First posted by AC Welch on Facebook on Tuesday, 19 October 2010 at 22:29
Andre Rabe just posted this: God has invested everything He has, everything He is, in mankind. He has no other investment, no other interest, no other occupation than you! He believes in you, He is fully committed to you. "...How many are Your thoughts toward me, how vast the sum of them..." Ps 139:17
You know Merrill Thompson puts up a fantastic excerpt called "Kiss of the Spirit " by George Macdonald. (See at bottom of post) It begins:While one is yet only in love, the real person lies covered with the rose leaves of a thousand sleepy-eyed dreams, and through them come to the dreamer but the barest hints of the real person. A thousand fancies fly out, approach and cross, but never meet. The man and the woman are pleased, not with each other, but each with the fancied other......
The gist is that the realities of life can hit pretty hard and seem to breakdown all our previous myths.
But then something fantastic can occur. Just as we discover that our own selves are barely discovered wells of endless discovery....so is the well of our partner. We're not going to get bored is a very minimal way of explaining the reality. The reality can be increasingly GOB-SMACKING! We don't know the half of what we each contain, nor of the compound effect on each other of each other.
The same is true of Christianity, because as we soon discover....Christianity is All there is. If Christ is the Co-Creator. If Life is all God is.Then how is Christ taking over more and more of our life going to be anything less than AN exponential INCREASE in LIFE.
Are you going to get confused if I turn this upside down, inside out? You see even speaking this way round is a FALL-based view of things.
God kindly had Ezekiel write about the River vision from a FALL-based viewpoint.We enter at the shallows and eventually we go all the way in. The Tabernacle is a Fall-based manifesto: we enter in the East (symbolising sin, rebellion) and we walk in a westerly direction. These pictures are for our benefit only.
The actual truth is in Ephesians. It begins how everything is going to carry on.From the Cross onward we were plunged totally into another another Spirit reality FROM THE WORD GO! We are now seated in the heavenly places in Christ at the right hand of God the Father.
There's no progression. There's no argument. There's nothing to be done. The other pictures of the River and the Tabernacle are just for our spiritual "eyes" to readjust to the dazzling sunlight of what God has done for us - a bit like Chilean miners staggering out from the depths of a blind ,dark mine shaft.
We require different lengths of time to readjust to this new dazzling light.
All the failures, the losses, the breakdowns were not the sign of a "godless" universe. They were the sign of first a "godless" life, then a "godless" Christianity. But when we learn the Key, that Christ and He alone is our life, the lock turns and our life changes forever, from the inside out.
Psalm 45: The King's Daughter is all gloroius within, she's transformed from the Inside Out!!! (in one translation)
Our initial fantasy of life revolved around us thinking we were totally independent selves, choosing our own destiny for us. We tried to avoid any nastiness. We, like Lot tried to choose the nicest route to a good material lifestyle that required the least stretch of faith we could. Then gradually things started tumbling down around us.
After finding Christ, although our innards knew a different reality, we were at a loss to know how to change the outer. Many at this point settle down to their hymnsheet "When the roll is called up yonder...I'll be there!" And as far as earth is concerned they give up any thought that things can be different. This is just what Martha did when Jesus arrived 3 days late after her brother's death. She was a true evangelical. " I know he'll be raised up at the last day."
But the answer to why things don't work, is not :"They were never meant to"
The answer is : what we thought life was, what we thought was the way to live life ....was complete and utter baloney.
The only way life works is for Christ to live it in us. He has to completely re educate us on the things we were meant to have learnt from the ground up. And would have if we had fulifilled the first commandment: Love the Lord Your God with every last smidgen of you!!
Ofcourse, even that we cannot do without a revelation of God FIRST LOVING US.
When Abraham gave up his fantasies, God's dream took over. A plan so big issuing out of one son from his loins, we are still even on the natural level wading through the blessings that were on Israel.
When Jacob gave up at Peniel, God changed his name to Israel and he too expanded beyond any natural limitation.
When David said "I'll build you a house God." The prophet said initially "What a good idea!" But later the same day he phoned David up to say "God says you shall not build a house. God shall build you a house." And the glory of that house still continues to this day down the generations, and Acts and Revelation talk of David and the opening of a door that will never be shut.
So our fantasies may crumble to nothing, but our deepseated dreams actually turn out to be shallow compared with the FULL substance of glory that the Lord births through us....because IT ACTUALLY IS HIM birthing it through us.
If any have the patience or desire, you can learn more about this dream process in my 1989 message Third Level Christianity on the side of my blogpage .
But even this message is a pale shadow of the start of its realisation which among other places is happening here on blogs and Facebook.
Allen Mills that is so beautiful.
Tuesday at 22:34 ·Like Unlike · 1 person
Loading...Chris Welch thx Allen.God bless you
Tuesday at 22:41 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Andre Oosthuizen Thanks Chris..good read...especially 'The only way life works is for Christ to live it in us. He has to completely re educate us on the things we were meant to have learnt from the ground up. And would have if we had fulifilled the first co...mmandment: Love the Lord Your God with every last smidgen of you!!
Ofcourse, even that we cannot do without a revelation of God FIRST LOVING US.'See more
Tuesday at 22:49 · LikeUnlike · 3 people
Loading...Pamela Donnan beautiful Chris - thank you!
Tuesday at 23:00 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Mikkel Thomsen Wonderful word! Thanks for sharing Chris
Tuesday at 23:04 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Patti Renwick I love this msg of Truth. Thankyou so much! Him in us....
Tuesday at 23:29 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Rich Novek Fantastic, brother, simply fantastic!
Tuesday at 23:34 via Facebook Mobile · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Barbara Hughes Wow!!!! Insightful, I really like this. Thanks for sharing. :)))
Yesterday at 00:20 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Judy Lawrence I had given up on dreaming and fantiesies. This is a good thing, for now He brings me dreams that are unspeakable and full of joy. Yet I long for Him to make them come true. Just like the little fairy tales,
My Prince has come. Thank you... Chris, lots to ponder.See more
Yesterday at 00:48 · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Rich Novek Amen Judy, love ya sis!
Yesterday at 00:55 via Facebook Mobile · LikeUnlikeJudy Lawrence Love you to Rich. Miss our chats.
Yesterday at 00:56 · LikeUnlikeSandra Tureaud Profound truth! thank you for sharing.
Yesterday at 01:24 · LikeUnlikeCathy Rheeder Absolutly flippen awesome.thanx chris.
Yesterday at 07:29 via Facebook Mobile · LikeUnlikeChris Welch Thankyou all for sharing and responding...probably as much a ministry as when any of us write an article.
Yesterday at 09:08 · LikeUnlikeOle Henrik Skjelstad Wow, Chris! This is pure glory! What an insight! And what a blessing to read! Thanks!
Yesterday at 09:28 · LikeUnlikeMerrill Thompson I reposted The Kiss of the Spirit.
Yesterday at 12:45 · LikeUnlikeCindi Estep Gob Smacking!!!! I love that we have been plunged totally into another another Spirit reality!!! Our dreams are His dreams and they have Become our reality.....Love you Chris♥
Yesterday at 14:43 · LikeUnlikeKim Flink sweet!! Im a dreaming again, restoration station beep beep!! I love that sweet Lord, precious almighty savior!!! Im just saying..... singing & dreaming, NO limits! thank you Chris! Shalom
Yesterday at 16:35 · LikeUnlikePeter Stanley Chris and I have been on very different journeys but I’m convinced that we have been drawn together for a purpose. Chris is painting a picture of how our fancies flee away and the realities of life seem to break down all our previous myths... – and a shared journey of discovery!
As Chris knows I have lived with Aspergers Syndrome all my life, and I’m now 75, but I only discovered this a couple of years ago. It was an exciting discovery because it helped to explain why I do things the way I do. Basically I have always lived life on an even keel with an almost total lack of emotion. It is said that most people with AS never marry. When I asked Barbara’s mother if we could get married she said she didn’t approve because I didn’t love her daughter – and with hindsight, in a traditional sense she was right – but we both needed each other and were drawn together in an Anglican church.
Imagine if you can, living on an even keel. Within three years of being married I was treasurer of the local Anglican church (for eight years) but became disillusioned with the lack of ‘radical’ Christianity. Later I became involved with a legalistic Sabbath keeping church that has not unreasonably been described as both a cult and a sect. For a time I was going to church on Saturday with my son while my wife was attending the Anglican church on Sunday with my daughter. I ‘knew’ I was right (how wrong can you be?). A couple of years later my wife joined me (if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!). Nearly twenty years later (in 1995) the church announced (from the top) that much of their theology was misguided.
I cannot remember a time when I didn’t believe that God existed – but I have always been questioning what I was being taught. I was now being forced for the second time to reconsider just about everything I had ever been taught.
To cut a long story very short it was around 2005 that I began to recognise that my faith had been based almost entirely on head knowledge and almost no heart awareness – and that was quite a revelation for someone living with AS!
Back to Chris’s comments about the breakdown of all our previous myths, and his suggestion that our initial fantasy of life revolved around us thinking we were totally independent selves, choosing our own destiny for us.
In the 1960’s I was being trained as a lay reader by a former principal of a theological college. It took about 20 hours to reach the second chapter of Exodus, but it was only years later looking through some notes that I found we started at Genesis 12 – ignoring the MYTH and SYMBOLISM of the first 11 chapters!
I have long seen my life as living outside the goldfish bowl watching people living life based on making their own decisions on the meaning of good and evil – instead of living with the tree of life. Could it be that we have misunderstood the significance of the two trees? Why is so much of Christian theology based on the Fall of Adam? Genesis 3 says nothing about the transmission to humanity of Adam’s guilt! Jesus is described as the Redeemer before Creation. Doesn’t this suggest that God knew that Adam would fail?
History is full of stories of the rise and fall of empires – both physical and spiritual. There have been times of spiritual renewal and falling away – God doesn’t have grandchildren – second-hand knowledge isn’t the same. Could it be that God knows what he is doing – that our deep-seated dreams really are shallow compared to the full substance of glory that is being birthed in those who really do allow Jesus to live his life in and through us?See more
13 hours ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Chima Tasie Freeman Glorious and inspiring!!!
5 hours ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Merrill Thompson on Facebook
The First e-mail Bev sent me when she went on line,..THE KISS OF THE SPIRIT
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Sat at 13:45
KISS OF THE SPIRIT
by George MacDonald
While one is yet only in love, the real person lies covered with the rose leaves of a thousand sleepy-eyed dreams,
and through them come to the dreamer but the barest hints of the real person.
A thousand fancies fly out, approach and cross, but never meet.
The man and the woman are pleased, not with each other, but each with the fancied other.
The merest common likings are taken for signs of a wonderful sympathy, of a radical unity. But though at a hundred points their souls seem to touch, their contact points are the merest brushings, as of insect antennae.
The real man, the real woman, is all the time asleep under the rose leaves.
Happy is the rare fate of the true . . ..to wake and come forth and meet in the majesty of the truth, in the image of God, in their very being, in the power of that love which alone is being!
They love, not this and that about each other, but each the very other.
Where such love is, let the differences of taste, the unfitness of temperament, be what they may, the two must by and by be thoroughly one.
The negative and positive relation we live daily causes us to emerge from beneath the rose leaves and penetrate each other so as to have really seen and be seen.
It takes the negative to arouse each of us from our sleep.......
But the miracle of love that comes to birth each time forgiveness appears is truly the kiss of the spirit .
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