that truth and that life--is Jesus. Is love. That's why Jesus died both for us and as us; so that we could bury the old man. Bury the carnal mind. He emptied us out so that He could fill us with ourselves. In the beginning the creation--you and I--was dark and void and without form. And the best plan we could come up with was to try and fill that void. But as hard as we tried... that's impossible. A God-shaped, love-shaped void can only be filled with the God who is love. The flesh--which is what the carnal mind is all about, trying to do things in our own power--can't get it done. Because it is, "...Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). The Kingdom is not for meat heads. The Kingdom is for, well, kings. It is for those who embrace, those who receive, the mind of Christ. It is for those who know and believe the finished work of Jesus and know and believe the love of Christ. The Spirit, the mind of Christ, is what makes all things new. It is what allows us to be transformed (into what we have already been transformed into). Jesus said it like this, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing..." (John 6:63)!

The power that lies within us--the death and life that is in the power of the tongue, the ability to define or create our reality--is nothing compared to the power of confessing (or agreeing) with the true reality, the true creation, of God. Because when we confess the truth, then the truth manifests in our lives! When we agree with God--when we know and believe the love of Christ--then what is true becomes true for us! In the same way that we are not to judge according to appearance--we are not to live in the appearance realm, or the realm of "good and evil"--but judge righteous judgment... EXECUTE judgment... we are not to create anything. We are to manifest creation. In fact, all of creation is groaning and waiting for the MANIFESTATION of the Son(s) of God! God already did all the work. He created the heaven and the earth. And it was (and is) very good. We can't improve upon His creation, and when we understand how very good it is, we will understand that we don't need to. See, it's not about a change that needs to happen. It's about SEEING that change that took place 2,000 years ago on the cross. In the beginning man was made in the image of God. But man didn't know what God looked like, so man didn't know what MAN looked like. That's why man swallowed the lie that he had to do something in order to be like God. Then, at the appointed time, because He so loved the world, God sent His only Son into His creation to show us what He really looks like. To show us what WE really look like. The creation was dark and void and without form. Then God said, "Let there be light." He filled His creation with the light of life, and revealed to us how things really are. What LIFE really is. And what life really is... is love. It's relationship. That's what the Creator created us--so that He could have someone to love. Because love is a verb. It's an action word. It takes two. Someone to love and someone to BE loved. And then when you know and believe that you ARE loved--when, through the Spirit, you are filled with the fulness of God--that love overflows out of you. That's the change that happened. That's what it means that all things are become new. Not that God can finally love us, because He always has loved us and always will love us, but that we can now RECEIVE His love. We can see Him now. We can see ourselves now. We can see our loving heavenly Father, and we can see ourselves as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And when THAT ultimate truth of the universe is revealed to us, then all of creation is revealed to us. We can see that the work is finished. We can see that we have come into the promised land of rest. We can simply begin to enjoy the fruits of God's labor on the cross. We don't have to change, because the change already took place! We don't have to create anything... we can simply enjoy God's creation!

Here's what I think I'm trying to say with this Rant series: We create our own realites by what we believe, and by what we say. Let me link some verses together: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..." (Proverbs 23:7). "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10). The heart and the mouth are directly linked. What you believe is what you say (or do). Jesus said that by our words we are justified or condemned. And, again, I don't believe that God is making a list of everything we say so that HE can justify or condemn us. I belia heve that we justify or condemn ourselves by what we say. Because what's in us comes out of us. As we think in our hearts, so are we. Two more verses: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue..." (Proverbs 18:21). "Where the word of a king is, there is power..." (Ecclesiastes 8:4). We create death and life with what we say... what we confess. Whatever we believe manifests in our lives. ESPECIALLY when we speak it. ESPECIALLY when we act on it. So, yes, I believe we create our own realites. But watch this, because this is so glorious to me: "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there" (Psalm 139:8). Even though we have been given dominion... even though we can create our own realities... there's something (love) that is always there, sometimes just behind the scenes. There is TRUE reality. There is GOD'S creation. A creation that is very good. A creation that is groaning, and waiting, for the manifestation of the Son(s) of God. There's a more excellent way. I preached one time that I don't believe God forces His will on us. I said He's too much of a gentleman to MAKE us believe in Him. (And I'm not talking about the cross, because we didn't have free will when Adam sinned and we didn't have free will when Jesus saved us, but that's another matter for another Rant.) What Jesus did is He made things available to us. He filled creation--which was dark, and void, and without form--with His life of life. He translated us out of the power of darkness and into His Kingdom. He stood (and stands) at the door and knocked. He gave us the measure of faith by proving Himself faithful. He took away the sin (or unbelief) of the world by giving us something (Himself, love) to believe in. See, there's a heavenly truth, if I can say it that way. There's a way that things REALLY are. And that's why Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "In earth as it is in heaven." He was trying to show us that we can tap into that heavenly realm. We can create our own reality... or we can receive THE reality. We can take what the world gives us and try to make the best of it... or we can realize that the world has passed away and we can start living an abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. On the cross God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Bringing us back to the way things were always supposed to be. Making all things new. And now we can receive and release that love. We can experience and enjoy that relationship--that unconditional loving relationship--with our Creator. We can think it in our hearts, and we can confess in into reality!

"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31). God doesn't make mistakes. He created the heaven and the earth and it was very good. The heaven is the mind and the eath is the body. He created YOU and you are very good! And then, because the creation--because YOU--were dark and void and without form God spoke and filled that dark void with light. He gave us form. He made us in His image and then, on the cross, He conformed us to His image. He shined His glorious light so that we could see things clearly. So that we could stop looking at ourselves as inferior, or bad, or evil, or sinners, and we could see ourselves as we truly are. We could see GOD as HE truly is. God is love. That's what the light of the world--that Jesus is, and that we are--reveals. It doesn't reveal something evil that needs to be good. Jesus did NOT come to make "bad people" good. He came to make dead people alive. And this is how we know that we have passed from death into life: That we love one another. Think about it like this: a seed can only produce after it's own kind, right? An apple seed can only produce apples, right? Well in the same way a God who is love can only produce--or create--love. I think another myth about creation is that God spoke the world into exsistence out of nothing. First of all, as we saw a couple days ago, God didn't speak the world into creation at all. Genesis 1:1 simply tell us that He created it. It wasn't until Genesis 1:3 that God spoke. And when He spoke He said what He always says. He said, "Let there be light." He said the Word (Jesus, love). So He didn't speak the world into existence. And He didn't create it out of nothing either. He created it out of Himself. Colossians 1:17 states, "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Before anything was, God is. He is the I AM. He will be whatever He will be. And what He chose to be, in the beginning, was the heaven and the earth. You can't make something out of nothing. Everything comes from the source. God is the source. Love is the source. By Him ALL things consist. Everything in creation is merely an extension of God. An extension of love. Because why did God create everything? Why did He create anything? So that love could have an expression. That's why, "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:19). All of creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Not just people, but EVERYTHING. Because love is everywhere, and love IS everything. Sometimes it's just too dark to tell. And that's where we come in. That's what "the manifestation" is! It's us knowing and believing that we are loved and that we are love! It's us knowing and believing that the light shines in us and out of us. That's why we were created: To be loved and to love one another with that same love. To receive it and release it. Not to create something new, but to make all things new through love! Not to change things, but to reveal things as they really are!

Here's my thought for today: There was (and is) nothing wrong with creation. In the Genesis account, every time God created something He saw that it was good. And the first thing He saw that was good comes in Genesis 1:4, "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." See, that's the key right there. When God created the heaven and earth it was dark and void and without form... but it wasn't bad. Humanity--before, during, and after the cross--isn't bad. The thing is: when it's dark you can't see. When there's a void it needs to be filled. If you're without form you need to be CONFORMED. And that's what the cross didn't. The cross did NOT change us into something God could love. He already loved us. He always has and He always will. What the cross did was it changed us into something that could RECEIVE God's love. See... what really happened when man "fell" is that he lost his mind. He didn't know who God was, and since he was made in God's image he didn't know who HE was. That's why the serpent's lie was so easy to swallow: Do in order to be. "I want to be like God but I'm not like him. I'll get enough knowledge of good and evil, and then I'll be able to stop doing evil, do good, and be like God." Man didn't know who he was. But that didn't change who he was. Being lost doesn't mean you're damned. It simply means you don't know who you are, where you are, or why you're here. Which is why God spoke into His creation. He spoke the Word--love, light, Jesus--and saw that it was good. Right from the beginning there was a more excellent way. We can stumble around in the dark, with a lost carnal mind, or we can embrace the light that shines in us. The light that shines THROUGH us. And when the light shines, that's when we can see clearly. That's when we let the mind of Christ that's in us BE in us. That's when the Finished Work of the cross--when everything was made new--begins to manifest in our lives. Not when we try to change things, but when we receive the truth that things have already changed. Not when we try to create something--remember death AND life is in the power of the tongue, we are justified OR condemned by our words--but when we embrace the creation of our Father. God made all things new. He didn't make all new things. There was nothing wrong with us from God's point of view. The problem was in OUR point of view. We viewed ourselves, and God, through the veil of sin and the Law. Through the veil of the Old Covenant. Through the idea of doing in order to be. Performance based religion makes sense to the carnal mind. But there's a more excellent way. It's not laws you keep, it's a life that keeps you. It's not about what you do it's about what Jesus did both for you and as you. We create our own reality by what we believe. And when we believe in Jesus--that we ARE Jesus--then the true reality of God's creation comes forth in us and through us and as us! He is our Father and we are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Daddy loves us!