The Truth About Being Born Again (Part 2)

If anyone is united to Christ, he is a new creation.  Old things have passed away.  Behold, all things have become new.  Paul to the Church in Corinth

"God isn’t focused on what you do, but who you are."

"It’s not about doing but being."

These two statements, and the assumptions behind them, intensely anger me.

Why?

They leave me with a vague notion of what rebirth and the new spiritual life is all about.

My physical birth was involuntary, but having been born, spiritual rebirth must be voluntary. Like Nicodemus said to Jesus when Jesus said, "to see the kingdom one must be born again": 
"How can a person reenter a mother's womb?"

And as Jesus responded, “Physical birth is physical.  Spiritual birth is spiritual.”

We don’t reenter our mother’s womb. 

We become conscious of God, and consciously God conscious.

In other words, the “sinful nature” is spiritual and volitional passivity. 

The new nature is submission to God, consciously and deliberately.

“Sinners” are those who refuse to be God conscious.  This is primarily done passively.  It’s a spiritual lack of care for God or his will.  Simply put, they just don’t bother thinking about God.  Those who blaspheme and rail against God for the atrocities of the universe are closer to actually meeting Him than those who have a vague “love for God,” or for the idea of God.

So what happens to us when we approach the possibility of rebirth?

God, somehow, gets and keeps our attention long enough for us to decide:

Submission or Rebellion.

God’s will or our will.

All of our lives we passively float through life like leaves in the wind of passions and imaginations and self centered assumptions.  Even the so called strong willed or strong minded are only so in relation to themselves, their desires, their opinions.  But these come from who knows where.  The self centered person assumes these are simply manifestations of who they are.  So they are slaves to passions of which they themselves can’t be the origins.  Heredity and history is their slavery.

But when reborn, for the first time, we consciously decide to be and remain God conscious. 

Conscious God consciousness is rebirth, and the new spiritual life. 

This is the truth about being born again.

 

 

Lori and Allegro (Part 2)

"Why did I walk away?"  Allegro asked herself.  "I wanted exactly what she said: for someone to know and love the part of me that I love most about myself!  Who wouldn’t want that?  Who doesn’t want that, for crying out loud!  Out LOUD!  COL.  That’s new one!  I’ll be the first on Facebook to use it!  But they’ll think I’m weird, if they don’t already think that?   How do we ever know what people are really thinking about us?  I mean really.  Really.  Oh no that wasn’t weird!  They say to my face…but then they text their REAL BFF 'OMG, she’s so weird!'  And they know who the text is about!  Me!  Ms. Weirdy 2013!  My dad is the only person on earth who ever loved and liked and adored me!  (She cried hard.)  MY DAD!  IT’S FATHER’S DAY!  I’m so stupid!"

Text:  Dad.  I’m sorry.  I’m so so so so sorry!  You know I love you for real right!?  Like for real real!?  Dad I’m sorry.  Happy Father’s Day!  I’ll show you how much I love you today!  I love you.  Allegro.

A minute later:

Text:  I had a dream about you last night, like the one’s I had when you were a girl.  You were walking on the beach with a woman who had the softest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.  You talked, and talked, and talked, like you do.  And she not only listened, but seemed to like listening.  A flaming dove flew between you two. Then, for no reason I could see in the dream, you started running as fast as you can.  (Which in real life is not fast at all, but in the dream you were THE FLASH!)

Then I woke up.

The Spirit didn’t tell me what this dream meant.  I’m sure you already know.  Remember my one goal in life as your father:  That you would have learned to follow the Spirit by watching me follow  the Spirit.  Remember what I’ve taught you.  If you want to give me a Father’s Day gift, receive God’s gift.  Receive His Son.  Then you’ll be my spiritual and physical daughter.  I love you.  I like you. Dad

Allegro cried.

She ran as fast as she could (which is not very fast at all).  Maybe the girl was still at the library.

She was.

The Spirit told her to wait outside until she saw the girl running back….

Lori and Allegro (Part 1)

The Spirit sent her to the library. 

She didn’t like libraries particularly, but she wanted to be where He wanted her to be.  Lori didn’t stand out, except for her soft, dark brown eyes.  They penetrated like hot chocolate in deep winter.  Other than this, Lori lives unnoticed.

Go to the history section and look for whatever interests you.

Always.  Your will is my life.

Again, she wasn’t particularly interested in history.  But doing what she wasn’t particularly into gave her a sense of self denied purpose, and she genuinely loved this feeling.  She knew it was all about Him.

So you’re into history now are you? 

Her perky quirkiness was amusing.  Everything about this woman was noticeable except her eyes.  This was weird to Lori.

No, not particularly.

Really?  You know this is “History,” right?

Right.  It’s the history section.

Then…why are you in the history section?

Why do you ask?

Oh, I’m a curious kind of girl, if you know what I mean.

Actually, I don’t.

Well now this here is the thing.  From the womb, maybe even before, I just wanted to know things.  Especially, and primarily, where things come from and why.

I know where everything comes from and why.

What do you mean?

I know what you are looking for.  You want to feel connected to your beginnings, like V-Ger!

Allegro was stunned!  How could this girl she never met know about V-Ger!?  Was it in her Facebook profile?  "NO, I T WASN’T!" Allegro thought.  In fact, she made SURE she didn’t put anything in her profile that made her seem weirder than she already felt. 

How do you know that?

The Spirit gives me impressions.

What other impression do you have?

That you are a particular kind of lonely.

What kind of lonely?

The kind that thinks no one can understand the part of you that you like the best:  the part that makes up stories about people, and matches the story with the person’s actual history.

Allegro cried. 

The Spirit is the one who made the part of you that you like the best.  You can become His right now if you want to.  Do you want to?

No. 

And Allegro walked away.

Lori was shocked!  Why did she walk away? 

The Spirit answered:

Whoever listens to you, listens to Me.  Whoever rejects you rejects Me.  And whoever rejects Me rejects the one who sent Me.

 Click HERE for part 2...

The Presence of God (Part 3)

May I sit with you?

Please do.

The way he said it was unnervingly welcomingly, like he knew everything about her and nothing about her.  It was inviting and comforting, yet completely exciting the way new relationships are.

I usually come here every Friday, but I had an engagement yesterday, so I couldn’t make it.  Saturdays at this time are still very quiet, but I like Fridays better.

I come every Saturday for the same reasons.  I like to hear my thoughts and God’s.

He just said it.  As if everyone did the same thing.

What are God’s thoughts like?

They are like the feeling you have when you realize something that has puzzled you for a long time.  You know how you try to figure something out and you just can’t, so you give up?  Then, when you’ve long forgotten the problem you have a revelation?  You know you didn’t come up with the answer, but it feels like you’ve known it all along?  God’s thoughts feel something like that, but not completely.  The revelation I’m talking about describes it, but there is something sharper and subtler.  It feels like Someone greater than and other than you is showing you something.  Do you know what I mean?

Actually, I do.  I felt like that just this morning!

He smiled.  Her heart felt warmed and stimulated by The Smile behind his smile…

The Presence of God (Part 2)

“I’ve never felt this way before,” she thought.

It was like entering a dream with clarity.  He made time and space seem like friends of the endless horizon.

He seemed to live with God….

One day Staci went to her favorite coffee shop, at a time when she KNEW she’d be the only one there!  Just her, coffee, jazz, and her lap top!  (She hoped there would be coffee shops in heaven!)

Now to her favorite section:  A booth in the back for the especially introverted.  

But someone was already there!  Yet she didn’t mind, and this is why.

As she approached “her booth,” she felt…something…or someone…the closer she got.  The man sitting there was reading, but there was much more to him than that.  He seemed to be “listening.”  Like when you're in a grocery store and a woman seems to be talking to herself, but she has one of those phones in her ear that you can’t see.  Someone was talking to him like that.  He had an invisible spiritual ear phone.

So she stopped about 20 paces from her booth.  She felt like going any further would be an interruption of a very intimate conversation.  Inappropriate.  But she didn’t feel unwelcome by the reading man or the one who spoke to him.  She was actually drawn to both, but she couldn’t explain why.  She felt peace, excitement, fear, love, and something else she couldn’t explain. 

The book and inner voice clearly absorbed all of the man’s attention.  He didn’t notice her at all, but she didn’t feel ignored or neglected.  Instead connected to him, the truth he beheld, and the voice he loved.  Though she revered the time and space in the booth, she now wanted something she never thought she would ever want:  To share her booth!  She no longer wanted it to be “hers,” but theirs:  his, hers, and His.

The Presence of God

How do I know that you're with me?

What do the scriptures say?

“The LORD is with you when you are with Him?”  (2 Chronicles 15:2b)

How are you with someone, anyone?

I choose to be, if they choose to be with me.

Exactly.  And what do the scriptures say about two walking together?

"Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"  Amos 3:3

Do you agree with me?

Completely.  I have exchanged my will for yours.

Exactly.  So you can be conscious of these choices: 

1. The choice to be with me. 
2. The choice to agree with me.

I am everywhere I want to be and nowhere I don’t want to be.  This is my omniscience.  Though everywhere, to those who don’t care, I am nowhere.  But to those who care for me, I am everywhere they are and will be.  Awareness or unawareness is a choice.  Though every where, to those who ignore me, I am nowhere, and to those who seek me, they find me everywhere.  It is a choice.  You can be in the same room as your wife and be completely unaware of her.  She can be in the same place as you, yet you feel completely alone.  This is how it is with me, but even more so because of my invisibility.  I am with you if you want me to be.  If you choose to be with me, then I am with you.  If you choose to agree with me, then we walk through this life together.

So my consciousness of my choice will become the c consciousness of your presence.

Exactly.  If you believe the scriptures and act upon them, your consciousness of that act is faith in my words.  So in knowing you are with me, you believe what I say about those who are with me:  “THE LORD IS WITH YOU WHILE YOU ARE WITH HIM.”  All you ever have to do is ask yourself the questions,

1. “Am I with God right now? 
2. "Am I in perfect agreement with him?” 

If you can answer yes to those questions with a clear conscience, then you can say with confidence, “The Lord is with me, right now, where I am!”

Then you are with me. right now, where I am. 
Thank you God for the honor of your presence.

The Voice of God (Part 5)

Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice.”

I am one of his “sheep.” 

Therefore, I know His voice.

Now we don’t see a lot of sheep and shepherds in America, so we don’t know the nature of their relationship.  The shepherd named his sheep and got to know them, and they him.  He was their protector and provider.  David, who was a shepherd, the one who wrote the famous 23^rd Psalm, seemed particularly dedicated to his sheep.  He defended them against lions and bears.

Jesus is to his followers as a shepherd is to his sheep:  Their provider, protector, and defender against spiritual predators.  Jesus saw his followers as “sheep among wolves.”  Sheep are defenseless and senseless animals.  Without their shepherd, they don’t stand a chance in this world of wolves.  They can’t find good grass, good water, or safe pastures.  Therefore it is crucial for Jesus’ followers to know His voice as their Good Shepherd.  They need their shepherd, and he loves them with his life.  If one goes astray or gets lost, the good shepherd goes to find it, and won’t rest until he does.

Yet this is what helps me the most in thinking of Jesus as the good shepherd.

Again, if a sheep is lost or goes in the wrong direction, the good shepherd doesn’t just let it go wrong.  He seeks it until he finds it, and he does this with compassion.  Jesus saw Israel with eyes of pity, saying they were like sheep without a shepherd:  Directionless and defenseless.

He didn’t think, “Oh well, you should have listened.”  He sought to find them, lead them, provide for them, and protect them.

This helps me because I have the assurance that if I mishear or misunderstand the voice of my shepherd, he will redirect me.

Like if I tell my son to go get me a flat head screw driver and he gets a Phillip head instead.  If he misunderstood, or didn’t know the difference, I would just tell him the difference and redirect him.  I wouldn’t punish him or simply accept the wrong screw driver.  My will didn’t change just because he misheard or misunderstood.

As I trust that I know the voice of my Good Shepherd, I know that his voice is clear, and if I mishear and get lost, he’ll compassionately redirect me.