Thinking...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Spiritual Warfare...The Matrix - Fight Song...
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Eph 6:12)
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." (2Co 4:7-10)
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." (1Pe 5:8-10)
Sometimes it starts with a silent curse
Sometimes it doesn't waste time
You still think I look upon this with hatred in my mind
I won't lie It took some time
But I know one thing It took me away from!
All the things love gave me
So I had to let things go!
I can go another round despite you.
I'm still healing
No I'm not reeling
Yes I'm feeling
This is my fight song
Now I'm left with a scar to reverse.
Yes another burden to fight I guess
I made it this far so I know things will be alright
I won't lie I will survive I'm still healing
No I'm not reeling
Yes I'm feeling
This is my fight song
But I know one thing
It takes me away from
All the things love gave me
So I had to let things go!
It's so hard to forget
But I must let go...and begin
To live again and not give in
I figured out I will land on solid ground
I will land on solid ground
I will go another round
I can go another round despite you.
I'm still healing
No I'm not reeling
Yes I'm feeling
This is my fight song!
~ Scott Strapp
Spiritual Warfare...The Matrix..."Wake Up"
The Matrix fight scenes as a metaphor for our spiritual warfare against "the powers and principalities" – as the Apostle Paul wrote, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12 TNIV).
Just as Neo stops the bullets of the Agents we to, “….can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph 6:16).
It is our mind and our imagination that makes reality and it is what we use to fight the spiritual realm… In the book of Romans, Paul wrote this, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom 12:2). Greg Boyd in his book Seeing Is Believing wrote, “We become what we imaginatively see. If we all imaginatively see are the vivid re-presentations that have been instilled in us by the pattern of the world, we will be conformed to the patterns of this world. But if we learn to imaginatively see ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus’ (2 Cor. 4:6), we will be transformed ‘from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Cor. 3:18)….. “We are continually interpreting our world, and the way we interpret it is mostly determined by the way aspects of our world trigger imaginative re-presentations that encode messages, create feelings, and thus motivate behavior. The re-presentations that are most vivid, most concrete and most like our physical experience exercise the strongest influence on our lives.”
We must awake; “This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’” (Eph 5:14).
Awake out of the Matrix of the “…deceptive state of being…” to the reality that is in Jesus and fight the fight against an Enemy that cannot conceive that he has already lost, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature (the deceptive state of being), God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:13-15).
So the Enemy lashes out against any advancement of the Kingdom of God, to any liberation, any awaking to the really real – God and his Kingdom.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Facebook Status forwarded by Chris Fletcher
Gary David Stratton: "(P)eriods of great social stress have tended to be times when (Christian) apocalyptic thinking goes into overdrive." Sound like anyone you know?
Original Facebook Status: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=173800431&v=wall&story_fbid=169581129739619
Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)
Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless
Original Facebook Status: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=173800431&v=wall&story_fbid=169581129739619
Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)
Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless
"A Heroic Act of Love..."
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
~ The Apostle Paul
"The Poverty of Uniqueness" & Identity...Part I...The Matrix...
“Am I now trying to win human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” ~ The Apostle Paul
Anyone who has ever stood up for the truth of human dignity, no matter how disfigured, only to find previously supportive friends holding back, even remonstrating with you for your boldness, feels the loneliness of the poverty of uniqueness. This happens every day to those who choose to suffer for the absolute voice of conscious, even in what seem small matters. They find themselves standing alone. I have yet to meet the man or woman who enjoys such responsibility.
The poverty of uniqueness is the call of Jesus to stand utterly alone when the only alternative is to cut a deal at the price of one’s integrity. It is a lonely yes to the whispers of our true self, a clinging to our core identity when companionship and community support is withheld, It is a courageous determination to make unpopular decisions that are expressive of the truth of who we are – not of who we think we should be or whom someone else wants us to be. It is trusting enough in Jesus to make mistakes and believing enough that his life will still pulse within us. It is the unarticulated, gut-wrenching yielding of our true self to the poverty of our own unique, mysterious personality.
In a word, standing on our own two feet is often a heroic act of love.
~ Brennan Manning
"The Poverty of Uniqueness" & Identity...Part III...Rodger Hodgson (Super Tramp)...The Logical Song...
But at night,
When all the world's asleep,
The questions run so deep for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am,
Who I am...
Sunday, November 28, 2010
My Place Today...
At Dunnigans Pub...The Bible, A Journal & A Stella...hmmm...
Jesus is in the midst of everything and anything...love wins!
Jesus is in the midst of everything and anything...love wins!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Betrayal Redux...The Matrix and Esau...Exchanging Reality for a Deception...
‘Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom.) Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright." "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.’
~ Genesis 25:29-34 TNIV
Divine Milieu...Bright Eyes - Lua...
“…what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane….
what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is….
It was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated…”
~ Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Lua
Darkness...Redux...
“Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”~ Psalms 139:12 TNIV
Now...
Years seem like months now,
Months seem like weeks now,
Weeks seem like days now,
Days seem like hours now,
Hours seem like minutes now.
Minutes are nothing but fleeting moments now,
Moments are all we have now,
All that is real, is now,
“Now” in each moment, that is all.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
My Place Today...
Caribou Coffee on Lexington in Arden Hills, MN - thinking, writing, and drinking coffee.
The War Zone, The Crossfire...Some Thoughts on Evil...
"And in the world, a heart of darkness, a fire-zone,
Where poets speak their heart then bleed for it..." ~ U2, One Tree Hill
**A thanks to Gary Stratton, PhD. for introducing me to this song**
“And we're caught up in the crossfire,
Of heaven and hell,
And we're searchin’ for shelter….
Tell the devil that he can go back from where he came,
His fiery arrows drew their bead in vain,
And when the hardest part is over we'll be here,
And our dreams will break the boundaries of our fear,
The boundaries of our fear…” ~ David Fowler, Crossfire
"I wanted movement and not a calm form of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life."
~ Leo Tolstoy
“…I freely admit that real Christianity goes much nearer to Dualism than people think. One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe-a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel….Enemy occupied territory – that is what the world is.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Scripture says we suffer under the tyranny of a ‘ruler’ or ‘god’ or ‘power’ of this world (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 1 Jn 5:19). - Greg Boyd, Is God To Blame
“The explanation for why God’s creation looks like a war zone is because, according to the Bible, it is a war zone! Far from following a meticulous divine blueprint, creation is now governed by a powerful being who resists God’s purposes at every turn.” - Greg Boyd, Is God To Blame
“Cast all your anxiety on him (God) because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1Peter 5:7-10 TNIV).
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13 TNIV).
Where poets speak their heart then bleed for it..." ~ U2, One Tree Hill
**A thanks to Gary Stratton, PhD. for introducing me to this song**
“And we're caught up in the crossfire,
Of heaven and hell,
And we're searchin’ for shelter….
Tell the devil that he can go back from where he came,
His fiery arrows drew their bead in vain,
And when the hardest part is over we'll be here,
And our dreams will break the boundaries of our fear,
The boundaries of our fear…” ~ David Fowler, Crossfire
"I wanted movement and not a calm form of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life."
~ Leo Tolstoy
“…I freely admit that real Christianity goes much nearer to Dualism than people think. One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe-a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel….Enemy occupied territory – that is what the world is.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Scripture says we suffer under the tyranny of a ‘ruler’ or ‘god’ or ‘power’ of this world (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 1 Jn 5:19). - Greg Boyd, Is God To Blame
“The explanation for why God’s creation looks like a war zone is because, according to the Bible, it is a war zone! Far from following a meticulous divine blueprint, creation is now governed by a powerful being who resists God’s purposes at every turn.” - Greg Boyd, Is God To Blame
“Cast all your anxiety on him (God) because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1Peter 5:7-10 TNIV).
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13 TNIV).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)